040626 Special Board Meeting English

001too. She's running against school district. I don't know. every four years like it's just long enough for me to >> tell the questions. How are you? >> Hello. >> Thank you for being here. Of >> course. >> Oh. Oh, you're here. >> Oh, yeah. I weren't here. >> Oh, sorry. >> So, the blue ones I have to mold it down. The blue one, if you just want to talk briefly, you would hold it down to talk. >> And if you want to talk like for a while, you push the red and then release. How you tell is push down lower. >> Are we ready to go? >> Good evening. It is 6:00 p.m. and I'm calling to order the Sunnyville School District special board meeting on April 6th, 2026. I see that all board members

002are present. So, we can begin. Please note that a recording is being made at the direction of the board and the recording may capture sounds of those attending the meeting. Okay, we're going to approval of agenda. If there are any um members of the public who would like to speak on this item which is solely about the agenda, please raise your hand or turn in a blue card in the room. Um do a card. >> Oh, is it possible to see after the report? >> Yes, there will be opportunities. Um okay, not seeing any comments. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> Sure. I move to approve tonight's agenda as presented. Okay. Do I have a second? >> I second. >> Any questions on the minutes? All those in favor? >> I. Opposed.

003So, the agenda passes zero. We are going on to the flag salute. Tonight's flag salute will be led by >> uh Superintendent Daniel. >> Thank you very 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. Oh my god. Okay. And we have the living land acknowledgement. A brief acknowledgement of land life. Pennyville School District is located on the ancestral and unseated land of the Morma Aloney tribe who have peacefully honored and caring for this land for thousands of years. We recognize that every member of the Sunnyville community continues to benefit from the land and occupation of this land. We acknowledge our responsibility to learn from the wisdom of the Looney people and to consider how we might work to

004repair injustices and move forward together in honorable ways. Okay, so we are on public comment and I just want to say to everybody in the room that this is an opportunity for public comment for things on the agenda but also this agenda item. So if you would like to speak now about um the agenda item, you may do that and then there's also an opportunity after the presentation. Okay. So I'm going to read the words around this. Um, if there are any members in the public wishing to make public comments, please submit a blue card in the room or raise your online hand. This portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the governing board on any item of interest to the public. However, provisions of Brown Act

005Government Code 549, 54.A, A um 2A and 3 preclude any action being taken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda. Time limits allocated to public testimony are three minutes per person, 20 minutes total for public comments. Speakers are asked but not required to give their name and affiliation so that an accurate record is reflected in the minutes. Are there any public comments at this point? Okay, moving on to the discussion item and we have a presenter here today. We have Mr. Scott McGuire from Arena. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, you ready to get started? >> Yeah. May I just provide a little bit of context? So tonight we are joined by Scott Maguire uh from Orenda Education and Orenda is a nonprofit organization that partners with school districts to

006strengthen systems and improve student outcomes. Um they've been doing this work for over 25 years um alongside with districts in California to close opportunity gaps through an equitydriven data informed practices that support leaders, teachers and students at every level of the system. And so I want to thank Scott and Orinda for joining us and partnering with us to do this work. And then also just preface this as that, you know, this is um additional feedback that we're getting. And as a school district, we wanted to, you know, really be committed to improving our systems and looking at the systems in a term of a reflective way. This isn't by no means any uh blame on any individuals in the system. I want to recognize that we have a very committed and dedicated staff who are

007passionate about the work here and supporting students and really it's an opportunity for us to get some additional feedback in terms of where are some areas that we can refine to make a bigger more positive impact um as well. So with that pass it over to Mr. McGuire. Thank you. >> I appreciate you very much and uh trustees and community I appreciate you superintendent uh Crossway. Thank you so much. Um this has really been a kind of a labor of love for us. Our team uh started um in December and we were here for five or six weeks. Um every site got visited uh some in a uh threehour visit, some in a three-day visit. So we had light touch visits and deep dive visits. Um don't Google it. We made the terms up. Um

008but um one thing first and foremost is that uh and we do this work all over the place. rarely are we treated and or greeted as we were from the uh Sunnyale community. So that not only uh speaks volumes for um your community, but the schools uh and that warm and welcoming environment. So from our team to the back to the community, we we appreciate you very much. Uh just really quick, um a couple kind of setting the table because there's uh this is really meaty in terms of the quantity of information. Um just know that um for things to have been a finding andor recommendation there would have had to have been triangulated with three different types of data. First and foremost is that we interviewed and surveyed um any and all district staff

009that were willing to participate. I think we had almost almost 400 surveys. We interviewed um staff at the deep dive schools. interview uh not just teaching staff, classified counselors, uh wraparound supports. Uh at the light touch schools, uh teachers all had access and all staff had access to uh survey was you know surveys so they could kind of also uh participate in that way uh and and administrators at all levels uh both site and district were also interviewed um by the team. So, um we hope that uh the the resulting findings or recommendations not just um um find fertile soil, right, to grow, but really work as a as a launching point for the next best thing uh potentially next steps here in Sunnyb. Um just know that um the uh what's the best way

010to put it? Um it's be in the mindset of refinement, right? That there are some fantastic things that are going on in the district. Uh and with minor onederee tweaks here and there, uh there's some things that could um really flourish. So, but without any further ado, let's let's hop in. First and foremost, we start off with commendations, right? These are the the most um um uh positive initial kind of feedback that we get just from um a vibe and community based um uh metric. And so teachers and staff across the district demonstrated a strong commitment to their work uh and that of uh student success. Um strong trustbased relationships between students and staff members everywhere we went. Admin, teachers, custodial staff, everyone knew the kids' names. the kids knew all of their names and

011it felt like a very authentic kind of back and forth where kids were honored as whole beings, not just um not just people on campus. Uh school classroom environments were welcoming, they were inclusive, there was seating arrangements so that kids could have uh collaboration and and peer-to-peer discussion. Uh very much learning rich environments. uh staff engage in collaborative and supporting professional practices um that include um PLC's, data teams, and they're really having the right conversations down at the site. Um and then looking to have those be from more of a systems view than just lie within the within the site. Um uh is is the is the sweet spot and the magic. Uh and then educators, we're passionate. uh teachers are going home every day exhausted, working hard uh and really striving for those highest

012outcomes for all of their kids. And the hope is through this uh process that we can um identify some systemsbased um efficiencies and inefficiencies that can uh really help with those student outcomes. Um first and foremost also the this nothing that you'll find in a finding or recommendation here comes from lack of effort. uh it's also doesn't fall into one person's lap or any individual's lap. These are systems that people have been living for a very long time. Uh and it is something that's very difficult to uh approach from within. Right? It kind of sometimes does take an extra set of eyes to come in who's not part of the fabric of the community to say, you know what, this may be an area for refinement. Um but just know that when we do so,

013we do so with the utmost respect and we also honor the work that gotten you here. uh because there are some fantastic things that are going on in the district uh and your staff from classified to teacher to admin. They're working their tails off. The study seeks to answer three main questions. One, what's the current student success profile? Two, what systems explain that success profile? And then ultimately, what can be done to accelerate student success? So, we start off with the lay of the land, right? We're going to start off with demographics and some community- based information. So um from a data perspective all of the data well majority of the data in the presentation is from 2425 because that was the last full school year of available data through the data systems locally and

014through the state. If there is a current year data which you know the S back the high stakes testing data will be of current year uh but just know that um 2425 is the last full year of data. So, from a student perspective, oh, total enrollment was roughly uh 5,764 uh students in the district. From a student perspective, 41% of your students identify as Hispanic or Latino, 26% identify as Asian, 18% identify as white, 4% identify as Filipino, with an 11% quote unquote other. other uh it constitutes two or more races at 7.9% 1.3% African-American and then single digits of uh American Indian Alaskan Native and Pacific Islander. From a teachers perspective, 56% of teaching staff identify as white, 16% Asian, uh 16% identify as Hispanic Latino, 4% two or more races, 2% not reported.

015And then for classified staff, 36% identified as Hispanic Latino, 29% Asian, 20% white, and 11% other. We'll do a little bit of a deeper dive into the student donut. Now, uh again, total enrollment at 5764. You have about 52% of students identify as male in the district. 48% identify as female. You have 28% of your current enrollment is currently experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement. Okay. Uh you have 14% of your students currently on an IEP. Okay. You and then in terms of language fluency, 47% of the students are English only. 29% of students in the district are current English language learners. 14% have reclassified as English language learners. And 10% were initially fluent uh coming into the district. If you take a deeper dive into the current EEL status uh sliver of the language fluency pie, you

016have around,00 students that have been in US schools between 0 and 3 years. Remember that's not the equivalent of age or grade. It's just the quantity of years that they've been in US schools. you have 244 students uh in the 2425 school year that had been uh in US schools for four or five years and uh which puts them um at risk for long-term English language learner status and then those kiddos that have been in the district for six plus excuse me US schools for six plus years 242 and in the state in terms of a multi- language learner they'd be considered long-term English language learners at that okay we want to acknowledge the diversity iverse languages that are spoken within your district. Uh it your multiple language learners are not monolithic. You have a

017range of languages spoken in the district. Uh which is fantastic. Uh I want to call attention just to this kind of red box here. And I know may be a little bit different to see for those who are in person. Just know that um from a cowpad's data perspective, you had um since 21 uh 2021 to 2023, you had it was labeled as traditional Spanish and then in 2324 it shifted down to Castellian. We know you did not have all of a sudden 1,200 students from Spain. U all it is is it was a I think a demographic button the wrong demographic button was clicked when submitting the the data to the state. So it shows just a shift there. I highlighted it so you know it's not an internal mistake. It's just the way

018that the data is reported. Okay. So, we'll do a little bit deeper dive of students on an IEP in the district. So, district uh roughly 14% of the district students have an IEP. That goes toward uh excuse me in comparison to 12% at the county and 14% at the state. Right? So, you're right in line with both of those numbers. We take a look at uh then how students are identified based on student group. And so what you'll have is we look for disproportionality, right? Are some groups over more identified as compared to others. Um and ultimately you look for things that are um uh the larger span usually raises the biggest flag. So you have 9% of students on an IEP. 9% of females are on an IEP compared to 18% of males. Right?

019So there's a double up in terms of um students identifying as male being identified as compared to female. um 18% of students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Again, when we talk about a district average of 14, those aren't necessarily uh highly disproportionate. We call them out. It's just because they're a little bit a little bit elevated. And then when you come down to English language learner overall it's 20%. However, long-term English language learners which are six plus years in US schools and uh those that are at risk for English for long-term English language learners at four and five years in US schools are at 44 and 41% identification uh for an IEP. Uh the issue there in lies you don't know if it's kind of the chicken or the egg. Is it that the that they

020have language fluency issues because of a learning challenge or do they have uh are they currently experiencing um uh language challenges that are misdiagnosed as or mislabeled uh as a learning challenge rather than just a language challenge? uh this study does not seek to answer that question other than just to highlight the data to say this is a this is a bit elevated maybe something to look in and follow up with. Uh the other group uh lastly that is u more on the elevated side or those students identifying as African-American. I do caution though that the the denominator of that group meaning the total number of kids in that group is relatively low which makes that percentage volatile. Right? a handful of kids move in and out of that group, it means the percentage swings

021can be pretty wide. Uh so again, something just to keep an eye on. Then we looked in the 2425 school year of how students qualify for their IEP. Um the largest group, uh 209 students have speech and language services, followed by autism at 188 students. Um then 182 students with a specific learning disability. Uh and then so on. We're going to get into the point now where we start talking about community based vulnerability and academic achievement. So, this is like a five or a six slide chunk uh that is um simple in nature but seems complicated in the beginning. So, I'm going to do my best to make sure I explain it well. Um what we do as an organization is we take every single school and district in the state every single one of

022them uh and we tier them based on two things. One and we'll start with community- based factors of vulnerability. There are six of them that we use. Uh they include and they're largely out of school and districts control. There are things that are associated with the community not practices within the school. So for instance, uh income level of the home, violent crime per 10,00 uh educational level attainment uh in the home, um percent English learner, percent students on an IEP, and the percent of student mobility. Okay? So when you take those six things and you rank in stack all of the schools and all of the districts in the state, you get three kind of bands and we tier them in three different ways. There are the more vulnerable contextes contexts that's where um there

023are more hurdles and more barriers using those six metrics for students uh in their context. There's vulnerable which is again would be a moderate level. Uh your vulnerable schools your moderately vulnerable schools in this instance are Bishop, San Miguel, Lakewood and Vargas. And then you have your less vulnerable situations which um are Cumberland, Cherry Chase, Sunnyville Middle, Fairwood Elementary, Columbia, and Ellis. We'll get into a little bit of more about what those metrics are and kind of as we go through from a district perspective. Again, here are our six rankings. It's socioeconomically disadvantagement, socioeconomic disadvantagement, violent crime per 1000, college degrees in the home, student mobility, percent English language learner, and percent of students on an IEP. Now u socioeconomic disadvantagement violent crime per 1000 and college degrees in the home are associated with the

024school's physical address not the zip code not the air the actual address is entered and that's where those demographic data come from the other three student mobility English language learner and special education percentage are based on the enrollment of kids at that school in this case your district >> school say that secondary is more useful in certain circumstances. >> Um um so when stacking all of those metrics vertically for all of the in this case districts uh in the state, Sunnyville has a vulnerability percentile of 77% which means that Sunnyvil is less vulnerable from a community-based metric than 77 out of 100 schools. Okay, that there are 23 other districts uh out of 100 that are less vulnerable than Sunnyville. So, it is in the less vulnerable category. On the other side of this coin,

025we look at academics. Okay. Now, being a K8 district, uh we don't look at things like grad rate and E through G and all those other uh high school metrics. What we do do because it's comparable throughout the state is we look at um CASP or smarter balance assessment uh in two different areas. One ELA obviously and then math. But we look at it for all test takers and then we look at it for students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. And we do that both for English and for math. And when you take those four metrics again and line up every other district in the state, the state ranking based on percentiles is that Sunnyale is um achieving at the 20th percentile as compared to all other districts in the state using those four metrics. That

026means out of 100 there would be 80 that are outperforming Sunnyvil using those four metrics. Now Sunnyale was also a less vulnerable district. So when you look at other less vulnerable districts, the percentile drops to 5 percentile. So 95% of less vulnerable districts are outperforming Sunnyville in these four total metrics. And again, that's ESBACK ELA, ESBAC, ELA for students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged. And then the same two categories for math. Now going back and forth is difficult when doing long-term um um having the relationship and looking at these things through from an achievement versus the community based factors. So we look to come up with um a number a relative advantage number. And what that is is that is a schools and or a district's percentile ranking for achievement minus their vulnerability percentile. The goal

027is to see is a school and or a district underperforming based on vulnerability, performing right at where vulnerability would predict students to perform, or outperforming their vulnerability. If a if a district and or a school is performing right at where vulnerability would predict, that number would be zero. If the school and/or a district is outperforming their community-based vulnerability, then that number would be in the positive. If a school andor a district is underperforming vulnerability, then the number is the negative. So we have they have Sunnyville's um numbers from 22 23 23 24 and 24 25. And what you'll find is that the relative advantage to how Sunnyale compares to the other districts uh has um become uh less competitive, not more at 52%, excuse me, 52 minus 52 relative advantage, minus 57 and -68 in

028the most recent year. You say, Scott, how does that happen? We made incremental growth moving forward. You know what what does that even look like? Well, uh let's see. You have a context in Sunnyville where over the past three years, your district has become less vulnerable. Okay? You had a vulnerability percentile three years ago of 76 percentile. Then it went to 77 and now it's at 84 percentile. So technically in the most recent year, there were only 16% of schools in the state that were less vulnerable, excuse me, districts in the state that were less vulnerable than Sunnyville. The largest change in that metric is your student mobility went from a moderate rating to a less vulnerable rating uh which was the biggest kind of swayer of vulnerability percentile. Then you also look at academic

029achievement, right? So yes, in ELA for all grades and over the past three years, it went from 55% above the line, which is met and/or exceeded to 56. It went from 48 to 52 for math. And for students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged, it went from 22 to 24. So yes, there have been slight academic improvements over the course of those three years. But what but the reason why the relative advantage is is becoming more negative is that those other districts in the state are achieving at rates higher and faster than you with the same groups. Okay? So you picture like I ran faster than I did in my last race, but so did everyone else and they ran just a little faster than I did. Right? So it's like taking one step forward and someone

