Um median income, we did not have that specific information. We did not have that data collected as well. Um labor participation rate, all the way to employment rate, is um from the US labor, you know, statistics Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, out of all the data that you collect today, what things have you done to adjust the plan? It's a really good question. I mean, I don't know if you want to be a part of it or not, but I think the first step was really creating an initiative to recognize the needs of the students and then adjust the personnel. Um and then we have the elementary schools versus middle schools versus high schools versus college and career ready schools. The counselors explore not only colleges, but career opportunities. Um in addition to that, in the bar teachers such as our math teacher, our science teacher, physics and chemistry in the classroom, um they often have um employers, businesses, partnerships, things like that come in and talk to our students so that they can ask them what they're doing.
Um there's really multiple layers of this. Um probably don't want to hear me talk about all the things, but it is definitely it is definitely what we're talking about. My question is is that how often is this data collected? How often is it shared? How often is it reviewed? So, I think it's probably fair to say that we've always collected the data that I talked to you about in the past. And we have um shared that out in pockets or within our schools, but I really think we're drawing the end of the state that we need to share that out more more with our community, which is why last May, we gave the first Community meeting, round table or community meeting with students who are giving the district. So, but I think our community would be that we probably need to share this information out after the board meetings like this.
It's with our state and names. We would need to share that out maybe through the newspaper and our articles about what we're doing. And that we are also be sharing with the state because of the GPS system. So, now it will be required after the 2024. So, that way Yeah, it's shared with the state. We also we also would be sharing it with our education workforce advisory team, which is our very large state workforce. We meet twice a year. Um this would also be information that we would share out in our new um ambassador program that will um roll out in August in the fall. So, we have we have a lot of uh platforms that we want to be able to collaborate and communicate of things that we are trying to do um to to meet the needs of of all the So I I guess if we're if we're going to break this down and looking at it because you can collect data through your implementation.
What metrics are you using to measure the success of the things you're doing? I can't say what they are. So to date what's been collected from the state is not the same as what is being suggested in the future. So the state the state that we state report information that the state by law requires us to report through a state reporting portal, right? And then if you look at our website, there are state report cards that we're required to publish on the front end of our website. There's also a link to our data portal called In View which allows you to look at any data. But there is a published report card that we have a link to which is a PDF and it has a page for the district, has a page for every school, and it talks about about our test scores, talks about our suspension and expulsion rates, talks about all that.
That's what we state reporting because that's how we've been evaluated by the state. Right. So But my question Stop talking. Cuz you asked me the same question over and I stopped. It is an evolving process. High school graduation on track. That is being checked on a regular basis because if it's not being checked on a regular basis, it's not going Keep it checked. graduation on track. So therefore, there are processes in place to make sure students graduate So what's the question? Listen till I finish, sir. There are processes in place to make sure those students stay on track to get the credit they need to graduate even in December of their senior to graduate early or by that following May. So the some of these are things that end of the year some of the things are things that are constantly going on. There is not something you can walk up and put your finger on there and go see that it's a long process multiple departments multiple people and just get set some of it is beyond our control is required by the state.
You want to go argue with the state you can go argue with it. No I don't want to argue with the state but I want to understand how it's how it's measured using this program what targets are they setting and how are they measuring it so it sounds like you're being measured by the state but not. Yeah yeah I will I'll tell you what I don't know that if we will be able to answer that in very succinct manner right now I would love and I'll follow up with you tomorrow and we can set up a time and if maybe we can get some some other people in so we can discuss that if that would be okay. The other question I have is how long has this program been in place? It was started last year. This so this so this one hasn't been funded before.
That's what I said a pilot 2025 is the first class that will be subject to this pilot. I I what I'm not this is something that existed before that. No no no and in fact what I wanted to point out too is that the state is having terrible problems they say these are our goals but even they can't decide on the definition of what is hard work right what is communication skills like they're still grappling with how are they going to collect data that meets these these words and these goals and so you they haven't even told us yet in some of these cases how that's going to be measured. So things that is in existence in that first block. Right things that you kind of have in place for. Right which everybody has right now. It was not my understanding that this was something that was just starting it was my understanding that this is this is way that this is starting.
No and that's why we're talking about like here this is why we have folks who are in this not who are getting us ready to to be ready for these things. That's It's a It's a whole new But then again, you always get to look at, you know, "Where are your test scores?" And you know, a lot of all of us move beyond that. But then when you move beyond that, how do you exactly compare it to this district to this district to this metric or something like that. And that's really difficult. So, what's No, so it's not just us. We're not coming up with those standards. Right. So, what's what's the metric that you feed back to the state to make adjustments? Is that sort of it? Is I think this gentleman's right. You know, I think he's going to answer some of our questions.
No, no, no. I'm just saying at least that you're the key. It's all going to be posted on like the state's website so you can keep track of these indicators and see how successful your school is. The goal is to get to see how successful your school is in real time. Is the goal. And part of the whole this is the completion of the graduation pathway. So, graduation requirements have changed uh just slightly. And so, you can see there's three different buckets. You got the You got your diploma type. So, you're you're accomplishing um enough credits to receive a diploma, whether that's for 40 academic honors, technical honors, or general diploma. There is now a measure for employability skills that you have proof that you've completed some sort of project-based learning, service-based learning, or work-based learning, and then produce some sort of product that shows that, whether that's a portfolio or artifacts from those different experiences.
And then the last thing is the post-secondary ready competency. So, you got an SAT score or an ACT score or an honors diploma will check off the box for that post-secondary ready competency. But the one I wanted to focus on here, which is the new part, is the CTE concentrators. So, if a child doesn't have a high enough SAT score, doesn't receive an honors diploma, or high enough ACT score, there's an option here for class of 2023, and then class of 2025 and beyond to be able to complete certain what they call CTE concentrators, which I'll explain in a little bit more detail here in just a second. That would be their means to achieving that box along with their diploma and then their honors display of consumer skills. All right, so this is called the next level program of study. And ultimately, what the next level program of study would be is that a child would take three different courses, a principles course, then what they call a concentrator A course, and then a concentrator B course.
