So, I have a question about that, how thorough that is. What do they check? It's a lot of students that are doing the jobs. It's the lifeguards and then the my club staff assistants are all students, usually high school students. Okay. So, so the staff, but the staff would have the criminal background then, right? The ones that already work for my club, right? And then there was something in there about a replacement. If a staff member couldn't make it, has that person had a criminal background? Yeah. They have to follow the same policies and procedures of employment law. Okay. So, I just um yeah, I just think simply because it is a swimming situation. Um I would like to know some of the answer to those questions because that's a very bold. Well, it's at the high school, so they use they have female and male restrooms there.
Teachers were not asked for their input regarding the classroom needs of our SDC students. I teach an extensive needs program, also known as a moderate to to severe program. All of my students have toilet training goals on their IEP and I have several students at risk of alopment. My students have considerable difficulty with transitions and have a high level of distractability, something the district acknowledged by making accommodations to my current classroom at Toyon when I initially moved there. I have taught in a pod classroom during the district extended school year summer program uh with my students. Several students were able to escape the classroom and leave the building. It was a daily struggle struggle to ensure that all the students remained in the classroom. The noise level of the neighboring classrooms caused disruption to my students with sensory aversions. Bathroom transitions were also a struggle as leaving the classroom would often trigger a tantrum or refusal to enter the bathroom.
So, please join us to recognize and celebrate Mariah Martin Vargas who is a bilingual targeted case manager at McManis. She's been with the district for two years and I've had a couple of conversations with her and what really shown through was her absolute love for the kids. Um she said she loves connecting with them and getting them what they need. She was nominated by a co-worker Mia Mitchell who's a health aid at McManis and um I spoke with Mia as well as I I spoke with her and it was really heartfelt everything she had to say. She said that it is amazing to have such a good wonderful co-orker. She said, "I feel like we're really collaborating and helping the kids together. It makes the job rewarding and that I know she's there for the kids, but sometimes she calms me down when I get stressed.
Ginger has served in many roles from the classroom to administration, including earning national board certification as a science teacher and serving as a middle and high school principal as an assistant superintendent of student achievement and a superintendent in the state of Washington. Ginger is proud to be back in her home in the state of Colorado as a superintendent of Academy School District 20 where team one spirit ensures that all students thrive. Well, congratulations class of 2025. Go Thunder. Today marks the culmination of your hard work, your resilience, and dedication. You faced late nights, challenging exams, moments of doubt, but you never gave up. And today is your moment to reflect on all you've accomplished and take pride in your journey. Our D20 vision for you is that you have the knowledge, skills, and character necessary to be successful beyond graduation. But none of this would have been possible without the help from your family, your friends, your teachers, your coaches, and other mentors.
Babbot, Miss Cornelio, Mr. Gracia, and Mrs. Scott for all believing in her and helping her in all aspects of her high school journey. Ava will be studying biochemistry on a premed track at the University of California, Los Angeles this fall, hoping to pursue a career in dermatology or anesthesiology. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Ava Lewis, validictorian of Pine Creek's class of 2025. You guys are amazing. Each year, the student address is given by a senior selected through a try out process. Our student speaker for the class of 2025 is Ji Wu Kim. Ji Wu, will you please join me at the podium? [Applause] Ji Wu currently serves as the executive vice president of public relations for our Pine Creek Student Council, managing the school social media accounts and coordinating community outreach initiatives. Passionate about pursuing a future career in medicine, she has dedicated over 200 volunteer hours at UC Health Hospital on the medical and surgical floors, serves as vice president of HOSA, and was selected to attend the UC Health Junior Medical Program.
But wait, there's more. Baylor's a fantastic student. We have comments from multiple teachers here. Baylor's a fantastic student that translates into all the work she does. She can communicate her questions and concerns about assignments and classwork very easily.
Our teachers understand the importance of building building scholar agency by offering different ways to demonstrate their learning. This could involve allowing scholars choices in how they demonstrate their learning in various ways that aligns with their strengths and interests. We adjust our classroom settings and routines to support all learners needs. We provide quiet workspaces or areas for collaboration and vertical workspaces. This year, we used funding from our vision and project mo project momentum budgets to support and empower teachers in delivering differentiated instruction aligned to the rigor of the state standards. We worked with education elements and had three different training sessions focused on scholar ownership of learning with learning targets and success criteria, high scholar engagement and higher order questions. We continued our work with Kagan cooperative learning and having a one-on-one coach. We participated in building thinking classrooms book study. Through classroom observations, we realized we were overly focused on our math workbook and we were missing opportunities for intentional scholar engagement and creating conceptual understanding.
