D65 Board of Education Regular Board Meeting - October 26, 2020

001so [Music] okay i'm sending you another oh okay mm-hmm foreign good evening uh apologies for our um slightly delayed start um [Music] i uh adila can you do the roll call sure mendoza no um okay here hill pen yeah kim oh hernandez we'll give her a moment lindsay ryan here kim here tanya booty here so i call this meaning to order at 7 11 p.m in compliance with the governor's orders tonight our meeting will be held virtually um joey um you have the next motion yeah i move that the board of education approved tonight's meeting agenda as presented mendoza yes cartha yes hilpern yes kim yes hernandez yes lindsay ryan yes tanya buddy yes all right thank you we will move on to um our district update and starting with uh board and superintendent comments

002um i believe we have a few different board comments this evening i'm going to kick it off and then um i'll invite my colleagues here to share your statements as well um four years ago when i came to the board it was common knowledge and unfortunately accepted as a norm some very tragic numbers in fact we were the best in the nation at black white achievement gap and opportunity hoarding our data indicated a systematic hostility and neglect towards the education of black and brown children with a four-year gap in opportunity to achieve for black and brown students in comparison to white students this gap further defied educational research as it was not associated associated with household income one could only come to one of two conclusions either black and brown students can't achieve or district

00365 was not adequately educating them systematic neglect additionally our discipline data at the time indicated that black and brown students and those with ieps were disproportionately suspended at two to five times the rate of white students again one could come to only one of two conclusions that black and brown students and those with ieps as groups were anti-social and unable to do school or school was systematically hostile to how these students showed up culturally behaviorally etc as a child who once experienced similar institutional hostility and from a well-meaning diverse school district in a university town as a former teacher turned academic who returned to graduate school to better understand how systems run by well-meaning people could create so much neglect and harm i could not sit idly by because of my academic background and the

004thoughtful and culturally relevant research of many academics before me indeed 60 years of thoughtful research i knew to look beyond these numbers and the white supremacist capitalistic blame of children and families and instead to look at systematic design still though the guiding belief at the time in district 65 at its highest levels at the highest levels of our institution was that explicit naming of racial equity was divisive and trainings that did so should be avoided though i argued at the time and still to this day that that stance is the reason for the hostile and neglectful outcomes that we saw because of the simplistic view there was no commitment to do policy making through an equity lens or build explicit effort to repair systematic harm i say all of that to name personally my experience

005as a district 65 of district 65 as a black queer cis woman and mother it was systematically oppressive and exclusionary neglectful and hostile despite that fact where despite the fact that my first interaction was from a perspective of a seat of power the anti-blackness was constant and painful to see hear and feel it left me with two options to assimilate in order to be included or to adopt and preach an anti-racist vision i chose the latter but it took a toll tremendous discomfort constant stress and vigilance the only thing that saved me from being enveloped or crushed by the oppressiveness of the system as i first experienced it was my ability to name the conditions that surrounded me and to demand action on on the short and long-term opportunities for change as they appeared that

006our community that in our community that stepped up to the anti-racist challenge without the protection of the academic knowledge i i would have been silenced erased and blamed and shamed and none of us would be any closer to the anti-racist schools and community that we seek and deserve the knowledge to name and change harmful conditions that percolated throughout our education system through additions and changes to the board including board leadership through training of all staff through community member education has facilitated the opportunity for our community to be better more full one that is filled with connection love and fuller live residents who are able to share with one another their full and true selves and make room for and benefit from each other's full spectrum according to for to for a forensic legal firm blog

007on september 22nd 2020 president donald trump issued a controversial and in my words fascist um not forensics words executive order combating offensive and quote-unquote anti-american race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating by federal contractors and recipients of federal grants including schools colleges and universities the order essentially bans racial and sex sensitivity trainings for employees of federal contractors students and recipients of certain grant funds if the trainings address systematic racism sexism implicit bias and other common topics like those that we do in district 65 schools that endorse such concepts in their curricula are also at risk of losing related federal grant funds it has been argued that this order is a violation of institutions first amendment rights and it's still unclear how it will be executed but the intent to censor empowering and liberatory education is clear

008we as a community have been able to access our true gift of diversity because of the research done in academia to name the conditions of anti-black racism and how and how to deconstruct systematic dehumanization for centuries race and racism were defined by academics and research done on black people and about black people in institutions that excluded black people and black thought the origins of critical race theory are in the intellectual labor and inclusion of black peoples and academia and the trump administration is seeking to redefine language and research with a mythical characterization of race and racism it is a fundamentally anti-black and anti-intellectual fascist action to attempt to malign critical race theory as illegal this declaration is tantamount to suggesting that black liberation in which all of our liberation is bound is illegal it is

009meant to rescind the powerful and beautiful relationships that racial equity work has opened up for our community the gift of truly knowing seeing and making space for one another the tapestry of our humanity that we have access the pride that we can all have in knowing that the moral arc of our universe is bending in the right direction our racial equity work is a model for our nation it is data driven it has been transparent it has been inclusive and it has produced results the changing of experiences the changing of trajectories and closing of the gap of disparate outcomes in discipline rather than being targeted by censorship we should be studied for replication a community please hear me this summer we received the first explicit threats for our racial equity work but the attack has

010been raging for for three years now with more subtle attempts at intimidation and distraction let me be clear we will not be deterred our values for uplifting all children the racial equi racially equitable systems of education is steadfast and long as a representative of you our community we are committed to holding up our community's highest values but there is a threat at hand we as a community will need to be equally steadfast in this fight let us be brave let us be bold and let us be united and with all that said vote thank you yes biz thank you did i hope can i follow you up anya you may um i want to start by acknowledging the incredible work being done by our educators our superintendent cabinet and principals are having to pivot and

011pivot and pivot again they are tasked with constantly reimagining and contingency planning every day they've been incredibly dedicated thoughtful and innovative as they give so much of themselves to develop plans around every hurdle only to have the obstacle course change again and again and again in this pandemic our teachers social workers and staff are finding ways to put their own fears and stresses aside and connect and be there for our children in ways that are so critical all while working to master new ways of operating i know we are all ready for a change of what seems like never-ending loss loss of loved ones loss of income loss of stability loss of certainty loss of normalcy the losses are too many to count our lack of national management of this pandemic continues to make everyone's

012role caregivers parents and educators harder the lack of leadership provides us with disappointing news as positivity rates surge around us and we must face the reality that all of our planning and dedication that just some things remain out of our control well if our focus has had to be and will continue to be on providing the best remote education possible and reopening schools when it is safe to do so it's important that we don't lose sight of the other challenges that face our ability to provide an equitable experience for all of our students it is difficult in this year in the midst of the pandemic to process all the threats to our values it's hard to focus on every attempt by white supremacy to maintain itself and every harm being done to those targeted by

