School Board Study Session: May 22, 2023

001thank you good evening everyone thank you for joining us online we're here for our goal for study session and we're going to kick it off superintendent Tully would you have any words you'd like to say thank you uh vice president kogan um yes so as you are aware this is our fifth and final uh goal presentation for the year of the five goals we've covered um this is important to remember that this is year one of a five-year refreshed strategic plan and I put this goal in particular a number of new measures were identified and we were interested in sharing our thinking in terms of what are the metrics to go along with that and receiving feedback from them board members has to do we pick the right metrics for these measures so that's important

002I would like to thank Dr Tracy Malloy our chief leadership and strategy officer as well as Dr Craig Foster our research and evaluation director for helping to compile all this information of course we have our assistant superintendents here to also present information so I just want to thank them in advance and I'll turn it over to Dr Malloy thank you friends and Tully and thank you to the board and to our community who are watching tonight for the opportunity to share the work that we're doing related to goal for this presentation as superintendent tally indicated is a partnership Dr Craig Foster helped to compile the metrics but this evening we will hear from our regional assistant superintendent Dave Wellington from Regional assistant superintendent Dr Butler from Regional assistant superintendent Melissa Riley from director of racial

003educational Justice Ava Thomas and also from Regional assistant superintendent Dr Obadiah Dunham um and they will be each taking and talking about different measures in the related to goal four as we start I'd like to offer this quote about creativity creativity is for all of us it's about you me and everyday life it's about the Abundant originality we all manifest in our flexible improvisations whether teaching a class raising our kids fixing a car helping a client Landscaping the yard planning a benefit or trying to figure out why we're on curve and Dr Ruth Richards is known for her emphasis on everyday creativity the creativity that each and every human being has innate to them as a living being and she emphasizes the fact that creativity occurs in daily life and I think that the reason

004why this quote is relevant to Gold floor is because there's creativity happening across the North Shore School District each and every day there's creativity happening on the parts of our teachers as they're designing lessons to meet the needs of each of our students there's creativity happening on the part of our students as they are interpreting the world and sharing their knowledge and there's creativity happening on the parts of our principles and other Educators and other staff in terms of how they are helping to ensure that each and every one of our students is in it is able to achieve success in Life College and Career even though that's goal five but as we'll hear goal four is a goal that encompasses a lot of things and of the five goals in the Strategic plan low

005four is one that cuts across all grade levels and all content areas the aspirational aspect of goal four is one that requires us not only to be intentional about how we are approaching the teaching of critical thinking and weaving in the ideas around creativity and innovation in the work that we do each day but it also requires us to be intentional about how we provide opportunities for students to engage in Creative Innovative work that ultimately prepares them for the life that they will live and it's a life that we really haven't yet imagined because the speed of change is fast um in a way golf 4 really can be seen as the heart of our strategic plan because for students to have success in the early years and for students to be responsible resilient empathetic

006learners for students to have academic success and for them to be ready for life beyond our school system once they graduate all of those things all of those goals require students to have the foundational skills in critical thinking requires them to have the dispositions of a critical thinker requires them to have practice using those skills and dispositions as they imagine solutions to problems that are relevant to them that are about their real world experiences and that enable them to be creative and Innovative in their approach not only to learning but to life in general so as superintendent Tully mentioned as we look toward the different measures of goal for out of the five measures four of them are new and one of them is recombined um in from two measures that used to exist but

007I think that that is an important thing to recognize and we really are interested in hearing your thoughts as directors of the board to give us your feedback about whether or not the metrics that we are using right now are helping to um meet the imagining that you had as directors when you revised all of the measures in the Strategic plan so we're going to share our interpretation of what each of the measures are we have metrics that we have selected as part of the work that we did back in July this last summer to identify the metrics for each one of the measures in the Strategic plan and after the each measures metrics have been shared there's a time for us to pause and hear your thoughts obviously you can also turn your name

008tags up as you have often done before if you have a question that really just immediately needs to be answered at any time so with that I am going to turn to Dave Wellington uh Regional assistant superintendent of the Beast and he is going to talk about measure one um and this is the one measure that right now has the most data associated with it because there was such a specific request with this measure to determine Equitable access and enrollment across all of the different courses and categories of courses that we offer so there's enrollment data and um is a really important measure increased Equitable access and enrollment across student subgroups and art social sciences sciences and Technology classes so the first way that we set about to measure that was to look at starting

009in middle school but we have what we call an elective allele so I'm sure you already know about how the elective Wheel Works but I'm really proud of the work that the elective committee did several years ago to create this as we were thinking about and envision in middle school and what they envisioned was an opportunity for students in sixth grade to take multiple classes had many opportunities to explore their fashions and so students actually have an opportunity to take six elective courses over the course of their sixth grade here one for each quarter and so this is a just a collection of all of the classes that we have now obviously not each of those classes is taught in every school that would be truly spectacular but many of them are but this is

010a representation of all the classes that are taught in all of our North Shore Middle Schools so I'll give you a moment to look at those starting to a principle today and just asked about how the Middle School elective bill was working in sheet 2 couldn't stop talking about it because I mean it's pretty remarkable for students to be able to come into sixth grade and not have to choose just one experience that's going to last them all year or two experiences for a semester but really to get this many things and many times either parents or students say yeah that isn't for me I'm not going to be interested in that and then find out that is a passion that not only to end up exploring throughout middle school but also in the high

011school as well because of this opportunity so it's it's pretty special so in high school we have advanced course offering you've seen these numbers many times in different ways I like particularly how they've laid this out in terms of the various buckets that these and this particular one is AP courses we're going to take a look at IB courses in just a moment but they that fall into these buckets and of course from 21 22 to 22 23 this is the first semester only you have to do that so that you're not even though they're year-long classes you're not actually Counting students twice so but you can see both in terms of the titles the increases or in some cases decreases but mostly in terms of the number of students that are participating in those

012classes in AP ril and then these would be IB courses as well again same buckets with the titles and the enrollment in each of these courses slide is going to show your same information but by demographics so it's the number of students that are enrolled in the AP courses the number of those students represented in high school at that particular time so for example for Asian students 804 students were enrolled the insides of Asian students in the 21-22 school year is 1442 so that's roughly 55 or 56 percent actually in that particular case so you can follow the primarily the increases in percentages across the board and again if there's ever an opportunity for us to be able to identify a student because of the fuel in size we always do we always note that

013as well and don't put those particular numbers up and then IB enrollment is the same same same chart people followed the same way which one currently you can so one of the things that this graph shows is the percentage of students or the number of students enrolled in IB and then the percentage that corresponds to the overall High School enrollment so we recognize that if we wanted to look at inglemore specifically we could have additional information here and we did do a breakout so what we know is that um terms of inglemores overall enrollment of students in IB courses for students identifying as American Indian or Alaskan native this year it's 20 percent of those students are enrolled in courses that are IV courses there are 62 percent of students identifying as Asian enrolled in

014IB courses 22 of students who identify as black or African-American are enrolled in IB courses 29.7 or 29 of students identifying as Hispanic and Latino are enrolled in those courses students who are Pacific Islander old and there are very few students overall in the school and then two or more races students who identify as such it's 39 and students who identify as whites 35 percent and that's English right so one of the important components of this particular measure is that we are in fact increasing our Equitable access for all students including students that are in special education one of the ways that we measure that is through this notion of least restrictive environment so what you'll see over on the left-hand side there are the particular categories there are four if a student is in

015the 80 to 100 percent category that's 80 to 100 of their time is in the least restrictive environment or the general education environment so obviously the goal is to have students having the most opportunities in the general education setting and so what you can see the chart can move from the bottom to the top and then of course from left to right for the years so we're curious with measure one uh whether or not the information we've provided is information that helps to demonstrate an accurate interpretation of this particular measure are there certain metrics that would be more beneficial as we think about this in the future are there any questions that you might have about the data that we shared well I'll I'll kick it off okay thank you so um maybe the simplest

016way to do it I'm just going to jump in this is for a level setting presentation this is I think this is really helpful well I have some thoughts about the data itself as well as some information of you know some what it might mean so if we go to to slide nine where we're talking about AP course enrollment by ethnicity you know I'm wondering I appreciate the fact that this is showing some Trend data which is helpful you know because again we're doing a benchmark year here I'm wondering though if there's any thoughts around the table in terms of why we might be seeing some of this disproportionality it's a great question um and I think that I mean we haven't asked the students at this point in time that would certainly be something

