001We will call the meeting to order. Please read me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is anyone reporting the meeting for the Mr. Arn and roll call? Mr. Boyer, please. >> Mrs. Sorenza >> here. >> Mr. Hershey >> here. >> Mrs. >> here. >> Mrs. Phillips >> here. >> Ms. Rodriguez, Mr. Shippers, Mrs. Taylor >> here, >> Mrs. Torres, Mrs. Zitzki, here. >> You just like to welcome our visitors this evening. Thank you for being here. Um there is some there are some upcoming meetings. There's a finance budget and facilities workshop this Wednesday, March 11th at 5:00 here in this room. And then there will
002be a board of school directors meeting on March 23rd at 6 PM also in this room. Um is there any public comment for this meeting? Okay. Uh then we can move on to approval of the minutes which will be done by voice vote. Um it is recommended that the board of school directors approve the following minutes. January 12th, 2026 board meeting minutes. I have a motion. So moved. Second. Any discussions. Okay. All those in favor? >> I. >> All those opposed. Okay. Motion passes. Um we're going to move on to our board liaison updates. Um and we will start with curriculum which is Mrs. Zinsky and Mr. Hershey. Mrs. Aitz. >> Hi, thank you. Um, I don't really have a lot to report, but I do think, um, I chatted with Dr. Woodard, and tonight's
003meeting is going to include a number of things related to curriculum. So, that will sort of fill in for what would normally be maybe a curriculum workshop. Can you correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Wood? >> You are spot on. Thank you. >> All right. >> Great. Thank you, Mrs. Zinsky. Um, Mrs. Phillips, facilities. um you just announced it. Um the only thing I can say is we have a meeting this Wednesday here in the forward board room at 5:00 pm for both um facilities and finance. >> So, and I did get a text from Jackie. She's on her way. >> Oh, okay. Great. Thank you. Um Mr. Shippers is not here. I don't know if there's any other than we're having the work the workshop on Wednesday. >> Um and then policy, Mrs. Fred,
004>> I don't have anything particular to you. We have a bunch of policies for Okay, then I think we can move on to our school counseling plan presentation. >> All right, great. Thank you. Uh, so every five years we must submit a K to2 school counseling plan to Pennsylvania Department of Education. So the time has rolled around again. Uh, we need to submit the plan to PTE by the end of March. So, we've invited our representatives from the school counseling team to speak with us to provide an over um overview of that plan. Um it's multiple pages long if you were to print out the entire plan. It actually has to get uploaded into the platform that the state uses. So, we'd be here all night if we were hitting every single page. Um, but
005the school counselor and the school counselors are going to be kind of hitting those real key components and priority areas. So, I will introduce to you the team we have this evening. Uh, so Mrs. Dana Quinn Libbon is our school counseling department chair. She also services students in grades 10 through 12. Miss Kirstston Lebo is a school counselor servicing students in grades 7 through nine. Melissa Kramer, I'm going in order down here. um is our school counselor at West Reading servicing grades five and six. And Mrs. Rebecca Stem Zamoda is our school counselor at The Hill servicing grades three and four. So, it's wonderful that our team tonight is representative of really grades three through 12. All right. So, I'm going to turn it over to them. We have a presentation and uh Dana, if
006you'd like to get started. I don't know the best place to stand here. >> Feel like my back would be there. Okay. Okay. So, um as Dr. Woodard had said, um this K to2 comprehensive school counseling plan is statemandated. Um oftent times it's called uh chapter 339. Um but it is the comprehensive school counseling plan and we do update that this plan every 5 years. So for this um school year, uh the school counseling team as a whole, not just the four of us standing here, have been meeting on a regular basis, as well as working um just sort of outside on our own at at putting at revising this plan since we already have one. Some of the components of the plan have shifted or the templates had changed a little bit um from
007the last one. So there was a little bit of having to navigate that as well. But this uh comprehensive school counseling plan um really it lays out sort of the sequential programming for students that school counselors provide in three domains, academic, career, and um uh social emotional development. It also is really meant to align with the PA career education and work standards. Um, we are currently working off of the old standards, but new standards were finally approved, although we've had them in draft form for about two years. Um, and so those will begin in July 2026. Um, I will say that while the verbiage and the standards may have changed a little bit, the many of the themes remain the same from previously to before. So, we didn't feel like when we were evaluating our
008school our comprehensive school counseling plan and putting it together that we had to make massive shifts to adjust to the new standards because it it really already is embedded. And just if I may just interrupt for one moment, I did consult with Pennsylvania Department of Education because we are in that kind of middle ground where we're still operating under the old standards, the new ones are on the horizon just to ask which standards we were supposed to use for this plan and they advised the older standards because they couldn't determine at that time because this was started in the fall. Um they couldn't really determine at that time how long it would take for the newest standards to go through the legal process. So, but again they're they're similar in nature. So, just very understand.
