001foreign I use this one thanks um before Mr Cantor uh and Mr koshish gets started I just wanted to real quickly mention um that we did have a a follow-up meeting on the 7th and uh some we had some positive traction out of that and as a result we're looking into a feasibility study for a professional feasibility study for the potential of a multi-sport complex in front of the high school so um I just wanted to update everybody on that and I'll kick the can down here to Mr Cantor and Mr coaches um [Music] foreign field the the bleachers have all been completed uh the rubber track is completed at this time and the paving inside has been completed as well the couple pending items are the grass areas around around the track need fixed
002up uh we're waiting for the grass to grow and they're going to come back and Seed it if it doesn't catch and and make that better and also down by the bottom entrance by The Red Shed there's some grass that didn't take there as well they have to come back and do that as well um the wines will need to be painted on the track as well and we're looking towards the end of September beginning of October when their schedule comes available they need two to three days to complete that so uh Wesley's working with us to schedule that and that will wrap everything up then and right now to this point I'll be making a payment for up to 80 percent of the track so they're we're still 20 that we're holding for the
003punch list items and all that as well too so until that's done the final payment will go out then I just also wanted to add that it is the track is open for public use at this time too Eric the lines that you're talking about we're going to use our new Turf little guy to do those way different uh Cindy make sure no the company it's all part of the track cost that we the the track thing that will be professionally done and uh they have to go in and restripe it out it's amazing they have to put two uh stakes in the middle on the field again to make sure they line it up correctly and all that but that will be done by them it's a different kind of pain yeah okay just
004for everyone's information this meeting is being recorded tonight this is the first time so we're going to really push hard to make sure everybody's got a mic in front of them so if you do come to speak to us you'll have to be at that mic and if otherwise it won't be picked up on the recording they'll be available tomorrow thank you Mr uh you got everything else Tim Mr Fisher I think it's your turn your turn for uh Europe report on the high school work yeah foreign there it goes all right I'll be brief uh I'm going to speak briefly about the uh on the agenda tonight there's a humidity uh study that we would like to do in the high school the high school has had a humidity issue since I've been here
005I can't speak to what took place before that because I don't have any information to compare it we all know the HVAC equipment was replaced about five years ago unfortunately there were no engineering studies done or data collected prior to that for me to do any types of comparisons of what we have today versus what we had then I can only tell you what I've seen since I've been here has been mostly consistent in humidity levels in the school so we have over a hundred pieces of equipment in this school that work in our HVAC system here and we need to understand that temperature and humidity are not linear items they don't work like a lot of people feel that the temperatures down the humidity's down it doesn't work like that so we've identified several
006issues to the building that may need tweaked we have found some areas in the building that have pockets of humidity in them there are certainly some things that are going to need addressed I want to do this uh with an engineering study only because I don't want to chase the problem around the building meaning I don't want to start changing things and push the problem to another corner of the building we need to do everything correctly and at the same time so we fix the problem instead of move it where my plan is with the study we want to collect data on everything in the building from the construction materials used in the building all the way through the current functionality of the building of air conditioning what do I expect to get from this
007I've asked the engineering firms to provide us with a list of what they feel the issues are contributing to the humidity and secondly two to three solutions that will help mitigate the humidity to a manageable level I do think this will be a variety of changes some of them will be in our current control system some of it may be new equipment the benefit will be we will have this in front of us to make a decision of what we want to do to move forward um uh we had two two engineering firms respond to me both put in a bid I chose the cheaper bid not because they were cheaper but these guys specialize in humidity in schools they do more work with schools than anyone else they were very professional today when they
008were here and they currently have a relationship with our controls vendor which I think will make it a lot easier for us to to deal with and make changes so that's what you'll be uh voting on tonight on that b-13-23 any questions questions no you go ahead [Music] okay I just have a couple questions first of all what what percent humidity are you talking and for what sustainable amount of time so the percent humidity in the building depends where you are in the building um I feel it changes throughout the year currently it's between 65 and 74. Okay and like for what sustainable amount of time I'm I'm not sure I understand that question like is it that that for a couple days well it changes throughout the year obviously corresponding to what type of
009temperatures we have outside as well so if we have high humidity days outside we will have high humidity days in the building well HVAC doesn't control that it controls it to a certain extent okay so is the problem maybe our HVAC I mean if we just for hvx only five years old so is it maybe like a problem with the HVAC or uh there are other contributing factors the HVAC is not the 100 of the problem though what can you give us oh just dampness in the building you could get have mold grow oh sorry oh you're good you're good nothing I just wanted to share also um that um this is not this this is something that that Heath and his crew has been working on quite a lot over the course of the