017that we could do about why why students choose AP enrollment versus just courses that are non-ap because as you'll see in other measures we are looking at not just AP and IB enrollment but we have CTE enrollment we have college in high school Etc but it would be something that would be helpful for us to know what is it that attracts students to taking AP courses and what is it that isn't interesting to them about AP um and there could be some opportunity barriers that perhaps we need to identify and work on and what I thought of perhaps you know this is by ethnicity but if we think about by programming characteristic the fact that the state just passed a law to waive College in the high school fees that might remove a significant barrier

018we know when we removed fees for elementary band we really saw enrollment jump in a way that was somewhat surprising to us so now that those fees the state's going to cover them perhaps you know tracking College in the high school for for um our students receiving free and reduced lunch might be an interesting study of whether the cost the fees associated with some of these classes might be more of a barrier than we expect at least that doesn't talk obviously about ethnicity but just starting to unpack to see what we can do to support students to get Equitable access for everyone so that that's that's slide nine um on the next slide about IB course enrollment I think it would be helpful actually just to focus on animal more for this one honestly because

019the stats that you were able to read off Dr Malloy I think paints a much different picture than what we see here and I think that would be really that's my opinion it's perhaps going forward that would be helpful and um for my just my last thought here before um my colleagues dive in on slide 11 I really appreciate the look at least in least restrictive environment I think that's very important and then I have a one dream maybe going forward if we can look at different content areas it might be interesting to see of the content areas listed in the measure if we see a difference with students receiving special education services if we see enrollment show up differently again it might it might indicate some barriers that we uh didn't ends or perhaps

020just a preference I don't know it just it would be interesting to me in that um in that way to think about the different content areas as as it relates to these restrictive so in terms of this particular metric and looking at the lre the least restrictive environment for students what you're curious about then I just want to make sure that I'm clear is that not just showing in general the um least restrictive environment percentages but taking it to an the next layer of that data which would be perhaps to show students that are enrolled in this particular type of course like an Arts course of Math course a science course what percentage of students are in the least restricted environment for those classes yes and the why behind that would be for example I

021just can't help but think when we're at Ruby Bridges for the tour and we got to see the communication tablets and what a change maker that was perhaps there's some assistance technology that would help us in one of these subject areas that would be something that we could investigate again those inadvertent barriers to access that we could do some investigation on and maybe do some yeah no that that makes complete sense thank you very much any other questions or wonderings around this particular measure so I also appreciate kind of the ethnic breakdown in the AP course selection and saw that in all categories except for white students that it crept up a little bit this year compared to last year so I think that's good work that's happening to get more diverse diversity in those

022courseworks uh the other question I had was with respects to all this ethnic data do we get a moment in time where somebody says their ethnicity and a NSD form and that's what we have forever for that student or are there opportunities annually for them to re state that I'm just kind of curious if that changes over time yeah that's a great question I don't know the answer to that because my experience here in the North Shore School District isn't one where I've ever participated in the enrollment of students so I would ask one of our regional assistant superintendents whether or not they know if after the initial enrollment of students they're asked whether or not they have a different preference of identity before their foreign couldn't they come back and change it yes in

023reality most of our families don't they report whatever they report when they do their initial enrollment is what then tends tends to follow them thank you I just want to be careful about drawing conclusions looking at the ethnicity year to year if it's not consistent pre-covered we used to have a an updated sheet so every curriculum night you know the open houses at the beginning of the year there would be a forum on the Family's desk to update their address and and any particular information registration information and that's been consistent for years and years agree Cohen I'm not sure that students themselves have a have a direct access point to make changes that that I'm aware of as they get older I just wonder with our ethnic studies framework if students are going to look

024at that question in different light and maybe have an opportunity to maybe think of changing something that was written by a parent in kindergarten you know so anyway just the wondering and then I also want to comment on the electives in the Middle School you know wheel I think it's really great that students are having this short exposure to things that might spark an interest or passion and I'm glad that we do that and I hope that continues as well and I think just another question too just looking at the lre least restrictive environment there's this uh jump between the 80 percent down to the 40 to 79 and I just wonder you know just out loud what are some of the strategies that we might be thinking about to maybe help some of those

025students that are in that second tier kind of bump up into the 80 or greater it seems like there might be a whole students that might be close yeah that's a great question and um I will ask Dr Dunham to share what he may know also around the work that's happening within the special education department but what I can tell you from the broader perspective is that we're continuing to work on who's providing all of our Educators with information about inclusive practices and in fact Adra Davey who is our director of just education put together a series of what we call bite-sized PD that went out to all Educators this year around inclusive practices and the Final Four recordings because she's she voiced over slide decks the final four recordings in that bite-sized series had

026to do with how to create more inclusive IEPs and so the emphasis was on how do we support students in terms of their engagement in the general education setting and what teams could do to help create not just the students engagement in their own IEP process but what else we could do to support them as we look at where they spend the majority of their time is there additional information that you would share their doctor just and some of us I think we've heard before but it's continuing to build out those practices that allow staff to be successful working with with students who may have different experiences one is Universal Design for Learning which is allowing students different access points multiple means of ways representing their learning like it's not just how well you do

027on this particular test but there may be for ways to do that to demonstrate learning the co-teaching which is where we have a special education teacher and a general education teacher collaborating in the same classroom space working with a group of students that allows in many cases where the general education teacher is an expert in their subject special education teachers expert in helping students access so they're collaborating right there now the students are in that less restrictive environment versus off another place principals have been and this is more of an elementary piece and I think it'll kind of continue to build out at the secondary level too but principles have been really thoughtful about being able to dig into how can they make their Master's schedules more inclusive so just to the design and the

028schedule itself how does it make sure that there aren't barriers to some of these classes and some of the rigorous learning and tier one core instruction that then when they get on to the secondary level they're been equipped with the same skill sets as their peers regards to whatever their IEP might say it's okay they're just there there are things that were building out intentionally but we still work to go thoughts are wonderings yeah um so first of all Dr Wellington no true not yet just checking on that way did I miss something um so just because I think it hasn't been said but implied um we very much like the measure and the data that has been provided what we're saying now is an and we appreciate the data we've received so just we

029know we got to make that clear otherwise people stop doing the work I'm like wait what happened to that great data you provided us last year um so my comments are really in that and category um and I do kind of have a follow-up I was questioning the Pacific Islander data that felt really low for percentage of students in our district so I too was wondering I think that's a new separate that wasn't there 10 15 years ago and so families may not have identified anyway um I was wondering and I know we've got the CTE coming up but just more of a drawing out in addition to AP and IV courses Arts and Technology classes and enrollment in those and again the why to check on it are some of the academic lab classes

030the multilingual Support classes are they getting in the way of students being able to access some of these classes that we know are so important and if that's causing issues and scheduling and to follow up the point of moving one of the main points of moving music into the school day was to make it more Equitable access and is that following through into secondary are we seeing that and then I was just wondering about a gender breakdown and enrollment in these classes we've seen our technology heavily poised and then everything else at the AP and IBM with girls and that's something we should be monitoring yeah thank you for that so I'm hearing then as we look forward next year and how we're going to continue to interpret goal four for this particular measure keep

031the data that we have yes and also consider how we might look at the add in some gender into the disaggregation of the enrollment data and also taking a look at ways to identify where the barriers might be for Access and digging into that perhaps by really talking to students finding out for them what it is that they see as appealing about certain classes what they don't see as a feeling about certain classes and also making sure that when we're looking at the technology with our inclusive practices and looking at the least restrictive environment data how we can start to measure whether or not students are able to act access general education in with specificity around the different content okay I guess maybe one other wondering is we look at this data for the district

032and I wonder if this plays out across all of our high schools and middle schools that it's similar or if there may be is an outlier and if so why so just another wondering just to ensure that this is representative of each School that's great that's very helpful this is exactly the kind of feedback that we're interested in having so forward excellent so far okay all right so um for measure two the percentage of students who can justify a position with supporting evidence and solve real world challenges in imaginative ways Dr obadia Dunham is going to provide us with an overview of the data and then again we'll engage you in the same kind of conversation like all right so this first slide um and I think this section is I was excited to be