009>> Thank you. >> So, you should have received a link and you can access our comprehensive plan through that link. It's a big document and it's broken up into the different pieces that you see here listed on the slide. The mission statement, the description of the school's counseling staff. That's just your procedural things. The like meat and potatoes of the plan is going to be the program calendars and they're separated out by month, by domain, and then by type of service. And we will get into later in our presentation exactly what each of those mean. Uh but when you see the calendars, that is going to really describe what it is that is our role as the school counseling team. So you'll see referenced in the plan and the presentation um four letters ASKU which
010stands for our American school counselor association. So they're our professional organization. They have frameworks. They are our ethical guidelines and boundaries. They share what's appropriate roles and inappropriate roles for a school counselor to have. Um they talk about our direct and indirect services with students should be 80% of our time. And what that truly means is direct is that face to face with a student. And indirect is I'm doing something on behalf of a student. So that could be consulting with a teacher, that could be referrals, um collaboration, things like that. And so they do recommend a ratio of 250 students to one school counselor. This plan does align to our ask a national model. So here's a list of all the school counselors, even including the ones that couldn't be here, um including their
011case load. And you can kind of see how that compares to um ASCA's 250 to1 ratio. Um for the most part the you know it's pretty evenly split amongst the counselors. Sometimes there's an anomaly where like one grade level will be you know extra large or one side of the alphabet will have more students than the other. Um and that's kind of explaining this difference here between Dana and Bridget. Um but just pointing out too that Molly has um for that K to2 counseling role has um over a hundred um compared to some other counselors. So way beyond that recommended 250 to1. So a lot of the decisions that come into this plan, how do we get to that point? Why do we write these goals? Why do we do these things? It's all comes
012back to data. Um and I could read everything off to you, but this is just all the data points that go into some of this decision- making. Um, just taking a special note of we look at the number of students that are enrolled in some of our outside providers like our empowerment behavioral health which is our school-based counseling, our staff groups, our social work services. We also are looking at data for our first generation college students as well. Um, and we'll kind of reference as we go through the presentation some of these specific data points and how that came to fruition on some of our goals and program. Other data points that this uh plan really asks us to evaluate um pretty intensely um would really be sort of when when you think of it
013as a K to2 plan, it really is what happens when students reach sort of the end of their time with us and are transitioning out of high school. Um, a lot of this plan, while some while the calendar, the monthly calendar addresses uh how counselors work with students in three different domains, a lot of the rest of what the state is looking for in this plan is really sort of that transition and career programming um for students that we provide as a district. So, this came directly from the senior uh from the profile um that that my office uh puts together every year uh after our seniors graduate or before they graduate and they're reporting out to us what it is that their plan is. Um so, you can see sort of over a five-year
014trend um how those different uh post-secondary pathways um how they've trended in the district. Um what I do want to note here is that we do see that our um students who uh might be going directly into employment um in 20121 I would say that year was really our COVID bubble. We just had students who just were burnt out and sort of um in some ways sort of really just didn't know what they wanted to do and were really struggling to make decisions. But in 2025, what this graph doesn't tell you, but what I can tell you from anecdotally from knowing the students is that employment bubble are a lot of our students who graduated from BCTC and had those certifications to go right into the workforce. And so um they found their passion um
015through the work that that we've done with them, through the work that the district has done with them, and they're off and they're in their their um you know what their intention is after high school. So, the other thing that I would say to note on here is that we always say to students, you know, you you don't we don't want you graduating here from here and not knowing what your next step is. Um, and through the work that we do with students K through 12, by really getting to know them, really getting to know their families, working with them on a consistent basis. We have very few students who who fall in that green. Um, it might be two to three per year who say, "I really just feel so unready to make any
016decision." Um and and so we feel really proud of that work because I do think it's a collaborative K12 effort to get students to a point where they're graduating from here and they're they're feeling like they know what they're want they want their next step to be. Um so you can see the BCTC enrollment trends on this next slide. there's a really big jump from the 2122 school year to the 22 23 school year and then we're just climbing after that and this is also reflective of the different programs that BCTC are adding to their offerings each year. Something that is interesting and I think it is to note uh from the previous slide is that Dana pointed out the employment section of students going right into employment. Most of them are BCTC students. But
017then there's this other subset of BCTC students. It's about half of them that are going to move on and they are going to seek some type of post-secary education, whether that's going to um a career in technical school, sometimes a two-year program, and sometimes even a four-year program. So, it makes sense that we're having more students apply to BCTC and be accepted because they are going in all different directions now. So um we are asked when we're looking at this K to2 comprehensive school counseling plan to think about what is happening when students are exiting the district. We are asked to think about how we're exposing students to uh CTE programming um which that graph showed we've had such uh an increase and also how we are exposing students to career-based education. And so um
018in 2324 while the internship program has existed in the junior senior high schools since about I'm going to say 2018 some somewhere around there. Um I think it was the 2324 school year when RC house was hired as the internship coordinator and so you can see sort of the the trends and the growth. Um so this would just be you know 11th and 12th grade students who are reflected here. Um I can tell you that when we were looking to bring an internship program in back in that 2018ish time frame um all the things that I attended um regarding internship programs sort of said if you had 20% of a of a graduating class participating then you were sort of healthy and thriving in that internship program and we are roughly close to that um
019when you when you map out our numbers. So, and you can play this video. There's no sound or anything, but it just kind of highlights and scrolls through um the program calendar. Um so, it's from page eight of this document all the way to page 106. So, it is very detailed and long. Um it is broken down by um ongoing things that we are doing every day, every week, you know, all the time. um as well as by month if there's specific um activities or supports that we provide um during specific times of the year. Um it shows our curriculum, our responsive services, our system support, individual academic and career support as well as non-counselor related duties. Um and it is also broken down in different way to show um our academic, career and social
020emotional. Um but just the length of this part of our document and how much time it took us to fill this in just kind of highlights how incredibly packed our schedule is and and how much we are doing for students um and supporting our school. >> And this document will be provided in the Friday update. We want to give an explanation of it first and then we'll follow up with that document for you. It's all 180 some pages of great weekend reading for you. >> You don't have to watch all make it too fast. >> Um so just some of the highlights of the monthly calendar. Um so Mrs. Molly Chesl is not here tonight but I'm speaking on behalf of her. So a few of the things that she does, we do similar things
