South Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Advisory Assembly 2003-2004
March 20, 2004
Report of the 2003-2004 Advisory Assembly Meeting
Submitted by Susan Hall, President-Elect, SCCTM
Susan Hall, President Elect of SCCTM, called the meeting of the 2003-2004 Advisory Assembly to order, welcomed everyone, and thanked them for attending. Bobbie Kelly, President of SCCTM, also extended greetings to the group. The meeting was held on Saturday, March 20, 2004, at 10:00 a.m. at the Ramada Inn in Columbia. Sixteen members of the Advisory Assembly and eleven members of the Executive Board attended the meeting.
To begin the meeting, Susan explained that this was a joint meeting for 2003 and 2004, since no meeting was held in the fall due to the NCTM Regional conference in Charleston. She asked all members to introduce themselves, stressing that a key purpose of the meeting was for the members to establish connections with teachers in their own geographic area and from across the state who taught similar courses. Susan used a PowerPoint presentation to provide members with a brief history of the Advisory Assembly's organization, goals, and purpose. Included in the presentation was a map of South Carolina showing, by county, the current active membership of the Advisory Assembly.
In light of the State Department of Education's restructuring of the thirteen HUB's into eight Regional Mathematics and Science Centers, Susan presented a plan for reorganizing the Advisory Assembly accordingly. The plan, approved by the SCCTM Executive Board at their March 19 meeting, calls for one member to be selected from each school level (elementary, middle, secondary, and post-secondary) from each regional center. This would reduce the target membership of the Advisory Assembly from 52 members to 32 members statewide. During the transition to the new configuration, the membership numbers will vary until all positions have been realigned to the Regional Centers.
Other restructuring changes approved by the board included broadening the selection of Advisory Assembly members to include nominations not only from the Unit Coordinators (previously members were named to the Advisory Assembly by the HUB directors), but also from fellow Advisory Assembly members and the SCCTM Executive Board. This change would provide for greater expediency in filling positions—especially in cases in which members retire or move during their term of membership. The term of membership in the Advisory Assembly will remain at three years—with members rotating off in staggered years. With the approval of the SCCTM Executive Board, Susan asked that current Advisory Assembly members extend their membership for one additional year in order to provide consistency in the membership during the transition period. Therefore, members whose terms should have expired in 2003 were asked to stay until the end of 2004. Those whose terms were to expire in 2004 were asked to stay until the end of 2005. New members being added now would be split into term expirations in either 2006 or 2007. All members present agreed with the plan as presented.
Even though the representation of the Advisory Assembly is being changed, Susan stressed to the group that the purpose of the Advisory Assembly had not changed. The focus of the group was still to provide guidance and make recommendations to the SCCTM Executive Board on issues that are important for the organization to pursue and services that the organization provides to its members. Susan urged the group to take on a more active role in the activities of SCCTM by doing three things: actively recruit new members, actively recruit teachers to present sessions at the annual fall conference, and actively recruit others to write articles for the MathMate. To facilitate this, everyone present was given several copies of membership forms, speaker proposal forms, and flyers detailing how to submit articles for publication. Members were encouraged to use the forms themselves and to pass them along to fellow teachers in their areas.
Information was provided to the group on plans for the Fall Conference to be held October 29-30, 2004, at Myrtle Beach. After discussion, the group recommended that the business meeting and members' reception be held late Friday afternoon and that the Advisory Assembly meeting be held at the close of the conference at noon on Saturday. Dianne Steelman, Past-President and Program Chair for the conference, expressed some concern about attendance at sessions on Saturday morning. After some discussion, the group suggested giving out door prizes during the final two sessions on Saturday morning—instead of just during the business meeting on Friday. It was suggested that the Speakers' reception be moved to Thursday night in order to facilitate the business meeting and the Advisory Assembly meeting. Dianne agreed to incorporate the suggestions of the group into the plans for the conference.
Marjorie Claytor, a representative from the State Department of Education to the SCCTM Executive Board, provided information on activities related to mathematics education in South Carolina. Of particular interest to the group was information on the "Math Coach" position being funded at elementary schools. Marjorie also discussed the on-line newsletter that is sent out monthly from her department. Advisory Assembly members not currently receiving the newsletter were given the opportunity to sign up to receive it in the future.
Susan then presented members with the opportunity to complete necessary paperwork for travel reimbursements and to update their contact information for the SCCTM website. Members suggested that teachers also describe their current teaching assignment in order to facilitate working together in the future. Susan agreed to compile that information and send it out to all Advisory Assembly members.
After breaking for lunch, the Advisory Assembly members broke up into grade level discussion groups to discuss with Executive Board members matters of key concern to them. Each group then reported back to the entire group.
Debby Jeter, Vice President for Post-Secondary, reported that her group had discussed the need to communicate with other post-secondary institutions in the state, to obtain feedback from schools and districts on the methods courses offered by colleges and universities, work more closely with districts in recruiting students to go into teaching, to write a grant for a teaching fellows program, to work together to present a session at the Fall Conference for pre-service teachers, and to contact institutions with information about the conference and encourage teachers to attend.
Judy Snyder, Vice President for Secondary, facilitated her group. They discussed the need to get funds back into the membership through possibly offering professional development grants for NCTM Academies, and to reach and increase membership through local affiliates that could be centered around colleges in more rural areas. They asked that the Advisory Assembly meet twice a year in order to increase the possibility of accomplishing these goals.
Pat Vining, Vice President for Middle School, said her group had also discussed the need for expanding SCCTM's membership. They expressed concern that there is not a category on the School Report Cards that notes absences for professional development separately from other absences, which could negatively impact the number of teachers allowed to attend conferences. They also discussed ideas for enhancing the MathMate to reflect more classroom activities and to report on what is happening in districts across the state.
Shay Willimon, Secretary of SCCTM, reported that the elementary group also expressed an interest in having the Advisory Assembly meet twice a year, having SCCTM sponsor staff development opportunities regionally in addition to the annual state conference, and working to increase membership in SCCTM.
In closing the meeting, Susan expressed appreciation to all members of the Advisory Assembly for their participation and encouraged them to continue to work within their groups to begin accomplishing the goals they had set for SCCTM. The next Advisory Assembly meeting was scheduled for Saturday, October 30, 2004, at the Fall Conference. The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.