013its agenda however i want to take a moment to call our attention to the recent executive order that both characterizes and threatens our equity work i won't ask you to listen to all of the feelings i have about this executive order as an equity diversity and inclusion consultant and professor because nobody wants to attend this board meeting for days however my professional lens does inform my concern as a board member we know that racism and white supremacy are highly adaptive we have seen hundreds of years of its ability to adapt to resistance whenever there has been progress in making visible its insidious ways it finds a way to survive by providing a more palatable version of itself in recent years the evidence of white supremacy has been so extensive that the amount of people willing

014to acknowledge its existence and harm has grown this critical mass of folks who are able to identify and articulate how white supremacy and anti-black racism is working in all of our systems has create created a familiar tension when faced with the choice of taking responsibility for its harm and investing and dismantling its influence and engaging in reconciliation and reparation the alternative is to minimize misinform rationalize obfuscate and ridicule enter this executive order racism and white supremacy are the problem teaching and learning about racism and white supremacy are not the executive order is rooted in falsehoods but i want to highlight too the order's fundamental characterization of the work being done to educate on issues like systemic racism and how it's embedded in our system in the u.s is flawed it states this ideology is rooted

015in the pernicious and false belief that is a that america is an irredeemably racist and sexist country in district 65 we would have never started the equity diversity and inclusion work being done if we felt our community was irredeemable as a school district we do not provide trainings and learning opportunities because we believe there can be no redemption no reparation no healing and no progress the work itself is rooted in both a collective responsibility to improve and correct past wrongs as well as an optimism that this can be accomplished the order also states they are designed to divide us and to prevent us from uniting as one person is one people in pursuit of one common destiny for our great country it has long been the tool of white supremacy to identify those that resist

016its harms those that expose its cruelties as divisive shedding light on an oppressive system is only divisive if once people are informed they choose to maintain and elevate those oppressive systems it is only divisive when some people make decisions that it's healthy and appropriate to separate themselves from those that have malicious intent while those that support white supremacy fight to keep it in place the reality is the conversation about systemic racism and white supremacy that is discussed in the edi trainings is not an attack on people but an exposure of systems that cause harm these trainings strive to illuminate the disparate experiences people are having in our schools and provide tools for all of us to consider how their own perspective may differ from the experience of others our trainings seek to build understanding and

017capacity to serve all students because our data has clearly demonstrated our inability to do so equity is at the center of our learning and there is no way to achieve equity without acknowledging our failures to serve black and brown students both historically and in the present this executive order is an attempt to threaten and harass disgrace like ours that are engaged in the difficult work of exposing where white supremacy is showing up in our work it is utterly consistent with the threats we have been receiving for prioritizing our students with the greatest needs in our district this time the threat is not violence or physical harm it is financial if we do not get in line we may risk the loss of federal resources white supremacy will continue to adapt and it will ever use

018every tool available to it we must remain steadfast in our commitment to equity it is my sincere hope that on the other side of this pandemic we do not go back to the old ways of operating but we reimagine and build something new that will make our equitable make equitable outcomes in our district a reality thank you biz um see my other board colleagues have comments um this evening yes sula thanks thanks and thank you biz um i echo um everything you've said both of you and support support your uh stance um and i wasn't i wasn't sure if i was going to speak tonight or not so my remarks are certainly not as prepared but here goes and it's slightly different focus but connected as the newest board member i've tried to listen more

019than i talk and as a student of language i try to pay careful attention to the words people use and the way they say things and what i've observed in my six months in receiving the various communications to the board and dr horton from our community from the different stakeholders in our community is a language of demand of what needs to be done urgently and now from people from stakeholders with varying competing needs from both those who think it's not safe to return to school and those who think school should have opened in september and this language is a list of musts and shoulds of what's acceptable and not acceptable of demands for more information more plans um more responsiveness and listening to these sometimes i feel this defensiveness right but i am also deeply

020empathetic to the struggles and pain that's expressed in these communications what i hear in this language is a deep need for certainty and normalcy in very uncertain and stressful and frightening times and we're taught to speak this language of demand to speak up and speak out about issues that are important to us and especially to advocate for our own children and our own families but it also makes me wonder if this desire for certainty in a time of great uncertainty gets us very far the grounds on which the district can decide on reopening plans or ever shifting and i think we need an alternate alternative language an alternate to this language of demand because no one knows how to do education in a pandemic and i'm not sure what that language of engagement should be

021that alternative language but perhaps it can start with acknowledging what's underneath that language of demand and i think is touched on this it's a language of grieving and of loss and maybe if we can name that if we can say that what we're really craving is all that we have already lost and that we cannot get back and that we can't um restore uh maybe we can work through it together because i think whatever plans are next there will be risk right no matter what we stay home we risk the mental health of our children and they're learning and we fear for their future if we risk returning to school too soon we risk our health and perhaps life so i think we need to acknowledge this grief and work through it together i i

022don't know how else to do it um maybe i think the language of demand puts us at odds with each other instead of working together and working with more flexibility and with that i don't think that in a pandemic we abandon our goals of equity i think in fact we have to hold fast to those goals even more and to keep our focus on the chronically underserved rather than the suddenly underserved um first and foremost as my colleagues have already said thank you sula were there any other comments from the board this evening right um then dr horton turn it over to you for superintendent comments you're muted all right i would like to say thank you to the school board for such great comments powerful and impactful statements regarding our current state i just

023want to say this that we will continue our anti-racist work in our district it's important i don't have to i mean if you the point that was made today by our board members i don't need to continue to beat that down uh because it was very clear and obvious what needs to happen i would like to thank parents and the students from from all of our schools have poured into supports for our work the numerous emails we're sending myself and our team and our school board about our process of making decisions and supporting our equity focus and prioritizing the students that we selected to prioritize based off need um a special shout out to the haven and king arts families for really uh walking into the district today um into the office to you know

024make sure that we were finalizing a couple of things uh and a couple of weeks ago it was amazing and heartwarming to see the messages that were written written on the ground and then the signs and the time you took to do that it just really warms warms our heart and it lets me know that we are doing the right work uh it inspires our team definitely inspires our board and definitely district 65 so i want to thank you for that we will not allow political capturing lack of resources we will not be there will be no confusion about what our priorities are confusion when i hear those words is often used um at times to combat uh differences or rate around racism so i want to just be sure that we are we're clear

