Beresford please feel free to chime in if there's any additional information you'd like to add about any of the Senate rolled acts or some other conversation you've been having with Seamus well thank you laila for part two of three we appreciate the update and education and things that we need to know about do we have any questions from other board members okay I see none but my recollection is on the Employment Act changes that they're not effective until not 2025 july 2021 okay yes so the high school still needs to do that for another year for the upcoming year yes thank you thank you for bringing that out okay all right there's no more questions next we will move to Carmel clay Park support Ling go ahead the comically parks and recreations summer camp is scheduled to open June 1st with modifications so the daily capacity drop from more than 700 participants down to 300 a day and they no longer include field trips in the summer camps and that's my report thank you do we have any questions for Lin go ahead Katie I was just gonna I have two kids that were enrolled in summer camp but they were doing it at three different locations where they're separating kids into pods where they're keeping siblings together they're gonna keep pods as at max of 30 kids so that they are not intermingling with a lot of other people they're doing temperature effects lots of different things so that they can be able to provide that support to working parents this summer while at the same time really respecting and trying to do it everything they can to kind of protect the kids so I think that they've really and they also have a disclaimer if anything changes then you know it won't happen but I do want to applaud the Parks District for you know in these uncertain times really trying to step it up and do what they can with what they have to provide that back for parents yeah I just want to kind of piggyback onto that and get a little bit more information right they have to change the they have to do on reduce capacity to follow the social distancing and other things way look I'm still on I was wondering if either Katie or Lin know are they giving preferential treatment to families of working parents because that's a big challenge for the summer yes the the park director dimension of the reduced capacity they they have to send out those letters so they do have priorities and first priority is given to their park employees and the second priority is given to first responders and then they have other things I think they also give priorities to common residents more before non common residents yeah you had a survey say that if you weren't essential and Glee and what your job title was those got first priority after councilors and then Carmel clay school students I was going after that before they opened it up farther than that and then there's a wait list they're not utilizing Carmel clay school property that was another thing that made them where they needed to nest to make things smaller they're only using park facilities so that was another reason why than he did to kind of make sure that their groups are a lot smaller also thank you yeah well thank you both as also goes without saying we appreciate the great relationship we have with Carmel clay parks just like with many other organizations in our community so next we move to superintendent support dr. Beresford well I must be getting late cuz my my computer just turned itself off that said we're logging you off right now and it went right off but luckily I went old-school and and save my super-dense report first I just wanted to say yeah thank you for greeting me I know it's long but a lot of important things going on and like we've talked about before part of our work during a crisis is not only to respond to the crisis but also to continue the work of the district and move forward so I appreciate all the work going into that like I started out hard to believe this is the last week of the school year and I was sharing with the exec team today that you know we had three quarters that were amazing this year and then all of a sudden our world changed and and and then even within that that really tough fourth quarter we've had some amazing advances along with a lot of challenges and and so this will be one of those years to remember but I'm really proud of our team fabric is proud of our parents by our community as we finish off this year and and finish strong and I just wanted to do a shout out for that I don't go as quickly as possible but last week was National Police week and I wanted just to bring that up because we have a great relationship with chromo Police Department and our school resource or resource officer team is second to none and I just want to say their names out loud officer Scotty Moore officer Blake little Matt Matthew Brad necks Shane vanatter Greg Dewald and Sarah Livingston and of course DJ chef our guy that supervises the unit they're just amazing people and and even in this environment where they're not you know they're some of them been on the road they're still doing stuff our kids and Sarah love instance make just many amazing videos and they're still they're still connecting with our kids and every way they can so what a great culture and we look forward having morris arose in the fall one to bring to everybody's attention the youth assistance summer lunch program that program provides food for 11 weeks for kids that are food insecurity in our district and even in Carmel Indiana there's a you know a lot of kids in that situation and I think due to this crisis that we're in our numbers have increased ninety percent so last year we serve 260 if this year 504 year currently signed up that numbers only going up and right now the cost to feed a child for the entire summer is two hundred thirteen dollars and we are well short of funding in that program for the youth assistance so I sent out a message saying that there's several different ways you can donate we'll have that in the board recap but you know if ya if you're able to do it and that's a good donation to make sure it kids have 11 weeks of food support and for two and thirteen dollars you can take care of a kids meals per summer for the whole summer so I think that's a worthwhile thing I'm just a little shout out to some people and I'll cut these down short but Jessica grievin or greven I'm not sure I might be butchered her last name but Jessica don't forgive me for that but congratulations because she was chosen as the Hamilton County Youth Service Award winner this year so the Hamline Kenna Council on alcohol and other drugs awarded her $1,000 scholarship and her here's her quote which I thought was great my greatest accomplishment throughout high school has been my ability to influence youth younger than myself with each service opportunity I took part in I was so driven by the passion in my heart because I wanted to improve the lives of those who were less fortunate than I and so there you go another Korean I'm so proud of and Jessica's going to attend Washington University and st.
Louis this fall and play soccer soccer scholarship so right up in there - there's another one iris yan and iris was recognized by governor Holcomb as in a stem scholar of the year for science so she's the s and stem and this is our second year over a caramel kit has been on the governor's stem team and there's only four of them that are picked in the whole state so and iris attended the MIT research Science Institute in 2019 she's been a two-time honoree in the United States national chemistry Olympiad exam in 1819 one of the top 20 student chemists in the nation attends she's going to be attending Harvard in the fall she had to decide between MIT and Harvard she went Harvard and I respect that I got to watch the presentation virtually with the governor and she's so impressive iris is really something special so congratulations to her and congratulations to Carl karma high school students Irish yawn again and then Yannick Singh and Robbie G placed in the top 20 on the US national chemistry examine Olympiad again that exam and now they'll attend a virtual camp and the four students will be selected from the camp to compete on the u.s.
national team for the International Olympiad competition remember we had a kid last year who who competed in Budapest and this this setting so I got a good good tradition going on there well the most fun things and you know in the last month was the Carmel classical's Teacher of the Year reveals that happened and we have we recognized 25 outstanding educators for the the Teacher of the Year Program where hundreds of nominations by students parents colleagues community members and this present the presentations this year's we just showed up and surprised him we were like Publishers Clearing House showing up with signs and and I got to get off 25 and it was crazy schedule and I was late for two of them so I had to do those kind of more individually but look on the teachers faces and and their colleagues would do like parades and there was like confetti cannons and and dr.
o strike and his team just had a wonderful time working with the principals and they were one thing that scared me though was the principals were really good at lying to these teachers to set them up to be surprised so I'm a little nervous about you know when they tell you there's going to be a meeting watch out because you might be getting more than you figured but it was fantastic and the whole thing culminated with a Carmel elementary special education teacher Katie built Meyer it was named the Carmel clay Teacher of the Year and she received the surprise announcement at her home it started out with option or brought next pulling up with his siren on which was a little frightening probably for some of the neighbors and then there's balloons there were signs and then almost the whole school did a parade just to congratulate her for being not only the Carmel elementary teacher of the year but also karmically schools and the whole team is out there and Roger and Amie and Tom and we just it was just a big party and it was great so it was a lot of fun now our Teacher of the Year award is endowed by the Steven a backer Memorial and he was an advocate for Carmel play schools it served on the school board for seven years and then he passed on in March of 2009 his family have the this award that they give to this Teacher of the Year every year because of that dedication to the education so really appreciate the back roof and then just keep their the party going we'll move in a graduation mode Kiera Gill was chosen to represent Indiana by appearing on Oprah Winfrey's 2020 virtual graduation special that occurred on May 15th on Facebook and Instagram live and Kari did an incredible job representing Carmel High School in her Carmel gear and thanked her teachers or coaches and family before giving a big shout-out to the Greyhound Nations and the class of 2020 so yeah Greyhound on Oprah just keeps getting better and better doesn't it and then speaking of graduation you probably saw on social media that yeah graduation celebration boxes were delivered on May 11th about nearly 80 Carmel High School staff and 60 bus drivers delivered about 313 hundred or so graduation box to the class of 2020 and inside the box was their cap and gown distinguished and committed graduate attire the official graduation program which has a picture of every senior in it and then they also added what they called a virtual hug which was a surprise but I gave it each senior a special blanket with this message and it was really really sweet well received it was a really awesome day but my bell ringer and and I kinda think my bell ringer was kind of you know we made it to the final stretch here but also I wanted to just do a little bit of a shout out for the class of 2020 graduation weekend because the communications went on Friday with the plan for the graduation weekend that includes both an in-person ceremony on Saturday the 30th followed following social distancing rules of course and then a more formal virtual graduation on Sunday May 31st so it's going to be a big weekend for our seniors wedding a big shout outs dr.
harness and the the administrative team the student they would include our Student Services Director DJ chef just a lot of people more than that probably that went the extra mile to do that planning and and work this worked this out it was there we started working different scenarios in mid-march when school closed and just kept working and working working because they wanted to have something special for these kids the first choice of course would be a whole our traditional graduation ceremony if we could do it safely and some districts have said they're going to postpone in and have a ceremony later in the summer we consulted with medical the medical community and we just weren't confident that we could safely gather at any point in time this summer so what we what we were able to put together the challenge was to find a way to safely bring all their seniors together that's something they want to do they want to come together one more time and we also wanted to allow family and friends to be part of the experience so we hope that the class of 2020 graduation weekend will be special way for our seniors to bring closure to their high school career before they launch you know into their next adventure I think it was a good decision to proceed rather than delay you know personally these seniors have lost so much since I couldn't we couldn't stand the thought of possibly having to cancel one more thing if if we weren't if we were to plan something in June or July and that it not happen again so I think these events will be memorable and unique to the class they're going to be in cars with their families and then they're going to be cruising down the homestretch of the strat the track at the stadium they're going to get a diploma picture the logo their diploma cover at a picture they're gonna take one more trip up here they're gonna go down through the track or they're gonna one more trip up the trail and then go around the high school and so that'll be kind of part one for the in person ceremony and then on that Sunday we're going to have the virtual graduation and we hope that the parents and folks will have watch parties and and go through that because that's going to have the speeches there'll be degrees conferred every student will be recognized and the tassel will be turned and and will declare that them graduates of Carmel High School most importantly we just want every member of the class of 2020 to know that we love you and we want to do something to let you know how special you are to the family here and so there's your bell ringer the class of 2020 graduation weekend so and that concludes my superintendent report thank you thank you dr.
Beresford I was gonna ask four questions again always thank you for the comprehensive report we look forward to the bellringer every meeting I thought Leila had a question go ahead Leila so dr. Beresford for the graduation the in-person graduation will families get out of the car and get a picture does everybody stay in the car and wave out the window what does that look like and I'm asking for personal reasons Benny's graduating and we want to know I understand no we are everybody has to stay in the car and we want the Graduate on the passenger side and then it will be an exchange through the window and so that's how that way we can keep our say our social distancing safe and at the same time get the picture I believe there'll be a second opportunity take a second picture as well you know in regular graduation you get the handshake picture then you go down and they have their picture with hold in their their diploma cover and so we're going to try to replicate as much of the normal tradition as possible so will they have a chance at the second portion to get out with their diploma for a picture or there's no getting out at all there's no getting out of the car but there'll be set up so that you can get the picture okay and for us to participate as board members will we be waiving what might this look like we'll probably have tents because we don't know the weather could be like and yes you'd be sitting in a safe distance and you'd be waviness as the students went by and the tricky part logistically it's why we've given him such a big shout out is there kids a lot of cars and so you've got set up in four different groups of about 300 students and that way the weight won't be so long and and then will cycle through those segments all throughout the day I think and so it'll be between four and five hours but each group will only have about an hour and a half hour and forty-five minutes and there's been a lot of math that went into it so obviously I wasn't involved since I was an English major but a lot of logistics into I think it's gonna be kind of fun and special thank you all right thank you any other questions for dr.
