Regular Board Meeting - 04.28.2025

001Um something that I would like to say is I would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Hay. He was our multi-teer. Um I want to say thank you because he actually this was like a really big opportunity for us because because of his connections he so he his friend was a certifier and he was actually would come in and take his time which took about like six hours or seven hours that he was there at the high school. And while he was there, I was talking to him and I was asking him, "So, you go around?" Um, I asked him if he goes around to other schools and he does this for his job. And he said, "No, that only does this for Mr. Hay." Because they're such good friends and everything. So,

002I was very thankful for Mr. to go out of his way and ask his friend if he could come over here and give us such this opportunity. Usually, you would need to go to a company or um any workplace basically and you need to take their test there. But here we actually we can just do it here at the school for free and we have all the time to do it so we don't feel rushed and we had weeks and weeks of practice and throughout that entire time Mr. Haye was there with us um giving us guidance, helping us out. He was letting us come in after school if we needed help and he was just super respectful and kind throughout the whole thing and um and yeah, that was pretty much it. you know,

003it was kind of like it was a rare experience and uh not everyone got to do it. So, we were one of the very lucky few. So, we're just hoping that Mr. Hay can continue to come back and give other kids the opportunity to because we have some other friends, too, who are not seniors, but they still did their welding test and everything and even they got certified. So, we had um Kase Alvarez. He is he's a sophomore right now and he's already certified at 15 years old. So, you know, I think that's something that he can easily put on his resume and already puts him way ahead of other people in his grade. So, I'm just very grateful that we had that opportunity because of Mr. Hay. And that's all we have to say.

004Can I ask some questions? Of course. How long was the course that you had to take before you were ready to test? Um, so the course was basically the entire trimester with about two a week or two weeks off in the very beginning because we had to do a bunch of safety and fire um uh just like safety work that we had to do before we actually got to start welding. And after that, there was a bunch of times where Mr. Hey had to be gone for FFA or when we had subs, so we couldn't weld. But I think the it was basically the entire trimester which was around two months and we were just the day of he just told us like okay you guys practice and we learned and he walked us through

005every single step. So the day of we were just able to go out and do our best. Yeah. Do any of you have um expectations to go into welding like for a career? Uh, I want to go to uh uh attend uh trade school and uh uh get a job as a welder hopefully in the future and uh yeah, I just want to work with uh trucks and diesel and stuff like that. And yeah, just really enjoy it and stuff like that. So yes, um I'm planning to uh attend uh trade school. So yeah, great. That was my question too. So with this certification, like can you get a job now? How do you want to You mentioned trade school. What was what's the plan now with certification? Yeah. So, I talked to Mr. Haye

006about it just a little bit because I was kind of interested. Um so, right. So, this kind of just like puts you ahead of the game. So, like when we took this test, he was like um because the Olla school isn't like a welding company, you won't be able to get a job from this place. But it als but it shows other employers that you would go and take their tests. um that you know what you're doing and you're you're a higher level than if you just went in with nothing. And so it gets you a higher chance of one being able to test and two um passing the test obviously because we have practice um for the welding program. So first you got to start off with um beginning welding um and then you

007move on to advanced. So it's like two trimesters of So, is this beginning or is this advanced? This was advanced. Oh, okay. So, yeah, you had to take the first part and then pass that one and then you can go on to advanced and do the certification test. Wow. Well, good for you guys. That's incredible. Well done. Very cool. And then uh here are the certificates we did that we were given. Great job. Thank you. Hey guys, one of the things we do when we have folks come in for recognition is we like to take a picture with the school board to celebrate your achievement and to put that out there. I know there's only three of you of the eight, but are you guys willing to take a picture with us? All right, we'll

008bring the board forward and snap one for social media. Thank you again for coming to our schoolboard meeting tonight. Have a good night. Uh just one additional comment I think can make a connection between what you just heard about welding certification and what we're experiencing with our CDL class. Even if those trainings and certificates uh don't lead to direct employment, what we're discovering is employers will reach out to our kids and say, "Wow, they've had that training. They do have a leg up and and they're getting recruited to come in some into some of these trades and fields." And so even if it is just in preparation for the real test, tremendous opportunities and doors being open for our kids that are interested in the trades. For sure. Absolutely. And how long has welding been

009offered at the high school? Four years. Yeah. Yeah. long timesty. Wow. Well, thank you. That's an amazing program. So, thank you for setting students up for success. One other note in the CTE field that I think is brand new and and talking about class size and I know u principal Aerson and and some of the folks in our guidance office, Dr. Meek has been creating the master schedule for next year. I think we're in the market for another semi to purchase an additional truck to create more opportunities so kids could get through their hours a little more quickly. So, yeah, some exciting things happening in CTE for sure at the high school. That's great. We only have one instructor or two. Uh we have two. They sort of share the experience. Um but but you

010remember in driver's ed when we did you take driver's ed in high school? Yeah. So they would put three of you in a car and one would drive to Moses Lake and one would drive back. Well, our current vehicle um you can only put the instructor and one student. So they drive out 20 miles and then they come back and have to switch it out. But the the vehicle that they're looking at would allow them I think it has the sleeper cab option. So you could throw three kids in, drive 30 miles out, take shifts driving back, and just cycle them through a lot more experiences. And uh so I think we're in the market for something like that. Fantastic. Any other questions? Okay, we're going to move on to our student representative reports. That

011was our section right there. The welders. Okay, no problem. Well, I didn't see you welding anything else, so next time come prepared with something that you've done, huh? Just kidding. Actually, yeah, we have one thing. We recently competed in our FBA state competition. So, us two, Isabelle, me and Isabelle, and I think seven other kids, Jesse, the guy in the blue shirt who just left, he was also there. Um, we competed hard. It was a tough crowd. I think we did really well. Um, as a chapter, too, that was our biggest um Sorry, last year was a race, but this was our second biggest. And we had a freshman, too. So, you know, those are very rare in the clubs. Yeah, it was a great experience. We got to go on the ferry to Seattle

012and Banebridge. And um shout out to Mr. Shank. I had Mr. Shank all week. It was a blast. It was a blast. I love it. How did you guys do? We got wagged a little bit, but Well, Jesse made it to finals, but he didn't place for the top 10. But it was a very fun experience. We were there at Belle for four days with also Mr. Shank and Terry Perez and Isaac Gonzalez. Great. Well, congratulations. I'm glad you guys went and did that. Um, we will move on to our board member discussions starting with our legislative report from Director Gerber. Yep. So, the legislative session ended over the weekend. Uh we still don't have all the details on everything they decided, but um basically what kind of what we're hearing from was and everything

013is that we got some increases, some good um good increases for our funds, but not near as much as they were hoping for, not near as much as they asked for. Um the original um I have kind of the email in front of me about um all this. He originally projected 16 billion proposed revenue package and the government the governor rejected it twice. He, you know, didn't want to raise um taxes that much. So it was originally 16 billion, ended up at 8 billion and so a lot of those cuts did hit the K12 education funds. Uh one good thing, we did get the multiplier for um special ed students that did increase, which is something that WASA was hoping for. So there'll be more funding per special education student for the schools. So really

014excited about that. MOAC was one that they wanted a huge um increase in the funding and they got a a bit of an increase. I think I think in the paragraph it calls it a nominal increase. So good but not near what they were hoping for. Um so yeah, but it's over for now and we'll be hearing in the next couple weeks exactly how that's going to affect us all. Great. Um, we have a board meeting adjustment on June 9th. We're going to move the board meeting to 1 PM to accommodate DOHS graduation. Is that an issue for anybody? I do want to uh provide a comment. I saw this on the board agenda, but um and this is sort of a I guess a good news bad news situation is the way to say

015it. um the work and the integration between DOHS and Ulta High School has been moving along so well um that there's some interest in combining the ceremonies. So this year um there's still some conversations that need to be had particularly at DOHS at the site to finalize that determination, but we think that'll happen in the next day or two. But I didn't want to make you aware of that. We'll leave that on there as a tenative placeholder, but we might actually just move forward and have everybody there that that same night. So great. Okay. Well, keep us posted on that. Um, we have several things coming up. The scholarship night May 6th at 5:30 p.m. And then we have OS graduation June 6th at 8:00 p.m. Potentially DOHS graduation June 9th at 6 PM. Uh,

016the middle school promotion June 13th at 9:00 a.m. And uh, so we need to get those on our calendars. Okay, we're gonna find out who's going to those. So, maybe get out your calendars. Um, for scholarship night, I will be there. I'll be there, too. OS graduation, I will be there. I will be there as well. um DOHS graduation if it happens separately I will be there as well is anyone else available for DHS graduation sorry I didn't see silent hand Okay. So, sounds like Aaro, Ken, and myself will all be available for DOHS graduation if it's held separately. And middle school promotion June 13th. I'll be there for them. Okay. Um, it'll be me and Aaron. Can you send invite in invites for those? Thanks, Madison. Okay. So, we need to talk about our

017vacancy on the board. I don't know what to say, but we have open position that we need to fill. So, if you guys, we're going to throw this out to the audience because clearly we have failed at uh trying to drum up a candidate. If you guys know of anyone who's willing to run for school board, please have them apply for our open position. Um we also have several of the board members that will be their positions will be open and they'll be running um next month. So if there's anyone in the community interested in school board positions, please throw your hat in the ring. I think at first I was just sitting here thinking Sharon Why don't you finish filling it for the rest of the year? And if somebody puts their name on

018the ballot, not to put you on the hot seat, but it is your district. It is your district and you filled that position before. Well, think about it. Or start recruiting some of your neighbors. But we need somebody. Well, no. I was just going to mention at at the beginning we were kind of hands off like um we got all the announcements and information out there hoping to get applicants and just see what we got but I think now we're um shifting into recruitment mode. Um I I was recruited by by a board member and so then that can happen. We are not too proud to beg. So please please please if you know somebody send them our way. Pete, I need you to look into if it would help because mine is an open

019spot of me stepping down um in the spot that I'm at and run for that other one to see if that would help bring somebody else from a different area. So you want me to see if it if there's any interest in So the the procedural part of it would be you would vacate your current position as an atlarge member fill this director 2 position and then run again and then repost and then some of the interest we've had we have had people interested that don't live in the right area. I see what you're saying. Okay, I can chase that down. If we did that, that would mean that all of us will be up, all the positions will be up for re-election this year. So, something to think about. Things are going to get

020wild in 2025. Okay. Um, Pete, you might end up with a whole new board. Okay, we will move on to our required approvals. At this time, I will accept a motion to recruit to approve the required approvals. I'll make that motion and I'll second that. I have a motion and a second for the required approvals. All in favor? I All opposed. Motion passes 40. We'll go ahead and move on to superintendentformational items and hand things over to director Perez. Yeah, I want to go in reverse order if I if I may. That way we can transition at the graduation update to Principal Aerson and Principal Tovar. You'll see a document link there, a PDF about athletics right sizing. Uh Mike Dawn, our athletic director, did an analysis of our league comparables, everyone in our league.