030else takes two. It doesn't dis it doesn't it's not it doesn't disregard the growth uh that's been made locally. However, in context, uh it results in a net negative. So when relative advantage is broken down by school, because like I said, we do it for district and for school. Let me show you explain how we read this chart. On the left hand side, um on the left hand side, we have achievement level, right? Which is low, moderate, and high. Across the bottom, we have vulnerability level, most vulnerable, moderately vulnerable, and less vulnerable. If a school's vulnerability is predicting directly predicting student achievement at that school, they would fall in the black rectangle that goes up diagonally left to right. That looks like a most vulnerable school performing in the low category. It looks like a

031moderate school performing in the moderate category and it looks like a less vulnerable school scoring in the high category. Okay, so we don't have any most vulnerable schools in the district. your your schools start at the moderate level of vulnerability. Uh Bishop, San Miguel, Lakewood, and Vargas that are also achieving in the low achievement category. The number that is next to their name in parenthesis is their similar schools ranking uh in percentile. So what that says is that out of 100 uh so of 100 moderate schools um Bishop is outperformed by 99 out of 100. Same with San Miguel, 93 out of 100 for Lakewood. And then Vargas, the way that it works is that picture there's a bunch of ties, right? Because you can only have so much variance in score. And so Vargas

032would technically out of 100 be tied for last. So it's it's zero, but it's zero is really impossible. Um, but it's the easiest way to kind of explain it. So then when you look at the less vulnerable schools which are Columbia, Sunnyvil, uh Fairwood, Ellis, Cumberland, and Cherry Chase, you have three of the less vulnerable schools scoring scoring in the low achievement area. Columbia Middle School, Sunnyville Middle School, and Fairwood with their similar schools ranking in parentheses next um first percentile, first percentile, Fairwood at 22nd percentile. Then you have your less vulnerable schools of Cumberland and Ellis that are scoring in the moderate category which is 43 percentile of similar schools and 51st percentile of similar schools. Then you have Cherry Chase which is the least vulnerable school scoring in the high category and outperforming

03395% of other like less vulnerable places uh schools. Okay. So, out of 100 less vulnerable schools, Cherry Chase beats 95 out of 100 of them. Uh, when looking at similarities and vulnerability. So, we start to now talk about so that's the lay of the land. That's kind of the fabric of the district. That's that's sort of the context and the field in which we're applying. So, now we look at what student success profile looks like. Student success profile, we're going to boil it down into three major buckets. one, testing in grades, two, graduation, right? And we know that we're not you're not graduating kids out of Sunnyville to K8, but there are there are markers, right? And there are predictors of of future success that can be seen in the K through8 district and also

034college and career readiness. So, bucket one, the way this will work is there's a preview and then there's data to follow. So, I kind of tell you the I tell you the the end first and then I use then I'll back it up with data after that. So, first in general, student outcomes uh do not reach the levels that community based vulnerability would predict. And that's actually what we just talked about with the relative advantage. Overall, data trends since pre- pandemic have been flat in both ELA and math with recent declines for most vulnerable student groups. And that students learning English, students on an IEP, those identifying as Hispanic or Latino, and students currently experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement lag behind their classmates when looking at a standardized test score. This is here uh just for a

035real quick explanation. Um, and everyone wherever we go has their own um, description of what educational equity looks like and we want to make sure that we're very clear with what our take on it is so that there is no guessing, right? Uh, since the beginning of tracking u or monitoring student achievement data back pre-1950s, there's always been an alert a gap in achievement data. that gap is almost as similar as it was in the 1950s as it is today. Uh to the point where you can look at unlabeled achievement data for a school or a district or even a state and without fail you can pretty much identify which group is which group by the height of their line even if it's not labeled. That is a travesty. It's like that everywhere and it

036has been for a very very long time. Our vision of educational equity isn't robbing Peter to pay Paul and that some kids get a higher trajectory at the expense of others. No, but it is acknowledging that more vulnerable students group student groups within any district may need a higher trajectory of growth so that eventually the gap disappears but not at the expense of those that are on the top side of the gap in concert with them. So X marks the spot. Equity lives when those two lines come together and you can no longer tell what group is which group by the height of their line, but they both or all of them continue to grow alongside another. Okay. So, thank you for for bearing with me through that. But I think it's important context uh

037as we start to talk about data. So, in that case, I say show me your lines. And so, let's look at the lines. I don't expect you to be able to read that. Um however, I will explain for context. This is smarter balance. Uh so it's CASP results from 20 to 25 the most recent results. This happens to be language arts. Uh and I will just go through because what I did is I labeled them on the side. So um when you have your paper copy you can look at it. I'll just explain just really briefly. Top line uh and it's either district or it's state. Okay. So top line uh is district students identifying as Asian. Second line, district students identifying as white. Right after that, you have both state and district students who

038are not experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement. So more affluent kids. You have district students identifying as Filipino. Then you have district average. And then you have state average. Okay? So state average is this orange line. Those other groups are above state average. Then you have the state average of students that are experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement. You have district students identifying as Latino. You have district students that are experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement. Students on an IEP within the district and the students that are learning English in the district. You see the big even though there that the the span from students that are English language learners all the way up to students in the district that are identify as agent is quite huge. Um but what you do look for is then you look at the relationship between um your

039more vulnerable groups and what has the trend been over time. And really the trend over time for all the groups has been fine. Right? Um one point up here, a couple points down there. Uh you have pandemic right here in the middle. There's been a a upward trajectory. Right? Post pandemic things are starting to write themselves for most groups. uh those students on an IEP and those students that are in the district as English language learners uh haven't necessarily had an upward trajectory in those last couple years. Uh and then what you what I want you to pay attention to as well is that when district groups are rising, so are state groups, right? So they're rising at about the same clip. So when we talk about having an elevated trajectory so that eventually those

040lines cross, if everyone continues to grow at the same clip, then those lines will never cross, right? And so that gap remains. It just remains either at a higher or at a lower level. Okay? Uh and like I said, your most impacted groups are students identifying as Hispanic, Latino, uh socioeconomically disadvantaged uh English learners and students on an IEP. Uh almost exactly the same for math. um even uh to the point where the numbers are almost identical, the order is identical um on the um on the slide saying groups are impacted and those same those gaps are growing not shrinking. So in conversation uh through the visitations and the interviews and the surveys um both in person and and like I said through the surveys there was um a wide a theme emerging that some

041of the that it was very comfortable to talk about some of the have and have nots in terms of academic prowess by uh advantaged socioeconomic disadvantagement. you know, the more resourced students um you know, achieving at higher rates than less resourced students. Uh and that being kind of the crux of the understanding within uh within those that we talked to. So, what we wanted to do is not just take the the word for it, but let's look at data and see what the data says. And so, what we did is we took all of the district's socioeconomically disadvantaged students, right? There's 1,058 um uh students experiencing socioeconomic disadvantagement and equates to about 24% of the overall population of the district. And then we broke down achievement by racial and ethnic groups. So all the kids

042and all the data on here are those students that are economically disadvantaged. Asian students that are economically disadvantaged met or exceeded standard on state standardized tests at a 56% clip. Those identifying as two or more races at a 50% clip. Those identifying as white at 46% above the line. Those identifying as Filipino at 39. The district average was 30. And those identifying as Hispanic and Latino that are socioeconomically disadvantaged at 23%. So if it were purely socioeconomic status, these numbers would stay relatively constant regardless of uh race and ethnicity. Okay? And they don't, right? There's some flux there. That does not mean that people are mindfully going out and and doing wrong to kids based on racial and ethnic lines. That is not what the data uh suggests. However, what it does suggest is that

043there are embedded pieces. This is not a kid issue, right? This is something that is embedded within systems that students experience the system based on who they are in different ways, whether that's through access, whether that's through processes and those things are largely inherited um and were probably created quite a while ago. Okay. Um so it's one of those things where uh this doesn't fall in a singular person or people's or department's lap. It is just an acknowledgement that uh those other metrics make a difference. The other thing that I kind of use as an analogy to kind of help is the the game of shoots and ladders. You know, as a kid, we'd play a board game called shoots and ladders. You roll the dice. If you land on a the goal is to

044get to the end. If you land on a ladder, you get to skip steps. You get the other closer. If you roll the dice and you land where there's a chute or a slide, you lose spaces. And so what this data kind of suggests is that depending on who you are, you may get more shoots than ladders or the opposite just based on operating within the system. Okay? So something important to look at and to think about uh as you move forward and you start to analyze district level systems and policies and things of that graduation bucket. There there are a couple uh indicators that we look at in particular. We look at chronic absenteeism and we look at suspensions. Um the kind of a preview is that chronic absenteeism is low and has been

045improving in the district uh over the course of several years uh mirroring similar trends across the state. And then overall suspensions in Sunnydale remain low and have been low. However, there's a recent uptake uh in one metric uh which is violent incident without injury. Um that's like the fight where no one got hurt. Uh and so we'll look at when we look at the data, you'll see that it kind of sticks out. um uh and we'll talk about that when we get there. So this is chronic absentee data the way so percentages on the left, raw numbers on the right, state of California across the top, um uh Sunnyville in the highlighted yellow, and Sunnyville student groups below the yellow. So what you'll see in the most recent years, the state of California had a

04619% chronic absenteeism rate, down from 25% 2 years ago to 20 to 19. Sunnyale has a 10% chronic absent diseases rate. So just about half of what the district average is down from 15% two years ago. So from 15 to 11 to 10. That's a good thing. Uh and it doesn't happen on accident, right? So there are things that are going on that are that are working toward that. Then when you look at student group, you start to look at at groups that may have elevated uh chronic absenteeism to see is there something, you know, is there anything else that we need to look at? Uh students that are currently experiencing homelessness have the highest number at 21%. However, they're down from 47% just two years ago. So they've gone from 47 to 33 to

04721. Right? So take that into context and say, you know, that's that's a great that's a great that's great process progress. um the the remainder of those uh student groups land within that kind of reasonable realm. There's no finding or recommendation here other than good job, right? That something that um is moving in the right direction. So then we looked at stability patterns in the district. This is how long uh students are staying uh in the district once they start in the district. And the way we looked at that was four different cohorts. Uh they all start kids all starting in 201819, starting as first graders, starting as second graders, starting as third graders, and starting as fourth graders. And did they see basically Sunnyville to the end of completion, right? To the to their

048their final year in in the district as a eighth grader. And those that started in first grade remained for seven years at a 50% clip. 54% stayed all the way through. For those that started as second graders, also 54% stayed as those that entered as third graders. And if you entered as a fourth grader in 2018 19, you saw your way all the way through at 59%. But the um one wrinkle to this data is we know there's still a COVID here and there, right? So when you talk about longevity, you talk about stability until that kind of works itself out, it's just an added wrinkle, a little extra variable. Um but again, so that's how students are uh staying uh within the district and and seeing their way through uh your system. The six-year

049persistence rate we looked at for elementary schools. And so it's very much a similar look. Uh your most stable um your most stable uh student groups were at San Miguel and they had a six-year stability rate at 63%. uh the district average was 53 and then Ellis had the least stable at 46. So then when we get to look at suspensions um the your overall suspension there were a total of 126 suspensions uh excuse me students suspended okay out of an enrollment of six roughly 6,000 kids. Um caveat, remember in the initial slide we said 5,740 some odd was the enrollment. Depending on the data source from the state, you're going to get a slightly different number depending on when they pulled it. Uh so just know that the 6044 isn't a typo. It's just

050from a different state data source and they compete with one another. So we talk roughly around 6,000 kids. So there were 126 students that were suspended out of roughly 6,000 students, elementary students, which is a rate of uh 2%. Okay. Then we wanted to look at and say, well, of those suspensions, how many were single suspensions and how many were multiple suspensions? Did a kid just get suspended once or were there kids that were suspended multiple times? So for all students, there were 225 total suspensions. Of that was 162 students or 72% excuse me, um were suspended one time. Uh of that 28% 63 students were suspended multiple times. Okay. So now from that point having the the district lay of the land, they need sort of sort of look for outliers. Are there any

051groups that are um being overly identified uh or overly um suspended as compared to their to their classmates and to their district mates. Uh and most of the numbers are relatively even. Uh there is an outlier in terms of um 89% of single suspensions uh and um 11% of multiple suspensions for students identifying as Asian but a super volatile denominator. It's only 15 kids. So the swing of one or two kids could have raised it 15 some odd percent just with just with one kid in and out. The other is semielevated um uh for multiple suspensions are students identifying as white. uh 63% were one-time suspensions where multiple suspensions were made up of about 37% uh of total suspensions. Again, there's no finding or recommendation here. It is just uh the lay of the land.

052So, here's where we get into the way that CalPADS looks at it, the state looks at it. They look at it from the most serious offenses lens. Okay? So the most serious offenses are violence incident, violent incident with injury, no injury, weapons possession, drugrelated offenses. Defiance only is no longer a thing. However, it is still on this metric because this chart includes data from a time when it was still if there's other. Okay. What you'll find is that in most instances, the district's rate of suspensions or the number of suspensions for these most serious offenses has gone down and has gone down since pandemic. However, overall there's a 43% increase in overall suspensions and that comes primarily from a 96% increase in violent incident without injury. I I will go out on a limb and

053say I don't think that that stems all of a sudden you had 200 more fights uh without injury or the suspensions. Sometimes this happens because of attention to detail and the reporting is now streamlined or has been made easier or there's a new SIS system or a new director of student services or new student new training for teachers and or sight staff. Uh so again, something to look into. There's I would not put a bunch of eggs in the all of a sudden there's more uh violent incidents on campus, but again something to to kind of look at further. Um one thing that we do look at is we look also at principal turnover. Okay. Uh how many faces uh leadership faces does a site get to see or has seen over the course of

054the last five years? Um the and and and board just really quickly just note number two and for the public number two uh we had it as two. It was a a typo. It should be one. So Cherry is that it read now it's correct on the public view but on yours I the printed version it says Cherry Chase had two administrators. It's one you want to cross that out and fix it. It's correct on the screen now. Um generally speaking principal turnover can destabilize initiatives. Uh it can weaken school culture. it makes everything else more difficult. Uh and it is a multiplier for those things that schools that are more vulnerable than others. So the higher the vulnerability of the school uh the more impactful um either both positively and negatively are is uh

055stable or destable leadership. So over the course of the last 5 years Bishop and Cherry Chase have had just just a singular principal phase. Cumberland 2, Ellis 2, um, and it's a ones and twos all the way down till you get to, um, Sunnyale Middle. That's had three over the course of the last 5 years. Again, just something to look at. Every time that there's a new face, it's new onboarding, it's new initiatives, it's new, uh, it's new direction. And so, uh, having a way from a district perspective to provide um, to backfill and to provide stability in any initiative, it's really important to have a plan for that when uh, when leadership does turn over. Level three is college and career readiness. So the preview of that is that opportunities for student success in

056college and career is uh could be limited for some uh because of depressed outcomes uh achievement outcomes. In many cases, earned grades of four or three in coursework uh don't match earned proficiency on ESPback uh with the least connection in math. And then lack of access to accelerated math pathways can affect advanced course placement in high school uh and limit either college or career readiness uh and competitiveness in both of those arenas. So we'll look at that together. The we try to do traditional DF rate analysis. However, middle schools here operate off a different grading scale. Right? There's a four-point grading rubric. um three metrics of one students earning a one, a two or a three is not met the standard, partially met the standard or nearly met the standard. Uh the metric of four

057means that they met the standard. Okay. So uh not a traditional um not a traditional grading uh system for uh for middle school. So we'll do our best. So what we ended up doing um is that at middle school number one um we had uh this is these are the grades the total marks that were that were given. This is end of uh end of the uh end of year trimester. So try three uh for the 2425 school year. And and long story short uh the predominant grade that are given are fours, right? Students are earning uh a lot of fours as compared to the other the other grades uh followed by threes and almost no one's earning a one. Okay. Uh so fours and threes wind up being the majority of grades given in