025that that is not something we're not going to mention our words we're going to be very uh clear about our priorities uh and then also we are going to begin to put our resources where we say we value as a community as a school board as a district uh that we value equity we have to put resources there i would like to also now just make a statement about there's been a there's been issues and some narratives written in a local newspaper about our debate i want to start out by first highlighting and saying that our school board was not made aware of any debate issues until they received an email i want to say last tuesday evening or wednesday if i'm not mistaken and since then there's been a ton of conversation and that

026was the first time that it was actually brought to my to my desk as well but we are in the process we had to do impact bargaining uh with our with our union with dec to decide on how we were going to move forward with any additional after-school programs was for stipends thankfully uh last week we finalized that more information uh we'll be going to our school leaders uh and i just also want to say this um understand again the the board had nothing they were not involved so when the information came to them this was the first time and they were seeking uh what happened as well as myself and once we realized what happened we had um we had two principals at two of our middle schools that were fully aware of what

027was happening but there was transition uh with the principal at nickel so the time in which this information was out and the principal nichols that's serving this interim he was not aware so this is i had to really get down to the center of what caused the confusion and that's where the confusion uh stem from uh but and please know that we do value debate we do value the voice of our children but we cannot we cannot allow um anything to move forward without us having an agreement with our union that's a part of our process as a part of our structure and our policy regarding that uh i can tell you this that debate will continue but it's just a matter of this timing we had to get past our impact bargaining a statement

028i would like to also make about our decision which was really hard is getting harder and harder every time as we get closer to towing the line and opening up our doors for our students we could not open our doors this week for our specialized program i know many of you who are paying attention realize that friday we had the highest number of covet cases in the state of illinois since the pandemic actually took had uh first came back in uh late february or early march and then saturday we had the second highest day uh these are uh these are uh there's a lot of unknown uh and i will rather caution the superintendent as our core value said on the side of health and safety anytime there's research that says that children are not

029are not carriers or they're not as they can't get ill but there's also research that says that they can't so i will not gamble with anyone with any child's life we will not be known as the team that open up our doors uh uh out of fear or um uncertain times and and someone happens to get sickly sick or ill or pass away we will we are still continuing to work and bargaining with our unions to be sure that we have a plan when we can open our doors on october 30th we will be actually sharing um our process in updating the community on if we can open for november 16th so please stay tuned we've done our best to communicate um and that is something that is very hard uh if everyone has gotten

030a copy of our reimagined document document that we shared with with our teachers our staff our community members uh we are still living by those guidelines and i just want to share one other piece regarding our decision to return um or our plans for uh if we're going to return looking at our metrics we've made an adjustment because we saw that we were able to opt schools rate but operate with the three percent so we look now are looking at a seven day rolling average seven out of ten days positivity rate uh that must be that must be eight eight percent or lower uh surprisingly is it's right in that range it has jumped quite a bit reduction in hospital capacity threatening surge capabilities icu capability of medical surgical beds under 20 percent as i

031go through these our numbers in our region and and some of these categories are still above what the numbers should be any of the following uh positivity rate exceeding three percent and attendance area zip codes and the advisement from the health and human services department of skokie uh of edmondson and skokie to suspend in-person learning of any public related reason there are and we're also looking for if we don't have ppe of cleaning gear enough to support our staff and our students if we don't have the staff those are other reasons that we would definitely have to shut our doors but most recently as the governor has announced this wednesday coming up uh our region has been including evanston that will be moved where restaurants and bars are going to have to go back a

032step and i'm sure most of you all are familiar with that i want to want everyone to know we miss our students and we want our students to be in school but we also don't want to jeopardize the lives of our students our families and definitely not our staff so uh bear with us as we continue to work like many of you have the emails they we the good and the bad we take them all uh and we're trying to be sure that we communicate consistently but please be reminded that we are we this is not something that we have asked of uh to come into our world of covet 19 but let's be respectful with how we're communicating uh that can go a much longer way as our our teachers and our staff and

033administration and board we're already under a lot of pressure right now um so now i would like to just transition over there were some questions last time regarding uh transitions for our kindergarten students and what were we doing to make sure that they can transition from one activity to the next during their activity doing their lessons and then also what we're doing to make sure that our sixth grade students will become acclimated and socially connected in their schools so i want to pass this over to uh to dr kilgati and mr little so they can walk through a presentation very high level and of course if there are questions we will be able to answer them so thank you take it over on delete great thank you very much um terence and i will be

034sharing some notes um with you um a dealer should i just hit share on my screen yeah you should be ready to go okay [Music] okay [Music] do you see the powerpoint okay wonderful terrence all right how everybody doing today i'm sure i'm seeing some spirit fingers spirit fingers fingers for everybody's out there go bears all right so one of the things we want to talk about today we go to the next slide is we're just going to talk a little bit about um school transitions and social emotional learning in the covert year which we know is difficult i tell people all the time there isn't a book written for the pandemic but we're actually writing one right now in district 65. all right overview we're just going to touch a couple points um we're

035going to talk about our approach to supporting students four key points and an overview of sel which is for everybody out there is social emotional learning transition supports within classroom and strategies to build community in kindergarten and transition reports um supports within classroom strategies to build communities in sixth grade so this year one of the things that was important to us is that as we entered this we recognized that our school leaders teachers and families had to work very hard to navigate this uncharted territory for both our city and our nation um based on the lessons learned this past spring of 2020 the focus was to be able to improve um how students experience community and school regardless of the setting whether it was a virtual or in person it was important for us to

036think about the way in which we brought together um our community and to that end we engaged district 65 educators drew from stakeholders feedback and really developed new practices and protocols to start the school year and continue in the way in which we think about the work and the kindergarten and all grades experience school um in this presentation you're going to hear really some high-level reflections and to that point one of our key guiding principles is that we welcome your feedback we know that as terence mentioned this is a new experience for all of us where we're navigating uncharted territory so what you're going to hear tonight is some of our best efforts from our kindergarten teachers and school leaders and our sixth grade teachers and school leaders as they think about how to support

037students in various spaces now if anything does not jive well or us feel different we we welcome your input particularly to our school leaders so that they can continue their improvement process our scl road map this year was really about thinking about the way in which we were bringing trauma informed practices and thinking about these practices in the context of a blended space it's at the foundation of social emotional alarm practices that were provided to our teachers and professional learning to start the year all right now on this slide all we're doing is just want to show you and give you a good idea just a visual aspect of our daily sel check-ins so you'll see that in some class well actually in all our morning classrooms there's a daily check-in in some other classrooms

038we have them throughout the day and definitely when they're leaving the school building we actually like to do one at the well not the school building when they leave in the zoom world we like to have one at the end of the class lesson so what you just see now we like to see are you happy are you sad how are you feeling some are just check marks some are filling the blanks some sometimes we put them in groups so they can talk to one another but these are just some examples of some of the seo check-ins that we are doing so part of our our work in um what's here is kind of a high level shared practice but in our kindergarten classroom i'm going to highlight a couple key points so the first

