Okay. So, I'm asking the board to consider just adding to that first sentence um which includes school social workers and psychologists and other mental health professionals and potentially other mental health professionals. But no objection from down here, right? Well, I felt this was necessary because it has it states that each staff is going to be responsible for guiding these students and supervising and identifying and all of this stuff. And then who they go to are the counselors for those additional assistance. But we we would call them social workers. We would call them psychologists. Was that the only policy for six? Yes. Okay. Perfect. All right, then that brings us to close session for the purpose of the discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the open meetings act whether for purposes of approval by the body of the minutes or semiannual review of the minutes as mandated by section 2.065cs120-2C21 ILCS120-2C21 student disciplinary cases ILCS120-2C9 collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees 5CS120-2C2 and the employment employment compensation discipline or performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body 5CS120 20-2 C1.
There will probably be more to come across the table before get to the summer. Right now, we're going to be uh putting in uh four new classrooms into the facility. Uh different areas of the school uh that have become either vacant or available. Uh we're going to transition them into classrooms. One of the classroom is actually going to be space that the maintenance department owns. We're going to turn a part of that space where they have storage and we're going to uh convert some of that uh into a classroom. Then we have three classrooms going in where the freshman aviation program was. Uh so we're going to be building which is right via the new uh cafeteria. Three new classrooms going in there because we're bringing in some new staff. We do need uh some new classrooms. So uh that will be one of our projects.
Um I can say luckily also being the person who helps to run Kraton educator orientation that our staff turnover in the math department is looking better for next year. Um I do want to I want to add that this past quarter it was like it was third quarter and also fourth quarter um Miss Twist and I and the math coaches have been doing a lot of research to see what we can do with our inputs from this year and also to improve those for next year. So we're using this information with our math consultant to plan for next year. Um they als we also had 20 of our fifth and eighth grade math teachers receive content specific coaching from our math teaching and learning coach um coaches which are all of them are here today. So we'll we'll introduce them real quick at the in a little bit.
And that's the challenge and and what we look at is how can you cohort kids, how can you use advisory, how can you use interventions, how can you use the classroom uh to address those needs. Uh and again each campus has its own culture in life and uh I'm so proud of the fact that all six high schools since the history of letter grades are A-rated schools. and they're they're A-rated because each school addresses those gaps as they see fit. My job is to help navigate that sometimes, whether it's bring in a literacy consultant or whether it's sit with the team and walk through where what what's the best way instructionally to address the gaps. None of this occurs without the classroom teacher. The classroom teacher is the most important part of this whole system. I'd like to think I have a big impact but classroom teacher drives this and um what whatever we can provide in terms of resources and time and guidance uh we we do but uh they they bear the the weight and they they've just done some amazing things over the five years that I've been here and our our data shows that you know we have three A junior highs and two B's.
Um and so it's a state norm score. It's provided by ISBY. Um, but it just gives a pulse check on things like fund balance to revenue ratio, expense to revenue ratio, things like that that give a sense of is this district in a good financial uh position. Anything you'd add there, Tony? I know less about it than you. Good job. Great. If I could just real quick. So then for the board that comes back to the comment that was made a few slides ago at the board governing level one of the conditions for success that you bestow on the district for teachers support staff administration is the budget right that's a part of what's incorporated into to this healthiness of the district score and you know when you're able to approve things and ask where is this strategically going to support our plan that is, you know, like you're giving the district the resources to go out and get that work done.
I have a motion to adjurnn to close session. So move second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Take a vote, please. Stacy Saw, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Jason Jans, yes. Bridget Sandlin, yes. Katherine Potter, yes. Mindy Hartman, yes. Darling, yes. The motion is approved. Open session ends at So 7:28 p.m. Thank you everyone.
Uh we um we'll be completing the new cafeteria this summer. Uh Lance has been uh putting together all the subcontractors and uh we're as soon as school gets out ready to to uh go to town and get it done, which includes opening up the road and putting in sewer lines and uh gas lines and water lines. Uh so we expect that to be uh operating when school opens up. Uh we're going to the uh we have uh the completion of the clean energy research and training barn which is the big barn that we you see that's in the back of the building um which has a geothermal heating system but because of the work we're doing around clean energy. We need a space in which to put all the new equipment, trainers uh and a place where all the u construction team uh chops can come in and work together as a team learning a lot of those new uh techniques working as a team not just individually.