033the one presenting this section because I think there are a lot of highlights for us to be proud of with our district here's an example um you know many of you guys have probably volunteered or been at the National History Day presentations and see the kind of work and the kids put into it so having something like this and the number of kids that enter the data point here eight of our 13 um in North due to sound regions where North Shores schools our kids do well and this particular screenshot here is of a documentary the student's done and I haven't seen this particular documentary but seeing some of the documentaries in the past they look very professionally done when the students do them and so really just again highlight an opportunity and by and

034large it's our middle schools typically in eighth grade where they really do this but it's not limited to that too we have some high school students that enjoyed it so much in middle school that they want to come back and do it again assessment students as well the next one is their career in technology education and again I think this is an obvious I'm biased but this is a Hallmark again of North Shore school district there are a lot of districts around us that don't have the level of CTE access and CTE courses and so as we think about see the numbers here this particular highlights the kind of demographic makeup in them but the other thing that I would say that's important for us to think about is we've continued to build out our

035CTE also is that it's now a graduation pathway and so um Damon scheideman and Derek Tucci has spent a lot of time kind of looking at how do we build Pathways so students can use the CTE Pathway to get their meet their um what used to just be kind of the SBA testing requirement they can now actually use Pathways here that so really having a robust here is an advantage to our students too is they not only think about graduating high school but think about life beyond High School this is we've talked you've kind of seen some numbers around this already but this is our advanced placement we offer advanced placement at majority of our high schools I'm not sure if SAS has an advanced placement in the past they've not so but all our

036other high schools offer advanced placement courses um certainly at a high school like ingomar high school there's fewer because of the IB and that some of our high schools large number of advanced basement courses see kind of a smattering of what those opportunities what those some of those courses are like there as we think about the students experience IB as we've talked about already is kind of narrowly focused on minglemore high school that's where IB program is they have a pretty broad array of offerings there as well that are similar might be a little bit different than advanced placement but are similar to um similar to the AP offerings that you'd see at the other high schools through content courses to study and then CTE just mentioned some of our CT or dual credit courses

037as well dual credit when we talk about this means that students have the opportunity to get high school credit and college credit at the same time so when we talk about dual credit opportunities we have a number of CTE credits or CTE courses that fall on there and as we've talked about before some of our students leave with industry standard certifications for example what we had here a few years ago Auto Tech program their Auto Tech certification so this is also when we think about working on real water problems whether it's more real world than trying to fix it and then College in the High School director casting stole my thunder on this one but sorry I think we will see the numbers in this particular one increase I know in talking to some of

038our high school principals they're looking at different ways to continue to build this out with the state being with the state funding access to this that we'll probably see an increased number of students in college and high school experiences I know principals are out there thinking around but this can look like for students running start is when students leave our our campuses and go to one of our neighboring college campuses take courses there this can be a good Advantage for some families as they think about earning credits that might transfer on to um there are post-secondary plans and or when they get they can earn an AAA depending on the running start this number might shrink a little bit actually with the college and high school numbers going up because now we can offer those

039same courses with go outside teachers on our campuses and students don't need to leave our campus and I know I'm talking to students that sometimes the drawback to running starters they miss on the rest of Campus Life more on advanced or Advanced programs in CTE and kind of to see here where percentages are students earning C's or better in at least two courses numbers there and then you can see some of the demographic breakdown around how students are accessing the courses certainly some work to do here director Cogan your question earlier about what about the students having IEPs or maybe students getting ELD Services how do we make sure that they're proportionally accessing these courses so certainly some opportunities for us there yeah so there's the data for measure two and how we're interpreting that

040shared with you both the enrollment data for all the advanced programs that are in our high schools and then also we've shown some of the performance data and it comes as a conglomerate because how Synergy enables us to pull things out it's not as simple as just distracting information for each one of the types of programs so curious about your reactions and thoughts related to this particular measure we could take turns okay um again great I think this was this is a continuing yeah is that right yeah so um data is good again just some and and really for me more questions um the National History Day is just one microcosm of a myriad of FBLA and HOSA and all those things that students participate in it local state and National level saying this in

041an era of budget cuts is there a way to holistically look at participation of students in terms of breakdown of their demographics right do we see students participating what we know are beneficial at that competitions in all of those things are their barriers in place around finances and access to participating in those and then maybe we do that for a couple years and buy us some time until we have finances to address some of that um the the CTE programs particularly want it the Auto Tech program by the way it was electric cars that's grading which it speaks to I think we tend to think of CTE as Auto wood shop and right from our high school days these are world class rigorous programs that this is not your parents would shop class um but

042is there I can't remember do we do transportation for students to the programs if it's only like wooden bills nursing program we provide transportation from other high schools yeah and when we communicate at the CTE open house the satellite programs are identified so students know which schools are hosting which programs right okay and then my final just because it's been in the news um the transfer credit issue from community colleges to four-year universities and those of us that are parents suffered through the picking and choosing of yeah that one counts and no that one's not rigorous about even though it was the same textbook um AP and IB it's on their websites it's very clear students can go and do their research ahead of time how many credits what does it count for college in

043the high school how are we verifying that a student that takes a college in the high school English class that it will that we're able to communicate to them here are the colleges that will then accept that as an English class versus colleges that will go we're not we're questioning the rigor and the tube right now one of our favorites just down the road for that practice you know I'll have to look into that um I don't know I think it's it's obviously a complicated answer it's complicated with ap and IB um kind of totally speaking for my own child um College in High School courses and then when she and she called the university and the university said yes we'll accept them and they did but then we found out the college that she

044was in in the University didn't accept it so she had to take their math class even though it was the same math class so right like it becomes and that can be true for apnib too so I think it's It's Tricky and what's which is also why it's exciting that the state's paying for them so the students aren't laying out 400 for these credits that turn out to not be the students and the families not to not be credits perfect public universities in the state of Washington they're supposed to accept the college in the high school or the community college credits when they roll up doesn't always described my daughter doesn't always translate across that way so it's and then private colleges or colleges out of it's too it's to cancer Council and Coach to

045make sure you're calling okay for my daughter we got to pay twice yeah and I don't expect us to solve the four-year University problem with that but making sure that students are aware that this is research you have to do and that um you're still getting the great rigor and the preparation for college courses but not everybody so I'm hearing your recommendation then for work that we can possibly engage in which is to make sure that we're clear about the communication to students this isn't responsibility and and in some way I mean I'm imagining in my head you know just like we have kiosks in schools where families can go for mckinney-bento information for lunch information and all of that that we also might need to have a kiosk in the counseling offices that help

046students know here are the things to understand about taking college and high school API the horses here are some steps that you'll want to take so that there's some some tangible thing that a student can take with them as they're thinking about enrolling new school yeah because mine knew anecdotally that they needed to contact the universities that look at their websites figure out what IV courses and how they can you know UW just wiped out all the didn't do any of the graduation requirements it was just all their electives but um yeah so just how helping students to understand they are absolutely worth it the prep the college prep is so valuable but we do have some struggles with our four-year universities in how they accept them and if they accept those credits thank you

047other thoughts or comments and this is helpful because we can be additive so instead of being redundant I'll just be edited again in general um I find this great I am um I love because this is synergy screenshots that we're we're seeing that's so you know love love this layout I think it's wonderful and hoping you know to get some way at the tracking Trends over time so I hate to give up this Rich data and yet we still do need to track Trends well I think as we move forward right we'll be able to capture the data just like the charts where we were able to show at least last year's comparative data with certain um types of courses we'll be able to build that moving forward we can show the screenshot from Synergy

048for each year and then there could be a slide that also shows the data as Trend data over time great great thank you and then just one other wondering so on slide 21 when we're talking about course performance conference programs in CTE I mean this is a I might have done this last year too I I appreciate this look about looking at grades as well as just enrollment because obviously we want students to be successful in these classes however though I'm I have a wondering in terms of how this is worded so for students in these programs or characteristics could it be for example if you're a student receiving special education student services if you haven't enrolled in two of these Advanced courses at all it would be basically a zero does that make sense

049so so that 28 of students receiving a c or more in at least two of these classes if they haven't taken two classes right so which would give you kind of different information then they're not passing it could be that number is slow because students with special education services aren't enrolling at all or maybe they're just taking one and so it might not give us really the realistic picture maybe and still helpful we want unless it's a measure under three or five we want them to take at least two um so it's helpful so maybe we talk about it there but um I think it would give us just a little better snapshot of what we're looking at um but otherwise I don't have anything to add on to chapter 8 something super helpful thank