021since we work in the same building and collaborate together. Um, but she and I do this peer buddies group. She runs it. She facilitates it. Um, but we collaborate because we pair some of our older third and fourth grade students with some of the younger students to just serve as that connection with those younger peers. She also does career discovery bins. So providing um an opportunity for students to connect some of their interests or start an interest future careers. Some of the highlights that I do with third and fourth graders. Um, we both teach classroom lessons. Mine are broken up into three units for mindsets and emotions, navigating those friendships and challenges. And of course, starting our third unit right now is career exploration. Students are very excited about what they want to be when
022they grow up. I also work with student council, not just after school, but during the school day, and they keep me busy with all the projects that they are up and running. We also run our Spartan skills program which is different character traits that they practice all month long and they have an opportunity to earn a golden ticket to be selected for a prize at our behavior assemblies. So these um are the monthly calendar highlights for West Reading Elementary. So fifth and sixth grade. So I teach guidance lessons as part of the special schedule. So every student, every home room receives 30 lessons for the entire school year. Um you know these are some of the different topics covered through the lessons. Um, I also help run and facilitate the fourth grade visit and the
023fifth grade orientation to prepare students for that transition from fourth grade to fifth grade. Um, have a big role in planning um, and implementing the Red Ribbon Week kind of celebration. Um, that's a week dedicated to making healthy choices, saying no to using drugs and alcohol. Um, so that's a a a big thing that happens in October. Um, and also just highlighting something else on there. I do run this web store. Um, so that's a a store where students can buy um prizes with tickets, behavior tickets um as part of our positive behavior support system. Um, and part of our career um curriculum is including sixth graders who can compete in an entrepreneurship related um class competition. I'm presenting on behalf of the seventh, 8th, and 9th grade counselors. So that's myself and then also
024Mr. John Patit. We wanted to highlight the things that we're most proud of that we do throughout the year. And the things that we chose were the fact that we meet with every single seventh, eighth, and 9th grade student at least once per year. Um, that is an initiative that we started this year and we are going to continue on with that because we see value in sitting with every single one of our students. Another highlight is the fact that we take the entire eighth grade class to BCTC. That way every single student gets on that campus and they can start to think about if that is an option that they are going to pursue. And then something else that I will speak about a little bit later is that we have some plans for
025next year and one of those includes at least two career and post-secondary planning lessons per year um with every grade level in the seventh, 8th and 9th grade band. Um, from a 10th and 12th grade perspective, it's myself and Mrs. Bridget Mayberry. Um, a few years back, um, just as more things sort of kept being sort of added to our plate, we have new state initiatives that continue to come out and things like that. Um, we felt like we were starting to lose touch a little bit with our 10th graders. And so, um, Bridget and I made a really concerted effort to say, "No, uh, we need to meet with every single student once per year at least, um, every single year of high school." And so we have that mapped out. We have 10th
026grade get to know you appointments. We meet with every 11th grader, meet with every 12th grader. And yes, we do postsecary planning with those students. And yes, we do academic planning with those students given where they're at in their high school career. Um, that's really appropriate. But it's also the opportunity to do a social emotional check-in with those students. Um, and so getting to know that student is really how I can help them in that in that way. um and and figure out um what what else might be needed to support that student. Um so we really do keep that hands-on approach. Um that's always been a cornerstone. You know, this is my 20 uh well, this is my 16th year in the school counseling office. It's my 21st year in the district and the
027school counselor in Wyoming area has always sort of the expectation has always been that hands-on approach. And so I feel really proud that even though different things change and and different needs come up for our students and our families that we've really tried to maintain that as the cornerstone to our school counseling program. Um, we have started to try to figure out where can we fit in other lessons and learning time and things like that for students, which in a high school schedule is very difficult because unlike being in a specials rotation at an elementary school, we have students in all different classes. We have students who are out at BCTC in the morning. We have students who leave for three periods in the afternoon for an internship. And so, it can be really difficult
028to find try to find those common times. And we also have to keep in mind um every when we get to our level, you know, sometimes students need different things, right? So you have pockets of students who might need this or pockets of students who need that. So we've started to offer lunch and learn workshops um where we just kind of take the the the learning center room or whatever in the library. I forget what it's called, but and we we um we tell them to bring their lunch and we sit and we do like a mini workshop on different tasks that can be in all three of or different uh things. that can be in all three of those domains that school counselors have. So, um and then this year we really tried to
029embrace parental involvement and really uh tried to shift our programming a little bit um rather than just participating in teacher-led conferences. In November, Bridget and I offered our own conferences to parents of 10th graders for anybody to sign up. So, it was a great opportunity to just build those connections um and make sure that we're all working collaboratively to help students So, in the video that you had seen previously, it broke down the different things that each one of us do on a daily, a monthly, and a yearly basis. We then had to take all of those different items and then portion them out so that we could very clearly see where we're giving our students uh the exposure to career and technical education and then also trans transition services. So you'll find that in
030the document as well. One of the things that we're most proud of is the fact that both the career and technical education and transition services truly does begin in kindergarten for a white missing area student. Um not sure that that could be said for other school districts, but we're confident that every student who is with us in kindergarten is exposed to that. Um, and then something else is that we are continuing to try to wrap around these services to the entire student and that includes their family. So, we're trying to have these conversations and communicate out to families the different things that are available to all of our students. An example of that would be an upcoming new event that we are hosting at the junior senior high school that is going to be a
031career and technical education and transition fair. and we're purposefully hosting it from 2 to 4. That way students can access it during the school day. They're here, they can just go to the fair. They don't have to find transportation. But then also, we're offering it until 4:00 so that anyone from the community is able to attend that as well. The document still goes on program goals. Um so all the data, everything that we shared with you up to this point. Um the next thing that was asked of us and things that we we continue to do and revise annually are having program goals, not just one goal. We have to have one goal for every domain. So that's academic, career, and social emotional. Um so we're each going to kind of highlight a goal that
032kind of goes into one of those domains. Um so from a K to4 standpoint, we are really really proud of our attendance initiatives. Um, we is not just me and Molly, we are part of a team and we sit down every other week and we go through all of those data points that you saw earlier on and really look at attendance patterns and look at what else is going on besides I see a UL for unlawful absence. Um, and then we can kind of customize those attendance initiatives and supports for that particular student or family. Um, and because of that, over the last couple years, we've seen a great improvement of students being present in class versus being at home or somewhere else not in school. So for West Reading Elementary, um one of the
