001five school board meeting to order. And we'll just note uh we have public access to meeting. We also stream um so members can attend at home. We also record so members can see it if they aren't able to be here tonight or um streaming tonight. Uh Nicole, could you do the roll call and verification of quorum? Mr. Lee here. Mr. Summers here. Mr. Shader here. Miss Earler here. Mr. Libre here. Mr. Pope here. Mr. Kowalsski here. Miss Mercer here. Miss Busher here. We have a quum. Thank you. Could all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So, our first item for the evening is our
002Mandana Bliss Award presentation. The Mandana Bliss Award is a symbol of our deep appreciation for the unwavering commitment and outstanding efforts demonstrated by our staff members for educational excellence in the Stevens Point Area Public School District. It is named in honor of Mandana Hail Bliss, Stevens Point's first school teacher and trailblazer, whose exceptional service and dedication continue to inspire us all. The award leads lends us the opportunity to shine a light on a remarkable contribution made to this district by our staff and recognize um our awardes uh exemplary service. I'm going to be turning it over to Corey to introduce the award winner. So this month we are pleased to honor Taylor Nelson who is a fifth grade teacher at Clover Whiting Elementary School and she is being presented this award by sixth grade student
003Isa Newport. So I would like the two of them to come forward to the podium. Congratulations. [Applause] Miss Nelson was nominated for this award because she is always a constant cheerleader throughout every challenge that she faces. She is an awesome teacher who finds new and imaginative ways to engage her class in every activity. Miss Nelson is able to change the mood of her classroom with only a few uplifting words. She is always upbeat and positive and always makes her classroom bubbly and exciting. Miss Nelson makes sure that every child feels welcome by listening and being open to new ideas. She is constantly involved with Polar Whiting's activities such as leading cadetses and helping out with assemblies. Miss Nelson also connects with students across grade levels by offering lunch with teacher, stopping to ask how was
004your day and always being open to talk to students when they need it. Miss Nelson inspired me to never give up. She models what it means to be a good person, how to overcome challenges, and to see the good in others. Miss Nelson has made an impact on me as well as all the other Wildcats at Fulver Whiting by being by always being the loudest enthusiastic cheerleader, an energetic teacher, and always making everyone feel welcome. This is why she deserves this award. [Applause] Thank you. Isa is an absolutely wonderful student. So, we're gonna go and take a picture if that's okay with you. And then we'll have you go around. [Music] Congratulations. Thank you for all you do. [Music] Congratulations. Congrats. Thanks for all you do. [Music] So, uh, tonight, uh, Kelly Hass is not
005with us. Um, she has a track meet tonight. Were there any public comments? Oh, I'm sorry, Alex. So, uh, were there any public comments? Email and no one. All right. Thanks for the reminder. All right. Kylie isn't able to be with us, right? She felt bad that she couldn't be at her last meeting, but she did have a track meet tonight, so we excused her. Um, Nicole, thank uh you very much. She went went out and bought Kylie a nice little care package um with a lot of cute little things in a a beautifully decorated bag. So, we're going to give that to Kylie. Nice. Yeah. Perfect. All right, we will move into the communication report from Sarah. [Music] Hello. Um thank you. We can move right into that communication report. We'll take a peek
006at our media coverage and public relations. Um maybe for the month of May. Uh we did issue five press releases that says during February, but it really was during May. I apologize for that typo. Um including the main Dana Bliss Award celebration, some community partnerships um that we're really excited about uh for trauma response bags with Stevens Point Police Department. Um implementation of those trauma bags, the stop the bleed, we had a lot of community support for those. So really grateful to now have those in each of our schools. Um welcoming our new head boys lacrosse coach. Um and then um continuation, it was our final um addressing bullying in the digital age. You may remember we had one previously scheduled that girls really struggled with weather this year. It seemed like every time we
007had one scheduled, we had some bad weather. um but really felt it was important to have that last um opportunity to really specifically talk about some sextortion um that we've seen upticks in in our area um given just some community feedback that we've received. So really good coverage from all of our media partners. We're really grateful to them um for helping us to share that information with our community. Taking a look at social media engagement for the month um we saw small increases in total audience for both Facebook and Instagram which is really where we're focused. We've continued to see that very um small but steady growth throughout the year. I'm okay with that. Um impressions over both of those channels. We saw rise by 25% month overmonth as well as engagement rose 16% month
008over month. Does not surprise me just given what we're talking about this time of the year. I would expect to see those rise again. We just have a lot of really great things to cover um as we approach the end of the year, especially with graduations coming up, uh the track meet coming up, just a lot of really, really fantastic things to share online. Taking a peek at our website and digital engagement on those owned channels, specifically looking at website, um total views were up uh by about 10% month over month and about 7% year-over-year. So we continue continued to see steady growth there and we saw a nice jump in our event count. So things like downloaded PDFs, maybe clickthroughs to a video. So really looking again there at engagement on those channels specifically
009on the website, making sure that folks are interacting with the information we have there. We know through that event count that they're able to access that um and get the information that they are needing. Top three most visited pages, no surprises there. district homepage, the staff portal login page, and the spash homepage. Those have been consistent last five years. We really see those as as the the highest uh uh viewed pages. Our user experience in feedback, we only had two feedback submissions for the month. So, we've seen those consistently go down since we've launched the new website, which I think is great. We'll continue to see them, right, people? I had a gentleman um I just happened to overhear as I was walking by the um front desk as he was dropping off a check
010for um the meal program that we have here like I couldn't find it on the website and I'm like what couldn't you find I'll fix it. So just continuing to get that um formal and informal feedback as we improve that site and then continuing to adjust that information as needed. Then looking at our special projects and campaigns, um I really want to talk a little bit about those school climate surveys. So we will have the full reports for the board in June. However, I do have both the uh the district level done for uh both the staff report and the family report. I want folks to know like I I really do read every single comment that comes through there. I've been spending a lot of time just deeply immersed in what that feedback looks
011like. um excited to bring that to the board for both the teachers, staff, and family surveys. And then I'll also have those uh building level reports for both of those surveys delivered to principles in time for them to begin their planning for their continuous improvement processes uh for the upcoming school year. So even though we won't quite have those to the board before um before June, principles will have those individual boarding uh building reports. It's teacher and staff appreciation week. um just happened. I just love uh the opportunity to celebrate our staff. We had so many just really amazing submissions from our families this year. If you follow us on socials, you got to see just videos of the sweetest students just thanking their teachers and really just highlighting the impact that they make on
012them every day. If you don't follow us, just take a second to jump on over to that Facebook page and take a look. It was really, really nice to wake up to those uh emails every day and just get to see those and share those. We also had um over 213 e-cards sent at the time I had put this data in there. They've gone up since then. So just really excited to see I know buildings do their own celebrations as well. So this certainly isn't the only thing that was done for teachers and staff, but just really excited to be able to be a small part of celebrating and thanking them for everything they do for our community. And then finally, looking ahead, we're really just coming into the home stretch of this year. So,
013from a communications uh standpoint, just waking up every day and seeing where we're going to be. Uh which is really exciting to share all those great stories. Um we'll deploy our own communication awards uh in two weeks. Uh we'll continue to do our coverage for spring and end of the year celebrations and then our end of year messaging as well. And then come June and July, we'll begin our planning processes for next year and making sure we're doing a good job telling stories um again. So with that, unless there's any questions, that will be my report. Are there any questions for Sarah? Thank you. I Sarah, I just want to note, I mean, that website redesign was a was a huge undertaking. Yeah. I mean I mean a huge undertaking and it really was, right?