Beresford well next we will move to announcements as we've already heard this Thursday May 21st as hard as it may be to believe is the last day for students for this school year before Monday May 25th is Memorial Day our next board meeting is June 8th for the school board workshop session in June 22nd for our regular board meeting sessions so with that I will accept a motion to adjourn so moved Thank You Katie in a second Thank You Layla and I assume all in favor of journeying this meeting signify by saying aye thank you meeting adjourned
good afternoon my name is Michael Morris I'm the superintendent schools here in a mesh Massachusetts and thank you for joining us for our stream I want to talk a little bit about the origin of the stream is about a month ago I was talking to one of our panelists and we were talking a bit about this situation about school closures about koban 19 and about the vast and unevenly distributed implications that would have on students and what could be done to mitigate them and we stopped and we realized that given the current situation given K to 12 education and higher education x' current state of reactiveness based on the public health crisis that there wasn't enough conversations weren't enough conversations happening between researchers and practitioners and that we had an educational crisis as well as a public health crisis so we thought maybe having another researcher on and having a more public dialogue would be helpful and we hope you agree as you you're on today start with a quote from the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through or how you managed to survive but one thing is certain when you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in that's what the storm is all about and for me and for us the impacts of the storm of copán 19 in the short and medium term will undoubtedly have a long-term implications on the education in the future of our students and returning to normal is not something that I feel like is is going to happen anytime soon it's not a paradigm I think it's appropriate for many years even once the public health crisis is thwarted so the goal of today's event is to promote dialogue to push forward conversations about what k-12 education will look like during and after the storm Town Manager in my town in Amherst recently used this Winston Churchill quote to describe where we are with Kovac now is not the end it's not even the beginning of the end but it is perhaps the end of the beginning I think that's accurate for where we are and I think it's the perfect time to have the conversation and start having more conversations between researchers and practitioners no one has all the answers right now you're going to get all the answers from from the panel from us today and there's no playbook for this scenario but we're looking to engender the type of dialogue and creative thinking and development of ideas they'll be so essential for our nation students in the future as such the live chat feature is enabled and we hope that all of you watching will you use it we'll be breaking the session into sections and we want this to be as interactive as possible so please utilize that feature throughout today's session I'm quite fortunate to have two researchers with me who to contribute to the dialogue we've had numerous couple well numerous conversations over the last couple weeks and really informed my thinking and I think really helpful to inform many practitioners thinking about next steps as we as we enter uncharted waters so the first is Katie McDermott katie is the a professor in the College of Education and the school of public policy at UMass Amherst she is also the chair of the department of educational policy research and administration and our other panelist is Michael Bowman Heim he is the Donald C a Potter knee seventy-four chair in the Department of Economics at Cornell University so thank you so much for our ongoing dialogue with both of you and thank you so much for coming on the show today and just want to give the opportunity for Katie and Mike to share anything that they think they'd like to share before we get rolling with some of the dialogue well hi everybody and thank you for at least in Western Massachusetts being indoors on a beautiful day listening to this I'm a political scientist by training I do research on the connections between education policy and educational inequality and equality and I'm in the last three weeks of my career of having kids in K through 12 school so it's it's it's been an interesting month at my house great hi everyone thanks for tuning in so it is similarly very nice here in upstate New York so thank you for tuning in and being indoors I am an economist by training as Mike said I am in the economics department at Cornell as well as in the school of industrial labor relations and in the department of policy analysis and management I do work generally in in k12 and higher education policy issues in you know the economics of Education with a particular focus on on both the role of resources in in driving student decisions about how much to invest in an education as well as the effect of different educational decisions students make on future outcomes like labor market outcomes and end earnings great thank you both again for being here and we wanted to start with a set of four questions and you know as in much dialogue between practitioners and researchers you know they're related they're not the same but they're all related questions and again I want to encourage folks that use the chat feature as we go but the first question we're simply was what are some of the long-term costs of schooling missed during the pandemic one of the the unique parts of this particular situation is that schools closed for months on end across our country when we think of other natural disasters for instance it's more localized than across the country and this is unique for our country anyway in recent years and I think so much energy has gone rightfully so into how do we salvage as much as we can this spring and certainly as a practitioner I think tremenda I know I've seen tremendous amount of energy of teachers staff members administrators go to that and I think we're at the time to pause and talk about those long-term costs of the miss schooling and think about what other models might we use to compare of this unique situation to so I want to open it up for for our research panel to jump into that dialogue okay well if you want to start you can or I can I have just in front of me some bits of information from a recent survey that the newspaper Education Week did within the past month and it's interesting that the teachers they surveyed say that their workdays only gotten about an hour shorter even though they say that their kids are getting about 3 hours of learning time every day so what that suggests to me is that teachers are doing you know at least an hour offline for every hour that they're doing actually presenting material to students but as far as thinking about the long term costs of in terms of educational attainment of the pandemic the teachers say that they're spending less time presenting new concepts that they're doing a lot of review and that's particularly true of teachers who are working in high poverty schools and they also report that many of their students are disengaged and there was a higher proportion of students disengaged the second time that Education Week did the survey then the first time that Education Week did the survey and about a quarter of students are sort of online truant in the sense that their teachers aren't seeing or hearing from them so that that makes me think of something that researchers know a lot about which is the referred to a Summer Slide the ground that kids lose academically over summer vacation and you know Summer Slide would really kind of be the best-case scenario right if kids came back to school in the fall and they're only as far behind as they would have been just from summer vacation so it could be really quite bad yeah I like to think about this from in some sense like the long-term perspective of you know what are we what are the costs gonna look like 30 years from now 40 years from now if we do nothing right and one of the dominant trends in society particularly the US economy over the past thirty years or so is a shift towards more of a skill based economy a lot of us probably heard a lot about that right we're increasingly to you know get a high paying job you know be in a middle class or above you know requires more education right because that's a core way we get these skills that are valued in the labor market and in particularly labor market that is more skill based and so you know the cost to society of this pandemic if we do nothing to address the lost education could be enormous right so kind of the back of the envelope number that economists often use to think about you know the return the economic return to year of education is about 10 percent right so you know on average an extra year of education increases your future wages by about 10 percent and we think that reflects you know productivity right you're earning more because you're more productive worker and so if you think about it you know students are losing up to maybe a half a year of education or more by the time this is all over uh you when you multiply that through every single student in the United States through their entire working life it's an enormous amount of money and it's enormous amount of productivity right we're losing it's not just about you know counting the money it's about thinking about how productive our workforce is and so I think the long-term costs here are absolutely enormous and I think one of the problems we face is that the the benefits from remediating this are way in the future right in in terms of the the productivity of the workforce but the costs are need to be incurred now and if we don't do something soon about it it's going to be very problematic in the long run because these things are harder to deal with you know when students are older right we we want to we want to try to use the schooling system in the educational system to handle this problem rather than waiting for when you know people are actually in the workforce and you know it's harder to deliver skills to them yeah and one of the things on a practitioner said that I wear a lot about something that Katie mentioned was the disengagement and for some students there's not the on/off switch it might be a very slow dimmer in terms of engaging with academic work be engaging with being with groups of people you know as students there's the academic side and this being in school but there's also the for many students the social side and not just the social emotional side but literally the social learning that happens in school and and so there's this concerns I have in a practitioner level the complement what you're saying they really do I worry about students not Rhian gauging even when it's they've to be back in school I think the other thing that there's some articles that you that were shared with me by my researcher partners talked about you know particularly in mathematics and the expected loss nor expected retention of content like best-case scenario being on average 50% of what a typical years growth would be and to have huge concerns about math being a very cumulative subject area and being a gateway to your point Mike about future careers and jobs how do you how do you make up for that and is that the right paradigm even to use to make up for it how do you address a year where a significant you know all the students to varying degrees have not gained all the content knowledge that they would typically gain in a year and that's a unique problem that we're facing and there's been individuals you think of students who have accidents that you know the it's not that it's novel to think about an individual level but on a kind of district state national level how to address those needs and I don't see and maybe I'm not reading the right thing I don't see that being as much the focus and I think it's because we're all in reactive mode it's not because of the lack best intentions by our state or other folks but really getting into the curricular side how are we going to make up for that because the stakes as you said both of you said are so high yeah and and unevenly distributed as well that the you know the I like to tell students in my education policy class that that any generalizations about public education in the United States that anybody makes are likely to be inaccurate for most places most of the time because it's a hugely diverse system there's huge variety and who's in the system and the same the same kinds of people low income people essential workers immigrants african-americans that were often not serving well in our public schools anyway are also those are the people who the pandemic is hitting the hardest so you know kids and those kids in those communities aren't just missing out on the school they're likelier than other kids to be having much more difficult experiences at home when they're not in school right and I think this is one reason why the Summer Slide is your timeout KD is is kind of a best-case scenario right it is we've talked about before because of the fact that some students are learning a lot and are in either our districts or households where there's a lot of learning going on and and some are not and that's likely to you know the students who are going to be struggling the most are the most disadvantaged students right and so the this over the summer very few students are actually in school right and so students differentially kind of lose knowledge over the summer but because no one's expected to be in school wouldn't expect it to be you know as large a difference but here some students are actually you know moving forward and and a lot of students are not and that's likely not happening evenly across the socio-economic distribution right and so this is going to I mean almost unquestionably exacerbate inequality in in really dramatic ways that they're going to require some policies to address right by state governments and end federal and the federal government I think as well as individual districts but I think this will probably get to there are strong constraints about what individual districts can actually do in this environment right because I think any real way to address these issues are going is going to be expensive right and far beyond the the means of any one district to really address yeah I'll say on the practitioner side one thing that won't address the larger picture but one thing that we are and by we I mean practitioners not just you know me and my particular job have benefited from is the federal government did relax some of its rules on how much title one money can be moved from one year to the next so usually there's a cap on if you don't spend one year there's a cap on how much can be transferred to the next year and they remove that cap and since we were spending much less that spring on kind of one resources we are able to offer more more resources to our summer program now our summer program in that way and 4ll and and one through the elementary levels gonna be virtual but we're talking about working with one to three students and a much different way than we would typically usually our summer programs more students and it's private it doesn't have the same intensive focus and one of the things that a very strong educator in our district said when we started talking about this is the first thing we have to do is actually understand where they are and and that's true no matter what your summer program or fall but I think in this case trying to get a sense of where students are at the beginning of July I think are it's hard to estimate where that is much more than a typical year we'll we have many many years experience of being able to predict what summer learning loss is or what happens at the end of the school year before summer school and I think that was a really valid point and trying to think about what assessments can be used to help drive our instruction in a small group setting because are exactly what you said we were anticipating a much wider variation on student readiness for the next grade level than we would in a typical year which was huge you know and my practitioner lends huge implications for what what we actually do and how we structure school next year even separate from the public health guidance which I know we'll get to a little bit later um but but I think you know it's shifting resources as the current current policy seems like position of the federal government for the most part or allowing us to shift resources we've already been granted I think there's gonna be some larger interventions that are hopefully come to play because I think there's gonna be some limitations of what we can do with existing funds right and I think I mean it's helpful to just get a little bit of credit have asked the scope of this problem right so if we think that students let's say I've missed a half a year of schooling right we have to make up that half of your schooling we have to pay to do that we can't just do that for free let's not like school districts are sitting on extra funding that would just let them do stuff right I mean it would be negligent for them to have done that where are these reserves coming from it's not about financial mismanagement or or any of those issues not that I'm sure not an amorous poem regional schools that's not happening but in in sub school districts money is mismanaged but that's not the reason why we don't have the money to do this the reason is is we have to invent another half a year of schooling somewhere right and that's going to take resources to you know pay teachers administrators bus drivers cafeteria workers right all the people who service schools you know needs to be paid for the time that they're going to be working and that's going to be very expensive to do right and and so it's not really about you know I think it's great that the federal government's letting school just be more flexible but I don't think that's anywhere near the right way to think about this problem the way to think about this problem is students have lost some you know large fraction of a year of schooling and we need to find a way to make that up to them right so whether that comes from you know lengthen school years lengthen school days right there's there's many ways to think about how we might do that and then move yet in the point you made Mike which is that your students are gonna be much in much different places when they re-enter school right and so then schools are gonna have to deal with the added difficulty of you know how to bring the students who fell behind up to speed while still not you know boring the students who who are on grade level or above right and so the the variation across students is going to widen particularly within a certain grade right and so that creates additional challenges and so you know I'm I'm I'm not trying to just be negative I am a distance scientist but I do think like we we do need to look this in the eye here right and say what is the really the problem we have that we need the policy problem that we need to overcome I think the probably policy problem we need to overcome from the education sphere is students are losing a lot of learning and that learning is going to be that is that loss is going to be extraordinarily detrimental to them and to society in the long run unless we do something about it you know soon and and that's going to take a large volume of resources outside of the scope of things the federal government in particular could do right you know we're not talking about 300 trillion dollars or something right we're talking about levels of funding that that I think the federal government could could stomach and certainly is in line with some of the recent stimulus packages that they've passed but you know focused on education yeah so we have a couple comments and questions why don't we create some of those we like those so Lauren asks how can we extrapolate from the students who receive summer support to the general population many students will be by you know by by design will not be in this programs so I think just to give a little local context you know we're doing a lot of outreach and I think the point is well-taken that no matter what out which we do for some students accessing even virtual programming even if they have Wi-Fi and or a hot spot or a Chromebook is not necessarily going to be possible given other responsibilities and other factors and their homes so what I really like about this question I'd love to pick your brain about what I'm one of the things I'm taking from even if the question is you know how do we frame our summer services so we learn from it and actually informs our work in the fall so I'd love to hear your your perspectives on that or your thoughts about how districts and states could think about using that as almost a laboratory I'm gonna look right at the economists here oh gosh I was looking at you yes well I mean it's I mean all look all evaluation is hard in this environment right because you know what we love is like a randomized control trial or something that that's not gonna happen and nor really should it right now you know I do think this is some of the lessons from from summer support we can glean just from sharing information right and I think this is actually true when we move beyond the summer and go into the fall and and hopefully restart schools which is it all schools or a lot of schools are going to do things differently right states are going to have different policies different school districts are gonna implement things in different ways and I think we need to really be very transparent about what we're doing and about what the outcomes are so that we can study the different policies right we're gonna have different policy variation just that naturally arises because people are gonna different ideas about how to how to recover from this pandemic and so I think you know one of the key things is that yeah we need to have data on what's happening we need to share information across schools and hopefully as a researcher I would say with researchers you know who can help interpret those data and and really learn from each other right what are the best practices here and you know how do we communicate that to one another and you know roll this out more generally right and I think that is that's I'll also make a plug this since I'm mostly a qualitative researcher that it's I think also going to be important to hear from the kids for the older elder kids and the parents who are participating in these programs to get a sense of what feels accessible and doable I know that in my role as a department chair from listening to our graduate students I've learned things about their situations that I wouldn't have understood if I hadn't actually heard them from a participant so I think you know a combination of of how an economist reviewed this and how a more qualitative evaluator would view it is probably worth doing yeah I agree I completely and I let me also say I think a lot of this as well it it's hard but we all need to be kind of humble here sense of like you know the more dogma we approach these questions and issues with the harder it's going to be to learn from our mistakes to learn from the data read and to learn from each other and I think we should just all take a step back and remember this is uncharted territory for everybody we're all groping around to try to figure out what to do and and in that environment right we're gonna some people are gonna make mistakes some people are gonna happen upon you know really good stuff and and we shouldn't be I mean I would hope that as the policy community we can all kind of get together and say you know we're gonna try things and if they don't work we'll move on to the next thing but not try not to be dogmatic about our responses because I think then we you know dig in our heels and we just nobody really knows what to do here right I think that's that's I mean it's hard to say but it's true we've just never been in this situation before right the last time we had a pandemic on this order was 1918 and that was before the common school movement right okay we didn't have compulsory schooling back then so we literally don't know how to do this because it's never happened you know in in modern times and and by modern I mean after we've had compulsory schooling and so in that sense like that it's not a it's not a failure that we don't know what to do it's just we're right so because of that we need to be open to new ways of doing things and to learn from each other and I think as a policy person that's exciting right to learn these new lessons but it's also a daunting challenge and why I'm happy I have my job and not Mike's job yeah I'm going to scroll there's a couple questions some are probably longer larger response to the other but this one getting to unanswerable questions how do we make up half year at school how do we approach learning a completely different way how to prioritize what