039one is how do we engage community building and welcome new students so in each of our classrooms in our schools of administrators and teachers sent down messages and multi-media presentations so welcome to the beginning of the year many schools if not most had beginning of the year binders and materials pick up to really help orient students to the classroom as terence mentioned the sunrise circles and then lastly many schools developed practices where new families were paired with existing families so that the welcome went beyond just the beginning of the year but extended into it um within the lesson so how do students how many students experience the transitions within the lesson so a couple of things the first is really thinking about movement breaks to the attention that needs to happen to our general developmental

040need to move uh particularly for students some of the resources are go noodle some structured stretching movement activities um using timers or auditory signals music is a great tool that teachers have been using uh providing students with google calendar reminders in the google classroom space there's there are those resources available within the lesson making sure that there's time set aside for material collection for the next activity the reinforcement that teachers are giving so these are consistent verbal instructions that we want to make sure that students are receiving in the lessons and then providing opportunities for breakout rooms so that uh whether it's a guest teacher who may join or there's time for small group work um that would allow for uh that would allow for individuals to be able to uh help students who may

041need that individual attention so zoom to zoom classrooms was really important um we can see that this has changed a lot in visiting classrooms mr little and i have an opportunity to work with our administrators who visit classrooms and so we're seeing improvements in here but you're going to see that students get support uh how do you go from one zoom space whether it's in a lesson um and then jump to a different lesson or a different teacher uh there may be in the google classroom space reminders or embedded links many times our teachers are guided or guided to make sure that they're sending those links in their weekly messages to families we also see teachers walking students from one class to the next to make sure that they get there and when i use

042them walk i'm talking about in a virtual space to get to successful to their next lesson a number of instances if not all we see classrooms remain open for any students who are struggling um to to transition into an activity and so those classrooms those virtual classrooms are remaining open so that students can have access and this is something i've personally have observed where a teacher is able to allow the kids to the students to go and do some work and then when they feel the need they're able to return to that virtual space and get support from the teacher and then also using profession are virtual technology resources such as seesaw or clever um and then the last one is just that really giving students an opportunity for reminders so that students our students

043can have reminders so that they can get ready to transition between activities so what are some of the ways in which that kindergarten students are building connections in community between students so again we've talked about the daily sunrise and sunset circles which really draw from our restored practices um to allow students to be able to experience um zones of regulation to learn social emotional learning practices and to engage in games also we are there have been many many examples and this has encouraged the virtual lunches where a lunch which is an open zoom lunch where students are engaging in this open forum with each other um there has been attention to making sure that um when there is a need for pickups or supply pickups that students and families are it's not just randomly but

044set up in a way where maybe there can be some socially safe distance interactions between families and then also uh i mentioned already the breakout rooms but also really making sure that parents are working together with the school and coordinating virtual gatherings and play dates for students uh here's just one of the examples where a walker student um there was a show-and-tell and shared something from their home so really giving families an opportunity to share or celebrate something this is their live chicken which we we remarked was quite the experience for the students in that classroom um giving them an opportunity for to learn about each other's lives i'm going to give terence an opportunity here mr little to share a little bit about the ways in which they've transitioned to support of students in

045sixth grade okay so what you're going to see now is we do some of the same things that they do in kindergarten so i'm not going to kind of repeat all of those things but i just want to kind of give you a few examples of some of the things that we're doing to introduce i would like to say our students to middle school into our new buildings into their new family homes into their new students into their new communities so some of the things we have like it's a welcome video not gonna play the video but i wanted to leave it here because the video is roughly 10 to 15 minutes um this video in particular is from nickel school and just a welcome video that was created to introduce staff and administration to

046our sixth graders who are entering into the building for the first time um some of the things that our sixth grade team has done throughout the district is welcoming emails from admin and the teacher um beginning of the year binders and they pair with a buddy student that has similar interests so they try to find somebody in their actual grade level to have a similar interest and or they will try to find an eighth grader in the school that has similar interest to pair with them all right so like you say here are some other things that we did in 6th grade like introduction of students with similar in-person introductions some daily seo um sessions and with these daily seo sessions like again we like to put them in groups in the beginning of the

047year so our teachers can see how they work together we want to see them start and appear starting to um interact with each other and just starting to build that community with that within the school um we also picked up yet you can go back no problem um we had six uh sixth grade teachers also arranged a day for kids to drop stuff off i mean to um pick up their book rental and just they had a little safe conversations where they were introducing themselves um and last but not least of course you had ted talk videos and things that you can find on the internet to help you help our teachers help build community was within their classrooms the next slide all right now here are some videos that haven't produced so an example

048would be uh under vid you can go back no next slide right there all right so like i said here are the videos that haven produced um there's three videos on here it's one from administration it's a presentation to the students and it's one that the teachers made so there's three videos that haven made where they sent out and tried to get their students to enjoy and get ready for one it was enjoyed coming to the school secondly was getting ready to come to school and third it was just bringing them all together to get used to what family would look like inside of haiti here you'll see some more activities that was at our sixth grade we had virtual locker building so as we know in kovi world they may or may not be

049able to uh due to cdc guidelines be able to decorate their lockers so we were able to find an app and a website to where they could do virtual lockers so this is an example of them just being able to be welcomed virtually inside the school and not only that it gave the teachers an opportunity to see the personality of the students so that way when they're teaming them and they're doing things inside their lesson they had an idea of what the students liked all right so another thing like i said we talked about breakout rooms and you can see an example of that on this slide where they're breaking out students so they can get an idea of working with each other even though we understand in the zoom world they don't get to

050touch but they actually get to communicate and talk and that's some of the keys to building good relationships you know the next slide and some of the opportunities that we have on this page you will see whole this is like connection and community between students and once again we're trying to build that community this whole class discussion and check-ins that's always the beginning of anything just a whole class discussion then you have your weekly cahoot in the home room you have this or that questions small group um group breakout rooms and last but not least we're going to have our small group change by monthly so in other words you're in this small group and if i pick you for this small group for the first two three weeks i'm gonna switch you by monthly

051because i don't want you to stay in that group because i want you to start getting used to the other students inside of that cohort all right so on this page we're talking about student transitions within a lesson so we've talked about how we build community but these are just some of the things we do inside the lesson to transition our students from one lesson to the other so we always start off with step by step instructions of the activity um a screen share to the agenda we try to have our teachers show the kids giving them an example of what they'll be doing in a lesson daily check-ins also work and last but not least our classroom routines and cues that are built inside our classrooms go to the next slide all right some