014But um but the smoothness of it um just really appreciate clearly means that you were doing all the behind the scenes work that was needed to make that you know for the huge audience we have um to have that smooth launch and to have it an ongoing smooth launch just just a lot of credit to appreciate that. Yeah. a lot of um other folks behind the scenes too. Tech was obviously instrumental in that. Um and then our folks at the building level that are really doing a nice job of making sure their content is on there that they need and and making sure that they're being responsive as well. So definitely team effort there. Thank you. All right. Next up is the superintendent report. Thank you, Meg. Couple community donations uh worth mentioning. Power Engineers
015Foundation has donated $15,000 to our engineering department at SPASH. Um, it's going to be used to update and modernize our engineering uh program. Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin, the Arthur E. Heights Charitable Fund, has donated $2,500 to the Boston School Forest that's going to be used for a petal power machine that Carla will use as one of her uh in one of her units. End of year school celebrations. Nicole sent out an email. There's a ton of things happening. Well, none of those are required. If you um have time and would like to um see what's happening in our buildings at the end of the year, please make it a point to go to anything um that's on that list. Can I ask a question? Sure. We have lots of graduations. I mean, would it
016be helpful to know who's going to what? So, if something somebody's not going to one, we would make sure somebody does go to one. I mean, would that be helpful? Um, if you're planning to attend, I think it would just be nice maybe just to send Nicole an email and then she can let the building know. Um, if you're not going to attend, we don't need to to know that, but if you will be there. Um, and if we find that there's an event, a graduation in particular that there's not a board member there, then we can maybe put out an all call to see if we can get somebody there. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm going to go right into that. G, um, we do have five different graduation ceremonies. May 22nd is the SPASH
017life skills graduation at the SPASH auditorium at 10 o'clock. Also on that same day is Project Search. That's in the Encore room at WSP at 2:00. The SPASH Spash graduation is at 6:00 on the 23rd. If you are attending that one, you need to let Dorene know at SPASH ASAP because you'll need to have a robe. And if you don't have a robe, she'll she'll find one for you. Point of Discovery School's graduation is May 28th at 5:00 and Charles Fernandez Center on the 29th at 5:30. The Gene, excuse me for those. Is it okay we let Nicole know or should we call Dan and No, just let Nicole know. Okay. Thank you. The Gene Larose Elementary Track Meet is on May 21st and 22nd. If you've not been to that, it's a really cool
018event. I would highly recommend you go out and see that graduation ceremonies. I just mentioned the last day of school is June 5th. The first day of summer school is June 16th. We have our tour of the Century Youth Apprenticeship Building on Wednesday of this week at 3:30. And lastly, I know that G and I think Ted or maybe not Ted attended the Joint Finance Committee hearing and G wanted to provide just a short update. Yeah. Uh, okay. It was 10 from 10 to 5 up at NCTC in the dental building and I got there at 8. Couldn't find a place and uh I signed up to speak but I did my calculations and I wouldn't get up to speak in time. That's how packed it was. And it was in a room that was
019half as small as it should be. So it was standing room the whole time. people there for seven hours and and they had to line up so you could only see half the room. If you were sitting down, you could not see half the legislators and things like that. But uh uh I did see a group uh that's organizing for public schools called wisdom wisdom. I have a business card that I can give you. Uh uh what I understood was it was a group of school board either presidents or superintendents that are organizing to present a organized front to the legislature similar to what uh private school people are. And I talked to a a former SPASH graduate who happens to be a neighbor of mine and he was a former Spash wrestler. uh he
020runs the nursing home for Wood County, Justin Sys Levage, and he was there. I mean, he had a packet. These guys are prepared. And uh he had been at all four meetings. This is a job. Uh but he said, "If you want to get in to speak, you go up north because nobody goes around here. Everybody goes." So, uh that was my experience. I did hand in a couple pages that I had typed up for whatever it's worth. Uh, you know, so was a experience like that. The one thing that I wanted to mention that I'm pretty encouraged about is uh and some of you probably saw it Pat Ton put out in his newsletter that he has been working with the governor on a bill to uh allow nurses to set up their own
021shop to act independently and it was rejected twice. But now he's he came up with a bill that the governor will accept. So, it's like we've got somebody working together. I thought that was incredible. Uh let's hope that it extends to the education committee. I thought it was kind of a a ray of sunshine, especially after being there at the day at the capital. I didn't see any of that. But now, good. Maybe we'll have somebody working together. So, that was it. Thank you, G. Anything else? All right, we'll move into the consent agenda. and that um for new board members, we have a consent agenda. Those items are on each month. Um typically the um the schedule of monthly bills would have run through the um HR business services committee, although that did not
022meet this month, but it comes through for us. It includes as tonight, it includes uh approval of the minutes of the prior school board meeting. This is for April 14th. approval of the special schoolboard meeting for April 22nd, the approval of the schedule of monthly bills, and then also our employment recommendations. And we take um that as one motion to approve that entire consent agenda. Um again, for the new board members, um employment recommendations, um there are those tend to come to us the night of the board meeting. um especially as we move into times of year where we're looking at, you know, new hirings happening and often times when the um packet goes out, you know, on Thursday, the previous Thursday, um Beth may still be working with some potential employees. So she makes
023sure that we get the most upto-date list of hires and people who are leaving us and retirements etc. Um usually that evening right before the board meeting. So with that explanation I am looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as pres as presented. A motion by Jen. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Will. And we will have Nicole uh call the role due to the bills. Miss Bushman. Yes. Mr. Shader. Uh I Miss Mercer. Yes. Mr. Kowolski. Hi. Mr. Pulk. Yes. Mr. Lieber. Yes. Miss Eer. Yes. Mr. Summers. Yes. Mr. Le. Yes. All right, we will move into the um again we did not have B business services um HR. Ted, was there anything to report about that committee at all? Um no, because of u the time
024of the year and things are going on. Everything's copacetic for the money. There'll be more next meeting. All right. Thank you. Right. Right. We'll now move into Ed's services and uh we'll look to G for the report. Okay. Uh, I'll save the four-year-old kindergarten. I think you're going to talk about that. Uh, we did have a report from Dana over at Pods. Uh, uh, the, uh, we talked about what we had talked about over the years, number of kids and money. And I'm happy to report, I mean, the cost of educating a kid at PA is about the same as a district. So, that has evened up. That's a good thing. Uh but he's having trouble with numbers. So we talked about the different recruiting things and and they're going to hit that hard again.