033goals I wanted to highlight was a career related goal um that we have um by the end of the fifth grade year, all fifth grade students will have completed at least two um career artifacts to be collected and recorded in PIMS as part of our um CEW standards. Um and this is one of the many times where we have to collect those artifacts to kind of prove along the way that they are being exposed to different career related um things through curriculum and other supports for the junior high counselors. We would also like to highlight our career goal. Our students in the 7th through 12 building participate in career day and so we rely heavily on career day to collect our career artifacts. But we believe that having those more individualized sessions with students in
034the classroom setting is really important. And so for Mr. Petite and I, we are going to aim to have two career and post-secary education lessons in grades 7, 8, and nine. So the realignment of our social work services continues to be important so that we can serve our entire student population by delivering those career lessons. And then similarly by sharing the delivery of the new seventh and eighth grade SEAL curriculum with teachers, it allows the junior high counselors the time that's needed to address the career education and work standards that we are responsible for. So I I mean truthfully when at the 10th through 12th grade counseling role is you know heavily academic and heavily uh and pretty heavy on the post-secary transition. Um, Bridget and I do go into uh, English classrooms. In 10th
035grade specifically, at the beginning of the year, we um, do focus our initial lesson more on the personal social development of students as they're coming into 10th grade. Um, and so we do have we have Naviance, which many of you know if you've had children in the district, we use that as a college and career search tool. Um, but Navvian also has some surveys in there that really are a little bit more uh social emotional and so um Bridget and I plan to shift our lesson um next year a little bit to use the surveys uh to use one of the surveys that's in Navvian. We asked 10th graders to do some goal setting for 10th grade by having them do some self-reflection. And so the survey just gives them the opportunity to uh engage
036a little bit more deeply. um and with their own data um when they're building those personal social goals um for 10th grade and then the rest of high school. So, it's our way of trying to sort of incorporate that back in because we know that a lot of our job really kind of takes us in those other domains. So, >> if I could just chime in too, I know um Miss Lebo mentioned the seventh and eighth grade SEAL um lessons and currently our team of teachers, general ed teachers are piloting, they're trying out some resources. The first half of the first semester, they tried out one specific resource from a vendor and now they're trying another resource um to see which the teams like better. So, it's really focused on social emotional well-being. Um, and
037it's really important to mention that because that is going to be integrated into our 78 model next year. So, one of those reasons we talked about separating the 78 from the 9 to 12 and changing that schedule is to really have an absolute tier one, meaning all students get that instructional delivery in social emotional well-being, which I think we've all agreed is necessary. So um we also incorporate screeners. We talked a lot about you heard me talking about screeners for literacy, you know, can students identify letters? Can they read certain words? There are screeners for the social emotional piece as well. So we've integrated those screeners and the nice thing is the information that we get from those screeners can be followed up if students need some tier 2 some extra that is beyond what
038happens in the traditional general ed setting. We have work our counselors to help out with that and some other pieces and tools to help out with that too. It doesn't fall all on the counselors but tier one doesn't fall on the counselors. We're coming together as a faculty to address that. So, um, we're looking we're excited about that because we will really have that kind of K to8. >> Yeah. So, that's exciting. >> So, the seventh and eighth grade teachers are teaching SEAL in their regular general outside of what you guys are doing. >> They will be doing it right like in their advisory. So, that's that class that we have identified in next year's schedule. So, now that we have a few pilot teachers in each grade level trying it out, correct me if
039I'm wrong. Here's um, excuse me, I'm choking over. So excited. And um we'll embed that into next year. So I may be a seventh grade team member in social studies and a seventh grade team member in English, a seventh grade team member, but I have specific curricula follow and such and it's consistent across seventh grade and then consistent lessons across eighth grade. >> Sorry about that. >> Excuse me. Does anyone else have any questions about that or do you guys want to elaborate on that? >> I would just like to say um we really do see that it is best practice for curriculum to be integrated across a team. So that means the school counselors but it also means the teachers and it it gives them the opportunities the teachers to very naturally bring up
040the things that they're learning and teaching in that curriculum when it comes across their classroom on a daily basis. Like I think of uh teamwork. Well, in a science classroom, I would expect that students are using those teamwork skills pretty naturally. And so if a science teacher is teaching the curriculum, they can very easily in a natural way come back and say like, "Oh, we learned this in advisory two weeks ago. Do you remember when we were talking about teamwork and those skills? Bring that in now." Um so I'm excited that that is going to be a possibility for our teams next year. So out of this 33page document. Um, you know what came out of it when we when we sat as a school counseling team and looked at it. Um, I mean, first
041I do have to acknowledge the hard work of all of the counselors uh, in my department. I think um, we're very fortunate in this district to have some of the best. Um and so it really does give the opportunity to say what's working well, what are we doing um that we feel is really strong and also to look at, you know, how do we how are things aligned? Um through this process, it's given us the opportunity to even say like are we, you know, Melissa heard me say one time about a way that Bridget and I describe um career career pathways to students and she said, "Oh, I love that vocabulary. I'm going to start to use that as well." And so it's just um you know seeing seeing the full curriculum in those monthly
042calendars which is really the bulk of this document um just just kind of re reaffirms what we do every day. Um it really does clarify our role um where our role stops and starts um you know within the district within the ASA framework. Um, and it also gives us the opportunity to have dialogue with our administrators, which we've been able to have over the past few years. And that's why things like changes to social work services and things like that are so important because it gives the school counselors then the opportunity to make sure we have the time to do the proactive work with students. That really is a large part of that as the framework as well. um and that we're meeting all students, not just students who are coming to us saying we
043need something, but we have the opportunity to seek out all students. Build those connections. Make sure that we are helping all of them as they progress through our school system and then transition out of out of our school into their next step. Um you know, we've mentioned goals and data a few times. Every year we look at what are we doing? What is the data telling us? Do we need to shift something? Um do we need to add something? So those are all uh conversations that we have every year. Um the first time we wrote this plan um again was precoid and one of the components of the plan is a school counseling advisory council and then COVID hit and sort of all those types of things went by the wayside for a little bit
044but we will be um reinitiating that school counseling advisory council. We are currently looking at June um of this year. Um, and that's just a great opportunity for us to partner with all of the stakeholders in the district, students, parents, um, administrators, teachers, board members, business, uh, business community, our post-secondary partners in the Burst County area in particular, um, and make sure that our our plan consistently aligns with those needs. So any questions, comments from >> I had a quick question. It was just interesting in the beginning when you talked about um the ratio of student to counselor. >> How much of a concern is that? You know that it certainly looks like at the hills there's, you know, a big big load there. So I don't know how much of a concern that is