058both um seventh grade and eighth grade um at uh middle school one and the story is the same at middle school two. Okay. Uh fours and threes are are primary uh the grades given hardly anyone gets a one. Um uh and most students are in that case passing their classes. So then what we look at is we look for from a that was looking at kind of like an A and B p the equivalent of an A and B perspective. So now we'll look at those students that are earning ones and twos. Okay. So uh for seventh grade and middle school and eighth grade middle school u number one anything that is over 30% is highlighted in red. And so what you'll have is a 41% and 46% for seventh graders that are long-term English

059learners and students on an IEP. Uh and same thing for eighth grade in the subject of English. No elevated uh ones and twos for math and science for any group um above the 30 point threshold. And then social science uh for 7th grade um English learners with less than three years in US schools and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. And then for eighth graders, those students identifying as Hispanic, long-term eelss, those with a an IEP and socioeconomically disadvantaged at middle school 2. Um, now we have not for seventh grade, but for eighth grade, you start to have more ones and twos, uh, for, uh, earned in both math and science. um for those similar groups, students identifying as Hispanic, ELS of three, three years or less, ELS of six years or more, those students on an IEP,

060and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Um for language arts and for social science is long-term eels and those identifying as Hispanic or Latino for seventh grade, long-term eels, uh and eels in general for uh eighth grade. So then you see we keep peeling back layers of the onion, right? So those are the grades earned slashgiven at each individual school. So then what we do and this is um at middle school number one we want to see well how close are those grades that are given? How close do they match to proficiency at the end ofear state exams? Right? So the in this case ESPback and so this was ESPback um scores as compared to final grades for seventh and eighth graders at middle school one for English and for math. And the way we read it is

061at the bottom here the black numbers that is the grade that was earned in coursework. So the students that earned a four are in this band of data. Students that earned a three are in this band of data and so on. A two and a one. The columns are how they either met or exceeded standards on the end ofear assessment by the state. Okay? So, it's exceeded standards, met standards, nearly met or not met. And what we found is that 49% of students who earned a three or a four in their English class also earned standards met or higher on the end ofear assessment. which means 51% of kids that got a three or a four did not quote unquote pass the ESAC, right? The end of year assessment uh given by the state. That

062was for language for ELA and middle school one. For math, the number was a tad lower at 44%. So for students that are earning both fours and threes in their coursework, there wasn't an exact match um of of between grading and state metric of success at the end of the year. Ma'am, >> let me ask a question. Um, I'm just gonna ask a question from Dr. Crosley. Can you just um tell me um because my understanding is that a four for a grading system means med standard. So that's the equivalent of like a C, right? And so a three would actually be like a 60. It can go as low as like a 62%. Is that still correct? Because what that means is is that you know in our mind's eye we're thinking of four

063would be like A B C D. But I think we talked about this in a previous board meeting where our three actually goes quite low and it actually starts kind of low. So like it would not surprise me if people in the three category. It actually makes me kind of happy that some of them exceeded and met, right? Because on the standardized test because when we were giving them a grade, we were giving them a grade that's really below a C and possibly as low as a D minus. >> Yes. So there's a discrepancy between our SIS system where you pull and the grading that we have here. So the power school I believe is about a fivepoint scale. >> It's yes it's kind of an illfitting tool when we're utilizing standards based grading. So

064>> so it's not aligned to this and so that's a separate issue. So we have to revisit power scroll and recalibrate with our number grading system and then separately it's the alignment with the state test as well >> right because I talked to a couple teachers and I said you know it's I I can give a student who has like the a 60th percentile I can give them a three like I don't have to give them a two but it's not really communicating that much so I just want going to clarify. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Uh we did the same similar analysis for middle school number two and where it was 49 and 44 previously. Uh at the middle school number two, it's the same metric but it's 77% of students uh who received

065a four or a three in ELA met or exceeded the standards uh in language arts or English. And then in this case for math it was 70% that earned a four or a three that were either met or exceeded on on The the key part here, I wanted to look at some EL um EL numbers uh English language learner numbers specifically at the middle school uh because I think it tells an interesting story around reclassification processes uh when students enter your middle schools and it tells a good story. Uh so Colombia Middle School in that most recent year had 198 English language learners. Uh, Sunnyville Middle had 188 English language learners on campus. That's rough. That's almost 400 kids, okay, that came to them uh and are on their campus as a current English language

066learner. Reclassification, the goal for that uh is for students to reclassify by their fifth year in US schools um so that they stay on track. What's interesting is that when you start to look at the reclassification numbers, if you picture this, and it's not apples to apples because this cohort look happened at the exact same time. So, it's not the exact same kids, but having almost 400 eels in the 2425 school year at the middle school and only having sent 98 on to high school, that's 300 of the 4, you know, potentially 300 of 400 kids were reclassified while in middle school, which isn't uh it doesn't happen all the time. Um, oftentimes you'll see the reclassification rates once they hit middle school wind up being very flat. Generally speaking, uh, in this case, you,

067um, you know, there were 400, roughly 400 students that were ELELS on the campus. You only sent out 98 onto the high school. Of the 98 you sent on to the high school, 52 of them were long-term English language learners. However, 26 of the 52 were also on an IEP, right? So, they had extenduating circumstances. So really that number is 26 kind of pure you know uh English language learners without any extra um any extra supports which when you start with 400 that's really good number uh and that's something to be to be commended um that's good work when looking at one year's growth for English language learners we look at it in terms of stair steps so on the left hand side here on the data we have years in US schools across the

068top we have ELPAC levels which is the state assessment for English language proficiency. They have to have at least passed that plus some local metrics to reclassify or to redesate. Okay. So the way that we read this is that in their first year of US schools uh technically that would be year zero because they're they would be currently in it. You would expect kiddos to score a one on ELP. In their second year of US schools you expect them to score a two roughly and then a three and then a four. they provide provided they stay on their one-year trajectory. There's a yellow buffer zone. So if they fall, you know, a year or a year and a half behind, half a year or a year behind, they're still in that on track metric. So

069of all the eels in the district between 20 English learners in the district, 24 25 school year, 73% of them were on track to make one year's growth uh in that one-year growth trajectory. 27% were on watch. Now on watch just means be mindful of them. They may need a little something extra or different, but they're not necessarily keeping pace with the one-year trajectory. Now, in the red rectangle here, I highlight these in particular uh because this is a special group. These 235 kids uh when we pulled data, uh had already passed the state's requirement for reclassification. The state only requirement, meaning that there are other local requirements, is that they score a four on alpac, right? They have to have a four, an overall score of four. There were 235 students that did. However,

070they're not yet in the reclassified bucket, right? Which means they either haven't gone through the hadn't gone through the process yet or they're not meeting a local measure. Both things are possible based on the time that we pulled data based on the processes what happened in the district. So, we just say, hey, 235 kids, that's a humongous group. So to just to analyze a little bit further and go a little bit deeper and say well is it a pro is it because they hadn't gone through the process yet and maybe they are now meaning have already reclassified or is it uh that they're not meeting a local measure and I think one of the other local measures is the um NWA the MAP assessments uh that may be used as another local measure for uh

071for data. >> So again um just something to keep an eye on. Um and that's a huge that's a to me it's a great problem to have to have you know close to 250 kiddos that are have already met the state's requirement because that is not an easy assessment um for sure we take a just a brief glance at the dual language program at San Miguel. Um really we want to look at it in two different ways. One uh from um how long are student I mean what is the persistence rate of students within the system? um how long are they sticking around for their 5 years in the program? And so we looked at cohorts uh 2020 2021 school year uh the one class one of a kindergarten cohort that started the do language

072program started with 19 students that was eight uh English language learners, 10 students that were English only and one initially fluent um um uh student. That is textbook makeup of a of a dual language program. uh and over the course of the five years 84% persistence rate. Okay, so students stayed within the program. Um all but three uh left the program. When you look at cohort number two, >> stayed all but three. >> What did I say? >> I apologize. >> Only three left. >> I meant to have it to be a good thing, right? That they stayed. They stayed. Only three left. Thank you for that. Uh and then the second cohort, class number two, 21 students started initially. that is 11 English language learners, nine students that are English, only one uh initially

073fluent student. Uh and of the 21 that started, 19 finished, right? So that's a persistence rate of 90%. Okay? So the the program itself um um because it starts with the correct makeup and is supportive along the way that students are staying uh within that program uh for the long haul. What happens when they go to middle school uh is that there is no middle school dual language program. However, there's a dual language pathway we kind of call it and that's when they go to Colombia, they take heritage Spanish speaking too. Um, of the of those students at Colombia that take that course, 27 uh students were from the dual language program uh at San Miguel. Okay. One thing that we'll call attention to is that uh and we'll we'll get into a little bit

074deeper dive into it in a minute. uh regardless of final grade here. So we have final grades of two and one and three uh based on um those are student grades. They all received on paper a met UC uh A throughG requirement. Okay. So but with the current scoring and the current rubric scored grades uh A throughG requirements require a letter grade of C or higher. So just from a data entry perspective um that those that course is not officially eligible for A throughG requirements uh at least from a grading perspective. Uh that is also on top of that again validated by path you know by doorways UC doorways as a eligible class and and those types of things. We'll get into that a little bit deeper in a second because that rears its head

075a little bit when we're talking about algebra 1 and geometry also uh in the at the middle schools. Okay. Um this is just a little bit about dual language pathway again if um in terms of outcomes you know levels three and four that is proficiency on ESPback. So, the students that participated uh in the DLI program uh that went into um Colombia mastered met and or exceeded standards at a 36.4% clip the identical number for math and students that were not dual language uh at 34% 34.9% in language arts and 39.5% uh in math. So, kind of an even matched. Uh and then these are grades earned. the grades of three and four, those students who were in the DLI program received grades of three or four at a 60% clip, whereas those students that

076were non DLI program uh receive threes and fours at only a 46% clip. So, DLI students were uh 14 about 14 percentage points higher and earning grades of three or four in that uh in that coursework. Um this is just a summary of the last hour of things I talked about. So it's just listed there uh as kind of in a nutshell. >> Can I ask a good question? >> Yes. >> Just a clarifying question. So you're saying on that last slide that students who were in um the dual language program, this is just at Columbia. >> Um who they they both received similar levels of proficiency whether they were in the program or not. >> Yeah. So >> on the state test. >> Yes. But in terms of grading, they received higher. >> Yeah.

077So the the tolerance between um state level outcomes was really close. It was like 36% to 34 and 36 to 39. And really the dual language and non-dual language flip-flopped. English and math one was a higher the other one by almost identical amounts. But in terms of uh the grades earned of three or four, the students that participated in the dual language program uh were about 14. They received 14% more threes and fours as the non-dual language students did from a grading like a a report card grading. >> Is that in English and math? >> It is. >> Thank you. >> Uh summary. U so now we start talking about what systems best explain the profile. You're going to start to see um pie charts. Anywhere you see a pie chart that means we asked

078a question of someone whether through in this case the surveys but we also asked similar questions during our interview process. Uh you'll also see in subsequent slides that there are some quotes uh associated with some of the questions. Please note uh that this process is and will always remain anonymous and confidential. The only way that a quote winds up in the presentation is if it is indicative of a theme and would have had to have been said five or six or seven times through the course of looking at the data. And so that the the expectation of uh there being outliers or people that are individually uh identifiable by their quote doesn't exist. Okay. So we're very um that's something that's very near and dear to our hearts and we take that very seriously. So,

079um please know that the quotes are um uh are not they're just indicative of a theme. The question we ask here, in your estimation, how many students do you believe can successfully graduate UC or CSU eligible? Right, that's A throughG requirements. Uh 46% of staff responded said either all or most. Okay, 30% said many, 20% said some, and 4% said very few. I forgot to start with the the N in mind. This is 368 uh survey results we received back. That's 18 administrators, 16 counselors, 88 support staff, which is classified staff, and then 246 certificated uh teaching staff. Okay. Uh the second question we asked was in your estimation how many parents or guardians want their child to attend a university upon graduation? 55% said all or most, 31% said many, 13% said some, and

0801% said very few. We also asked about the culture of high expectations, right? Um, does your school have a strong college or high wage careergoing culture? Right? 36% said most definitely. We asked does the about the district, does the district have a strong college or high wage careergoing culture? Uh, and the response most definitely was 30%. And then how would you describe the current state of achievement at your school in particular? 28% said high performing, 19% said low performing, and 53% said average. Okay. Now again, uh just I'm not going to read all the quotes to you because we'll be here through tomorrow. However, just know the gist is that the that there is an acknowledgement in the quotes that we could do kind of a better job of at the elementary level focusing on

081college and career aspirations and that some are doing it um uh more um robustly than others. And the general consensus is that that is based up on site is dependent by site not necessarily a system that is uh districtwide. Okay. The remaining findings and recommendations are going to for fall into four major buckets. >> Uh symbolic data systems, weak program design, new tracking and then weak systems alignment. Okay. So I'll go into each of these in detail as we get there. So I'm not going to explain each one in individual right now, but you'll see as we go. Okay. So starting off with symbolic data systems. Again, a preview. In most cases, curricular pieces are driving instruction, not standards. Okay. That doesn't mean that standards are absent from the conversation. Teachers, administrators are having conversations

082around standards. There are learning objectives. There are language objectives, there are I can statements all over the place in most of your classrooms. However, when it gets down to the work that students are doing, uh it is largely either the ADOT curriculum or supplemental materials that are driving a lot of that. And they may or may not be um at the correct level of rigor for the grade level even if they are uh lined up with the appropriate standard, right? because of calibration. We'll get into that. Weak calibration of the floor and grade level core instructional expectations as defined by ESPback. Um in most cases, common assessments are monitoring development uh progress on developmental skills rather than mastery of grade level agreements andor chunks of instructional targets. uh and then PLC or data teams uh

083is slash are an emerging practice where teachers are and teams are getting together to have instructional responses around standards and skills uh that they are assessing in common. Uh and this is a fantastic practice. However, it varies greatly by sight. You know how um what is the focus, how many standards, what is the metric, how hard is hard enough. So the idea that this process is only as strong as the teams are at the site. And so what you find is that some are doing an amazing job uh and it's robust and it's it's exactly what it should be. Everyone is trying. However, there are some that are um are still learning the process. Um but there's little from a system perspective that would level the expectations across sites that really lands within teacher teams

084um not a system. Okay. So teachers have data at their fingertips. Uh they have the common assessment however that they you used in the district is NWA right or the math assessment. Okay. um not good, not bad, just just it is what it is. Uh however, from a formative perspective of making instructional decisions in real time using that data, uh it's probably not the best data to use for that purpose, right? It identifies gaps. It measures those gaps over the course of time. Uh but there are several instances where it doesn't um teachers can't backward map from it. So, and oftentimes it does not assess what teachers just taught. Um, it also doesn't necessarily align with the way and the ways that um checking for understanding happens at the state level for the given grade

085level's rigor. So, you may get false negatives or false positives. Um, and it's just really hard to translate into action. And but teachers are doing so. They're trying their dangness and they're also leveling on top of that their own common formative assessments. uh when this one might not scratch that itch to use a less than formal term. Um um so it really doesn't lend itself uh to those formative conversations to instructional agreements uh that assess what how students um learn what teachers intended to teach. It does answer those questions like I mentioned kind of what are those diagnosed learning gaps and also did students grow in some way. That's exactly what it does because the scores that come back are in uh RIT. There there are what are called RIT scores. There are quantiles. There

086are how much did you improve over last time? But if the assessment wasn't dialed into what they you taught last time, then the growth after that winds up being halfhazard, right? It's it's ambient growth. It's did they learn um while they were in your presence, not did they learn what you taught? A big difference. So those most helpful questions from a data team uh whether it's PLC or data teams is what's the grade level floor of expectations during this next chunk of time under what conditions uh or what conditions are necessary for students to uh learn and to pick up what I'm putting down to learn what I'm teaching. Uh how um how well did they learn what I taught? And if they didn't learn what I taught, what is my next step now? What

087do I go back and do? where did they where did they miss uh and how do I cycle back and and and revisit that learning uh NWA uh and the MAP assessments make it really difficult to have those conversations so what teachers are doing now is they're coming up with their own some grade levels have fantastic processes and they make great assessments others are making assessments when I say great meaning aligned to to outside sets of rigor um um and then some are coming up with again common formative assessments. They're just not necessarily calibrated um from team to team to site to site and so it makes it difficult to know uh if I have cousins that go to two different schools you know are they getting the the same do they have the same

088academic floor right the same expectation based on grade level. So we asked teachers you know do you use data to inform your practices in the classroom and 84% said most definite and they do. Uh we asked do you use it as a department or grade level? 70% said most definitely. We asked does your school have a strong culture of using data to inform its own decisions and 63% said most definitely. So they are they are data drenched right they have their own data. They have um you know the the common assessment data. They have they have data from their own adopted curriculums and chapter tests and quizzes that they give. So it's not a lack of data, but is it actionable and is it is it is it um calibrated to the proper uh rigor?