052other things we do of course is um we teach our students at the beginning of the year how to just maneuver and navigate in this virtual world and for them it's google classroom in the zoom world so we're just showing them how to navigate how to get around so that way transitioning is easy for them we have our teacher remind students of the next class and amount of time until the class starts so we make sure at the end of that lesson when they transfer transitioning from their zoom classroom to the next zoom classroom we want them to have an understanding this how much time you have left and this is what time you have to start over there students created a scheduled document with all their class links so that way our students have

053on their document each link so they're not looking for they just go and click and click and click and last but not least we have our students engaging in closing activities slash rituals i think that's the last one so one of the things we really want to show you guys today is the fact that it's not only that we're welcoming them to the building we're welcoming them to the actual whole community we want them to get an idea of what it's like to not only we know right now they can't enter the building they can't touch and feel but we can engage their minds and that's what we're trying to do in every aspect of it we're trying to make sure we keep them occupied and we keep them learning and we keep them together

054so that way when they enter the building it doesn't seem new to them um that's one of the reasons why we have videos sent out where they can see the principal in action and a lot of our videos are are taken from home so that way they can see the teacher's personality and we're just trying to get a better feel where they can we can start once again incorporating family and building this family environment inside our buildings all right thank you very much for this opportunity to share some of this work from our school leaders and our staff all right i have there's some more that we need to kind of do but i don't know if there are any questions that you all would like to ask i am thinking that maybe biz and

055i if we have questions or comments should leave it for the remote learning update portion all right now i would like to have some some more left we have we have uh to celebrate some staff and then also i would like to make a statement just for clarity and and being sure um for whatever reason the debate team is not a part of deck but it it there are teachers who serve uh as debate as debate teachers and we will we were not moving forward with any additional student programs until we can get some agreement so there will it is not a dac thing but it is also more so making sure that we have agreements that we can move forward with any student activities so now that we've done that there will be some

056other discussions that we need to have uh with our administrators i'm not sure why debate is not connected that way but we will work to uh connect it uh and bottom line debate will be moving forward uh when when uh this school year uh now that we've gotten past our agreement so i wanted to make that announcement i thought that was important and not be confused by uh anything all right so now uh there's it's time to celebrate some of our uh our staff and i'm going to start that out if that's okay bear with us all right in a tradition of celebrating hard work and exceptional performance i am very pleased to be able to continue to recognize our incredible d65 team for their tireless efforts as part of our hi-fi celebrating excellence in

057district 65 staff recognition program as our staff continue to work diligently in navigating new ways of teaching learning and approaching significant changes in daily operations it is now more important than ever to uplift the work that they are continuing to commit to before we get started i'm going to quickly turn it over to melissa to share a little bit more about the program melissa thanks dr horton yeah these are just a couple of our our housekeeping items but we're always really excited for the high five every board meeting i know some of our board members have commented that this is their favorite part of the meeting it's definitely uplifting to recognize our talented team members um so i just want to take this opportunity to thank byline bank for their continued sponsorship of this program

058this allows us to recognize our staff members by providing them um each with a hundred dollar gift card as well as a certificate and a future invite to a luncheon once we are covered safe and we're really great grateful to buy line for the opportunity to do that and not have to spend any district funds for this recognition program um also we're really excited because we've received already so many incredible nominations from family members from staff members educators and even a couple students um it's definitely a tribute to the hard work that everybody's been doing so keep those nominations coming we do have it available on our website at district65.net forward slash high five and it's also um available weekly in our fast five newsletter so i'm going to turn it over to dr horton

059to recognize um pat and manuel who are here with us this evening all right thank you tonight we have the pleasure of virtually welcoming manuel and pat i will now share a little more about each of our nominees and we will do a virtual round of applause at the end first up we recognize jose manuel aleman manuel serves as a district translator he has been a part of the district 65 family for 15 years and was nominated by a few colleagues by fellow colleague jennifer jones instructional coach at dr betsy rhodes school of global studies regarding manuel's work ethic jennifer shared that manuel unites district 65 staff and the community we serve by providing real-time and written translation between english and spanish manuel's patience kindness and willingness to pitch in during difficult times distinguishes him

060he jumped into a meeting series last spring providing hours of live trans translation while juggling the heavy demands of the community during the start of covet 19 pandemic having a colleague like manuel is like having a whole communication team at your side thank you manuel for going above and beyond to support the district's pursuit of equity by providing translation services to our families and ensuring that important information is accessible to all we will now recognize the hard work displayed by pat gregory phillips a pe educator at lincoln elementary school pat has served our district for 20 years and was nominated by a d65 family member who shared in part last year ms gregory organized a fourth and fifth grade cross country team at lincoln she met kids after school several times a week led them

061in exercises talked to them about healthy living and taught them how to run ms gregory gave them skills and more importantly confidence kids went from feeling out of place and nervous to being able to run more than a mile the pride she instilled in the kids was amazing when it came to time for cross country meet ms gregory was so encouraging and supportive that she could have led an entire cheering squad by herself after school closed in march ms gerry conte ms gregory continued to stay in touch with kids personally at school restarts virtually this year ms gregory works tirelessly to bring physical education to the virtual setting which has to be one of the most challenging things possible and somehow like a magician she manages it ms gregory is so creative about finding ways

062to reach students and keep them engaged she knows the limitations of doing pe from home and yet betrays none of this to her students she throws dance parties and gets even the shyest kids to groove ms gegery inspires her students to be strong and healthy and to have confidence in their bodies and abilities she is extraordinarily generous with her time and attention a kid in her class has found the luckiest home for the physical education and we are so grateful that she is part of the lincoln family thank you pat for always finding a way to connect with your students regardless of the learning environment your dedication to your students academic and physical well-being is inspiring to myself and so many others well i wish we could shake both of your hands on a job

063well done and present your certificates in person we're going to have to settle tonight for some virtual high fives your your certificates will be sent to your building for when you return in person and your gift card will be sent electronically on behalf of the school board and our entire leadership team i want to thank you thank you for always putting the needs of your students first can i get a round of applause for these incredible individuals unless anyone unless unless anyone has anything to share i would like to thank manuel and pat for joining this evening all right thank you all right that will be it on our end and we can alright thank you thank you so much that i know i'm definitely one of the board members who has said that this

064is my favorite portion of our board meetings um we are so proud and so grateful for the gifts that we have in having young's presence and what you pour into our district and our schools to make them truly communities and opportunities for well-rounded learning for our children and families thank you all so much um hope you feel honored and appreciated that's certainly our intention um i'm gonna move on to the next portion of our agenda which is public comments due to the current state of emergency the district 65 board of education will be conducting virtual board and committee meetings and adjusting the method of public comment as allowed by the public access counselor any member of the public wishing to provide a comment to be read tonight read at tonight's board meeting was asked to

