That first period of the day is where the majority of our bad data comes from. So, we are going to pivot that focus. So, and Katie, you heard from some parents like, "What do What should I be listening to?" right? So, we want to get really intentional about those communications next year. And we're we're really strongly looking at pivoting to asking teachers the first period of their day, making that the focus group that they are all in on. Now, obviously, if they see trends with the student later on in the day, but really get to know your families in your first period of the day, get to know your kids in that, and let's work on getting kids here to start the day and here on time. Cuz once they're here, it works. It works. So, we really need to dig in on that. So, we'll be looking at the action plan um as to how we do a little more of that.
>> Sure. >> You can't read my lips so it won't color her opinion. >> So she can't hear. >> I'm starting to know your voice. So >> wow. I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult. Um so um I mean we do particularly the strategic portion of this are the types of questions we like. We we really um looking at things like what are the interventions that are being implemented. I think one of the places that we sometimes get a little bit ahead of ourselves is if you look at the level of detail that we include when we get to next steps because there's been some push back by the board on next steps. we've gone to an extreme level of detail and I think that's one of the places where we've kind of exploded our progressive monitoring reports and they've gotten too voluminous and probably a place where as the board gets better at asking strategic questions we can pair down >> and then address those components in the strategic piece.
Plus, then it takes some work off of teachers' plates and refocuses it into an area that we think will make the biggest difference. So, really, we're asking things of every group, right? From the board, this visible consistency in what we're doing, ownership of the action plan. We'll eventually bring an action plan, the how, to go with the why and the what. Uh for staff, continue to expand on those, increase the likelihood the students will engage. If you remember last year, uh even in the opening message to staff, talked about doing 100% of your 50%, right? You can't make a kid come to school, right? You can increase the odds that that might happen. It's the same thing with engaging. You can't force somebody to engage in what's going on, but we can increase the odds that it might happen. And that's what we're we're going to be working on.
So it's a very long- winded way which is why Dr. Pal was getting used to my voice because I used too many words. Um, it's a long-winded way of saying though like that strategic component of that question is really one of the things we enjoy digging in on when we get a chance to go back and take a look at um strategically what's working, what's not working, what adjustments are we making. It also gives us an opportunity to showcase where most of these progress monitoring reports are functionally postmortems. We have to have the data in order to present it to the board. It takes a certain amount of time to prepare the report. there's a certain amount of lead time to get it to the board, give the board time to absorb it, give the board to ask their questions. So typically in that window of time, ballpark 6 weeks passes.
For students, we want them to continue taking active ownership of their learning, stepping into those new expectations, leaning in. And families, we really want them to partner in those routines, ensuring on-time arrivals this year. Both sides of town did uh both administrations on both sides of town did tardy kind of interventions, interviewing kids as they came through the door to start the day. Whether it's true or not, a lot of kids their response was I'm late because my my parent made me late, right? Or they're standing there with their Starbucks that they waited in line with with their parents as they got dropped off to school, right? So, uh we're going to really continue communicating with families that like it's important to get here on time to start the day, then the rest of it takes care of itself. It's you It's hard to learn if you're not here, it's impossible to engage if you're not here, right?
So by the time we don't have 6 weeks to wait for kids, right? Kids are only with us 180 days each year. So in the intervening time period, we've already done our assessment and we've already implemented changes to our inputs and our strategies to the best of our ability to adjust. And so these questions cause us to then go back and look at those things and see are they are we starting to see an impact from those. Right? And so it it really puts us in a position to reassess the work we've already done and then also showcase the work we've done and come back with a deeper answer related to here's what's been done and here's the impact that we're seeing at this point. Did that make any sense or >> to me it did. >> I don't know if to the board. >> Yeah.
So, uh that's the the way we turn this up into the next school year. Uh over the next few weeks, I sent my survey out to staff today. One more survey, uh where there's a couple of questions we're asking, which is uh can you support this is our statement of work for next year and any kind of general feedback on that. Two questions on what they believe student engagement looks like in the classroom, and student disengagement looks like in the classroom. Our research partner EAB, we've been working with them of what the researchers say engagement looks like and what it doesn't look like. We want to pair We will pair that with what our teachers say it looks like and doesn't look like. So, it's Here's what the researchers say, here's what our own experts say, and kind of put those things side by side in a matrix.