089Is it the right hard? Is it the right level of rigor? There are also uh pieces that teachers go through in terms of planning that guide these data teams and these PLC's uh that are the right answer, right? It's the it's asking the right questions. uh the issue isn't um having a place for these conversations to land. It's that are the does the data facilitate actionable next steps um that are calibrated amongst amongst teams and that answer is it depends on the strength of the team right it varies by grade level to grade level even within a site. We asked um about collaboration time. Uh how often do you meet with your colleagues, your teacher teams? Uh 52% more than once a week. Uh every week once a week on the dot is 24%. So

090roughly 80% of teachers that are me meeting with each other at least weekly. And we asked them does that is that time impactful to you? Is it meaningful to you? 75% said very meaningful. And these these quotes are just some things that they say that they do during those times. So in terms of program design in this case weak program design although California standards are evident in most planning documents uh most instruction is still guided by those curricular pieces and what is assessed and common is not always the same as what is taught and we kind of talked about that in the previous bucket designated ELD. So English language development uh is evident on most sites master schedules. It's visible as a practice in some classes. Uh but when we did say it was largely

091focused on individualized skills like almost like ELPAC prep, right? A very isolated uh skillsbased uh instruction. Uh the sweet spot for EL instruction is really rooted in grade level uh and with a heavy dose of vocabulary and oral language along the way. Picture it like um the the designated ELD sess sections should prepare students for their core English part of their day, right? So either as a preview like I'm going to let you I'm going to ramp you up to what's coming or I'm going to dial back in and make and solidify the learning that you could have and should have gotten during the the course. Um and like I said with heavy doses of of uh oral practice uh the differentiation of instruction based on data uh is largely uh remediation uh and often

092times is reserved for out of um out of classroom intervention rather than formative first instruction. Right? And a lot of it is is farmed out whether it's an an extra adult or whether it's an interventionist or a coach or uh something that is not part of regular first instruction. Um the most appropriate place for having those common um uh instructional agreements are for first instruction. um opportunities for intervention including wind time uh and um I think it's as at the middle school are u inconsistently structured from sight to sight uh and loosely tied to core core content and and that just means that there's also limited impact. So, if you're measuring uh if you're measuring how students um you know learn core content, but the those extra times aren't necessarily rooted in grade level core

093content, uh it they won't match, right? You're not going to go home any less exhausted. However, uh the outcomes won't be what you expect because that wasn't the focus of the time to begin. So again, if you picture a theme here, it's not it's not has nothing to do with the hardworking nature of staff on campus uh in terms of teachers, admin, support staff, parents, but it's about the system in which they're working in doesn't necessarily connect the dots from class to class, grade to grade, and especially sight to sight. Uh there would be some some way more efficient ways to kind of get at it. Okay, pulled up just some examples. Uh these are some things uh not an end all be all but just some samples of student work that students were in

094um going elementary specifically grades 3, four and five. Again if you were to ask me they are absolutely rated related to the grade level standard. The question however is that is that calibrated with rigor in mind? Right? Is this the right hard for third grade? Is it the right hard for fourth grade? Uh and often times it's not. Um, but that varies again from sight to sight. Is there something in the fabric of the district that calibrates how hard is hard enough? Have they had the conversations? Are those rounds of um of discussions so that we're all in the loop of what the academic floor is? And without having those happen, then you you're going to get variance from either class to class or uh team to team because they're left to plan and to

095interpret on their own. Um, and I'm thankful that they are there. Like I said, it doesn't come from a place of of lack of a lack of effort. Um, but maybe sometimes a lack of structure. We asked uh this one is a little more telling about that same um conversation. We asked teachers um if you were a new teacher to the school, would you specifically know what you're responsible to teach? 57% said it was different. Right? So just over half. And then we asked if you were a new teacher, would it be clear the level of rigor that's expected? Which means, do you know how hard is hard enough at fourth grade, fifth grade, whatever your grade level is? 42% most definitely. And then we asked, is there agreement around teachers that teach either the

096same subject or the same course around what grading means? Is your A my A? Is my four, your four? And only 50% said most definitely that they're in agreement with their colleagues and peers. Okay. Um so again there's room room for alignment room for conversations around um what does that mean uh collectively through teacher teams and then ultimately from a district system perspective ELD instruction these are just some of the comments and quotes around EL instruction uh some of them around uh not having an ELD curriculum um some of them um talk about um not really having an approach a program except for that of newcomers. Uh teachers are doing what they can. We grab what we can. Um and it just being evident of a if nothing else a perceived lack of systems around

097what English language development looks like uh at the site level. Uh so here's where we started to get some more of those uh the limitations of the standardsbased grading in middle school. So it does affect algebra 1, geometry and language other than English. So what you have is you it's twofold. One that you have students uh in the math courses that are receiving uh through Calpads um uh UC or CSU A throughG having met that requirement even though they don't have the proper letter grade to warrant them having met that requirement. Now, in math, both math courses, it's different than the than the language course because at least these you had to get a four or a three. In the heritage Spanish 2 class, it was any grade got the check mark for um for

098having received the A through G credit. So, there's the bookkeeping side of it, but the other side of it is that you have students that are passing foreign language in your system. You have students that are passing algebra one. You have students that are passing geometry and because of the the grading situation when they go to high school, those courses don't count towards their A throughg satisfaction of the three-year minimum math and the four-year minimum, you know, those those A throughG requirements. So if a student passed algebra or geometry at the middle school and for some reason struggled in high school, something happened in the family, you know, all kinds of things can happen and they only met two years of A throughG math at high school, the algebra year they passed at the middle

099school wouldn't count towards that A through G. So technically they would be ineligible for uh for the A3G requirements for Cal State and and CSU or Cal State and UC. Um and again that affects algebra, geometry and language other than English. Um so one of it is um uh so there'll be some there will be some findings and recommendations around that part. Um but really it's um it's not just a misalignment of paperwork. it it really has it can have uh disastrous impacts on students later on uh probably at the most crucial time. But those are things that you don't usually discover until it's too late. Again, we talked about this briefly before, but it's the same thing for the Heritage Spanish 2 class. Um and again, it's but it's not with just threes and

100fours. It's ones, twos, uh threes, and fours where students receive the A throughG credit um within the coursework order. The caveat to that is on top of all of that it is predicated that the courses would have to be approved through UC doorways. All right. So um that is the extra thing. So they have to be both approved by the state um and then they have to receive a letter grade of of C or higher in those courses. I don't want to sell the approval part shortly. Uh new tracking. Okay. So there um has been um uh tracking in higher level math courses at the middle school. Uh the gap compounds every year and it's really once you get into a track, it's nearly impossible to get out of that track. Uh and then not

101only that, but underserved students are also simultaneously being enrolled in non-academic courses at disproportionate levels too. So we'll look at that um together. So, so this is sixth grade math. Uh, it's all sixth grade math and it is combined both sides. So, you have sixth grade math, regular math, and so I left it here. I had to come up with my own nicknames for these to keep them straight. You have math 67. It's also a sixth grade math course, but it is accelerated. You have then math 78, which is also a sixth grade math course. I'm calling it sixth grade accelerated plus and I had to do that just so I can keep the enrollment straight. Okay, these are all sixth grade math classes. When you look at the general sixth grade math Oh, and

102then the way that we read these charts is this equilibrium line. Uh the line right down the middle is total enrollment of student population at the schools. Okay. So, if you had 29% English language learners at your school and they were 29% enrolled in one of those classes, there would be no red line, there would be no blue line, it would be no line because it their enrollment in the course matches their enrollment at the school. This goes to show and so if you have blue you're overenrolled based um uh on your the part of the population slide that you take the total enrollment slide that you take up and if it's red it's underenrolled okay based on the amount of um that you take up in terms of student population. So, in this case,

103for basic sixth grade math, English language learners, students identifying as Hispanic and Latino, and those that are socioeconomically disadvantaged are um disproportionately enrolled in those classes to the tune of 19.7%, 20.6%, and 14.5%. Those that are underenrolled in those classes based our English only students at minus 10.2% and not socioeconomically disadvantaged kids at 14.6%. 6%. Then you take it the next level of acceleration. Okay? And so now the opposite is true. So we were looking before at students that were over represented in basic math are now under reppresented in the first tier of advanced math. Those underrepresented English learners, students identifying as Hispanic, Latino, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and those students on an IEP uh to the tune of 16, 21, 17, and 16%. Those that are disproportionately represented in the positive way are English only and

104students non socioeconomically disadvantaged. And by the time you get to the most accelerated sixth grade math, the only group that is disproportionately enrolled in those courses are the non- socioeconomically disadvantaged kids at 20.4% um exceeding their um their enrollment on the site. Everyone else is under enrolled. Okay, in seventh grade, the problem starts to compound, right? So, you have your seventh grade basic math course, uh, overenrollment at 25, 27, and 26% for ELEL's students, Hispanic or Latino, and socioeconomically disadvantaged, almost 30% underenrollment for students that are socio that are not socioeconomically disadvantaged. for English only kiddos. When you get to the second level of acceleration in seventh grade math, the only group that is out enrolled beyond their percent is not socioeconomically disadvantaged kids at 14%. And then algebra 1 at seventh grade is um

105everyone is under reppresented except for more affluent students at 22.7% uh over not over enrollment but disproportionate enrollment based on their on their number of the population. So the final piece is that eighth grade math. Okay. So you have eighth grade math uh basic eighth grade math. So now you have English learners, students identifying as Hispanic, Latino, and those socioeconomically disadvantaged at 18%, 28% and 13%. The only group that's underenrolled are those more affluent students. Algebra 1, the only students that have disproportionate positive enrollment are English only and more affluent student uh students. And then geometry, the it's 21.6% uh disproportionate enrollment for those students who are more affluent, those that are not socioeconomically disadvantaged. Um the so the underrepresented group pathway starts in sixth grade and there's very little that can be done from

106a student perspective to get out of that track once you're on it. There are very few offramps uh for that or the opposite on-ramps back to an accelerated track all happening at the same time. you have a disproportionate share of non-academic classes assigned to students who are those same students uh that are underrepresented in advanced math tracks. They're not being placed in non-academic classes in lie of advanced math. They just happen to be u the same kids. So you have teachers aid seventh grade, teachers aid eighth grade, office grade seventh grade, office aid eighth grade. Uh and in every single instance, um those students that are over represented, uh tend to be your English language learners and your socioeconomically disadvantaged and students on an IEP. Uh the one common thread through all of those non-academic

107courses is that the only ones that are under reppresented by the slice of pie they take up are those more affluent, socioeconomically advantaged kids. they're the only ones that are consistently not in classes uh at rates that are far below their slice of the enrollment pie. So, um they're the not only are they being underserved in that our students are being underserved in an advanced math pathway perspective, but at the same time they're being over represented in non-academic classes. Also, >> I'm going tell you a quick story. Um, this is broad strokes, but I think it's really impactful. So, I want you to picture a hundred and it's really foundational to the idea that pre-AGG and academic rigor and the push for um for alignment at the youngest of ages um uh is really important

108for for kiddos. So, if you take a 100 graduates out of any system, let's just call it out of the Sunnyville area. If they go to Foothhill College, okay, Foothill College has a 2-year transfer rate of 11%. Okay, not an AA track, not a three-year TR two-year transfer to a 4-year university at 11%. So, of those original 100 graduates that they were only 11 who transferred to a 4-year university. If those 11 kids go straight to San Jose State that has a a transfer grad rate of 83% of the original 100 kids are going to get nine college degrees out the end at the end, right? Nine out of the original 100. If those same 100 graduates just went straight to San Jose State at a 62% grad rate for first-time freshman, you're getting 62

109on the other side having bachelor's degrees. Okay. Yes, it is broad strokes. Is it a perfect match? No. Uh but what it does do is it sets the stage for why the push for academic equity early, right? because not it should be every kid's option to go and and this is not to poo poo uh JC or community college but it should be a kid's option based on life circumstances where they go is it a four-year is it community college is it the family business is it trade school is it military those are the options that are afforded to students who have every life option available to them made possible by the most robust academic uh program at their schools starting in TK, right? Starting in kinder. I get off my soap box, but this

110that's what this says. Um, no matter what they choose, the goal of any educational institution is to make sure students have every life option available to them at the end of their time with you. Um, again, just real quick, the staff reflection on professional development. Um, is it does it impact your practice? Only 25% said most definitely. uh largely it has lately and recently it's been around um curricular pieces. there's been a lot of you know adoptions and there's been a lot of PD around curriculum pieces um not necessarily as impactful from a teachers perspective according to teachers uh the last bucket is weak systems alignment um there's definitely a need for a clear measurable uh strategic plan now that is a plan that is strategic uh it is not necessarily uh strategic plan um

111but it's something that is grounded in an end metric. Where do you want all students to be five years from now? Having conversations with students and staff and families to say, you know what, what are our priorities and how do we get there? Also setting up the the benchmarks for what does it look like in year four? What does it look like in year three? So that you can progress monitor along the way to see how close you are to getting to those established goals. uh greater inclusion of teachers uh in system development and processes um stronger support for their professional work uh ensuring that teachers are trusted and heard and supported through the process. One thing that um it was loud and clear and it wasn't necessarily from a decision-making perspective, but staff on

112campus want to be involved. they think it's it's they and they know it's super important and they're okay with the decisions. It's sometimes not going their way provided that the communication loop is closed for them. Just let us know the rationale of the decision because you asked we we asked for input uh and then we never heard back why. We just know that a rule was implemented or for lack of a better term a rule was implemented. Um so really establishing an inclusive process inclusive of robust communication loop. uh and then a deep frontloading of site administrators, right? The site administrators uh uh should be frontloaded in all things instructional initiatives and behavioral initiatives uh especially as they stand to be the primary support for uh their teacher teams on campus and so investing in

113them from a front-loading perspective is imperative uh so that teachers and staff get the support that they need on campus. Um so staff is experiencing some district level systems uh as top down and low trust and maybe misaligned. And these are just some of the quotes. Again, didn't pick outliers. These have been kind of themes. Um sometimes teachers feel like they're collecting data but they don't really know where it goes. Um sometimes they feel like the finger is pointed at them or that they feel dismissed. There's a lack of trust. Uh so those are all things that are that are kind of right now built into the fabric and how people uh on site are experiencing district systems uh things that are totally correctable, right? Uh with with some conversation and some mindful planning. So

114we're in our last section and this is the recommendations. So what can be done to accelerate student success? They're going to fall in those same four buckets. Well, one you have to establish the academic floor, right? And so getting teacher teams together, teacher teams, and empowering them to create what we call an assessment matrix. It's not a scoping sequence, but it's the essential standards that they're choosing to check in on over the specific pieces of time. They also get together and create what those common formative assessments are to check in on those standards. The difference between that and what they're doing now is that those common formative assessments should be rooted uh in the same item type and item specification as the end of year assessments given by the state. So that the hoops that

115kids are jumping through at the end of the year are the same shape and size that they're jumping through in October and March and the whole time throughout the regular course of the year. The second part of a a systems alignment is a nested data response system. So right now teachers get together and they talk about student data and in most instances they're coming up with common instructional agreements for their kids. But at the same time site leadership should be looking at those agreements and the data and then having site leadership conversations of how they support teachers while teachers are supporting the kids with said formative agreements. Bring it up one level further. At the same time, the district folks should be looking from their seat to say, "How do we support sites who are

116supporting teachers who are supporting kids all at the same time?" And once you get all of those things rolling in the same direction at the same time, that's where magic happens. Uh, and it's just about establishing a system that looks at data that way, much less like nested dolls, you know, same time, same place, but with the exit ticket for each of those sessions being common agreements of what the next steps look like for a very finite period of time. From program design perspective, level two of the program design is just that. It's establishing uh the alignment that it's teacher curated cluster of essential standards, teacher created, teacher influenced assessments to gauge mastery. Um level three is making differentiated in instruction a part of regular core lesson design, not something extra, not something that's farmed

