3-3-25 Groton Board of Education Curriculum Committee Meeting

001all good evening um tonight is Monday March 3rd 2025 live and I would like to call the um Gren board of education curriculum meeting to order um in attendance I have Dr Andrea Akerman myself Adrien Johnson um Matt Brown Amy McKenna and I'm sorry I Jamal Davis Jamal Davis I'm sorry I from bad carita hjj and and Marie Mancini um and um the first order business is to review the uh January 16th meeting minutes says 2024 so I think we need to change that to 2025 all right we'll change that to 2025 meting meeting minutes all right oh we will wait one minute because um yeah oh know it just says in the agenda 2024 but hey Mike we just started so you uh we're just going to vote on the meeting minutes so for

002um January 16th do you have any comment on the meeting minutes I don't all right well call it the meeting minutes passed um all right now the next item on the agenda is um the oh yeah we started looking anyway sorry um discussion of the uh English language arts curriculum um in writing the writing portion of it um for grade 6 through 12 um so I don't know do you guys have an idea where you want to start with that so we're gonna start at the middle school level and work our way through the grades if that's okay with you yep okay and so I'm sharing my screen this is a presentation um that was prepared by uh team members at both the middle and the high school and we have Representatives here from from

003both schools and I think we are going to begin with Mr Davis who's the assistant principal at Rotten middle school so um I just want before we begin just kind of I always feel like this is a good opportunity to remind everybody a little bit about what our mission is uh in gron and that is teaching and learning and certainly this particular uh presentation is an alignment with that mission I can't imagine anything that's not when we go when we're talking about a school district um and then also some of our goals which are you know provide a rigorous and relevant curriculum ensuring that our our instruction is effective and engaging our students and then fostering excellent uh learning environments that said I'm going to transition to talking or I'm going to uh transition to

004Mr Davis who's going to talk about the writing program at Gren middle school thank you so as you know GMS is the great six seven and 8 um the curriculum that guides the instruction was adopted um about around 2019 um under the goal of providing a dynamic rigorous uh curriculum which is was going to be aligned to uh common core standards in Teachers College so was a it was a workshop model that was adopted uh for the Middle School focusing on the major writing units that you see there a personal narrative literary analysis and literary essay um under that model um it did align with common core standards um in terms of skills of figurative or sensory language and dialogue in grammar so grammar was integrated within the writing um it still is today um

005the literary analysis as you can see um was based on the reading so uh the teachers would use um certain texts to uh analyze the craft of the author and then use that to help students develop their own writing um and those could be looking at the the character in terms of deep study of the character um in terms of the literary essay what we saw there or what we continue to see there is Elements Incorporated into the unit again looking at the craft of the of the author we utilize Mentor Tex in all three grades so this is the mentor Tex that we're currently using in grade six um in terms of those skills so typically when we look at um you know writing we're looking at writing in terms of you know the

006process so in process brainstorming editing that is that is going on so we're definitely trying to you know teach those students that that process of writing but also in terms of the structure we're looking at um teaching and making sure that they understand how an introductory paragraph is supported by a body supported by inclusion so they are working on that as well um in different types of JRA of writing in terms of in know narrative expository persuasive descriptive which is all again aligned to the common core and then that grammar or punctuation or mechanics or convections or um integrated within this is uniform and followed in grade seven so if you want to go to the second slide please um where now um you see a little bit more focus on argumentative or persuasive writing

007um seventh grade uses the ceer which is claim evidence in reasoning to um support students writing in terms of making sure and this aligns with um the esack at one point esack did have a performance Tas and some states still use the performance Tas but within um Connecticut it's integrated into the C which is the um Ela computer adaptive component of the test and so those brief wrs which students are um exposed through through the iib D assessment blocks they're introduced to understanding how to maybe write first write an introduction um your persuasive essay or uh focus on U making sure that the body has uh you know strong arguments within it so that is integrated within it as you can see literary essay is again continued like it was in the sixth grade into

008the second grade so they're building on that again utilizing a mentor text in this case A Long Walk to Water and then realistic fiction so trying to get this the the students to be creative in their writing um again building on that figurative language that was in the ex grade so you have that alignment and as I mentioned already um with terms of the claim evidence and reason is um there as well um as a focal point in terms of the the grammar skills go to next slide rade eight so in grade eight um obviously the focus in grade eight is obviously preparing the students to transition to to the high school there were some articulation meetings that did happen um and where um you know there was conversation in terms of what do our

009ninth graders need when they come in and so I'm part of that teacher college and evolving and developing the Memoir writing was a big piece of that um so again those personal narratives going back kind of connecting to sixth grade but you know expanding on that so um really focus on the literary devices which are taught through again the kind of that Mentor text so they can kind of see how the authors that there they could be studying in this case the Red Kayak does it and then try to integrate that into their own writing um and then as you can see down the next where with the Contemporary classic books they're looking at that understanding point of view um in their their writing and being able to uh have that in discussion as well

010as um you know writing that out themselves and then really focusing on that grammar and punctuation but in an integrated approach not um uh direct instruction on that however there is opportunity for that in the curriculum um and there are specific um lessons if you look at the um online curriculum you can see some specific lessons that speak to uh grammar that they can integrate if they feel um the need to do that and then um you know writing um response to reading in all units that's something um that we really see a lot um in the eth grade so um that's kind of across disciplines um to improve their writing but they're building on that CR e that happened in seventh grade and making sure they incorporate that um into the e e grade

011so again just want to you know emphasize in terms of the alignment with the sback because how the sback is structured now with these brief wrs give you idea is that students are asked could be asked on on the esac to write an intro or write a conclusion um they're not asked to write a whole like they used to do with the cat back um you know about 20 years ago or um the see the the Mastery test they're not being asked to do that any longer they only have to do a certain part so depending on what they're asked to do on a particular um test can vary from intro conclusion um elaboration organization as well so it's a little bit different so that's trying to trying to make sure we integrate that um

012into our lessons is critical and they've been working on that because now we've been taking some item sets through our interims and providing that directly to the students so they get familiar with that thank you um would you like to ask questions of Mr Davis now or would you do would you prefer to wait till the end of the presentation I'd like to ask exactly what what does it mean that the the grammar is taught as integrated in what do that mean so it it's the approach is based on if based on the work that they're they're analyzing so they're doing informative assessing the students and they see for example let's say uh students are are struggling with um you know there and so now they're going to look at the different ways you know

013they should be utilizing that so it can be integrated into that so the students the teachers will take that opport based on observing what they're doing and realize that's an area of focus and they would teach them that specific focus of grammar so no there's no grammar uh specific at this point no grammar specific um design lesson that they would be going through so it's integrated through what they're observing in the class that's what I I took it to me I just and how sucessful do the teachers think that is oh it varies you know um you know some students uh are coming in um with solid grammar skills and and some are not and so they use an opportunity to provide explicit instruction when they when they identify that students are struggling in that

014area so how does that prepare them for the high school how does it prepare for the high school well it's based on the skill development so if if they are showing that they they need more assistance in that grimor they are focusing on that um if they're if they're not then they're focusing on other other areas of weakness that they need to develop and Mastery okay yeah few questions thank thank you for presentation uh I was delighted to see A Long Walk to Water still still in there both my kids found that very powerful and actually still talk talk about it years later um I had a question actually sort in some way related I was wondering if um uh uh expanding vocabulary is included in the in the writing is is linked into writing

015at all in those grades as well yeah so um through the as we talked about the mentor text it's a great opportunity for dialogue CER around uh word choice and vocabulary usage so the teachers do spend quality time in that area I know particularly in the eth grade um one of our teachers um has spent um a great deal of time on looking at vocabulary and expanding students vocabulary and specifically providing direct instruction around vocabulary so that is happening um matter of fact with the recent reviews of the iabs which are again making making sure you so those are interim assessment blocks which are basically kind of like an ative assessment that aligns to esac and esac is obviously aligned to the standards so students um are now for example in seventh grade are looking

016at specific vocabulary that is very heavy and using that not only in their writing but in their analysis of their reading as well cor great thank you um other question so I saw great six where's a uh personal narrative and then grade eight here we've got um uh uh was Memoirs yes and in grade seven I I see the argument of writing is very very important but I was wondering I mean every year students change so much is there a space for smaller assignments on personal narrative because it seems like their Viewpoint would change so much with the teachers do have some flexibility yeah um to um adapt based on uh their student population however it is important to to emphasize that if you go through each grade level if you wouldn't mind going back