students learn you know I think this is this is the question right and if people have ideas please feel free to put them in the comments too as I said at the beginning not all the answers are gonna be on this call he's not from the three of us I what I would say what we're doing locally and I can share that is that at the elementary level for instance some sort of meeting in the last week with principals and and some of our math specialists whose role it is to really help teachers with their math curriculum and we ask them to stop doing what they're doing which was many many things to make distance learning go well and actually start crafting what a curriculum map would look like for the next academic year without the explicit goal explicitly without the goal excuse me of catching up and doing a year and a half and a year's worth because we know that that's going to be there's no evidence that's a good strategy but really think about starting to develop a multi-year plan of how would you address these learning standards that were explicitly taught to all students in the typical way from March 13th in our case until September and we're doing similar we're starting to do similar work and literacy so one of the things that I found when I lifted up is you know there's not great models to do this in a large scale wet like in a whole class way you could look at Reading Recovery and other interventions that do this in a very individualized basis so I do think a multi-year approach is going to be required but I think if students walk in day one and we're teaching the fifth grade curriculum on the first day of school students haven't been in school nor have they had explicit teaching in the last quarter of the year or in the same way that's not going to be a recipe for success so I don't know if either of you have things you want to add about making up half a year piece well there is that the cut we when we talked yesterday we we realized there's this there's this tension in the literature because it there's research on extending learning time which suggests that that's good and that helps students learn more but then Mike I know you've done research on grade retention which points something not quite the opposite direction but in a different direction yeah so the the evidence on on grade retention is is suggest that that particularly in older students holding the back so you need to turn about like eighth graders right so many districts and states have regulations you have the high stakes exams before you move on to 9th grade and the evidence is that the students who fail those exams and are held back you know relative the students who are who just passed sit like students who you know differ by a couple points that they do worse the students who fail and and we think a lot of that it's just you know it's disruptive to be held back right that there are social gains that are happening in school as well and that students actually just disengage with learning in ways that you know kind of aligned with some of the concerns Mike was raising earlier so right we haven't ever had the experience where we've held such a large group of people back right that might be different in this environment right if we if we decide to only move some students to the next grade that might not be a generalizable finding and and the other piece of this is that it seems like holding students back in earlier grades does not have the deleterious impacts that holding them back in older grades her higher grades has but it doesn't also seem to have positive effects either so it's more neutral but in the long run so I think you know greater tension is is tricky but it doesn't from from their literature for the research we have does not seem like it's a panacea by any measure and and is something we should approach with some trepidation because of some of the evidence I mean I I would argue that that we kind of either need to extend the school day or extend the school year or some combination right we just it's about time we need more time in school because the students lost the time right and so I mean I mean it's it sounds straightforward I it's hard to do right and this is where you know academics can say oh we just need more time and practitioners like Mike will be like crazy so but I think it's you know if we if we had the resources to to produce a longer school day a longer school year it wouldn't be as big a problem to do right and so that's you know it's an economist I hate to keep coming back to resources though that's my training and so I'll do it I'll play the type so but but I think like those are kind of the the most straight forward in a sense ways to address this this problem I think trying to cram in the lost learning into existing school days is going to be very very challenging I skeptical that would work because I just don't think you know it's not like there's a lot of slack in those days right schools are teaching students all day long and you know I just don't know how you make up a half day of school or a half year of school without more time I guess and also just it's probably important to be flexible about how any of this happens you know one one weird it's not I wouldn't call it a silver lining but at least in this instance the students who everybody everybody missed the last third of the school year so that you could start a fifth grade class with the content that's you know roughly toward the end of what you might have been teaching in fourth grade in a normal year and you can just do that and call it fifth grade and not pin the stigma on some kids of you know your your neighbors in fifth grade but you're still a fourth grader because everybody everybody's not going to be in the same place that everybody does have that common experience of the educational disruption I'm gonna go through couple questions I'm just going to roll through before we transition some are great segues to the next next topic how are schools taking attendance and and with the local data say about that and you know I think schools are taking antenna slots I think it's it's a good actually conversation because schools are taking attendance in really different ways because there isn't one way that you would typically do that and the stages told us that you know attendance is one of our accountability markers in Massachusetts and they're like everything after March 13th is doesn't count because of all the factors in in my district we take it both in terms of what's being done digitally in terms of live you know like we use Google's of Google meets but also asynchronous work that gets handed in and any student who's not engaging we have a decision tree that goes to the principal the counselor our Family Center try to access which students are participating which aren't and that feels really different in 12th grade just because of the age of students so there's some acknowledgement of that as well this is a really good comment about the trauma students are experiencing and that absolutely has to be managed and we actually have work groups now working you know what's next fall gonna look like academically we have a specific group working actually we one group on the mental health and social emotional needs of students we've another one on staff support because I think it's been traumatic for everybody involved and that absolutely has to be part of our planning and people want to tune in back we're gonna have a session in early June with someone who's a psychologist who's gonna help talk and help families about how do we talk to children about the fall and we don't know if the fall is going to look like and starting support families in that way so great question and we'll come back to that sometime soon I think it's June whatever that Wednesday is I think it's June 3rd and some of these other questions we're gonna address it was the federal role in funding extra learning time and community-based looks so I'm going to come back to those they're spot on you know this is an interesting one I do want to address lease from the practitioner lens if there are students who are digitally truant again that's not my practitioner term to be really clear it's not how I frame it but I understand that the terming that the periodical or the author used I think one of the things that we found in our district is students ability to access online learning looks really different in small groups versus the whole group so when you have kids of any age one of the things that we've heard is when there's smaller groups when there's four to five students students find a lot more value and the digital learning that happens and they're much more willing to access the digital learning when it's 20 students and the ability to engage and participate is low particularly I think it mirrors the in-person empowerment but I think it magnifies it it's a real challenge for many students to engage in a group of 24 students taking a high school course if they're doing a four and five student the accountability can be much higher the teacher can check in and an assessing as they go so it's a good question we're going to find out this summer if there's a difference but we perceive based on even teachers experimenting with different office hour models in our district this spring that there is a distinct difference but it's small group versus large group I'm just gonna plug this one summit strategies for addressing learning loss could have been tossed around creating half grades could also increase academic tracking is that a worry are there are ways around that that's that's a big question probably about an hour left and that time on but I think for the practitioner viewpoint this goes back to the trauma that we're very conscious of that students to be able to access the learning experiences that we need they need to have that they have to be fully able to be emotionally engaged in the work and they're gonna be highly you know I find our students here and I think it's true everywhere they're really quick to read the intent of they're perceiving time which is often the real intent of the adults around them and the decisions the adults made about them and so it's certainly something that were conscious of and I think we have to marry the academic needs of students given this situation particularly the the you know we use Gloria ladson-billings term of educational debt I know other people use achievement gap to be able to talk about this with what what do we need to do so students are able to access the learning alright and there's no good formula but I know of yet to to consider that on/off Katie or Mike want to jump into that question today it is a tough one I did want to jump in with just something that they came up and one of our preliminary conversations which is that you would probably want to do flexible grouping at least with younger kids as they're catching up in math and reading but we'll probably talk more about the CDC guidelines in a couple minutes if you look at what the Centers for Disease Control are recommending for keeping a school environment safe they explicitly say to keep the same little pod of about 15 kids together all day long which is not particularly compatible with flexible grouping yeah I think I mean if you think about the policy problem here that kids are gonna come back to school and and within a grade the they're gonna be at much different places than they were beforehand right that the variation across students in in where they are academically is going to widen there's kind of three options right one is in and you can choose some combination of them but I wanted to do nothing and then you have to teach a class you know you have teachers teaching classes where the variation across students is much larger in terms of where they are and that's challenging you can track students that has you know benefits and and oh you know or you can retain students and we already talked about that right so the you know who are far below grade level I think as Katie mentioned this kind of flexible grouping model seems like it gets at a lot of the benefits of you know tracking without necessarily you know fixing kids in place right and allowing basically adaptive growth and what groups you're in but then you know that has public health concerns potentially depending on how it's done so I think it so it I mean just keep coming back to it it's a really hard problem so we learned here but it is a very challenging problem I mean part of it too is like there's no perfect solution right and where individuals or school districts or parents come down on on you know which of those options seem least distasteful or most exciting I think there are going to be there's going to be a lot of variation in in who does what and I think that's also an opportunity to study this right that as a scholar I'm very interested in because I think that you know we're gonna be able to learn a lot about what the right way to reintroduce kids to schools if something like this happens again from what schools do when when we do come back yeah there's a couple comments that actually segues I think to then the next kind of large area which is what to do right we've sort of touched on that but what are some policy things both at you know there's a you know about program with the federal Department of Education what should be looking at at the local level there's another comment that's you know families are asking districts to start talking about the fall and you know especially with the CDC guidance which is about essentially not having students mix with other students as much as possible at the elementary level that's a lot more feasible and it gets progressively more challenging the middle school level it's less feasible at the high school level it's particularly challenging so I'm trying to think of the best way to we're doing this live right it's inscripted so I'm trying to be the best way to organize the conversation and whether we start from the local and go up to the federal or vice-versa I don't know if you had thoughts about that because we certainly intend to address both [Music] where you'd like I mean it's interesting because the problems kind of roll up from the local level and the money kind of is gonna have to roll down from the federal level yeah and because the the federal government as its been doing is in a position to deficit spend and states and localities I think there's one state that doesn't have to balance its budget but I can never remember which one it is and then local communities don't have to balance their budgets so I'm not sure how many different ways we can we can come up with just say more federal funding but yes actually Mike those numbers you had earlier today we're really interesting if you've got them handy oh yeah yeah I'm happy yeah I just went through to some of the different federal bills that have been passed and and thought about comparing them to what was done in the Great Recession so just to give you a just scale here about what we're talking about the height of the Great Recession for unemployment was October 2009 and the unemployment rate was 10% now there's other measures of how bad things were that that's not just the unemployment rate but it's a nice way to think about it currently the unemployment rate sits at about fifteen percent it's a fourteen point seven and growing so you know this is a lot worse and I think the other thing to remember when I'm about to say these numbers is that in the Great Recession schools didn't shut down right kids didn't miss learning days I mean some students did because of economic hardship and that was important but it's not like you know lots all students in the US were out of school for three to six months right so you know this is this is a deeper recession and has as more direct implications for education than the Great Recession had so currently the cares Act which is the only Act that was passed by the signed into law and that was the most recent one that was signed into law has financing for hire for education that totals about twenty seven billion dollars so that's that's the amount that the federal government is allocated to directly help education both k12 and higher ed and it split about evenly the heroes Act which is the May 15 fact that the House passed but that does not look like from everything we've seen like it has much legs in the Senate or with the White House that has another 90 billion dollars so that would bring us up to 120 billion dollars if that were passed in the great recession the American Reinvestment Recovery Act ARRA had in real terms now a hundred and thirty billion dollars right so in a in a weaker recession or in a less dramatic recession that had less implications for for education we spent currently you know there was a hundred and thirty billion and currently we're at twenty seven billion so there's it's it's very different and so I think that's just important to kind of have a sense of of what the scope is of what the government's done in the past and as well like the research in front and the Great Recession is that that money went a long way to help shield school districts but even then it wasn't enough that that lower income school districts or school teachers that serve more disadvantaged children school districts that rely more on state funding saw declines in spending even with that support by the federal government and that those students in those schools at-risk experience learning losses right and so you know even with a large you know when the federal government did step in with a lot of money it helped but it wasn't enough and here they so far have not stepped in if anything close to that amount of money and I think the problem here is a lot worse than it was in the Great Recession yeah and I think to hop on that theme one of the cuts conversations that I had with the Emmer School Committee last night is we run budget and or but it looks different than today in March and that's true for every district that I know of and one of the challenges is that we talked about budget directly after we talked about koban 19 and thinking about fall and the juxtaposition of thinking about fall the CDC guidance that's gonna have very small numbers relatively small numbers of students in classrooms the guidance on how many students can be on a bus all that that's come that came out last weekend the juxtaposition of that and then reducing our budget was a hard conversation and it wasn't just hard in the in the immediate sense it was hard because many of my school committee members noted that there's probably rarely a time in the history of schools that income you know in I know we have to think about inflation but that there would be more that there would be fewer needs right in essence they've never been a moment where we needed more resources to address the needs of students you know if you look at the requirements it looks you know next to impossible to have full classes you know full complements of every student in the school in school at the same at the same moment in time from a public health perspective that triggers a lot a number of financial implications and decisions that have to be made right is it right there's a number of models that have come out saying well you know should should we do in every other day of school model and I've seen that there's other models and other writers who have been saying well really we should prioritize elementary students to be in school as much as possible because their access to distance learning is reduced and the implications I'm not getting foundational skills may may last longer than older students who maybe have more access then there's the financial impact on the communities that you know if six year olds are in school every other day that means many people can't go to work people most people don't work every other day schedules that's more on your end of the things especially Mike then behind more in education but you know I think the models are so diverse that are out there that I think they're you know one of the terms I use a number of times last night is it got to be some forced choices choices that we haven't had to make before as school districts and some of that's financial and summer that's just space right it's you know we that that's going to be its own unique challenge so I know if your any thoughts about not a solution but even how to start thinking about when we have these forced choices from the research you know what are the types of things that you think would be the highest yield for for all students but particularly focus as we talked about about the educational debt and achievement gap that I know both of you care deeply about certainly in my district it's a priority how do how do we manage those and how do we juggle those when we have some forced choices to be to be making in the next couple months and I think this gets to just commenting one of the questions came up was really thinking about you know families already asking the district and looking at private schools and and I think that could also have implications from an equity front as well and what are the constraints that the public schools have the private schools own and vice versa so long-winded very long-winded question her or comments to get the conversation going but I'd love to hear your thoughts on those things Sarris a mouthful yeah you know yeah go ahead I was just gonna say there's a in public policy there's a one of the models of thinking about how policies get enacted makes a mix the point that you often ideally you would start with the problem and then compare different potential solutions and choose the solution based on some rationale criteria but politics often doesn't work that way and what you often have is advocates and policy entrepreneurs who've had their favorite idea you know since 1994 and they're just you know this is this is the idea that they think will solve education problems so and I've even noticed this tendency and myself you know I'll think oh the pandemic is a perfect opportunity to do this thing that I think schools should be doing anyway and so you know Mike Morris I'm sure you're going to be getting a lot of a lot of these emails from different companies that say you know we have the solution hire us now more than ever and you know Michael lovin hime you could you know help us mobilize economists to help understand how we might make some of these decisions but there's probably not data to make a lot of these decisions either right I didn't that's a big point right yeah I think that's a again this is we're in really uncharted territory and we can we can you know extrapolate the best we can from existing evidence right but the existing evidence on what happens when every kid in America or in the world misses you know X months of school that happened before so we you know you can extrapolate it from specific events where kids have missed you know snow days or you know there have been you're out of school not usually in the US but in other countries from strikes or from you know closing of school districts for whatever reasons for you know there have been some experiences like that in the u.s.
isn't no I don't know okay but don't know how to put my name now go here stop video what my name okay got it wait learn one thing today hey that video sit there you go Bruce what I think is and I love my computer and it ended up showing my name and he goes I'm not you this meeting is Jerry Vogel I just hate to do it when I'm in a meeting not only this Leland I'm in anything and then I locked myself out before I can get back in or my whole face it's in the homepage I'm like oh my god I don't want to be in the whole page I don't know what I was doing you know my call she's yeah you're not even if you see yourself in the whole page you're not on the whole page and other people I'm not in the home page okay so we're just waiting for our turtle and Gabriela I'm here I'm here oh okay good good and there's our turtle all right it is 703 and we're going to open do the open session of these user Unified School District's Board of Education meeting for item 4.0 flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all remember the words okay now we'll move on to a roll call hmm board member Cruz Gonzalez president board member Rodriguez Pena here board member Ariana's present board member Grier yeah and I'm here okay so we're all here so now we're gonna move on to see item 4.1 approval of the agenda do I have a motion I make a motion to approve 4.1 second motion by board member Rodriguez pina second need by board member Greer um any discussion okay I think I need to join the meeting I apologize let me have to log off with a logout and log back in [Music] you can handle eating joy meeting there we go sorry about that okay and yeah real are you having problems to turn my phone off okay we're having issues it looks like just second let me get the camera back up so I can see yeah being okay so there we go awesome thank you it passes 5-0 so with that we're going to move over to the next item which is item 5.1 presentation of administrator of the year 2020 2021 yes I have the honor of presenting the administrator of the year the award that we manager of the year so madam president members dr.