117out to somebody else or not something that happens after direct instruction is over. Right? Um, also being mindful when planning differentiation of that increased need for the higher trajectory for the most vulnerable kids. Now remember, it's not like I said robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's not students getting a higher trajectory in the at expense of others, but it's under what conditions would my most vulnerable kids make additional growth in the same period of time around designated ELD level four and five. uh for non-newcomers because newcomers it is totally appropriate uh to have a program a kit like they just need down and dirty phmic awareness they need to learn how to read that can happen in a very well if done the right way in a very methodical kit-based program based way however for

118all other students that are getting designated ELD uh it's an opportunity to preview and review that grade level core content with an emphasis on vocabulary and oral language development so that it supports supports their participation in their regular English portions of their day. Whether that is a course in middle school or whether that's the ELA portion of their direct instruction day at the elementary. It is most effective when students are grouped by English proficiency level during that time and that time only uh if feasible based on uh the quantity of enrollment at the school. Sometimes there's not enough of a given group to be able to do that. And in that that case, uh the answer is not grouping them by proficiency level all day every day. Right? That does more damage than it does

119good. Um reconsider the instructional support staffing service model to prioritize direct instructional support for teachers and students in the classroom. Right? So think about um extra adults that are in the system, whether they are TOSAs or coaches. um the extra adults that are there to help and support teachers. Finding ways for them to have a more of a direct touch to actual inclassroom events uh is going to be highly important especially when it's when in a system of alignment where you have teachers that are designated these are our essential standards. These are the this is how hard hard enough is. Leveraging those extra adults in real time can be very impactful if it's done mindfully. Uh and then the last part is creating multiple opportunities for instruction by leveraging all parts of the day and

120the calendar before school, after school, winter break, summer, spring break, a ski week if you have one. Uh all of those things are prime real estate to make sure uh that kids who need a higher trajectory get something extra and different. And if you can provide enrichment during the same time, great. Because remember it's about everyone having access um but those that need it the most having a higher trajectory. The tracking the recommendations around the tracking is providing open access um an option is providing open access to accelerated sixth grade math where it is an opt out rather than an opt in. If everyone starts there and then you see what happens right play the play the game as it comes to you. Um, and also the not only is that their default enrollment, but

121there are also multiple entry points beyond sixth grade. So, there's opportunities as seventh graders or eighth graders for students who may have fallen off of that path to get back to that path and that they're that it's not a a final decision once they fall off that path. Um, establish that district-wide pathway for math is a pathway to algebra one for all kids by 8th grade. uh you know like I said including uh opportunities to enter and reenter after their initial placement formalizing the articulation between course taking and grades with the high school districts there have to there has to be an understanding coming when they leave you that you are that you know that it's a known commodity where they'll land when they go to high school uh that is coupled with monitoring the

122progress of students and it's coupled with cleaning up the A3G stuff getting courses that need to be validated through pathways, validated through pathways, and establishing potentially a grading system that gives students access to the credit they deserve for passing these courses within your system. And then the last one, uh, last slide, uh, weak system alignment. Again, it's around strategic planning uh engaging uh sta families, staff, community partners uh in creating a clearly articulated 3 to 5year plan that backward maps from an articulated goal and has annual milestones, right? Something that is predictable, something that is uh um uh owned by everybody, something that is is just the fabric of the how Sunnyvil rolls. Um also cultivating a functioning a high functioning desperate leadership team. Uh that is making sure that any to ensure that any

123um academic instructional or behavioral initiative that comes down um is is one that is uh messaged uniformly that is firmly rooted in what that that plan is that stated um uh strategic plan and that ultimately the communication uh is very open and thorough, right? >> Um, that's what maintains teacher ownership of of of initiatives that minimizes confusion. It's it's the shared leadership and understanding of not just the goals, but why are the goals. Uh, rallying around the why uh rather than the how. Uh, also facilitating open and safe communication for all staff members, right? Having a way that everyone feels safe to provide their feedback and understanding um while you're culture building processes. And then uh building capacity of site and district administrators. One that is frontloading all of all district level administrators uh with

124any initiative uh that comes down. Uh and then the other thing is creating um relationships between site administrators and district level staff because uh site leadership is a lonely place sometimes, right? So principles need support as well. So by facilitating the deeper relationships between site administrators and their district level counterparts would go a long way in supporting those that we expect to support teachers and that is that's a lot. I appreciate you guys very much and again um there are some fantastic things uh going on in the district. Uh and please know that where we have highlighted areas of uh potential needs for efficiencies, it doesn't mean that it's baby out with the bath water. Right? You have absolutely fantastic things that are happening in teacher teams and at sites and pockets. They just don't

125necessarily equate to a systems level approach. And so getting closer to a systems level approach would be a would be a great thing. Um, and I think would be welcomed by those that participated in the process. >> Mr. McGuire, thank you so much for that presentation and to you and your team, everyone that put in the work to get to this presentation. Um, we have a lot ahead. Um, board, with your permission, I'd like to ask for like a short bio break and then we'll come back to public comment. So, if that was an interest of yours, make sure you get your hand up or blueprints in. Thank you. Okay. The the time is 7:46. We'll come back around 7:52 or something. Just wanted to one person. Everyone has a slightly different system. >> Yes,

126they do. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. Yeah. Where are they? Yeah. >> Oh, no. No. Yeah. Yeah. Everything. business. Amen. I know. >> Yeah. >> I appreciate my mother. I guess you're the first 99%. And I can appate ahead. There's a little bit of that. Okay, the time is now 7:52 and we're bringing this meeting back to order. >> We'll be going into public comment. This portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the governing board on any item of interest to the public. Um I'm sorry this is the previous one. We are we are on public comment on this specific agenda item which is the only one. Um if you have a comment to make online please raise your hand and in person make sure that I

127have one of your blue cards. Looks like we have um five comments in the room. Are there any hands up? >> One. Okay. So then we can do three minutes. Um, we will start off with Miss Katie Roland, please. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Katie Rollins and I have two students in the Sunnyville School District, a third grader and a seventh grader, both in the Huntos program. Um, first of all, I want to commend all of you for taking the investment in our children via Arenda. And I know this was expensive and I know this was timeconuming and I find this whole thing this whole process super validating. When I've come to you before and when I've asked things like can you please look at the data and help us understand what would

128help our students succeed. This is a good example of what that looks like to me. So I really appreciate this report and the analysis. I had a couple of clarifying questions that I was hoping to have answered through the course of the evening. Um, one is I was curious if you had access to the revised math pathways when you were doing your analysis regarding how um, students could access courses, how catchup opportunities um, bridge into those advanced levels. Um, I strongly support removing all of the selective barriers to accelerated math 6. I did want to clarify that means math 67 not accelerating into 78 by default. So, I just wanted to make that clarification or hear that clarification from you all. I'd like to hear how students would be supported in this new pathway. I'd

129be curious how implementation of this would look in grades three through five. What do we need to do in grades three through five for our students to get there? If we drop the barriers tomorrow, what does success look like? Who is successful under those circumstances? Or do we need to do more before we can adopt that approach? One of my other questions is for other school districts who have done this and I know there are at least two of you in this room who have participated in this process previously. How have you made sure that staff morale has remained high you know and stayed high. How have you kept staff motivated and engaged? They think some staff members are going to hear this and be like heck yes I have been waiting for this my

130whole career. This is why I went into teaching. Like I am stoked. And then you're going to have people who are like, I come in here every day and I'm doing like like my school's at one, you know, 99% of the schools are above mine. So, I'd love to hear like what resources, encouragement, and examples we can give to our team to feel that these caring, motivated, compassionate, and wonderful people can actually do the right thing for our children. >> Thank you, Miss Brook. Thank you, Miss Roland. We will be moving on to Miss Glenda Ortez Galan. >> Hello Buenos. Um I'm Glendort Zalan. I have um one son who's in um a rising sixth grader in the Huntos program and I have another student, a son who graduated last year and is now in

131high school. And I I had so many thoughts um before this presentation and now I have other thoughts. And so I really just want to say I appreciate the time and investment that you made in in presenting this to us. Um but I do want to talk about um uh my story of how um when my son was 2 years old, this was 13 years ago. Um there was some information that came out in the media about how um black and brown students um were not being served in the Sunnyville school district. And at that time I I feared my husband and I feared do we make the right choice in moving to Sunnyville and settling here because it seems like um there's certain groups that are thriving and others that that are not thriving.

132Um and here we are in 2026 unfortunately. Um and hearing that the the and seeing and experiencing the graphs that the gaps are growing is is concerning. And so I appreciate that in this report there are some actionable items um that can help support students and um eliminate that gap. Uh but I also um just want to say that in my experience what I feel has been a major barrier are the low expectations for my sons in this school district. So this has been uh I'm sitting here listening to this data has been very difficult for me but I think it's important for you to know that that um I'm a daughter of Salvadorian immigrants. I'm raising the second generation Latino males that are both neurode divergent um and they've they there have been situations

133where they've been thriving and some that have where they have been barely surviving in this school district. And I am concerned about um my son enrolling in middle school. I I am. And I think it's important for you to know that that that fear is there. Um and I hope that uh that finally we see some some systems change. I mentioned to my son that I was going to speak to the board and I I told him why. Um, and I think why why do you think that um that Latino students are falling behind um other groups um particularly Hawaiian Asian? And he said to me, I think it's because of racism. So, um there it is. He told my 11-year-old told me that. So, I just want us to sit with that. Um and

134again, I really hope that we start to see some change. And I know it takes it takes a long time, but I really hope that we start seeing, you know, some some progress um for our students um that are from underrepresented groups. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Morton. Um we are moving on to Alex Calder. >> Hello. My name is Alex Calder. I am the dad of a second grader in Huntos over at San Miguel. Um, I'm going to recognize everybody here did request this report and this is very important for us to understand. Um, I feel like as a person adjacent to education beyond my own mother and my wife for in excess of 40 years, there's a lot in there that feels like common sense to me because of how close I've

135been to it. Um my curiosity here is we have put a lot on the sites and these these ideas are things that need to happen. I see a lot of actionable items which are excellent but this is a lot of weight on teachers support staff the offices the principles what are you guys all prepared to do you the system that we've placed in place what are you prepared to do to support them and that's that's it I want to know about the support for those that are truly going to be executing this and I will step down and take answers whenever >> thank you Mr. Elder. And next we have Miss Kristen Feder. >> Hello. Um yeah, I'm Kristen Fork. My daughter is also in the Hentos program um in kindergarten. Um so I'm new

136to all of this from the board perspective. Also new just to the education system in the United States. I grow up here. Um we immigrated here. So a lot of learning um as I go. So, thank you to everyone who asked questions already ahead of me. I think my first train of thought is really trying I read this report and found out about it today, this afternoon. Um, and so there's no information prior to like why did you call this report? Obviously, I'm assuming there was a cataclys um and a need to get this done. sounds like an massive over or underpicking and so I thank you for doing that. Um but yeah, I think having an understanding as a parent as to why we decided to call for this report. Um and then kind

137of further into that um why did you choose the schools that you did to do the deep dive? Obviously something must have stuck out um to choose those schools I'm assuming. Um, so we'd love just to kind of have more information as a parent about this. Sorry, I'm trying to read my very messy handwriting. Um, I think also as a board next sort of hearing, what are the next steps? What are the plan? Like I'm hoping that this board, this report doesn't just sit there and nothing's done. I'd love to see what the next steps are to it. um how do we as parents support um you know both the school as a whole as our teachers, our children to help move forward in those next steps? Um sorry trying to read my writing again.

138Um I would yeah I'd also love to hear the board perspective like were you surprised by these results? Was this what you were expecting? What stood out to you? Um what did you expect? What didn't you expect? and sort of how do we move forward from that? Um, yeah, so much around just like the communication as a whole. And then as a parent from San Miguel, um, obviously San Miguel was called out in a couple different ways within this report. And, um, I think as a school, obviously, we're well supported here tonight. And so, there's, I think, something special about that, but how do we look at that as a school? Um and then also at the moment in San Miguel we from my understanding um we are undergoing a curriculum change and so I

139wanted to know how this report is impacting that curriculum. Um and what if any does that change how we're looking and viewing and assessing the curriculums that we're going to choose? Um that's everything. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Fedora. Um finally in the room we have Courtney Jansen. Uh, good evening, Courtney Jansen, parenting of two kids in the hood program at Samuel. Um, I'm going to also try and read my really bad handwriting here as I go through. So, first of all, thank you. Um, as has already been echoed, I know this was a lot of work. We really appreciate it. We really appreciate the in-depth detail and I feel like I could sit with this data for like seven more hours and still not fully have processed it. Um, one thing, right, someone

140already mentioned you have lots of San Miguel parents here. It would have been really great to see more publication or public publicizing of tonight's meeting across the community. This information is super important. Um, I don't know how public usually makes these reports, so I appreciate that the data is out here, but people have to know the data is out here in order to be able to use it. Um, we get the wonderful superintendent's weekly message. It would be great. I'm gonna put you right on the spot and say it'd be great in the one next week to talk a little bit about some of the key takeaways as part of that to again make sure everyone knows that this is actually happening because you're doing so much work. You're putting so much time into it.

141Parents need to be aware. Second, um I really want to emphasize that teachers need the support. Teachers are working super hard as was noted in here and I agree with the concerns that we don't want to um negatively impact teacher um morale for lack of a better word as we go through this. Um, and I think that that support is both meeting them and talking to them. It'd be great to see the superintendent and all of you in talking to teachers directly more often as opposed to just talking to principles, but it's also materials. And I'll just share a very short example. I was talking to a teacher the other day who had to teach a lesson that needed dictionaries and there were no dictionaries that she could use for her lesson. And it did

142not sound like this was a scheduling conflict. It just sounded like there were no dictionaries. And so it's both, you know, the emotional and the conversation support, making sure they have the materials that they need, make sure that they're clear on what expectations they have to happen or they need to get there. Um, I also want to echo with the ELA, ELV, etc. pilot that's going on. I heard a lot of things about how we need to match the state curriculum and those tests. Please make sure that that presentation on the curriculum pilot talks about which curriculum does that so that we can start to move in that direction. And I think as you look at where you want to go from here, my ask is that you take these amazing recommendations and more and

143you split them into very clear what are the short and easy term things that you want to do over the summer and the next school year. What are the medium and longer term things that parents have a very clear sense of what actionable items are not just happening but when they are going to happen and how you will measure yourselves for success. Um the one other thing I will throw out here I did not know what an a course was. um I've since learned more about that in the last I don't know half an hour. So I'd be super curious to learn more about that data and what is putting kids into a courses and if that is really um the right place for them to be. So uh again thank you for doing this.