017to grade six um again aligning to the Common Core so narrative writing is one of the uh key components within the common core and is going to be assessed at the end of the year so the students are exposed to that um but doesn't mean that they're not exposed to the other one but the focus for grade six is on that and then um when they de veloped this they went to um you know griffy wouldn't mind go to grade seven um the argumental or persuasive writing um being the focus there that they want to go but they would still do some small writing assignments that might be more narrative and approach so they're not completely abandoning it but they're introducing a new um form of writing or genre of writing right each year kind

018of progressively building that Common Core that makes sense so the familiar somewhat with the the teachers College model um I think it came to the school system around like maybe 2015 or 16 um as I remember um a DOD Grant um is how many do you know how many school systems in Connecticut are you familiar that use the teachers College model yeah so um and and so you and and um I I know we're changing reading uh to something different is there thoughts to to continuing the teachers College model in years to come or because it's been basically been about 10 years so I was wondering you know what do you envision if possible might be coming next or or is it the same thing um we're going to be exploring that really soon uh

019we haven't I haven't had the opportunity yet to um we've I've started working with it let's just say I started working with the middle school team as you know you ask a very valid question concerning considering that a number of school districts in Connecticut have made the transition away from Teachers College uh specifically in in Reading because of the new uh research around the science of reading so um that will be something that we're exploring really soon I've met recently with the uh Middle School English language arts team um we have implemented or we're working on a pilot for um basically their tier 2 and tier three systems kind of helping them to firm up that mtss process for students in literacy um around reading we haven't touched the writing yet but I really feel

020like in my conversations with teachers they see the need to possibly make some adjustments and uh we'll be working on that next year oh thank you and and certainly of course the reading had to be the priority with the with the changes and so is there do you know if there's an active still relationship um you know in terms of U teacher development with the the Columbia Teachers College or not at this point cuz I think that Grant was like for five or six years or clarify what you mean in terms of active teacher development I I just remember early on it was there's I I would assume people were coming from Teachers College here and maybe um uh some attending workshops there and that was all at the time Grant funded and that you

021know that's the way to learn a model I was wondering if if that level of interaction still happen I have not seen any requests come across my desk to attend Teachers College you're right there was a time period where um the Columbia Teachers College would a couple times a year I believe twice a year have big conferences invite member districts to um down to New York to for teachers to participate some school systems would load up buses of teachers and bring them down to New York I'm sure brought was one of those districts I went on a bus on a bus yeah um and so uh that is no longer happening um there's been a little bit of a shift in Colombia teacher College um in terms of the uh uh Lucy Hawkins the leadership

022and um I heard her talk once and uh I'm gonna say this on the air however I turned to the woman that was next to me I and she Lucy ckins was talking was talking and I turned to the woman who was sitting next to me and I said is she drunk I I mean that's how bad it was it's interesting when was that recently or not no that was at least 10 years ago okay yeah so there's been a shift uh as Dr akan uh indicates or is alluding to never hold back and so we have not had that I'm aware of we have not had anyone participate recently unless unless you have any information I don't have no no I I think it's important just to provide a frame of of reference that

023some of us may not have to your point you know during you know like I said about 10 years ago um obviously we had um a strategic plan in place and one of one of the goals of the Strategic plan was to provide a dynamic and rigorous curriculum and so um those involved in um the development of the Strategic plan um felt that teacher College Columbus teacher College provided a framework that aligned aligned with the common core standards right and so um no reading obviously but as well as writing now they argued at that time there was evidence to support that if if districts adopted um the workshop model then students would demonstrate a master rate in alignment to those standards that are listed in the Common Court right and so Teachers College at that

024time really became um as I mentioned the framework for instruction within the classroom um and that integration model that you was asking with regards to grammar was part of what was adopted in that at that time and I have to say that I know that um that this is the has and it's been this way for a long time with the idea of integration but I'll tell you that in my my own experience as teaching uh I know that that is not the ideal way to go and you know grammar is the science of the language and the entire language is built on it and it really does guide thinking so I'm not happy with integrating grammar and I I think it should be sought taught dynamically in a separate um unit and then that

025unit should be the first semester of the eth grade that where it should in my view that should be where it's uh just delved into and then after that applied to writing and applied to writing in um a composition semester and then applied to writing in a literary semester before you get to the maybe a research paper yeah but that's that's my experience and and with that being said is you know um the teachers at this point are looking at the you know written curriculum which is you know listed that they are following um based on the work that was done um and that place to your point the review process needs to happen and and then revision to your point um needs to be considered um and then as I mentioned you have the

026written curriculum and then you have the taught curriculum where it's being taught within the classroom based on that and and still it's heavily based with or guidance or Frameworks of teachers college at this point right thank you you well um I've got just a little bit um so going back to that are there any other programs that were using for reading in Middle School besides the teachers College yes and I I think it it it probably best described as you know supplemental material that is um integrated through our MTS or multier system syst of support um so uh some students who um have been identified of lagging certain skills they be they're utilizing uh for example um Lexia um PowerUp as an alternative uh or as a way to accelerate their learning I should say

027um that is the case um how are we how we're structured at the middle school is that we are very fortunate that within our instructional schedule we do have an opportunity for um tiered intervention um and so for tier 2 Intervention which is more targeted intervention uh that is being done directly by the teachers and so they are um supplementing it with for example lecture PowerUp but they're also reteaching and doing things that align within the classroom to your point if for a student uh we felt needed more support within grammar that is being done for those students in that small group setting and when I say a small group you're looking at 8 to 10 students and then we have what we call more of an intensive tier three where we have reading Specialists

028now the reading Specialists are developing individualized instructional plans based on the students is that they have so it's more a diagnostic approach really what the the students here if they if they need grammar if they need um um support in terms of word choice they're doing that um but it's more centered on reading than it is more writing for for them all right um so I guess just going for the um so I don't really know much about the teachers College in in middle school but I know in in um and later on in elementary school I think it's a lot of volume of writing but I think that studies show that the volume isn't really as important in actually learning right well um is that kind of is it kind of that same type

029of model in middle school or is that is it changed by I would say it's more may I yeah yeah sure uh I would say that there's a much larger focus on revision and quality of writing at GMS Reis you saying that again rision larger focus on revision and quality of writing um not necessarily volume students are working on on their writing projects in multiple drafts students are conferencing with each other students are conferencing with their teachers they are spending time sort of like I would say honing in on some of those grammatical questions that they may need more practice in and also questions of mechanics that they may need more practice in and they're leveraging those multiple draft assignments in order to gain more understanding and to and to write more clearly so I

030wouldn't say that I know exactly what you're referring to where they are just writing throughout the year like in a in a sort of a mad way but never going back that to look back at the quality of what they're creating I would say that the GMS model is much more concerned with the quality of what they're creating and going back to review drafts and perfect drafts or at least go back and and rework drafts a second and sometimes a third time depending on how much time they have definitely that that's the practice that's going on in the room for sure yeah and I I would also add to that not only is we're talking about revision but revision may be you know more Focus driven so it may be Revision in a particular area

031to that point of you know let's let's look at um the vocabulary somebody asked said before that you're you're selecting you know how can you improve your writing by um changing some of the word choices that you've you've picked so that that is happening um and that's happening where they are looking at again different texts or I'm looking at other writing or exemplars and then trying to incorporate what they have learned through their analysis into their own writing to your point yeah definitely all right thank you um and my last question is kind of how how and this will be um I guess miss mcken m hodj um you guys used to teach this I don't know if you if either of you taught ninth grade but um I'm sure that you've every teacher has

032had students where they feel like the teacher before them maybe didn't do enough or something like that right at least that's that's what I hear at home but um are there things where you see in like the ninth and 10th grade classes where you see that they're missing something um are there examples of of places where they're missing something and then we go back and try to cre correct that in the Middle School curriculum or earlier earlier on curriculums or or just the way instruction is delivered for that you you know you know where I'm going I know I'm this so I I'm thinking about the I I taught and teach social studies so to me yeah I'm not I'm sorry I thought that's okay but again I we talked about the curriculum coordinators at