010last several months um so this isn't a hey let's just do this um we're you know we're in a place where we we need to do this so that we know what we're doing moving forward as as he stated when he first got up there so I don't know if you want to add anything to that but it's been you know you guys have invested a lot of time into chasing some of this stuff out to identify those multiple factors that you referenced in regard to Cindy's question so oh do we have a mold problem no do we find mold occasionally yes do we have a mold problem now okay anybody else will this hurt like the electronic stuff because I know um that Electronics have to have a certain lowness of humidity are we
011at the range where it's going to do damage to nope no I'd be more worried about our utilities in the area for that than anything else all right thank you Mr Fisher good luck chasing a ghost uh Mrs Burns I believe you're up for uh the next part for study sync [Music] okay I'm just going to provide a really quick overview of a program that we're considering to bring to the board next month for approval so I just want to give you a really basic overview of it and then I'll provide some more information of some times that you can come to view it in more depth at a later date um so in the reading program at the middle school we've really been focused on trying to figure out a way that we can
012improve with the students explaining their answers expanding upon their answers with better vocabulary developing a piece of writing from text and connecting to that writing with other texts applying skills to Everyday reading connecting the stories and setting personal goals and then understanding the immediate feedback that they receive so when we look at our reading scores they've always been a little bit higher than math as we've seen in the data that I've shown you in the past years but that doesn't mean that we don't need to improve we still need to work on the areas that we need to improve within and one of those that we really think are these this list here and talking with teachers and even Administration coming in and seeing observations you know a lot of times the kids will write
013I don't know or when really they do know they can say it it's just using the right vocabulary from that text to provide it in their answers as they're responding and writing and also then when they move to another text using those same skills within reading and applying them to all texts whether it's non-fiction poetry fictional text we want them to be able to apply it across all types of text and we really as administrators we want our teachers to say it wasn't just a good testing day they actually know the skills the tdas that we do to prepare them for written responses we want them to be able to say that the tdas I'm assigning are related to the novels and the excerpts that we're using within the classrooms a lot of times resources
014will just give a canned TVA for them to work through but it's not connected to the text that we're using within our classrooms we also want them to say I have evidence that my students are learning throughout the entire process not just when I give an end of unit test and that's all the formative assessment work that we've been working on over the last couple years and I really feel as though this program will help us with that element there as well I want them to say that I can hear and see their language grammar and composition has improved not just by grading a paper but also seeing that throughout all areas of work within the reading classroom and to say that my students are active and engaged I can finally see the patterns and
015know where my students are struggling and I also want them to say that my parents understand their children's scores better than ever so right now we're providing the map data you know as a check three times a year but if we have a way of showing parents more frequent data along the reading process rather than just seeing a grade in PowerSchool I feel that this program could do a good job to help parents better understand those children scores better this program that I'm going to show you called studysync is focused on research-based instruction the two doctors are Dr Doug Fisher and Dr Catlin Tucker and they focus really highly on Universal Design for Learning which the district has done to create their curriculum over the last few years they also focus a lot on closed
016reading routines analyzing complex texts and independent reading and using those skills within the independent reading to move forward also as the district moves toward the science of reading this program does offer multiple webinars for teachers so they can focus on vocabulary and spelling and comprehension and fluency and there's webinars offered daily to teachers to work on the science of reading so there's a quote there to the right that children need mirrors windows and sliding glass doors mirrors to see themselves Windows to see how other people live and sliding doors to have vicarious experiences that will make them think more broadly about the world so we need to provide those to the kids and we need to do that through literature this program will provide an ever-growing Library it does have all of the classic and
017contemporary titles there are high interest blasts which are quick bits of information that they'll send out to teachers to teach the students about how the literature is being portrayed in different applications throughout the world and then also there is a diverse table of contents where the teachers can pick and choose what types of resources they pull from the program also it's very very well known for differentiation to elevate the students and have them progress through their reading continuum so there are levels within every grade level set for beginner intermediate Advanced and advanced high students there's multiple modes of instruction throughout the entire program everything is printable the teacher and student resources are all printable but they also offer video audio and digital formats to get the students engaged in the text and they also one
018really thing important thing is The annotation tool the video recordings the text Banks the closed captioning and more that they can't access if they choose to use the digital format I'm going to go a little bit further into that here in a minute and then also for teachers it gives them the flexibility to create so there is print and digital um the grade level thematic units that are provided incorporate both reading and writing within the reading classroom they're all standards aligned and they have novel studies as well within the program so at the middle school it's been about 15 years since we've updated the reading room that we have there for teachers so obviously the novel studies they never have come with the actual resources for the teachers to teach the novels so they've done