Um we have five district leaders complete 25 hours of professional development in math pedigogy that promote student thinking as of April 2025. And they piloted these strategies in a fifth grade classroom. Um the district conducted 16 hours of classroom observations in 14 of the 25 fifth and eighth grade math classrooms to gather baseline data on instruction as of April 30th 2025. So these were separate um classroom observations in our data wise observations. Those we um go into all the different classrooms. These were specifically just to go look at our math classrooms. um and Miss Twist had conducted those observations to understand what's happening in our classroom so we can figure out how to support our math teachers for next year. If you remember last year we did the same thing with our SEI teachers. We went to all observations in their classrooms to figure out how we could support our SEI teachers this year with um training.
We have no C schools. We're the o, you know, the only district in the state for two years in a row that have been rated A. Uh, and it's because of their work and how relentlessly persistent they are for our kids every day. So, I also appreciate that um when you talked about the uh site improvement plan that you don't let them cut and paste because I will say I was on a committee years ago before Dr. McCord where that was what we saw was cut and paste. So, thank you for making sure that they're they're really thinking this through. And um I appreciate that it's hard work because things happen and you know um there's a lot going on in a school. So thank you for um all that you both do to help those principles stay focused on the academic part of it.
And that's why this is a really important um metric under this particular area to monitor because without that fiscal uh responsibility and resource uh asset for the district, it becomes much more challenging for us then to say, you know, what else can we try or what else can we do as we plan out in our committees the work for the district. I have a question. Yeah, please. For the extracurricular participation rates, what are we at right now? Do you know? I don't have that information. And then the second thing is is you're looking at that. Is that every single extracurricular activity that we have, whether that be like a a book club or is it only like IHSA, ES, you know, the elementary No, all all activities all activities all activities and outputs is what we track. And we would consider that metric there really an input versus sense of belonging as an output.
And so that'll be a space uh which will be this first of its kind in Massachusetts which we're really excited about uh because that will be the the foundation for continued work around clean energy training again just and along with uh a new you uh heard that we're also doing a u high performance uh mark house on the lot on our property uh which will which we're working with a a specialist a company out of Newton who has who will be our consultant on this project. Uh will be the latest technology in high performance houses. everything from the u mechanical to the actual construction of the frame uh weatherization uh which will be in uh uh the uh installation of the new theories and things that they learn in the barn to actually apply it on a real project uh will happen with that particular building.
Um, and then the last one is math. The math team analyzed the scope and sequence of math standards for 3 through 8th grade, cross reference them against the Arizona essential standards and the curriculum calendars will be rearranged in multiple grades to allow more time throughout the year to retach essential standards to mastery. So, we looked at that and I don't know if you want to explain that a little bit, but you spent some time um rearranging our standards. If you could um Miss Twist also explain especially for community members who may not be um as familiar with educational lingual what exactly scope and sequence is also. Absolutely. Thank you. So the scope and sequence is which standards are taught and when. So making sure that every student in the district is receiving those standards at the same time. that allows for making sure that there's continuity, that there's equity.
Happy to do so. All right. Any other questions or comments from the board? One my mic. Um I think what Jill's kind of referring to is the MTSS process. Correct. Yeah. Um, do you have any idea how many kids are put into the MTSS process a year and then how many end up testing for SPED and then how many end up being able to kind of, for a lack of a better term, graduate out of the program. So, our MTSS is not a pipeline to special education referral. Um, we look at it as having the systems in place is going to hopefully prevent that referral, but it does wind up happening. I don't know off the top of my head how many students wind up not benefiting from the not benefiting enough from tier three or tier 2 interventions and then do move on. Um I do know that um our schools have been looking at the way for example resource services are provided, how we schedule for them um in order to reduce and how we support our classroom teachers in helping resource students in their own general ed classrooms.
So if we think about and like when I say input and output, what do I mean? When I say input, it's like what are the things that we're doing? You know, we're getting more students to sign up for extracurriculars. But by why why are we doing that? because we want them to feel more connected at school. We want them to have be excited to come to school. We want them to feel connected with adults in their building. Like those are all kind of the outputs from participation in extracurriculars. And so that's why um bolded here is that SEAL survey is that sense of belonging because you know if we're measuring things like extracurricular participation rates what we're saying is by doing those things we hope that sense of belonging or we believe not we hope we believe that sense of belonging will improve for our students and and there's there's studies and evidence that says that some of those things that feed up to that yes that if you are able to It's almost like twofold.