065email the board secretary by 5 pm today and adela great yes we have a few public comments and i'll start with emma ringstad she states my name is emma ringstad and i'm an alum of bessie rhodes middle school and evanston township high school and i currently attend northwestern university in sixth seventh and eighth grade as well as throughout high school i competed i competed in policy debate my participation and competition and debate was perhaps the most influential experience of my life being a being sorry being a debate particularly in my youth at bessie rhodes taught me to be confident clear and brave it also taught me important critical reading skills and argumentative writing skills that i have benefited from throughout my education i am certain that without debate i would not be as accomplished or

066as driven as i am today it pains me to think that the debate program in d65 may not continue i know that participation in debate would be one of the most beneficial experiences for any student in district 65 and would equip them with skills that they would use for a lifetime it also confuses me that a school district focus on the advancement of their students education and the students themselves would even contemplate the idea of ending a program so central to education and learning if you choose not to fund the program for whatever reason which forever will remain a mystery to me since your annual budget is over 100 million dollars and the program only cost approximately 18 thousand do not elect to cancel the program entirely allow the programs to continue and fund raise

067money themselves in my opinion and the opinion of my fellow d65 debaters i am sure if the district chose to cancel the debate program or withdraw funding they would be committing the biggest wrongdoing in their history and they would be actively disadvantaging their students sincerely emma ringstad we have another comment from michael yariv to dr horton district 65 school board members and administration i am one of the parent coaches for the nichols middle school debate program i had no aspirations to be a debate coach but when a confluence of events led to the team not having a coach i knew i needed to step in otherwise the kids would lose a critical program in a year where they've already lost so much so now i coach debate two to four times a week depending on

068our tournament schedule work full time guide my own two children through remote learning and generally feel like i'm on a never-ending treadmill that i can escape i know i'm not alone in that feeling these days and i'm fortunate because these are those that have there are those that have far more challenging situations that is how much i believe in the benefit of debate but ever since the prospect was raised that the district may not fund debate it's not debate that has been consuming my thoughts but the question of how can we work together to benefit more kids what you may not realize is that in the middle of this pandemic and resurgence of the black lives matter movement parents across the district are grappling with the question of what can i do to help you

069have this amazing untapped resource at your disposal at disposal if you can engage the community and seek to leverage this historic moment while we are tied up asking when and how will kids return to school and will we be able to fund school sponsored clubs or when this are we missing the opportunity to start asking how can we change landscape when we do go back to to eliminate the achievement gap i can't speak for the entire community but i do know that there are many members of the community like myself that want to see every child in the district succeed how can we get creative i dare say radical and imagine something new for the return into the classroom my concern when you won't engage directly with me or on a small issue like funding

070for debate i've reached out twice is that you don't see me as a partner in this and it's that if that's the case you're missing out on leveraging me and people like me that are ready to be part of the systemic solutions we need to fix the systemic problems we face so today i'm advocating not just for debate but for a new collaborative approach with the community where we dare to be audacious in our thinking around what is possible for all of our children michael yariz our next comment is from mary esther ing dear moored members and district 65 uh board of education good evening my name is mary esther ying and i am a seventh grader in nichols middle school debate team this last saturday would have been my first debate tournament this year

071and i was excited to spend the day arguing in the least aggressive way possible i started debate as a way to get better at understanding the different sides of an argument normally when two people or groups disagree on a certain topic the conversation that flows follows is less than civil debate was a way out of this problem it showed that you could learn something new from every side of an argument and it's taught me to be open-minded about many things which is great in a world that is deeply divided this year's topic criminal justice reform is especially important now in the wake of horrific cases of police brutality happening this summer last wednesday i heard from my debate coaches that the district was not able to fund all district 65 debate teams we as a

072nicholls community have the resources to cover all funding if need be but other schools don't have that luxury some schools don't have a coach to leave their teams or the funds to be allowed in the debate tournaments in the first place due to this some of the district 65 schools have been unable to participate in debate this year if nichols were to enter the tournament when other schools couldn't the situation would be inequitable to all involved for this reason we decided to pull out of the tournament we as the nichols debate team asked that you do your best to bring back funds for all debate teams some schools shouldn't have an advantage over others and when you are the person with the advantage it's your responsibility to step back and acknowledge it if there is

073any way that nichols or evanston as a whole can help solve this i know we as the debate team are willing to help and that if we alerted others to the cause i'm sure we could get others wanting to contribute as well we just ask that in return you can work towards guaranteeing equal opportunities for every school no matter how much or what type of resources they have this is the perfect chance to show that we are we care about equity and that we work towards what we talk about in our classes it will also give others a chance to join debate which i know from experience can really help you in these trying times knowing the troubles of the global pandemic i understand reaching a solution could be tough if we know that you

074are trying your hardest to solve this problem that will be good enough for the time being we just want you to be aware that this is a challenge that we're facing i hope you have a good week and that you're taking care of yourselves mary esther inc next comment is from max sladen members of the board my name is max layton i am a student pursuing a double major in politics and economics at new york university i'm also a graduate of dewey elementary school class of 2012 and a graduate of nichols middle school class of 2015. i was also a member of the debate team at nichols and continued to debate throughout high school i helped coach the nichols team my junior and senior year of high school i'm writing this message because i've heard

075that the board is considering removing debate from the district 65 middle schools this would be an incredible disservice to your students debate taught me invaluable research skills persuasion and made me curious about the world around me as a middle schooler it was difficult for me to find meaning in the material taught in my classes i know a lot of my friends felt the same way this was never a problem in debate i knew that how well how well i performed in debate rounds directly correlated to how much i learned about the topic instead of playing video games or watching tv i went home and studied my files every chance i had there are very few healthy hobbies that exist for our youth and i think it would be s9 to remove one of the most

076beneficial especially during probit 19 the high school and college debate spheres have been able to adapt in a way that other activities cannot moreover there are plenty of children who want to debate who have been in the activity for a year or two already i can't imagine how i would have felt as the sixth or seventh grader debate was taken away from me i surely wouldn't have ended up close to where i am today sincerely matt sladen we have a message or comment from kristen white on behalf of the king arts pta yesterday october 25th 2020 the king arts pta hosted a chalk the walk and sign making gathering for district 65 parents and caretakers at jeh to come and express their support for district 65 leaders including dr horton board members senior leadership and