025They are recruiting. I got an ad. Yeah. So So he's going to hit the road hard there again. And hopefully we can get up closer to that number of 125. He's currently at 97. Uh and uh and then and we also had a report from Brent Gustanssky about the youth apprentice program. I went to the BR breakfast. Will was there. I don't know if any Yeah. Okay. And Ted was there with us. Yeah. And uh had I mean it was wonderful. It was wonderful. I I wish they had that when I was in school. I mean these guys are out making you know pretty good money for a kid in school and not just piling stuff on stocking shelves or filling ice cream cones. I mean, they're doing pretty important stuff. Uh, I talked to
026one kid who's he was trying to get into MIT. He was bummed out that he didn't he had to settle for Madison, you know, was like, "Okay." But, I mean, he's a tech guy and he's doing all kinds of stuff that I couldn't even begin to fathom what he was doing. And the room was full. parents uh and the the business people that are out there. And I think Brent's really got it going. He's getting these people to really buy into the program. Uh and it's incredible. It was an incredible uh to listen to the seniors, you know, all the prospects and and things like that. Uh and then uh uh we were going to have an ELA report on what's happening there, but we didn't get to it. So, I'll let then Chris go
027into the four-year-old kind. Great. Thanks, G. So, did do any other committee members have anything you want to mention about Fed's services? I know the one other area that we covered was just our dual credit and the phenomenal the phenomenal growth of that dual credit in particular in conj conjunction with MSTC and NTC. But I also think Alex you raised um maybe further exploring opportunities with UWSP or Ash Green Bay um to see if we can't get something moving in that direction. Well, well, Jim had a lot to say of your personal experience. Yeah. And you know, I got I got to tell you the truth, Jim. I got kind of lost in there when you're talking about credits are different here and there. Yeah, I can explain. Well, it it'll take me like a
028long time to understand what you're going through, but I think Brent listened really well and that he's probably going to, you know, they're going to try to do something about that to to make it I I get what I got out of it. We need to make it more streamlined. Is that a fair thing to say? And it's supposed to be even by the standards listed at uh Midstate, it should list exactly what the course equivalent is at Midstate. We weren't doing that in our education guide or the academic guide. It with the recent update it is. And it should say this class is worth this many credits that it's and it's this class because sometimes the names of the classes aren't the same and that's confusing to kids too. after you said all that
029and I was wondering well you've got a lot of personal experience with that and Brent is of course overwhelmed. Yeah. You know uh is there room for a board member like Jim to help out you know to sit in the room and say can we can we do these things? Jim has provided a lot of feedback and input and Jeff is working closely with SPASH to to get that taken care of so that we communicate better with both students and families on exactly what needs to be done. So he's he's given us kind of from a parent perspective. I mean you give a bird's eye view. Yep. And to to guide their process, there were some changes made like one of them was it was not at all clear in our academic guide in any
030way, shape, or form that it was a two-step process. So parents out there listening, it's not just when you sign the academic form from SPASH that you just assume your kids's taking the dual credit course. There's a whole another step to that that has to take place in the classroom that I was not aware of up until a few weeks ago. And unfortunately, my uh oldest daughter, who is now 19, um we did not find out about this until she was signing up for a course at Midstate and looked at her transcript and realized she took four online or dual credit classes and should have 12 credits at Midstate and only has six credits at Midstate because that second step never happened in the classroom here at SPASH. Even though I think it says in
031the dual credit guide book at Midstate that the someone from Midstate is actually supposed to work with the instructor to do that. It's not supposed to solely be on the student. Anyway, it didn't happen. And so I think we're taking some steps. I still haven't heard exactly what they are um of what how to verify because as a parent, heck, I get an email every or and a text message and a phone call every time my kid misses a class, but I was not informed in any way, shape, or form that my kid somehow didn't get enrolled at Midstate and so is missing six credits on a technicality and that's a problem. So Jeff Jeff is on this. I mean, he has been in touch with SPASH on multiple occasions, is continuing to work on
032it. Midstate does come into the classroom and and and help students to get that enrollment taken place, but there's always room for improvement and we will do anything that we can to make this better for students and more informed for families. I I had emailed a while ago in my in we call it dual credit but I kind of clarified that I said I don't see it that way as truly dual credit because for instance and this is where that was getting into the weeds on you little G if you take a say go take a three credit class on your own through start college now at midstate technically if it's three credit every credit you take at the college level counts for 0.25 25 credits equivalent at the high school level. Okay? So, if
033you take a three credit class, that's what you get at high school point when you take it on site there. We consider the dual credit, we allow it because it's supposed to be of higher rigor, higher standard college level. So, it's more than just what you do in the normal classroom, but yet it's not equally credited to the student. They get a half credit only at Spash, but it's three credits over there. So, it's not equalized in that regard. I think that's just to do with the way that it's not unusual. I mean, when I was in high school, a one year, like my calc, AP calc one credit for a whole year. Yep. Versus a three credit equivalency for the course. So, I mean, like I think it's just because high schools and colleges
034just don't use the same credit system, right? Like full-time at a university. I get it. there is a there is a calculation for that. So when you take a three credit course there, so if if for instance medical terminology, let's just say cuz I know that's one of our So let's say you would take that at SPASH, you'd get half credit at SPASH and three credits at Midstate. If you just took it at Midstate, you'd get three credits there. And technically, if you follow the regulation on it properly, you'd get 75 at SPASH. Now that if it wasn't in your dual credit program, right? And so when that's my point is that if you do it one way, it's calculated differently at at the high school level, but if you do it through the dual
035credit, they don't. I think it's uh there's also a financial benefit to the family if you're enrolling through the high school. There's no cost charge to the family versus if you are enrolling through correct through our high school in the dual credit enrollment sort of. So it's holding back graduation. But I think this I mean I think this is just again the committee meeting is again for new members and I know Mart's been on the committee. It's really that opportunity to be able to discuss a lot of these issues and and sometimes good information comes forward because board members have taken the time to sit down with Corey and with Chris ahead of time to really be able to flesh out some of these areas that they may have concerns about. um that are going
036to be coming forward to us as a board. So, we encourage all board members to to take the time to reach out to Corey and Chris if if you have any questions or concerns um in terms of your individual um lives or in terms of a constituent or a staff member that calls you and has some questions. Thank you, Jim, for for raising that and bringing that to the front and center and enhancing the process. I will be experiencing that firsthand this upcoming year. So I will report back and let you know my experience. Please do. Yeah. But to your point, G, Jim has been really instrumental in making a lot of enhancements both to process and the academic guide. So we're really grateful for the feedback he's provided because absent knowing and a personal
037experience, we really would not have known that we were overlooking something inadvertently. Right. Yeah. I've got a very good researcher at home. We appreciate that. And I will add too, there is a very, it's not that long, but there's fairly goodsized stack of papers related to the dual credit um regulations at Midstate that is separate from ours. And I just would encourage those that are involved in that process to be more familiar with that because it seems every time I bring up a question related to it, I get glossy eyed like they've never looked at it. And that seems like that should be sort of, you know, because it's even though that's not point schools, we're dealing with that. We should know that. I did find it ironic too on what Alex said um about
038Rashult's involvement with Ashkosh and Green Bay and thank you for forwarding me uh that information. Um, I found it interesting that the very next day after that meeting, I was kind of surprised it wasn't mentioned at the meeting that there was a um trial issue related to that exact thing with WSP and Point schools that that email came out like literally the next day. And I was like, how did we not get informed of that at ED services when that what had to have been known? There's a uh similar to what Alex was talking about. It was a dual credit with directly with UWSP. Do you know about this? Yeah, the pilot. Yeah. Oh, okay. You want to talk to that, Jeff? Come up to the mic. It was a W. It was in but
