Cullman High School Spanish teacher Sara McCutcheon speaks to the Cullman City School Board during Thursday’s meeting.

Cullman High School is already one of the top high schools in Alabama in the state’s annual report card, but a new program at the school is looking to improve students’ academic success even more.

CHS Spanish teacher Sara McCutcheon presented some of the data about the Bearcat Enrichment program to the Cullman City School Board during Thursday night’s meeting. Each of the system’s principals typically makes a data presentation to the board every year, but this year’s presentation for Cullman High School was made by Sara McCutcheon to fulfill one of the requirements for her master’s degree in administration. 

McCutcheon said CHS earned a 93 in the statewide report card, which measured the school’s 2018-19 school year, joining the system’s four other schools that also received an “A.” 

The school’s academic achievement rating — which measures the number of proficient students in the areas of reading/English and math — was 83 percent in the report card, and there was an achievement gap among some of CHS’s subpopulations, including the economically disadvantaged, Hispanic/Latino students and special education students, McCutcheon said. 

“We want success for all students, that’s why we wake up in the morning, that’s why we come to work, and so we needed to come up with a plan to close that achievement gap,” she said.

McCutcheon said the school’s staff conducted research into the issue, including a time audit to see how students were spending their time in the classroom, site visits to other schools around the state to see if their methods could be a fit for Cullman High School and getting input from teachers, students and parents. 

With that research in hand, the school made a few changes at the beginning of this school year, including a change in check-in/check-out procedures to prevent interruptions in class time and not allowing cell phone usage during class time. 

The biggest change came with the school’s bell schedule to allow for the Bearcat Enrichment period — which gives students an intervention/enrichment period for 45 minutes three days a week and for 70 minutes one day a week. 

McCutcheon said Bearcat Enrichment lets teachers keep a closer eye on the students who are in their group, with weekly progress reports that let the teachers know how the students are doing in the classroom and face-to-face time for them to speak with each other. 

She said some of the other benefits of the program include offering orientation for ninth graders who are still learning their way around, Pre-ACT/ACT prep, college/career prep and time for the school’s problem solving team and intervention programs to help students through problems they may be facing at school or at home. 

School resource officers and principals also visit with the students during this time to help them and the students get to know each other, she said. 

“This is a time to build relationships,” she said. 

McCutcheon said the results of the Bearcat Enrichment program have been positive during the school’s first nine weeks, with the number of failure reports decreasing by 40.9 percent, the number of students on the Problem Solving Team decreasing by 50 percent and the number of mental health referrals decreasing by 47 percent.

“Our goal was success for all students, and I think that Bearcat Enrichment has really done that,” she said. 

She said she has personally seen some of the positives that are coming out of the program, as just this week she has helped a student apply for a job and helped a student find a free and reduced lunch form in Spanish, and her students have set goals for the nine weeks and for the year and attendance has been much better over the beginning of the year. 

“That’s going on in all of the teachers’ rooms,” she said. “That’s not just mine, it’s across the board. All the teachers are involved in this and we have a really positive culture at our school now.”

In other business, the board: 

Approved Oct. 2019 payroll of $2,151,769.33, invoices paid of $1,336,543.35, financial statements and bank reconciliations.

Gave permission to surplus/salvage the following items from the Technology Department: Four SMART Interactive Boards, four Dell Optiplex 755 desktops, two Dell Optiplex 740 desktops. The following items are in nonworking order: Eight LCD monitors, three IP telephones, 10 Apple iPad Mini Gen 1, five Apple iPad Gen 2, HP Inkjet printers, CNP Point of Sale machine and flatbed scanner.

Gave permission for Cullman City Head Start to salvage the following items: Interactive Whiteboard, two Dell Optiplex 755 computers, Dell projector and Canon printer Maxity 5120.

Gave permission for CHS and CMS special needs programs to travel to Disney Youth Education Series in Orlando, Florida from Feb. 23-26, 2020.

Gave permission for the CHS baseball team to travel to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to play in an invitational baseball tournament from March 24,27, 2020 (spring break).

Ratified bid results with Southland International Bus Sales as the lowest responsible bidder, meeting specifications for the Cullman City Schools Special Needs Bus Replacement.

Gave permission to amend the title of the Cullman High School Athletic and Extracurricular Handbook to the Cullman City Schools Athletic and Extracurricular Handbook.

Approved a memorandum of agreement between Cullman City Board of Education and the Alabama Association of School Boards regarding the Poverty Simulation Program.

Approved Community Partnership Agreement between Cullman City Head Start and Brook’s Place.

Approved a Child Development Clinical Agreement between Wallace State Community College and Cullman City Head Start/Cullman City Primary School, effective Oct. 25.

Approved the revised Chief School Financial Officer Job Description.

Approved the following personnel considerations:

Resignations

Elizabeth Parker, Extended Day Program teacher at East Elementary School, effective Oct. 23.

Raegan Stephens, Extended Day Program aide at Cullman City Primary School, effective Nov. 22.

Savanna Ponder, Extended Day Program aide at Cullman City Primary School, effective Dec. 19.

Employments

Dora Ines Burton, CNP worker at East Elementary School, effective Nov. 14.

2019-2020 Academic Supplement Schedule Amendment

Keenan Fowlkes, 100 percent of the West Elementary Veterans Day Program supplement for the 2019-2020 school year (local school funds).

The Cullman City School Board will next meet on Dec. 17 at 5 p.m. in the Central Office Board Room.