021And one of the um anomalies in Oll is we have a number of varsity assistants. Those are the positions and the current salaries attached to them. And below there's some talking points about a consideration for that. we're we're going through to determine whether or not we want to um continue to fund and fill those positions. I think the reason it's important for the board to be aware of that is those are programs that uh certainly a lot of our students participate in. It might be um there might be parents and and varsity head coaches who reach out to you and say, "How can I possibly do this when I've had a varsity assistant for 10 years?" While the model out there when we think about all the positions in our school district is to make

022sure that we're meeting the standard and the sort of general accepted practices in this particular area, we're a little out of alignment. So, I wanted to make you aware of of the number and the concept and certainly give you a heads up when and if we decide to go down this road, but I wanted you to be aware of that because again, a number of students and staff impacted with this kind of move. Pete, I don't see football there. Yes. So what we what you see here are the programs in the SEWAC and the programs in Oll where we're out of alignment. So the reason you don't see football or um whatever other sports are missing from there is because those sports are already in alignment. Is there like a metric to however many kids

023play? Do you get this many assistance or Yeah, really good question. There there are um there safety metrics that are different for each sport. So if you have, you know, a 100 football players, you need this many coaches from a safety perspective. If you have 30 basketball players, you need this many. Um, so yeah, there's definitely metrics that we use, Miles, to determine that. These varsity assistant positions are really there to help the the varsity coaches be successful and run their programs and step in when they're not there. And and again, they're contributing to our programs and contributing to what we're putting out there. Again, we're trying to analyze um But at what cost? There you go. Yeah. And how do we compare to other folks in our league that are offering the same activities

024at a um in a comparable way? That's the difference between both of us or say again. So like is that the difference? No, it's just a total expense. Like we're paying $33,000 more than other schools in the SEWAC. Correct. Exactly. and we we may get down to the road where we determine that's worth our investment. Uh but I wanted you to be aware of it. I think we have some time to make this decision and determination. The the reason that I thought it was important was the number of students and the number of families that are impacted who participate in these things and you often get questions about athletics and and so it's me giving you a heads up, prepping you for that conversation and we can check in in the coming weeks. So this

025isn't a decision that needs to be made today, but I wanted you to start thinking about it and to be aware of the the data around it. One more thing with the is the metric also including how much it costs? So like soccer because there's probably more kids in there is going to cost more for assistant coach. Well, the salaries are established in much the same way. What do we what does a coach in Quincy make? What does a coach in Grand View make? What does a coach in East Valley make? That's a negotiation between the coaches and the school district. Those are all very comparable and similar. And when you do an analysis like that, what you start to discover is, hey, we're spending money in ways that other districts aren't. Doesn't mean we

026shouldn't. It just means we're out of alignment a little bit. Just out of curiosity, these numbers, are they coming from school districts the same size as ours? Bigger or smaller? It's only this it's only the school districts in our league. Our league. Yeah. Okay. So, it's an FYI for now. Something to be thinking about. Um hopefully people who are watching the meeting or coaches in the area in our district might approach you about it, but I I wanted you to be aware of it and then we'll check in and and see u this is sort of dipping our toe in the water and deciding um if it's worth our effort. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh for the next item, I'm going to invite um Dr. Meek Ford and John Weisman, and we're going to take

027you through um I think a highly anticipated standardsbased grading update. And so Mrs. Garz is going to call up the slides and Miles and his two friends down there are going to get their pencils ready to to ask some questions and so hopefully we're ready for him. But uh a couple of weeks ago I had an opportunity uh with John Weisman and with our teachers association to spend the day at Ollo High School and we had uh a chance to engage with the staff, invite them in during their prep period to talk to them about the progress and considerations related to um rel related to uh you have the clicker, huh? Yeah, you're good. You're good. Related to standardsbased gradient. So, I wanted to step back just a little bit and set the stage for

028the board and the community. Um, and yeah, right there, John, let's just do those first three if we could. At the foundational level, what we want in all of our schools, Ollo High School, McFarland, and all of our elementaryaries, we want it to be a safe place where uh adults work together, kids work together. What you heard our welding kids describe was, "Hey, we had a teacher who cared about us." So much so that he called his friend who could help us get certified and came in on a Saturday and then they worked together to allow us to do this. That's a safe and supportive culture, right? We want to extend those opportunities and we want that to exist in every school. We also want to make sure that we have highly skilled teachers in

029every classroom and that the things that we teach them, if you take algebra 9 from teacher Gerber and algebra 9 from teacher Perez, you get a similar experience. you get the same level of rigor and an A in Gerber is the same as an A in Perez, right? Whatever that standard is, those are foundational in any school. Now, there are a couple of optional pieces that we want to talk about. And so, John, if you hit me with the next two clicks, maybe three, these are optional things to consider. And what I want you to think about that fourth one is uh standards reference reporting. Um, and in that in that chunk, it really is um this is the conversation we're about to have. SBG, that's where you would put it. How are we reporting

030about how our kids are doing? So, why do you think it's in the optional section? I I mean, there's more than one way to skin a cat. So, you can It's optional how you report that. Exactly. You can grade in a more traditional model, right, that we would call or you can grade in a standards referenced way, but those three foundational things stay in there, right? And part of our rationale for um moving this direction around standardsbased grading was to improve those three foundational layers. It really was a tool and a resource. And that experience that day that I had with the teachers tells me that we've made a lot of progress. We've made a lot of progress in the first three areas because of what we've tried to do in area four. question, Miles.

031The what is competency based? What do you competency based education? Um, you want me to take a shot at it? All right, I'll take Dr. Meek is probably our expert around that and certainly assistant superintendent Shenk, but competency based education at at its highest level, Miles, is you don't move on until you've mastered it. You don't move on until you're ready. So, lots of times when the trimester ends, you know, you got your C, you move on, right? You take the next course. Not in this model. until you demonstrate competency in every standard, you're staying in that path. It's it's a difficult model to uh put into practice in public schools. And I what I heard from the standardsbased grading folks that we listen to, it's aspirational. Man, wouldn't it be great if we could

032do this? Um and so that's that's how I would articulate standards based or competency based. Yeah. The only thing I would add to that, and he's right, is just that works both ways. And so it takes learning out of being a timebound activity. Like right now we operate in trimesters and we say that you're going to learn this chunk of information from the start of the trimester till the end of the trimester in a true competency based system. This what's this is part of what makes it aspirational is that some students are ready to move through that quicker than that. They're ready to meet competency at different points. And so it becomes a much more personalized education model than just a kind of a one-sizefits all. If we did We cut out A and B

033sections. So like right now I'm taking uh Eastern East Washington University history, but I had trimester A in the fall a gap and then I'm taking it finishing it now. Would it all like if I could do B's work in A, would I do that? Would it just shift over and I don't take the second part? The best way I can tell you is that um that particular number five up there, not only is it aspirational, but it basically would take the school structures as we have them and tip them upside down. And so I even things like bell schedules and trimesters would really have to be rethought alto together because it all of those are time bound systems and so we'd have to rethink how do you measure progress and then how do you

034how and when do students move on to the next chunk of their learning. So, uh, yeah, a lot of things like that would have to shift in order to truly do that. I think based on your questions and and how the conversation's going, this visual we could probably improve if we created a gap between four and five. There really is another another leap to get to that um to get to that level of instruction. It really is changing the system. So, uh, the next few slides we're going to talk about the current reality at Adultello High School. And this is from the teacher perspective. And maybe we'll hear the student perspective. I'm going to look to John and Dr. Meek when it's their slides because I'm I may have already stole some of them. This

035one might very well be mine. So, I'm I'm looking for a signal. That That's all you got to say. Just Just point at me and I'll know when to go. Thank you. This is our dress rehearsal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, full implementation is underway at the high school, right? And we've had mixed feedback from teachers and families. I don't know if any board members have received any calls about standardsbased grading. Okay. So, again, mixed feelings about it. But what what we discovered that day, a couple of words I've shared about the experience we had, it was very measured. Uh, and and the vocabulary that our staff was using was different than they had the previous couple of years. It it was um there were certainly some positive aspects and components and and points of

036view around it, but there are also some concerns and we're going to share both of those with you. We know that teachers are continuing to develop their if you'll go back for me just a second, John, uh teachers are developing and refining their assessments and and their rubrics and their reporting tools and trying to figure all that out and students and their families are adjusting to how we're reporting. What we also discovered is the time and energy we we spent and expense on providing training and opportunity for teachers to develop proficiency skills. That was money well spent. And as we move down the road with SBG, we need to continue to invest in that professional development and opportunities for teachers to refine those components. It really sets the plan for what they want kids to

037learn and what they're going to do when they when they learn it and what they're going to do when they struggle. Um those proficiency scales are so important. SPG or not. All right. So, as we um went in and approached this, we just as Peter talked about, we had recognized that some of the really, you know, 30,000 foot view um challenges that have been identified have been concerns from parents about transparency of the grading system. How do you track that? How do you um confusion around that? Um and that teachers were struggling with the workload and that transition. um from traditional grading to standardsbased grading and some of the tools that we had available for them and then the the overarching need for additional training and support. So those were some of the sort of

038global um challenges that we knew were out there and so we decided to um as Dr. Press said to go and do a listening tour. And really it was it was just that. It wasn't trying to lead or persuade one way or another, but to hear more directly from the end user and in this case from the teachers. And so we were looking for feedback. And when you think about what feedback really is, it's used for a basis of improvement. And that's what we want to do. We want to look at where we're currently at and say, what are the steps that we need to take to make this better? whether that's to make it better within standardsbased grading or if that's to to improve our system of pivoting. Um but we needed information. We

039needed to hear uh from that teacher voice. And so uh presented to the teachers, Dr. Perez went through and and um explained the process and then gave these sort of grading models to be able to look at. And Pete, I don't know if you want to go over those. Yeah, I can. And I I would ask the students and the board as I describe each of these in brief briefly, which one do you think the the staff picked? Like if you had to decide what happened here, I want you to make a prediction for yourself. Reliable. What's that? Reliable. Hey, can I get through them first and then it's going to be a it's going to be a a silent uh silent prediction, right? So, renewed commitment. Um we need those welders back to calm

040you down. Uh renewed commitment. That meant, hey, we're doubling down. We're going to keep using Empower. We've had some battles. We've had some struggles, but they've been worth it, and we're going to keep going. We're going to invest a little more time and energy and resources. We have a plan to move it up to 11th grade this next year, and we've communicated that. We're going to continue to work on alignment, and we found this high school in in Ohio that that the experts recommended to us. We're going to throw a few people in a in a plane, and we're going to ship them out there, and we're going to learn. We're going to benchmark. we're going to see how to really do this. And so that was that was model one. Stay the course. Um

041take take our our punches and and and and keep going. This the one in the middle uh the roll out reset was to say, okay, we we hear you about empower. People are struggling with it. So we're going to stop using empower, but every teacher is now going to use Skyward and they are going to do traditional or SBG. But we're still rolling forward. We still have our timeline. By 2027, all of our courses would be standardsbased grading. Everyone's expected to use proficiency scales, which we told you are so important. You're going to have a scope and sequence, common assessments, and lesson plans that are well defined. You're going to know what you're teaching and and how how kids demonstrate success. That's the rollout reset. So, empower goes away in that one, but we stay