039it was with WSP, not Midstate. Yeah. Yeah. So, we talked we got involved in this a little bit earlier this year. WSP has just offered it this year as a pilot program uh with some of our local school districts. We us being one of them. So typically we won't report out a ton on a pilot till we know how it works and that we actually have students that enrolled. Okay. So right now we we are getting our first group of students and signed up our ourus with that right now. So there's right now there's two courses that we have students signed up for and we're going to see how that works this year. Mr. Vindorf and I met with the UWSP reps to see how that's going to be set up and how our students
040are going to enroll and work through their program. Um, that one's a little bit different because in our normal dual enrollment program, our teachers teach it. So, this one is not our teachers. This one is actually virtual. So, the one I'm the most familiar with and met with a professor on that's working on it is going to be a astronomy course. So, the students are enrolled in an astronomy course through UWSP. Uh, and that's the first time we've ever had anything like that and it's very small scale because they're not sure their ability to sustain it either. Jim, okay, thank you, Jeeoff. Nothing. Okay. I think you were going to talk about the four-year-old kindergarten program site agreements. Sure. And this is an annual item that we bring to the board um for approval. There
041was we had brief discussion about this um at our ed services meeting. There were some small revisions. We are moving away from um a rubricbased evaluation toward more of a um evaluation process that's focused on goals similar to what we ask our elementary sites and our secondary sites to do by developing a continuous improvement plan annually. So we're moving to closely mirror what our traditional schools are doing in terms of evaluation. That's a slight shift. Um and then also the 2.5% increase that we've offered to all of our community sites as part of this contract equates to about a 50% incre or 50 cent increase per student per day. So we're moving from compensation of 2002 to 202 per day per student. But those were the only changes. Um our early learning principal Sher Stantic
042is here if there are questions but I'm also happy to answer anything that board members might have. Board members have any questions for Chris or Sherry on that update to the contracts? If not, I would look for a motion to approve the revisions to the 40-year-old kindergarten program and site agreement type three 2025 2026 contract as presented. So moved. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor with I. I. I. Any opposed with nay? Motion carries. All right, we're moving into technology services approved purchase of Chromebooks. Unfortunately, Brian is not able to be with us tonight. His dad passed away today. So, I am going to take this item and answer any questions you have as best I can. And if I can't answer them, I'll have
043Brian reach back out. But we do this on an annual basis. We purchase Chromebooks. Um, and Brian put out an RFP for the purchase of 1,200 Chromebooks. Um, Trafera is the company that we purchased from last year, and these are the exact same Chromebooks. Their RFP came back at the lowest price. Um, the lowest price with the 5year warranty. Correct. The other one only had a four-year warranty. And the price is $412 per unit, which includes the ATB. Which includes what? The ATP. Yes. Um, and it has a three-year uh battery warranty and a fiveyear accidental damage protection. So, Brian's recommendation is to go ahead and purchase from Travera again for a cost of $494. No. $494,400. That's a deal. We're saving dollars. It's a little more than one computer. $494,400. Board members have any
044questions of Corey? That's built into the budget yearly. Yes. Into Brian's tech budget. So, I'd be looking for a motion to approve the purchase of 1,200 Chromebooks from the technology services budget for the cost of $494,400. So, moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor with I I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. We are moving into the schoolboard evaluation results with Sarah. I can't look. We look like twins. Like I just got this, too. Well, not the only set of twins in here. Oh, yeah. That's Well, sorry. This is They always dress a little bit, which is Yeah, we tease them a little bit at work. I can go ahead and get started with the presentation if you'd like. I do. Sorry. That's okay. I'm just going to grab my [Music] Oh, look at
045that. That was perfect. All right. As you may recall, we changed the um approach to the schoolboard self-evaluation a little bit this year. Um, we did the base uh survey evaluation back in November and then had you retake that same survey again in March to take a look um just to see kind of how those two compare to each other. Um what we're really looking for the goal the purpose of the evaluation um was to allow you to reflect on progress towards your 2425 goals. uh strengthening that governance practice and internal collaboration, identifying focus areas for continued improvement, and then inform that planning and discussion really for that upcoming board retreat. So, wanting to give you some really actionable insight um for how those two compared. So if we take a peek as we move
046through that um I do want to note uh when we think about considerations for the survey this is the very smallest amount of respondents that I work with. So we had nine folks respond in November, we had eight folks respond in March. So already that's going to skew your data just a little bit. So, I say that because as we go through this, if things go up a little bit, down a little bit, it may or may not be something that you want to look at, noting that one with a sample size so small to begin with, even if we had all nine folks respond, it's already going to be, you know, like one person changed their mind, it could really influence, sorry, my Italian is coming out. It could really influence what that looks
047like in those results. So, I just want to keep that in mind as we go through. You may also recall when we went through the survey um probably that would have been back in December, we kind of went through like question by question to see how those went because of that up a little bit down a little bit. We're not going to do that this time. I don't think there's great value in that. And I really just highlighted for you kind of some of the the questions where we saw the biggest amount of movement and then what you might want to think about when we get um when you get to that point of conversation uh within your board retreat coming up here in June. So looking first at that summary of findings, those areas
048of improvement, we saw improved communication scores with the superintendent which really reflect a stronger collaboration and relationship and support between uh schoolboard and superintendent which I think is really really positive. Um considering that is one of the um key kind of charges of the school board is to hire and work with uh superintendent. Uh we saw increased access to student performance data in ELA and math. Uh that was something that came through really strong in that November survey was that you really wanted um more of those details and more opportunities to review that um coming from reports from administration. So we saw an increase um an improvement in those scores and then we saw an increase in improvement in those ongoing ongoing efforts to maintain trust and collaboration. So that was continued to be noted
049as a strength. Although we will see here in a moment that there's some opportunities there too when we look at kind of those trust accelerators that have been something that's really been a focus for the board. So looking at those top areas of decline, um I really wanted to just highlight kind of the biggest ones where we saw the most movement. So these are the questions where we saw the most movement. Again, none of this I would consider to be statistically significant when we look at like really tried and trueue practices for um survey evaluation. However, I I think it's important to note just given, you know, that's what we're here doing today. So, looking at those board trust accelerators have strengthened relationships. That's where we saw the biggest amount of decline. I think it
050was like a minus 18% maybe if we did that in a percentage- wise um which was significant compared to others. The next thing we saw was that those committees are being used effectively to achieve goals. That came through again, not just in that question, but also in your comments. We had a couple board members just say like, "I'm not sure why this comes to committee." I'm paraphrasing, right? Or, "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this when it comes to committee, or why are these things coming and not those things?" So, that might be a topic that would be um a good opportunity for you to just chat through what those expectations are at the board retreat. uh supporting the superintendent to address achievement barriers saw a drop. Uh support for safe learning
051environments saw a drop. Adherence to governance protocols saw a drop. We did also see another I don't think I put them right directly into here, but I did note them in your report. Additional declines that were not as significant but did decline were perceptions of unity and collaborative decision-making, open communication among board members, and engagement in activities that promote trust. When I think of that, I really think of coming back to those board trust accelerators and if that might not be an opportunity for conversation at your upcoming board retreat. Looking at some of those key takeaways then, oh yeah, there we see the most significant decline as we talked about was that perceived trust among board members. Um, so maybe a signal that uh relationships and board cohesion could use some attention at that board