050you yeah I had two thoughts um one of them is you uh Dr Casa these are Synergy slides like for example number 19 and it shows kind of the ratio of the Epic breakdown um which I really like that view I think it's really helpful the only wondering I had is zero way maybe instead of the end size is put the percent and just looking at the total number I can kind of look at it from the graph and get a feel for that but I'm just curious ratio wise you know how that looks so just wondering if there's a way to do percent yeah I mean we certainly could I for example um we can pull the slide from synergy synergy is going to give us the slide however it gives us that said

051there are ways for us then to manipulate how it looks on the screen so as an example where there's very very few pieces of information here where the end size was too small there was an end there but you can't see it yeah um because we protected that data so we could go in and change the numbers to percents and that would just be a manual thing on our part unless she is able to in some way report the percentages instead of the numbers if it's a choice that'd be great maybe it just might be easier to kind of visualize like Asian white Caucasian I'm not sure percent of students in each of those groups how they compare very easily Chris can do the division but I just wonder if it's easy to see and

052then I think the second thing I wanted to mentions I really liked Dr Donahue put in about the history day and I think this slide section has a lot about Advanced coursework which is fabulous but talking about supporting evidence and solving problems in imaginative ways you know students that are doing the history day you know director Hayes mentioned um you know HOSA and you know International un and all these other things that students are really justifying with these kind of activities speech and debate whatever if there's a way we can kind of capture some of that along with the History Day stuff so that we're not just focusing on just the academic aspect of this question right and in previous iterations of goal four there were more examples of that I think that you know

053when we were right in the middle of the pandemic there were examples that we were showing of students that were being imaginative about all sorts of things um and then even in the last couple of years we've highlighted things around North Shore speaks National History Day but then last year's slide deck had examples within each one of the measures of particular students that we highlighted so I'm hearing that that type of example would also be appreciated personally I just hate to see the focus just in one era area when we could expand it so thank you no I'm sorry I came in late zones no worries good to see you all right so thank you again for that feedback this is very helpful um and as we move forward we are now on to measure

054three and Dr Butler will talk about the students ability to critically analyze interpret and responsibly use data and information and she has a few examples we don't have pictures here but she's got some examples that she's going to share about how this is coming to life in schools so I think I'm going to try to hit both the data that you see on the slides and then I'm going to talk a little bit about data that you don't necessarily see on the slides and you probably wouldn't see in any kind of quantitative way so we'll start with this data this is comes from um the 2122 Smarter Balance assessment for English language arts we could show a comparison for past year scores but they don't hold a whole lot of meaning because we were interrupted

055with covid and we will be show able to show year over year uh Harrison in the future what's important is to show the strong correlation between students Ela scores and the sub scores used from the SBA assessment reports related to their ability to analyze literary and informational texts and media basically it means that when they pass the ELA SBA Texas at three or four they also have the ability to analyze literary and informational texts we also know that the one way to measure students ability and so the next couple slides will also show other ways that we can measure students abilities through standardized testing I'm going to add to that Shane saphir who is an equity cultural leader she teaches or as a coach and she's a co-author of Street data she believes that there

056are lots of other ways to measure students ability to perform and to show that they can analyze informational text and some of those things are things we see at our schools so one of her quotes is that achievement is about so much more than test scores and authentic assessments of achievement would incorporate student voice reflection and performance on Real World Learning tasks not just tests so in contrast to quantitative data Street data offers a wider lens to start measuring what truly matters development of student agency and some of the schools that I get to enter I see student agency all over the place that I wanted to just I'm going to just explain some of the student agencies that I get to see around one of the classrooms that was in the other day they're

057big signs how can Maps tell true stories how can timelines tell true stories how can food tell true stories and students are exploring about the Immigration Movement of their own families and they were learning about groups that are forced to move they were currently learning about Fred horamatsu speaks up and reading that as a class and building their vocabulary and understanding of history and reading comprehension so these are really World Life literary analysis and contextualizing what we are asking students to do that you wouldn't necessarily see in some of this data we're presenting to you today I'll share a slide and then I'm going to share another story uh so in this one this is our fifth grade um I ready data for comprehension and informational text again it's taking it um and encouraging us

058to think for pre-k 12 processes and something that occurs in later years it does support the work of our ethnic studies and the things that we're doing in our classrooms at the secondary level it is important for us to see how our students are performing and compare their performances on i-Ready as well once again when using i-Ready as a measure our students who identify as black do not perform as well as we would necessarily like but once again it is one measure of student performance so whereas we I think we do need to always look at our data it is one measure of data the next slide I want to present first we were just wondering there were some students missing and the reason it's on the next slide and this I thought was really

059interesting and so I was grateful for the explanation provided to me below thank you because I'm like why is it here um this slide is included as a follow-up because it's the way I already treats the demographic category of Hispanic and Latino Latina the system considers Hispanic Latino as a culture not as a race and this is i-Ready as a system so the only way to determine their performance for students is to pull the data in the category as either Hispanic Latino or non-hispanic Latinos Latina and that's how we see this data that's why it's included on an entirely separate slide because that's the only way to pull that data so hence it's on an entirely separate slide and it's a very interesting piece of information for us to to note so those two basically

060go together and then I'm going to pull it back to another piece of story in two classrooms they were working on building environmentally sustainable and ecologically sensitive bird houses they researched the birds near this particular school and they were learning about how they build their nests and then next they were going to build bird houses out of recycled materials and see what happens so once again we're taking data we're interpreting the data and we're creating world life we're real life projects out of that data and that leads us right into our science performance thank you Dr Molly so our science performance for fifth grade this is another metric that helps us um track our progress to increase the number of students who demonstrate their ability to quickly analyze and interpret data in science they need

061to understand the content information but they also need to explore phenomenon and assess the reasons for that phenomenon look at patterns and data and make and justify their claims when looking at performance of bi-ethnicity and race we see that we do have work to do especially for our historically marginalized population and those for this formational educational Justice inspired reason for project-based learning like the creation of bird houses and things that really get students excited and learning one of the reasons that we've pulled into our summer reason reading Academy the use of our engineering is Elementary kits to increase student vocabulary and excitement to come every day our engineering and stem kids that's one of the critical pieces I think of our summer program and it does serve many of our students further some racial educational

062Justice that they are thrilled to come and build and use engineering tasks to not only learn how to read but also to learn some stem stem projects in the process of that and their vocabulary is out of sight when it comes to what they're learning how to do so those are just some stories that go along with some of the things that I think all lead towards better performance workers and as we think about this measure I think it's also important to note that if we intentionally pulled data and use metrics that were related to our elementary students as opposed to some of the other measures we've been looking at middle school and high school data and that's because we need to recognize that goal 4 isn't just something that we reserve for our students

063that are older rather our students from the very early years in our school system and I'm talking about our preschool students have the ability to think critically and to be Innovative and creative so that's just something to note as we continue to ponder goal four but when it comes to this particular measure of the goal we know and have recognized quantitative data is just one piece of the story that's there as Dr Butler shared there are things happening across the system related to critically analyzing tax to be able to justify positions Etc that are happening so so what I'm curious to hear in terms of feedback is is there other quantitative data you want us to share related to this measure but are there also other types of supported supporting data that would be beneficial

064in the future too thank you so um I have so first of all to answer that last question first in terms of what are their data you know something that we had in mind when we were talking about this was was digital literacy especially in an era of artificial intelligence how you measure that but the thought is how can we help our students separate information from missing disinformation nice okay and we know there's some intentional teaching being done around that and so it would be wonderful to get an understanding it if every student is getting supported in a very critical life skill for their adulthood if not today right very critical so that that's a little bit more so I'd be curious to see what your thoughts might be around um capturing that now I'm

065thinking about culture versus race quite a bit and so in Synergy and therefore the states Hispanic I've always seen it listed with the races correct is that how the state looks at it yes generally okay when Dr Foster was looking at the i-Ready data that's not how interesting how that particular system is okay I've at least come across other than I ready I've seen it broken down the way I rented it I've seen it but and now I'm thinking of other systems I've entered demographical information and I've seen it separated as a culture in many other systems it just seems to be in Synergy it's just not their choice interesting never occurred to me before okay I don't know what we do with that but really really interesting so um I think one one way