045or, you know, does that fluctuate? It fluctuates but it's still a concern. >> Okay. >> Um it like our one grade level has 105 students. That is very low compared to what it will grow to. Um especially with our enrollment surprising. Um what's hard is she's got three grade levels. I've got two. Um and what we do works, but we do rely on our other resources like our social workers and our school nurses, our administrative um Dr. Mrs. K. We rely on that approach. um because it is a very big field. >> Two questions for you. Um one's kind of basic, but I should know it, but I don't. What's the difference between a social worker and a school counselor? >> Social work is a completely different degree. I mean, school counselors sometimes are um
046uh thought of as therapists. um that became especially sort of a popular idea I would say during COVID and there was a lot of you know concern about how students were doing and so um and you know I think mental health at that point became a bigger part of our job for that chunk of time but um none of us here have a have a therapy license um that would actually be like 12 additional I'd have to go back and get more credits and that's you know school counselors really are more uh proactive and and reach all students where social workers um I think it varies, you know, from district to district and it varies. Social workers can work in so many different capacities. They can work in a hospital, they can work in a
047school, they can some social workers have a therapy license, some don't. Um >> sorry, I I wasn't clear about my question. I just meant like within the educational setting. within. So, our social workers typically work with smaller groups of students or individual students um maybe who are um struggling and need extra support or need uh teaching of skills or maybe a link to therapy and sort of social work sometimes can operate as like that intermediary while the student is getting connected. And then they also work with families who um are struggling and maybe need connection to resources and things like that. So there's some overlap in our roles. Um but there are things too that we know like this has gone sort of beyond my ethical boundary line and I need to now tag in
048somebody else who has more training than me in this area. >> Yeah. >> I would also add that our two social workers function very differently because one is our employee and one is a tower health employee. >> So there's some limitations there um as opposed to being a senior solution. And then does anybody else the other question I had um and this is a little off topic but not really because it's a great opportunity to have you all here but I think you know that our we have a strategic goal that the board set several years ago of mental health as being a priority strategically and we're getting ready to talk about whether those goals are still valid and whether they need to be tweaked. Maybe you can't even answer this question, but can you
049help us understand what you see as far as students mental health in general? Um whether it's still in your opinion an acute need, whether it's gotten a lot better and it's all fixed, whether it's getting a lot worse. Like can you I don't know if you can even quantify for that just maybe sort of anecdotally what you're seeing with your boots on the ground. So, I will say that I think the further removed we are from CO um I don't want to say it's less of a need because I do think that there are still mental health needs for our students. I think though that if I compare now to what I saw in the school year which was the first year we were back from uh the hybrid schedule. There is a big difference
050in I would say larger percentages of students and their more positive coping strategies. I am not at all saying that mental health isn't a need though. Not saying that in any capacity. We certainly do have students. Um I think depends on the grade level too. I mean we're working on sharing and manners and hopefully by the time they're a little older it's a little the mental health needs shift. >> Um so it's definitely a great conversation like depending on the building of the the grade level bands. But I also want to add on I've seen a shift in just the mentality of accepting services and going to services. And now it's a the other day students like ah you're going to miss someone's office like no big deal. It's not like a shameful experience or
051a like something's wrong experience. It could be just I was checking in with them or talking with them. Um and that's really great because the hills the way our suite runs we have our empowerment schoolbased therapists in that area too. So when kids enter that like suite no one knows that they're coming to me or next door to the therapist or to the social worker. But that's like a safe space and is a common feeling among parents, students, and then staff, which is great to see. >> Yeah, I do think that having the addition of the schoolbased therapy has been fantastic. It just takes that one barrier out, right? Um and so and sometimes even students will say, "Yeah, my schedule is really busy outside of the school day." And so the opportunity to access
052services during the day is really important um because they can get what they need um and not have to make a choice. Can I play my sport, you know, or am I going to have to miss every two weeks? So, um, yeah, I I certainly wouldn't say it's not a need. Um, but >> have you seen progress? >> I personally feel like I I mean, I've been here the longest, right? So, I personally feel like I have, but I also think we have data that tells us that, right? Like the pace will get pay survey data, right, in the summer, correct? So that will tell me if I'm right or wrong, you know, and if I'm wrong, then I'm certainly willing to reassess because right now all I can say to you is anecdotally >>
053what I'm seeing. But I think we need the data behind that, which is where the student screeners come in and pay his data and all of those things. So >> thank you. as school counselors, do you directly work with like children experiencing homelessness or medical issues or um I I believe you guys are responsible for 504 plans which is different than the IEP team and all that others. Do we have any data on like our numbers of students experiencing homelessness or other different needs? >> You're looking at me so I'll talk. I'm sorry. That's okay. Um they do manage 504 plans for students with um non-medical needs. Our nurses manage the medical needs. Um students experiencing homeless, they may be the first contact or the first question of it, but then I manage that. >>
054Okay. >> Um so I have all of that direct contact. Sometimes I tag team that with one of our social workers. Um, an example would be right now we have a family that's really really resistant to having a van show up at the hotel that they're living in. Um, but they're not coming to school. So, we're trying to kind of massage that and provide supports for the family and and help them see that we're here to help them. Um, what was your other thing for me? thinking of mental medical I think that was it >> I you know things like student pregnancy that's our junior senior high school counselors and then myself connecting with the IU okay >> um so that would be a medical need that would fall under them >> but mostly medical
055is our school >> okay and I know there's resources out there being a school social worker myself um I just didn't know if there was like a quick one pager of like number of kids experiencing homelessness, number of kids working with the teen pregnancy program just to kind of give the board an idea of how many of those students you guys are supporting as well as the social workers and all the other people involved. >> Yeah, that's I mean we don't have that currently, but that's something that could easily be provided in a Friday update to give you kind of a >> quick glance at the demographics. I mean I was absolutely but like just this year alone I had three not only experience >> students experiencing homelessness. Yeah. >> And immediately just like you
056said when we hear about this usually it's the counselors I hear first. Um and then I'm usually my first phone call is Dr. Linkl and then my second is across the hall to our social worker Mrs. Hatton. And it's a collaborative approach um because every case is so different in the needs that they might meet. Um, but it was really, really upsetting to hear that I agree this year. >> Thank you. >> Just to piggyback on Mrs. Hernand's question, which I thought was great asking about mental health. Obviously, we, you know, we'll be refreshing the strategic plan, are is there something you think that we should be paying particular attention to? Um, and whether that's, you know, career oriented or social emotional or academic or is there anything you think that we should really like,