I mean, for me it does. Um, because what? Yeah, it does. And I understand why he says that interventions versus instructional or getting too much into the weeds, why that can not only cause more on them to try to figure out and add more on the on the report, but it kind of really doesn't tell us anything either, right? It's just telling us what they're doing. It's not really telling us okay out of what you did how did you notice if it's effective if it's working or not and that's where the strategy play comes in right cuz we can learn about technical and technical all day but it I still even when I get my technical and tactical question centers it still leaves me confused on well I'm not I don't know if we're moving the needle or not. So board members understand that you definitely especially as you're newer you want to ask technical tactical because especially if you don't know how something is being done or by whom you want to get that information as you progress and you get better as a board member and you get that that um you build that muscle in governance you can really start to lean more into the strategics because you would have understand you would have understood the technical and tactical.
Um we will also be working on I've shared with the board a draft of considerations for our action plan. Uh should the board approve this on the 18th as a statement of work, then for the next kind of 4 to 6 weeks, we will work on taking those considerations, making them a solid action plan with solid data and metrics that are going to be measured behind those things.
So, who's given the the assessment tools? Who's, you know, how are how are we assessing children? Are we assessing too much? Um, are they aligned to to to the goals that we want? Um, I heard something really cool in one of your recent board meetings, your leadership team referenced highquality instructional materials. Unless you're in education, you may not have a full understanding of what those look like. Again, technical and tactical time for you to maybe spend with the leadership team like, "Walk me through this. help me understand how are the high quality instructional materials aligned to the assessments and the assessments aligned to the final exam. I think the challenge of most school systems that and I've heard it in your board meeting if you if you're getting complaints that we're assessing and we're testing too much, there might be some misalignment from high quality instructional materials to assessing to to to giving the exam to children.
Um So, any questions on that? Why or what up to this point? All right. It's a lot to take in. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's why we won't be back to ask you for a yes for 2 more weeks. So, you have all of that information including the document that went out to the staff today. I encourage you if you haven't had a chance to dig into that to to dig in. Um there is a lot of information there and we're very transparent with the work that we're we're doing. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Gina for the consolidated district plan. >> Thank you. So, I'm going to talk to you a little bit today about the consolidated district plan, and I often say that this is not the most exciting thing to talk about. However, I want to point out today that I was struck by the students who were at the ISBE um student summit, and what Ryan and Romina shared just about AP classes and AP testing and the student shared about internships and intro to teaching and all of that because all of those programs that we have, all those courses that we have are actually part of the CDP.
What happens in a lot of school systems is that we we over test and we over assess and that might be for a lot of different reasons. What your team is doing here is you're fine-tuning that. But you lead the way by asking the questions >> strategically because getting me technically those questions isn't going to help change that. >> Only thing that it will really help is that you understand how it connects to the strategy, >> right? >> So don't hesitate asking technical and tactical. Be clear that your technical tactical have got to lead to the strategy. question. Is this a measure focus? Does this reference specific metrics and data in it? >> Yes, >> it does. So, it meets the measure focus. Is it askoriented? Is it open-ended? >> Yes. >> Is the tone asked in a manner that's not confrontational or accusatory? >> Yes.
And so I thought the timing was was good for that. So we're going to dig in and it is still very much at this point a draft. We just uh last week um Ken and April joined us for our our uh parent teacher advisory meeting and we're still getting feedback from those that attended. So there could be some little tweaks, but this is our eighth year of doing consolidated district plan. There have been a few changes this year, but it's not they've they're really not that significant. They are identified in the document that I shared um that's in the um online for the board and for the public in red, those that are newer or changes. And so the CDP, as we call it, is a single plan that encompasses all of these various grants. So title one, um only South High School is a title one school and that's primarily funding that we receive for academically at-risk students.
>> Does it seem respectful and and and in a professional approach? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, it meets the askoriented. Is it results focused? Does the question focus on understanding data rather than sharing opinions? >> Yes. >> Good. Is it time bound? Does the question focus on current performance or past actions or future performance? >> Yes, >> it does. Which one is it? Past or future or both? >> It's a little bit of both because she's referring to the past and then she wants to know what's going to happen by May. >> What do you think, Tristan? Well, I think specifically it's future from now >> to Maine. >> So, at least we're clear, right? And it's okay if you ask both. You just want to be how do we get here and then where are we going? She's specifically asking you for the interventions and the strategies around that.