066to if people were curious one way would to get at this would be to examine the cross copulation of people identifying with Hispanic by race and see if they're it's possible to pretty highly although Hispanic Latino isn't even listed as a race is it that's an interesting question in itself right because it's obviously an area of focus for students though that we've been wanting to focus more on and if there's something you know disconnected within our Data Systems you know I'm sure it doesn't affect all the way down to the classroom but it just now I'm half a wondering because we really there's a strong desire on everyone's part to support these students because we do see that the gaps are usually largest for them yeah and just for the record my understanding is Dr

067Tucci has brought this up with I ready and I ready is just too big to listen to doctor well for or it might be the other way around like if there's a lot of data systems out there that treat you know as a culture as opposed to a race but the state treats it as a like it just would be nice if they chose the same but I think um just to add in that too because I don't know necessarily that already is wrong in this how we unpack some of these things and when we collect back to your question you asked earlier when we collect race and ethnicity data from students we collect more information than we report in other words we provide a Bright brush broad brush that says in this case Latino

068and Hispanic that could mean from Mexico all the way down to and then all the way out right or we say Asian and that could mean any of billions of people yes so we collect some of that information not all of it but then how we slice it and look at it and then we bump people into two or more races that may so there's just there's there's a lot of there's a lot of layers within that kind of interesting um yeah because in terms of how much those slices those tranches of the different data and how much it informs systems we take or steps we take as a system yeah I mean there are trickle effects I guess yeah and how they might experience school might be different too because 100 how they how

069they write their how we identify them on paper may be much different than how they identify themselves or their identified as they move through our system yeah I was speaking with some school directors from districts that have a larger native population than we do and I didn't realize that the data collected within Synergy a family identifies their student as being native it affects tribal it affects funding outside the school district in terms and I have yeah so they there was a lot of concern if the family identifies as two or more racist they lose that funding from a federal level for not identifying themselves as native and so it's just okay so one other question and then I'll I'll be done um Dr Butler when you were talking when we were on the fifth grade

070science performance you were talking about that great summer enrichment you know that seems to me to be a tactic used to address you know when we look at some some of these gaps you know the outcome gaps for students by ethnicity in this case around literature and comprehension you know it's it's helpful to understand what's being done you know you could see two or more agreed levels behind and you know can can we understand how much of how many of these kiddos are getting or how might these kiddos who are let's just for the sake of argument talk about two or more grade levels below how are we supporting them what services are we offering them what are we doing to help them instead of just looking at a number if you don't mind [Music]

071um well we have [Music] beginning when they are young and in school during the school year we can use our lab entitle funds if you're a title school we definitely can support those students there we have four title schools our lab resources span are our entire system those are two ways to secure their learning things feed into our science because you can't read science you're not going to be able to analyze critically the science that's put in front of you for our summer programs we spend we set aside funds for summer programs that is optional so we can encourage students to attend I don't think we've ever maximized we serve every child who's willing to come so however we offer it usually to one grade level and then we'll go up or down if they

072if we have more we could probably make that bigger if we set aside more funding however we we usually maximize that funding during the school year where we know they'll be there understood so that those are some of the supports our supports are typically isolated to our elementary where all the funding sources that I've just stated when it comes to our secondary we don't have yeah lap doesn't go up to mostly it doesn't we could we could do that we could it's not limited anymore but if we do that then we spread themselves again that they're not affected and so the amount of FTE that we could allot to a secondary would then be so small that it probably wouldn't be very effective so that's why we have limited it to our um response got

073it okay thank you your thoughts on the data presented questions well just because both like my two questions dovetail very nicely um so just in general as we again great um bullet point great data in general because this is 14 years into this this data issue has come up again and again and we say gosh there's a problem so as we go forward with any of the goals when we have data where there's clearly a issue going on if we could get information on okay next steps here is what I'm trying to figure out why we're going to provide these Sports whatever the next step's plan is so then that's the follow-up the next year of okay did those steps make a difference break the cycle of looking at the data every year and going

074wow that's not good it understood yeah okay um and then to follow up on that I also had the question about I knew that digital citizenship digital digital literacy was part of thinking around that so data K-12 of what instructions students are receiving on that and making sure that it is system-wide and then just uh not really a data but more of a starting the conversation of how do we educate in an AI world I shared with superintendent Tully and during the coven I believe was in the room but we don't have time to wait for the state legislature to tell us how to do this or Congress or whoever we we just need to start engaging in that conversation and how are we going to do that yeah and the IT team actually this

075year offered two sessions just this past month so last week it was either like a Wednesday and a Thursday or whatever but they were offering to any interested educator how do we deal with AI so they're already starting to think about that and um accessing our Educators to find out where the Curiosities are and where the oh my goodness what are we going to do about this is our so I know that they're thinking about that and we can certainly start to honor it great well this would be a good good measure to share that work anything else related to measure three I would just follow the jerk Hayes said about just our populations that kind of seem to be static right all the numbers seems to be static honestly right um so I don't

076maybe it's some of the goals and measures where we're a little more specific it's not just an overall increase in scores right for the whole student body but it's really these these other populations that are in the 40 range those I mean there's you need to have both goals but it's more dialing down what do we want that number to be how what's the increase we want for Hispanic kids or black kids every year and what's the game plan to do it rather than casting the broad net because that doesn't seem to be very effective so I don't know if that's I know we're trying to do that we're in the buildings themselves but I don't know if we need to provide more goals or guidance kind of into the weeds a little bit um

077but I don't know maybe that's I don't know because I don't necessarily reading the numbers and the efforts are all there but I don't know how we kind of push it further so if it's like we want 10 increase in a certain population of rotario period if we're going to say that and where's the money in one of the resources then we can channel the resources more purposefully I guess um and it's a con I know how it's gotten so complicated and I'm wondering if we need to track what we're trying and then see what's working because it doesn't feel like we reinvent the wheel on a regular basis and that this school is doing X and that school is doing why and I know populations are different and stories are different but if we

078could start saying well this year we tried x y and z x made some modicum success he didn't do anything so we're going to try a one two and three and keep expanding on X right just something where we're tracking what we're trying and what is removing the needle and what sounded great but maybe didn't have the impact that we thought it was well as you're talking I it makes me think about how we might be able to capture the data from the Strategic action plans that are happening in schools and really looking at what the strategies are that schools are intending to implement and keeping some sort of documentation that shows here are the strategies that were used these were the ones that paid off and how to lead just bubble it up yeah

079or maybe even would be helpful too is maybe some background of where we sit with certain students so you know for instance it would be good to know that the Hispanic members really have a move this year because 30 percent of our Hispanic students moved here a year ago from Nicaragua and there were already three grade levels behind and any kind of English or they spoke no English right so it helps us understand why the number hasn't moved because maybe there's a good reason it hasn't been because the population the whole family doesn't speak English so they're in fifth grade but they speak at a first grade level then it kind of helps us understand it better I think the community too so it doesn't look like we're just failing to serve the kids well

080it's you know the kids are showing up in a certain at a certain level so it helps us you know we don't see the numbers moving like oh okay well that makes sense we had 300 more families move in from certain areas of South America and their four grade units behind well and another place to mine that type of data is going to be the Strategic action plans because this year as the schools are beginning to look until expectations is embedded into the development of next year's plans is the use of experiential data and finding out from the families finding out from the students what is it that they are experiencing as members of the school community and what what are their perceptions of school so again there may be ways for us to tap

081into the work that's already being done and then capture it as part of not just goal four but perhaps all the other goals involved anything else related to measure three yeah I just want to add a call out it just feels like year over year over year our schools do more and more and more so we think about looking at this data and like oh this needle hasn't moved year over year I think sometimes you can't look at it in that much of a vacuum because there's so many other things that we're doing this year that we didn't do last year or the year before our mission cream just keeps growing as the needs in our community grows so we're doing much much more on all the time but yet it's harder maybe to sometimes

082focus in when we're busy doing a lot of other things so that's another factor that I think about and then the other thing I appreciate what what director Hayes and Swain were saying about kind of thinking about well what are we going to try to move this statistic for next year but I also think maybe it's important to call out what are the barriers to achieving you know improvements in this situation because I think sometimes despite our best intentions there's you know issues and we talk about some of them but you know budgetary issues choices with you know Staffing or things contractual stuff so I think that would be helpful is just also identify what's keeping us do we think from making progress that we can kind of look at it and say can we