144This is super interesting and I will I'll have more questions probably later on. Thank you. >> Thank you Miss Jansen. We are moving to online comments. >> We have student hands now. >> Okay that's fine. We're with you. Go ahead. >> Go ahead, please. >> Are you able to hear me? Hello. >> Yes, we got you. Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Yeah. Um, my name is Gita Golakot. I am a parent of a um of a of a third grader at Ellis Elementary. And today I want to uh share my observations of the uh orender presentation that we have. Uh first of all thank you for in for this initiative of getting this assessment to get a bigger picture view of what's going on in the district. Um it would have been

145interesting to dig a little bit more of the reasons why the students with disabilities are not performing well. Um the report clearly shows that students with disabilities are among the lowest performing groups in both ELA and math and the gap is not closing. Uh this points to a systems issue and not a student issue. And I loved how you pointed out to uh focus on the why uh rather than how. um we've been trying to uh it it feels to me that the district has been trying to do several different things without actually looking into what could be the issues rather than it it's increasing the spending for the district. So I'm really concerned about that. Um, one concern that I have is that, you know, the students with disabilities when they're in SDC classrooms

146are in or are in the general ed classrooms, the gap with the academic um um academic levels. The way the uh special education department measures for IEPs are they should be two grades below or two standard deviations below. That means that kids need to be 7 percentile or below for them to get access to services in a particular area. That is really ridiculous because you are really leaving the core gap where it could have made a difference for them to function or thrive well in the middle school. So I would urge you to look at more deeply into how these IEPs are being constructed or how these kids needs visibly uh extensive needs uh not extensive needs kids but like extensive gaps that exist in kids in general education or even in SEC classrooms to

147be viewed at. So uh that's my only request and I do hope that uh this report's takeaways are taken seriously by the district and uh uh we we could see some changes and I also echo with the previous commenters that uh a more um a letter to the parents would be a nice way to uh explain the understandings that uh have been brought about from this uh presentation um from the district administration. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. One more online commenter. >> We have Susan Sal. Go ahead with your comment, please. >> Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Okay, great. Hi, everybody. Um, my name is Susan Salup and I'm a parent of an alumnist um from Sunnyville School District who is now a student at Fremont

148Union High School District and I'm a bit of a data geek. So I kind of look at the data a lot from both Sunnyville School District and Fremont Union High School District and um the presentation today was very interesting and it's really this Arinda presentation is consistent with the data um I found in the high school district reports that we see at board meetings all that stuff. Um, with the exception of a small number of students in special education classes at Fremont Union High School District, it's probably about three or four percent. Most students at Fremont Union High School District, 96 97% are taking or eligible to be be taking AG classes. So despite this high percentage of Fremont Union High School District students who are in or eligible for AOGG classes, certain student groups

149are not graduating with AO toG requirements comparable with their peers, which was also discussed today. So, one example, which is data in the Fremont Union High School District board meeting for tomorrow, um Homestead High School, where many Sunnyville School uh district students go, only 24% of English learners, 32% of Hispanic Latino students, and 26% of students with disabilities graduated with A to G um classes in 2425. And some potential causes of this. Um, some of them came up in the Arenda report and just some that I've thought of or noticed. Um, number one, a lot of students aren't getting C or above in these classes. Um, number two, stu students stop taking ADG classes after meeting graduation requirements. For example, they'll stop taking math after they take algebra and geometry. Number three, this whole idea

150around low expectations where kids are kind of um pushed to graduate but not to do ADJ classes. Um number four, um students and families don't understand enough how the system works. Um for example, you can do makeup work to to get above a C in these classes. A lot of times they they don't know or they're not given opportunities to know. Number five, they have challenging environments outside of school, socioeconomic, immigration uh risk, etc. Number six, mental health challenges. And then f number seven, students start high school with a lower baseline. And there's probably more, but those that's just a short list I came up with. So many of these issues are overlapping there. There, but there are so many areas that Sunnyville School District and Fremont Union High School District can help improve the

151ed educational outcomes for these students. And I hope the findings from um the render report and then the um why that's studied coming out of this will help kickstart these efforts and just help all these kids. Thank you so much. Thank you, Miss Stella. And thank you to everybody in the room as well as the two online commenters for being here, for being present and engaged and asking these questions and part of this conversation. We're moving on to a board discussion. And um before we kick to the board, I would like to ask Dr. Crossweight, how how did we get here? Why why did we embark on this study? >> Yes. Uh great question. Well, this is part of uh your request uh me coming in as a new superintendent from the outside. Um there

152were some things that I started noticing that just made me ask some additional questions and I know that you had been asking questions about disagregating data and better understanding the disparities and the inequities that we were seeing in student outcomes. And so as a result of those conversations, this led to, hey, can we partner with somebody else who can help us dig deeper and better understand our data and give us a better sense of what this means for us as a district because from my and I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone, but the leadership team here is not satisfied with our current results. And so if we're not satisfied, then we have to hold up a mirror. And this is what this study does for us is it's it helps us hold up the

153mirror to the system. Not to the board, not to the superintendent, not to our staff, not to our teachers, but ask a question about what is the system, what does this mirror say about the strengths of our system, the gaps in our system, and what we can do differently. So the report has a lot to unpack and it provides very clear opportunities for us to look back and ask ourselves what can we start doing now and what do we need to prioritize moving forward and and one of the challenges in a system with over 800 employees is that these are systems that all of us inherited. Nobody here created these systems and nobody in our system is intentionally saying, "Hey, let's track kids and let's create these disperate uh systems for certain kids." But now

154that we have some of this information, it's on us now, right? And it's not on the superintendent, it's not on the board, but collectively with families, with our parents, with our students, with our community, and our staff to ask ourselves, are we satisfied with this? No. And if we're not satisfied, then what's our responsibility now moving forward now that we've held up the mirror to be able to really make the changes that we need that we also believe that our kids deserve. >> Thank you. Um I know we have some time constraints for um Trusty Viv. So I'm going to have you speak first, please. >> Yes. H well I am very thankful that finally we're doing this I feel that it has been a long way I suppose from from the moment when the

155board started to question how it looked like and Briette came to me and and say we needed diversity in order to work with the achievement gap and we need to to intentionally change how we look in order to to understand and be more equitable. And I think something started we people who have had experience inside the district about how system works, how inequities are every day, how racism actually looks like in in a in a systems that kind of is built to hide it. And it is it is very I mean o over the years we've been asking some of us have been asking to to look at this data to see what's happening and well it took years since I started to finally have the ask that we had since the first day let's

156look at the numbers discriminate put the Hispanics apart put the people of color apart and we're So why what do you want to know if we know the numbers are bad? We kept asking we kept complaining about it. H finally we start looking at those numbers and opening new doors and looking at a mirror which is very important if we want to start to to make change. Um erh after uh we change how we look over here and we change uh we have been trying a lot of things and and changes that there has been a lot of work but just probably not enough. Now I'm very glad that finally we got to do the right studies that we've been asking for a while that we h finally made the investment and calling Orenda and

157look how the systems are working are not working and taking a look to all these things that we've been doing that we've been talking for quite a few years and it's not just happening because that's everywhere or that's in United States or that's typical of California, but it shouldn't be and is on us to change it. I I mean, I am I am glad that we're doing it and I'm very appreciative of of all this work. I am also a little bit mad and a little bit sad that this keep happening and it is always a process. No, it's going to take many years. It's going to take many years, but it never stops. So finally I feel that we're starting on that. I I just want to notice some of the thing that I've

158been told we've been told in the last two or three years. For example, in the in one of the slides, relative advantage of district school based on 2025 results, when we were told, well, what's happening now in MPS in Cherry Chase is because you know it's the is a cherry chase is is right to expect that. And when you see the other ones well but because the other one have a higher socioeconomic disadvantage and this is what we expect from the pool and then we see that Vargas 100% of the schools in the same situation with the same population with the same everything are in front of us that's really unacceptable not to talking about fairwood that we we we feel that is you know a has been in other times spectacular in their achievement.

159And then we have this great gap that 22% like 80 88% of schools in this with the same demographic, the same socioeconomical status, the same are doing better. So it's it's it's really it's really eye opening and at last we have the data here to prove it and to move forward because again we have I mean we have a lot of good things happening finally we are now we found out this year that our ELA curriculum we keep we keep approving new curriculum we keep approving new things thinking that this is the change that we need and Now this year we find that our EL curriculum is terrible and it's like 20 years older. I was telling from English learning teachers for years. They've been telling me that we don't have an a curriculum for

160middle schools. We've been saying that we've been gaslighted. Yes, we do. That's a lie. And we are using this and we're using that. And apparently we are validated that no there's not really a one teachers are just you know working with their nails trying to figure out how to do how to reinvent the wheel every day. So we're not giving them the tools to actually work in a in a reasonable way professional way. And uh then and then I very sad when I saw the adults expectations of our kids. is in the middle of Sicilon Valley in the middle of Sunnyville and then we have a lot of adults that I mean it doesn't surprise me because just few weeks ago I was talking with some par educators and I was listening this data from

161their mouth like it was nothing like this is obviously what's happening these kids are never going to achieve anything and and now I seeing it like you know in a surveying paper with numbers and data and you know it's is eye opening. It's eye opening. Why the adults in our district and in our system even think that even think that our kids are not going to get into a UC or or into Harvard or into Stanford? What what's what's the problem? Why exactly? Is because there are too many are we too many of me over there? the people who looks like me or talk like me and they're never going to achieve anything because I have many degrees and I I I think I am highly accomplished people and everybody in my family is and

162just because we're Latino doesn't mean that we're more stupid and I and I just heard that back to couple of weeks ago that is it's harder for people with socioeconomical disadvantage was what she was saying and people with you know minorities to achieve the same at the same rate that other people are and it's just something that we need to change. I know that is not that common in in everybody and all the adults but it's it's there and and we have a lot of that and that needs to change and we we are um we are a highly looked for district we we hire at a a very fast rate normally because our salaries are pretty good compared to people outside our district, compared to other people locally, other people regionally. And as we

163are Silicon Valley, we must spend in the whole state and probably in the whole United States. It is. So we have our administrators, everybody, our classified employees and our our teachers should be the best of the best because we're paying for the best of the best and we're we need to expect for the best and the best for our kids. And we just got a a great thank you to our community great bonds and we are building the best schools, sustainable schools because our kids deserve it. And we are hiring the best teachers because our our kids deserve it. And if they're not the best of everything, we don't need them. We need the best of the best. And that's what we're investing so much. And that's what I wanted to say. >> Thank you,

164Trusty. Um Watson, would you like to add some thoughts? I I wondered if you wanted to ask any other thoughts from the audience because you have that targeted first if you'd like. >> Um there are many. Um I think maybe if we can um have a just a general reflection and then we can get into the specifics and going forward. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um so well I just wanted to um touch briefly also on a question of like why we're doing this and I think um Trusty Hubas said it very well when she said we made a promise and we have to keep it. Um you know going through the strategic plan as a community was um positive and that it involved a lot of people um looking at our data um not in

165a public way like this. it was more in um uh different kinds of focus groups, different types of uh gatherings and really getting a lot of consensus from the community about expectations for our students and what we want. Um, and just like, uh, you know, when you ask parents, I'm former teacher and I still teach, um, ESL to adults. And, um, when you ask people what they want for their kids, they talk about, you know, like life, you know, they don't talk about like I want them to get, well, some people do, but most people are like, you know, I want them to have friends and I want them to be happy and I want them to be able to support themselves. I want them to do interesting things and I want them to go

166to great you know like uh you know have great life experiences. Um and to do all those things to have those opportunities we know we need to give them a great education. Um so you know that strategic plan was like the community giving input and then we had a couple years of where we were um starting to implement the strategic plan. I think the first thing we focused on is attendance getting kids here. So um you know we we did a lot of improvement for attendance especially for some vulnerable groups but beyond that like there was so much the system was kind of overwhelming and then when um Dr. Gallagher decided to retire. Um we had an opportunity to again get community involvement um to talk about what our vision was for our district. And

167I think uh it was you know like over 900 surveys and focus group people and interviews and pretty much everyone said we need we need systems change. Like we heard that over and over. It was very clear. Um, and uh, we were lucky enough to find Dr. Crossweight and Dr. Crossweight was listening to us and had gone back and looked at some of our previous conversations on the board because we're recording them all now. Um, and had lots of discussions with us and walked around and saw things and was investigating things and he knew of a resource that could help us with questions we've been wanting to ask for a long time. So I I don't think it's um you know nobody made us do it unlike some districts where they you know you have

168a government entity come in and say you need to fix this problem right this is a this isn't a self-awareness um and I sort of feel like you know when it comes to it is going to be very hard for the adults it's going to be hard for the board we're going to hear a lot of negative things about ourselves and about you know um how hard changes and how, you know, we're going to be figuring this out along the way. We're going to make some recommendations. Change is hard. Like, you know, I hate changing stuff that I'm doing, you know. So, but I it's it's a moral imperative to make these changes. It's absolutely a moral imperative. And um I think that we are a very datadriven community in Sunnyville with technology and um

169lots of lots of people who are um trying to make educated decisions about things. So this report I find super painful uh a little bit depressing and um sad saddening um but very vindicating for the changes that we need to make. And I think that um in having conversations with you down in um at the uh retreat that we had where we had some training, one thing that really stuck with me is that the best way to make this change is not to train anybody or tell them what we're doing, you know, give them a one-time thing, but to like do the work with them and have them experience success of kids who they don't expect to succeed succeeding and then telling them what a great teacher they are and what a great administrator they

170are and how we're all doing this together, which is just reinforcing and getting more and more wins in the column of these students really can do it and we're doing it together. And that just has stayed with me and I feel like um anyone who says why are we why are we going to go to why is the board interested in moving to letter grades for middle school? Like we've always done it this way. My kids did great with it this way. Like it wasn't a problem for me. Why do we have to change now? And the reason we have to change now is because we know that there's a problem for them when they get into AWG requirements for their university application. Um, we know that there needs to be some straightening out of

171the letter grading system. Like it's all just right here. So, I really appreciate all the work and I'm looking forward to more collaboration and I'm looking forward to um you know, I don't know what the next steps are as far as um the board giving direction, but I'm very interested in following through with these recommendations and also taking a hard look at the grading. And I'm and I'm willing to take the heat for it and I'm willing to do the um the work of spreading the word. So, one of my questions was um you know if we could just what is the communication plan for this? I think we've all I know that I've expressed that I think that we should um share this with the school sites with the with the teams who have

172given the feedback for the for the data um not just in a recorded environment but opportunity to ask questions and um I think it's important for the community to understand um that we have this maybe why we started this survey and and this um investigation and what changes it's going to need to um but I'm just sort of wondering uh if you've sketched out a communication plan. >> We've been talking with Mr. McGuire about recording doing another presentation for us where he's going to record it so that we can also make it available to the community as well as to our staff because it's hard to I don't think anyone can do it justice the way you did in terms of sharing it out. By the way, I think the two years back, this is

173my seventh presentation I listen with you. Um, and and every time I listen to it, I hear and learn new things that I just didn't pick up the first time. Um, but to that, we do have a draft communication ready to go out tomorrow. Um, not only for our staff, but to our community as well. the messaging was included and uh to our staff but uh to your point um it was not included to the community and I wanted to do it after this based on some of the conversation discussion as well. Um but we also want to make it available online and and have it so that we can also translate it trying to figure out the best like today we weren't unable to procure or secure our our translators for for this. Um,

174but secondly, it's also prioritizing in terms of what are those next steps because there's a lot to unpack in this presentation and there are some very clear things about what we can do in terms of here at the district office with uh district leadership and and and again this is, you know, Scott, I I appreciate the way you said this. It's about what can we do here to support what sites are doing to support what teachers are doing to support their work in the classrooms right so it it needs to start here but I think what you know you've heard from the public comments about appreciating that this has been made public that we've made the effort to do this not easy to do and it is upsetting um but if it's not upsetting to

175you I don't know what to tell you But but we should all be upset about this and and and it's a great opportunity for us to come together as a community and again to demonstrate not only at the local level but statewide and nationally about what's possible when adults come together and make decisions that are best for kids, right? But if this was easy work, everyone would be doing it. The reality is that this is hard work, but it's also hard work and and we need to believe in kids and sometimes it's through action where we're going to change our behaviors and be able to demonstrate increased opportunities for students and that will change our mindsets as well. >> So, I I um I understand what you're saying and I understand the plan to record

176this and to have it. Um, I'm I'm excited that we're going to have it available to the public and um, you know, for information, but I think that like I just I don't know what the rest of the board thinks, but I think there's value in there being an opportunity for questions like from the staff. So, like especially because all of this all of the staff members um, you know, we we did so many schools on a deep dive. Initially we were just going to do a few and then we said can we do more and we want to make sure all of the schools at least have that light touch opportunity but for the schools who gave the feedback to go into this um in some way which is all of them there's even

177if they watch the presentation they might have some things that come up or questions that they want to ask and and I don't know if it's like I don't really know if it's fair to put that on the principal you know so I'm wondering If there's any possibility of a facilitated conversation, maybe they could have the opportunity like they could have the opportunity to watch it first and then um have the conversation or even if it's just a feedback conversation. And then similarly with the community, you know, um there's parents who are very new to our district. There's people who have been through our district, maybe like a town hall or some sort of of of a a way to not necessarily just see the presentation, but to ask questions. I don't know. What do

178you other people think? Maybe that's just >> I would say I would also be interested from Scott if like he has seen that if other districts have done a town hall type forum for community like for families for staff like what are like if you have seen that done well what does that look like? >> That's a good question. Um not necessarily town hall style uh shareouts. Um what we have seen most commonly is and when we talk about recording the presentation it's not just another you know recording of this but it's really the actual PowerPoint with me doing a voice over. So it is at at a sites pace. The principles aren't responsible for regurgitating that entire story because that's it's it's a lot. Uh and the presentation itself is very heavy in graphics