052retreat and maybe there are some opportunities to identify some strategies that could be worked towards. Um, I know Corey and I chatted a little bit about it. Maybe identifying one or two of those trust accelerators you really want to focus on instead of having all of them. Um, I'm, you know, not privy to what happens a lot of the time on like that insight of that. So there may be some really specific things that you could discuss at that board retreat. Um but that might be something to think about. Um and then the size analysis confirms that declines in collaboration and trust. Right? So even when we look at that small sample size, one less person, we are seeing that drop in trust amongst the board. And then while communication with the superintendent has improved,
053I think that the overall drop in that internal cohesion again like even if we have that really good working relationship with the board, if we're not trusting each other amongst the board, we'll see that decline. Um so just thinking through maybe some opportunities to chat there. recommendations um just based on this one, you know, piece of data and feedback would be to really take a look at are there some opportunities to prioritize those trust building initiatives at the board retreat? What might those be reassessing the committee structure? As I said, I saw that come through, you know, not just in those questions, but also in that in those comments both in November and in March. So, I do think that's something worth talking through. uh maintaining those strong communication practices between the board and the
054superintendent. I think you know those have drastically improved, have stayed really healthy. Continuing to keep those healthy is really important. Uh incorporating targeted professional development or team building sessions. Those may be things that you discuss at the retreat as you look forward at your year. what that might look like uh relative to goals that you are are wanting to uh put together for the upcoming year and how those might tie together. And then continuing to emphasize that data driven decision making and progress monitoring. Uh that was something that came through really really strongly in the November survey and we saw really positive outcomes for that uh in the March survey. So, we want to make sure we're continuing to provide that for you. I did think through what some possible discussion prompts could be for
055you. These are just suggestions. Please do not feel like you need to use them or take them. Um, but when I looked at it, these were things that could possibly be prompts. Um, I know Corey and Chris will be um working with uh the the board executive team to really look at what that will um entail for you in June. Um, so by no means do these need to be the questions, but some things to maybe get you thinking as you head into that meeting. With that, I'm happy to take any specific questions on retreat or on the survey, not on the retreat. That's not not my area. I would also say from my perspective, one thing that would be helpful at that retreat also would be to assess if this process worked for you.
056This is a new process. It was a new survey. Was it helpful? Was it not helpful? Do we need to pivot? You know, just something to think about. Um were you did you get good feedback? Did you not? I really want this to be a process that is useful to you if and as we continue to do that so that you have the information you need to be able to make good decisions um for board and the district. I think that would be helpful to discuss at retreat. I mean did we get actual insights from this data or are is this a check the box activity and to your point it is very timeconuming for you too to kind of synthesize the data provide the feedback and if we're not acting on it it's a
057point of discussion. Uh I would I would add uh with the retreats a lot of times it gets to be a place to put a lot of stuff and I'm just asking to avoid that as much as possible. I know we can't avoid everything but to if it's a retreat the word to me means let's retreat you know not uh discuss business. Do any other board members have any thoughts? [Music] Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, thank you. So, the one thought that I had, and I don't know if this would be helpful, but the the whole first one related to the trust accelerators, you know, and if we're going to take a look substantively on that, you know, there's a big list there. I'm just wondering if if it might if we could somehow get kind
058of a question out to board members prior to that retreat basically saying where do you you know again anonymous but are you okay with this one? Are you okay with this one? you know, we we might find that, you know, six of us are all saying, "Hey, this is one that we're struggling with and these other three we're doing fine." You know, so it might because each of them kind of addresses something different. I mean, that all come together to overall create that trust. So, I'm wondering what board members would think if we just kind of sent it out and just prior to the retreat, here are those trust indicators or the trust accelerators, you know, is this something we need to take a deeper look at or is this something we're doing okay on?
059Because if we're if we're just talking about it like in group, it's really hard to figure out what because we might each be struggling with something different. And you know, it's I think the reason and I know Jen brought these forward um but it was really that each of these together comes together to create that overall trust. And you know, sometimes it's easier and I think G brought this up, you know, when we first looked at these, you know, if we could like focus on one or two or what are the one or two that we feel might be helpful for us to tackle? Well, I brought the name up a while ago was Steve Jones. I think some of us know who he is. former Spash student who did went on to wonderful things
060coaching Kimberly to like five state football championships and now he's consultant you know for the Packers one in one case but for all kinds of companies and I mentioned I called his office to see about because he works with school boards and of course it the price was just just phenomenal good for Steve and he's making a lot of money but it was just like uh and I had talked to a guy, you know, KTO Falls that used it as a new superintendent. He said it was wonderful, but he had a catastrophe on his hands to start with and and they paid like $70,000 for his services for a year. And he said it it was incredible what he did. Now, I was hoping for a hometown discount and stuff, but I couldn't even get
061to him. His secretary wouldn't even put me through. So, I'm hoping to see him somewhere, but I don't I don't hold any hope. I'm just saying an outside presence might be a help. You know, I don't think that's a bad idea. See which ones what areas we want to focus on. Yep. As a board, we can do that. Are board members okay with that? just send that out and you give us a more targeted approach. Exactly. With rel with relation to those trust accelerators like a yes I feel like here they are and then what's the weakest scale of maybe I'm comfortable or I I feel like this is working disagree agree that would be helpful. Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Excellent. I'm gonna answer NA for every question. Well, that's right. You guys
062get a pass this first one. All right, we will move into the budget evaluation process. Great. Thanks, Meg. I'm gonna I think I can move this up there. I didn't bring my clicker, so I think this will still work. All right. So, um update on budget and program eval. I have provided back in February an update on the math course sequencing project that was completed with handover. They are currently in the process of completing the ELA core sequencing. Not completely final, but I would like to share some preliminary data that I've pulled from that ELA core sequencing. Um, if you're a parent and a member of the board or if you're a community member that happens to be a board member tuning or or if you're tuning into the board meeting tonight, you would have
063received a survey from handover recently um about our course offering. So, that went out to all staff, all students, and all parents last week. Um, some parents did report over the weekend that they were having trouble accessing the link. So, I did share an updated link um, earlier today for those that were having trouble accessing that. But, the hope is to take the ELA core sequencing information, combine that with the survey information that comes back from all three stakeholder groups and provide a comprehensive report. Um, and that'll also be reflected on the live dashboard that they've created for both ELA and math. Both of those are very detailed. And again, I won't have all of the detailed information from ELA tonight, but I did want to just share some preliminary highlights that I've been able
064to identify based on what they've shared. Jim, yeah, I did get feedback from a constituent on the on that uh survey you had sent out and they said it'd be nice if under because a lot of it's just a yes or no or on the scale or whatever. And they said it'd be nice if under each one because some of those questions can they said could be interpreted one way or the other. There were sort of leading questions at times. It' been nice if there was actually a little comment box so they could explain their answer. That's good feedback. Thank you. Um, so just a quick review here in terms of the programs that we've identified in need of further analysis. Um, the primary focus at this time has still been on extracurriculars and co-curriculars.