057hey, this could really use some attention or some, you know, resources that we're maybe not already thinking. I know that's kind of a loaded question. I so I I guess I would say when you receive the document on Friday really spend some time looking through it because um that monthly calendar really does tell the tale. The monthly calendar in in addition to at the end of that for each grade level band there's an ongoing calendar. So you have to imagine then that all the things that are happening within the month that we say we're doing the ongoing things are all hitting at the same time you know. So spend some time really in a detailed way looking at that to sort of get a vision of what that might look like on a day-to-day basis
058for us. Um so we're busy >> and that's not a complaint. >> Um I think we all would say we're busy doing what we love which is working with students. Um because we again we have that really hands-on approach. Um but we also know that our students and families are coming to us with more needs, right? And so that's why realigning social work services and bringing in empowerment behavioral health. So it's a matter of what other uh service services might we need or what are the other bridges that we might need to connect students to so that we don't lose any of the other work that the state is really saying is essential work that should be done by the school counselor. Um because that's really what this plan is. It's the state driving it
059and saying these are the things you should be doing. And when you when we do the upload, can you answer yes to this question? And if you can't answer yes to this question, what will you do to remedy it? So thank you. >> Thank you for your work on this. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, school counseling team. We appreciate it. Um again, it has been hours and hours and hours of work. So We thank you very much. >> And thanks for being here on such a beautiful morning. >> Thank you. >> So I can enjoy it. >> Thank you everyone. Thank you for all you do. >> Thank you. >> There we go. >> All right. >> So we are going to transition from the school counseling plan discussion to the device pilot
060review. If you recall back in the call, uh Mr. Arnson talked a little bit about the idea to shift to Chromebooks at the secondary level uh for a variety of reasons, not just financial um but for a variety of reasons. And so we promised you that we would come back later in the school year. We're at that time now where we're coming back to you to really talk a little bit about how the pilot because I know we promised that we would have some teachers utilizing Chromebooks as well as some students utilizing the Chromebook. So, um we have been able to do that across a variety of grade levels, across a variety of disciplines and content areas. Um and we're kind of here to to tell you what we've learned through this process over the
061past couple of months. So >> thank you. >> Yep. So as you know in December we brought the topic to the board because it's that time every four years where we look at devices and uh the unique challenge this year was that um significant changes from our existing device manufacturer um coupled with uh some issues with some of our educational platforms. So, um, to kick it off, the topics that I'll be going over this evening, um, and I I almost had Dana to stay. She was very close because she originally brought some of the AP course implications to our attention. And then a little bit about the state testing implications, educational platform, software considerations, printing, student support stats, and then uh, and there won't be many stats. Keep it very short. And then next next
062steps. So um next year with the 20 well excuse me moving forward with the world languages uh they are going to be requiring a headphone jack which unfortunately is not available on the new iPads. Um and also the AP classroom content um sporadic issues with embedding the content on iPads. tested it with teachers on Chromebook devices and of course it it worked flawlessly. Um and also looking for especially for those of you who had students who were in this situation summer assignments. Um unfortunately what we currently have to do is we have to collect every device in the district. So if there's,900 students, we're collecting 1,900 devices and as fast as we can, we try to update them individually, flip them, turn them around so they're ready to be picked up by students in some
063of those advanced courses and other students obviously um so that they can use them then for summer assignments over the summer. So potentially starting the summer of 2027, we would have to do that because as we've seen from many of the neighboring districts, um the devices could be kept over the summer. The updates rather would be pushed out globally rather than us going through individual devices. So the management system changes. Same thing with the state applic uh the state testing implications. Um, again with the WEDA with DRC, anytime you run into an accommodation, you're going to have an issue um with with that element. Um, and the act has pulled the iOS app version. Um in terms of educational platform considerations, the big um big players are veneer in science class. Um the Pasco probes
064function on both platforms. Open sad unfortunately um we had we ran into a situation with one of our teachers upstairs who was going right into our observation and luckily she had tested everything on the iPad first. we learned didn't function properly um but was able to work with us quickly. We were able to provide her with cart and everything went flawlessly for her observation um with the administration. Um and then >> excuse me if I just chime in just open sad you might be wondering what's that open sad is the curricular resource that we're using in sixth seventh and eighth grade for science um and also for ninth grade physical science. So it is an educational platform um that is it's open source so we can get that. So that's wonderful. um we just simply
065purchased the veneer probes and the different types of um supplies that we need but we recognize that um not all of the open sed and and things that you need to do function on the iPad but they are working on Chromebooks. >> Yes. and our ELA team uh approached us about Turn It In, not so much from a gotcha perspective, but more, you know, as a tool, you know, helping the kids prepare for college and with their writing. Um, unfortunately, also does not function on the iPad, but they're delighted that it's been working great. Um, and they continue to expand it every week upstairs. Um, it was originally one teacher, now it's three teachers. um with note-taking and annotation. Currently, um what's being used is a program called Notability, which runs locally on the iPad
066device. Um which is great as long as everything is syncing and doing what it's supposed to be doing. In the event that something falls out of sync, unfortunately the device is damaged, there's the potential loss where in complete honesty and transparency, a student could lose their notes. Um, and unfortunately there's virtually nothing we can do about it. Um, in talking to a neighboring district that also migrated from iPads to Chromebooks this year, um, Dr. Wood and I had the opportunity to sit down and pick the brains, lessons learned, how do you address this, what do you do about that? And also some of our teachers that worked at other districts and now we're here. Um, what we learned about was a program that was demoed by one of our teachers a couple years ago, which
067is Cammy, which does a lot of the same functionality as Notability, except for it's web- based, and with the way it's set up, students wouldn't lose valuable notes. Um, >> and and just a note on Notability, that was the one thing we heard from a lot of math teachers. if you can't replicate Notability and its functions, we're not really interested in going to a Chromebook because they felt that um definitively that Notability is key um in in the iPad use and math class. So, it was our goal to find something that replicates the functionality of Notability that can be used on a Chromebook and thus Cammy is the direction we can go. >> Right. Right. And this is a great point um segue to definitely mention I mentioned it briefly in December, but one of
068the things that's been very very positive is the fact that the model that we're looking at has a touchscreen because several years ago when a lot of districts went went to Chromebooks and we went we stuck with iPads, it wasn't really an option. Now it is an option. Uh very similar glass like the style of glass so it's very resilient. Um, and then right before the meeting, Dana and I were recounting our we're in the fifth week of dealing with Nvian issues on the iPad. Um, again with some new content issues where on our device and with the Chromebooks that we provided the guidance, it works perfectly. Um, in addition, from a hardware perspective, um, the iPad does not come with a physical keyboard. So, we've been purchasing Logitech Rugged Blue keyboards, using them as