019a wonderful job creating their own resources over the years but again as times change you know there's always a time where we need to look at additional options for those novel studies the teachers can also then use this program to create their own units on a novel that they we would have in the building and they can pull resources within that program to make a printable document for the novel that they're choosing and then they can also use a skills library to assign an individual assignments to print out and or also do whole group assignments for specific skills so this program is really adaptable it's interactive and it's Equitable for all areas and all students on all different areas within the reading realm we look at lexiles continuously and so when you have a classroom
020of kids on multiple different lexiles it's really important to still be able to teach the skill and allow them to get out of it what they need to to move forward into other texts so the benefits of having a print and digital system we've always kind of combined the two we're currently using Newsela which I'll go over the difference between Newsela and this program but the benefit of having both is that when we put a text in front of a student they can't highlight they can't rip Pages out of the book and answer questions so it's really nice to have they can have a book in front of them but then they can also have the digital realm to respond and do the close reading strategies and Pull Apart those those different excerpts with this
021with the teacher in a whole group lesson or in a small group lesson also it allows the teacher to look at that all at one time so she has all of those she or he has all of those students in front of them she's able to interact within one small paragraph of that text they can have the book in front of them but then the teacher is teaching that one portion of the text up on the screen for them to work through and break it apart the program actually allows you to drag words and drop it to annotate so it's actually making the book come alive on the screen and the students would have the book in front of them and then also it starts every lesson with an interactive video and it makes the
022characters come alive and to gain the students interest within that text that they're getting ready to review the library also has 3 500 lessons including grammar lessons and lessons to reteach specific skills to give them more practice in that area and again all of these are printable on the resource the teachers will all be also be able if you look up to the left there they will have formative assessments that they give that are again designed by the teacher or by the program however they choose and within each formative assessment they will be able to see where the students are on each standard so when they're planning the next lesson they can make that instructional shift to make sure that the students are getting the skill that they need within that text level also a
023big thing at the elementary level and and also at the middle school we've used fontus and panel where the teacher can actually sit down with the student and hear them read um the the kind of uh struggle that we've had at the middle school is that the reading teachers have a hundred students and the fontus and Pennell does take time so for the reading teacher to be responsible to go through and do those fantasympanel assessments with every student three times a year it is very time consuming and provides a significant amount of coverage for them to do so so the special education teachers have made sure that that has happened but then even sometimes when we see a certain student struggling the reading teacher then we provide coverage for him or her to go in
024and do that Fawn to some panel assessment what's really nice about this program is that the fluency assessments and resources are provided within there so that they can do the reading with the program and then the teachers can see the results of it and then it will also then assign Standalone lessons for the student based on the fluency So currently we have Newsela and Newsela is adaptable the teachers can select based on Lexile level and based on interest and on skill but also this program then makes it interactive so there's multiple ways that the student can access the text can access the instruction and can access the assessments within this program and Newsela also links with studysync so Newsela will provide curriculum components that that can then take it even further So within the Newsela
025articles they will they could potentially pull a non-fiction article to match the novel that they're doing within their classroom again the benefits of the fluency instruction piece is obviously to enhance reading comprehension which that's our ultimate goal and then increase the reading efficiency improve the vocabulary acquisition and then obviously just the reading confidence that's a big part of it when they see that number increasing throughout the year it does make a big impact on the the students even speaking with Mrs Brown my sixth grade reading teacher she's very she's very fluid when she goes in and talks with them about their scores and breaking those scores down and when you see the kids get so excited about seeing how much they've grown in certain areas it really does make an impact on their reading confidence
026oh so again this is just a very brief overview the program is very in-depth um it's a it's a great supplement to what we're currently doing it provides some structure and some flexibility for the teachers and for the students and um we would like to bring this to the October board meeting so if you would like to meet with me individually I'm more than happy to go through the online version as well as the print version so there will be consumables within each classroom as well as the online version and we have both available to review at the middle school we also have a list of all the texts that are currently available in the studysync program and they made it very clear during all of our meetings with them they do not support critical
027race Theory and they also have had a recent update of the banned books and they do not support the ones that are not within the historical classical fiction it's also very highly rated on the 2021 Ed report and you can access that online as well any questions for me there's a lot more to it but I can try to answer can you go back to the slide that's got the other website on it the one with the reading oh sure so this would also help with their their oral and you know their overall um vocabulary it does include it includes the speaking and listening standards as well and the units you can look further into the units the units do focus on um within the social emotional realm of as well so within the reading