065Um, ELA will obviously be added to that list and you'll see why here in just a moment based on some preliminary findings I'll share. But I'd also like to applaud the ELA department up at SPASH as well as Mr. Volandorf and his team. They've really laid a lot of groundwork for more closely examining what our ELA programming looks like and what those core sequencing pathways look like um in terms of opportunities for enhancements. So if we look at the core sequencing um pathways that handover defined based on the large data poll that was shared with them with this fall um we really see that they're kind of the standard pathway and then the advanced pathway. So they categorized how students performed based on four years of data analysis and they tracked each one of those
066students over a period of four years from 9th grade through 12th grade and they looked at several metrics as part of that experience over the course of four years in high school. So they looked at GPA, they looked at performance on preac, they also looked at performance on ACT. So you'll see when we look at some of the findings here in the next couple of slides, some of those benchmarks are referenced when they reference benchmarks either at grade 9, at grade 10, at grade 11 or grade 12. Those are the benchmark benchmarks they're referencing. So either a GPA of a B or higher. Um, proficiency levels are reached on preac and prefrs. I think every time I move that screen. Can I ask a question about that last? Of course. The course sequencing, the standard
067and the advanced both English nine and then advanced English 9 seem to funnel into the same English 10 course. Correct. Mhm. I I would I would think that advanced English nine would want to go into a more advanced adv like advanced debate. Well, I don't know, but what is the rationale for that that that my daughter actually is in that exact predicament. So, what is it? Okay. Jeeoff, I wonder if you could speak to why that course sequence is laid out. He and I were just talking about this before we came in here. Yeah. So at SPASH several years ago they removed all of the designations for advanced classes. So Spash has rolled that back. You saw that we did that with map as well. So one of the things that we are working on
068right now within the SPASH and that's not necessarily going to be reflected really well here is so within that literacy course and writing course. One of the things to fit it on this slide that Chris can't show is we've realigned now within that literacy course option. There's three courses that students can choose from and then there's writing course options. Within those, the counselors meet with students and the English teachers meet with students. Depending on what your career path might be, certain ones are going to fit you better. Certain ones are going to drive you farther towards like a college degree versus a student that says, you know, I want to go for a technical school degree. So, that's one of the pieces we've been working to address, Jen, because it that's also a shift is
069when you think of ninth grade um English and then you you think of what we're going to have in 11th grade. The 11th grade one is two semester long courses versus just one. Yeah, there is. And I think this is one of the things that has made the ELA course sequencing just a bit challenging to review in terms of the data that's coming out because though clearly though fairly defined in grades 9 and 10, once kids get to 11 and 12, it becomes very open-ended in terms of the number of electives that they have available to earn those required English credits before they graduate. But I don't maybe I didn't state my question right, but English and the standard English 9 goes to English 10. advanced advanced English nine go to English 10. Wouldn't they
070want to cons continue advancing if they're already? So, this would be English nine and debate together. Well, I'm talking the next one now. Advanced advanced debate. So, like the standard line and the third line. Oh, you're here. Yeah. Okay. So, like so like I think what G's getting at is to continue continuing the rigor. Yeah. Plus, besides that, we discussed this before. Yeah, I was at that uh youth apprentice thing where it's like tech tech school. Those kids do just as much English and math as anybody else. And so I kind of uh uh blanch at the the separate into like college and tech English. I I think the tech guys are doing need to do just as much rigor as everybody else and they deserve it, you know, because I mean, you ever read
071a technical manual? They better know. Uh so when you say college prep and tech prep is like I don't know why we do that. And I think again this is and Jeeoff correct me if I'm wrong, but there is not an advanced English 10 option. Correct. Which is what makes it a bit unique. Yeah. And I I do want to point out G that when when I identified the examples for options, a lot of it has to do with the different types of activities that they're going to focus on. For example, in some of the writing courses, it's going to focus on technical writing and that type of experience. So, it allows students to think about what they might want to do as they start choosing and looking at those options within the the literature
072courses and the writing courses. And those options are available for them again in 12th grade. So, let's say I took one and I wanted to take another one of those literature courses. I have access to that in 12th grade when I do that as well. But English 9 and English 10, just to further clarify, um, English 9, English 10, you're saying that there's a lit element and a writing component. Correct. Correct. However, that's all composed in one. Correct. So, if you, and I think this is to both G and Jen's point, you're advanced nine, normal 10 and seven. Same with everybody else, right? And then 11th lit course, lit course, lit the delineation doesn't seem to show that there is advancing rigor. It seems like advanced normal, keep going. And Alex, I mean, many of
073the students are advanced in advanced English seven and eight and nine and then they're in English 10, right? So I think this is this is one of the things that we've revealed right as part of this program review to say are there opport and again this isn't to say that this is the correct pathway this is say based on the data analysis for the last four years when handover this is what we have right and this is the this is the pathway that students have followed so it's not to say that this will be the preferred pathway when we finish the program review but that's part of going through this process is to say does that really make sense And then just one further question. So the standard pathway the second set of lines. So
074where it says English n debate here. Yes. And then so it's advanced debate which is the same as the advanced one on the bottom. Correct. And then if we go up to grade 11 lit advanced comp speech. Yep. Advanced. Um it's correct. So really there is no difference. So you're taking the same course and you're just for for my sake. You're saying that the rigor is the same. So if you're advanced, congratulations. We're not going to advance you further. You're going to stay the same. And right, you certainly could interpret it that way. So in terms of the pathways that most students follow over this four years of cohort data, it would indicate that that's the pathway that they that they move through and you know unless I were to look at the course syllabus
075for each one of those courses is that level of rigor there you know like the pathways are are the same. So based on initial glance, your analysis is accurate. I would say in terms of saying, right, we've we've really enhanced the level of rigor at grade nine. Moving beyond that, um there's some similar levels of rigor that are embedded in the course pathways. You certainly could make that assumption. Yep. But however, however, we know that teachers are altering their instruction based on the students they have in their classroom and may provide different opportunities. Right. But when you have a class of 25 kids coming from a teacher, it's hard to differentiate when you have high advanced y learners y and you have learners that are correct struggling or you know maybe aren't as advanced. It's
076hard on us to say let's differentiate to have 20 different things because we can't right this is a reality that we face as teachers and I think that we have to say do you know what we do have to have that separation not because you're no we need to have rigor I have always said that however we have to have some way of saying do you know what you want to push yourselves really really hard so you can take more dual you can do maybe college start college We're going to push you as hard as you want to push and we're going to do that because we want to serve you and my shtick. Okay, that's teachers are working really hard. They're really hard and if it's all the same, we can't do it and
077we can't do it justice and it sucks for teachers because they're struggling already and now we're not saying here let's make it easier for you and easier for our students. Right. Well, and and but to go back, I think you know where we're at is the board agreed to do this study so that we could determine That's right. opportunities and opportunities for improvement and and areas that seem to be working. And so I think what we're going to hear more tonight than we'd like to Yeah. opportunities for improvement or where where we're not seeing what we'd like to see. Exactly. And I think that's the whole purpose of the program review, right? is to identify some areas where we can enhance programming. So, all of your questions are valid, Alex, certainly. And I started off