you know around desegregation many years ago so you know I mean there are bits and pieces of evidence here right I mean you look at you know New Orleans post-katrina right so but but they're really hard to extrapolate to the scope then we're talking about in this in this environment so that makes it very hard to just say oh I've looked at the data and the research and this is what we say to do I mean I think anyone who comes at you with that kind of certainty you should be very concerned about but at the same time we need to do something there's an ongoing debate when you think about federal education policy about should the federal government be more or less prescriptive with States at District it's about how they're supposed to spend the money and as somebody who studied desegregation a lot I think my gut impulse is always that that the federal government should put pretty strict limits on how states and localities are going to spend the money or else you know states that districts that never wanted to integrate their schools anyway are just going to take the money and do something else with it if the federal government isn't prescriptive but I feel like this is one of the few moments where I've ever really felt wholeheartedly like fewer strings are better coming from the federal government because it's a mess and it's a mess that looks different in different places and I don't think I don't think any US Department of Education would have a shot at knowing more about what a particular school district really needs to spend its money on but then this this particular US Department of Education has been in some disarray with staffing and turnover and reorganizations and so now now does feel like a good time to lean more on the locals and not worry about the precedent that it might be yeah I I mean first of all like you know the federal government I mean you guys know this but some of the listeners might not know as much about this that the federal government has very little statutory authority over education k-12 education in particular and so they don't have a ton of ways of attaching strings to things although they're providing money that's you know they can write they can exercise power through through the purse which they do repeatedly in a lot of different ways and so you know III in the one head I agree like I would I think it would be unfortunate if the policy responses to this took on a you know everyone's pet you know theory about what we should do to reorg you know to reorganize the education system and we just it's it's kind of all over the place and ideological and that's I think problematic and so I think general funds are very important with fewer screams attached however I do think the federal government could pretty easily say okay to get this money you have to submit plans for how you're gonna make up the lost time right and so in that way they can make sure that states are using it generally in the ways that we think it should be used I mean saying you know you deliver education the way you deliver education use this money to do it we just need more of it and and I I think in that way it would be a pretty flexible system but also with some oversight attached and that might be a nice type of balance but it it's a hard problem and if you you know you don't want you you want it you want big solutions but you don't want it to get mired in politics and put in partisanship which is very challenging you Mike since you live in New York State and Kenny and I don't so I'll let you have the first crack at this question speaking it was really a perfect segue thank you partnering with games to optimize the education solutions you know some pros and cons and how do you think about that yeah I mean I'm not a pedagogy person so I don't I don't you know I don't know a ton about that I mean I think public-private partnerships have a long history in this country and throughout the world and there's been some some really you know positive examples of partnerships between the public sector in the private sector you know what what you don't want is this to just be turned into a kind of a platform for Microsoft in Microsoft products yeah I use oom all the time it's so the the I think that that is one you know danger one can think about but I you know it says that the problems we face are so dramatic that I really feel like this is an all-hands-on-deck situation and you know to the extent that the private sector can be mobilized to help us solve some of these problems I don't think that means turning over the education system to the private sector or turning over all online platforms to Bill Gates right and so you know it's some sense the Devils in the details here is it's a kind of Oasis but I do think there's a role for for the private sector absolutely in a big role potentially right and I think it just depends specifically how it's used I will admit you you called me out on this Mike but I you know I don't know enough about the specifics of that partnership after this question I'm gonna go learn more about it but but I think it just seemed generally like in general you know this is a this is a society-wide problem when we need society-wide solutions historically in our country when we've had society-wide problems it has not just been one sector of the of society that has dealt with those problems right it has been a public-private partnership and all hands on deck right and that's been actually a very fruitful way to approach these problems I think this is exactly the same right and and so in that sense you know I don't think we should look away from any potential solution or anyone or any organization that can help but we also just need to be careful that you know we're approaching problems in a way that that mitigate fraud and and you know getting back to the last answer that make sure we're really solving problems and not just like doing pet policy projects right and I think that's the that sometimes it's a fine line but that's really what we want but yeah I real I absolutely think the private sector has a role to play a big role to play here and that we should not shy away from using them in and allowing them to play that role and also community organizations there was a great article in last week's New Yorker by gia Tolentino about me Chua lead organizations in communities and I mean that particular kind of private sector is as strapped as the public sector is right now in terms of resources but you know imagine a in a community where you know parents are still working full-time and maybe the kids are on some kind of funky split shift at school it would be great if a Boys and Girls Club or a YMCA or you know anything could be stepping up to provide some of the other socialization and childcare and all the other services that the kids need and it would be great to have this to have communities have an opportunity to build their own capacity use the capacity that they've got and build their capacity moving forward so that it's not you know yet another thing that comes in from outside at them yeah but there's a note I put a link to the CDC guidance because I know I referenced it a couple times another katydid as well so that link is on the chat feature for everybody so there's a this is a perfect segue to the next comment was about the equity and what would it look like if we prioritize a democratic society as well as individual achievement and I think that's one of the questions we're doing well on time we were going to talk about which is what are the likely achievement gap educational debt impacts we've touched on that one a couple times but we haven't talked more explicitly about what policies might be able to be used to mitigate the disparities that have only grown over the last couple months and may continue to grow from until we're back whenever that date is so I'll send that off to both of you guys I'll share my own my own thoughts about that from practitioner ones but I'd love to hear give you an opportunity to jump into that well thinking specifically about civic learning there is a pretty decent and evidence-based in political science that talks about the effects that the ways that policies are delivered to people can affect the messages that people get about the government and about their own worthiness to participate in the government and one of the classic flicks like administrative burden is one of the one of the issues that comes up here if if you're getting say Social Security retirement income through this relatively simple process where you've been paying in your whole working life and then the checks start to come after you retire or and you don't have to go prove that you're worthy contrasted at the other extreme with some of the say aggressively means-tested experiments that states are doing now some states with Medicaid where you have to you have to prove that you're meeting a work participation requirement in order to participate in Medicaid and you have to recertify every four weeks and it's it's a big administrative load in addition to the administrative load apparently over time if you look at the research people internalize this message of they don't trust me I don't trust them the system isn't working for me so on top of everything else that schools are thinking about I think the the kinds of messages that they're sending to families into kids will help them either feel more or less included in some public project that they can continue to participate in yeah I service deliveries not one of my areas of expertise I agree with everything Katie is saying I think as well.look part of this problem there's two problems here one is one is about the educational the the learning right the academic aspects and in some sense the social aspects of school right those those are important so put that in one bin the other is we actually run an enormous amount of redistributed social programs through schools right and actually normally that's great right because if you want to target programs to schools that's where children are so it makes a lot of sense to do that from a delivery mechanism it's just this pandemic has created unique challenges to doing that right so health programs you know run through schools there's a lot of schools in this country that have school-based health centers that you know where that's where children receive their primary care health services right school lunches right that's well known program right where we're delivering nutrition to kids right so there's there's all these programs we run through mental health services right guidance counseling so like these are these are very very important services that we run through schools and the absence of those services right now are again gonna have a disproportionate impact on low-income kids not only because they're they're the ones who are most likely to use these services but also because their families are the ones who can't supplement with you know private market replacements right and so I think so maybe they go back to the to the original grade like so the gaps are gonna be I think just exacerbated you know what policies I think it really a lot of that depends too on how long we're out of school right so if we can start up again in the fall in a meaningful way you know the the short or the very short term policy responses might need to be less dramatic just because you know over an hour and some are almost in like we're you know like we're only talking about a couple months now until we can start up and and I think a lot of the service delivery of things like you know things like school lunches right which are very important have been addressed to some extent by by many schools I don't know what the variation is across schools but from the schools I know about they've been really proactive in this I think like the the you know the real concern I have is what happens if we're not in school in the fall and you know I think everyone just started to sweat a little bit but yeah if you know that that's when I I start to think like we we're gonna need to figure out ways of delivering these kinds of services to students you know not just the educational services but the other services as well through zoom through small group meetings you know maybe having individual service providers you know going to specific houses but that has dangers as well and it's a very challenging problem and I think in some step wanted to be aware of it I I don't have a great I wish I just had like the thing I could snap my fingers and say this is what we should do anyone has ever met an economist isn't shocked that I can't say that but it's honest but I do think we need to look it in the eye and say this is a huge set of problems and we can incur the costs of shifting our social program some of these social programs outside of the schools right but that's costly too and so you know if we do that then when schools reopen you know why do we incur those costs for a short amount of time so I think a lot of what we do really depends on how long we're out of school and so then you know it's related to the underlying public health issues yeah I think I'll just jump in from the practitioner lenses is that what I think many districts have found my own included is that in a virtual environment the disparities that pre-existed Kovach 19 in our country have been exacerbated and I think like many districts we've done our parent organization raised money and we have mobile hotspot so you know internet access is lessen significantly less of an issue than it was a month ago Chromebooks and our s staff food service were at like thirty five thousand lunches all right so I think some of those core pieces like many districts we've we've put in place I think the larger kind of the issue that keeps folks like me up at night is is on the is the learning side and and the mental health side right you addressed that Mike but so you know I I think you're right and I think you know one of the things I've learned from some of the articles that you've said me looking at you know like there was one about Argentina where students are out of school for a long time the lifelong impacts have had for elementary age students who missed months of school and also the social mobility impact of that and and so you know I think it's there's no doubt that Kobe 19 is a public health crisis but it's also an educational crisis yes we'll have long long legs if we don't collectively and I don't mean the three of us or even people on this call but collectively don't take some real strong action steps to try to address that so you know again districts like mine can take small action steps relative to the context of having high quality tutoring for students who are more likely to be negatively impacted by the closure we're doing that in the summer and I think there's gonna be a lot of value to that and I'm not trying to minimize that at all we're talking about a multi-year incredibly complex problem that we'll need both you know financial resources we should talk quite a bit about but also technical resources you know if you've thought about how many districts there are in Massachusetts which is a lot just if you have any Massachusetts there's a lot of small districts all trying to figure out exactly how to manage that question it's a huge one and one thing we decided not to focus on today just based on time was the issue of students with special needs and students whose learning needs cannot be cannot access because of their learning needs and this ability accessing modifying or doing accommodations for the curriculum don't necessarily flow as well in a virtual environment and and how to how to you know make up is the wrong paradigm because I don't actually think that's that's right but how do we best support those students on reentry is going to be you know the challenge and you know I think me you know perhaps one I'm always the silver linings person you both know me a little bit so you know I always do but you know what I look at the CDC guidance and I say 10 to 12 students in class there's a little piece of me that says if we can figure out how to do that right particularly for our most vulnerable learners is there a little bit of space where if we can do it that they're getting the same level of quality instruction in a smaller group setting and more individualized attention and they would get another setting you know the challenge is we can't do classes of 10 to 12 students every day for the 2,600 students pre-k to 12 and my district so that's where we get to some forced choices and some uncomfortable conversation that I think I think hit on some of the politics that you know my colleague in Northampton Provost mentioned earlier is you know how do you make these decisions and you know I we live in a I'm not I'm not elected I'm appointed but i but I operate in a political sphere whether I like it or not and you could guess what I like it but a reality and so I think anything that you could offer not necessarily I'm spot of if you do is just how do we make decisions that are that are in you know for the greater good you know and if we're not going to be if we're gonna have to prioritize some things over other things we need some rash now and some basis for it and hopefully not swayed solely by public opinion because we know that public opinion doesn't necessarily capture the needs of all students equally or equitably I mean that's then that's why we have the legal protections in federal and state law for students with disabilities you know knowing that that's by definition a minority of the population and you know one that might not be looked out for as well well if they didn't have these guarantees so I guess you know as much as I as somebody who's trying to figure out how to how to get an academic department and university up and running and the fall I really kind of hope that we managed to make k-12 school happen in the fall since it's inadvertently a kind of a linchpin it's not meant to be a lynchpin of the rest of the economy but if you have young kids it actually is is it absolutely if yeah if we do have to have you know some students in school and some students out of school you know maybe the students who have disabilities students who are English language learners you know maybe they get more school than others do at the outset just because of you know there are certain disability certain kinds of education the kids with disabilities need that you can't do over Xoom they're you know students who are learning English maybe need more time in school speaking English with people then than they would get if they weren't in school so that would be one possible way of thinking about it but it's again none of this is going to be fun I feel like I mean I feel like I live I'm embodying the worst stereotype of social scientists as the people who gallop down onto the battlefield after the war is over and shoot the wounded but there's you know it's it is really an unprecedented situation that we're in with unprecedented challenges yeah well I'll say on a positive note and then I'll let Mike jump in before we transition to our last topic I think the thing that I've appreciated at least what I can say locally here is that the community has really bared with us and they highly understand the nature of a pandemic is different than anything that we've had before and so I think the patience of the community has been really helpful I think when we're making our next year of decisions that's going to be a different level of focus and you know something that I tell the two comments that my you know people work with me with say I tell them all the time one is that this is an imperfect imperfect situation we're going to have imperfect solutions so this is theory and then we're going to be able to meet everybody's needs and desires I don't think that's gonna happen I think the second thing is right now is the easiest time will have for the next year you know and I don't think it's the best time I think right I think kids we want kids and teachers in school I come to my office once a week it's it's not my favorite part of the week because it's sad to be in a school where no one else is there very few people else are there and I think you know I know the learning loss the first hour of our conversation and yet the decision trees get much more complicated after this but I'm sorry Mike good no no no no I think it's yeah let me just reinforce it something you said earlier which is I really believe the long-run legacy of this pandemic is going to be felt through the education system in the lost learning that students have if we don't do enough right and not just something but enough right and and that's that's hard I yeah I totally agree I mean I I like Katie you know run an academic department and and you know like whenever you have to make policies in this environment it's very clear right there are no good policies some are worse than others but it's not like and the reason is we're just in a really bad situation right not of any of our making but it's a bad situation and so all of our policies are gonna reflect the fact that we are in a very challenging environment right now right and so you know we're really choosing between you know policies that we hope never to have to choose between right that if you told me six months ago I'd have to choose between that might be like you were you're crazy what's gonna what's about to happen right I don't think any of us expect it to be in this environment and and you know again it's not like you know someone it's not like Mike you messed up as superintendent and now the schools are closed for four months right like that didn't happen right so but but it's like it's not anyone's fault right this is just it happened and so or at least it's not any local policymakers fault let's put it that way so they get happen so the you know I think that makes it on the one hand very challenging to do policy on the other hand you know as we've talked about before the three of us you know there's a freeing aspect of it as well we're like you can do things in here where you know you're not setting precedent because we're hopefully not gonna be in the situation again right and so you know I think in terms of choosing between difficult policies I guess the one big thing I'd say is maybe an obvious point but one it's probably better worthwhile to keep saying which is that the more resources schools have the less they're gonna have to make these really awful decisions right and you know if if the the the money scene is really important I'm not just saying that as an economist but it's true it because like you know imagine schools didn't lose a cent of tax dollars or state funding throughout this crisis right that your budget next year would be exactly what you would have expected it to be you know in October of this coming of last year right so but then the crisis this crisis happens it still would be you would be woefully underfunded right because you're going to need to do things like have ten person classes and potentially multiple bus runs and I you know I don't know you know there's a lot of different things but but the point is that all of the things that need to happen not to mention by the way you know extended school days and oh you know or or Senate school years these are in addition to right and states have balanced budget amendments they don't have money lying around laying around to do this it's not because they've been fiscally mismanaged it's because they why would they have the money laying around to do this right like they've not just sitting on reserves in case they have to spend you know twenty billion dollars on this right so you know it's same with school districts so I think it's the the point is that more money is needed because we need extraordinary things we're in an extraordinary position we need extraordinary policies that are not inexpensive right in and so the the difficulty of the choices people gonna have to face are going to be smaller when districts are properly resourced to handle the the challenges that they have yeah no I think that makes sense and for me I'll just before we transition to our last topic on assessment I'm accountable you know for me one of the things I've gotten from our multiple conversations not necessarily just today is trying to think through what are the long-term implications the decision we're making even if there's not a great economic base there's enough articles that both of you have shared with me that that at least open the door to be able making a research informed decision you know the information even about like virtual virtual schools and and who they work best for and by age level by disability right there is research out there to help guide some of our thinking about this and I think the temptation of making decisions in the short term seem logical because you we all hope this is a short-term problem but the implications of the decisions you know the Argentina paper really strikes out at me about you know future strikes and long you know that have lifelong impacts and have impacts on social mobility which is why most of us got into this business of k-12 education to begin with so I think that that that lie therein lies the challenge of how to make the best decisions that aren't just the short-term will get through decisions but have a defensible point of view that looks at that long-term piece and that's something out of the conversations we've had is just you're able to