>> And count against us for it. >> Chronic absenteeism. >> It counts against us. >> Every absence counts against us regardless of the reason. >> Okay. >> Well, it counts against >> I just know that there's a lot of different >> Yeah. >> messages going out to our parents and I think that it can be confusing at times to know and to see like a note and kind of go, "Okay, this is what's expected." Or why am I getting this? Why am I not getting it? Or I feel like there was an increase lately in messaging going out to >> full year there was an increase. >> But I mean just like in the Have we Have we made changes over the >> of students now that are So, if uh they have more than 18 absences over the course of the year, uh or uh by the end of the year, right?
Like I do understand a lot probably a lot more than other people just because I have that lingo and >> and see that but I feel like that community piece is really lost and I know I haven't done my fair share with the community the community piece. So >> yet yet >> I'll just speak for myself. >> Yeah. Thank you for modeling. >> You also the more of this that you do the more you will find ways to to portray the the true picture to your community. For example, when when parents or even students say, "I don't understand why literacy is such a big deal." >> It's it's for you to be able to have the tools in your tool belt to be able to articulate that to any given person in your community. I am so glad you raised that point. Let me help you understand what that means to me.
They are chronically absent. They missed 10% of the school year. So, whenever a family hits that 10% threshold, they get communications to them. >> Okay. >> At this point of the year, you're getting to the point where a lot of them have added up and now you're flipping into the chronically absent range and that comes with a whole set of communication requirements, both internal and external requirements. >> Okay. Thank you. >> How did I do, Cal? >> That was perfect. >> And that is why I did not answer the question. >> [laughter] >> All right. I have a I have a question about this slide. All right. So, I'm not sure who can answer this or maybe we don't have an answer, but I'm I'm looking at the staff um the staff questions for support. Um, I appreciate that we went from 16 to 55%, um, but 55% is still like only half the staff answering favorably.
Let me help you understand when we say that we're looking at meets or exceeds why approaches isn't something that we subscribe to here. you're passing, but you're going to need a lot of help when you go to the next level in life, even just going to the to the high school system. We want to set you up for success. And so, if you can't read, right, what is that saying that students learn to read so they can read to learn? For them to understand and grasp at it, let me give you an example. I was at a I was at a fast food place last night with my wife and behind the counter were all these young people and the number one theme while they're making we ordered a banana split. In the meantime, while they're making our banana split and everyone else's banana splits, the common theme behind the counter was school is not fun.
>> Yeah. >> So, I don't know again that we know the answer, but I would I would love to dig into a little bit more into why that is and what else we can be doing to empower the staff a little more on this attendance issue. >> Uh, which is great leading into the next slide because they have asked for more student accountability and engagement PD, um, as one of their top three asks. So, um, that it's if, like, uh, some uh, teacher was it last year said, um, "Just get them here and I will teach them." And now they're like, "They are here. Help us engage them." And so that is, um, for number three. That, you know, even the research I think that Kelly and, um, Dr. Feely are going to talk about, um, in a little bit, um, talking about, like, the engagement component for some students, right?
School is not something for me. And I'm talking about eight to nine young people behind the counter. I so wanted to say stop making my banana split. Let me drop some knowledge on you right quick. Because what they're not realizing is that the way the way things are progressing or regressing, young people that can't read and that can't learn and that aren't growing as human beings are going to be left behind and will be the ones like my wife said, I wanted to tell them, is that what you want to do for the rest of your life? If that's what you want to do, by all means, have at it. But that is not what you want to do for the rest of your life. by you choosing to not want to learn. Right now, the conversation is what did the adult surrounding them in that system do or not do?
If they're not feeling the pressure to come to school, what's the engagement component that will get them there and keep them coming back? Um, and we last year we started addressing that through belonging and activities and, you know, really making it that concerted push and we've done that again this year, um, but for some students that's not it. They like participating outside of school and it is the engagement within school. Um, and so what are other ways that we can engage students who aren't engaging now? Um, and so that we hope will start to bridge that gap. Also, as we tighten our processes and procedures around attendance and consequences and communicating with the staff about that, I think that will also drive the number up. Um, the AI in the classroom is the top one. Um, we do see course, uh, team collaboration time, right?