179not heavy in narrative. So for them to tell that story, it's nearly it's nearly impossible unless you've been ingrained in it uh for weeks and weeks and weeks. So most traditionally what we'll see is we'll see um the meeting itself being posted publicly and then we'll see um uh the the narrated PowerPoint. We'll call it a video, but it's really a narrated PowerPoint. Uh so that sites, leadership uh they can kind of digest it in chunks. as you see just me not just me talking through it. It was a hour and 40 minutes. Um uh and that was without questions, that was without reflection, that was just me going. Um so most most will break it up into chunks. When principles do lead it, there's like sometimes districts will come up with um common points

180to pause and then to elicit feedback from uh those that are the viewers. In most cases, it's teachers and/or staff or those that participated in the process, but that there were but that it's one it's reflective in similar ways meaning those reflection questions are open-ended but everyone gets the same opportunity to reflect and then most of the time it's you know they leverage like Google Docs or what have you so that the at the end the kind of the collective nature of all of the reflections can land in a singular place so the those sharings don't get lost. um um after the event, right? They stay memorialized somewhere. So, that's kind of been the best practice. Um I have I have not seen like a road show like town hall for this purpose. I do

181know that there's a district or two uh that are currently uh like a step kind of a step beyond uh where you are right now, more like in an imple implementation phase. uh in particular with some alignment pieces where they're doing a road show um really about the why behind the work. Not necessarily a front-loading of this is the work but a really heartfelt face to face I am with you, you are with me conversation around this is why it's imperative that we do this. uh and really from the superintendent and associate soups going around and saying look this is this is important enough to where we're here to discuss it and to share our thoughts. So that's what I see most commonly. Um yes so I mean I think that also I mean that

182sounds like a great um plan. I sort of I do like the idea of but I like the opportunity for feedback and co co-creating co- reflecting >> that would be helpful especially for staff and even for families who are interested >> um just imagine again so I just like I feel like so many thoughts so many notes so much stuff in different directions right so there's the if like I have the stuff from like community's comments and some of it connects to some of the stuff mine then like like right Isabelle was a lot of just like general reflection on it. Um and then also I have some like specific like digging into more either questions or comments related to the presentation. So my question is like what what what what are we >> what

183do you want tonight? >> Like maybe a broader discussion but then we can get into the details after. um the uh trusty professor and I had had a chance to just have a general like a reflection and then we can get into more details. >> Okay. Um Okay. So I think um sorry I just have so much stuff. Um, okay. So, I think what I'll kind of share I think are kind of some my general stuff is so I'll start with um I wrote down one of on one of the the pages where I kind of pulled teacher or staff comments and I felt like right it doesn't capture there's so much but I was like this is kind of a good summary of the work and why we're doing this um and kind of

184my feeling about it. So is we are working really hard and the returns are not there. And I think and we've kind that's been echoed a lot, right? We have so many so much fabulous staff, right, at all like at all places who are working so hard, but the returns aren't there, right? And so, um, I just I just thought that captured it really well in that space of, you know, like it's not going to happen overnight. But kind of what Bridget was saying with what we talked about at our Arenda conference a couple months ago, right, is as we start doing the work and we see like, right, people's perspectives like, oh, I thought this kid couldn't learn. This kid just like exceeded expectations and that can help change perspectives and change thinking. Anyway,

185so I really love that. I feel like that quote just for me kind of helps summarize and then kind of connected to that um and this is a perfect story to make me cry because I totally cried in this I'm going to show the story what happened but what made me think about it tonight um got to find the note um gosh I lost um okay so Um um okay, I'm trying to go off my memory a little bit. So, I can't remember who's whose comment or what was exactly said. Hopefully, I'll find it later and I'll maybe bring it up later. But somebody said something tonight um that was connected to Oh, maybe something Isabelle said. I don't remember. Anyway, talking Sorry, I'm recording just everywhere. um the space related to um the essentially

186that the page that was about staff's perspectives right of and I can't remember the exact the two questions were like how many students do you think will get A through G right that was the first question and then the second one was how many I said about the parents but >> how many parents um want their child to attend college or university upon >> graduation yes thank you Um, and so just connected that and again I wish I could find it in my notes. The space made me think about this, but what it made me think about was um not related to our district at all, a different education space, but in the education space I can get through this. Um, somebody essentially said, "We know the students who are going to make it and

187the students who aren't." And I like lost it. Like I suppose my husband and he was like, "Ouch." And I was like, "Sorry." And I literally had to get up and leave the room cuz I it was this big thing. I could this not a space where I could have said something. But I was so furious and so upset that someone in education space related to students of color would say that that I like had to leave the room. It was like made worse by as I left the room then all of the students that they were helping and supporting who were students of color. I like walked past them um and went in the bathroom and I just lost it cuz I was so furious, right? That somebody would think that and it's hard

188to because as somebody who like right cares about right like is doing work to help students, right? Um anyway, I was just I wish I could remember exactly what someone said to maybe think about that, but I just think this like that's at the heart of why we're doing this work, right? that there are people with really really good intentions who have this belief that like I can know ahead of time which kids are going to succeed and which kids are not going to succeed. Um and yeah, I just uh anyway I think that's that's kind of like the heart of this space. And I guess the other piece I want to share just kind of generally um where I'm going to take a slightly different spin and maybe different people were saying like angry

189and frustrated and I have had those things um over the years and I think a lot of this data we we at least I feel like I've seen many pieces of it over the years not this much and there was new stuff for sure that was helpful. Um but for me I think a lot of it was not new. I knew it and have been frustrated for a long time. So actually some of the feeling is when I first saw this data was actually a little bit of excitement and happiness not because of the data itself right like but the space of like especially in the parts and we'll hope we can dive into it later of the like the less vulnerable and more vulnerable like the so I was excited about the potential right

190like there are other schools and places out there in similar circumstances who are doing like who are doing this work so my Right. Not that I'm happy about like where we are at right now, but I actually like for me a lot of this actually feels exciting and hopeful and I think I'm also like someone who's like likes to problem solve it. You have to know what the problem is to solve it. Anyway, um it's just a slightly different uh I think we're all the same right on the same page, but that's just a little bit of um like, hey, we we we are in a place that is primed to to it's going to be hard, but to do this work and to move the needle for so many more of our students. Hi.

191Um, I I'll try to make it short. Um, everyone here said a lot of things that um are very meaningful and true. Um, so I won't um I won't uh repeat a lot of things, but I'm the newest member here and um I haven't seen as much data as my um colleagues here, but the data that um we were shown today or when we had our um presentation the other day, um it's very disturbing and it's um something that we need to work on. Um and just hearing all the um people here with their comments um it's we we have a lot of things to um to work on and um some things that I heard is how how to motivate staff and encourage um why do we have low expectations how will we support

192um what are the next steps you know how do we publicize more to the public when will these things happen these are all things that's in our heads too. And um and what I want to make sure that we do is to include um the teachers, the families to the children because we're all here for the children and we're doing it for the children. And if we're not all working together and we're just not working alongside, then we're not going to be doing it right. So, um you know, just hearing teachers saying that we're collecting data, but where does it go? what what's happening to it and I'm glad that we have this in the study. Thank you so much um for being here. Um and it's just helping us to um to start and

193when we start and Dr. Crossweight said now. So I'm glad that we're here today and that we're all here to support each other, us to support you and you to support us so we can support everyone. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I'm going to try to remain in the excited, hopeful space as well. Um, but I do have to admit that I do have a lot of negative feelings about this report, including anger and shame, and I know that's not very productive, but I know that there's other people that also feel that way. So, I want to say, yes, I feel that, too, and this is validating to see. Um, but really we shouldn't have gotten to a point where Glenda, you and your husband 13 years ago, um, looked up the the data and

194said, "Well, Sunnyville is not serving the black and brown kids well." Um, and we are still here. And my concerns have to do about systems change and how we can pro make those conditions that support learning. But there's some really heavy things here. We have culture of low expectations. We have racism, right? It's top down, low trust. These are very heavy systems changes that are needed. And I have a lot of concern about the people that are with our students and feeling the weight of and having said that everything's been has felt very top down. So here comes something else. Is this just going to be something else? Now that now the district has a different direction and here we're going to be asked to do this now and getting people on board in terms

195of the heart right aligning our work so that it is meaningful. Um I feel like this is a very heavy lift and I do want I do believe that that culture of belief in hope begins here with our governance team and with Dr. Cross weight and knowing that we can make this difference that um the relative advantage slide showing just how low we are performing compared to how well we in theory should be was completely eye opening for me. Um so this is our starting point. I feel like this is baseline right and there's there's a a lot of work to do. Um, we we have to build systems. We have to get people on board. And I think for me looking at this data and seeing it's very very uncomfortable and like it should

196be uncomfortable, right? We we are part of this system. We've I mean I know we're not it's not specific people, but this is the system that we are in right now and it's not pretty. So, how can we pull together? Um, I'm going to be looking for some guidance um from our teaching and learning from our new superintendent and making sure that we have the um people as well in place to support the new the work that has to be done because we've we've seen each other. We've seen ourselves as racist before. where we did anti-racist training for years and still, you know, we have these beliefs that persist. So, I guess the question is how is this how is what we're going to do now different than what we've done in the past? >>

197Okay. Yes. Um, also I just wanted to say that like I think that one thing that um I think Isabelle mentioned about how all the schools have room for improvement, right? Like everybody I mean and uh and Cherry Chase is getting a distinct school and it you know there was a lot of um uh progress monitoring cycles and a lot of intentionality that went into that. You can also just see like that um that school it's not based on it does take a out of the the waiting of socioeconomics um in that and then some of these other vulnerability factors but there's room for everyone to rise here. So I think this is like a call to action for everybody. It's not just oh there's one school here or one school there and I'm sure

198uh I'm sure that the the school that is performing um you know within a within a high band for its vulnerability factors I'm sure they also want to keep growing right so but I feel like there's there's just so much improvement to be had for everyone that it's a great incentive for all of us to um keep go you know to to move ourselves forward. So, I am hopeful that it's it's not just like depressing news. It's like a there's like Michelle said, there's other people who are doing this. Um, I did want to say like, um, you know, when when Isabelle first came on the board, within her first or second board meeting, uh, we were able to, uh, encourage the district leadership to allow all middle school students um, who were English learners

199to have an elective. And before she came on board, that wasn't that wasn't a possibility. Um, and so I know that that seems like it's not a it's a it was just a policy change uh that affected schedules and it affected it was like right around January, right? So they were like thinking about schedules for the next year. So it was something small and it took like a lot of effort and work but it was like um it had a high impact for that group of kids. I think some of the work we're going to do here, like if the if we start moving towards the recommendations of going deep into the standards and letting the standards drive rather than just the curriculum driving, it won't matter necessarily what curriculum we get because it will

200be the teachers will be deeply involved in in doing the work. Hopefully, we'll get a great curriculum. That's what we want. But um you know, they need a curriculum, but they need the tools. But I think that like the recommendations here seem very uh teacher engaging uh and stuff. And I'm just wondering if there's some of them that also probably need to be done or that could be done at the district office like in terms of um looking at our middle school grading. Like are are those are there some things like within here that like we could just say like yes, come back to us with more of this. Like how are you thinking it's going to roll out? Because like you know how I feel about this 60% for a three, right? Um, but

201just the other like the idea of like a middle school grade to fix some of this stuff like what's retroactive. Like how are we going to repair some of the stuff that we know that's just been elevated here as like it's got to be more than just on paper. Like how do we how do we say yes to some of this? >> So I mean you're saying yes by making this public and and being transparent about it. Um, so that's a critical first step because, you know, the reality is that this is not an easy report to digest, right? And we're still affirming a lot of the strengths that we have here in the school district, but also again holding up that mirror. Um, but to your point, there are some things that we can

202immediately do and as trusty shared earlier, it's like now. It's not about tomorrow. Let's find this out. But part of the work has already been about identifying that we have some gaps. uh with your support we were able to create the director of student achievement uh focusing in on MTSS already engaging in conversations with our middle schools so that we can revisit not only grading practices again no falling the teachers either this is a systemic issue not on them um and then with that is also looking at scheduling is do are we placing our students in the least restricted environments are we giving them giving giving them access to standards based materials, curriculum, lessons, etc. Those are some of the things that we can, you know, do immediately. But other things, here's the thing. It's

203like if you want to go, what is it? I'm really bad at this, right? If you want to go >> far, you go together. If you want to go fast, you go alone. So, we're not looking at doing this alone. We have to do this and co-create with our staff. Thank you, Mr. Alex. Um, in support and and and do this together. And so, by doing this together, there's some things that we have to have conversations about. We have to bring people into the same space, engage in our conversations, and ask ourselves, what do we believe in, kids, right? What what can we do here as as a Sunnyville community and and collectively develop or revisit like our strategic plan? Is our strategic plan a clear guide of where we want to be and how

204we're going to get there? Because right now our strategic plan is like 52 pages, but it's not very deep when it comes to academic outcomes. It's a lot of the social emotional, it's a lot of the student support services, which nothing wrong with that, but we also need to make sure that it has a robust plan of action to address academics. Um, and this is not in any way about micromanaging and having our staff teach the tests. But when we when we think about our Sunnyville promise about knowing every kid by name, strength, and need, like, do we really are we really capable of doing that if we don't have the right supports and systems in place? And so we really know every kid by name, strength, and need. We should also be able to

205differentiate the supports that they need so that they can be successful. But it does require a lot of other conversations moving forward. But at the same time, concurrently, we can still engage in some of this other work and we are expecting to see some changes the middle schools in terms of scheduling for next year that's already in the works. Um the other thing that uh Mr. require mention is the collaboration between Sunny Bell School District and Fremont Union School District, right? And that's something that we've begun conversations in the fall as well. And um Fremont Union is also going to be working with us collaboration and developing a network with other school districts so that we can have better collaboration and articulation along the way. But again, there's a lot of other things and like

206one thing that I heard in my seventh presentation with Mr. McGuire is maximizing the opportunities for kids. So, winter break, our spring break, um breaks, including exploring how we can maximize our after school programs and Saturdays so that kids are in structured safe spaces where they can be supported as well. So, that's another one that we're working on as well. So there are some things that we're working on simultaneously and then it's also going to ask us to pause and ask ourselves is this initiative really going to support these efforts and if it's not do we have the capacity to take everything on because it can be overwhelming at all. >> So when you said about scheduling did you also mean about the um office and the TA spots? >> Yes. So we are no

207longer going to we're going to maximize our our opportunities for students to be in academic environments and not outside the classroom and not in academic spaces. So no more office practice teacher assistant positions. >> Um while we're talking about middle school schedules um can you speak a little bit to 07 theory and those opportunities? Well, we want to I know in the past we've had some challenges with the zero or seven period, but we want to be able to continue providing students and families with opportunities to accelerate and give them additional options. And if we in the past have said we're going to create this elective and all the huntos kids have to take it, that's not an opportunity. But if you open up those opportunities for all kids and it's available for students who

208are in the hos program to accelerate, that's a great opportunity. But a student in a way that doesn't make it look like it's being they're being punished for being in the hos program so that it's optional and additional enrichment opportunities for them as well. And so for us with when it comes to BAPA and music and the arts and some STEM courses and even the future possibilities of dual enrollment where our seventh and eighth grade even sixth grade students to be honest with you are able to take community college courses. Those are additional options where we can explore the zero and seventh period summer programs as well. It doesn't have to just happen to be during the traditional first through sixth period day. I just is it okay if I kind of go through some

209of the question stuff and then people can type on the other ones too. >> Um so I think uh first one uh oh I can't record um you said course A. I think you're referring to A through G. So for those who aid >> that's an a I d e a a course >> teacher office aid. >> Oh got it. Okay. Okay. Uh well just in case if anyone doesn't know what a throughg is then um that is essentially right like there are the classes since it's high school so this is not us right at high school level right there are certain classes you have to take to graduate but then on top of that there are is those classes plus a few others that are A through G. And so if you do those

210classes, I'm giving a very short, not exact summary. If you do those classes, then that means you can go to a CSU or UC. That's a very simplified explanation of what A through G is. um for the uh I think my kind of main and there's a few other ones but I think kind of the main questions that people had that I also had too was kind of in the space like I'll read off some of their questions and then kind of share my thought too is like the how do you maintain staff morale um the curiosity of like this is like a lot of weight on teachers and support staff and office staff at the schools what is the district and the board um going to due to support. Um teachers working really hard