033the time where we were able to you know uh to align or as best we can align the six through 12th grade um skill sets so when when we were with uh curriculum coordinators I was able to uh meet with grade teachers to make sure that the incoming ninth graders were prepared maybe to write a DBQ to develop thesis statements um to uh to study documents and how to respond to documents so I I'm G to always Mr Johnson defer to to the kiram coordinator role was I think was very valuable all right so that so the general way it would work is the the staff or the you know the unit leaders are would communicate to the curriculum coordinators that we feel the students need a little bit more work here and the curriculum

034coordinators would then go down to the middle school and try to make adjustments as necessary that that would be the yeah if just to Envision um that vertical alignment that we're really talking about was was critically part of the role of the coordinators and so um just having certain conversation or dialogue because part of the process was that those um curriculum um coordinators were able to push into class and observe teachers from six to 12 instruction so you're talking about alignment in terms of okay approach to to instruction um in terms of as you had asked earlier um you know how does an eighth grade greater are they prepared for the ninth grade those conversations were happening and um dialogue was happening when we would have opportunity for um articulation meetings or articulation meetings where

035they all those teachers are coming together and having discussion about you know what is happening at your particular level and how's that going to impact my My Level so that was happening and the administrators because that um Keith and I were partners with World Language and social studies so we were always communicating about meeting times next steps what we need to do to make sure even evaluations and I were always in contact so that that mod so I know we um last year positions were unfortunately lost was curriculum coordinators one of them did we lose some curriculum coordinators lost yeah my belief is there's only one left and I think it's for math it's math and it's part-time unfortunately yeah um is that a big need I mean was there a lot of value I

036have I have not I was not here under that model but I can tell you that I've worked under that model before that is it those positions are a necessity um for Co I think what they're really talking about is coherence and communication yes and so um certainly we have we have teachers that work in the same department but they're in two different buildings and I know that we think of probably with think of the middle school campus and the high school campus or the two facilities as one large campus and logistically that's that's just doesn't wind up what's happening and so to have an individual who not only um runs the meetings sees every teacher is able to coordinate curriculum programming um the selection of resources the assessment and monitoring of students those roles

037are absolutely critical um and then just the the articulation from having an a person that is in those buildings regularly um that works also then with people here in central office I can't tell you um how important that is um I know for me in my role right now I'm overseeing all subject areas and have no direct with the exception of of um the person that you mentioned in in math very little direct then um contact with it's just so far removed like I can tell you I'm working pretty regularly with people like Matt Jamal C all these people here at the table but um there's still another layer then to get get down to that teacher and student level so I can be in the schools every day and still just not have that

038impact especially when you're overseeing a person like myself is overseeing all content areas I think you asked a really legitimate question or somebody did at the very beginning of the presentation in terms of um well you know knowing that we've moved away from Teachers College at the elementary school I think you know there's a kind of question about well why haven't we done that yet at the middle school level simply can't can't do all of those things at once without having a coordinator kind of leading the charge on that because uh right now um like we had to focus on K5 if I had a coordinator I could do that um work you know a little bit we can be more attentive to that work in a in a quicker way so how have we

039what have so now that we so it was last year was the first year without without the curriculum coordinators um how has it been tough to make up for that by trying to bridge those you know those gaps between schools and grade levels without them I heard have you guys worked out I do think it's been it's been tough I think one one advantage we've had right now is having these two be assistant principles at least they have that background knowledge of knowing what H you know so like I think for the short term we're okay not great but we're we're better off knowing that they're still part of our district and and really know what their work was ahead of time like even your vertical teamwork that you were doing for professional development you

040know having the ideas of what we need to work on we still have that present but I think the more years we go away from that model the the harder and harder it's going to get because their jobs are extremely difficult in the day-to-day management and you know I think the portion of of having those those type of roles is that's more of the instructional leadership where you know you're not you're you're not getting pulled away for all the day-to-day events that happen in the school and you can focus on just the instruction we got have like six of them or something right six three just well three and then one and then one special all right but and also the special ed coordinator helped alleviate right us and our PP you know so that

041that again is pulling us away from opportunities to to get in and Coach andr you know to to mass point I think it's important to to emphasize and articulate that um as administrators within a within a building um there are a lot of different hats that you are expected to where um and obviously one of those main hats is an instructional leader um but that sometimes it's impacted by dealing with other things for example may be discipline could be just management of the building that you would have to be call to to address in the immediate moment um with a curriculum coordinator what you are prioritizing is the instructional leadership component um and so the coordinators to to that point uh and for the teachers they were able to provide meaningful feedback in terms of

042where they were and where they wanted to go in terms of their goals so that communication was critical um in terms of improving instructional practices because they were there for them they instead of trying to find the assistant principal um because the assistant principal or the principal is doing something at that point they knew they had someone that they could ask specifically about instruction or get feedback about their instruction so was very critical in in terms of I think moving Us in to the point that Amita mentioned um it was an opportunity where for me and Amy we we were able to have really deep dialogue in terms of where we felt we were able to go um and now in my role um I'm still doing a lot of that instructional leadership um but

043at this point I am centering more my energy is with trying to get the the structures and systems in math in place and a lot of that has to do with that we have a math curriculum coordinator still there that I can work and get that established and then move to transition to meet the needs of the uh language arts um because that was at prior to was probably in a more stable place but to your point as we move away from that right now where are we going to be in in the language so right now there's been a lot of conversation and and Marie has been you know great in build helping start to build that for language arts or maintain the momentum that we had um with with Amy but yes I

044think to to Matt point is the emphasizing the role um of the instructural leader and how pivotal that was being fulfilled through our coordinators well unfortunately we just voted on the budget coordinator um I'm sure enry is doing everything she can to fill in the gaps where possible and um so is it typical for other districts our size to have a few curriculum coordinators oh yes yeah all right do you want to transition now to the high school writing program and uh I'm going to ask M McKenna to lead this work sure is it okay if I kind of you know like flip around because one of the things that I wanted to do was take parts of this conversation and sort of trace an idea that brings you from the Middle School to the

045high school so you already referenced all the slides anyway right you already read through most of it um I wanted to begin with what Mr Davis was saying about claim evidence reasoning okay so that c the CER method that he made reference to in grade and8 and claim evidence reasoning that is something that is foundational obviously both for the esac but it's also in the common core and one of the questions that you might have in terms of the curriculum coordinator role and just instructional leadership role in general is so what happens to claim evidence reasoning when we get to the high school like don't don't we all Wonder so claim evidence reasoning is the foundation for the ninth grade academic paragraph and if you don't mind you can flip to the um academic paragraph

046work probably yeah here we go excellent thank you um and you'll see the words claim context transition evidence reasoning this particular paragraph is really the instructional Focus for nth grade writing in English language arts and what the teachers will do is they'll use formatives at the beginning of the year for writing instruction see where students are coming in at from grade eight in terms of their own knowledge of claim evidence reasoning and I know there are some eighth grade teachers that use they call it ice twice um for them to use um that claim evidence reasoning like twice throughout like one single paragraph So that paragraphs have more depth and the ninth grade team will take the academic paragraph As we call it in in high school and really make sure that they are focusing

047on clear and accurate sentencing um strong use of Select evidence and developing what we call thought work um in that reasoning piece so that students learn how to choose evidence to have a original and quality analysis um a lot of that original quality analysis is going to come from guided guided instruction on how to think about text there are many many ways in which we do that before the writing process even begins but this particular paragraph is foundational and you can see the little note um at the bottom I believe the the department chair and some of the other members of the department came up with as they were working through this presentation together um this particular formula if you will is the writing foundation not only for English language arts uh the IB extended

048essay in in in English in grade 12 the AP Language and Composition submissions uh for those three test essays that they do in grade 11 the language uh the literature composition essays that they do in grade 12 but also when you're talking about a student in any uh history class writing uh the document based uh answer DBQ or document based to the document based question all or the short actually the SAQ as well can can you make a defensible claim how are you going to pull in some relevant context and what kind of evidence are you going to use so that particular skill that we see in grade seven eight is the foundational skill if we're wondering how these things connect the foundational skill for all academic writing all academic writing at the high school