078the presentation tonight by saying, you know, John and his team up at up at SPASH have really laid some good groundwork in terms of openness to sort of consider how we might revise some of those pathways. And again, we might land in a place, you know, if we were to look at a data analysis over the next four years, you know, that pathway might look very different based on some decisions that we make. But absent this sort of analysis, right, we continue operating under the belief that this is working, right? And I think what we have here is some data to indicate that we're not serving everyone. I want to maybe back up what Alex said too from a parent perspective, not just a teacher perspective, because I have a child who's in English 10
079right now and and came to me last week and said, "Not doing my homework. It has no value." So if we're not challenging the students either, then it's going to be more difficult for parents in their life at home. Well, right and teachers to keep them engaged. Correct. Yeah. Well, that's a good point. This is what we are doing and handover is going to say what we could do. Right. Right. They'll offer some recommendations. Can it's like that's what's happening next year. Yeah. But anytime somebody says, "Well, this this your teched people would follow this route and your college prep people would follow this route." Can we get over that? Because every time I hear, "Well, this is English for guys going to tech fields and this is English for people going to college." No,
080it's both have extremely hard rigor. I mean, those tech things, I mean, that's that's very rigorous and they both deserve the same level of rigor. And every time I hear that, I get the feeling, well, this is tech. The way that I hear it is we're just going to curate so that the experiences are more applicable based on the space you're going to, not that there's less rigor. It's that it's more applicable. Correct. Agreed. And I think that, you know, G to your point, it's funny, Jeff and I literally had that exact conversation in my office earlier today to say like we are unlearning a lot of years of how we have supported kids moving through the K12 system, right? So myself included 30 years ago also lived through the whole you're an English communication
081guy, you're not going to really do any hard math classes when I was perfectly capable of doing advanced math and did just fine. but absent a counselor who would have challenged me in that way and believed that I could. So, we are undoing a lot of just how we've done what we've done traditionally for a lot of years in questioning and raising some of these these questions. So, it this is really exciting work for me. Um yeah, and I think there's we're going to come out on the other side much improved. Jim, go ahead. Just one on the I know we're using the consultant firm, but I'm just curious in our process of evaluating how we're tr how well we're truly doing and whether our rigor is appropriate and are we challenging our kids enough,
082do we consult at all with, you know, the heads of English departments at universities that are in charge of like the English majors to say, "Hey, these are kids that are top of their class, 11th and 12th grade, and where are they at?" and you know are they actually at that level or are you seeing these kids at you know eighth and ninth grade reading level and writing level as you would expect. So, and then are we taking that infer and go, okay, are we what are we doing wrong that we've got kids that we think are at 12th grade lead reading and writing level and the university is telling us actually it's eighth grade? Not quite. So, I mean, are we doing that at all? Are we looking to those folks at all for
083that feedback? Yeah. And we have not up to this point, Jim, but again, we are sort of building this program review process um as we're moving along. And I think that's really good insight. So, that was not part of our initial plan. We did have a one-year contract with handover. We are do not intend to approve that or renew that next year um because we really do believe that some of the internal work that has to happen now um will take some time and we have a lot of stakeholder groups that we need to bring along. So consulting with university um professionals and I think now we have a really comprehensive data set to be able to show them and say what are the shortcomings here and where are the opportunities that we could really
084look to enhance or improve. There is um the National Student Clearing House, which I've had experience with in the past that we've looked into and and may consider going forward, will give us information on students that leave high school, whether they go to a two-year or a four-year, what courses they take when they get there. So, did they need a remedial math class? Um did they go into an advanced math class? And then where are they at, you know, two years out, three years out? It goes all the way to six years. um how many graduated, how many dropped out. It it's really, really, really good information. Um and we'll continue to possibly pursue that. We've got a person right over there, Amber Garvey, former SPASH student that is a reading teacher at the university
085and Yeah. And I mean, she's got kids in the district. She is very uh has very intimate knowledge of the district. And you know, Amber, she'd be ready and willing to give her opinion things look like when they come and do a study, right? Right. So, could we reach out to people? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's a good layer to consider. We had not considered that as part of program review, but I think as we meet with our ELA department and as we meet with the administrative team and kind of leaf through some of the layers of this data, I think bringing those folks in and getting their perspective would be valuable. Yeah, we can certainly consider Can you finish your Yes, I can finish that. And actually, I'm getting a little bit nervous. My
086battery is going to die on a computer. Um, but what we found based on the preliminary findings is the majority of students follow traditional progression from English 9 to English 10, but fewer progress to AP course work. This is very similar to what we saw in math, a very similar trend. um visual course flows from grades 9 through 12 indicate that early course placement, in other words, if you're taking advanced English 9 and debate um have a lasting influence on later course access and academic outcomes. No real surprise there, but the percentages are pretty stark when I share them with you in just a moment. In grade nine, students who are placed in advanced English 9 or advanced English 9 and debate had significantly higher benchmark scores in grades. So higher GPA, they've also met
087or exceeded the proficiency in both pre-ACCT and the ACT. For example, over 70% of students in these courses, either advanced English 9 or and debate um they were they met the grade nine benchmarks and in contrast only 17 to 24% of students in English 9 or just English 9 and debate met those benchmarks. So that is a significant difference um when we think about which pathway you sort of get supported in terms of entering right and this is a lot of learning for us systemically and I can assure you this is not unique to Steven's point um this is very typical of what we experienced in WASA as well we just never dove into it to this level and we never dissected it to this level so um I applaud you know the board and
088and Corey for really kind of pushing and saying let's look at this we can do better. Um, ultimately placement and advanced courses in grade nine correlated with stronger final GPA and ACT benchmark attainment in the long term. And this was based on preac and grade nine. Correct. Correct. So then in grade 10, we see correlation as well. Yes. So just and I know because this is what we're looking at. This is what handover looked at. Do we have the ability internally I mean, kids don't just show to us in ninth grade and get popped into advanced. They're getting popped into advance in seventh. Seventh grade. Seventh. So, would we have the ability to, you know, take it back to where it starts? Of course. And figure out I mean that as as as part of
089this. And to make a point, can we can we do because if we're in advance, can we show that seat pull the testing from seventh to see if they're meeting benchmark starting in seventh to see if maybe we're lacking rigor now starting already in seventh and now it's coming to fruition in ninth and we're like I wonder how this happened. Hi Joe. So I think this is exactly kind of how the examination of co-curricular and extracurriculars has gone right. So now it's bring those stakeholders in who have that data available and then let's step it back to see kind of where does this track begin and what do we need to do to potentially interrupt the pattern. Do you have an idea of how many kids are in advanced English 9 compared to regular English
090light? What percentage of kids take each one? Not off the top of my head. I don't no but we could find that out. Um I would like to ask Mr. Milson if he has that information. you now. So we have one to two grade level or advanced are advanced and and not advanced would be the vast majish up to 400. Mhm. Yeah. 440 420. Okay, if we've got a class of 500 on average, we have 60 kids advanced, 400 not advanced, out of those 60 kids that are advanced, we're seeing 70% meeting benchmark or exceeding 400 not advanced, 17%. Right. So, it's good data to chew on. Say that again. I do want to point out um Nicole going to put that in. Something else that stood out in the preliminary analysis, economically disadvantaged students