211um needing support um like how can parents support um next steps? Anyway, so kind of in that in that space of what people were asking the question that I kind of had coming into this which connects to that um is like and we don't necessarily have the answer maybe tonight or but kind of in the next steps is um what's going to be different from the district to support this work? Um and it connects I can't remember one of you guys said this question which I wrote this down too because I was like this is very similar that um how is what we're going to do how is what we are going to do different from what we've done in the past which isn't the same question but in that similar vein um but I

212would just say I think that is this kind of space which I think we all are aware of but I think is like the most important space as we move the needle right and it's kind of what Dr. Crossway said too about right like the what I had heard that phrase before but I mean it makes sense right the like you go fast alone or what was it the long >> together >> long together >> um right that space that like being mindful and acknowledging right that there are so many people like working so hard um kind of how do right how do we keep that morale up and anyway but yeah so the what's going to be different from the district to support this work um I think there's not one answer I think

213that's a question that I like I think is a question that like in the follow-ups would be an important one to answer. >> I think you've said to us a few times about the kinds of work that is going to be happening with the teacher teams right like going into the standards. Maybe you could talk about that. >> Sure. So, I mean, one of the recommendations is the curriculum alignment. And right now, if you were to ask third grade teachers at one school versus another school or even within the same site, what should all third graders know by the end of the year? Would we get the same response? And so, it's an opportunity for us to engage in conversations with our teachers and ask them that question. And then for teachers to then basically

214come forward and say here's what we think that all third graders should be able to know and be able to do and demonstrate. And so then the question is how will we know? And then so right now if you look at the math standards there's hundreds of math standards but how do we really focus in on the critical standards moving forward. So I'll give you a brief example of this happening at the university level. ASU was struggling with its engineering department and students were entering engineering and they were not succeeding and it came down to calculus and students were struggling with calculus and not able to successfully pass calculus to be able continue in their degree. So they went and they spoke with the professionals and asked them what do students need to become engineers

215and so they revisited their engineering course of study and ASU now has thousands of students who graduate with engineering degrees every year and they're competing with the Carnegie Melon and other universities as well. And so for us, it's an opportunity to engage in those conversations with our staff and have them co-create what those expectations are based on what the state standards say. But then separately, it's also looking at the rigor as Mr. McGuire mentioned, right? It's it's not just that we're teaching standardsbased lessons, etc., but to what rigor and is there alignment across the district when it comes to that? So those are some of the work identifying what those standards are, call them whatever you want, critical, essential standards. But then the other thing is the curriculum alignment so that whether you're at one

216school or another, one grade to another, you're clear about what third grade expectations are, fourth grade expectations, and if a student or staff goes from one school to another school, the expectations are similar. Then separately we develop our own formative assessments where our teachers are engaged in that process and we're able to use those data on a regular basis to help them better understand how students are progressing or not progressing. What do we need to do differently and separately is teaching has been done in isolation for such a long time. The way that public education was set up was not created to really serve today's needs and demands. And and teachers need more opportunities to come together, to collaborate, to reflect on their lessons, to look at data together, but also to develop lessons in

217collaboration. It's sort of like a Japanese lesson design or lesson study. Um, those are structures that we don't currently have in place. We have some of them in place to a certain extent, but how do we enhance those to again truly support our staff and those are things that we can start doing here as well. So in that space I I have concern about um the teachers who we've been asking them to do things and like we've seen in all these um quotes it the data is not meaningful. Um we do the cycles but we never do anything with it. So we are asking teachers in many cases to take that leap of faith that this is different. >> Yeah. >> How can we support that and it actually like be different and authentically um

218you know something that that they believe in as well. >> Yeah. I mean this is not unique to Sunnyville. Sunnyville is not the first district that's gone through uh look in the mirror to create systems that support uh these conversations and structures and things like that. So there's models out there already and we can engage in conversations, visit other schools, etc. But there's also research on this as well. The other thing is building trust. Is what we say congruent with our behaviors? Is what comes out of my mouth congruent with what I say and do at the end of the day? So we have to build trust. We have to be in SA space together. But the other thing is that we're providing some guidelines, some support and some structures. But at the end of

219the day that teachers, they still need to be involved be involved in those conversations. So if we say we need to develop a system to be able to support a teacher release time, that's our best here at the district office. But what that protocol and what those conversations are, we can provide some guidelines and some parameters of what the expectations are, but the teachers have to own it and they're going to have to also invest in it and and update these protocols to meet their needs. So if the formative assessments are not meeting their needs, then we need to give teachers those opportunities to revisit those formative assessments so they truly are meaningful for them and for their students. So, it's not a one-time thing. This is an ongoing cycle of reflection, of recreating, of

220collaborating, and refining the system that we want to support our schools with. >> Follow too. >> Um, so I'm just thinking about, right, think about the space, right? You were saying like including the teachers, right? Having them if it's not someone's not working for them. So, I'm just thinking about, right? So, I don't really know for sure, but say we have like 30 third grade teachers or whatever, right? Um, all of them are probably not going to agree on what they think is the best formative assessment or, you know, just like different teachers have different different preferences for different curriculum, right? There's just we have different personalities. We come from different spaces. So, right, this is totally me going into like the weeds and like the nitty-gritty, but what does that look like, right? Right.

221Like you're never going to have all 30 of them agree on something. >> Yeah. >> So I don't know. What does that look like? How does how do you move forwards successfully in that space? >> Easy. So I mean and here's the thing. I've done this work a long time ago in very different uh circumstances. Um and back then for example I think we had 42 teachers per grade level and at 12 elementary schools and 12 elementary schools couldn't couldn't count and so 12 elementary schools identified their own different standards 12 elementary schools identify their own formative assessments and that's how it started and was it ideal? No. Did it allow for collaboration across school sites? It didn't. What ended up happening is I'm good friends with you know uh Peggy and but she's at

222a different school site I really want to collaborate with her but we don't have the same standards nor the assessments can we develop our own and that led to the schools and saying in order for this to really work and for us to have a culture of collaboration we need to come to the same and it happened organically through them. It wasn't me directing them or anything like that. So that's one way that it can happen. I think the easier thing is for it to be from the very beginning with our eight elementary schools having some agreements. But that's where we need a partner with experience who has done this work in other districts to be able to facilitate those conversations and guide us there because I can't pretend to tell you that I can

223personally do that work at this time. >> Mr. Rev. Just real quick, um you can get the 40 third grade teachers in the room uh when the the initiative is led with um the why to start with. I know it sounds cliche but the the purpose that's driving the process that's the anchor and you start that way and then there's recognition that the alignment process will never be perfect from the beginning and that it evolves as teachers understanding evolves as you get deeper data and understand how students are evolving so that that that initial agreement around what essential standards are potentially what the common formative assessment is originally that there's time and space for it to evolve and to change and that you're not committing to something that's 6 years out, 8 years out. No,

224it's can you live with it for right now? Does it make sense for right now? And can you not marry can you date it till springtime, right? Where there's a then you get to revise, right? and you get to look at the essential standards and maybe uh your August self that put it together didn't know what your October self knows and say, "Man, what were we thinking back then?" Well, if that's baked in and there's grace that's given to staff to say, "You know what? Yeah, let's let's maybe not blow it up in the springtime, but you know, there are some things that we mindfully want to change for good reason, then let that be okay, right? So you're not necessarily having to jump in both feet and commit to something that's a a 10-year

225process only knowing what you know in the moment, right? The fact that it gets to live and to breathe and get better as teachers get more deeper in in their understanding. I think that's the part that allows that leap of faith initially that there's a time not too far from the time that you commit that you can change who you date, right? You can you can fix it. You can make those repairs. You can take what you've learned over a cycle or two and say, you know what, I I think these standards should come earlier in the year or later in the year. Man, we assessed it this way. It didn't feel great. like the as long as the process is is open for that uh and that it's rooted in one state adjudicated rigor

226but but that the teacher's experience and expertise of delivering that information and how organic instruction is. As long as you're not losing the art side of that and teaching doesn't become just wrote and robotic and then I think that you're in a good place. Uh, and I think it honors both sides of the thing of the of practice, but I think you'd be surprised at at um or maybe not surprised at what um what teacher teams will will agree to when the conditions are right. >> So, um I think that having a high degree of rigor is it would be great, right? Higher higher floor for everybody. But if we're still dealing um if we still have within our system um teachers who don't believe certain students can learn or do the harder rigor academics.

227How do we get through that? What have you seen that has worked in other districts? >> So great question. Uh because that is not a Sunnyville thing. That's an everywhere thing. There are to varying degrees those that think kids can and can't. Wherever you go, >> one thing that's never worked is professionally developing it out of them. Right? For those adults that think kids can't, you're not going to have a PD or a training that's going to change their mind. If anything else, they're going to regress further into there. And those that didn't feel that way before are going to start to feel guilty like, "Oh, I didn't know I felt that way until you told me I felt that way." And then and that creates its own kind of ball of wax. What really

228changes beliefs and expectations is not the direct addressing of the beliefs and expectations to begin with, but it's establishing a system that has a floor of expectations for all kids. And that when not necessarily the teacher of record if that is the or the staff member of record or the administrator or whomever is harboring the beliefs of kids can't, right? Because that can land in anyone's lap. But the moment that those kids who in the mind of that believer of someone who said they can't once they do and even the smallest of increments it needs to be celebrated loudly, proudly and widely and obviously and the more often that students show that they can, especially students who someone previously thought couldn't, the more often they show that they can. That's what starts slowly but surely

229changing the mind's thoughts and beliefs. The the idea that you can do uh you know a bias training or or like I said that 9.9 times out of 10 that's not going to work. Uh but it's the repeated celebration of in the face of I thought they couldn't and they did and everyone is celebrating my kid who I thought they couldn't. um privately in the brain that starts to change things and so it's about establishing first and foremost what is the academic floor for all kids in the district what's the non-negotiable teachers are involved in that conversation it's in it's it it is uh they can I don't want to you know speak to your process because your pro process hasn't yet been written however it's in most cases the through the idea through you

230know looking at state level rigor and blueprints and standards. Teachers determine, you know, what their essential standards are based on local data, based on local context, their expertise coupled with the state level expectations. And so once they come up with that, um, then now you're just measuring kids against that. And it's not, um, and you you're establishing the floor, not the ceiling, you know. So, um, anything below this floor is not on my watch, right? Every kid in Sunnyville will have the minimum of this. That's all you're established. The ceiling, the sky is the limit. And when kids meet the moment, you celebrate them loud and proud. And that's what changes thoughts, you know, thought patterns and beliefs and expectations. >> Um, were there any other specific topics that you wanted to bring up at

231this time? I just think that uh I I think that the the idea of a floor, you know, when I think back to like when we were making the goals for the strategic plan and we were saying that every student will improve. Um I think having the floor at being grade level I think the power in articulating that is profound you know because if you know I just hear I you know when I hear the kids say things like um you know where they are articulating their own what's expected of them they they're very clear about that. when adults are clear with them, they're very clear about what's expected of them. And so I think if we can just say that I mean I can't if the floor is higher than grade level, okay, but

232I mean I think I just I mean I just don't want it to be um I mean I I just I guess I sort of always assumed that the floor was grade level. I just Um, but I just I think having it never be articulated and have it always just be well, everyone's going to grow. Like I it never occurred to me that we weren't always trying to get to help kids get to where they need to be so that they can do what they need to do in high school and beyond. So now it's in our promise that we're going to get them to high school, be prepared for high school and beyond. I think we have to explicitly say what that for is. So, I'm all for re revising the promise if necessary.

233That's what I was saying. I I really appreciate this whole conversation. I'm so glad it's in public. I'm glad it's going to be recorded and um our conversation was recorded, but I'm really glad that it's going to be professionally put together. So, >> with the Spanish version >> with a Spanish version, too. Yes. >> Mr. Do we have any um further on our contract already with you? What can we expect? >> So the the only thing that's attached to our current contract now are two additional I believe it's two additional power clinics which is a fancy term for just lead leadership meetings. Um it's to also help digest and process the findings and recommendations. Uh and then depending on when the when the um the disposition of the district in terms of needs of support

234or no support uh from us, then that determines kind of what the content of those um uh power clinics kind of look like. Um but that's it. It's the it was the study and then uh two to three uh administrative kind of me meetings around the study results. Uh and then uh there's no other commitment at this point. um uh moving forward and I believe that there was some work done with master schedule um and which I don't know the ins and outs of of that work. However, uh there may be a little bit extra uh tying up those ends for the master schedule one. >> Okay, great. And um Dr. press for us um in terms of um hearing back and um getting updates. I know that we are aligning these recommendations with our

235district priorities as well. What can we expect as a board um and a community to be hearing back in terms of updates? >> Well, we want to uh be able to come back to you with like some very clear next steps based on the um studies recommendations as well. Then also revisiting our district priorities and making updates to capture these moving forward. Um we're meeting with our principles the Tuesday after spring break as well so that we can continue these conversations. They got a preview of this uh study this afternoon. And again there's a lot here. What's what can we start doing now? What have we already done and be able to provide you with those updates? And secondly, what are the next steps for the next two to three years in terms of like

236are we ready and willing to um do the work in terms of like the curriculum alignment, the formative assessments, what type of professional development uh support is needed for our school sites, for our administrators, our teachers, and then how do we create these structures and opportunities for teachers to be able to collaborate, make sure that they're able to use these data in a in a way that helps them inside the classrooms. Um so those are all the other things that we have to be as well. But in the meantime we've already uh began with our communication the messaging we have engaging conversations um regarding the master schedule and course access at the middle schools including like the teacher aids but also EL structures identifying and being clear about what is a newcomer. We uh conducted

237a newcomer listening tour um at our middle schools where we basically asked our newcomer students what do they like about school? What do we do well? What do we need to do differently? And and those were also not easy to hear but very insightful in terms of what we need to do differently. And um the other thing is our grading practices with power school or four scale versus five and then the coll collaboration articulation with the high school district as well. So that's a lot right there. But as you can see there's a lot more but some of these things are going to take a lot more time um conversation and potentially a partner to help us navigate these next steps. >> Okay. And um I will mention that I've been looking at like other

238districts that have used the Renda and they have an executive summary that's kind of more of a narrative form that I think we would benefit from as well. And then in their followup, I was looking at MBWSD specifically. Um they have timelines of implementation kind of like calendaring out what to expect and when. So um perhaps that's something that we could be looking at going forward as well. This is >> um okay the first one is just um I forgot earlier we talked about stuff uh I just wanted to comment briefly on strategic plan and I think maybe said this somewhere else but just again that I think right because I think right it says like strategic plan I I don't think we need to fully do all new streets but this is again my

239perspective right I think our promise is really awesome I think our four main I don't remember what they're called like our four main like focus areas, goals areas, what >> pillars? Are they pillars? >> I I don't remember the name, but but those I think like I think that stuff I mean it always things better. I think that area is really good. But then kind of what you were alluding to, right, is the other places and I think they were called signature strategies. I don't remember exactly, but kind of diving into those and getting that kind of what he talked about. So at least from my perspective I think that's this I think that first parts we have pretty good but it's those pieces that would be my perspective related to strategic plan and then

240I think um and this isn't to answer now but I think on the next like followup as there is next steps um I think related to like good you were talking about um kind of potential next step with teachers right and kind of if if people are wanting to and they're ready kind of forming these team themes I was just thinking about that is going to take additional work and time for teachers, right? So, I'm thinking like if I'm a teacher, right? It's kind of we talk about this before I think Peggy brought it up again today, right? That space of we don't want teachers to feel like this is just one more thing I have to do. One more thing is being put on my plate. So, I could imagine some teachers saying like

241if you're giving us this, what are you taking away or how are you going to support me in new or different ways with this added piece? So I think clearly I mean the most important people to articulate that to is the teachers but I think when you follow up with us and next steps I would love to hear some of that as well >> and I would be open to seeing proposals for partnerships. >> Well I I just want to um again thank you Scott and Aranda for doing all this work and bringing us this information and suggestions. Um I do feel like we have so much opportunity here. You can see that we have all the conditions of um potential greatness, you know. Um and we need to align our systems and um and

242uh get to work with that. Looking forward to what's coming up. There's nothing further. I'm going to adjourn the meeting. It is now 9:29. Thank you. All of us.