049level so this particular formula if you will is something that is really really practiced in in in grade nine but then practiced with more more depth and skill in grade 10 and then practice with more sophistication and insight in grades 11 and 12 and obviously what what do we seek to do we seek to get students Beyond paragraph responses into multi-paragraph responses so you'll see in the first quarter for writing instruction for grades nine and 10 particular um you'll see the first quarter is really going to focus on how can I really perfect that one paragraph and then start writing uh multi- paragraphs so uh the Common Core does break writing down into these four main categories research is the only one that's not listed there but that's because the department really believes that we

050do research in almost everything we do um we do have Standalone I guess you could say research projects and assignments but throughout high school students are working through the creative and narrative essays argumentative and analytical essays and inform in informational and explanatory essays and you'll see some of the um terminology that I almost refer to frqs um when I was talking about AP Literature and AP language and certainly um those those things are those same skills are in in the IB in the IB courses as well so um social studies yeah exactly exactly and honestly one of the the biggest I think compliments you can have as as an as an 11th grade highlevel English language arts teacher whether it be IP or or AP it's great when we get students that have taken AP

051US as sophomores because already you know that they are going to have this sort of like level of stamina uh I think that that the AP US at the in grade 10 really just kind of pushes that stamina through because most of the time those students are going to be taking honors English 10 and then apus history 10 and it just gives them a huge foundation for what they need in some of those upper level class writings so we do follow the common core and I think that um one of the benefits of that curriculum coordinator role is that they have the they're dedicated to noticing how your sixth to eth grade team is leveraging the work in the common Corin writing and then they can bring that to 9 to 12 and say hey

052this is what I saw at the middle school yesterday and this is what I'm seeing at the high school today um so these things are happening in both buildings sort of like very significantly I would argue it may be separately now without an LA coordinator however um that that dedicated role just to notice and share and to sort of like uh Propel some some progress in in growth um is always really very nice so I would say that in in all all grades no matter what what teachers you're having like this is the focus one of the most exciting things that I think is a part of our written work is our partnership with Yukon um who really brought us into this idea of multimodal work where a student can can craft a written response

053based on an idea for a writing project that they have but maybe their response isn't only going to be in the extended essay form they may have something else another product that they want to share that represents an idea and that product might go alongside the typical essay or they might be creating a podcast instead um there have been some real outstanding pieces of writing that have been in different forms through our partnership with Ukon um it's it's been really good for us to sort of break through the sort of ceiling of the five paragraph essay especially once our students have really achieved Mastery and then they can go on to do things that are a lot more sophisticated with their writing and I think that we're seeing that even with the work with for

054our debate team and some of like the excellent things that we're seeing coming out of the journalism class sort of like once you have mastered the structure and the formulaic parts of writing then you can start to sort of play around with it and really kind of P push the ground a little bit on what you think that what you think you really can do and that's one of the things that we try very hard to do in writing instruction is give them these these foundations so that you know having the freedom to sort of like break the rules that Dr arrian is talking about and really you're not just a person that studies authors craft you're a person that creates author's craft and I think that that's something that we feel very strongly about

055as a department and as a school so I know I kind of like skipped around a little bit with the slides but I really wanted to illustrate how something as simple as CER really does carry from middle to high school um and those more foundational things that we see going on in grade six seven eight are really helping us at the high school level because when students realize that this is something that they did already and that they're starting to perfect now um I think that work can be a lot more meaningful for them I'm happy to answer any other questions that you have about the slides or about high school English sure I just wanted to back up something that you said and I think that learning all there is to learn get you

056in that place where you know when to break the rules and that's so critical to thinking definitely I think definitely and what one one thing that was like really interesting that I just saw today when I was in a classroom is a teacher was going over some literary devices and having the students just review them very very quickly because it's things that they would have known from over time and then he he gave them a poem um that was originally in Spanish and he wanted them to pick out the devices when the poem is in Spanish before he was giving them the poem in English this is what Dr Emer would call the naive task where they had all their devices with them so they knew what they needed to do but instead of seeing

057the poem in English first he handed them the poem in Spanish because he really expected the fact that they were going to be able to recognize and see some of this work even though they weren't exactly sure of the language per se that they would understand the patterns and I and that's 11th grade um and that's like something that we try to do where we say okay well we're going to give you something that is rather foundational words like metaphor you know we're in this review but then they were being tasked to sort of recognize how they could see this in something that was completely different and a lot of them um maybe knew some of the Spanish words but I guarantee that they weren't fluently reading that poem until they saw in English so

058it was really cool I'd be happy to answer any other questions I kind of around a lot the yeah High School group yeah I have a few um one thing I was wondering about so so here in each grade I can see they have you're incorporating different types of writing um to to me that and that's different from uh middle school and maybe that reflects just like the you know the state of the learner uh but but this also feels like it uh gel's better with having a uh student Community a certain portion of it that's moving in and out of the school system that every year they're getting this variety of research so it's just a a comment I'm not trying to to change anything at either level with that but um my question

059is um so this is sort of like the the curriculum model roughly is that is that a named curriculum model when was it adopted sure yeah we um we did a revision in 2018 so we could map the entire curriculum to the com core um prior to that it was mapped to the uh K2 language arts framework which was the state adopted framework um so what we found was after um the we adopted the Common Core as a state took districts some time to sort of like catch up and take all their existing curricul existing sorry curriculum documents and remap them to the to the Common Core one thing that was nice about the Common Core um is that it did it does scaff F us K to 12 which is great so you may

060have a particular standard in writing that is speaking specifically to sentencing but then uh eventually once you hit maybe grades 10 and 11 they talk about building sentences with um independent clauses and and deepend in Clauses so you have more of a complex sentence so that in and of itself I think was really good because I don't know if the K2 language arts framework did for us what the Common Core did so the entire um Ela curriculum for grades 9 through 12 was remapped in 2018 so what you see with the links on the presentation that that's from that remap since then um we have met periodically to sort of go over sections of the curriculum and just very recently I'd say about two years ago at the end of the um this was post

061was we were just coming out of the pandemic we opened up the curriculum one August um and had people come in to talk about what it was looking like in practice um after we saw some obviously some skill skill skill gaps right because of because of the pandemic so we opened up the curriculum document and did some updated pacing guides um just to kind of get us through those first few years after the pandemic because we wanted to make sure that we weren't going too much too soon before students had time to sort of like backfill some of those skills that they may have been missing so the the the entire document itself is still very much in practice today but is probably due for some updating I would say especially I know in grade

062nine we talk a lot about how so many of the texts that they're reading are quite depressing at times and how we would like more joy in grade nine that's something that comes up all the time yeah so that actually leads right into my next question so uh the the six seventh e8th grade level the mention of Mentor texts for each one uh the mentor text for high school just from listening to my my kids like oh I I remember reading that in high school and this one it it it seems like it's like a stash of 30-year-old books that we still divvying out is there it doesn't seem like there's been much refresh in the The MENTOR text I'm not I'm not questioning the value of of fols like Knight and things like that

063but or um um uh what's the I can't think of it right now but um uh but it it really seems like we've moved a lot we have much more um diverse um um uh you know uh literature now and it and to me it seems like U just by the fact that those books are still from like 20 30 40 years ago seems like it has you missed that uh catching on to like you know the opportunity to have diversity that reflects the the student community and and their different experiences and the world experiences too we were fortunate enough um over the past I would say five years there was a lot of grant money available for books each grade level um in grades 9 through 12 has what we call like our choice

064library and that's where you're going to see some of our much newer and more diverse texts um that when we do units that allow for students to read in book groups per se um some of those some a lot of those texts are being brought to the table which is which is good and but we're still very much committed to uh the classics as well which I do think are going to give students a sort of like stamina and discipline they need as readers so we are trying very hard to to mix it up and make sure that we're doing a balanced approach to having students study things that are a bit more canonical with things that are a lot more new yeah and so it is that canonical thing that I'm pushing back on

065um because you know canical used to be called the Western Canon actually and these are just part of it um it's con canonical just because an authority said this is what we should be reading um it stretches stretches people's Thinking by reaching into what could be thought of as Antiquated views of the world rather than stretch people's thinking into what the world is like now um and I I love I love old literature just love it um however um I I see those text is not bringing kind of the um the Vibrance of A Long Walk to Water for instance would give to uh young readers and and Young Writers so it's out of Step I think somewhat in terms of how they would um be wanting to express themselves yeah I would say I