083do something about this you know we do a lot of advocating Statewide to change things and make things more flexible and maybe that's another thing it's not just effort it's barriers as well yeah so yeah it'd be great if you came to us and or you know if you came up with the idea that look if we really need to if we really want to move the Hispanic numbers on English what we really need is after school Intensive English in every single school every single day that if kids want to sign up for it because that's probably what they need um then let's figure out how much it costs and then we have to make that moral decision that budgetary decision if we're going to move money from one pot to this pot but we

084really really haven't ever gotten into that kind of a discussion resources well it's typically especially with policy governance it's not but that I mean I think having a conversation about options and having the board weigh in on how we see the some presented options aligned with strategicals and yeah I mean that's right yeah we're gonna get into the weeds but it would be if it was presented if we could find the money for this program because staff thinks the teachers think that Intensive English above what we're doing now would be a huge Improvement great but I think let's talk about it we need to find out if there's more that is just thinking because yeah exactly that happens at schools there are before and after intensive programs but it's a hit and miss at which

085school and a few students come right so we need to get the data of what is working and what is a great idea but here are the barriers to making it work and yeah yeah I agree oh and I hear the theme of barriers coming up as we've talked about each one of the measures so I think that that's an important lens that we can use as we move forward um well and to point out with work we've already begun we just made a large investment in a brand new Elementary Ela curriculum that specifically has resources in Spanish that's true right and so that'll take a couple years to Bear fruits and just to to see what kind of impact that would have so as we look at measure four um this is a brand

086new measure and it is asking us to start to examine and or start to look at whether or not we're able to increase the percentage of students who access technology and digital tools and Innovative learning spaces and to enhance student learning and expand personalization so for this particular measure we have taken a look at data in a variety of different ways last year in the year before you saw this similar slide which is what are the technology tools that our students access the most and so this year there are 13 applications that have the highest use and we we find out use by going into the um you know behind the scenes we pull back the curtain on our data and find how much how many hits we're getting on particular applications each day so

087the Google Suite of applications is quite heavily used in North Shore and not just by our Educators students know how to use Google they have their own folders for different classes they know how to use the slides they know how to use docs they know how to use sheets they're using this info they're using these tools to help them design their coursework and all of that schoology continues to be a highly used heavily used program we have uh the next slide shows exactly how much it's being used YouTube is being utilized by our students and it's not just for them to like go and look at social media YouTube is now a platform that provides access to educational information and educational resources and so there are plenty of positive education based uh ways that students

088are interaction interacting with YouTube on a regular basis they're finding information that is produced by a number of different organizations and entities that place their resources on the YouTube platform so that's why we see YouTube there kahoot is a way to gather in the moment assessment data because it it enables teachers to put together basically quizzes or queries of their students students then use their devices to respond to the questions that are there and a teacher can get a read of the room and it can be done in a way that protects the identity of students who may be otherwise not willing to raise their hand and say I'm not sure that I I know this or not um iready is one of our very heavily used applications and it's not just for the assessments

089teachers are using i-ready's lessons to support the work that is being done in classrooms to teach reading and Mathematics and it's a way to differentiate instruction and support for kids through the instructional lessons that are included in that particular site fall at Destiny my fault for not knowing this I believe it's a system that helps us to identify information scratch and noodle tools are also applications that are used by our students um schoology engagement we were able to pull year-over-year Trend data for this and so what you can see now is that schoology is still used a lot I mean having a 139 000 posts on schoology is no small matter uh it's not as heavily used as when it was first implemented during the pandemic because teachers have also continued to use other tools

090so we know that it's primarily used right now in our middle and high schools and there are some teachers who say they'll never go back like if if we were to ever say well we're going to think about changing our schoology commitment in our schoology contract there are some people who will Who will have a moment of panic because they have gotten so used to using the platform that exists so students are using schoology for assignments for assessments the discussion board is an amazing feature that's used and it's not as heavily used as it was previously but it's basically a running engagement it's kind of like a social media feed for students to engage in conversations with one another and where it's used it's used really well and really artfully for our students uh We've

091shown this data before and again we're showing Trend data in terms of device and Hot Spot distribution but what this also shows us is that we have a lot of devices out there and absolutely one-on-one what this information is also indicating though is that now we have even more than just one-on-one devices and so what that is indicating is that schools now have reserves of technology that are basically refurbished devices that are in our schools and that's because now we need to have devices to loan out to students who may have forgotten to bring their device to school or whose device just decided to malfunction that day so that's one of the reasons why we see an increased number of this I want to point out that iPads um are also in high numbers we

092have those as one-on-one devices for our kindergarten and first grade students but iPads are also used as an adaptive technology tool and so for those of us who were able to participate in our Ruby Bridges visit last week you saw one way that those devices are being utilized and I'll speak to that even more specifically as we look at the fact that we also keep data about students who have a plus one device so with this particular metric what we're showing here is that 247 of our students in grades preschool all the way through grade 12 have an additional device that's assigned to them based on an accommodation that is listed in their individualized education program or their IEP so students who need to have assistance in communicating are oftentimes assigned a device there are

093also students who are assigned a device because it is the way that it helps them to perhaps use voice to text or speech to text as a way to help them then produce their their learning so again the highlight of this are the is the fact that most of these devices not all but most are iPads and they are used for assistive communication and so when we were at Ruby Bridges we were able to see that not only are students who need to have an assistive device to communicate with others have those devices but at Ruby Bridges they are teaching all of their students how to use the iPads as a communication tool and what that does is it builds that sense of belonging for all of our students because the students who need to

094have an iPad to help them communicate with a peer have a peer then that knows how to communicate back with them and when students in the fifth grade or the fourth grade or the third grade are having days where in their classrooms they are engaging in a non-spoken active communication using the assistive technology that creates that sense of it is okay for me as the student who may need that assisted device to need this tool because everybody understands and knows how to use that to support me and I feel like I have an equal footing and an equal sense of belonging in my building so at this time those were the pieces of data that we used to help interpret the measure that's brand new this year around having access to technology and digital tools

095and Innovative learning spaces curious to hear if there are any other thoughts around that measurement I just have one and I know we're even two hours it turns out is not enough in the space we're at one and a half hour right now so yeah um so again great measure great information just an and or a wondering the I ready as instruction do we have a way to monitor that it is not used as instruction heavily for students that require that more differentiated instruction what I'm picturing for example is the multilingual student or the highly capable student or the special ed student that's where they get the bulk of their structure on i-Ready and and we don't want that yes so how do we monitor I think we have the ability to show and to

096pull data around how which students are using iready for how long and so we can definitely incorporate that anagram to keep track of making sure that it's just supplemental it is not replacing that actual instruction that's happening everybody gets their fair share yep yeah okay thank you that's it I'll just add on really quick you know I would I would love to learn how we are growing in our use of assistive technology you know it's um I know it's it's work being done and I know it's it's supporting our students as we reduce those lre or improved I'll just say improve those lre statistics and so I'm I would just be curious to learn learn more about that it's um yeah it's one of those situations where I believe this is really important to Monitor

097and yet you know when you look at the bell curve we may already be pretty far over because of that huge bump during 2020. thanks to our community the fact that we were able to to start this this work after the 2018 Equity so um I'm just yeah wondering it's again you don't you don't want to add the list you don't want to just say okay we need a fancy new tool educator let's roll out another fancy new tool if it's not supporting the learning to vice president Hogan's point right we just don't want to make more more work for people without it having a definite benefit for the learning process so this is me processing the fact that I I appreciate the data there's just a couple little areas in carousel it's pretty straightforward

098all right so the last measure for um goal four is the increased percentage of students who apply learning to solve real world culturally relevant challenges and imaginative ways and um Melissa Riley our regional assistant superintendent for the North and Ava Thomas director of racial educational Justice will speak to this particular measure and I just want to foreshadow the fact that they're going to help make a connection between the significance of our new ethnic studies work and goal for and then following that particular measure we have a here's what the future of goal for will look like so anyway take it away Melissa and thank you so in first I'm going to start by sharing this grid and as you're you're looking at it just so you can kind of understand how to how to read

099it there's clubs that are grouped by type and then they're in an alpha order and you can kind of see that there's over a hundred clubs in total across our middle school middle schools and high schools and so that this chart just kind of represents how it's intended to show a diverse representation of the different clubs that we have across all of our schools in March the regional assistant superintendents Dr Tracy Malloy and a superintendent Tully met with a small group of students representing each of our different high schools and they had a lot to say about their experiences and they were very engaging and made sure that we understood what their needs were in in school and one of the messages that came through really loud and clear is that they want schools to