069cases. Unfortunately, they they're they're expensive. They're $99 a piece. They retail for $149, but Mark and I got a great discount. Um versus the other device where they're integrated. Same thing with the trackpad. Unfortunately, there's not a trackpad. So, through the through the experience with what we're doing upstairs, it's been interesting. You know, some students know how to utilize a trackpad, a lot don't. Um so, that was another good experience for them. And of course plugging in a mouse not something you can do but with the ports it's certainly available. And then printing um without getting heavily technical into it. There's different ways to achieve it. It's easier on the Chromebook compared to the iPad. Um and it avoids some of the interaction that's necessary for prompting and reauthenticating some of those things that kids
070have to go through a lot. Um, from a classroom management perspective, um, teachers have not had an opportunity to utilize this yet. We've been piloting internally. Um, we do have a tool that could fully replace Apple classroom. Um, which is how the teachers currently when students are in their class, they're able to observe their screens. Um, they can't take over the mouse or anything like that, but they can temporarily shut things down. Um but with securely which is also the company use a content builder um it gives them additional tools they can leverage for example if this was a class and Dr. was teaching it and I was on Huddle and she's prompted me three times and Mr. Boyer's over there on YouTube she would click click Huddle goes away and so does YouTube for
071her 41 minute long period. when I leave and I go down the hall to Mr. Hershey's class, maybe Mr. Hershey allows me to do that when my work's done. Completely different scenario, but for the 41 minutes that I'm with Dr. Wood, her rules apply, which is something we currently can't do. Um, and there's some additional features um with that as well as as a parent. Um, this one I rings true for me. So, student support stats and I'm not hitting you with a lot of numbers, although I could. I could show you charts and graphs. The important thing to know is we've had over a thousand kids visit the technical support center this year. My goal, what I believe, what we, my team should be striving to is to keep those thousand kids as much
072as possible, not in the technical support center, but rather at the classroom. And if a lot of the things we've been tracking are related to specifically to the device and we can make an adjustment, keep those kids where they're, you know, where they're learning and experiencing things. Um, everybody wins. um everything won't be perfect. There there will certainly be needs to go down and get support but um numbers you know stats don't lie in terms of setting up uh right now with all the app configurations signing in and and everything that we're doing we're somewhere around 25 minutes for per for iPad. Um, however, you can take the other device off the shelf, have the student sign in, and minute, 2 minutes, they're up and functioning. Can't beat that for a student. Um, with their
073documents, the iPad stores locally, which again, if there is damage or something happens with it, if they're not saving it to Google Drive and they are saving it locally, we have a problem. where the Chromebook web based. And then again, the summerware implications, we can really turn things around a lot quicker for students. Um, especially if we allow them to keep them over the summer and then we're just concentrating on new students. And before I get into the the actual teacher feedback, it's important I I have to pause for a moment and I want to make sure I acknowledge everybody um because had a lot of people help with this. Mr. Ruiz, Eric Ruiz, department chair of the social studies department. Um, check things out for us. Mariel Jordan, department chair of the ALA English
074language arts department. Um, and also Michelle Hat and a couple of her other teachers. Chris Nent, who's the department chair of the science department. Um, Megan Tierney delegated it to Dan Kaufman. Um, but she was very busy with mini fun. Okay. Um and and Dan was great with with lots of interesting feedback and of course Dana who um with our school counseling department was involved. So I'm not going to read all these to you obviously. Um just a key couple key ones. For example, one of my biggest takeaways was that using the Lenovo Chromebook is that many educational websites and platforms simply function better in a browser based environment. Um seniors like the Chromebooks. many said that they wish they have had the opportunity to have their own. Um we only had one student who
075carried it with them nonstop because we with it um being cart based. So where some of the kids wanted to keep it, they we didn't have it set up like that model. Um another interesting one, some of the issues our students have with the iPad here, my children never had with the Chromebook when they were in high school. Um, and moving on, um, additional teacher and student feedback. Uh, my students really seem to enjoy using the Chromebook for our last paper. They comment it was much easier to type on and it having access to the toolbar being formatted much easier. And then, um, we tested Chromebook and puzzle work without issue. From instructional standpoint, that reliability makes a big difference because it allows me to use the digital tools they were designed for. Um, you
076get the general themes that we're seeing here and you can certainly I'm not going to read all these to you please read them at your leisure um and then students uh mostly seniors and uh we did loop our IT intern and we tried to focus on these areas um for example display and the camera 90 94% it was better or the same as the iPad with the keyboard itself overwhelmingly um favorite the keyboard again 95% or better unfortunately kind of hard to compare the headphone jack filing what we know uh browsing and the battery life um again um in the 94 percentile printing 80% or better there were quite a few classes who did not print um and we told them if you didn't have the experience parents don't don't count into it. And then
077the trackpad again similar um from the perspective of they don't have that you know and it was interesting because we asked them also what challenges did you face and a lot of the students were no nothing really need to get used to it which is natural which makes sense. Uh the question about how the camera functions would they be provided a stylus um I was going to talk to the PTA maybe we can help out there. Um I think it's a neat thing um for them applications and programs themselves. Um what we what we saw there is there's definitely a different understanding between navigating apps versus websites because within the apps in the the iOS ecosystem everything's basically self-contained and when we're doing all the work we're doing we're signing them into things we're setting
078everything up where with the web version it's a it's a lot more a true browser experience and then we asked them for additional feedback. Um, again, it was different, but the same and lots of comments about signing in was definitely a different experience. Uh, easier to type than the iPad. Um, the screen is larger, browser runs faster, and then, um, which all makes sense. It's all logical, but, you know, the kids were truthful. And moving forward um the recommendation at this point is given given the input from the stakeholders um our own experience over the last 5 years of using the devices with B we've used them with our par profofessionals we've used them with custodians we've used them over the summer with summer school um wide variety of different staff we've even used them
079with the food services employees um and also So um considering the choices that our existing vendor has made with their product development um I feel confident the best course of action is to move forward with the recommendation of migrating uh one to one to the specifically the Lenovo Chromebook for next year. Um with the preparing financing options uh Mr. boy or not, we'll prepare a plan very similar to what we've done in the past for our network switches, uh, security appliances, servers, teacher laptops. Um, the exact same way we go about all of these projects. And, uh, then the most important thing, sorry Mark, after the the finances is developing what we've identified as necessary training for the kids specifically. Um, we have a product class link that's really taken off with the younger kids.