So, whether that's take a course their freshman year, their sophomore year, or their junior in one program of study. All right, so if they decide to take uh biomedical pathway, all right, they would take principles of biomedical science as their principles course, and then they would take the next two courses in that sequence. If they get a C or higher in those three courses, that would then be their means to graduate outside of an SAT score or an honors diploma. Right? They do have a capstone course there, which is anybody that is completing it for four years. So, maybe they want to go to the fourth year biomed program. I know he has a couple students in that fourth year biomed program, and it's almost a uh it's a capstone course where you have to do some independent study, some research, and they have to come up with a presentation.
Um in the class. So. The state has authorized certain uh programs of study, um that schools can offer, and my team has been working to try and determine which programs of study we are going to be able to offer in-house at our county high school. And to try and determine which ones we would offer, we've taken several things into account, and one of those is just the needs of the region. All right. So, Regional Opportunity Initiative, I've had the opportunity to take part in a career coaching uh fellowship over the last couple months. We meet once a month, and they've kind of given us some insight. We've had a crane, and we met over at IU at the uh the biomedical the life sciences center. Um And also over at Ivy Tech um at the the bio technical center there. And so, they talked to us a lot about the jobs available in our region.
After conducting a regional uh needs assessment, they determined that there's more life sciences jobs in this region that can potentially be filled. There's like hundreds of bio technical jobs. National Security and Defense um down at Crane have tons of jobs available. Advanced Manufacturing There's a lot of It's just been It blew my mind when I went to ROI how many jobs are available with just the main just an hour's drive over here. And these jobs were available before the pandemic. Yes. So, we really kept that in mind when we were trying to figure out the programs of study that we would be offering here at the high school. Also, keeping in mind uh just some of the the local values and the local needs um as far as the arts, entrepreneurship, hospitality and tourism, and then also just sustainability of the community. All right. So, that's one thing that my team has been working on.
Um other things involved with the Career Connected Learning Initiative um really revolves around We've got 20 goals that were set. Christie is above. Um 20 goals for the district. I just put four up here that I feel are personally relevant to my role at the high school and my team. And so, part of our work this year has revolved around helping to develop a corporation education workforce advisory board um and then eventually, academy councils um for each academy out of that educational workforce advisory board. And we had our first meeting reconvening meeting. That was back in December where we got a group of local stakeholders together um to learn about the different opportunities that they could serve on the education workforce advisory team. One of the biggest things I spend my time doing is aligning our professional development to career connected learning in our PLC meetings that we have weekly here at the high school.
As I said, I'm a master teacher, so I help lead those. And I'm kind of the guy that puts the career connected learning spin on there. Um because leading professional development at the high school can be a little tricky because you got departments and teachers teaching different things. We found common language when we talk about employability skills, right? It's something that all the teachers can get behind and find ways to implement in their classroom because it's not math specific or English specific or science specific All right. So, that's just the lens that I've been helping to kind of develop um during our professional development in our PLCs at the high school. Uh we've developed a schedule that has our academy leaders meeting in academy planning time. So, during SRTs, um 38 minutes every day that we have uh I meet with our team members and we are working to develop and implement uh CCL lessons for all students um that they have at that time.
So, the whole goal is that we're working to intentionally develop a career learning system that meets the requirements and needs of the state, region, and the county, right? This is ongoing work. This is just my first year um in the position. But, what I'm trying to say is that the state is kind of taking notice of some of these bigger picture items, right? Some of these career um connections, the ideas of work ethic, communication, those kinds of things. And so, we're proactively trying to give teachers the resources um and capacity to be able to implement and intentionally teach those things, right? Rather than you know, okay, I had my students gave a speech as far as that checks the communication box, but how do you intentionally teach those students how to communicate effectively? And I just sat in a lesson the other day where one of our other master teachers led a lesson to a freshman on just how to the art of small talk.
Right? How do you start a conversation? How do you ask follow-up questions? Different things like that. So, that is some of the things that are going on um with the career connected learning initiative there at the high school. And also, we have been working to tie this all together with developing programs of study, which is now a requirement by the state that can help some of our students graduate and ultimately can help our region, help our community, and help students graduate to be able to be prepared to go into one of these fields And so, these are the ones that we kind of laid out laid out here with advanced manufacturing, life sciences, national security defense, arts, hospitality, entrepreneurship, and also as far as sustainability of the community, we've got construction, early childhood development. Those are the ones that we have outlined so far. And Mr.
Austin is what we present to next week. You guys will have the pleasure of hearing Mr. Austin give you the rundown of the different programs of study and the courses that go into these programs of study that students will be able to take next year in the high school. If you're interested, come back next week and you'll learn more. It's all pressure. I'm I'm wondering if we need to add um under sustainability the I mean, think care of what you're There is one. thing after that. Yes, our team did talk about there is an education professions, but there are some constraints to be able to offer people in the future. And that's how the day care and that that will be against brain will be a one sport and want to be a therapist and want to be a social worker and want to be a teacher.
It is a lot. All right, we're going to talk about something. We need to overlap too with some part of the study. I think that we can as well as the capacity of the early childhood education courses can also serve as some of the principal courses in other areas of business and the arts. I have two questions. Thank you, Mr. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Bird. Sure. Very good. Yes.
We do not have any discussion items. Uh next we have approval of public session minutes from January 20th, 2022. Do I have a motion? I so move we approve the public session minutes from January 20, 2022. Do I have a second?