do you know share with me long-term research you launched your research studies that show results and and those aren't things I readily have at my disposal so you know deeply appreciative of that and you know that that's how I'm going to attempt to to walk through this and you know the nature is it's a political process and the community is gonna have to come to some conclusions I will probably start talking about this in my local community and artists next month once we get spudge its passed and that'll be the next thing i'm a starting to have community dialogue about this and and I do think from a policy perspective you know something that I know I've learned from Katie not just in our dialogues but up to courses with Katie in the past is just the sooner you get the dialogue going the better the policy potentially is at the end if you start with the policy without the dialogue policy might be the best policy but if it's a good policy it doesn't pass doesn't not implement it it's not looks great on paper right and so that's how we intend to to try to work on it and we'll see where we land I just did I do think think you made the nail the point which is like has long run benefits just to individuals in society kind of across the board right and that just underscores the urgency of this problem because if we just are like yeah it's hard forget it whatever you know 30 years from now we're gonna look back and say gee I really wish we had done something like this is a real mess right but it'll be too late and so you know we need to pay attention to it when we can do something about it and the returns to it it's an investment right we need to to make sure we're properly investing in our future now despite the challenges posed by this pandemic or else you know we're gonna be disappointed later that we didn't do it yep so good comment I worry about the discourse about loss of learning and I wonder how we can lift up the things that students are learning at home that are also about you and and so I want to be clear from my perspective anyway that I think the distance learning has been up value and I've seen that both of my role as parent as well as my role of Superintendent I think the challenge is that it's a different type of learning and depending on the age of student based on the disability learning status learning style I mean we have we have students who are essential workers and they can't always be acceptable for the contacts at the high school because they're working we have students who are taking care of siblings and so their access to the curriculum is limited and schools aren't perfect and I'll be the first to say that but there is some leveling about having a thousand students at a high school all simultaneous in courses that's not replicable in my personal opinion in the current environment so I think it's a good it's a good reminder about loss of learning and being more explicit on a language that I'm using so I appreciate that and and I do think there's ways to talk about this that don't have a deficit model and I don't want to also minimize the impact that's going to have for students academic readiness and I think those of you know Amherst you know we take kind of the social emotional lens and the whole childhood very very seriously and our social justice commitments and I know the person writing this as you know as an expert in this area mean that we we care about social mobility we're here so that we provoke when we give a high quality education to every single student and then we get every single student choices that they can make as they leave us as Katie's is doing very soon younger and she's wrestling very soon and so anything that's a barrier to that is something that we work on and that's how we approach it and I guess the concern is that this spring has created barriers that may have already existed but it's it's it's built them up to be larger and that's what addressed I really really appreciate you and also the things that students might be learning at home during the pandemic that aren't academic you know maybe maybe they're you know even younger kids some of them are having to step up more or being their parents have decided to make this a learning opportunity to step up more with you know learning how to help manage the house or take care of their younger siblings or you know mow the lawn or you know all the different things that that you know parents might be in the habit of doing for their kids that they don't have this much time to do can also be a real a way that kids learn self-efficacy the you know I did I did this important stuff that helped my family right yeah and I would say you know the loss of learning I also worry you know kid he gave some positive examples but I really worry about and you know our Department of Children and Families in Massachusetts is deeply concerned about the the low level of reporting of abuse yeah so I just I don't mean to be the negative person but on the flip side we have a whole number of students you know whole variety neighbors and whole variety of areas who are not having not that cutting along is a lovely experience but not having you know experiences that one can say might be formative and in a positive way and so you know we worry about the trauma that's all students experiencing from the quarantine but also what is the experience and the kind of some of the disparities that already existed have been exacerbated by this as the level of stress for our families has gone up incredibly and the most affected families in our district in both the country tend to be families who already had stressors going on so in our area you know there's a major industry as hotels and restaurants that's been a that area has been decimated you know that sector has been decimated by this the last couple of months as kiddie knows and the university doesn't have students and they're there an economic a huge economic player in our area and so you know I think some of the worry too is the level of stress on families and the inability our counselors are reaching out and doing it but for students not being able to get out of their house and in an environment with another adult for some of those been very challenging I mean the evidence from the Great Recession was that educational and equality increased because of the just because of the funding issues and also the disproportionate effect of economic downturns on on disadvantaged families and this is gonna be like that but more so and so that I I think that's the dinner some kids are learning a lot and and teachers are working really hard like you know I hope nothing I said was suggested that this is because you know people are working harder don't care about the students or anything it's not they this is a really hard environment to learn to teach in some kids are learning a lot and and getting a lot out of it and are in you know great home environments and might actually like this more you know like but there are a lot of kids who are not in that environment and who are being adversely affected and then again like we're you know we all come back together in the school and hopefully the fall and then we have to think about how to you know teach kids that have are even more variable in terms of their their academic achievement levels than they were beforehand and I think that's just that's us that's a seer it was a serious challenge beforehand it's even more of a serious challenge now and so we're running out of time so I'll just my segue to talk a little bit about countability is you know what my six-year-old son is learned is how to pick locks it's one of the things he's learned you know learning he's learning reading but you know that's what's in a house and adults have to do work and there's locks and he's losing young kids he can now pick locks with Bakugan characters so that's his new his new learning this week and so heading to accountability just you know any thoughts you have quickly and then we'll open up for more questions that you have we'll end on time at 3:30 but about how even to start thinking about assessment in the kind of as we move forward there's obviously a much larger topic than and I'm in a conversation but at least you know some initial thoughts that you might have that might be helpful for people to hear I'd say we we need to keep assessing you know both the probably particularly the kinds of assessments the teachers have always done in the classroom to get a sense of whether what they're teaching is getting through or the students learning I've thought a lot about large-scale accountability policy and I've got to say I don't see a lot of point in attaching consequences to state testing even when state testing starts up again next year I think suspending it the spring was absolutely the right call there might be an argument for not testing again next year i if you can do it in a way that doesn't disrupt the school day any more than the school day will already be disrupted next year just because of what's else is going on I think it would be worth doing the assessments but I'll be blunt I think it would be malpractice to hold any teachers accountable for their kids test scores you know there's some there's some problematic ways of doing that that are in use now anyway but even even if we had a perfect way of doing it I think this is not next year will not be the year to to reinstate that because you know who knows what is got what's going into the kids learning when they're assessed next year yeah I totally agree I mean I you know I probably by the validity of some of these you know statistical models surrounding a teacher assessment or you do Katie but the you know but but even aside from that like the whole point is that in this environment there's just no way you could take students test scores and meaningfully attach them to you know the behavior of a teacher right and that that's what accountability is about or or a school right is to say we're gonna use you know data from test scores or other assessments and and trying to tease out you know what's the causal relate you know effect of the school or the teacher on that learning there's just no way to do that right now I mean I just don't think anyone you know even the most hardcore accountability people maybe I'll hear from some of them after this you know but I think they would also agree that like this is not you know it's it's it's wouldn't be fruitful because you wouldn't believe any of the data you'd get out of this at all but I do agree that assessment is critically important right like we we need to know where students are so that we can teach them appropriately right and the only way to do that I think is to have some assessment but I I think it needs to be done with care so that there's not the even an attempt or a veneer that these are gonna be used for accountability so I think doing assessment and pausing accountability is the right way to do this for you know at least the next couple years and I think it's gonna be a big test for for policy makers at the state levels not just my own in Massachusetts I think there's so much angst and disagreement about the topics that you both shared your own you know at least relative to the larger disagreement a minor disagreement about how flexible are people going to be and I think that's actually a critical generalizable question how much of our historic and even recent policy decisions about things like accountability are people willing to be to say this doesn't make sense in this context or we have to rethink that given what happened and I guess my fear on a practitioner level is it's easier for some people and I'm again I'm not talking about my Department of Education or anyone else's but but as a human being it's easier who when you have systems set up to like okay I'll make this fit my system yeah right and there's some inertia and I faced that myself right I make look I'm involved in local policymaking and how we all can can get away from that sort of thing I think that thinking will actually have long-term negative impacts on both teachers and students if we try to fit you know our existing procedures practices and just translate them to this environment I actually think it really this isn't my own policy like I'm not trying to reinvent things like you should talk about before I don't have a policy in mind but I think as a paradigm trying to say oh yeah well you know definitely MCATs give me the same yeah there's some convenience to that right there's a policy perspective that accountability is important I so I get that I don't think it actually fits the context that we're gonna be in and so my fear on a local levels that policymakers won't actually make the changes that they'll need to make to make this whole operation be appropriate for for students in in this case teachers and they'll need to listen to people and jobs like yours too because you're the ones who can say no with the CDC social distancing guidelines in effect in schools on twe add in the logistical challenges of a large-scale assessment on top of that you know we're gonna have you know we need three three need three more build things to make that work and we don't have three more buildings so but but I think like that the I think assessments important okay I I'm sorry I think I do think substance for I think accountability is important too right so I very much believe you know in accountability systems but I believe in meaningful accountability system you shouldn't just do it to do it we should do it because you know when we believe that we have methods of actually gleaning information about what schools and teachers and some are doing you know then it becomes informative and I think the point is if you think accountability is important I think you need to recognize that you can't do it correctly in this environment right and and so you know like what we could do it because we just think it's important but like then you're actually undermining the whole idea which is that these should be meaningful measures right that that we should use and yeah it's unfortunate we can't do accountability but a lot of stuff's unfortunate I just don't see you know way around it we can't invent a way of around the problem that you know it's just not possible to really attach learning gains you know over the last couple years to teachers or schools right now because of all of the disruptions that have happened yeah and I think we just have a couple minutes left so I'll see if there's questions come in but but I think on that topic what we've learned so far has been what I've learned so far has been from a policy perspective policymakers are all overwhelming us myself included right and yourselves probably included as well about the number of things we have to rethink and things aren't doesn't feel like things are coming fast enough I'll say you like guidance for fall I would have liked to have that two weeks ago from deci me too I don't know what Cornell's gonna look like in the fall either right so we you know and I'm sure you Mass same things and so so I think one thing is to have you know a term that Mike use in an earlier conversation was that humility that we don't have this all mapped out because it's not math audible as quickly as we need it to be and everyone I know in terms of folks at deci they're working incredibly hard you know our state and Department of Education and their if you were designing a Department of State Department of Education to handle this crisis you would design it very differently than their department is it's currently designed right you'd have more people you have differentiated roles right and so I think that's a real challenge you know at the state level but the same challenge sort of applies at the local level as well so I think having that humility I think is going to be incredibly important as we walk through this involving stakeholders is going to be incredibly important and then the end they trying to make the best decisions for the long term and impact or interest of our students and you know I think you're right 30 years from now there's gonna be a lot of good papers for you all to write you know and you're all researchers though both qualitative and quantitative papers I think about who did this right but I think you know one things I've got to gather from our conversations is just really thinking through decisions both in the short in the long term there is research out there and you've shared many many links with me I put someone Twitter and everything that have been really impactful to help us think about you know how to think about this which is which is the first challenging again it's thinking about this the same way we've thought about other challenges in the past is not necessarily gonna yield the result that we want to want to want to get because the same problem-solving mechanics can't be used the context is so different yeah before we close I know if there's anything either of you want to share at the end of the end of this dream I it's this it's just been you know a great break from having to think about all the nuts and bolts that I think about every day to to be able to think more broadly about this moment that we're in because you know all my life reading history I've always wondered you know do people know that they're living through a big historical moment when they're living through right and now I know the answer is it for the first three weeks no you don't but we're there now right yeah that's right no and I I I'd say that you know I think that the thing that gives me some hope here that we can solve some of these problems I actually think regardless of one's political persuasion we all have the same goal here which is we want our kids to have skills and knowledge and to learn and to have good schools and so you know that the outcomes that we all want here I think are pretty uniform and or not uniform we would probably agree on them and so then the question is how to get there right and so I think that's a that's a very important and challenging conversation but it's it's an easier conversation then what do we even want right you know that's a that's a values say but I think people's values are probably pretty similar here and and and you know we face some really really dramatic and and and unprecedented policy challenges but I'm I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get around them but we need to meet them but we need to kind of start talking about it and really be proactive about it right cuz I the the other part of me the more negative part of me worries that you know we're just gonna be reactive and then you know because the costs of not handling this problem are gonna be felt so far in the future that we'll never get our act together about it and so you know I think we really need to as a society kind of take a look at this and say we need to do something now and so you know hopefully that'll happen yeah I'll just share at achates point about when we knew this was going to be history so you know and this was covered in depth and a WBUR articles I won't I won't go into the gory details but superintendent Massachusetts had a conference call in the morning of Friday March 13th at some at that point some schools in eastern Massachusetts had closed temporarily for the pandemic nobody in western mass to my knowledge or my rec maybe in one district had closed not too many and we'd a conference call and with the state and we see with Department of Public Health and the night before I knew this call was coming and you know all the sides you know the colleges were already closing and the signs were that that was going to be the the smart thing to do and I sort of had built up this expectation I'm gonna get in this conference called City who made for me I mean I'd already script it out you know how we were gonna make this announcement and some and this isn't to knock on the state or knock on the guidance we got is I think it's just an instructive story so the guidance we got was yeah you know we don't need to you don't need to close yet you know we're still looking at information and then Department Public Health got on they said this is a critical moment in the growth of you know the virus and you know and my plans you know more or less you know I was texting my colleagues in western mass and we got on a conference call directly afterwards and talked about what you know different we're different people were and so you know we went forward our plan to close to mounts closures that day ended up on Sunday when I think there was like maybe one district that wasn't closed you know the state closed all the schools across the Commonwealth but the way we closed was I did a video rather than ask all these teachers who didn't know this was coming to explain this to kids we thought that was I thought that was a bad idea right it's just unfair to teachers to be asking them to big news you're closed for a couple weeks and you have to explain to kids so I did a video we did it with the colleagues we didn't English and Spanish and so and it was a big deal at the time because you're closing schools haven't happened before we really thought about it and about a week or two later I was in my neighborhood with my daughter on a bike ride and so I was like oh that's the guy from the video it was a high school student oh I didn't know right and you're like oh wow maybe this is a bigger deal and I realize at the moment we're just like the right thing to do I don't want to mention folks awkwardly to have to explain they don't they haven't been on the conference calls I have with Department Public Health right it feels like a way to get a common message out and and so you know when you know my kids kind of looked at me but my son and wife they're like what video you know and they both have seen it but they're like whatever he's under public access all the time for school committee and and so you know how kids are thinking about it how parents are thinking about it it crystallized for me that we are in this moment in history where there's so much uncertainty and I think there are moments for leaders both in the researcher level and the practitioner level to be able to be out there and to facilitate dialogue to make for communities to make the best decisions and I think the reason I tell its stories I've really appreciated both this dialogue today but also the dialogue we've had on the front end and I think we should do more of it whether it's this format or I continue to pick your brains and unless published format but hopefully engenders more dialogue out there about how to approach this and how to move forward and I think you know the next big topic is going to be fall you know and and you know we'll be doing a session on that in my district a couple weeks from now I said do you get the third at 3:30 we'll have you know from much more four months a health perspective how to talk about it but we'll be having a lot of public conversations in June you know and I think having the research panel being able to run things you know by folks like yourself who have different access to resource materials and research materials has been a real benefit of mine I think it's going to benefit the students the more we do it so very long-winded way of saying thank you tremendously for all your support and your help and thinking on the call and thanks for everyone for spending of if you live in East Coast a pretty nice day with us and thanks for all the comments and questions as well yeah thank you this has really really been great I appreciate it thank you okay
Kaminsky cabinet and guests I have the honor of formally starting the formal recognition of our manager of the year our managers include administrators cited minister and district office coordinators assistant directors directors confidential and their works fans throughout the entire district but one thing is a unifying quality and that's the leadership leadership involves vision courage and most of all a deep compassion for all the people that one serves and leads leaders had vision and that others may not have it involves imagination foresight knowledge of people and the law Kerr did also equality that leaders must possess is that internal fortitude that's required to keep moving forward when it's difficult or unpopular courage and also displayed when engaged that go conversation or when taking extreme ownership of a mistake you've made or someone on a team has made the most of all leadership require these deep and unshakable passion for the people that you serve not just about relationships if it's been see or interest in the people one serves board of education and guests I'm happy to report that we have an outstanding team of leaders that make up our management team taking just one person to serve as the manager of the year the difficult tasks in a moment you will hear about the finalists for the manager of the year they all possess the qualities of leaders that I just discussed and there are responses to our questions they spoke about students their work with teachers and parents and their genuine interest in the school district these finalists also spoke about challenges they faced and have overcome and each of them spoke with such grace and gratitude for the work that they do each and every day so before I turn it over to our superintendent I want you to know that this type of leadership just doesn't happen this type of leadership is modeled over time it's cultivated and cared for dr.