080Um, it's basically functions as a single sign on experience. It's available to the high school students, but it's not utilized very much upstairs, but that will make getting into all the educational resources a lot easier for the students and that's what we've seen with other districts. Um, so we want to leverage that, make sure students understand that. also the app versus the web browser experience because there is schooly as a website along with many many many of our other educational platforms and typically what we see is the web-based versions are the ones that are more maintained more modern um we abandoned the iOS app because the website version is so much more so much better content and so much more robust and then file management folder structure which is more of a housekeeping thing, but
081it's going to be very advantageous for the kids. >> Uh, knowing, you know, this is how you set things up because again on the iPad, it's a very different world. Everything's app based. Um, so any any questions? I know it's a lot of information pretty quick. >> Mr. What is the I guess finance anticipated savings or extra expenses for this transition? Um, at this point we're we're anticipating I guess the correct term would be a significant cost avoidance. Don't have an exact number for you. Um, because we're still doing our negotiating uh but it it should that's how can I put this not the driving force behind this. um for all of us >> most likely won't it will save more time on the staff that they can be able to divert to other IT
082needs that sometimes don't get their attention I should because of the amount of time they spend trying to transition that iPad especially over the summer is a very busy busy time here especially with the IT department and when they can actually uh free up some of their time to be divert more to other initiatives It's going to be a huge savings to the district. Um there is a financial implication because the device is just cheaper period. Um not because cheaper in is designer manufacturing but just it's a lower cost. Um which means that there's probably some need to have some extra spares around uh just because of it's just a different device than an iPad. Um but um and then some of the the um and please correct me if I'm wrong, but some of
083the software needed to just run the iPad is iPad specific and it's not needed when you go to the Chromebook. So that's where your cost savings really comes in. Um but the big factor is just time. Time to get a Chromebook to a student um over the summer, not having to collect them all. Um those are huge things that um would just free up the staff that we have once again do those other initiatives that sometimes don't get as much attention as they should. I do understand I remember from December that yeah this is not and I really appreciate like this is not motivated by cost saving it's motivated by all the other things you said and I think when people understand that and see that it definitely makes sense >> but I think the
084cost is an extra >> yeah we go to market most likely over a term um typically with four years um because that's what the iPad would get as far as the the life of it and there will still be value uh in that device that we would sell back and then you know transition that right into the next lease. We haven't quite reached that part yet as far as the value of the Chromebook and what that you could expect to have in four years if there's a 4-year life to it most likely would be because that' be like typically determine the device. Um so we still haven't gotten to those weeds yet. Uh but um we look forward to kind of going for that. And the the big thing too is Apple usually gives us
085like 0% financing, which is tremendous. This will have to probably go through a third party provider to to look for that that lease, which will probably get a little bit more cost than what we're used to as far as cost of just doing this, but it won't be tremendous. As far as the um durability, we did check with the neighboring school district who went from iPads to the Chromebooks. Um and they're not seeing any more um issues with breakage and replacements, etc. They said um and another piece that they found that we found interesting was if something doesn't work, they ship it off and it gets fixed and comes back or else it's another device that takes its place that's newer. So, they've had a good um experience with with that, but very very few
086and and with our B students and such, we have not had issues with breakage or things don't work. We've been knock very very pleased with that. So, they've been durable. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Okay. So that concludes our our presentations for this evening and very curricular based. >> Yes, that's great. Thank you, Mr. Piggy back off of that. It's kind of related but not specific to a device. So several years ago when CO hit, um, a lot of our teachers were recording lessons and posting them to YouTube. So kids were watching YouTube videos on their school given devices. Now that we're back in person, my own experience has been kids are still accessing YouTube, but not for school use. They're watching other things. Sometimes during the school day, um I know Mr.
087Arn, you were kind enough to block YouTube from my child's iPad because it was interfering with her learning. Um, I'm just wondering if that's something we can talk about, like what programming is available for students, because I kind of feel if the teacher is going to show a a worthy YouTube video to their class, they can do it during class time. I don't think kids need to access YouTube from their school devices because I can tell you what they're doing is they're bringing their school devices home and they're getting on YouTube through their school device and it's not really what it's meant for. >> Just wanted to throw that out there as a topic of conversation. Nothing we need to really act on, but is it really worth still having it available now that we're
088back in person? Although like you mentioned maybe some teachers obviously may use it to you know show a relevant video for class >> right I know a lot of parents use it for researching >> but I think is what you're saying I mean my experience when my kids are your age is that once they could access things on their school device it made it impossible for me as a parent to try to monitor their usage of things I would like to monitor it because the answer was well I enjoyed my homework and so I sat down and cried because it was all over you know so that's kind of what you're saying right is that it becomes hard really hard for the parents >> but don't we block a lot of that stuff >> we
089do >> yeah that's well especially with regular websites you know YouTube's a little trickier >> because you know someone sit some in their garage and classify something for kids and it not necessarily is for I think it's going to have to be age appropriate or grade appropriate because I know as the there are a lot of like a lot of the kids do go to the YouTube to look at >> like math videos and stuff like that. I know my kid does. So, >> so I think I we have to really have a conversation as to like age appropriate then. >> Yeah. So, >> and and a lot of vendors like the developer software platforms >> post their stuff there, >> which makes it a little bit trickier, too. >> I just know we we
090spend a lot of time in general, not just us, but school boards everywhere about the use of screens. And research has shown that increased use of screens increases anxiety, increases depression rates. There have been books about it and lectures about it. And here we are every day giving our kids these screens to do school work. And if we can assist in minimizing screen time outside of what they need to do, I think it kind of makes sense for us to do that. We're we're taking a lot of initiatives in our mental health, which is an issue um in making sure our kids are protected from online predators and all that other stuff, but then we're handing them this device that they can take home and access things just as easily as they could if they
091had a phone in their pocket. So, just food for thought. >> You can take a look. And I think so >> we've done some things with when devices shut off at night. >> We yeah we could >> we could explore it further. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It's a it's a good certainly a good topic for discussion and I think that's the piece where we can limit accessibility but if people the powers that be tag things differently they're going to go through our filters you know and that's going to be hard so um I think we have to look at it and and try to come up with how can we >> help to ensure it's educational right >> couple years ago we spent a lot of time looking at researching and >> going through different
092scenarios. Um, so periodically we revisit it and >> I'm not opposed to checking it out. >> And a great place to involve parents in the conversation of what can we do to support your efforts to control screen time at home and what is this device doing to get in the way of that? >> Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Uh I believe we're at adjournment. So if I can and we are we um can I have a motion to adjurnn? So move second. All those in favor. >> All those opposed. Okay. Motion meeting is we do have a board workshop for