Got a lot of wonderings around that. At the end of the day, for a young person to not understand or for a parent to not understand the importance of literacy, that's a gap that you have an opportunity to close. >> And when you go equipped with data, you go equipped with history, and you go equipped with strategies, they may not grasp it. So maybe I just got to adjust the messaging in the way that they're going to receive just enough to be like this matters. >> And what's coming up for me and thank you for sharing that is that I think we also need to do a better job of giving of like where we started where what's happened and where we're at. Right. Because like you said if we can show our community that we were at 0% student outcomes 23 24 but now we're at 33 and we can start putting those pieces to um pieces together.
Um, that does come up as number two. Um, that is something now that that has sort of been a trend um over last year as well. Um, and then also grading policies and differentiation. So, this is one that we've struggled with. Um, that last year this was also an area of struggle. Um, and you can see while it went up a little bit in impact, it went down a little bit with aligning unto the role. We did have a strong focus on attendance this year. We have talked a lot about doing a lot with Infinite Campus trainings as well. Um, I think the communication, like having more administrator time talking to the staff about things that they need to get across. Um, but I would say that of course as soon as I gave stopped giving the survey, um, that it was open until Friday and the Thursday before it closed, they did a new style of PD at South and the last response that came in the staff survey was, "We should do more PD like we did yesterday at South." Um, so that's good.
I think it brings this notion of like, oh, stuff is actually happening and moving. So, maybe that's just um some of the things that come up with me that maybe we can talk at a later time on how we've reinvisioned what our two-way communication and it's a perfect time right now. May's coming to an end. It's a great time to strategize for next year and making sure that we're not leaving that component out >> at the at the risk of like I don't want this to sound um critical or rude. Um, I think it's okay to put a little bit of that in there, but a lot of the feedback we've had from community when we've done those types of presentations is well, I don't care what percentage the board has, like what's happening with my kids learning. I I really think we need to put it into terms of >> Yep.
I wish I had 2 weeks later um to ask that. And again, it was a staff being asked to present something that they were working on their classroom. So, um, we had building thinking classrooms, um, a couple of teachers doing that. Um, talking about literacy strategies. So, um, it empowering the staff to teach the other their peers about things that are working in their classroom. That has been very positive this year and I know that Kelly and the team have been working on, you know, uh specifically with the instructional coaches with cycles um for next year um and really digging into preparing for when our staff our veteran staff um starts to retire and me being one of them. That uh making sure that we're having PD that is taking all of the wealth of knowledge that they have to give us. How do we keep that and then pass that on to our younger staff or our less veteran staff, I should say, as we kind of move forward with PD.
>> what are what are we doing? What impact does it have on your child? And what do you have to share with us that will help us do a better job of partnering with you to create success, you know, for each child's ability to to have outcomes that lead to a more choicefilled lives, right? So like honestly like in my experience the two most effective spaces I've seen um communication happen in one with the board actually both with the board ultimately um have been the conversations with the PTO groups is like those folks really engaged with that conversation and were and were able to kind of drill in a little bit deeper on it. Um and then the other one has been with the kids congress. When the boards come to kid cong kids congress for feedback the students are very open and honest with us and um but the difference is when we go to kids congress the board often puts it on a student level and I think to a large extent when we're dealing with parents it's beneficial to them to put it on a student because they really I mean again I don't mean this to sound terrible but they really could care less what we do in this room.
But that this one you know, is one of our markedly low ones and this is the second year or maybe third year in a row that we've had that. So we are making a concerted push specifically about AI and student accountability and engagement because those are things that they're really asking for and it is you know, something that's forefront of their minds right now. I know that Kelly has a couple of committees going on both of those topics. >> And just to to kind of set the framework and you're seeing how all of these are kind of working together. At the start of this year with the one singular focus, see it like a macro level. It was very structural. Like getting the kids to here, understanding the why, putting in some systems in place from like a macro come to school lens. And what you're seeing is a response in their voice saying, "Okay, now that they're here, let's go micro now like with our PD." You know, at the beginning of the year we were talking Infinite Campus roll out.