Kaminsky as you transition to a new chapter and enter retirement I want you to hear that this is in large part your legacy here as the art superintendent of a sysm you are leaving an indelible mark in the leadership and culture of the this is a Unified School District and for this I thank you so now I'll turn it over to dr.
Kaminsky to introduce our first finalist for manager Evita thank you so much I am always excited with these events where we celebrate our employees and our parents because it truly is those people that make the difference and that really rise to the occasion year after year after year and inspiring the rest of us and so I'm very excited today to share with you I get to talk about two of the people the first person I'm going to mention is on Chanukah otherwise no as Lika who Lika wadis who is our director of communications at community outreach and I knew that she was a runner and I knew that she was a fast talker in fact is when we interviewed her a number of years ago she spoke so fast that we were all trying to keep up with her well that's turned out to be a real asset because we've made her work really fast and really hard and she has risen to the occasion over and over and over again and as you saw a couple weeks ago when she did her communications update there's a lot of work that happens out of her office that really communicates with our our staff and with our families with our students and the broader world of stakeholders who care about what happens here in Azusa I'm very pleased that the messages she sends our informative they're accurate and they're done with grace and consideration towards the public I also found out that you know I initially was a runner but I didn't know she was what's called an ultra-marathoner she has run 50 miles if you can believe that 50 miles now I was gonna say it was all within the office but it's not that's not true she is but it's an example of hers to her fortitude her strengths and her commitment and that's what she dedicates her running life to but that's also what she dedicates her professional life to and I admire that greatly sometimes I'm amazed she's a young employee for us but very talented and wise and responsible of what she does so please join me in thanking and welcoming and celebrating legal honor so it's given round of applause yes thank you Jorge and Linda before I begin I want to say that what I'm sharing tonight is actually a quilt of sorts that came together with input from Norma's ed services called the directors and myself so first and foremost we want to acknowledge and present Norma Camacho as our administrator of the year for and services we want you all to know that it is such a pleasure to work with Norma she definitely makes our team stronger we notice how normal ifs others up with her servant leadership by supporting listening and caring for others including ourselves the manner in which he focuses deeply on her work and plus her thoughts into action is very inspiring and something for all of us to learn from her kindness patience dedication energy consideration knowledge and integrity are all infectious as she sets the standard for our work as a fierce advocate for students her passion especially for English language learners is centered around monitoring outcomes equity and access Norma is well respected and well liked and that is due because and due to her effective leadership her calm mindset and her thoughtfulness not only in her words but also in her actions her advocacy goes beyond our sites and our district it goes to the county level and the state levels and we are so in awe of her and it helps to shine a light on the amazing things that are happening in our district we thank you Norma for all that you do for the department the staff the parents and the community and of course most of all our students they have the best partner ever in you help me in thanking and congratulating Norma Camacho and I have the honor of announcing the 2019 2020 a manager of the year for these two the Unified School District this is a it's an honor to be in front of you to be able to do this multiple times a year for our our different employee groups and I'm just as honored doing this for our managers I have to tell you that when we were interviewing that the three ladies all very phenomenal women I constantly kept saying that this was a photo finish it was I mean it was as just a snap of just how talented each and every single manager administrator is in their contributions to the district one one point that really shone out and and it really would reflected when when we announced our manager of the year was just how well appreciated and light our manager of the year is for her work as a site administrator her work has been incredibly monumental in this year as they have transitioned and welcomed in new staff members from one of the sites that was closed last school year the parent of the year you may remember also came from this site so there's something something in the water as they say that's going on that special at valedale and it brings me great honor to announce that this year's manager of the year is none other than our Adrianna Garcia aye Medina help me enjoying and congratulating her the Kaminski now I would like to say a few words about Adrianna also and I'm using I'm using in thinking about her there's so much that I wanted to say and I thought let me just put it in what's called an acrostic taking the letters of her name and spelling it out and for each one I'm gonna share with you a quality that I see in her and we start with the a for Adrianna and the first thing I think of always is how artistic she is and the reason for that is when she was hired I remember shortly after she was hired I went to visit her at Valley Dale and the office was transformed into this beautiful thematic set of bulletin boards that welcome the students and the staff and the families and continued on down the hall and build and I think it was a team of heroes at the time in each year it's been a little bit different but extremely artistic and and creative in thinking of how do we celebrate people in a way let them know how much we care with the D I always think of dreamer because she is when we talk about leaders being visionary she definitely sees the future she definitely sees what can be for the students and staff and Families over at Valley delt and she brings that that idea and that passion to make things just wonderful as she can for her students and families and staff my dreams about that but then makes it a reality and so the R stands for rim master because that's how she makes it a reality she works well with people she gets them excited and involved and I've never seen those the functions that they put on that scope more energetic more representative really of the joy of being at that school that I always they think of her as behind the scenes organizing the whole thing inspiring getting people excited about it and really contributing that that role the I stands for innovative I really see her as somebody who's always looking for the something that will help the school helps the families the students the staff better and I think back to the time one time when she called me up after she'd been there just a little while and had heard about a an instructional program to help kids who are struggling readers and wondered if she could have permission to do it and I was so impressed that right away she hadn't been there that long but she was already identifying a need and coming up with a solution that she had researched that she knew about and wanting to do it so we have the a the D our I the next one is a and that really is key to somebody doing effective work at a school site she's an active listener she works with the staff she listens to what their thoughts are she listens and read nice is the strength that they build and the creativity that they bring to what they do and she does the same thing with the parents and maybe even with a little kids but it's really with the adults that I see her just being very attentive to what it is that they're thinking with their experience has been and then building from that and finding ways to help that flourish even more and that leads me to the end which is really a nurturer and that's not a wishy-washy word to me nurture is the essence of what you have to do you have to be somebody who sees potential and people who just like that they have a garden they put a garden in the right outside the the office and the school had had a garden had fallen a little bit into disrepair but shortly after she was there as flourishing again and I went to see if the though it was raised beds and all the wooded raised beds had been painted and there were little just beautiful little trinkets and things in the in the garden it has changed and she was not only nurturing that garden but as I slowed out I realized that was the way she approached being her principal that her job is to nurture and support the people there at the school and so the last a is what I'm so so excited for her to be recognized as and that's administrator of the year so let's give her another round of applause please thank you all very very much would like the board like can I have any comments or is Adriana gonna speak adriana is scheduled to speak if you speak or would you like to make comments first I would prefer to speak it's all about her today wonderful thank you and you hear me yes okay good evening everyone welcome to my home hopefully we don't have any surprises as I'm addressing you but I want to say good evening to them to the board and thank you all dr. Kaminsky come in an audience it's an honor to be here tonight with you and to be recognized amongst such great leaders and administrators in my colleagues Norma and Lika I respect them both I admire their work and I know that their leadership too has brought so many wonderful experiences for our students and our families so I just want to say congratulations ladies for this recognition as well to our school board and dr.
Kaminsky I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity four years ago when I joined the US as a unified school district I came here nervous nervous about starting a new district after having spent my educational years my teaching years the beginning of my principalship at the same district it was the only district I knew and I loved but I was told time and time again that you're going to love a Sousa it's a great place we have a vision it's a family but I was nervous I was nervous because I didn't know how Valley dil community would respond to what I brought to the table but what I found was a community that was energetic vibrant and they wanted the absolute best for all children a community that was willing to do whatever was needed for all kids not just their own from the moment I stepped onto the school site and even to the very first official coffee with the principal that I had I immediately felt welcomed by the essence of family and since family is so important to me I felt it from the beginning from the school board members from staff from students and parents and it reassured me that coming to Azusa had been the right choice I also want to take this opportunity to thank and recognize a long list of wonderful people who have helped me prepare and these like-minded people who always have kids in their heart and are willing to step up and do their part to mr.
doodle Ortega who is one of these wonderful people in my life you have mentored me every step of the way your mentorship has been instrumental in my success you have your focus that you have on helping us become instructional instructional leaders is admire about the way you interact and approach people is inspiring so thank you for that I have learned so much from you to my staff I want to thank them as well thank you for being you I've seen your motivating examples of doing right by kids year after year and this year in particular I have seen it in incredible ways your willingness to step up and give students all that you got during these challenging times is proof that you lead with the heart from pushing beyond your comfort zones to learning the tools of distance learning and pushing through even to this week tells me about the kinds of people you are and how lucky our Vikings are to have you I see the love and dedication when you're reaching out to parents and doing everything from tech support to following up when the student has missed a session and I know that you're still trying to make these connections regardless of what it takes and and what is needed and these connections are what we need during these difficult times last I also want to recognize my family I know that some days my hours can be very long but my family is everything to my dearest daughter Sienna thank you for always challenging me to see you perspectives and for making me laugh to my little big guy Aaron thank you for making me a more patient mom and a better teacher to my husband Ernie thank you for helping me see all the little accomplishments during those difficult days for being my rock and my kids hero and less to my parents who have taught me the value of hard work perseverance dedication and the list can go on and all we have so many special people at Valley Dale and we have great things that are happening right now despite the challenges that we've been faced with this year we are working on creating a place where students and their families can call a home away from home a place where everyone is valued welcomed loved and supported and I know that this just can't happen with one person's efforts this is a collective effort and one that I'm blessed to be part of so I thank you for this honor and I wish everyone well thank you I wanted to congratulate the all the administrators that receive their certificate decision and opinion but also Adriana you know she's a very good sport when you know I went to one of her festivities were you know who allows the students to take her to the wall Adriana I'm like oh my god she's gonna fall but they had masking tape when they take her to the bomb not sure what what the reason was I don't recall but um she was and she stood there and they took the chair from under her foot feet and there she is up on the wall and I'm like wow The Grates Portman's that for her well deserved congratulations Adriana okay I know I'm cheating would you like to say something yes of course I just I want to congratulate all first I can start by congratulating all of our administrators I think that I know how much I know how much work all of our stuff I'm putting in and that includes our administrators right to make sure everything has been running out has continued to run under under these very difficult circumstances that we are in right now so I do want to appreciate that but I do just want to express we appreciate and recognize the three that were recognized today I think the work that you've done in terms of your commitment to our district commitment to excellence aren't just is just apparent and everything that you touch so I really appreciate that and then finally with a vide on I just want to say I especially appreciate you coming and being part of our community and I'm glad I did or recruited you over but I especially appreciate the way you have made valedale reflective of the community I think that's really important and so I think that's beautiful thank you board member Greer yeah so same thing thank you to to all the administrators I know that when we when we have a process like this where we're having to to kind of look through and acknowledge and recognize so you know so many administrators that we have in the district but then we kind of narrow it down here and so I do specifically yes want to say you know congratulations to Lika and normal as well thank you for all the work that you do and specifically Adriana yes same thing let me just let me just say that as a as a school board member it's not uncommon this is you know we signed up for this it's not uncommon for us to to kind of be around different places around town and for people to seek us out to to share with us challenges that they're having that's not an uncommon thing to have happen but I want to say that in regards to you you have been the subject of conversations that I have had where people have sought me out as I've been out in the grocery store and whatnot just to tell me how great you are and so that's just like an incredible testament to to who you are and in the work that you do you know a cup last year it was challenging when we were looking at the need to you know consolidate and with you know some of our schools that are Mountain View we're not transitioning over and I was able to talk to Perry parent that I spoke to about that I was able to tell them confidently like you need to understand that that Adrianna Garcia Medina is incredible and she is an incredible you know Jim and as I was able to communicate that confidently as I've heard back from others I mean you you you you made me truer than true as I communicated that back then and so just thank you for your continued work and for what you continue to do we are honored to have you here in our district or remember our Dennis I want to start off by congratulating all three and administrators Angelica I see your dedication to us as a unified and I appreciate your your communication and your messages and you being able to be on top of everything that's going on and your response and your commitment to this community as a whole not just our district but the isuzu city as well Norma Carbajal I want to congratulate you for your passion for her children's success for our student success I have watched you from being in the classroom to been an administrator and now being in the district and my friend you shine thank you so much for your continuous commitment and for you to have an open door policy I appreciate that hey Janet but I want to tell you that I want to congratulate you and I want to be able to to share a little story real quick how I when I was looking for a school for my kids and I came on a tour to to valle del and just i saw the difference and in the time that you were there and what you had to offer our our community our school community and the parents and i want to go ahead and thank you for that for your commitment and for your acceptance for your job to be here and for all the hard work that you put forth for our district so congratulations again to all three any dryness and so we have you on there on here congratulations thank you I'm off mute I would like to thank all of our administrators I would not want to have the job to decide even the the top three because all of you do such a wonderful job for us but I certainly didn't would not want to have had to choose between Lika Norma and Adriana because the three of you are all dynamic so I want to put that out there and Adriana you are a bundle of joy when I see you I feel relaxed and I'm fed if I believe it or not I'm somewhat of an introvert and you pull that out and that is such a good asset to have I appreciate it because I always feel so comfortable when I'm around your school when I'm around you and I can say that for most of the administrators but you have that little special glow and I have to give you that so I congratulations every work minute all the work you do thank you okay yes one we have one more person that wants to recognize Adriana and that's our partner from Foothill credit unions Melissa I can that is she Judith the Bomarito feeling theater okay we'll have to we'll have to go back and make sure we honor miss Garcia and Medina the future time with with Hotel credit union so this concludes our recognition our managers of the year Thank You Board of Education thank you Adriana for all your hard work okay so at this point we'll move on to item 5.2 recognition of student board representative and we are going to oh good evening it's my pleasure to have us take a look little time to thank Jenna Valdez for serving on our board as a student board member Jenna are you here mark do you know she's on the line I believe she is I mean find her number Jenna are you not getting here so Jenna's from Gladstone high school can you Jenna can you tell us a little bit about just your thoughts um I really enjoyed just being able to be heard and being able to have a chance to speak every week I know although we weren't able to you know be connected all the time I still felt like you guys reached out and still cared and still made sure I was here every week so I thought that was really nice and I really appreciated that and it was just a really nice experience to have and to see what goes on behind all of you know the closed doors and what you guys have to go through and vote on and all of that thank you so much thank you so much you know from our point of view I think we all really treasure the presence of the student board member because part of it is to let the students know that we do care about you very much you know you know that you see that new teachers that's true your your principals and the counselors in everybody's school but I want you to know too that the district office and the Board of Education our whole our whole reason for being here is students and so having a student be with us in their meetings it's really very very special so thank you so so much for that I really appreciate it thank you round of applause one that makes a noise here for you okay thank you so much you're welcome thank you okay and at this point we'll go to item 6.0 6.1 items from the floor public comments on agenda and non agenda item this is an opportunity for the public to address the board on non-agenda items no action can be taken on non-agenda item vigil speakers may have a he allowed up to three minutes to address the board on any non-agenda item prior to addressing the board please fill out the request to seek public comment blue card in submit it to the board secretary and I see we have hands our first person is Chris Alda very clear my computer's going a little slow but we can let her go first can you hear me yes thank you thank you for the opportunity to speak there's so much going on in our district right now I had a recent conversation with a few of my colleagues who tried to convince me to take advantage of all the the movements happening and reconsider going back to elementary of which I spent half of my career there but in the end they told me to trust my gut and I'm here tonight because my gut tells me I need to stay at the middle school and I need to keep speaking up for the changes that keep coming up over and over about the k-8 model and I'm coming to you from the concern that a lot more than what these k-8 models are and potentially going to give them one of my concerns is we I keep doing the word exposure and exposure to elective electives that includes art stem our students deserve much better than that I think about my own daughter's experience at her middle school she wasn't an athlete she she went into the music program for three solid years and because of that strong foundation she was able to join the marching band in high school and I think about her exposure to single subject credential teachers like we currently have and I think of the experi that our students will have if they're not given that opportunity to be with single subject credential teachers who can cover so much more ground and provide such a strong foundation and prepare our students for high school the way they deserve to be prepared so I just want to continue asking the board to give us more opportunities to convince you that we need to keep the middle school alive our students deserve the opportunity to get full exposure not just partial exposure thank you okay thank you and next up is s Scott um hi this is actually Andrew Alvarez I just got a note judge use my microphone okay is it me you want or do you want either god we can do s kya the names jump drunk we can do s scott first alright okay can you hear me hello can you hear me yes you can thank him okay thank you very much I was going through my name is Steve Scott I'm a counselor at Foothill middle school and I was looking through the slides that I'm sure that all the board members saw about the pros and the cons of school closures and I was looking this is only the second time my thirty thirty year career that I've addressed the board the first one was I felt very strongly about early college program this would be the second one because I looked at the eyes about school closures and a couple things jump out at me with the first one where it says the k-8 option it says that Ellington model is working very well I'm sure it is but as Miss berry was just saying I'm very concerned about the electives I brought this up to Adrienne Greer and to dr.