100be a place where each and every student can belong and that it's not just what happens within the context of the classroom but it but it's also about how they're able to engage with each other and they emphasize the importance of clubs and groups and places where they can find their you know various places where they where they where they belong where their identities are honored and it's aligned to their passions and so in doing so that that they feel like they're more likely to be successful and have positive experiences in school so that's just as an example of what this looks looks like and then and then on the ground we have examples of places that we're trying to innovate like at Skyview middle school they have they have clubs on Fridays and every

101month they ask students what clubs they want to have offered and then who's willing to be part of it and it's a lot easier to say to a staff member hey you want to do a Lego Rubik's Cube something something because it's something that a group of kids are really interested in so it's a way to keep things you know fresh every month and they continue to think about innovative ways to do that and I hear much much of the same at other schools than coming around so this particular slide shows participation and some of our in enrich and some of our enrichment clubs and even though there's numerous clubs in different schools there's a small group of clubs that are fully that fully support the spirit of equity as outlined in Gulf War especially

102with respect to the measure of in engaging and cognitively challenging Real World Learning and applying their skills and knowledge in a variety of ways so specifically here's a couple clubs that highlight the work that students are excited about in business and marketing debate speech which is increasing in popularity and problem solving stem topics and clubs that address this particular measure you can see of course there's always room to grow but it's exciting to see the level of Interest across our secondary schools no I'm cruising so this this particular slide highlights two strong examples that correlate to goal four you can see that they've either maintained a steady involvement as you can see for inglemar and the enrollment of students in their IB theory of of knowledge course and at North Creek High School the increase

103in in their enrollment in AP seminar both of which are rigorous relevant and have a very challenging process that that that students work on really all year and Beyond and identifying research a topic provide their findings and the data shows their interest here and it remains consistent and this idea that we're remaining consistent from year to year I had the opportunity this year to sit in on the presentation and I'm not actually perfectly sure I'm careful how much I can share the presentation but it was phenomenal and not only to see a group of adults there who while we were in kind of an evaluative mode had a student presenting to us around the work that they they did with their peers around their perceptions of how they learn best and choice and engagement and

104and how they actually scored on their assessments every couple weeks when they got to choose versus when the teacher had some sort of influence and this wasn't about just like the the research that had been done over the course of the year but this student's effort in running up and down the stairs multiple times to rearrange classes like physically rearrange and partner with the teacher so that the data could be collected and they could talk about different strategies and the the validity of his work it was just phenomenal and I found myself thinking about how that was going to inform how I how I work with with my principles and inform my leadership and so I think that's just an example of the power that our students hold and harness well beyond those 83 or

105the 71 students there that that participated in that level of work and that leads a little bit to this work with ethnic studies and the reason why um by Dr Malloy even I felt it was so important to highlight is because this act of creating this p12 ethnic studies framework it was an innovation in and of itself and I don't take it lightly we don't take it lightly that it says that North Shore's ethnic studies framework because it was crafted by by North Shore right and and so at the May 8th board meeting the adoption of the p12 ethnic studies framework was approved and also were in the process of working on our high school pilot and completing that to bring to the board but what was noted on the diets which we definitely recognize

106and appreciate and the support that we have is that ethnic studies is an excellent example of how students are engaging in culturally relevant cognitively challenging Real World Learning while applying their Knowledge and Skills and to the things that they're really passionate about it it can next students in a ways that develop an understanding of not only their their identities and how and the identities of others as well as thinking about then what that means for them as they make their way within their Community within society and within the world and they see themselves as change makers in their own in their own schools not just in in the community we think that's a really important part of of goal four that we can't lose sight of because as you can see tonight is more than

107just about technology um and and it's also about the fact that students are exposed to really important ways of viewing themselves learning to read themselves learning to read text to interrogate right and to learn how to read the world and that it's that kind of criticality that we want them to to have access to from the time they're in preschool I mean we're taking from the voice of students how much earlier they want us to be able to have have conversations that are really important and could really change the trajectory of how they experience school as we've talked about even when they get to middle school and for them to be able to demonstrate this agency and problem solving schools in the community and Society is significant and that's why the p12 framework extends across

108content areas right and grade levels the other Innovative component of this that I just want to highlight is we're just here representing a body of amazing people who I tried to Total it up were over 120 hours over over three years of looking at and beginning to take take the framework from its Inception to do the learning and there were two groups that cycled back and forth and gave feedback over time we didn't wait till something felt done or perfect in order to get feedback on it and it's the way in which it was co-constructed and co-designed that is I think what gives it to us so much of the strength that exists here in our in our community so that's an example of how we are enacting the work within this this goal goal

109foreign innovative ways in order to support our community in innovative ways of learning so we also have the ethnic studies High School course pilot at every Comprehensive High School this year and so there's the data for that on the left side is the 2022-23 pilot data of enrollment first and second semester combined and then there's the projected data for the 23-24 school year we think that enrollment will increase over time because of increased student understanding and working with students about spreading the message about what ethnic studies both is and what it's not also continuing to bring in families and educate our families and Community around what ethnic studies is and what it's not and then creating Pathways to access this course in each High School is important and something that we continue to think about

110when we look at that top sentence students are learning the skills and knowledge and tools to be able to do things such as think critically to be able to that both question pose and problem pose and then develop their own projects themselves through a culminating project where they're able to identify a social cause or community that they care about globally and then think about that as it relates to themselves and that community and then become a bearer of knowledge about that and an expert where they can then share that with their classmates which is huge because the teacher is positioning themselves as both an adult learner and an educator and the students have the opportunity to be student Learners and also youth Educators so it's a really powerful collaborative Dynamic through a co-design type of

111model in these classrooms it's having really positive impact so just briefly we've collected various qualitative data and stories and narratives throughout from a variety of shareholders in this project through that Panorama survey even though it wasn't specifically on ethnic studies there were quite a several students that we're sharing about their experiences and ethnic studies and saying that every student should take it or even that it should be a graduation requirement we created Google forms surveys to send to the families of the students and the pilot courses and we just push that out a couple of weeks ago we've gotten five responses so far all of them have been positive the families have expressed excitement around the work and um very positive experiences that their students are coming home to share what they're learning and engaging

112and really critical conversations and dialogue with their families about various topics but then also getting to know each other better through their identities and shared communities and we also did the student note card activity where students got note cards within the first three weeks of the first semester and that then that last week and then we're doing a similar model for second semester and students are are sharing how they're feeling seen heard valued and even safe in these classrooms it's contributing to positive student outcomes they're getting to know themselves and their peers and Global communities better and they're really appreciating the teachers who are teaching it and the pedagogies that they're enacting in these classes um student voice has also been leveraged to make some adjustments to the pilot based on student feedback so it's

113not just adults identifying and determining what students are learning but students have a say in what they're learning and how that learning is structured and then lastly we had a community viewing and there were students that came to share about their own projects and experiences and one of those students said that he got to come home and share with his mom about their own identities and he got to learn a lot more about his mom and her lineage and he said he wouldn't have had those conversations or that experience if it wasn't for ethnic studies so just wanted to share some of those positive examples thank you so much Mrs Riley and Miss Thomas so questions feedback thoughts around how we've interpreted this particular measure there's a core question on the numbers on the last

114slide with the explanation for the drops and the low numbers it wouldn't go on participation or their structural reasons around that uh no I think honestly in in the reflections that we've had last year when we were when we were going to run the Pilot We and it was part of our charge and we invited the students to help us craft how to reach other students and get them involved and have a voice in that work and didn't necessarily think about the Gap year in essence of its approval to then the fact that students register in February and so I think the high schools did what they could to get behind it and we definitely have have teachers there that are interested in teaching it we just don't we just don't have the same numbers

115that we did at the onset of this year's courses we know that all the high schools are interested in running it and we hope to grow that into our other two high schools as well so we're gonna we're going to to keep encouraging sign ups but there are some barriers that exist that we have discussed and we could name um a couple of them and one of them I think that's that's really easy is if there's even at North Creek if there's 30 students one semester and 30 students another semester at any of the schools that's offered one period Well if you're IB English or your AP seminar is that class period you have to make a choice this is not yet a graduation requirement North Shore or not provided as an alternate option for