091are significantly underrepresented in advanced ELA pathways. So only 1.3% um of socioeconomically disadvantaged students were enrolled in advanced coursework in grade 12 compared to still not high 7.7% of non-disadvantaged peers. So both of those percentages for me the takeaway is they're both too low. Um but what do we do to shift that pathway trajectory for those students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged? Um economically disadvantaged students had lower rates of AP course participation. So only 4% um they had lower benchmark performance. 13% met ACT benchmarks um compared to their peers which was 20.5% um of non-disadvantaged peers met or participated in AP and 34.4 met ACT benchmarks. So significant discrepancies there when we talk about achievement gaps. Um GPA distribution also reflected some performance gaps that I identified. 58% of non-disadvantaged students earned an A compared to
092only 35.8 of economically disadvantaged students. So we think about some of those gaps um as we talk about addressing them. One thing to really point out here is when we think about our overall population, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities are our largest our most rapidly growing population. What is the population at right now of of social 42%. So a little under half. Yep. A little under half. We looked at that data that one time uh Cedarberg gets achievement scores in the 90s. I said what are they doing? We looked at demographics 11% economically disadvantaged. I think money matters. Great. Um I did want to just provide an update here on the position review. So at today up to date we have reviewed 450 positions. Um the eliminated and frozen positions did not change
093based on what I shared out in April. Um 419 of those 450 were identified as Phil asis. Um, I did want to just remind the board, um, we did share the FTE and enrollment results that provided us with the additional $810,323 in cost savings for the 2526 year. Um, as you recall, we were reporting out 2425, those 10 positions, which resulted in about $1 million in cost savings. Um, just went ahead and updated that to reflect what we're projecting um, to save in 2526. And that was the overall Um, in terms of short and long-term goals, specific to the ELA course sequencing, because this will be a group that we continue to work with over the next year, we want to review placement practices to ensure that there's equitable access to advanced coursework for all
094student groups, provide targeted academic supports in earlier grades um to close some of those opportunity gaps, particularly those we see between socioeconomically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. and also potentially strengthen communication with families regarding the core selection process and the outcomes that we're yielding based on those selections that are made very early on. Um, I think you make a really good point, Meg. This is looking at 9 through 12 performance, but there is a pathway that starts in our system potentially before grade nine. So, dialing that back just a bit as part of this review, though we don't have the data collected, it would be easy enough for us to pull. And and I guess I just also want to state because I'm I think the oldest member of this board and I think
095there has been maybe a little No, you are the oldest but but I I think we all we all experience and our kids experience how quickly kids start believing that they are advanced or not advanced. And I mean this this has been happening forever that that there always seems to be this much smaller group that that consider themselves advanced or are considered their advanced and then and and to me it's how can we I mean how can we flip that? I mean, how can we literally flip that to have all of our kids achieving at a higher level recognizing that we may have some kids who are going to need some additional support, but it shouldn't be the majority. Yeah, that's the goal. And I think there is, you know, I will tell you Jeff
096and I are in the process the early stages of pulling the data together for our end ofear data report that we'll provide to the board. Um, and there are some really, really encouraging outcomes there. So, we are doing the right work. Um, and I will applaud staff in terms of their willingness. Um, and some of what they've already done in terms of flipping that narrative. Um, and I'm just really grateful for their commitment to doing what is really difficult work and quite frankly undoing decades of beliefs that we've held about how students should progress through preK12. Well, just the test the test results we saw it really with that whole relook and empowerment of kids is showing incredible results. And to your point, I mean I was advanc I was identified as advanced in fourth
097grade. So one of the things that I would like to see in terms of communication with families is can we have info sharing sessions regarding early college credit, the start now, the dual enrollment. I would be curious to see how many parents show up to obtain information about that because outside of that it's a communication and we are assuming that parents are reading it, they understand it, they're comprehending it and I think we should afford them an opportunity to really understand in greater detail. But the other problem is with the socioeconomically disadvantaged like we have to recognize that some of those individuals are working and you know maybe they're pulling long hours at jobs that maybe aren't earning as much so they have to work more hours like we've recognized that element of life too
098that life is not always I I think to your point earlier too Chris and and I it just pinged a recollection because I wanted to send the article to Jim or thing he said, but The Atlantic just published a huge article on elite institutions accepting students who can't even read. Um, and the the level of of of rigor that is coming out of everywhere. So, I think it's not unique to us. It would be interesting to see what is driving this nationally. When I I and we work at Bootstrap and we we bring groceries to houses that, you know, are in tough shape and I look around and I see kids on and I'm thinking these parents don't even know this possibility exists for their child. And I'm when I was over at with Ryan
099Ksky over at uh at Midstate was like if they could just grab that kid who who's living in a world where just to have a job is a good thing. Uh and they're struggling and they're used to that. This exists for you. And even you may not be academically qualified because of past things, but you could do this and and that's I don't have an answer. How do you how do you grab those kids as needed the most? I no if if we had an answer. Well, and I think it's about some of this work is a great starting point. I think it gives us a great opportunity to realign systems and the messages we're sharing with kids to break cycles, right? Yep. Great. Just curious, did does anybody study in this? I'm not expecting
100you guys to have done this, but Meg said go back to seventh grade, but I think a key area when in your academic life is third grade. And we, you know, because that that, you know, it's that Yeah, exactly. So, is act 20 going to have an impact? Is there an impact of we talked recently about whether there's holdback or what do you call what's the retention of you know if kids aren't there is you know is there going to be data out there that shows that retention makes makes it help or doesn't help I don't know well there's gobs of research right now to say that retention doesn't yield increased levels of academic performance beyond the year that it happens um but you know I think act 20 has created some expectations for when
101a decision to retain or not quite frankly that we have we've created a different layer of expectation in terms of what support will be provided for kids and we've committed to that in the form of a written plan for every kid. Um and I'm going to summarize some of that data for the board in our end of year um presentation as well because that's new to say how many students did we have with personalized reading plans in the fall, in the winter, the spring and are we seeing that progressively decrease over time. Um, but it's a good point, Jim. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Y, thanks, Chris. All right. Uh, future meeting dates and times. I noted June 9th, regular board meeting, June 23rd. That's a date we're throwing out. Yep. So, if any board
102members have a conflict with that date, um, get that if you don't have your calendar here tonight, just get that back to Nicole um, so that we can, um, figure out a better date. Okay. Um, I now need a motion to enter into close session under 1985 PN1 PNC C considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of an any public employee specifically consideration of an employment recommendation and contract for a school psychologist. I move. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a second by Alex. Um, could you go ahead and call the role? Miss Bushman? Yes. Mr. Summer? Yes. Miss Mercer? Yes. Mr. Kowalsski? [Music] Still with us? Are you there? Yes. The volume was down. Mr. I turned it down. Mr. Lee. Uh, yes. Mr. Lee. Yes. Mr. Shader.
103Yes. Yes. [Music]