042with an aggressive timeline. Not quite as aggressive as renewed commitment, but we're still moving forward. reliable range is going to allow some choice. And so this would give some choice um some choice and voice for teachers, but that's certainly going to be directed by the administrators at the high school and at the district level. So in this model, imagine we might say ELA, math, science, and social studies. Those are all SBG. Maybe some of our electives, maybe some of our CTE courses, maybe some of our college and the high school. We'd get a group of people together to talk about where does it make the most sense and and to stay in a traditional model and where can we really support standardsbased instruction and standardsbased grading in these other courses. In this model, empower would

043go away as well. Everybody would be required to use Skyward. And so this one um does doesn't have the end date that the others other two have. 2027. Uh for each of those two models, we'd be full implementation in the green or the purple. The red says, "Hey, we're going to move forward where it makes sense. We're going to pull back when it doesn't. We're going to listen to teacher voice in this." But what we won't allow in this model is really important to know. In my ninth grade algebra model, um teacher Gerber doesn't get to use traditional and I get to use standardsbased grading. Whatever the model is for nth grade algebra, we both have to use that model. So, those are the the scriptors that we shared with staff and then they had

044a chance to ask us questions. So, um and we're going to tell you about the results here in a little bit. Miles Miles was like four slides ahead of us, but uh yeah, be thinking in your head what you think the teachers did. So, the next uh set of slides really gives you the feedback uh that teachers and staff shared. And we're going to take those kind of theme by theme. And so the first one of those uh and Pete kind of talked about it just a second ago, but is that balance between having consistency and having flexibility. Uh obviously you hear and you saw in all those different lines of the the options moving forward, there's a lot of elements about consistency. So like if I take algebra 9, it doesn't matter which teacher

045I have. We have common expectations. And it's important to differentiate that those common expectations doesn't mean those classes look exactly the same, but it's that we have common markers of what says a student has been successful in algebra or a student hasn't been successful in algebra. So, uh this particular theme had a lot uh really focused on uh the need for departmentwide consistency rather than individual teacher choice that it was important that we don't have individual people kind of uh operating aside uh from their team. uh really pointed out the differences that are needed for some specialty classes like college in the high school that some of the uh expectations set out have been challenging in navigating between maybe standardsbased grading and college in the high school and at the same time maintaining dual systems.

046If you've had a student at Oello High School the last couple of years, you know that some of the courses are graded through empower and standardsbased grading and some are graded through Skyward and traditional grading. And so the the mixed message with that um with that also has created some concerns about equity and confusion. Uh this year in particular every um every class within that's offered every section of a class that's the same class is offered has the same grading mechanism. But a year ago uh there were some for example there were some English teachers doing it and some not. And so two kids that were taking the same class might have had a very different grading experience based on where they were at. So that's been a a forward motion along there. And then

047just uh reemphasizing the department decisions are preferred. Um you know obviously with this you know finding that balance between what things need to be consistent and which things are uh flexible for some individualism or you know kind of teacher style is is where this uh theme really sits. The second one uh is what I would say is the the empower feedback. Um you you heard already that there's uh a variety of concerns related to empower. Uh some users will describe it as complex and unreliable. Uh in generally we hear a lot and in this these themes also supported that skyward was preferred. Uh usually because words like simplicity and uh greater grade transparency. It's really quick and easy to know how a student's doing uh if you log into Skyward. So, it's worth pointing out

048too that Skyward has been in the district for a number of years, over 20. And so, whenever there's something a tool that people are very comfortable with, there is a time of a growing pain, a change in transition. So, it's not surprising necessarily to hear that Skyward is more preferred. Uh, in that case, um, there are uh, it's important to say that uh, there are some positive experiences that people have expressed with empower. Empower is definitely a tool that is much more uh efficient and proficient in monitoring student growth over time. And so one of the things that that follows a student throughout their educational career is the learning standards that they're working towards. If I'm a if I'm a student in algebra 2 at Oll High School, but I took algebra at McFarland Middle

049School, my algebra 2 teacher can actually drill down and see the learning targets and standards and how I progress through that time. So it helps unlock learning for the teacher of where students may be. Quite frankly, that's not possible uh in a traditional skyward. You know, you could see that they earned a B, but you don't really know is that B because they can't solve quadratic equations or because they can't simplify expressions. And so the the learning uh progression for students is very powerful for teachers to see. I would tell you too, um we haven't fully got there yet because we haven't had a chance to to have that longevity over time for people to be able to see that. But some teachers are starting to recognize that already. uh the automated scoring is probably

050the most common uh thing that is uh that's heard about concern. Uh so empower has a process where uh it is generating a a predicted score of where the student is performing. Uh all of us are very hardwired to think in percentages and points and so we you know if a student has earned a two and a two and a three our brain naturally tries to add those up and average them and that's not what uh the power law is what uh empower uses but it's really showing a trend line of where that student's headed and so the best way I can really say that is that when students are it's kind of like learning to ride a bike when you can learn to ride a bike should we still be holding you accountable or

051marking your progress when you fell off six times and scraped your knees. And so that trend line is really we care more about where you are here than where you were at the beginning of the the trimester. And that's just a is a huge fundamental shift for people because in an accountability sense um a lot of our staff are um they're used to being in a place where they they know that um these assignments I give on day one, day two, or day three really have just as much voice in a student's greater progress over the entire trimester. So, um you're going to hear a little bit later specifically about some things we have uh as next steps related to Skyward. Uh but those are some themes that that kind of match out between uh

052the Skyward Empower debate, if you will. Uh we have four more themes to share. I'm going to take the next two and then and then John will finish up with the last two. But are there any questions right now? Yeah, I did want to ask about what you were just saying about um seeing the progression. So does that make it difficult for parents and students like during the semester to see where their student is at? Arguably yes. U because I where you are today um you in our in our traditional mindset we when we say where we are today most people want to know has the student been doing the work that that's been assigned of them and then how are they doing on the work. Those are usually the two most common questions. So

053in a traditional model you can look for things like zeros or low low percentages that kind of indicate that in a in a trend line like that uh it's possible that at the beginning of the semester you were very low performing and by the end of the trimester you have met mastery and met standard which then equates to that a grade if you will. And so yes it's a it is difficult. Um, but what we've really tried to do, arguably unsuccessfully, but uh, what we've tried to do is really help people see there are some early indicators of where a student's trend line would start to to move in the right direction. So, we look for things like growth. We look for things like, yeah, you may be at a one today, but over the

054next couple weeks, you start to see that growth into the 1.5 level and the 2.0 levels. If you start to see the opposite happening and you're slipping backwards in a particular scale, that's giving you feedback as well that you're really going in the wrong direction. But yes, it's difficult and I think it's more a matter of just not really thinking of it as a task completion. Uh because that progression isn't saying you gave me these 10 things to do and I did all 10 of them and I did them well. Instead, it's saying here's the learning related to this that I the progress I've made so far. Uh there is recently a uh empower release that makes a tool for parents a little bit easier. McFarland is actually sharing it with their parents this week

055at parent conferences. Uh that takes a a more realistic stab at a great equivalency because we know that's a comfortable language for parents to use is to say, you know, hey, I'm getting about a C. Uh so McFarland is actually releasing that information this week at parent conferences. Thank you. The problem with the uh the example of if in algebra 2 in high school I can go back and look at the algebra one for middle school where would we have time in the day or the classroom to do that and then practically how would that look would it be one-on- ones with each of the students who are um struggling in those areas would it be that you have to go after school and you know making teachers stay longer to evaluate okay well back

056then you did this and you struggled in you're struggling again here like how how would we actually do that to use that and then also um you know with the individualizing like that like picking at each person person how that affects dayto-day. Yeah. So that illustration I used was less probably pointed at the student experience and more pointed at as the teacher planning for instruction. It's important for me to know my class and to know where their strengths are and what things they've really mastered. So, for example, if if you're all my third period class and you come and I have data telling me that you've all met proficiency in quadratic equations, I really don't need to spend a lot of time reviewing and retaching that again again, even if it's in my curriculum book.

057And so, it's more of a planning tool at that point. Um, we're still in a in a mode right now where that algebra class that you took at McFarland, the books are kind of closed on it. Your grade is posted and we've moved on. But it it is helpful data for the teacher to know and understand to mark your progress. When we look at that level five, it's a competency based learning. That's why that's way out there and aspirational because uh that's where it would get really messy uh to to say okay we're going you're done with quadratic equations. So now you get to move next door and kind of move on to the next scale or or learning progression that's there. And we're just that's a long ways down the road. um if we

058ever uh aspire to I I did I do have one example Miles in for one of your classmates who was in a CTE fiber arts course. They took the first one and then they had some struggles around some particular standards but those standards repeated themselves in the next course the second course you know you were talking about A and B is one what's that? It's like two it's one so they you can move on to two. Yes. So they they allowed the student to move on to two, but then because those standards uh had had another opportunity, that teacher could look back and then give that student credit from the first course who said, "Oh, now you know it. Now you made progress." That's impossible in a traditional skyward model. So there's there's some benefits

059for the student experience that are just a ways down the road. The other thing I want to say about empower before we take a couple more questions. When we talked with the national experts around standardsbased grading and this is to acknowledge the work that has happened so far in Oll and the people who have put time and energy into this. When you ask them the best tool to use for standardsbased grading, it's empower. I want I I think that needs to be acknowledged that we did the best we could with the best tool that's out there. But we and we need to acknowledge the struggles. But I want you to know it was good sound decisionmaking why we went down this road. What would that look on a transcript? Like would that we you can

060go back and it would move into an A now or because when it translates it would Yeah. Everything gets transcripted to a letter grade. Our state still has a state standard transcript. So transcripts in Washington, doesn't matter what high school you graduate from, they all have to look exactly the same. Yeah. So, how do you collect data from, let's just say, a student who comes in and they're going through and then all of a sudden they take a six week sbatical and then at the end of six or seven weeks they turn all in all their work and they get so what do you do between week one and week six and they're sitting there doing absolutely nothing? Are you talking about my kid? No, no, I'm just because it sounds pretty familiar. Well, welcome

061to the club, sister. That's the problem that I have. And how do you collect data there? Because technically speaking, that kid just is either lazy, doesn't want to do their work, but then at the end the parents freaking out, I can imagine. So, and you're sitting there and it's just zeros. You're absolutely nothing. But then we allow them on the six week to turn in work. It doesn't in my mind it doesn't comprehend how we are making them better for that in the real world. And that's the problem that I have with with this. Everything else is just fine. It's it's Where's that cut off? Where's that sweet spot where you're going to sit there and say, "Okay, at some point you you have to get it done by this deal?" Because you can ask

062me, I'm gonna put her on the hot seat. You can ask my wife and it's to the very end and then at the very end she struggles. Boom. Gets it all done. Well, I'm kind of I don't move to step two until step one is done. We're very different. How do you figure that? And how do you read data on that? Yeah. So, some of those are going to come out in the themes that are coming up. We had teachers express concern about the late work policy. I know there's been some move already that Principal Aterson has led to shrink that window a little bit. It'd be interesting to hear from the students about not maybe their experiences with the late policy, but maybe what some of their classmates are doing. So, I think what

063came out of our listening session was, hey, four weeks might be too. It's four weeks currently. That might be too much, but does two weeks seem reasonable? And that would just be a minimum standard because again if if teacher Gerber said I'm willing to take late work in four and five weeks if there's some circumstances you're dealing with he's allowed to do that but at a minimum all teachers would use this cut off and and a lot of them are saying what you're saying director pera hey are we teaching kids bad lessons by giving them this lengthy time. So and I I'll say it another way too like that was never the intended outcome of that whole mindset. Unfortunately, it's morphed into that for some kids, the mentality that I can just kind of show