Kaminsky my understanding is Ellington has language arts and math support which they absolutely need all our schools need those there's a concert band zero period anyone who's not in language arts the math support would have sixth graders we've had avid seventh and eighth graders would have stem there's some kind of music appreciation beginning band one day a week that's that is exposure but that's not really getting the depth of those electives there's no art there's no choirs no leadership those really bother me another problem that is at Ellington forest and there's PE teacher who comes one day a week and then the staff does to other days a week that means that the trees aren't getting five days a week in PE that's a concern especially among this in these times where we have a pandemic that shows that a healthy lifestyle leads to a strong immune system which is something we need and we're going to be cutting back on PE for all our k-8 students I have a problem with that basically the less the model the k-8 will have less electives less and this is plain in the second slide where it says smaller schools will equal less students smaller class sizes well that is true but the smaller and the class sizes that we have the smaller schools we have the less electives we have part of my job at Foothill middle school was putting together the master schedule that's all based on numbers so if you have a small if you have a small campus then you're gonna have less electives and going to the next slide I know I have a three minute time frame is about the K six and seven twelve option so we had jumped out of me there was high school served students aged 12 to 21 special IDI my first year twenty years of my career Azusa High School and in that time I'd never saw a student who was 21 years old on campus now it is true in an IEP student stay until they're 21 years old I'd like to know how and one year old we have the campus right now but sitting on that since that came up that that age range k-8 would have students from five years old to 14 years old that's also quite a big age group there or age range so if it's a concern for the high school it's a concern for the k-8 as far as the middle schools okay we have time time what's that am I out of time yeah three minutes row thank you okay I'm sorry okay now we move on and Mark do you want to go ahead and call them out okay am i you can hear me yes excellent very good well I do in coming here to advocate for the middle schools especially after seeing the school closure options item on the agenda for tonight now anxiously await further discussion of this this item a number of our my colleagues and I to look at this and you heard from mr.
Scott some of the concerns that he had had we had some of those similar concerns as well one of the items mentioned with the k-8 was that there was a pair preference for this model but it's unclear to me that any surveys have been done of all the parents in our district to see if that's the case or if it even is the case do these parents advocate for eliminating middle school altogether or simply having an option to going to middle school or going to k-8 Inazuma a meeting that we had with a board member Greer a couple of weeks ago there were a number of parents involved that teachers counselors and so on not a single person in that meeting which had about 35 people advocated for eliminating the middle school so it strikes me as a little odd that there would be a parent preference maybe this is something to do with the fact West Committee but that's a committee and we have an entire district full of parents and students would like to advocate for this I asked my students as eighth graders would you have preferred to be in a k-8 school or a middle school and all of them all of them want it to be in middle school now is it possible that that's just because that's the only thing that they knew maybe but they were aware of all the opportunities they have there that they would not have had at an elementary school and so that is what mostly informed their decision what's a little concerned about some of the numbers that are put up here rather the lack of numbers when we see that every option except for the k-8 options indicate that there will be student loss I find that a little peculiar specifically since in our meeting with board member Greer there were parents who indicated that they would pull their kids out of the district if middle school disappeared I have to imagine that that must not be just a one or two parents but there must be some who would be willing more than that would be willing to do this the only option here that allows for middle school option is a sixth eighth option which I thought again also was peculiar since we've decided already to move sixth grade down to the elementary school that would eliminate some of those cons that are mentioned that 1500 student middle school including sixth seventh and eighth would likely be just about a thousand seventh date and that would be sustainable in our middle school at Foothill so I'm a little concerned that this this these proposals seem to unfairly favor k8 without a preponderance of data or surveys or asking staff students and parents what their preferences would be I understand that saving money is an issue but as we've heard tonight Azusa has been one that's put family and people first and I know that that's been the cases I've been here I hope it continues thank you for your time thank you um are we having an issue with the clock it'll work now sorry okay it's hard to do these three or four things at the same time would you like me to call the names I would be great all right I just wanted all right I'm Harold oh sorry all right Harold you should be like mister uh sorry mr.
Ezra if you look on your screen there should be an unmute button there you go Oh can you hear me there you go all right in here me yes hi my name is Harold oh sorry good evening I've been a teacher in Azusa unified for over 30 years and my last five years at Ellington and since it's become an eighth grade I'm here to talk to you Knight about the school configurations also and I'm here to say that an all k-8 district is a horrible idea I'm sure you'll hear this information later on from people going through this option painting this as a parents choice and as you've already heard it's only partially true when the parents I spoke to heard all the information about Cades their minds were changed quickly now don't get me wrong I love Ellington and every teacher there loves Ellington it is an awesome school and despite all the haters and the cheese made teacher that Ellington do love Ellington it's a great place to be it's just not the blueprint for the entire district when yeah just one administrator for two years we failed badly when we finally received two administrators we didn't just blossom we Excel Ellington needs two administrators to be successful and since Ellington has been treated as a Taliban tree schools we heard from previous speakers you guys sure we only get 45 minutes a week from a PE teacher and a music teacher now I can also tell you just in terms of Browns it's been over five years Ellington still has elementary basketball courts you know how does that build for the rest of the district if you do a k-8 um if you eliminate those things that they're talking about you're eliminating athletics music and electives throughout the district having a k-8 following that line think about what that's going to do to the high schools you basically eliminate their programs - which is a shame because of Zeus's high school and glass at high school have been excelling in athletics you go to a k-8 district that's done the people who are telling you that the k-8 model is the best option frankly they're the ones who put us in this situation to start with so I'm gonna close up by saying I'm sure you're familiar with the peanuts cartoon so I say this to give good grief Charlie school board how many times were you going to let Lucy pull the football out from under you before you realize here we go again thank you okay um Diana Thornton you can you hear me yes okay good evening my name is Diana Thornton and I currently teach seventh grade English language arts and English language development at Foothill Middle School along with several other people who have spoken tonight in fact I have had the pleasure to teach at Foothill for 18 of the 28 years I've been an educator unfortunately I'm one of the two dozen displaced teachers in our district due to declining enrollment and the movement of the sixth grade to the elementary schools when I began at Foothill in 2002 I haven't I had left an elementary school in Glendale so that I could now specialize in the one subject I most love teaching English at a school of over 1,000 middle schoolers at the time I immediately fell in love with this middle school culture where I witnessed adolescents given the opportunity to spread their wings over the past 18 years our students have had the choice of competing in sports taking part and stage productions becoming part of school government through ASD leadership class exploring musical talent through our amazing band quarrel and orchestra programs take avid where they understand the implications of going to college and develop critical thinking skills and navigate the roller coaster of growing up with the assistance of an amazingly patient counselor mr.
Scott who you just heard from who also walks through an individual a through G graduation plan for every single student having had the privilege of helping with our last two stage productions I have seen firsthand how the students who may not relate to other kids very well in the classroom or on the playground begin to blossom in fact last year one student confessed to me he had never made friends at school until he had joined our production this was an eighth grader mind you I could go on and share more details of what makes the k-8 model special but I only have a minute or two left so before I close I must ask the board what is the goal of moving to a k-8 model to blindly follow the current trends or is our goal to do what's best for our students and families in the article which middle school model works best Brian Carolyn Christopher Weiss and Jamal Matthews studied the K model versus the more traditional cave model excuse me 6/8 model two findings from this article stand out most to me first that adolescent students thrive in settings no matter the grade configuration when they're given more opportunities for autonomy and decision-making how will the k-8 model provide opportunities for autonomy and decision making by stripping our electives from students moreover we're all students parents teachers and administrators even surveyed prior to selecting this model I know I wasn't secondly the article goes on to state that the classroom is quote where factors such as maintaining and intense focus on academic achievement proactive intervention and teacher competencies matter most for adolescence this district is moving teachers to elementary schools tomorrow mind you who have not taught multiple subjects for many years how can we possibly include good conscience say we'll provide proactive intervention and teacher competency when many of us are now being asked to no longer specialize in a subject but instead asked to teach five or six subjects for which we have not been recently trained I implore you to reevaluate this decision and concentrate first on the creation of a five-year plan which has been suggested by current board members more than once do we want to be the district that follows trends or the district that provides an educational experience for the needs of students and families in mind maybe the current Kovach crisis provides us with the pause we desperately need to reevaluate this decision on behalf of our Azusa stakeholders thank you thank you next step is Meg's avala you are like I unmute myself correct can you hear me yes we can hear you okay awesome thank you and I hope you are all healthy and safe board members and your families and your children I really wanted to come on here to focus on two different things and really the people before me have covered it Andrew Alvarez really covered my major concerns about tonight's presentation having very few data and and nebulous and I'd like to ask you to look deeper and ask for deeper and ask for more so that the things that say parent preference are backed up by survey data when it says there's a cost savings how is that cost savings being measured and break it down if we're going to push for a particular model let's look at all the different pieces of that model you know that AE a does not advocate for going district-wide I have heard lots of different preferences and there's got to be a compromise somewhere in between and I'm gonna ask you to take pause like Diana said to look at the data and to solicit more data I would like to ask for a survey survey of staff that are going to students as well as parents what do the students want and what does the data say I want clearly delineated information and I think that we should all expect that in order to make accurate well thought-out positions also I agree a hundred percent with Diana we need to hit the brakes The Cove is 19 pandemic has created situations that require your attention on other things right now and while I know that it's important that we follow through with a five-year plan quite frankly we need to take time for this decision to make the best one possible and I think that it serves the best interest of the district to wait and focus on those other things also I think that it's super important that the next superintendent that's installed be a part of this process board members you have an incredibly difficult decision to make and that Meuse superintendent also needs to have bias and a vested interest in those decisions and you're all going to have to do it together and I think that it would behoove us to one focus on those immediate needs that have to be taken care of now cove is 19 starting school what the calendar going to look like is it going to be distance learning and at the same time step back get constituent input from all of your stakeholders as to where they want to go with the five-year plan so that all of these meetings you're saying you're going to have include all of I'm going to say the right people which is everyone and including whoever the new superintendent is that you choose so thank you for taking time I appreciate it and I hope you I wish you all safety and healthiness thank you thank you okay next up is Ron okay if you guys hear me okay yes okay all right so good evening board members my name is Ron trustful I'm at Gladstone high school so good evening board members assistant superintendents and dr.