Um yeah, >> they can hear about the impact on their >> I agree. But part of the education part of it is what board behavior adapts to how you operate a board, right? And eventually if we want good governing board members here, I think it's important to let our community know that you're going to have to have board members that are student outcomes focused in order for this to continue, right? And it's I'm not saying we spend all the time talking about that, but I think it's good for them to know because it's also part of the work how we've evolved as a board and how we've made this a priority. So if the board gets overflipped or we start getting a new superintendent or whatever and the community starts seeing not this agenda, not this prioritization on SOFG, then the community can come and say, "Hey, that's not what it's been.
Like that's structural and it's not so their responses are reflective of what we kind of anticipated the responses might look like because now we got to dig in. So now micro in my classroom, how do I have engaging strategies so that my students who are present in class are also activated in their learning. So we're seeing just kind of like it almost walks itself right into it. >> Yeah. And when they see the larger structure, they're more willing to then buy into that in their classroom and the engagement strategies because they see that the building is supporting them. So I don't think that we could have done it the opposite way. >> I think too on the AI front, you know, companies are struggling too. And so I love your idea of something we do at my company. We, you know, we have sort of a corporate strategy and how you use it.
What's going on?" on. So, I think it sends this two-way um gathering of them also holding us accountable of why haven't you been talking about XYZ or how my student learning is doing? >> I don't disagree. I just thinking like I'm looking like from a Simon Simon Synynic perspective. Start with why. Why you should care is look um we're we're having more students that are testing out, you know, on their test or that are making progress on their language acquisition. How did this happen? Well, here's how it happened. It happened because this is the way the board and the leadership team have engaged. >> Yeah. And I think also when we do it at a Kraton level, district level, I think there's a disconnect too because parents want to know what's going on at their school site, right? So maybe our town halls need to be more school site appropriate versus districtwide because we throw them this whole district conversation.
Here are the tools you can use, but then everyone sort of and I work very closely with someone who's very into it. He's been doing it for years. He does it on the weekends. And so we leverage him a lot to teach everybody else. Um, so I think that's a great model of there are people that just want to do this in their free time and want to learn the tools and what they can share. And so we try to say to people, walk before you run. Here's a whole host of things. Pick something that works for you and but everyone. So I think that's a great model since AI is the top of your of your list. >> Ryan was saying was they called it spark sessions at South and they did a choose your own adventure um, at North cuz we were at the ready, you know, we're ready to do that.
And I think that's where that whole, well, I don't care what you guys are doing districtwide. Like my kid goes to this school, what's going on here and this. So maybe we just pivot on how we're doing our two-way communication. >> That's a great answer. >> Yep. I agree. And we've got all we've got a lot more examples in the last year that we didn't have before. Um I've just spent the last three weeks going to different communities doing governance overview with students in about an hour to hour and a half. We do some really cool interactive activities. We'll put a we'll put a piece of chart paper on each corner of the room, the four corners. We'll have teacher, principal, superintendent, board member, and we'll read out scenarios and we'll say, "Who do you think's responsible for XYZ?" And then they'll move to that part of the room.
And what we used to do, you know, I'm going back away. I'm I'm old here. So we used to have our PPL share outs and we would like have teachers sharing out what they were learning in PPL. We're going to bring that back to. >> great. It's a great idea. >> So and I love that AI is in the forefront because there is so much change going on. What tools are we currently using in our buildings that are helping teachers when it comes to detection of writing and different AI where AI doesn't belong. What do we have for that? >> Yeah, we're investigating a wide variety of tools. I mean, right now, I I mean, within Google you can see those things themselves as to when things dropped in and showed up and those kinds of things, but there is no singular tool that can consistently detect AI at this point with fidelity.
Interesting to see how students go to different corners of the room because they don't know. For example, one of the main ones, I hope they're not watching, which I don't think they are. One of the questions is who sets the vision and and the goals for your school system. Most young people think that it's the teacher or the principal. And so when we uncover that, right, we get to have conversations because we're extracting from them how they've perceived the world and how they perceive the roles. Once we've earned the right to be heard by them and parents and guardians and community, the pathways open up. Otherwise, there's groups that are getting their elected officials in the area together and they're having a governance overview with them. the adults are more likely to want to engage in a conversation because they're interested to see how israton doing your business community how is this how are our future um community members looking as far as education tailoring everything towards the specific groups we can help you and we can walk you through that all right good com my friends let's transition because you've made some excellent points and brought up some so I've asked the leadership team to bring up the progress monitor report I also want you to have the >> your notepads are blocking our oh sorry our computer view.