064up at the end and drop it all on your lap and and measure that. Um, and so there's definitely and I we should expect no different than it comes out as a theme in there because it that's not what that learning progression is really set up to do. And and so we do need to figure that out. And and it just some people some people learn the system and like anything else, they play the system and especially like I worry about like the kids that are in in sports, they can sit there and still be eligible to play sports even though why? Because they have the six four weeks to be able to turn in their work. I'm still in that old fac philosophy that if you don't turn in your work, hey, first it

065comes your grades and then comes sports. Sports is a is a is a maybe a plus to to you doing good work, but we lose that when we do this. So, that was my that's my deal right there. I I think one of my key learnings from the training that we went to is right along the lines of what you just said, and it came out in our conversation when John and I were there for the listening tour. It actually makes that more possible what you just said if we stick with standardsbased grading because what you can then do is you can create um here's my five classes and and maybe I don't maybe I have all incompletes right now because I have six weeks to hand all that work in. Right next to that

066we can lay 21st century skills or work ready skills or whatever we want to call them. And they could be attendance, they could be getting your work in on time, they could be a behavior, whatever categories we decide. So you might have a kid who's passing all their classes, but we know they have 25 missing assignments and they're always missing first period. And technically by they might be eligible, but we've decided locally that we want to teach you these skills. And if you're an athlete and competing for us, even though you're passing your classes, because you're not um behaving the way we think our student citizens should, you're not eligible. And with standardsbased grading, you can create this whole other bucket of of a grade for a kid around those skills, things that you guys

067talk about all the time. And we may be able to do that through a different platform. But that that was an exciting thing that we heard about to take away uh because then you might have another kid who's really struggling with algebra 2. really not really struggling with pre-calc and they're they don't have a passing grade and they're not going to be able to play in the next three games of a 10 game. So, they're going to miss 30% of the season, but that kid shows up every day, comes in for extra help in the morning, the teacher says they're a great kid, they're just struggling. Wouldn't you want that kid to be able to play, right? There's other ways we can think about it that which is another benefit of having gone down this

068road with standardsbased grading. It's allowing us to think about some of those more creative opportunities and we just got to find the right platform to do it. It's also something I'll um something I think causes us to rethink some things is we talk a lot about the real world experience of preparing kids for for life after high school. And there's no doubt that timeliness is a life skill you have to have. But there's also an element of there's a whole lot of our world that our kids enter where you don't get the option of doing things like taxes, paying a bill, and so the whole concept. So when the the proficiency scales are based on power standards, they're what our staff have declared that every kid who takes algebra at Oll High School needs to

069do these things. So the question then comes is why would we knowingly say here go on you you're missing these three things. But in a traditional grading mindset things like zeros or skipping an assignment here or there if you're far enough along in that. But we're in kind of that middle ground right now where we're in that transition to really get there. But there needs to be a time and place. So right now our bar is set that you have to have a 1.5 or higher in all of your scales. uh the scale language around that says something along the lines of 1.5 means I can meet some of the criteria with help from a teacher. Really where that bar should be in a perfect world is that all of those power standards and scales

070are at the proficiency level. That that's what truly marks that you've met the power standards, those things that we've we've agreed on. This is where you really have to be. But we knew we couldn't go from where we were when we started to all of a sudden saying you have to basically, for lack of better terms, pass everything. uh to be able to move on to the next course. Like when I told you, I'm really old school. I'm like, I'm about as old as they can come. I'm to the point where you're going to go to college. You're not going to have mom and dad trying to wake you up, trying to force you into class. You're not going to sit there and have, you know, I'm not going to have somebody pushing me and

071telling me to go. So, at some point, we have to teach these kids that, you know, if you're going to go on to the next step, it's going to cost mom and dad and everybody else a bunch of money. But it also you have to put in your part. And so that's where I feel like right now we're So I like I said pizza came up with a good idea. I just challenge you guys to let's see if we can't, you know, push that through. We're going to press on with the next two themes and uh I'm sure there'll be more questions to come. I'm glad we paused there for a little bit. So this one was around um and and I think you feel it in this room too. There's general support for the

072the philosophy of standardsbased grading. It really gets back to what Miles stated, like, "All right, how's this work dayto day? What's the experience going to be like for for students and for teachers?" There were some inconsistencies and struggles in in a couple of particular areas that were expressed for it to us, particularly the ELA staff and some of our um career and technical ed folks. Um we talked a little bit about the 1.5 and some rules we put in place that are OEL rules, not necessarily rules of SBG. So thinking about this three assignment rule and some of the logistics and how we're actually grading students needs to be uh discussed and further thought about and then some real some more training for staff and agreement around what it means to be a 1.5 versus

073a two. Maybe we consider changing the scales like some nuances and some refinements I think is really where we're at with a lot of this work. The next theme was around um alignment and making sure that when you think about the foundational areas that we talked about earlier, guaranteed and viable curriculum, effective instruction in every classroom, making sure that the proficiency scales and the assessments and what we're asking kids to do every day is consistent from teacher to teacher and and that the resources that our teachers have and the assignments are putting in front of kids makes sense. Uh and so there's, you know, when you get a staff together and you ask them how other departments are doing, they certainly will share their opinion and they did that on this day. And uh teachers

074also had a call for administrative support and oversight. They want the the principles and assistant principles in their rooms helping them think through this, asking the kinds of things that Miles asked, like, "Hey, I'm really struggling with this. I uh I I I've communicated with these parents. They don't understand Empower. I need some help to think about how to communicate really clearly with them where their students at or their students actually doing okay, but mom and dad expect to see A's at every every time they log in and it's not going to show that for another couple weeks. So, there was a call for some additional support um from the admin team from our teachers. Uh theme five, we also called this the director porna slide. Um, so these were um really looking at some

075of the the concerns around students disengaging. And that could be really on both ends. That could be I got a 1.5, I'm passing the course, I'm done. I'm I'm just going to coast through the rest. Or it could be that they achieve a three and that's early in the in the trimester and say, "Hey, that's an A. That's good. You know, I'm not going to push myself for a four." And so just the challenge there um around students disengaging that was one concern that came up. Another was around the the late work policy and um I know it has been tightened down um a little bit this year to a four-week window. Um some of the teachers suggested maybe a two week. Um it was interesting where you know you may have had some in

076years past are like no this is when it's due done no excuses. And we really didn't hear that. I think there has been some some growth in the thinking around that but can we make it so it's a shorter window one so we teach responsibility for turning in assignments in a timely manner. Um but also so that it's not the workload on the teacher that all of a sudden on week six they just have hundreds of papers that they need to be scoring and correcting and entering because um everybody procrastinated. So then the another concern was just the kind of a broader issue around uh mediocracy or a lack of rigor um for that and then the desire for behavioral expectations and accountability for performance. So like those 21st century skills that we want um

077our students to have. We recognize that it shouldn't like influence what you know about algebra or your English grade your behavior but is there some way to track it? Is there some way to measure it? Is there some way that there can be accountability for it? And so those were the the pieces around there. In theme six, it was around the communication piece or the breakdown in communication both with parents and with students. So we had talked about initially knowing that there was some confusion around parents and where are they really at in the class and are they really doing okay and my kid says they're doing okay, they're on track, but you know, not a lot of confidence around that. And so what can we do to address that? The need for clarity around

078athletic eligibility. Pete just shared um one idea or one model around that that if we stayed with standardsbased grading, could there be other factors that you know we clearly communicate this is the expectation um of a student and athletic eligibility and use some of those factors um would be an idea. Uh another concern that came up was just inadequate tools for timely communication. So, Dr. Mi talked about Skyward, why we know those I don't know if students liked them or not, but like those weekly or every other week progress reports that would get sent home, right, in in an email and grade checks and those sort of piece. Um, that's kind of lacking right now. And so, a need for to address that sort of piece. And that ties into the last bullet there with

079an advisory. So, if I'm an advisory teacher, one of my responsibilities that I take on is to help the students with, hey, where are you struggling in your math class or your English class or whatever, um, they open up in power and they can't tell, like they don't have clarity about where the student is at and so it makes it difficult for them to assist them in a meaningful way. And so, those were the last two themes, but before we move on to the close here, are there any questions? Yeah, just two slides left. So any any questions before we re reveal what was the original intention with six week deadline. So the original tension intention wasn't anything to do with a deadline. It was that kind of that when I when I use the

080example of um you know if we say solving quadratic equations is a skill you have to have that we need to somehow develop a mechanism that holds you accountable for that. So it doesn't matter if you turn it into in this case it doesn't matter if you turn it in today or if you turn it in next week we're it's still important that we see that you can solve quadratic equations. What we've learned about human behavior is that no matter where you set that bar, there are certain percentage of people who will always go here or even after that. So it doesn't matter if it's one week or two weeks or six weeks, there's always going to be people who push it right up against there to say. So it's the intent was that it

081was about ensuring that students had the skills and standards necessary and not just saying, "Oh, our time's up. We're moving on. you can't solve quadratic equations. Better luck in your next educational experience. Does that make sense? I I can see it the wheels turning there. So, I know a student Thank you. Yeah. Um I know a student that, for example, had a non-standardsbased grading graded class that was a college in the classroom class where they worked really diligently to get an A and then in their based grading class because it was in, you know, English, math, science where they take it all year. Got it an incomplete and was like, no big deal. I have all year like not not a problem. Um, that makes me crazy. That's my child. But the ca the capability

082is there for the the straight A's and it's like um where there's high expectation she will rise to the occasion but when the expectation is you got time then oh she she's taken all the time that there is um and it has it has made her um I call it a lazy learner because there's there's like there's no um I don't know there's no pressure that like you have a deadline of this trimester ends on this day and then then it is done. It's like even, you know, even from trimester 2, there's still a chance to go back to trimester 2, even though we're almost to the end of trimester 3 to make amends for mistakes made in trimester 2. And and at this point, I'm grateful for that because uh she's she's let it

083go this long. But um where there is the rigor required for college in the classroom of like you have deadlines and this is what this actually looks like then you know I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense but um Piggy backing off of that actually really want to touch on that. um the kids who we made this for the you the ones who try a lot try a lot try a lot and it's still just not clicking when I'm for at least me and I've 100% done that I'm the lazy learner too like 100% I've done that probably every year been high school um not good not good no it does bite you but you know you can go with it when we make the system in place for the the little I'd

084say that it's a much smaller group of those people who struggle struggle struggle struggle but the people who don't it creates this big room that was my big opposition to Saturday creating that we yes we did make it so we can seek out those kids who are struggling who algebra 2 after so long after two trimesters still maybe it took them all three trimesters to get it and then you can you know change their grade what is it retroactively is that the right word right right but that's I think catering to that small group is making a bigger harm when it's allowing me to do as I please and still make it and then I can do that same thing of you know even if it's two weeks four weeks six weeks that I can