028of fiction and non-fiction the units are related around that also any other questions or comments uh could you kindly send a copy of your PowerPoint to me via email that way I can click on the links that link provided yeah I think that would be fine would you be able to send that to all of us sure I'll send it to Mr Cantor and he can send it out sure thank you thank you okay thank you all right thank you Mr Moran past survey thank you Mr McDowell so I believe every board member and Mr Cantor attorney Rafferty has a handout in front of them I'd like to talk briefly about the past survey so I know that when when as soon as someone says survey everyone's ears perk up so the the first question
029if I were a board member that I would ask would be why a survey the past survey will be administered with your permission to our children K-12 why the survey past looks at the barriers that are impacting children and their learning so over the past several years this board has made serious commitments to eliminating the barriers that children are facing they've done a wonderful job so for I'll reference ESS and the mental health services we've put in place this survey though is is targeted specifically at kids and it doesn't it is it doesn't look it at home what it's looking at is it's looking at their ability to function within School and I think that's what's really important so it's looking at the barriers and if you look in that handout on the back it
030looks at their feelings about school it talks about it looks at their their ability that they feel about themselves their their own ability to learn it looks at how they feel about themselves self-regard their preparedness for learning attitudes to their teachers do they like them do they have a relationship with them their General work ethic their confidence um you're all you've all been on the board for a while and you know that that a lot of times success in life depends on the confidence that one has this is especially true for children in their learning how do I feel about this learning can I do this their attitudes towards attendance you know we've reported to you attendance is an issue it's been an issue it was a it was an issue prior to covet and
031it's been an issue after coven so it is something that that we want to address and we want to know about so this survey allows us to ask children not to make guesses what will we do with this data so we all we have sap teams in every one of our buildings Student Assistance programs so this data will be shared with our sap teams and we're going to talk about children and we're going to say you know I I looked at Ed Moran's results you know Ed seems to be really lacking in confidence and he doesn't seem prepared to learn and his attendance stinks let's figure out why so all this does is allow your teachers and your administrators to meet kids where they are and to help them be more successful this is not
032an invasive survey in any way shape or form I know that is all important to every single one of you this is about talking to our kids and seeing how they feel and what their attitudes are within our buildings um yeah this is something I think that that that you will support and I think that you will see value in because I think it just builds upon the foundation that you've laid as a board to allow us to best meet the needs of our children as a whole the other thing is I have the entire survey in my office and it they are proprietary questions so I cannot just hand them to you um but I can let you all read them within the central office building and I have every single question that they
033will that they will ask our children so I encourage you please see me this is not on the agenda tonight this is something for you to think about and digest and I'd like to bring it back to you for a vote of support in October questions one question would uh some of this information be very useful in like our Pathways to success and absolutely in high school absolutely guide that program better it it absolutely would it would so I want you to think about the child who comes to school every day and does his work but maybe doesn't have Buddies or falls through the cracks because they aren't a behavior problem they aren't this will give us that information that maybe we can reach out to them before it does become a problem and that's
034all we're looking for we're looking for one more tool to support your children to to to see what can we do better I would equate it quite honestly to the communication survey we put out a couple months ago but we wanted to communicate better with with our community right and it's the same thing we want to do a better job communicating with our kids we're we're very good at making determinations and asking questions of adults but maybe we should ask the kids a couple more questions too and that's what this will allow us to do anything else I can answer why why are these proprietary and you and you sent them out that that was their roles Mrs Brown those aren't Ed Moran's rules if I could I would I would have passed them out
035to you tonight because I know it would have been it would have put all of your minds at ease Mrs Brown I found them online or did you find him good yeah good and I guess one of my questions uh this group appears to be based out of the United Kingdom and Australia yeah they're in a whole bunch of schools within the United States as well yeah because their main office is Great West Road Brentford South Wales it's interesting no I mean I don't I don't think that it's particularly important where they're located I think it's particularly important what they ask and that it's not invasive and it doesn't put our kids in a situation where they feel uncomfortable I think that's what the important part is a lot of the reading innovations that you're
036going to hear about through the reading of science at the middle school program have also come out of New Zealand and Australia so you know those kind of things I think that's all part of the educational environment right now and how many questions are typically it takes it takes 15 minutes Mr Gilbert and I did not count the questions and they weren't numbered or I would be I'll count them tomorrow for you okay anybody else okay thank you Mr Moran thank you for that information the support will now move into executive session for items of contracts so we will now pause for about half an hour but be back by 6 30. thanks foreign