066I would our current lists are definitely offering a bit of both worlds for sure they are yeah and for and for each grade level do they have like like ninth grade is there a text like 10th grade 11th so what we do is each each grade maintains a sort of a reading list and within that reading list there would be um most of the books on that reading list that are going to be considered sort of like discretionary meaning like teacher choice but then there would be two perhaps uh in each grade level that we know that every ninth grader would read these two books or every 10th grader would read these two books and that's kind of the way we that's kind of the way we've done it do you do you know those

067right now or I mean I don't need that information now but sure so right now I think I think in ninth grade um they are all they are all studying Romeo and Juliet and they have been working with Things Fall Apart by Chen chbe um previous to that I know that they were working with Kill Mockingbird by Harper Lee um and then in in each grade level you would find you know two texts that are kind of like these are the definites that we know that every freshman is getting um and then other than that we have things that are I would say like frequent flyers that we know that most sophomores are reading um and maybe it's ERS game or most sophomores I know one that used to be taught a lot but it's

068not anymore was like Of Mice and Men and that was something that a lot of sophomores are reading I'd say Lord of the Flies is one now yeah that definitely that most sophomores are studying um but then you know you would probably find that with our teachers like they're bringing in a lot of companion texts with books like Lord of the Flies that are making Lord of the Flies feel not so old and stuffy yeah yeah those are all written by men right yes so just just you know that no I know we are well aware and and honestly like there are there are some great books that we have and that we've taught in the past um you know we have beloved by Tony Morrison which is a real real heavy lift for a

069lot of students both in terms of its readability but also mama so there are some books that were purchased a way back that um we loved to teach in the past but now they they have they are so trauma heavy that some that we had to sort of like step away from a little bit when we looked at our audience and what they really wanted so when I talked about in grade nine like wanting more books with joy I wasn't kidding um we we definitely do they definitely do I might have one more I just fish for it though um oh the personal narrative college essay final draft it's it's wonderful absolutely wonderful they do it right like I'm sure people are very attentive if they're flying to college to that section um I was

070just wondering if the teachers find that um the students find that as a um oh my goodness this is something really long that I have to write all of a sudden a a long personal narrative or they already ATT tuned to writing at that length I love this question because for so many of our students getting it at the word count is the hardest it's one of the shortest papers they write so I'm grateful that you think that they think it's very very long in fact when well I don't know I'm asking when most of them draft it because they're only allowed 650 words for the Common App so when most of them draft it it's daunting to cut it back because when when you are a senior in high school or a junior turning

071into a senior you feel like you have this very important thing to say that's like so high stakes they all many of them start over well over 800 words and then it's the work of the of the teacher that's kind of mentoring them through that process to to cut them back to the 650 so I think that if anything the thing that makes that particular piece daunting is the fact that to them it's so meaningful not personally meaningful but scary meaningful someone else will read this and they'll make a decision about me because they're reading this and that I think is the trick of that college sap is that it's high stakes because they care about it more than anything they've ever had to write in high school perhaps oh it is yeah it is

072yeah yeah I was just conferencing with a student um throughout the weekend on on you know in Google about a recent submission and you could tell it it never changes it's there it's still a very daunting thing for them yeah and I'll just put a pitch for and for the The Fitch High School literary magazine reading through that there's there's a lot of that's not just uh writing it's art as well there's a you can obviously there's a lot of talent um at that school right and I think you saw in the newsletter that they were just recognized again oh this year I didn't notice that the National Council of teachers of English gave them another recognition I think it was the superior yeah so we continue to be very proud of Mr janzo and

073all the students that work on the magazine yeah yeah fantastic um I just have really one question um is um like chat chat GPT keeping that in or out of the kids are you guys I mean I know we could have like a long discussion on that um but are you guys kind of are you guys on top of that as far as trying to keep kids away from it where you want them to be away from it and stuff or do you find that it's that kids might be abusing it I think it's it's definitely in conversation and I think that we are definitely finding that students if they are using it they're not using it the right way because I know that there is a small sort of like a PLC professional Learning

074Community like a group of of teachers that are trying to show the students that this can't this the AI could be like a r like a writing partner like a revision buddy like they're they're trying to impress that upon some the students but oftentimes students are looking at that tool as sort of a quick fix for submission when they're stressed and they need something handed in in a timely manner and that's when we get to issues of academic integrity and I am seeing I every time I visit um a college campus to see one of my own kids I'm always looking at The Writing Center sort of like message boards to see what they're messaging out about chat GPT and I do think that on on University campuses this is very much a conversation still

075not oh this is how we're all handling it or it's more of how are we going to how are we going to handle it and what does this look like on the other side so I think I think that that conversation is beginning I think that conversation is ongoing and I think that one of the things that we're seeing in the classroom is a lot more attention to when students are creating a piece having them create it in real time in front of us so that we can see a paper whatever that paper might be a DBQ or creative piece for M FL um so we can see it sort of from its beginning into its final product that I know that my students paper started out as an idea and I know that idea

076because I saw it when they had that Aha and they knew that they were going to run with that idea so the more we make writing present in the classrooms the the more that that sort of threat I guess you could say starts to kind of peel away because really as an as an instructor of writing your job I think is to to Mentor a student away from that process because it can be a tool as a revision buddy but it should not be a creation tool and that's what we're trying to get students away from is using that as something that's going to create what you're going to submit um and again the Temptation is out there because the access is so immediate it it's work it's work yeah quick followup uh the tragic

077thing about chat gbt and others sometimes is that their starting point is is flawed and and they they can't see that right because they're just learning as well um I know that at my level as well or my teaching level uh so you mentioned briefly The Writing Center and um fit has a class like that teaches students how to then help other students I think at least in the high school but maybe the middle school too how to how to how to write how I I think they would love to see a model like that extend to the middle school but it is in the high school right now and so that's like maybe like I don't know 20 students a year 10 or so that as many as we can get as many as

078we can get it depends upon enrollment and then they they learn how to they learned how to um help others with writing correct and that that course was all also created um with our partnership to Yukon um we worked with Yukon in developing the course and now I think was just last year that it became a Yukon class as well so the students get Yukon credit for taking it so yeah yeah it's a great class it'll sound like I was fishing because I I I work for Yukon but um I was wondering I can see how some forms of how the Yukon partnership Works obviously with the early college experience and the um The Writing Center um does it take the form also of workshops up there um uh student teachers uh teachers uh coming

079down yeah every every October um Yukon sponsors a student Writing Center conference yeah and we went a few prior to covid a number of us went just to see what it was all about and that was when the idea to actually create the course um for Fitch came about so we went through the curriculum writing timeline steps and all that other stuff um and then and worked with um I think it was Tom Dean at the time it might still be and he kind of partnered with us in in in creating and writing the curriculum for that class so the the partnership to to go to Yukon student Writing Center conference each October is like still on the table especially because now we actually have our own class we would' like to see The Writing

080Center expand into a physical space in the school right now it's a class where students are pushing in to other classes to to assist with other classes but if we had more enrollment and more involvement we'd like to have like a fully functioning and staffed Writing Center in the school just like you would see on a college campus we just need the growth thank you y you have any more right thank you all very much yes this is very informative thank you really appreciate it yes thank you it's a pleasure after doing all the budget to get back to what the essence of teaching is I think we're gonna be presenting one more thing today and that's uh on awarding credit at at the semester point so currently Fitch High School awards credit at the

081end of the year so um basically that means that you know the the full course of the year they have zero credits for that let's just say English or that math class and then in June once they they pass the final and so forth you get the average of everything and they get either a zero credit or a full credit and uh what we're we're moving towards is awarding credits half a credits at the semester point so for example if a ninth grade English student were to pass the first semester they would get rewarded half half credit then and then when they uh pass this the second semester they would get that full credit the two hals to make the full um and our reasoning for that uh we just have some bullet points here

082that that we're going to go over um and then I can we can answer any questions that you have about the the first bullet point is really you know we've made this huge push for our kids to take the most rigorous class that they can um challenge themselves as much as they can U but unfortunately not every kid is successful in that you know when you push yourself and they had at times nowhere to go so by awarding that half credit at the semester point it's almost like a semester 2 parachute where if they took AP English let's say 11 uh that would be an opportunity at the semester point they would earn that that credit say they they didn't get a grade that they really wanted but they worked their butt off they get