085just dump all the work at the very end and even two um with the standard base isn't it to where you can't move on to two until you've done x amount of 1.5s or is it now all open because I remember when you originally started it was like that where the teachers had to distribute two two work of two then they have to give you three level three work level four work etc etc um so you you really could coast like um okay in summary why is this a net benefit for everybody and not just that little group and then how much should we put in for that little group um and then at what cost like yeah I I think one of the a challenge I would make to part of your premise is

086um your assertion that us setting this six week window um is just for those students who might be struggling and that that allows you to um to build these bad habits and be a lazy learner. I think uh another way to look at that is if um the only way you respond and become an active learner is if you have this fear of consequence that you're not going to get to hand it in and chase points. There's a lot of harm in that as well because we have a system of kids just chasing assignments and making sure they have enough points at the end. And and this we're calling this standardsbased grading, but it really really was about standardsbased learning. What are the most important things that a kid needs to know in every course

087and how do they demonstrate that they know that whether it's in week two or in week eight? That's the the idea behind the six week window, right? You learn the most important things. So, it requires that teachers are really clear, that principles are really clear, that the school district's really clear on what we want kids to learn. But I I I um we didn't set this up for those kids. We set it up for all kids because when you can do it effectively and you have the right resources and tools and enough training, and I wouldn't say we've checked the box on any of those, it really is a better model for kids. It really is. And I honestly, like I said, the fear for me was what he just explained is if we are

088really getting them ready for college and we put them in that and if they get that bad habit in college, nobody's going to sit there and give you more than your four or five days of turn in your work and then you fail. There is no coming back and hey, let me turn in something. I I am I am a big deal of if if you're going to train somebody here, it's to get them here. I don't want to get them here and then all of a sudden fail them because the next step for them is college and we're not getting them ready. I always tell them I'm not I don't want Os to be making cheap. I want to make goals and that's my deal with with that. And if you have a system

089where you can change that, I'm okay because like I said, it's a work in progress. We went from six to two. I just want to make sure that the kids that need that extra time to learn the standard, we get it. But kids that can blow by the first two and three parts of it that we're still challenging or that we're setting some type of deal to motivate them to do something, which I know it might be difficult, but it's what we need. And the fear of the fear of Not having something is also a my goal. I I have a goal. I I have something to accomplish. I need to have this. And it's and it's not a fear. It's a goal. You set up every morning to come to work and and make

090this a better school for your kids. That's your goal. Same thing with the kids. It's not an assignment. It's a goal. We got to somehow make them better. Yeah. One of one of the places we might have gotten off track a little bit in the you when we talk about two weeks or six weeks is when you go back and I'm going to answer your question another way too. What a true standards referenced reporting would say is that if we're a class and and we did this lab today and it's a level three task that I've asked you to do and you don't do it tomorrow, we don't just keep recycling through that same thing. But now your responsibility as a learner is to show me that you can perform at a 3.0 level with

091some other work and other tasks. We're not there yet because you can imagine the amount of creativity that would take the the student agency in their learning they would have to have to say, "Yeah, I blew off that lab." Because I I don't disagree with you that we're we potentially are creating bad habits and people that think they have an unlimited amount of time just to do whatever. But the point is, you can't just blow off your learning on that. And in a zero mindset, you get to. And for some of them, depending on how the assignment's weighted, you could do that with a whole lot of really important things and still get a decent grade out of a class. One thing that uh didn't come up directly in the listening tour, but um I

092think was was um when Pete and I went to the training in Colorado, they talked about the level four. And we've we've talked a lot about one, two, and three, but there is that level four, and that's that application, right? How do you how do you take your learning and say, "What does that look like?" We just saw the application with those three young men here and the other, you know, I think there were eight total in with that welding. Like that was something where they took a skill in that class and they said, "Now I'm going to take it further. I'm going to do something that's going to better my my opportunities going forward." And that's really where as a system we we haven't arrived there yet, but it's that ability to say, "Wow,

093Miles, you're at a three. Let's challenge you. let's let's get you to a better spot, right? In in some of that work as well. The the just to be fair though to not defending standards based grading per se, but the the idea of sort of gaming the system has been around for a long time. I was in a college class and they said you can average all of your assignments and all of your test scores and that'll be your grade or whatever your final is if it's higher then we'll take that. And I said fantastic. I'm never going to class. Right? I knew that I was going to ace that final and I did not. Right? And the second time I took it, I took a different approach. Right? But the whole idea around like

094fighting sort of those loopholes like that's been around a long time and that's been around in traditional grading as well, but we do want to address that's not to minimize the concerns that we have with standardsbased grading, but just to keep that in mind as well. One more thing and I'm done after this. I promise the kind of the thing of the fear of the score, the fear of the zero and uh how we shouldn't. I like what he said. It's just it's a goal, not necessarily that we're just working to catch the grade, catch the grade. I also want to ask like how much is it that you guys are wanting my education more than me and then how much are we going to spend on that? Because you know, Roach put it beautifully.

095I can't want it more than you. I cannot want it more than you. the kids cannot have the teachers wanting them to get the education. And it's kind of it's holding you guys it's holding everyone else back when the teachers taking time to care for me more than I care. Yeah. I don't I you know I'm going to be careful arguing with the 17-year-old, but I couldn't disagree more with what you said. Um the uh I think to assume that every teacher is doing all they can for every student in a a traditional model and just moving along when kids get zeros and are they it's one thing to say um four to six weeks is is too much time. If we've reached out through every platform we have to communicate with parents and to

096give the family and the kid feedback as superintendent, I can't guarantee that that's occurring at a high enough level to feel good about it. And the other thing about being college ready and career ready for you, Miles, and for and for director Pruneda, some of what you've shared is I believe as we uh encourage and train and support teachers to get more clear about what they're teaching, we're actually preparing you better for college. You might think we're making you lazy and giving you all these these false ideas about, well, I can do whatever I want and then when I get there, I'm on my own. But the experience that we're trying to design for you to have in class to do six things really well as opposed to 60 assignments that are all worth 10

097points and you get to get an A, you're going to be more successful at the University of Washington if you know those six core ideas at a deep level than the 60 assignments you filled out just to get an A on your transcript. So I don't accept that it it's because we want it more for kids. We want a better experience for kids so that when they go there they're more prepared. they make better decisions. And so this is a an exercise in not only training them up for the skills and how they don't become lazy learners, but also creating rich experiences that prepare them when they get there. Because you can not be lazy and show up at a university, but your algebra 2 experience was so poor and and lacked clarity and consistency

098that your first math class you failed. Now you're in big trouble. Now you're paying for classes that that you're not getting credit for and now you take remedial courses and the likelihood of you graduating drops dramatically. So this is I I just want to make sure that this was always about creating better experiences and more success for more kids. It wasn't some wild idea just to do something innovative and creative. It really is about chasing something that I think is better. And that means it's hard. That means it's difficult. And we've made some errors along the way. And so we want to share with you what the teachers said about it. And so we gave them these these three options. And uh here's what they told us. 25% said, "Keep going. You just push on."

099Another 25% said, "Hey, let's let's think about this and let's stop using empower." What does that leave? Don't put it up, John. Miles 50. Nice job, Miles. It only took you six seconds, not six weeks. 50%. 50% got it. And so, um, here's where we're at. We're trying to figure out, um, what that tells us. Um, what I appreciate about tonight is the passion and the energy that you all speak with it. And there were a few people like that in our in our sessions, but it was it was measured. It was people sharing like, we believe in some of these ideas. We're not sure how we do it dayto-day. We need some support around that. So, we're not done yet. Today isn't the end of it. The next slide is here's what we're going

100to do next. Uh Dr. Meek and I are meeting with two teachers, one from the middle school and high school, I think tomorrow or Wednesday, and we're going to we're going to look at Skyward for standardsbased grading. And we're going to they're empower users and have some expertise around empower. And we want them to say, uh, imagine you're test driving two different vehicles and so you drive one and then drive the other. We're going to spend a few hours that day driving skyward and empower with them to say, do you think SBG would work in the Skyward model? So, that's our really most immediate step that's coming. We're going to go back with with Cat and her team at the high school and talk about option three, which you saw up there had the most

101energy around it, and talk with the leadership team there about um what that might mean for them. And so, that's the way if if we had to say tonight, what are we doing? We're leaning that direction, but we want a little bit more information before we lock it in. Uh we're going to talk with our athletic department about redesigning the eligibility process to get out uh what some of director Pruneda has shared and and director Prow about making sure we don't create bad habits in kids and still allow them some of these cool extracurricular opportunities. And then we're just going to keep training whatever model we line land on to be more consistent in our scope and sequence and common assessments and lesson planning. But so this is we got good data, we got good

102information, it's going to inform our next step. At the next board meeting, you'll hear from us again. Here's where we're at. Here's how the training went. Here's what we heard from the school and and here's what we're going. And I I uh joke with Miles a little bit and we've been sort of bantering back and forth, all of us. I want you to know that we're listening to all of it. We really listen to all the teachers on that day. Uh we're continuing to take your feedback. we'll get more feedback around uh uh Skyward and Empower um to try and make the best decisions for students primarily, but also for our teachers who are who are wrestling with this every day. So, those are our next steps. Um I just want to say, you know,

103it might feel like I've been kind of hard on the subject tonight or that some of us have been, but but I know um we really believe in standardsbased teaching. We really believe in standardsbased learning. It's the it's the grading portion that throws parents for a little bit of a loop. I'm speaking just from my own personal experience. Um, but I I really appreciate the the thinking outside of the box about standardsbased teaching and how can we get our teachers to understand what it is that they're teaching so that their students can understand what they're supposed to be learning. Um, so I appreciate you guys, you know, kind of maybe taking from the board tonight. That certainly wasn't my intention, but um we're passionate just as you are for our kids to get the best

104outcomes. And so I appreciate you guys presenting tonight and continuing on doing your best and and trying for better solutions when maybe you know one door closes, another window opens. So thank you for all of your help and for the continued progress. Yeah, I the loud mouth. So, I take it as criticism and it's to make it better. I I think you guys are working at something, but if we don't if we don't challenge you guys, it's like the kids. If we don't challenge you guys, then you guys don't come up with something better. I know Pete challenges you guys already enough. For us who aren't teachers, we try to challenge you guys as as parents and it's what we see in our kids and and and what we feel like when we get home,

105we stress out because we get on there and they're zeros. You're failing and then no, Dad, I got six weeks. Like Pete said here a minute ago, thank you for answering in six seconds and not six weeks. Thank you. But it it just it's it was a level one level task though. I'm just And you aced it, but no. I appreciate you guys coming out and and we look forward to you guys coming and giving us updates on this because it's it's been something that I I know since last year there's been a lot of um back and forth, you know, and so we appreciate you guys like I said and it's never it's never to be against something. It's just to help us understand as well because we were we were brought up with

106regular ABCD. So So thank you Thank you, too. I I don't mean to be rude or anything else. So, yeah, just to I got I like to work it out to all see all the pieces and parts. Well, thank you you all for that and the opportunity to talk about uh our next steps and and where we're headed. Uh for the next portion of the meeting, um we have a uh an update from uh Principal Kat Acherson, uh from Josh Tover from Desert Oasis, and we're going to talk a little bit about um graduation, and then we're going to launch into the DOHS presentation. So, uh you'll be happy to know that we don't have a PowerPoint for you around graduation. I've invited them though because I know the board gets questions from the community