Title two, we heard a lot today about professional development and title two funds, it's the primary grant that funds PD in District 99. We get two title three grants and they work primarily with EL, our English language learners, our EL students. We also get title four grant which is about well-rounded education and that provides various programs for our students and then our IDEA grant. And basically the plan requires that we look at various data points and these are the data points that we looked at for this plan which will go into effect for next school year. So it's fiscal year 27. We looked at graduation rates as a key indicator. Primarily looking at four year, although we do look also at fifth and sixth year, but we focus more on the four-year because of course the goal is for all students to graduate in four years.
So this if if what's the only area that we could probably strengthen this question in out of the smart acronym >> just make it a little bit um more um specific I would say >> close okay measurable attainable realistic time bound strategic okay >> making it more strategic >> more strategic than that great job Katie look at that all right Second one is this strategic. Let's start there. >> We use the word strategy. >> Blade again. I'm sorry. I can't see. >> Might not be >> strategery. >> Yeah. given a percentage of emerging bilingual um or increasing one or more proficient level proficiency levels in preIBBM 1 and preIBM2 by 4% and given that 25 to 26 school year only 1% in preIBBM1 and two were the same strate were the same strategies used or something or did something different happen so one is it strategic Well played.
We looked at we look at ACT scores. We even look at pre-ACT scores, but we focus really more on ACT scores. We look at chronic absenteeism, which you heard a lot about tonight and even something that's being talked about our students at the summit by our students at the summit. And then we looked at first semester grade data. And we look at all of those data points with the intention of looking at what interventions and supports do we need to put into place to support our students. So the plan consists of a series of questions in both that needs assessment and in those interventions. And this is some of the takeaways that are embedded in the plan. And so while if you look at our all data, it's pretty good. If you look at our graduation rates for all students, it's very good, both fourth, fifth, and sixth year.
>> I mean, yeah, I guess I I'm not joking. I'm being physicious since Tristan already said this, but I mean, we're talking about strategies, I guess. >> Well, he's asking were the same strategies used. >> Oh, so it's a little more basic. >> Yeah. >> Is it focused? Does it does it reference any specific data metrics? Yes. >> Yes, it does. Is it askoriented? Is it open-ended or is it a yes no multiple choice question? >> It is ask oriented. >> What can you say? >> It's kind of a quasi one because they could make it pretty closed ended qu like answer based on just picking from the strategies that were available or were used. >> Yeah. Because it's same or different. Yeah, >> it's an or question which is a yes no. >> Yep. >> Yeah. And so here's here's the thing board. When you ask them technical technical questions, they can probably give you a pretty quick response, but it's not going to lead into an in-depth conversation, >> right?
But there is some disproportionality. And that means that certain subgroups of students, certain groups of students, perhaps low-income students, called economically disadvantaged by the state, or our Latino students, or our EL students, various different subgroups, we see lower rates in some cases. We also have students who will fall into more than one group. And so the data can sometimes be skewed that way. And then we look at interventions not just for the all of our students, but also for those specific groups of students. And so as we're addressing the questions, we're looking at that data for all students and for different groups of students. The plan asks us to answer various questions about the programming that we have, and that's where it kind of relates to some of what we heard tonight. Some of the changes from previous years, we do have one more AP class that the board approved in the fall, coming on board for next year, AP Business with Personal Finance, which we're really excited about.
When you ask them to tell you the strategies and you leave it open-ended, you let them tell you what's relevant and what they've been gathering over the years or months with how you process things as a board meeting, as a board member. So, I highly encourage you to ask them open-ended. Don't lead them down a pathway and then close it. Leave it open so that they can really highlight all the things. And if you think that it's all roses and peaches, then what? tell me some strategies that maybe aren't working as well. And that's kind of where I think you were getting at with this question. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. And one of the things we talk about a lot, you've probably heard us talk about it in in our board meetings, is our strategic abandonment because one of you have you have two challenges in education.