And so it's really trying to um make make downtown Ashland a destination for us. Okay, Carl. Yeah. So for me, I'm going to be a little bit more macro. I actually don't think policies are the issue. Okay. So we've obviously in Ashlin done some good things and Bry's alluded to it and I'm on the affordable trust with Joe here and I think we have um we have to utilize our tools a little bit better. What I mean by that is we have 60% of the select board sitting here tonight. So I'd like to ask it, throw it back to you guys and make it more conversational. Does the finance committee have a budgeting tool, a capital budgeting tool? And if they do have a capital budgeting tool, how are they utilizing that capital budgeting tool? My treasurer lives in Arlington and they're not in any financial issue, but they also have a capital budgeting tool that they use, which is a five-year tool that is able to see when it comes to prosperity, we only have two choices.
um as well as promoting language development with our two speech pathologists as well as Christy Arnold at the district level. Um obviously preschool registration, we um had an open house about that. We also did some social emotional learning in the home to kind of um carry over and share some of the language that we've used um at school to help in home environments or um community events. And we utilize Jen again as well as Robin Wartzell, our part-time school psychologist. We then um just recently um started the kindergarten transition. We have a lot of families that will be leaving us at Pitaway and transitioning to Warren. Um so that was a great opportunity for them to meet some of the administrative team up there and ask any additional questions that they may have about the transition. We've also worked um to build our community events.
Some sample ELLL fifth grade population uh map score comparisons for you. Our three subgroup focus areas this year with regards to our statewide system of support turnaround status have been our L population, our students with special needs, and our Hispanic and Latino students. And you can see the fifth grade sample that I pulled shows an increase in MAP RIT scores for our fifth grade L population from uh fall to winter. Our spring MAP testing is not complete as of today. it should be done in the next few weeks, but I didn't have that data available for tonight. In addition, um another one of our subgroup populations is the special education population and you will see from fall to winter, we have had um growth in our high to high average and as well as reducing the number in our low low to average. So, we are making steps.
Some sample ELLL fifth grade population uh map score comparisons for you. Our three subgroup focus areas this year with regards to our statewide system of support turnaround status have been our L population are students with special needs and our Hispanic and Latino students. And you can see the fifth grade sample that I pulled shows an increase in MAP RIT scores for our fifth grade L population from uh fall to winter. Our spring MAP testing is not complete as of today. it should be done in the next few weeks, but I didn't have that data available for tonight. In addition, um another one of our subgroup populations is the special education population and you will see from fall to winter, we have had um growth in our high to high average and as well as reducing the number in our low low to average. So, we are making steps.
So, um, if we could add that in there, I would appreciate that if anybody agrees, disagrees, I'm open for discussion or Yeah. No, these are all just for the time for me to read the policies and um, email Susan or myself suggestions or revisions that you might want. I can send an email to you guys that way. This is just so this is just No, but in general like we can't this is not one of the ones that's like don't touch it. That is the No, this is not one of the ones that you can't touch. Okay, good question. So, okay, I'll send an email to you guys first read for your opinions. Sorry. Okay, to clarify, this is directly from K and uh it's an existing policy we already have in our catalog. Okay. Okay. It's just under instruction I think is one section.
For ELA, we've seen, you know, only 23% of our students met with proficiency and we've kind of seen that it's been pretty flat with growth. The key issues there that we found were that students struggle with complex text and vocabulary decoding. So that's what we're going to focus on. And so another quote although I think I read this honestly in maze runner but it is like a culmination of everything. I love to read all kinds of books. We need to understand the problem more than the solution or the solution will become the problem. And so we do a lot of of thinking about the problem and how we can help solve it. And so one of the ways we do this is through instructional rounds. And so in the past we've done this for years but what we found more recently is this. We needed to increase the studentto student discourse.
And then there's also um u I think there's an individual restroom for people to change in or use if they didn't want to. So if somebody was if a boy was saying that he was a girl, would he be required to use his restaurant or my understanding? We're following state law. Yeah, we are all and also state law and federal law is a lot different now. So just so you understand, my club is its own organization and its own entity and they and they're they're employer. We contract with them through our ex extended learning opportunity grants and we pay them to run the program. So they all of the questions that you're asking honestly need to be asked of them. My directors but the school would bear responsibility for that. We do not we don't hold any of the insurance for it. We simply pay them to run a program extended learning.