077all personnel who carry forward the critical commitment to racial equity we know the last months have been an extraordinary period through the enduring legacy of racism and white supremacy in our country are not extraordinary in fact they are mundane in their powerful presence in our everyday lives we stand with you in steadfast support to center the needs of black and brown students currently and moving forward in our own school we see the impact of an opportunity to get for our beloved black and brown students and we are a hundred percent committed to doing whatever we can to dismantle the systemic inequity that harms our children and families we see the courage in our own school leadership to honestly name and confront these inequities and we know the board's courage to walk right into this struggle

078provides inspiration and encouragement for all of us we hope this brief video the video will be available um via our social uh feeds reminds you that you are not alone and you are doing the right thing and we are all the better for it that's the king arts pta next we have a joint letter from the district district's collective bargaining groups we the presidents of the unions in district 65 are standing together today representing over a thousand staff which includes support staff and certified teachers secretaries health clerks child care custodians and maintenance staff our members are looking forward to the time when we can safely return to our workplaces our students are why we do what we do every single day as we have stated in the past we stand behind the goal of returning

079students who have been historically marginalized and for who remote learning hasn't been working we appreciate the superintendent's decision to delay the return to school we recognize that this was a difficult decision and it was determined that being in school was not the safest choice for students and staff at this time we want a safe and healthy environment we want a well-designed and carefully crafted return one that will provide consistency and not lead to a disruptive retreat back into remote learning we know this can be done we continue to request the district but in writing its plans to keep students safe while at the same time creating the best environment for them to learn in we can't afford to have an incomplete plan we need to get this right we are grateful we have an additional

080two weeks to work on the plan that's why we are here tonight speaking on behalf of hundreds of employees we are calling for transparency in the return to in person to in-person process we are ready to work with you so we can all be safe specifically we are requesting training such as best practices for you for using ppe safety and cleaning procedures be available before in-person learning begins in order to keep our school community and evanston and the evanston community safe we are requesting written confirmation that all buildings where staff will be working with other staff or students that ventilation and air quality will be up to cdc standards for students and staff returning in person further we are asking how this will be monitored as the weather conditions change to ensure safe ventilation and

081air quality finally how will this information be shared with all families and staff we are also requesting that the written communication about the process district 65 is using to make decisions remains consistent and does not change to allow for more hazardous conditions for our students and staff we have seen communication for the community on the website for the different phases and we would like to ensure that those detailed plans for each phase are also shared with staff and finally we are requesting clear and detailed information in terms of what instructional model we will be using and how this model will impact learning and staff roles we recognize the in-person school experience will be different from what our students families educators and staff experienced in past years therefore we are asking that these differences be shared

082in writing and with students families educators and all staff to prepare we are asking for all these things tonight because we want to successfully return to a safe and healthy environment an environment where we won't find ourselves needing to exit back into remote learning and disrupt student learning although we continue to work diligently to support our students and families virtually we are all looking forward to returning to a physical school space but it must be done safely we continue to request to work collaboratively to find solutions in order to create transparent and consistent return to school plans that are responsive to the needs of our students and staff in the absence of collaboration we are asking for answers to our above requests in a timely manner natalie copper president of the evanston association of child

083care professionals don jackson president of evanston teachers assistance association matt curley president of district educators council dana smalley district 65 president of district 65 educational secretarial and clerical association omar white president of the evanston custodial maintenance association and that concludes our public comments for tonight thank you adila uh sunny the next item on the agenda i can no i've got it i've moved with the board of education accept the recommendations outlined in the attached group motion and approve the personnel appointments leaves and separations resolution for dismissal of educational support staff september 2020 board of education meeting minutes and june july 2020 list of bills treasurer's report and budget amendment becca mendoza yes cartha yes hilpern yes kim yes hernandez yes lindsey ryan yes tanya budi yes with gratitude um for all the parties that helped

084make this possible i want to move that the board of education approved the district 65 evanston association of child care professionals agreement second great mendoza yes cartha yes hilpern yes kim yes hernandez yes lindsay ryan yes tanya booty with gratitude and enthusiasm yes great the motion passes 7-0 all right and next on our agenda is our uh monthly remote learning update all right i'm gonna go ahead and grab the screen all right let me get a set all right good evening um thank you first for the time to address the board with our second remote learning update um so this evening we're going to bring forward our first look at data associated with our five remote learning indicators before we dive in i want to echo thanks that has been shared in previous comments so

085far this evening to district and school administrators educators paraprofessionals students and families we are seeing strong positive shifts in the way that we are engaging students the type of work that students are doing and in the commitment that students are making to their learning we had a wonderful turnout for conferences and we're absolutely digging into grade level learning in all sorts of new ways that are supportive of the remote learning environment the amount of new learning that our educators and students have done to be able to create positive learning environments deserves a true spotlight so thank you this evening we will talk about the five indicators that we shared in last month's memo this year's indicators are based on areas that we believe will support our commitment to continuous improvement throughout the year we have

086incredible educators and we are all working in an environment that none of us ever went to school for as a result no matter how fast we learn and how much we grow there will be more for us to do better and differently this memo is intended to celebrate what is going well and to inform ongoing improvement and adjustments the adjustments may require changes to systems and structures supports resources or learning opportunities this work is meant to support our ability to achieve at least a year's worth of learning for our students our first indicator is grade level learning access to grade level learning is tightly connected to three of our spotlight systems in district 65. system one which is standards and curriculum implementation system two effective use of data in system 3 collaboration planning and instructional

087practices for deeper learning we are asking educators to use information on priority standards in each unit and those priority standards are drawn from the isb state guidance as well as information from student achievement partners and tntp we're asking educators to lean on those priority standards in each unit and blend that with the knowledge of the students gained through pre-assessments and formative assessment to engage in unit planning and sequencing to meet the learning needs of their students therefore educators are not on the same lesson on the same day across all our classrooms yet to ensure that we do expose students to the necessary grade level learning we've established unit milestones to inform pacing across the units this allows us to balance educator flexibility and decision making within the units with the need to make sure that

088we are exposing our students to the necessary grade level learning across the course of the year in the data that's shared in the memo we show that ela is closing out their first unit and we took two weeks with a strong focus on social emotional learning and our literacy spaces and community building and then initiated our first unit and this is pretty typical of our beginning of year literacy practices but we did create more space this year in light of coven and remote learning to support that practice in some cases you'll see kind of a first 20 days practice in other districts as a result we haven't closed out our first units we're in the process of giving those assessments now and we hope to be able to share kind of the completion and pacing

089rates in our next memo for math we have some grades that have completed the end of module assessments the initial data indications in our monolingual classrooms are strong with high levels of completion of those unit assessments um that is with a caveat because our nsync learning platform which is the remote learning tool within eureka is still building out the administrator side to be able to monitor those assessments and share that learning across administrators and teachers so that was gathered through assessment through survey information from our educators in dual in the our dual language classrooms we've had to address a lack of spanish language assessments within the same online assessment platform eureka math does provide spanish language assessments but they are not yet in the remote learning platform where we are giving our assessments with um