116students to take and a lot of the students that participated with us and if you watch the viewing with Dr Reed last year on the news reel and you'll see that students are saying they're really really interested but part of what's getting in the way is having to make some some choices so that's just one example of some of the barriers that students have identified for us as well as like Ava had talked about just some work to be done to to clear up what that could be and then there are some college in the high school and AP African-American studies things that are coming down the way that would fall under the guise of ethnic studies and so the more that we grow that we we create a pathway for students to take ethic

117studies the more likely there can be multiple options I have a quick question so ethnic studies is it considered an elective or can it fulfill a social studies requirement as of right now is an elective okay um we we would wholeheartedly support ethnic studies being a graduation requirement and that's part of The Proposal that will come forward could it could it could it be one of one way a student would fulfill some of their social studies it absolutely could be yes it could be and okay okay what's that what's a thought graduation policy procedure reads the social studies requirements are world history U.S history and then the senior kind of government right contemporary world problems so we need to go on and change those procedures to identify something different for example if we were going

118to say world history and ethnic studies or obviously U.S history is a state requirement so that we can talk in the state and so is contemporary right issues in government so it's really that world history where we have a little bit of local control you mentioned options before and so there's definitely right that's in Dr Dunn was saying there's definitely some options to to consider foreign because I think we we wholeheartedly support this program and again just to start with great measure good data um but we know one of the barriers is going to get in the way is if it's an elective that's going to be part but if it takes off a graduation requirement we're going to see a lot more students in willingness so how we can meet it doesn't feel like

119it should be very easy to be a social studies or a Civics the State Board of Education has it listed as as an intended graduation requirement it hasn't been decided yet at the state level so um there's always opportunity for advocacy again let us know how we can make this work okay we'll talk more later um okay what are you doing I'm good okay my one question um and this is really important he is the Raz of inglemore it was brought up in our small visit the ivy theory of knowledge is very much a ID diploma class but wondering could it just like the rest of the IV Clauses could it be something that any student could enroll in and I believe given the conversations we were having any more that day that that has

120not been really pursued so just putting that back into the system that maybe that if it's okay with the IB gods that van class is open and encouraged to all students that always be supported by the administration and England I don't know that it's spoken right it's not been said out loud within the community of oh by the way this is a class that anybody had said yes all right so the future of goal um I think it's the where we're headed where we would like to head really speaks to the equity needs part of goal four which is that each student engages in culturally the relevant and cognitively challenging Real World Learning while applying Knowledge and Skills in a variety of ways and when we think about goal for broadly we can distill it

121into one part of it that then can serve as the foundation for all of the work moving forward so when we look at the label of goal four it's around critical thinking Innovative and creative students there's already work being done out in the schools that relates to critical thinking it's happening it's just we haven't been formal about it so Dr Foster is going to discuss where he believes we can go with goal for and how to create a system that enables each and every student to develop both the skills and dispositions that are related to critical thinking thank you um critical thinking is a challenging variable and it provides us different options to consider and lay out some of the ideas that I have but certainly something needs to evolve in a collaborative process in

122terms of what's feasible and what's best for the school district in terms of this variable that's definitely a thing but also somewhat ambiguous at the same time but that's okay Art's ambiguous we still teach art you know it's uh it's a good concept uh typically what uh what I'll go through very quickly is the issue definitions and then how critical thinking is often broken down to a set of skills and a set of dispositions okay there are numerous definitions for critical thinking uh even the highest level of Scholars in the critical thinking agree that they don't agree on what critical thinking is exactly which is good because it means we can tailor it a bit for what we think it should be and I'm I'm actually quite comfortable with that but there are commonalities and

123they all agree it has something to do with thinking and it has something to do with perseverance so there are certainly things we can latch on to okay um so thinking of critical thinking as skills what is it that somebody does in the moment that demonstrates critical thinking uh you could have very long lists you can have very short lists I put together based on my understanding the literature the ones that I thought stood out to me uh the first is simply applying critical thinking so you know you have to do something you have to think you have to apply and I really like this term of being fair-minded that you have to think about different points of view and try to be fair and objective with all of them my background probably leads me

124to this because I'm well acquainted with people that never engage in that process and stay on their respective rabbit holes forever there's a Congeniality bias are you willing to explore viewpoints that are uncomfortable to you the most obvious example would probably be people who have different news outlets and the idea of launching a different news Outlet is you know excessively uncomfortable to them so you have an ongoing Congeniality bias and we create our own Congeniality values typically with the people that we spend time with that's not inappropriate but can lead people to struggle with critical thinking a reasonable analysis of arguments you get into deductive and inductive reasoning issues with this one and then a synthesis that has to occur before you make a decision dispositions uh there's a different number of lists with these

125I I went with a reliable group that's been doing critical thinking for a long time they came up with eight so it's a pretty comprehensive list it's a longer list than many you would see intellectual humility intellectual courage so you have a willingness to admit you're wrong you have a willingness to advocate for your Viewpoint and empathy I really like this one to really go beyond just thinking but to really put yourself in a different uh person's perspective autonomy willing to think on your own Integrity being fair to the rules perseverance sticking with the process this these last two are a little more abstract but but believing in reason as a useful thing to do it would be kind of difficult if we didn't have students that believed in that and being fair-minded again comes

126up as a disposition um there's already been work being done it's matter as Dr Malloy said I've I've taken it and coordinating it cultivating it maybe connecting some dots in the curriculum and also thinking about this from my K-12 perspective because it's so much more effective when that advancement occurs younger rather than older inspection uh yeah and in order to do all of this if we're going to teach critical thinking across all of our grade levels and all of our content areas we're going to need to engage in the process that's known as CMAC right we're going to have to bring together people we're going to have to have a team agree on definition it's a it's a long iterative process but one with it's it's not an and or right it's one word there

127could be incremental improvements along the way it's almost as if we need a critical thinking framework I'll uh studies we've perhaps created a model in our district where we can interweave some supports pre-k through 12. just apply that model maybe to critical thinking of course we've already had that discussion yeah I think there's certainly there's a lot of overlap in particular when you talk about issues with identity you can get very challenging issues for students that they need to overcome and the coaching that could occur in that area would be exceptional it would be amazing to have high school students that could hear a perspective really different than their own and in some cases instead of getting defensive learned to engage in these critical thinking exercises I think the key from the critical thinking standpoint

128and thinking about how it could go into a variety of areas where there's already good work being done is to identify what what exactly do we think is going on cognitively or what are the dispositions that we want to cultivate I feel comfortable with it a lot of people don't but how do you test whether they're being fair-minded if you put out a couple of pieces of literature do they pick them both up or do they just pick up the one that seems to already match their existing point of view but there really needs to be liberate coaching in this area in terms of now is the time where I need to put my ego aside and try to be objective about these different points of view they need to really practice it if they're

129going to develop critical thinking so we're excited to be able to explore that to start the process um take a while but we believe that it's the right place to go in the right direction to go especially as we look at what goal for is intended to do which is to engage students in opportunities to be critical thinkers than to utilize those skills to innovate to create and to prepare themselves for all future possibilities that are in front of them so with that that concludes our goal for presentation and I'll close us out with this quote it goes along with the first quote around creativity because creativity is an essential component of any person's life and from Dr Edward de Bono who was known for encouraging critical thinking and thinking itself as a subject that

130needs to be taught and he says there is no doubt creativity is the most human resource of all without creativity there would be no progress and we would be forever repeating the same so thank you for engaging in this conversation this evening with us and helping us find those places where we need to make sure that we are not forever repeating the same patterns because it's important for us to continue to be Innovative and thoughtful about how we move forward to support each and every one of the students that we serve every day thank you thank you thank you Dr Molly I just wanted to add one quick comment too and it was called out in here about the critical thinking about how we would engage with our community about critical thinking what it is

131we're working on what we're not doing what we're teaching and why I think that's really important I just think about how you know critical race Theory CRT and this CT critical thinking could be confused in the community so it'd be nice to make sure that we're explaining the why and the what of this work and we've had that conversation about the importance of making sure that we're communicating about what it is that we mean by critical thinking and that it's a fundamental skill that is intended to help every student each and every one of our students be successful in all that they do within our schools thank you so uh we'll call this study session to close thank you superintendent Tully and admin staff for such a great presentation all of this excellent work we

132look forward to coming back in a year and seeing another year is a great work in progress thanks everyone