107and you have your own questions. So, we're hoping that someone would kick it off with a question for um for Josh or for Cat about graduation. Colored robes. What color? What's going on? So, um this year our students will be wearing uh black gowns um with a red sash and we're looking at um having that be maintained um for the remainder of graduations moving forward. um in a sense to as we merge and integrate DOHS, it's also to um be able to recognize um just have everyone there as a sense of unity, but also because we will um if we have one graduation ceremony and in the future we would also be including our um open doors program and everybody. So it's just a this is OSD and our graduation. So, that's the reasoning behind

108the one graduation gown color rather than having the the two. I know Miles is consistently having conversations with me trying to get me to um allow the two colors, but that's kind of the reasoning behind um making the shift to one color. This applies to the DHS too. They'll be wearing the black and red or Yes. So, for this current one too, they'll graduate. So, say if they graduate separate from OS, they'll still be all in all black. Okay. They'll do their navy, right? In the past, girls have worn red and the boys have worn black and we're switching to all black. Okay. Just wanted to clarify. Yeah. And I think at DOHS, the experience would have been they would all have been in blue. All the students were one color. Um, in our analysis

109of the region, um, of all the high schools we spoke to, they're all single color except for Quincy, I believe. And Quincy doesn't do it by, uh, male, female. They do it by you can wear either green or yellow. You pick. So, I mean, there are some options and things we could consider moving forward, but it really was what and it's something we've talked about for a couple years, and it seems every year that um, it got missed or we we didn't connect with just in a timely way. And this is a year where CAP put some systems in place that said, "Okay, this is what we're doing." And you want this going forward. I'm trying to get behind that. It just OHS colors is is a black and red. And so we've always been

110just accustomed to that. And obviously not always, you know, traditions or whatever. Another reason for the shift is because we've had a lot of families who um they have a um male uh you know a son who graduates and then they need the to then reby um a red gown. And so by just making the shift to a black gown, it can be reused over and over again so that parents don't have to also provide, you know, additional money to get a new gown. Um because as that can be an additional expense. Um I wanted to ask about uh feedback from parents in the community. Obviously graduation's a really important event for the parents in the community. Can you share with us some of the feedback we got about last year's graduation and the changes

111we've made for this year according to that? Um overall it was fine. Um good feedback from parents. We did have um we did debrief um with a team of people. Um there were some challenges when it came to the wristbands um last year with the VIP and which gate they were supposed to go to. Um, so one of the things we're doing this year because of the class size, um, everyone needs to have a wristband coming in, um, and everyone's only going to get 10 tickets. So there'll be five for, um, family members to sit close to the stage, you know, in the grass area, and then they'll get another five um, to be able to sit up in the stands. And so people won't be able to get in without a wristband um, to

112the ceremony. Um, and we're trying to do a little bit more um, crowd control um, when it comes to where people are are needing to navigate. I was just going to say around crowd control, we struggled last year with folks um, I guess holding people accountable or having the courage to say, "Hey, you're not supposed to sit there." It was a transition for everyone. So, we have a plan uh, with our our own staff, but also security agency that we contract with that's coming in. Another hangup last year around flow and efficiency was getting people in and in in in a timely manner. So we moved up our start not our start time but our our gate entry up about half an hour and then the company that we contracted with. Our event was the

113first one where they had used the metal detectors and wands. They've now had a year to get used to that equipment and so they've commented to us that they'll be much more efficient getting people in and out. The the comment of the one colored gown was made to parents and or no with like now things we don't pay for like ASB cards and stuff like that. What's stopping us from just allowing them to get a waiver for the gown? We do work with families if we know of a need. Um there is a separate pot of money so we can purchase a gown if needed um for a family. Um, but we're seeing an increase in the need of families not able to purchase a gown. K, at some time could you please give me

114the number that that might be just out of curiosity. I'd like to see what what that number would be. Okay. Could I ask a a question of the group and and um what's the concern about one color? Ugly. Sorry. Yeah. No, that was I've heard this is not me. Funeral lame. It's all one big blob. We don't know who's who. It's harder to identify your kid if you're trying to take a video photo. Um a little bit of it, but yeah, it's more just a little bit of diversity. Also, our school colors that it's, you know, we're more red than black to begin with with like every other thing. So, it just kind of seems and also like they're hot. Um some girls say that it's not flattering to wear black. Yeah, I I know

115some of the comments around um sort of diversity of look and appearance and whatnot. I thought that was addressed in the last couple of years with the sort of um allowing folks to adorn their their caps and to to dress those up and to allow some of that personality. So, um I I guess it's a balance between um like aesthetics and what people think looks good. And so, we'll try it this year and and see how it looks and then decide how big of an issue and concern it was. I think the primary issues we heard last year weren't about gown colors or robe colors is probably a more appropriate term. It was can we get in and out? Are there seats available? Those kind of things. But I I don't think there was an

116issue getting out. I think uh we pretty much stayed to the very was there an issue. No, that was actually positive feedback that we got from everybody from the way that we had students go out for families to be able to greet. So that was a positive. it was getting people in and the new protocols around um going through a a detector, getting wand, all of that type of stuff and having the VIP, the bracelets. Um that was another one of our challenges and getting people in the right spots. Um so those were the challenges, but as far as like the end of the ceremony and meeting up, that wasn't a concern. I was going to sit there and say for for me it was my first uh graduation as a board member and yeah,

117I would have maybe that at the beginning, you know, when everybody kind of stood behind the kids and the bleachers and everything else, I thought that was mostly most of our issue, but um there was there where we got really close to starting and there were still quite a bit of people outside and but otherwise I think everything else after that was amazing. Um, yeah, I applaud you guys. I I'm kind of excited to see this year because there's even more kids. But I think the most exper it was it was a great experience at least and I didn't even graduate, but for me it was as a first- time board member. It was exciting. It it was good. So yeah, a positive thing for the kids, too. I like that everyone moved around the

118track like that. That was nice. I I don't have an opinion about the gown color. I was just curious if that was like a decision that just the just the administration made or if you guys took into student voice into that consideration. We didn't ask the students. We needed to with the timing of everything. We need to get the um gown color and everything to just and it was all colliding at one time um with prepping for last year's graduation and this year's. And so I want to say juniors are getting a presentation this week to start prepping them for their grad ceremony um for next year. Um so there's just trying to figure out the proper um timeline with just um to coordinate colors, but I know Miles has been working on trying to

119get um some feedback, more feedback from kids because he would like to have two colors for their graduation. I I do want to share sort of the a little bit of history around graduation at Athell High School. Um the color decision if if it did include student voice was actually made three or four years ago just never got implemented. I think maybe it was even precoid where we said we're going one gown color like they do at DOHS and which we've done for years and it just never happened and this year it finally happened. So that I don't I don't I don't want to say that we didn't include student voice. We might not have asked this year's class, but we did previously. Um, and the other thing is we control the parts of that

120ceremony because it is ceremonial. There's some meaning to the um components that kids wear because we often get the idea, well, I want to wear a flag or I want to wear this kind of sash. So, all of those components about um the school district controlling the appearance of that event. This is just really consistent with that. uh it might not be a decision that um that some students like and you might generate some energy around that and we'll have to consider what we do. But I I I do want to say that um the movement for some individuality and design for students came when they addressed the idea with the hats and that's pretty common in uh you go to college graduation that's what you're going to see one gown color they're all wearing

121they have the the moments on their hoods those kinds of things. So, it really is not that unusual. It's a change for us, but it's sort of like the athletic one I described earlier. We're getting in alignment with everyone around us. We have to be like everyone around us. You know, I want to be cool. I want to be stand if we do it and then everyone's like, "Oh, they have two color. Let's do Well, I guess you're the in the junior class, so you guys will have to use your voice when you when you're ready. Does anyone have any other questions around graduation? Last year the sun was kind of in our eyes. If you could reposition the sun, that would be great. Oh, I have a question. So for DOHS graduating students for

122next year, how do I say it? So like you know you you just want us to stick to one color which is black. How does and for the kids, how does that make them feel like like you said like in unity like in one when it when it would probably be the same if it was also black and red? Like wouldn't they just still feel like like it's still OHS? Like how does how does one color make them feel like in unity? Like I think it's just one of the factors that Mrs. Aerson shared. So, it's the expense for families, it's the consistency with justins, it's the being able to hand those components down. It's it's a number of factors, I think, to be considered. Um, so I don't I don't think it's just around

123that. But when you look at any sort of team, right, they all wear the same color. They all have the same thing on. And again, I I've been to lots of graduations in the last five years at different colleges and universities in high school, and it really is pretty consistent that that's the experience. Would you prefer they were all red? I like the diversity. I like Yeah, I kind of did the same thing. Well, my main point was that there is lack of We would all just be one blob. And I guess we're all unified in the blob, but I think we're also unified by our school colors. Sorry. I really like this kid just because he brings energy. We'll put that in. Do you guys have any more questions? Question but not about this.

124Can we get a um like this of this first line? We have the slideshow with center base. Thank you. Uh would you like it black and white or color? Two color, please. Red and black. Gotta love our board meetings. This is amazing. Well, it's uh I appreciate the questions and conversation around graduation. It certainly is a milestone in American culture. It it is a big deal. I don't mean to make light of it. And uh you know, we pray for good weather and that it's going to be a nice safe event to recognize the class of 2025. Pretty cool. So, with that, I think we're going to turn it over to the next chunk, which is the do Oh, we had another question. No, no, no question. Just was Misa going to ask if we're

125all going to be there or do we need to do you need to know or do I think we did that at the beginning. It sounds like you're all going to be there and we're going to Last year for those of you who handed out diplomas. Um and you remember that assistant superintendent Shank and I were handing you the diplomas to hand out. What we'll do this year is we'll have two board members handing the diplomas to the students, two board members supplying the diplomas, and then about midway through we'll switch and you can each have that experience. So it'll work well with four board members. Sharon decides to come up. Would the four board members like robes for the evening? What color? Or if you call it a gown, then yeah. All right, we

126can we'll we'll work on that. Just kidding. Do you want us to do that? You know, it's really your choice. Just wanted to make a red robe. Give you options. All right. I'm just kidding. Totally kidding. Now, I think we're at the moment for um the DOHS presentation and uh Principal Tovar and I think Principal Acherson is going to be there alongside of them. That's certainly this partnership that we've been developing and fostering as we move to integrating um both high schools. All right. Thank you and good evening everybody. When we took the mic, they gave us five to four minutes to present. We've exceeded that time, so we'll try to go as fast as we can. Um, I debated I don't like sitting when I present, but I debated um when to do this

127and I think I'm just going to do it right off the top. And what I want to do is I want to take this opportunity really quick. Number one, I want to thank my staff and I want to uh also thank my team that's here right now currently in here. We have Miss Tovar, Mrs. Pernetta, and Mrs. Alvarado. But I have an entire staff. And the reason why I want to thank them and I want to thank our oath school district staff uh parents and board members over the past years. I've been an administrator for 15 years and I cannot take credit for Alps or Desert Oasis High School um the names and what it's meant to our community. This is as I was sitting listening to the exciting standardsbased grading presenters and topics and

128debate. I was just thinking about um man this is it like this is um this our last presentation for Desert Oasis High School and I have the privilege of being the principal at this school. So, I want to thank everyone that came before me, administrators, um, and staff members, as well as, like I said, o OSD staff, uh, for the opportunity to give kids in our community that are now adults, um, in our community that that graduated at one point or another from Desert Oasis High School, whether it was called Desert Oasis or it was called Alps. Again, the school has meant a lot to our community and and it's done a lot for our community. And one of the biggest things that it's done is we're going to be talking about it, but it's

129the resources uh that it's brought to our to our attention that we find are absolutely necessary at Ollo High School. Um I am an Ollo High School graduate. Um Alps was around when I was in school and you guys weren't even born yet. But um again, one thing I'll ask you to consider when you do consider colors of of gown is think of safety issues as well because there are kids that won't wear certain colors and then it goes way beyond what some of you guys might even think um which has to do with safety issues as well. So I'm actually for one color just be careful of the particular colors. So again um thank you the oll community uh for allowing desert Oasis um high school to be a a part of this community.