Uh then we're also upgrading our fire alarm system uh throughout the school this summer. Uh uh we are replacing some of our rooftop HVAC unit controls about half of them. We're doing half of them this summer uh that are in dire need of replacing. Uh we're also uh the IT department is replacing about 130 Wi-Fi routers throughout the school which we purchased uh earlier this year uh from f from our federal uh funds. Um um rate. We get a pay rate uh every three years. We get close to several million dollars in pay rate money because of our uh we have so many low income students and that money goes towards technology. It's funds that uh you know when you pay electric billing you always have to pay a little more for government use. Well, that's where that money goes to. Phone, electricity, and other utilities pay into that fund and and that fund uh we capture some of that money.
If students move from one Kraton school to another, they're not going to get fractions twice and miss out on decimals. Um, and one of the things that we found that was very interesting, particularly in fifth grade, since that has been such a focus this year, is that a very large percentage, about twothirds of the essential fifth grade math standards are introduced in third quarter. twothirds. Which means that students while they are learning a lot of math standards in the first two quarters, they're not the building blocks of essential critical understanding that prepares them to be successful by the end of the year and moving into middle school math and into high school. So, one of the things that our team is going to do during our summer design studio work that's coming up in a couple of weeks is take a very critical eye to the calendar and which standards are being taught and making sure that some of our most important standards, more of our most important standards are being taught early enough in the year that we can teach them to mastery, assess them using those common formative assessments very regularly so that teachers have real-time information and can make adjustments because we know that February and March is too late.
Right? And so I know that um that the focus is to reduce those numbers and to give the students more of the supports where they are most of the day which is in the classroom. Did that answer both of your questions? Yes. Sort of. I don't have the number of how many how many tier 2 or tier three students we have? I don't No. Yeah, that's fine. I was just curious because I know a lot of times that tends to happen. That's how a lot of students are identified as through the MTSS process. So, I was just curious if you had a number on that. Just helps me with when it comes to looking at data. I mean, you know, you guys are like your data. I do as well. Um, so that's all. Thank you. I appreciate it. I can get you that information as well.
I'll I'll just go two ways and help me make sure I understand it right is that so on that like the extracurricular participation rates if those go up then tends to tell the SCL surveys that those will go up and that will lead to higher attendance higher and that leads to higher attendance which is the other side of that because now they feel comfortable because they're inclusive on the extracurriculars they feel they are reporting scores that feel that they're comfortable which happens to show that now that those two are being met the attendance goes up. Yes. Okay. And so sense of belong like for this middle one sense of belonging there's just a lot of evidence that by measuring that that's the that's like kind of the crux piece because if we measure you know and I'm not saying you shouldn't measure all these other things but if we measure extracurricular participation like that is an input to increasing sense of belonging by increasing sense of belonging discipline referrals drop attendance rates go up all of these other pieces um kind of come along with it.
Uh we qualify for some of that money. We take advantage of all that money uh to upgrade technology. Uh so we use utilize some of that money because we're in dire need of upgrading our Wi-Fi routers because it's not keeping it's not does not have the latest technology to connect with other hardware that we have in our network system. [Music] Um and I think those are the main projects that we'll uh be embarking on along with a list of about 30 pages of ticket items that Lance has gotten. everything from painting to upgrading some electricity, electrical work and changing and putting in some new uh TVs and monitors and stuff like that. So, we'll have a lot going on this summer as we do every year.
It is too late for those fifth graders. We need to know in October and November and December if they are still struggling with really important concepts. So that's exciting work. I have a question real quick on that page. That's all right. Um just real quick, which which school was it that you piloted the fifth grade classroom? Yeah, that was really exciting work this year. So, our math coaches did an entire year, they did a book study this year called Building Thinking Classrooms, which has been supported by the Arizona Department of Education. It's all about getting students thinking, like deep thinking, not rope memorization, like real true problem solving that also applies to their real life persevering. And as we were reading it as a team, we were like, "This is amazing." And also, this sounds really hard. we can't ask teachers to do this until we've tried it ourselves and all of us are out of the classroom at the moment.