Kaminsky I am concerned about the recent movement and discussion about going to an allocate a district I understand the necessity to steer our district through these difficult Financial Times and that there are some parents darn that are in favor of going to a k-8 district I appreciate that board members have asked for transparency however I don't think that the whole picture has been painted it is not what is good this is not okay so what I'm trying to say here it is not what it's good for the bid for the district administration first of all we have to think about the students they are what matter most here second we have to think about teachers and then we have to think about school site administrators here are my concerns about how this is playing out we seem to be seen just one side of the story there seems to be a big push from our superintendent about going to a k-8 district without really telling us we're discussing other alternatives I would like to see those other alternatives get equal time so these so these are not positions that AEA is looking to me to endorse I am speaking on behalf of myself here if we are considering going to a K model we have to consider all the consequences that are I'm sorry that would come about but it's not seen as though the consequences are being discussed if we go to a que district the students will lose out on the following highly qualified single subject teachers in the areas of math science social studies in English students who are served in eighth grade may not have PE every day and if they do highly qualified PE teachers would probably not teach them students would also miss out on electives such as music art foreign language or other electives they are currently receiving at the middle school they attend students who are in seventh and eighth grade would not be able to move from class to class and get the high school experience by allowing them to move from class to class they learn how to be responsible for their time and their organization the materials needed for each class this would also mean that there will be less interaction because they would be with the same peers for the entire day establishing relationships with different peers throughout the day is extremely important because it teaches students how to be socially appropriate in different situations it allows them to establish relationships with other teachers in regards to teachers single subject teachers from the middle school would either need to move to the high school or be let go from the district if they move to the high school they may bump a teacher from the high school these are highly qualified single subject teachers who have vast knowledge of the subjects they are teaching they are teaching these classes because they have earned the right through their education and training in the specific areas they teach let's keep looking at other up 200 alternatives and keep an eye I'm sorry and keep an open mind when it comes to the reorganization of this district that's also allowed the new superintendent have a say in the decision making process thank you thank you next is Terry and I just kind of like to remind everybody that we need to do the three minutes and end it three minutes because it makes a moot the board meeting move smoother and this is our business meeting so we do need to get to the business as well and it just makes everything more efficient thank you I have a question do they have a clock that they can see or yes okay I don't see a terry in the reading anymore okay so galaxy s a let's see hello my name is Nathan Ariana's I am a senior at Gladstone High School and I would like to represent most of the seniors that are graduating this year of 2020 so this year I had the opportunity and the honor of graduating in white graduating in white I Gladstone means that I have earned honors this is something that I worked hard for ever since I was a freshman I worked day and night weekends even stayed up late to graduate in my white yet if there is no chance of me graduating then I would have all of that work I had done in the last four years I've gone in vain I even know many students who they are the first in their family to graduate from high school yet if there is no graduation ceremony they will not be able to celebrate that moment with their fins so whatever the situation is with regarding the graduation ceremony I beg of the student council or the school board to postpone the graduation to a later date whether it be in the summer or early fall I highly encourage you to consider it thank you thank you that was well played okay next Laura Gonzalez actually we have Terry okay hey thank you can you hear me yes great all right good evening madam president board members and cabinet before I get started with my maiden points I want to just give a shout out to Jenna Valdes your student representative on the board as well as he Menna Escobar who put that great video about seniors on the website because they are both Ellington graduates and we are so proud of the accomplishments that they've achieved through high school I just wanted to remind you a couple of things in regards to Ellington's k-8 I've been at Ellington for over 32 years and I've shared my thoughts with you prior to this in December I sent you an email with a lot of points and then I spoke at a board meeting to give you some pros and cons but my main point tonight is about the size of our middle school and if the plan is to make all elementary schools at k-8 I need you to consider the size of those we have about a hundred and fifty-seven students our middle school was created to keep students in our district because of where we're situated a lot of students would go from Ellington to Las Palmas and then from Las Palmas to North U and we would lose them if they and then instead of going to center because it was so far away and some students continued to leave even at sixth grade or in eighth grade and the two main reasons that I've heard are that they want to go where the sports are more competitive and so if you think about having all K eights then those teams are going to be reduced because you won't have as many players from which to choose so that's why we have six seventh and eighth graders on our sports teams and yet we still very small teams other students leave because they want that middle school experience that traditional experience where they're going from class to class at ellington students do move to different teachers just not as frequently as at other schools Steve Scott mentioned some interventions that we have he was talking about avid and stem but we do have electives so they're different interventions are everyday electives are just a couple times a week but the reason why our electives are limited is because when you have a small number of students you have a small number of teachers and those Gen ed teachers are the ones teaching the elective so when you only have six gen ed teachers you have six electives so keep that in mind as you are considering making all schools okay eight I think Ellington is great I love it there but it's not for everybody some kids need another choice a more traditional type of middle school so I was glad to see that there's the option of keeping one middle school open my time is up thank you I'm here if you have questions or you can email me Thank You Terri okay now we will move on to Laura them solids good evening board members first off I'd like to thank you for your the commitment you have made to all of our children and thus to our community part of your job is to make some very difficult decisions as unpopular as they may be and that is to ensure that our district can push forward and continue to provide quality education to our students I wish that we could hear four more families in our district but I am here as a parent and as a parent I'm asking you that you need to be brave you need to make the decisions that are necessary to make sure that our district is fiscally solvent prior to Cobra 19 and school closures we were already dealing with a pressing a large school deficit now with the may provision that just came in we're gonna have to cut even deeper if we continue the way we are are a role to fiscal solvency is far from us yes Jaster decisions need to be made and they need to be made to ensure that all of our students continue to have to receive a quality education not just this year not just next year but five ten years down the line as a parent to be honest I am tired of the continued requests for more data we've heard that over and over again over several months and as we continue to ask for more our district is digging itself deeper into a larger deficit I also keep hearing some other members of our community state that you know students are not gonna have PE music art which are all electives that I love dearly and that yes I think are important in our children's development however if we don't meet if we don't we're not fiscally solvent and get taken over by the state we're not gonna have any electives to choose from and I appreciate all the work that everyone in our community does and I understand that it is not easy for people to be laid off I I don't like that either however we're not the only district in the state or in the country that is facing these challenges there every district I know for sure in the state of California is facing some very difficult decisions and it's gonna be is going to have to address large cuts to their district so again I ask you to be brave I asked you to focus on our students because no one would have a job if we didn't have students and I ask you to prioritize that and make the decisions that are needed as even if you are not liked by some and we appreciate your bravery we appreciate the courage and all the energy that you put into this thank you thank you and next up is Ali Munoz nice oh hi there you go you're like I thank you so much so I was calling to I was calling I came in to follow up on the issue of graduation ceremonies based on my discussion with you guys last week it was my understanding that the superintendent was going to get back to the board with a clear directive as to what what route we're going to be taking to celebrate these very deserving students who are being very patiently I might add bit very patient and I'm just here to follow up to see if you guys made a decision if you guys have more information if you're better prepared to to move forward with a decision I like Nathan Ariana's idea about moving it further out if necessary so that the students can get what they a ceremony that is it that meets the requirements of what a graduation ceremony should be in a safe of course manner it was never my intention to think that we were gonna be unsafe but life is going to start moving forward and we need to start thinking about what does life look look like for us from here on out this is our chance to to set the tone for the rest of our city for the rest of our students that we are able to go through something like this and and come out shining like the Phoenix out of a fire this is what I want for our students and you should want that too everybody should want that too we need to put our heads together and make sure that that these celebrations happen in a timely manner and and that they are indicative of how we what how we support our students with that said um I want to thank BL Ariana's for reaching out to me and following up with me regarding my my or discussion last last week so Thank You Gabby for reaching out I know you're all very busy I appreciate how busy you are you have a lot on your plate from everything that I've heard today and since I'm here I also want to touch base on the this K through 8 thing that I'm hearing you guys do you guys even talk to your students does anybody ask the students what they want I'm just wondering because I worked with students for many years and just listening to them you guys are gonna crush them if you take away their middle schools this is not good for morale for either teachers or students or parents I don't know how this how this happen I don't have all the information but I can tell you right now that is not the route the route to go so you guys will be in my prayers please please take the time to listen to students and listen to parents and listen to your teachers thank you Thank You Allie okay next is Christian does Molly hello can everybody hear me yes thank you hello my name is Christian Demery and I am a seventh grade math teacher at Foothill Middle School and I've been a teacher in our district for 24 years about six years ago I left Foothill for the new k7 school that was beginning that fall at ellington after a few months there I realized that the concept that I thought it was going to be for students did not match the reality of what it was for the middle school aged students there was no PE structure PE at this age is vital and a well established PE program in middle school sets the students up for success I had to give the students what was appropriate for seventh graders not an elementary version of it there was no defined elective program an elective program in a middle school is so important for students to express themselves academically through other outlets the elective program we had ellington consisted of two days per week and was facilitated by the teachers in the 618 and a few other teachers we had to have something to offer three times per year one for each trimester that's the elementary grading period there was no avid program that was offered like at Foothill so the students lost out on all of the opportunities of tutorials and other aspects that make Abbott very valuable in addition to having to teach PE and an elective we had to teach two subjects now I know that in the elementary setting and in the sixth grade teaming that is the norm in seventh and eighth grade students benefit from a teacher who knows his or her material very well and has honed and crafted his or her style to meet the needs of all learners as a teacher who has dedicated himself to math I know that the students lost out on some amazing science teaching from the likes of the professionals who I have dedicated themselves to quality science instruction I have seen firsthand over the years at Foothill what caring and knowledgeable science teachers can do to unlock curiosity and Wonder in our students who maybe don't excel in other subjects the teachers dedication to science over the years has rivaled my dedication to my students math learning I was not able to give that science instruction the justice it deserved as it would have been from those other expert teachers additionally the time was not dedicated to it and history in the master plan of minutes in middle school it receives its equal share of time I would also like to know how many parents who were advocating for k-8 in Azusa Unified are completely informed of all that there is to know about a k-8 setting Ellington's parent base was informed on prior on items prior but were not aware of all that maybe was to come in terms of the major change to the elementary setting in my opinion I don't feel that many parents know all that entails the k-8 situation the middle school bridge to a high school is a realistic mode for students to begin the process of multiple teachers assignments and responsibilities my last thing so more vocal representatives may be speaking for a smaller group there also may be others who in this situation are uninformed indifferent or maybe unsure but a true representation would be much more valued by all stakeholders involved if a realistic representation were given not solely relying on an estimated projection of unrelatable dollar amounts and one last thing I'm sorry the concept of timing is everything is really important right now and so we have some other needs to address and I don't think that a discussion right now of ak8 is really something that we should be focused on thank you so much I appreciate that very much no worries thank you and thank you for getting my junior high and high school French going and look who's next hi can you hear me yes hi I'm so sorry I did not want to speak until I started listening to the conversation so I don't have anything written so please I am very nervous and I'm a parent and I was one of the parents who was at the PI plus meeting when they spoke to us in regards to this K through 8 model and what I think it's really important that I say on record is that the information that was given to us presented to at least me I will speak in regards to myself it's not what I heard once it was presented to the board the first time and I was very discouraged to go back to the practice meeting because it was a whole day I had to spend there I even ask the questions in regards to are these kids going to have the sports and they said yes and one of them is here present in the cabinets and I'm not very happy about that because I know that they're saying the parents wanted but to be honest with you there was only about 15 parents and the information was not completely given to us to be honest with you now that I think about it it just felt like like car salesmen trying to convince us to buy that car once we go sign that paperwork the finance charge is not what they said it was gonna be and it's sad it's really sad please get informed please get all the information and it's very discouraging Thank you Thank You Libby okay nobody else anybody else there's one more no the list doesn't go that long so I'll let you know when we get to the end of the time okay thank you whoever has the Galaxy Note nine username you're muted I clicked for you to unmute yourself give it a couple of seconds oh there they go do you wanna you're lying yes your life okay hi um when I started learning espanol por kisses medium I mean hombres Rosa yo yo yo tres Nina's en el distrito escolar de souza a primer lugar por favor quisiera pedir leis Alport member Casey porfavor quiero que tiene ser alchemy take a siesta for mondo para ayudar a la decisión de empezar Alana's collar meant a venti you know si por favor Sammy puede tomar in cuenta me me petition el otro commentary's que los padres de familia por favor queremos ser participate in todas las decisiones que se hace en el distrito la mayoría de los que estan open ando estan nosotros tenemos dos por que por que son nuestros hijos los que están en el distrito también tiene mucho do Pienaar ustedes tienen que escuchar low opinion de ellos es el futuro de nuestros hijos yell futuro de este pais oh no estrosi hos queremos mejores programas para ellos con el plan de que true a nacho chewy es tanky Tondo muchos programas y también la oportunidad de una mejor education de nuestros hijos SE los agra Desco gracias por el tiempo que me quiera gracias okay so now we move on to I am said point zero Connor okay item seven point zero comments and requests by the board seven point one board member Rodriguez opinion yes good evening everyone first of all like you congratulate on all the classified employees for the happy classified employee week and I want to thank them for their hard work and dedication to our students and the schools they continue to serve in this very hard time and climate change it we have you know we couldn't count on the rain or shine nice seen him out there serving lunches and the other day I walked my meringue and they were on Getti the school supplies ready it was a big old truck blow to school I'm like what's in there and these school supplied with they're all ready from the custodians to people from the district office from um food service you know I mean even hope the secretary of our tutor Tigger and they're all ready to go with their masks on with their gloves on ready to work and I just want to congratulate and thank them for all their hard work and and I and I did listening listen in during the task force to the beginning of school and it was great because they had you know parents teachers administrators principals even the nurse union representatives and they all had very good suggestions and great questions on the opening of school and I'm really glad that they've included all those different entities from our district because you know again they work there they know the climate and even their own schools so I'm just glad to hear what the outcome is going to be and we went on Monday morning to go with the long side on the students homes and I want to thank mayor Gonzalez and his council members and also our school board is unified for our collaboration in making this happen students and parents were very appreciative and it was nice also to go to one of my colleagues house and her family and they were all happy come out taking a picture her husband and her daughter her son Nathan is a very nice young man and he was very happy to receive his his sign and the at this time Azusa leadership Ernie Educational Foundation and sister city we've been reading scholarship applications and we read like forty six scholarship applications from all the three high schools so I'm really glad that the students participate they were able to get their scholarship information in and the counselors and the clerk's gave them to us and we're reading them and we have the name so we gave them to the school sites and they don't want us to say the name until they award them and and I just wish all the kids good luck thank you board member person's office thank you I have a couple things one I just want to first start off by in recognition of all the public comment and which I appreciate listening to I do hope that as we move forward and eventually come back to meetings in person that we find some way to continue a modified approach maybe even a hybrid approach where people are able to listen in via online and even give public comment online I think that I can we can we can all see the value of the making it easier for people to participate and so I just want to make sure that we find some way to continue that along with looking same lines I just want express appreciation for our district because I now that we have the opportunity to watch other other districts or agencies in action I see many districts only doing like email your comments in and will read it out loud to you and then we'll limit it only to a certain amount of time and so I think having a forum and the fact that our staff was able to quickly put it together this approach where we actually have can have live public comment I think it's very important so I just want to express my appreciation for that um and I of the pieces that were commented on I think those are the graduation piece and then the the school configuration space are on the agenda so I'll reserve my comments for those pieces around those during those comments doing those pieces but I will just say I'm hoping that especially with the graduation piece even though it's clear from from the county that they're saying that we cannot do any good breath through graduations I hope that we can maybe find a way to write a letter to the county urging them to reconsider in fact in light of the fact that pretty much every other County is allowing such things and so I think it's only fair to our community to our students so that was the last thing I had to report on and well actually one more thing and then like Yolanda I really and I was able to spend a little time handing out yard signs to seniors this past week and I think I think any way we can find to find to recognize them it is very important so I'm glad we were able to do that one thing especially in partnership with our city cop the City Council thank you remember greer your mute can you hear me now we could hear you now alright I was I was I was pretty far into it but so first just want to say good evening to everybody and yeah starting off it was an absolute delight to be a part of just the collaboration of folks that were out giving happy delivering the the signs to students was absolutely incredible to knock on I think one of the the favorite ones was a knock on the door and there was a brother who answered the door who was clearly had just woken up and I mean so there definitely was it was a surprise to many folks as we were showing up but it was it was just a delight to be able to do that in and yes I was joined by Councilman Macias and sir the city manager as well as a chief of police and and lika was there Marta dr.