130So we'll get this going really quick. So again, um what our objective today is is uh basically u we're going to give you guys an update. I know we did that last week, but we're going to go in a different a little bit of different style, but a lot of the same. And I know Miles wasn't there, and judging from how much he contributes. Um man, that was your MVP that you guys failed to bring to the table. So, um I like challenges. So, anything you have for us to think about Miles, um shoot, we're ready. Um, our goal obviously guys at Odella High School is to ensure that students and staff that they feel valued, they feel known, and they feel supported in all the work that we do at all times. All right.

131So, we we're going to focus on four different areas next year. And this is where they've we've already started to do this, and you'll hear me say they, us, it's basically us, but we've started doing we want to focus on the culture and the caring. We've heard a lot of information whether it's through surveys, whether it's through um specifically like the CE survey or just our staff telling us in general what we need. But um focus on students social emotional learning, where are they at? Focus on our staff members as well. Systems of support, which basically has to do with like monitoring how students are doing so that we can intervene sooner rather than later. Communication is no matter what we do, whether it's picking the colors of the gowns, communicate with those parties involved,

132whether it's students, staff, stakeholders, they need to know what we're doing. And this is kind of what we're doing here publicly um regarding the transition and where we're at. Technical structure just has to do with some of the pieces that we have to consider. And I know there's a lot of moving pieces uh in regards to uh the facilities that we currently have and how we're going to use them for next year. And we'll talk a little bit about all of that. But first, um the game plan for Desert Oasis High School students, uh 26 credits to graduate is what we currently have. We're going to continue that. So, anyone that was at Desert Oasis High School, they will be grandfathered in. Uh we're going to bypass the second one because we're not able to

133ensure that all uh Desert Oasis High School students are going to have a Desert Oasis current staff member because of different staff um needs that we've had to meet. Um but we're going to continue to offer support from our counselor, Mrs. Tovar, as well as myself and Miss Mrs. Petta. um will not also be at will not be at the high school next year either but uh for sure there they'll at least see some familiar faces but specifically in the office with Mrs. to as well as myself. Uh for focus core classes, you'll hear a little bit about how we plan to do that. But we there's a need for not just desert races high school students, but all students who just need um extra attention, maybe extra interventions, different learning strategies, but there's going

134to be focused classes for all high school students uh in their core areas in order for them to be successful. So, we're going to focus um intentionally with some supports that you're going to hear a lot today called hub services. And we'll elaborate on what that that is shortly. But in the past whenever we've had issues or we've noticed that there's needs, we just try to basically throw all types of resources at the problem. And sometimes we hit the target and sometimes we don't. I I this is one visual, but the other visual is basically um trying to throw a 100 arrows at one particular target and not doing anything correctly, not even hitting one particular target. So we want to go from that to aligning our services for this next year. I apologize. maybe

135better alignment. So, identify what the what the need is and then how are we going to address those needs? What types of supports are we going to put in place? And you're going to hear a lot about the success team and and the hub team and how we're going to basically work together to make sure that our staff, it says teachers, but it's basically all of our staff. And you'll hear who some of those staff members are are going to align our services to meet the needs of our students. So, here's kind of where we're at right now with teachers and students. I'm gonna I'm gonna hand this over to Mrs. Achinson who had the opportunity to go to Sunnyside and I'm going to let you guys know what kind of what she learned from

136when we went uh to Sunnyside High School. Um so we've been I presented at the beginning of the year around um our datas and and the buckets that we're doing to monitor kids progress around um achievement um behavior as well as um attendance I think is the other one. and learned that um this process we're going through when Josh and I um talk about the success team um Sunnyside has been doing this and it's been a 10 to 15 year process and so um we went in February um and took our counselors and most of my admin team um there and learned about the culture at um Sunnyside. they have a strong sense of community and um they all make the the data visible and so this past year um the admin team and we're

137we've been onboarding Josh um as to how we're tracking our data and how do we make this more visible into next year um so that everybody's aware of you know where our kids stand when it comes to achievement behavior as well as the attendance um and students there's a positive um student relationship with their teachers. Um, we did classroom walks and there were teachers that were on prep that went into another classroom and was offering support once or twice a week just just because because that was how that's the culture that um, Sunnyside High School has developed and created. The kids talk about CBE um very clearly and that stands for connect, build and envision and how do and creating a sense of belonging um self-worth self-worth and helping them um have hope and envision

138what what their future is going to look like. Um and so we learned a lot from that and Josh unfortunately wasn't able to attend but we are going back uh May 8th. We're going to take some students with us as well so we can start having a dialogue with our students about how they can help us connect and improve our the culture at OS so that when we welcome um our DOHS students back as well as um address some concerns that um I listened to today from um some of our exe executive team members who held a student panel. um we can start planning what does the first 45 days of school look like? Um so that we can set everybody up for success and everyone knows how they can um earn incentives. Um and

139so that's kind of what we learned from Sunnyside and some next steps that are um going to happen because we can't do this work without our counselors, without our teachers, without our students input so that we can um start changing the culture and create a culture of learning at at OS. So changing the culture brings us to this slide. Relational trust. What we've learned through the work with a consultant by the name of Dr. Chuck Selenas out of Gonzega is uh this is a this got to be the foundation relational trust with our students and our staff. Um academic press is also listed as well as supports. But I think I think that at the end of the day it's all about relationships and how we treat our staff, how we treat our our students

140and then how they treat each other as well. So, um, our ultimate ultimate goal is you're going to hear and you're going to probably be hearing more even into next year is like about different buckets and the different colors. And I I talked to you guys at the board meeting. Obviously, one of the things that we know across cultures is that green means go, green means good, yellow is like, okay, we we might have some concerns here. And red usually means danger, stop. We're going to focus on three different areas, attendance, behavior, and and academics. And uh what we want to look forward to is students being at a level where you walk down the hallway and students know that maybe they're in in green in a certain area, but they also know that they're

141yellow in another area. Students that are red is not that doesn't mean we're going to walk around with billboards and say, "Hey, I'm red in attendance." But that the at the same time, just like kids know what their GPA are um or they know what their grades are, we also want them to know where they're at. Our ultimate goal is keeping kids in the green area. The colors is just kind of how we talk about it as staff because we need to know which kids do we need to pay pay more attention to. How are we going to do this? Again, alignment of our services. We're bringing more services and resources to the table. We are in the process of kind of I would use the word allocating what these services are going to look

142like. So, knowing where our kids are at and knowing what our kids need in order to know what Miles needs or any of our other students at Otella High School, um we need to know these kids. We need to know what their struggles are because yes, you can see their transcript. You can pull it up at any given time and see what their grades are, but do you really know what the kids' needs are? Do you really know what happened to them this past weekend? Do you really know where they live? And just because you know their address doesn't mean you really know where they live, right? So once we we get to a point where we understand these students who are maybe in yellow, maybe in red, we get to we get to offer

143the services that we truly need. So, there's going to be a success team that's going to be meeting together and I'm going to show you some of those members and we're going to address these needs. Again, we're not just focusing on the red kids. We are also focusing on the green kids, but again, our ultimate goal is if we can get everybody to a level where everyone's proficient, we're going to be just way more successful as a school system. We're we're we've set up some parameters, some metrics on how we're going to look at behavior and academics and attendance. I'm not going to get into this, but this is how we're estim or basically placing kids into these buckets and these color um these color meetings, right? Um one of the things that we're doing

144is with with the Oola High School staff, we've kind of we've put things into place. For example, who's our success team going to be? Our counselors for 25 26 year uh school year is is going to be two by grade levels, three by alpha. So again, we understand that Mrs. Simmons recently um announced that she's going to be retiring. So we will probably be opening up for another counselor at the high school. So there's going to be they're going to be divided in in the best way that the team feels, right? So currently two are going to be assign assigned by grade levels and two of them three of them are going to be by alpha kind of like what you're used to right now. So depending on what your last name is, that's who

145your counselor will be. Administrators are going to be assigned as specified here. So for example, they've given me the privilege of dealing with attendance. This is a national crisis problem, but yet I I'm going to solve this problem. Not uh but anyways, that's going to be my issue. And that's because I deal a lot with attendance. And I believe I've seen Miles in court uh not for trinency issues, but just as an observer, just to clarify, the judge. I was shadowing. He was shadowing the judge. Yeah, that's what he was doing. Uh just for the record, Miles, Dr. Perez has been there a few times, too. Just shadowing me. Uh behavior. Uh uh Mrs. Dr. Mr. Perez wants to say, "I just wondered what color robe the judge was wearing." Black. Mrs. Dunn will take

146over behavior and Mr. Spencson, Mr. Spencer will be in charge of academics. Mr. Schwarz will continue leading the work with the ninth grade freshman pack. So again, we're just these we're these are just our assigned areas so we can be laser focused on the work that we're doing. Our success team is going to consist of these are people that are going to meet on a weekly basis to talk about our students, where they're at, and who's in need, who who needs intervention. So, we'll have counselors, administrators, SAP stands for student assistant professionals from the ESD, which is Mr. Vega, school psychologist. It's all going to be about looking at the data, their buckets, and where they're at. What do we need to do before six weeks have gone by, it's too late to help and

147intervene? um something comes up in our community, someone's family lost, someone lost a home. What do we need to do to help these kids because they're going to go through some times of needs, right? And we see this all the time in our community. Question. Um so this is schoolwide. This isn't just for DOHS students in Yeah. No, no. DOHS that that will always be in our memory. We're not going to be using that. It's it's it's schoolwide. It's Otella High School students because when I hear things like DOHS and bad kids and all the kids that get in fights, no, those those kids are everywhere. There's kids in need everywhere in our in our system. So, this is going to meet the needs of all all students. Yeah, absolutely. Our hub um which stands

148for helping, understanding, and belonging. All hands on deck. That success team that I just showed you, all these people at the very bottom, this is who's going to be at these tables on right now. We're looking at Monday mornings. We're going to be focused on who these kids that are struggling. You got to understand what we're trying to do. We're trying to put filters in place so we don't lose any kids, okay? Because we don't we don't want dropouts. We understand that that's going to be an issue. It's been an issue since you guys were all in school. It's going to continue an issue. And back here to my right, we have Mr. GMA who works with Skill Source. Skill Source is still going to they're a stakeholder. They're they're part of what we do.