Sharing a bathroom is a challenge for my students as they have a lot of trouble waiting. Lastly, a sink in the classroom is essential due to the amount of handwashing we must practice with the students on a daily basis. My students are learning basic functional skills and deserve their own space to learn these skills. Earlier this year, the Lane View SDC program was originally placed at Somerdale and we heard from parents and the community regarding the safety and appropriateness of such a decision. Ultimately, it was decided those three programs would be placed at Northwood. One of the core reasons being safety. I'm hopeful that we can find a classroom that is an appropriate setting for my preschoolers with extensive needs. The six preschool programs have now been spread out between five schools for next school year. The preschool programs that have been placed at Vincy Park and Noble have four enclosed walls as well as a bathroom in the classroom.
I need a co-orker like that." Um, anyhow, and she also said the very professional. And this last one I really identified with and it she said that Mariah makes me feel like I'm not alone on the ship. And I think we can all agree that we all want to feel like that at work and that we deeply appreciate the co-workers that make that possible. So please join us in thanking Mariah for everything you do for the students and for your co-workers. So on behalf of CSEA, the kids and your co-workers, thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you very much. At this time, if there are any announcements from board members for the public, I have one um which is simply that I got the honor and pleasure of attending a ceremony on Monday to celebrate 203 seniors from PB and Chico High who earned their state seal of civic engagement.
They've been with you every step of the way, and today they share in your success. So, let's take a moment again and thank them for their unwavering belief in you. Personally, I'm reminded of the legacy of my own parents, Carl and Jane Johnston. My mother was a kindergarten teacher and my father, a high school English and journalism teacher. And together, they taught me the importance of collaboration, communication, and being a lifelong learner. And even though they are no longer with me, their influence continues to shape my journey. And I encourage you to hold tight to those lessons from those who have helped you along the way. So graduates, listen to the wisdom that's shared with you by others. A poem that captures the very essence of values like humility, grace, and living life well is Ruddard Kipling's If. Kipling was a prolific writer who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1907.
Jiu is also an officer for the National Honor Society and a member of the American Sign Sign Language Honor Society, National English Honor Society, Iris and Mario and Creek Connector. A three-year member of the cheerleading program, Jiu and her teammates won the Link Grand Championships and a national division title. She was also honored as a two-time Universal Cheerleading Association all-American cheerleader. She will always cherish the Friday night lights, early morning practices, halftime performances, and national trips spent with her close teams. Beyond cheer, Jiu has achieved recognition as a HOSA state champion, sixtime HOSA state placer, AP scholar with distinction, FBLA national qualifier. She expanded her leadership experience by being selected as a delegate for both the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Foundation and American Auxiliary Legion Girls State. I'm going to get them wrong. Okay. G would like to give great thanks to her parents Doug and Chonuk for be being her biggest cheerleaders throughout this journey.
She will communicate how her workload is going, any questions she feels are unclear, and create work that expresses how she feels about certain topics. She also will help other classmates to communicate and assist with work they may be struggling with. She's a real leader in the classroom throughout her communication skills. Congratulations, Baylor. All right. From Col's Traditional Academy, we have Alisley Lucas. [Applause] Love the dress. Looks fantastic. Smile at all those folks. All right. Aley is a kind and thoughtful communicator. She willingly shares her ideas and listens to the thoughts and opinions of others. Aley takes pride in her written work and puts genuine effort into expressing her thoughts, even as she continues to grow in her writing and spelling. She works well with her classmates and isn't afraid to speak up when something isn't right. Um, she asks thoughtful questions when she doesn't understand, and her communication skills make her a valuable and supportive part of our classroom.
In January, 3rd through fifth grade teachers voluntarily began a building thinking classrooms book study, meeting weekly to discuss ideas, share strategies, and implement research-based practices to differentiate instruction for all of our scholars. These meetings strengthened our collective efficacy and created a safe space for our teachers to share successes, challenges, and quick refinements to maximize learning for our students. We continued our work with Michael Roberts to support and strengthen PLT work. After analyzing our winter fastbridge and mimic data, we saw the need for a more intentional differentiated instruction. In our PLT meetings, grade level teams reviewed the standards analysis and developed targeted plans using the AASA or the state assessment blueprint as a guide. Fifth grade teachers focused on numbers and operations fractions that makes up 33% of the endofear math test. Aligning DO levels with standards along with clear learning targets, success criteria, exit tickets, and building academic vocabulary.