083the half credit and then they could they could move down to the the uh College English 11 course um at that semester point and then get a half credit of each um the second thing is uh it allows for flexibility we have a transient population so with students moving uh back and forth and so forth earning that half credit uh at the semester point just makes it easier either to place them in another class for semester two or if they're leaving us uh their transcript already show um the half credit for that that first semester um bullet number three creating hope we have students uh as every high school has students that may have start off very poorly they may had a quarter one where they they score even below a 50% and they get

084to a point where where there there's no opportunity for Success even if they were to get an A for quarter three and quarter four there's really a point of no return but by offering semester credits they could faill for the first half of the year but then get that Fresh Start in in January when second semester starts and they could earn a half credit and then only need to make up the the half credit from the beginning of the year if that makes sense um so just creating fresh fresh hope Fresh Start um where they they can they have a new opportunity to to earn credit for the second semester um in in turn what that does is in summer school if they need credit recovery they don't need to recover a full year of

085a course anymore they can just recover either the semester 2 portion or the semester 1 portion that they that they didn't attain um this in turn makes graduation track more attainable for our students um whereas if it's all or none and they they get zero credits for a course even if they did well for half the time um or something say they did really well first semester and then something happened in their lives and they ended up getting affected by that in the second semester um they don't have to go back and make up stuff that they they they really recovered I think it honestly doesn't make sense if they they learn the material but they're not getting half of credit for the material that they learned and showed that they learned um and hence

086they they were able to uh be on track to graduate uh more more often and then really the last one is is it cleans up the transcript especially during the school year A lot of times we're sending our transcripts out in colleges it shows right now a bunch of zeros for that year which is really confusing to both our students and to our our uh the colleges that they're going to whereas if we award that half a credit it'll show up on that transcript in their their senior year and and it'll just make a fresher cleaner more official looking transcript than the one we currently have and that was honestly one of the the points that that started this conversation was last year we were looking at our transcript and trying to clean it up

087so that it didn't show all these zeros because right now it's showing the zeros because we're not awarding that credit till the end of the year whereas now in January they get that half credit it'll Now update as a half credit there and it won't look as as confusing with the zeros on the transcript and that's really uh you know the topics that that that uh and the reasoning why we want to move move to this this manner um other school I know Stonington definitely uh they do this as as my my my sons go to to Stonington and and at the semester point they're getting they're getting that half credit for each of their courses even if it's a full year course and if I can add I I know that you looked into

088ston agent but I believe a number of schools around the state probably more so than not now uh follow this model yeah do you have to then like redo the the the course the plan of studies you know because you've got all these one credit and half credit courses that everything been become a half credit course what no you I mean you would just it would still be a full credit course you're just get it's when you're attaining that credit so it's still English English nine still worth a full credit but you get half Credit in the fall and half Credit in the spring to make up for that full credit um so it would really be the same exact thing it's just when we're actually placing the credits into their their transcript their course

089history and then like for you mentioned earlier for students who may have say AP English will take and there's too much uh so it gives them an easier opportunity to to go on a different course for that exactly I mean one of the difficult things right now is if a kid were to switch from a AP for the fall and then go down to a college level like let's say English 11 AP English 11 in the fall then they they convert down I honestly don't think it's even fair for that kid because then on a transcript it doesn't show that they actually took that AP class for half the year it just shows College 11 for the full year and and that their grade for college 11 is getting averaged with a with an AP

090level course which is absolutely unfair so that that that already happens to time but it just doesn't reflect what happened yes y to their disadvantage can I give another example specifically in the social studies Department we um encourage our students to take AP government and many do but as you know many do not are not successful successful so at the semester Point students are able to if they pass has to get credit which is equivalent to a Civic grade Civic is required course to graduate so then that AP government for at the semester grade becomes their credit their civics class and so making it obtainable to graduate so presently right now if we have a kid that struggles I just want to reiterate because it's a great point I think it's one of our our

091most glaring points is kid takes AP Government the fall they struggle they don't pass they end up dropping the AP government class and now they have to take a civics class to make up that half credit whereas if they just persevered struggled through and got a even if they got a d at least they've attained their their Civics requirement um by getting that semester point they don't have to go back and now take another civics class on top of what they they struggled through in in that AP Gov class often their trade-offs is there any advantage to having the full year credit that that this would I mean it seems like you're saying cost benefit this is the way to go anything one one benefit might be if a kid really really does absolutely poorly

092quarter one then they they might suffer be they might not be able to attain that that semester course you know like sometimes you could give them the hope of all right quarter 1 you you got a 20 quarter you know at least you have three more quarters to it's not going to be as detrimental towards earning that full credit but yeah just guessing as that more common at the Freshman level coming in getting such a low you just start I don't know yeah yeah it probably is but so so maybe that one could stay that way no that still wouldn't help out as many kids as it would help to be you know at I personally think you know semester point you you get a new start and and or you just you're really trying

093to get that kid to do the best they can that quarter one so that they can still have hope for for for getting in a better place um to getting the half credit but what it does is it it allows the kid to for like we said before that fresh start and you can still have an opportunity earn that half credit and then you only have to make up the half credit from doing so poorly quarter one does it stress out kids somehow getting twice as many maybe they don't even know really know I don't I think it would create less stress by having them you know they they know that they can get some credit they can get some credits it's really yeah it'll help help kids attain some credit throughout especially we we

094we now are requiring 27 credits to graduate this is an opportunity for them to get those half of credits where they've earned them really Tech I mean that that's my my my biggest push on this is they ear if they if they do well for a semester they really have earned half that credit you know so why are we taking that away from them for something that they've they've already earned it shouldn't be all or nothing and this this instance we're giving them something or they're earning something that was the point that I was going to make is you know we're giving a lot of examples here about students at the upper levels who you know may be struggling in an AP or an IB class and then they want to transition to a different

095level and I think that's um more of the exception than the rule in this case you know we're certainly with making this move not advocating for students um at the in our upper or our most challenging classes um to take steps down you know we want to challenge all of our students and so I don't believe that's you know that's really what the purpose here is I think it's really to support the fact that um there are 27 credits now for graduation that's a very um challenging I would say amount of number number of credits the state department of Ed only requires 25 so you know fit going above and beyond you want to make sure that student have every opportunity that they can to work toward that 27 and and earn as much as

096they can um and in a do so in a efficient way and just to backtrack if you look at bullet number three think about that piece right there I think second semester this year maybe begin around January 26 imagine being at January 26 as's A nth grader having Haven given up already saying well I guess I have to wait till next year you know what I mean because a lot of them a lot of them do come in a little bit wig Wiggly and a little bit not ready for high school that happens it's ninth grade right but the idea that you can at at the midyear Mark say you know something you can have a fresh start that that means something to us you know let's let's let's begin again let's go to Falcon

097Academy let's ask for CTL help and then all of a sudden that credit that half credit is attainable it's a mindset thing for a student that I think we can't underestimate how impactful that could be on January 26 when you still have half the year to go it's a big long stretch and it also helps teachers with classroom management when that those students now have hope and now have an opportunity again versus I'm just GNA fail the course anyway so I'm not going to pay attention I'm not GNA be engaged and I'm GNA fool around or be distraction to the rest of the class now they have a purpose again so and just a quick one I don't think we got this sheet is that correct no these were just talking points that uh Principal

098Brown gave to me so I believe when I even though I sent them to um Erica she didn't include them in your packet because um I think she just thought they were talking points rather than his present than a formal presentation and so for our minute sake we just email them that way we can get it in the in the minutes because I think it's helpful you have them though correct from last month I last month yeah have any questions all right I have a few um so you answered my other schools thing um the cow so um I'll just speak from a personal um thing that that happened is my daughter got she's she's required to get a certain amount of A's and she got an 89 or something like that and I said

099well you know and that's how the first semester averaged out and I said well you're you're G to have to get like a 92 now or something um you know 91 to to average that out for the second half of the year um so the calculated grade now would change though right so so would the so would you get a B+ and then if you get an A minus now all of a sudden your calculated grade would be no I think if it's a full year course it's still going to calculate as 10% for each of the exams 20% for each of the quarters and that that would be the yearly you still have semester grades just like right now on the transcript shows a semester grade so you get your semester 1 grade semester