149We we send kids back and forth all the time and we communicate on a regular basis. But all hands on deck represents we're going to do everything in our power to help. So just because yes, I'm I'm assigned trinsy, that doesn't mean I'm not going to help with behavior because there's certain skill sets that each of us have as administrators, but we're going to help each other in order to be successful in our system. Are we going to save every student? Probably not, but we're going to try. That's that's our ultimate goal. Um so some of the intentional student support systems and I'm almost done, guys, that we're going to be doing is the the freshman pack is going to continue just as it is. The Husky Hub will also, this is going to be

150brand new. And if you want to know where it's going to be located, it's in the current technology building in the back close to the tennis courts. This is where these facilities will be at. There'll be a lot of staff members there, but there's kids that just cannot, they need a special learning environment or a different learning environment. They might need a different format. Uh, for example, they can't come to school from 7:40 until 2:30 p.m. So, we'll modify their days based off of what their needs are, whether it's maybe they have to work, maybe they have to do something different. Credit alignment for both OHS and DOHS, that's going to continue. Our online digital learning program is going to continue. I know I talked about it. Some of you may may still have some

151questions about it, but it's a it's a digital platform that we use. We use Ingenuity and we've been using um Odysseyware. Um, we will continue with Mrs. Jones is currently who's running that program along with the assistance of Mrs. Alvarado. But that is a learning environment that is absolutely necessary for students that just have different needs whether it's mental health issues or whether it's their um I guess it would be physically related issues or even medically related issues as well. And then we have this brand new program that we're going to start. It's basically an opportunity program where these are students that absolutely just need a different environment rather than than sending them home with a maybe a packet to work on. This will be a place where these kids can continue to come with

152staff members that are going to be on site to be able to assist them. They will be using an online platform, but they will not be using the it won't be the same as like the online digital learning program because we operate under the AL license, which is alternative learning experiences. This will be different. This is also for students that are short short-term and long-term suspended instead of just suspending a kid on an emergency removal and sending them to the streets or home while we investigate what's happening. No, these kids are still going to be able to come into my building and then I'm going to be able to meet their needs um educationally and and in any other way that we have to as well too. So, these are some things that we're looking

153at doing. We've also all year have been involved deeply in the truency process. Every single county in the state of Washington seems to do it a little bit different. We've been working with uh Judge Pelucky um a lot this year in trying to uh reformat our try processes and um we're going to continue uh community engagement boards happen right now every other Monday. Again, these are we clarified at the last um last school visit. Truency happens to do with uh students that don't come to school on a regular basis. Um, and those are those are our kids that um they we need to find out why they're not coming to school. Um, there's always a reason why. And you guys use the term like lazy learners or something like that. Um, we don't we don't

154use lazy learners or or or we use we basically replace the laziness with like unmotivated. Everybody's motivated by something. We just got to figure out what it is. And and once we do, then we have success. And sometimes it's super super tough to figure out what motivates each and every one of us, including our students. So, um, I hope that was fast enough, but I do want to open it up for questions from the board, uh, for Cat or I. That was really good. Um, I appreciate everything. That was insightful, quick, very nice. Very nice. I like that. Yeah, that's um, one thing too where we do like any anytime you guys do stuff with maybe if it's just the aesthetic side, let us know. Let us know. Let us know. We talked about that

155today council thing that you know anything guys I I want the kids in there too I think even if it's just ASB kids sorry if it's just the ASB or just like a small pool like bring us in because I think it can definitely help you guys I want to be kind of your arms so we we will need help aesthetically for the building Miles because um obviously right now it's just a a brown color we would like to um add life to it so thank you Um for so going back to the middle of your presentation about keeping kids green. So that's that's also schoolwide, correct? Absolutely. Okay. Sorry, I was kind of listening to that with through a scope of thinking this is specifically for um students that will be going to the

156hub. Um more of like DOHS students, but I'm happy that it's it's schoolwide because all students need this. Yeah. So, we would So, just kind of to kind of walk you through through a mock. So, like it's Monday morning. We're all at the table and let's say we're going through the 10th graders and we're looking at all 10th graders. We we pull up um our spreadsheets and we we have all our buckets. We're looking at all the yellow kids. We're looking at all the red kids. We sit around the table, pretend you guys are the success teams. Here's the first student, might be your child. We start talking. Someone says, "Hey, I know that student um they were in my office the other day. the the father just, you know, got arrested last weekend. This

157is the issue going on. Mom doesn't know what to do. We share that. We figure out, okay, so who wants to tackle that? Someone jumps in and we take the we basically take the lead. Someone's going to take the lead and we're going to help those families because again, every family's different, every need's different, but maybe we have a whole group of kids that are struggling. Maybe it's in the area of a specific content, but maybe the team recommends, hey, why don't we ask Gear Gear Up to focus on like science for that particular week or on that particular lab. So, we know that we're going to send 15 kids who were currently in yellow or maybe red that are struggling in that science class and they're going to focus on that. So, again, it's

158developing systems because it it might be different, right? I'm used to living in a world where so there's green, yellow, red, and then there's really really red. I live in the system for the last eight years of the really really red. These are um our consultant would call it our bleeding kids. These are the kids that are pretty intense. They there's a lot going on and we got to figure out how do we help these kids? And that's where we use uh resources as as outside the box as like the Washington Youth Academy where we've had the privilege of graduating six or seven in the last seven seven students in the last uh probably 12 months, which is super super amazing. And some of these kids, they've just turned their life around. We have some

159kids on deck. We have one there right now, Alex, who's set to graduate here in July, and we got kids ready to go. So, these are the types of programs that some of us um we we we're aware of these resources, but maybe we can bring them to the table to help a specific student or groups of students. Okay. For the Skyward um report card that we get like after every trimester, it's like very easy to read. Yeah. In algebra, you have an A, whatever. Um how would the SPG one look like? Would it be like very similar or you want me to answer that? So the at the end of each trimester grades are converted to a letter grade and so on the report card or on a transcript they would all look the

160same. You guys said you guys were going to go down back over to see Chuck and you guys were going to take some kids. any possible chance you could take these three. Um, yes, all three of them are going. Thank you. We'll report when you get back, Miles. You guys may also be able to meet Chuck because he's going to be here next Tuesday when you guys are at the high school doing the barbecue. So, I can definitely make sure he comes out and meets you guys as well. I I I would be excited as that was possible. Chuck used to be the the high school principal and is the one that helped shift Sunnyside High School and now he does work where he works with other districts and high schools. And so he's been

161working with me and my admin team and as we've been working on the integration plan, he's been helping us process and think around our systems and how do we realign our our supports that we have because we have a lot of resources at the high school and how do we realign it so that we can ensure that we're getting all of our, you know, meeting everybody's needs. Josh, question. If if we were to have graduation all with DOHS and OHS are the kids from DOHS I guess what is their feelings about that? So um selfishly their feelings are to have uh their own um ceremony. However, part of the um integration is start taking steps towards joining us together to be to be um unified. So, one of the things that we did last week

162is we, my office staff and myself, we met and we kind of looked at the pros and cons. Part of the issue right now is that um we don't have a very high number of graduates. It's anywhere between 14 to 18 kids this year. Um so, one of the things that we're doing is like they they like that because that's, you know, that's the easy route. But again, with change, change is hard for all of us, right? But this is this is a good step in the right direction. and the high school's done an amazing job of all year long incorporating us, including us, and um it's just it's hard to get used to because our kids have been used to, you know, Desert Oasis High School. Uh so, one of the things that a

163decision that we're going to have to make here um and we're probably going to make it by tomorrow morning is what whether we're going to continue moving forward with our own planning um or just combining and having one solid one. Uh something to also keep in mind is we always include our um our stakeholder skill source whether they are GED graduates or alternative high school diploma route graduates and we include them and and Miss Achinson has been more than willing to accommodate them as well. So we would all be wearing the same colors and we would all be graduating because at the end of the day we're all Ollo school district students and they've all been in our system at one point or another. I feel like we should clap because that was really a

164great way to end. Yeah, that was great. You're welcome. Thank you guys. Appreciate all of your guys' hard work and everything that you've done to push this integration forward. And Josh, especially you for all of your hard work at DOHS all of these years. I know that you were, you know, saying thank you to to everyone else, but thank you for your leadership and for all of the things that you've done to make it a success and for being such a team player in this integration and all of the the great talents and attributes that you have that you're taking to the high school. Just really appreciate you and everything you've done. So, thank you. Superintendent Perez, do you have anything you'd like to add before we move on? Um, you know, I think it's

165it's uh what I really appreciated about what we just heard is you heard Cat talk about some of the work with Dr. Selena and keeping kids green and attendance behavior and academics. And then you heard Josh transition into what has been the reality at DOHS for the last 10 years, right? That's what they do there. And can we do that at scale? And I've heard a lot of energy and excitement particularly from Josh and his team that because I think they went in with kind of a side eye like is this really going to work? But I I think the partnership that's developed there tells me the cool things that existed at DOHS we're going to preserve and we're going to expand. You asked twice. Is this for all kids? That's the intent of it

166and the expertise that Dr. Selena brings to the project is much of the work in his beliefs about how schools run started in alternative school settings. That's where the concepts come from. It's just can you do it at scale with 1500 kids as opposed to a 100 and we think it's worth the challenge and lots of systems being put in place to to address that. So I think it's um a little bittersweet, you know, the bitterness of having to close that site down, but I think the opportunity and the sweetness of building something better for every kid in Oll. Every kid. Great. Okay, we will move on tonight to our public comment. Do we have any public comment tonight? No. Okay, then we will switch to upcoming events. May 5th through the 9th, we have

167all of our barbecues. Is everybody signed up for their particular sites? Yep. Okay. Um, we already went through the calendar previously in our meeting, so we'll skip down to May 27th. Nope, May 12th, which is our next board meeting, and it's at 1 p.m. Um, and then May 19th, we have the middle school site visit. Time is yet to be determined. Oh, you know what? I'm going to rewind even further to May 7th. year end event. If you're able to make that, we want us to let you know, Marissa, so you can announce a quorum. So, if you're able to make that on May 7th, please let Marissa know if you don't know already right now. Um, that's always a really great event to go to. Uh, May 27th, we have another board meeting at

1681 PM. So, this will be our last evening board meeting until the end of the summer. We will now move on to our board self assessment of the meeting. One of my favorite things about a board meeting like this is um a ton of student input. Really appreciate our our student board members and for everything that they bring to each and every conversation that we have. So, thank you guys so much. Miles, you want to say that again? I said, "Thank you for letting me go on so long." Um, appreciate a really great presentation and our final presentation, which maybe can go in both columns. The bittersweetness of our last presentation Oasis High School, the end of an era. I want to thank uh Josh and I want to thank Pete and John for taking

169their shots and keep answering back at us and for the ongoing battle. Well planned agenda. Does anyone have anything else to add? I want to say Miles is very inspiring. Like well because he asks very like deep questions that like I don't even think of sometimes. like Mel, you answered a question I didn't even know I had. And I I just really like it. Hopefully, he's being a really good mentor to you two young ladies. Anything else? As Miles said, the blob is unifying. The blob is unifying. Okay. At this time, the board will recess into executive session for 30 minutes to discuss the performance of a public employee. No action will be taken following the executive session. meeting is a journey.