1002 grade and your year-long grade so that could still average out so there's still going to be a yearlong grade credit it's just when that credit gets awarded to the student will be at the semester point if they if they got a passing grade for semester one they'll get the half a credit it was a credit not has nothing to do with the final crit all right all right well that's good that we're not getting into that yeah um the uh all right yeah end of year grade um how about uh the possibility for kids finishing early because of awarding because I know that that kids have finished early um especially ones that were through Co by taking a lot of Apex and things like that um are we gonna are we looking at possibility

101for that happening more I don't think it would happen that much more with my personally with the reason being I mean there's still going to be required four years of English four years of math so you do have the C you know the a few kids where however they got to that point where they have an opportunity a lot of times I feel like some of those kids I mean how do they end up with getting those four credits that early they they they'd have to complete the year so um in order to have your four years you're gonna have to even if you earn a half credit you're going to have to finish the remaining portion of of like a an English class because that is a state requirement so there may be some

102students um that are you know impacted or benefit in that way I don't know if you'd say benefit or impacted but I think it's going to be very few overall it would have to still be a situation where Apex or something like that they transition in or yeah they move from somewhere else where they with the whole Co thing I think there was a lot of Apex getting credits that way so maybe that was a maybe that's behind us now that possibility but I know of kids that did that um um um any your grade oh um I can hardly read my writing so I'm sorry um uh when are we going to be introducing this new plan and for who I would like to start introducing it next year um and my hope would

103be for grades 9 through um as long as there's no logistical things that I'm not thinking of in terms of like the back end with power school and so forth I my hope would be just do it next year for everybody are there any reasons that um kids might feel it it's like it's a disadvantage or not that you can think of I mean it seems like it's going to be a great Advantage for the kids that are having a tough time um which is maybe that's great reason in the first place to do this yeah like is there going to be any I mean I just haven't thought about it that much so yeah I honestly not for for students for some students I guess I the I mean the one I explained before

104you know we might have to look into that like if a kid were to start with a you know like having that opportunity of having three full quarters to to make up a grade in order to get a passing grade I guess is I can't really think of any other all right personally I can just speak to you know the place in which I used to work did this uh had done this for a number of years I think even predating that I worked in the district 11 years they had been doing it the entire time I I was there I can't think of one example and there may be one but I can't think of one example in which a student was negatively impacted by this process or procedure it always helped students and

105and your question in the comment about this is this is about awarding credits right this isn't as much about like GPA or anything like that if yeah um yeah just going back yeah it's almost unfair what practicing it the other way I think if you if you ear if you earn a half a credit you should get that half a credit I think we have to always remember that you know the process of awarding credit and these car units that was developed like seven like the 1800s or something it's such a long ago thing that was system that was put in place that it's uh a lot of times you know really looks it's looked at as very Antiquated you know seat time when credits are awarded so I think the fact that the high

106school is thinking a little bit more creatively about how to support students and I know that that's very important to this board in particular um you know as having myself um sat through a number of our recent board meetings on the budget and that was such an emphasis on supporting students that um you know have a variety of needs I do feel like this is in alignment with that philosophy or approach and just procedurally my understand since this is labeled as an update um I don't think the board would drill down to this level like this is in in your peer viiew as as a school system did a little bit of research on this because I wanted to make sure um and so this is not uh because there's no policy associated with this

107there's no necessarily um something that you need to vote on or that the Board needs to vote on um but I want I felt like when I was speaking with the high school team it'd be something that would be important for at least this curriculum committee to be aware of and to have some you know um some ability to talk with the team kind of understand the thinking and then ask any any questions because sometimes when people ask questions it helps us as a group to think a little bit about oh we didn't think about this maybe this possibility or the impact here but um yeah it isn't something that um you know in in my research needs to go for approval um because there's no policy associ with that yeah thank you thank you

108for asking yeah anything else yeah um I appreciate you bringing this to us because it's nice to know about it and I trust that you're doing um the best thing for our kids so I appreciate that thank you um all right yes um moving on um review of the referral tracking sheet we get to say once completed what's we get to say once completed because of you all thank you guys really appreciate thank you is yours dated December 24th all right so we had you something up dated I have I have a pile of papers and uh when I saw that I'm like did it get mixed up and I'm on the wrong one um so uh do uh do you guys have any comments for new stuff we get to get the this one

109off right the first one yeah are you are you comfortable that we completed what you're were hoping to complete for that Dr arrian or would you like to keep it on I've never going to get what I want I going to put a Roman numeral to say that again I'll just put a Roman numeral to with a new [Laughter] referral well it sounds like we're going to be looking at that curriculum next year maybe yes excuse me absolutely we will be um as you know Dr arriman or you probably remember I like you former English language arts teacher this is something that's very important to me many of the points that you brought up regarding uh um the or concerns regarding the integrated uh approach to grammar instruction for example um you know concerns me

110as well makes me feel a little certain type of way and so that'll be something that um hopefully very soon we can we can look at um I think as I mentioned when I started you know the big priority just a couple months ago big priority was certainly looking at the or monitoring the implementation of our new K5 program it makes sense that you know this is going to be a next step for us uh in addition I certainly have been listening to uh the comments of a number of the board members uh regarding math instruction and that has been a focus for me um this last couple of months as well and so I've been actively working with our math special lists both at the middle school and the elementary level um and there's

111more to come on that so quite a bit of work to do but I'm excited to take on the challenge and and know that we will absolutely make progress all right so well itive to take it off because I'm just wondering if we could I I just wonder if we could put take the this one is review of English language arts curriculum writing six through 12 which I feel like we did but maybe we put on a companion new one about um updates to the English language arts curriculum um six or 12 yeah that might be or or if you'd like to focus just in middle school we could we could kind of narrow it down to yes oh yeah um because maybe we could do that um add an item for I'll let you

112state exactly how you like it to be if we did a six to right because I'm really the one I really worried about is the eighth grade okay yeah and maybe you and I can sit down absolutely yeah because I know that you saw the the document that I gave to to Adrian but you and I maybe could sit down and talk about that I look forward to it okay all right so with that so let's make it six through eight and then the next time we meet we can after you and I talk okay yeah I I want to emphasize you'll have to give me like a little bit of time though um in terms of making you know making any changes okay yeah and and that would would that be reading and writing

113because we have a no no just no just uh writing okay actually just six to eight writing okay um actually we could leave it six through eight because you would have to look at but really it's the the eighth grade that that needs to be concentrated on because that's the one that really gets you would it be possible to post I know that it's on the tracking sheet and um you know me being new here I don't know how often things from the tracking sheet are reviewed but um can see yeah well that's why I wanted to bring that forward but you know to maybe postpone give me about a year so that I can again continue to kind of work with um with the with the Department see exactly you know we got to

114see a little piece of where they are with with writing but I need to really get into um those meetings with the Department really see more about what they're doing reading wise as well um because they don't teach you know some some school districts have a reading class and a writing class their their approach is integrated and um just get a sense of of their work and um think about develop a plan for how we're moving forward so I'd hesitate to keep it uh on the tracker for something that we're going to do this year when I know you know there's only a couple more months left in the school year I know I'm going to need more time yes and um how do you want to do that so maybe you and I can

115just sit down yes absolutely okay and um because if you have those concerns I mean they're legitimate concerns I see it at the college level so um I agree yeah well let's put it on hopefully we can at least touch on it um before yeah November let's do six or eight okay okay okay and and that would writing would include the science of the language okay is that all right with you and you absolutely yeah okay and and I don't have any that I want to add at this moment but looking through the list um if if the timing is appropriate i' I'd like to get the um Adrian one the reading and writing K through 5 up relatively soon but also that financial literacy update because of the um you know doesn't have to

116be next meeting either of those but the but U those are the ones I see that i' really like to hit upon within this school year yeah um I was I'm glad you mentioned that I was going to bring that up as well in case the um I know there's some interest in the board as a whole um getting some some feedback on how things are going with the you know with the transition um and I imagine we're going to have to bring it to the whole board because I think people are just generally interested yeah so that might might end up being that way it would be a committee of the whole for the the talk to B and see um because that I was gonna ask to bring it up here if we

117don't have enough time to get to it soon with the whole board was kind of my thought on that and has there been enough time to have some I guess I guess we we are looking for an update uh or early return say I think an update is is fair you know um anytime that you bring in a new program curriculum research shows that it takes three to five years to um really settle in have an impact now would I like to see something sooner than three to five years absolutely like to see something this year but it's been since late August early September and now it's early March so um in terms of the data we're seeing some differences in the data in in a positive way but ultimately it's going to take us

118a little bit of time possibly you know we we won't see those Smarter Balance scores for this year until July or so and what those results will will say you know I I can't tell at this point it's very very early for for me at this early stage I'd be more interested in very interested in hearing what the the the teachers uh think about the the transition and you know just that experience level help and and you know that is really interesting because it varies yeah um and I try to talk to teachers about it all the time what do you think about um you know what do you think about the change in the literacy program Whitten and wisdom um how is it going for you and some some teachers you know have really

119positive things to say some are not as happy with the changes and some really have mix depending upon they think one part of it is good but maybe some other things are challenging for students ultimately I'm really I know I'm really pleased when I walk into a classroom now again I have this background of a high school English teacher so when I walk into a Kindergarten class and they're using word terms like Exposition or um students at the elementary level are doing a Socratic seminar these are things I was teaching normally I was used to teaching 10th graders so if I see that at the elementary level it shows me that um the in terms of the expectations that we have for our students at the youngest levels um those are being set very early

120and that are then middle and high school students Boy by the time they come up they're going to be you know what what we can expect of them then it's going to be really amazing stuff but it's gonna take some time to sleep in they'll be better in Playdoh yeah if they get that sure sure yeah it's successful going that far um yeah all right um yeah so um maybe we could talk and talk to Bev about way to bring that up because I um it was something that everybody was um very concerned about last year there was a lot of discussion and stuff so just some kind of an update I think that's completely reasonable yeah um and is there anything else that you guys would like to see sooner than later on this

121list that financial literacy because of the and I assume that means mostly the high school level because of the new state requirement I think it's been um I guess next year might be the first graduating class that was would have had it required I know it's not this year it's a class of 2027 okay um I believe it is okay okay but um we I know that we have it in place right now at fit for our students and so um you know it's I think that's good to have it earlier than than later um some districts are still kind of struggling to get that in place like who's going to teach it how are we going to balance all the sections to make sure that you know all of our students at the high

122school level um are enrolled in that class um I can double check on the on the year but I thought it was 2027 I do know that we have a number we have all of our students that are scheduled in it now and the high school is constantly that's something that they're aware of was recently in with the Department chairs um and uh Principal Brown and the rest of the leadership team they were talking about um anticipating scheduling and the students enrolling in uh selecting their courses and this was a a financial literacy was something that came up as a part of that discussion yeah thank you and I I would believe your number is over mine um for sure but um and then through the budget process they they' come up um some questions

123about are we adequately staffed I know we're out ahead because we had the course already courses already on the books for this which is very nice yeah I think um you know CTE teachers are or teachers in this kind of content area they're difficult to find there's not many out there um some of our universities in the area do not produce a lot of uh teachers from this with this certification but from what I understand right now uh you know I don't want to speak the high school certainly put in for an additional teacher they feel like that would enhance our offerings and allow maybe smaller class sizes in in a financial literacy class or allowed us allow us to um have one business teacher dedicated to this and then uh another business teacher be

124able to teach additional courses but right now what they have they're they're okay with where they are um so we'll we'll I guess we can talk about getting that one yeah sure you know between those two um and then uh the review of program of studies is that one um just supposed to come up every once in a while is that the way that I even know you know why why that one's on which one review program of studies for GMS and FHS I don't even know what that means it's a the program of studies is the the I I got it wrong I was calling it a plan of study but that's the list of all the courses um that that are on the books at least um I feel like we we sort

125of some of these other ones we sort of chip away at that task that larger task yeah and it's it's Anonymous too I know that's what I was need it but I feel like it was there as a placeholder so we just kind of keep up on stuff and that next one development of schedule for curriculum updates on all subjects it seems like that'll I think I remember how that developed uh or how that emerged and that is we were hearing that uh courses were offered that were like what on Earth that's where that came from you just like culum updates in all subjects yeah there were just so many courses that were just they appeared to be time fillers I don't like English or no I wish I could see the the the list

126of of but I know that's how it emerged it was like scratching your head about what is this that's what that meant maybe that could be combined with a review of a program of studies we can look at the high school one month and the in the Middle School the next I know that the high school has done a significant amount of work to update their program of studies and also make it a little bit more Dynamic so to speak it's it's I know it's online um students can you know it used to be you got a physical book or a piece of paper and people you know go through it and I think now you know um the high school has done some work with our communications director to kind of to make it

127a little bit more updated I think it was part particularly at the the middle level the middle I think I I think it emerged from you know the the newly created um construction or um yeah Project Lead the Way has a lot of interesting course titles yeah you know and maybe maybe we can just bring back the principle of the sister and just say you know what are because when we heard the coures it was like I'm going to look into that I can't be more specific about that okay but I think we should put put that back on the Rost so you want to look specifically at the middle school program correct okay did that clear things up I did for anarie I'm good yeah all right um all right and these other things

128we can um do so discussion of honors classes beyond the 10th grade um do you guys feel like we covered that well enough in January where we can go it yeah so with that I can't remember what the ACT I know we naturally when you talk about honors classes you're talking about IB and AP um what was the actual topic in that meeting I can't remember so much better I think I think it was H honors honors classes at the upper level yeah yeah yeah I think it was the or the absence thereof in in ela right is well I think it was brought about by the the ELA there was an approval for a course is that there was an approval for a course that that they wanted to have which would have been

129instead of an i it was an IB honors level class IB and yeah and then in response um the high school came and did a presentation on why um why we don't have honors courses Beyond the 10th grade yeah well that question was um up um before that um 916 yeah that question has been on the radar for a little while but be probably before you know before your that it that refreshed it I think I would say that discussion um but um yeah so it would really be I mean I think it was mostly for ELA yeah was yeah we did we did have it at least on that I'm just looking back that January 16th meeting it does say discussion on honors level courses Beyond 10th grade and weal I remember yeah we

130talked about math and science I'd say we could call that done right now and then if it wants to be brought up again yeah that's kind of what I was thinking so we'll say that it's completed in January yeah whatever that me January 16th maybe yes it's January uh 16th yeah um math curriculum um and I have a feeling um oh that's Bev Bev's referral I have to ask her about what she what the um the idea was on that one it makes sense regardless it's like at some level we we don't have that much math in here of course it's a place where the school system half the students struggle all right can we move on we comfortable on this or future meeting topics yeah kind I guess we kind of Blended Blended that

131yeah yeah we did we have a future meeting topic out of that six writing oh did you want to do that right away or or I'd kind of that is a future meeting topic yeah it's on the schedule I'm just going through the um agenda oh oh but is I wouldn't want that to be the next one our next meeting oh no no no if we're done with the referral tracking sheet yeah future meeting time right and that could be anywh so what what's our next meeting that's my question that's what are we doing the next meeting yeah yeah um I would say financial literacy or k to5 Ela depending on discussion with Dev if and maybe oh yeah because it could go to Cal if the if the K5 literacy is going to cow

132yeah um okay but either way I would say that we should get financial literacy what would that be it would be by May no later than May or would you rather have it sooner than that no that's fine it's just yeah yeah all right so we'll put those as one and two um yeah um but we can I mean we can we can talk about that too right on whether you know how quickly you can be ready to talk about it okay so and those were the electives call what's that those were the elective at the middle low I think that's what we were talking about we were talking about cor I'm leaping back the program of studies was electives at middle school as I recall yeah it wasn't the core courses so all right

133all right so so am Mar is going to take a look at the and maybe bring that back to us the uh electives okay sure all right you can put that on future oh right yes we we could just put that as item of um Middle School electives offerings I can say one of my kids took one of the a course which I thought when they had it's like that's a a really odd name for a course that ended up I think it's may projectly lead the way but ended up like actually teaching real life skills and was their favorite course favorite teach teacher uh just give me strength huh give me strength yeah well I mean everything from uh um how to handshake and uh and how to introduce yourself and I teach that

134at M yeah so yeah all right um with that being said you have something to say motion to ad second all right