090affirm and equip equip as the pre-affirm is the post we have worked to address this issue we have taken the spanish language assessments from the curriculum and we have built them into an assessment platform called performance matters but that solution took time and it is an additional step with our tweet educators that we regret and our current completion rates are increasing but as indicated in the memo not as high as we would have as we would want to see at this point in time we will continue to work with the bilingual department and twee educators to navigate any future challenges our second indicator is student engagement and learning and we're using this actually to inform this we are drawing data from clever st math and branching minds clever is our single sign-on portal where students

091in kindergarten through second grade go to log into seesaw daily and where our students in grades three through eight access a wide variety of learning tools including our core curriculum from great minds which is eureka and studysync which is our middle school ela curriculum through mcgraw-hill additionally our students will access additional learning platforms like ixl and the middle school reading a to z newsela st math and tinker and all of these are complements to our core curriculums that support asynchronous learning as well as supplemental learning for our students um let's see so our clever data indicates strong and consistent use of our learning platforms the screenshot and the slide today um shows that indicates that 97.1 percent of our grade 5 students have access clever over the past month and the reason we chose grade

0925 in this situation is that grade 5 is a classroom actually is a chrome based platform our students in third fourth and fifth grade grader using chromebooks and our clever analytics gather more reliable information from our from either the chrome browser or our chrome tools um so we chose to focus in on fifth grade and we'll continue to track fifth grade since that's the more reliable data set the other graph that was provided in the memo was about clever use across all grades pre-k through eighth grade and it showed 91.8 percent of the students accessing clever tools across all grades and as we shared last month our usage is much stronger in k5 it's growing in pre-k and it's growing in middle school particularly now that study sync is in clever um so it is

093a couple other things to draw out about this data is that the consistency of usage across the weeks please note that the dips are our weekends but the consistency of usage over the four weeks is also a strong positive indicator about consistent engagement for our students the memo also shared our st math usage which is up significantly from last year but not yet where we want it to be st math has learning assignments that are aligned to our eureka math curriculum and so for families that are supporting our kids in st math there are two pathways and one of them is assignments and that is lined up exactly with our eureka scope and sequence and so we're excited about its opportunity to provide immediate feedback on the very same standards aligned learning that students are

094experiencing in their eureka units so that coupling is a really nice strong partnering and we think is really going to have some positive impact on our student learning the final piece of data and student engagement was information on essentially our remote learning plans that we're creating in branching minds which is our student support system and educators being asked to create a plan if they have students that they're having challenges after multiple attempts to engage to keep them engaged in learning and we saw there that we have 39 students that have been identified for additional support and five of whom have home-based support plans which is our next layer of support and we'll continue to monitor those plans to see one whether we're making progress and closing those plans out and then to see if we

095have additional numbers of plans that are coming forward for our for our third indicator i'm going to hand over to uh mr little and dr kell gotti observations of classroom learning um what we're gonna go over right now is the why what and now what starters why to provide feedback to teachers and coach them throughout the year so right now we're introducing why we use whetstone on weststone right now is like our data house what it does is it's tracking um and supporting opera it's tracking our principal how many classroom visits they do and it's supporting our principles and providing feedback to our teachers and it's actually helping them be able to coach our teachers into becoming better teachers for our students so the whole the whole thing is circling around just trying to improve

096instruction inside our classrooms and making it more equitable equitable throughout our district so the why pretty much to provide feedback to teachers and coaching throughout the year the what is to significantly increase the amount of feedback received by educators from school leadership to improve the quality of instruction seen during daily walk-throughs so in other words now we want it to be something that the teachers can always go back to they can always check on and they can keep teaching them and keep helping them improve their instruction it's not something that is insane it's something that's in black and white so they can always go back to it and last but not least now what school leaders will collaborate with teachers to develop cycles of improvement that help to us accelerate the reduction of the opportunity

097gap through effective coaching so what we're trying to do is to have our principals put our teachers on what we like to call uh development cycles where we're developing that lens for our principles first and foremost the more classroom observation you do the better we um unbelieve in myself can coach our principals and the more they do the more they see it helps the instructional lens inside of that classroom it also helps develop the teachers so now we're putting the teachers in the developmental cycle whereas the principals are in there guiding their instruction helping coach them and helping improve them and taking them to the next step which in turns our students are the ones who benefit from all of this on delete absolutely and so building on that one of the things that we

098noted in using the whetstone too we were able to work with our school leaders to get feedback on the way in which what they're noticing in the classroom and with engagement as we've noted are we seeing rigorous and grade level instruction and so in this realm teachers have used beginning of your data from the map assessment tools from the map assessment as well as other assessments to really begin to provide that high-level instruction that needs to be happening one of the things that we know is that we've adapted a new curriculum in the eureka math curriculum and so wow it's been a challenge for our educators but through the daily interaction between our school leaders and teachers able to really identify where there are challenges and gaps and and be able to really provide support

099to educators and starting to pick up the pacing that needs to happen um student engagement has been a continued priority um principals are observing really that they're seeing that um that they're seeing that it's required a lot of creativity and at times challenges because depending on where students are finding themselves when there's tuning into the zoom lesson um it's provided through the whetstone and the observation of classroom learning our administrators are able to really experience firsthand the challenges that teachers are facing in this virtual world but also the successes we are seeing teachers really commit to the the lessons of the pacing needed throughout the day um and able to really start to make adjustments to their practice when it's needed are there still challenges of course there are um administrators are saying that there

100are still challenges around some of the more technical aspects of this the devices are sometimes older um sometimes hot spots can provide uh strain you know access um and so this is uh we're seeing that this can even be determined by the geographic area at times that this is even a factor in where those technical capabilities are being affected and so those are things that from a more technical side we're working on but overall the observational fidelity that our principals have engaged in has been really um incredible and we really recognize and the feedback from them has been that the teachers are really being receptive and appreciative of the feedback they're getting from school leaders my computer does not want to move to the next slide now there we go all right our fourth indicator

101is operational support for remote learning and the key behind this indicator is that in order for learning to occur we have to make sure that we are providing the tools and the supports necessary that educators can put as much attention and students can put as much attention into the act of learning and one of the things dr kelly gotti just spoke to was there are technical challenges to learning to learning and remote and we are working on addressing those three those items these are some things that we have done on the operational side to support remote learning and are continuing to commit to do throughout the year we have a hotline in english and spanish 8101 and 81.02 this is separate from the academic support hotline that we are maintaining we're averaging 26 roughly 26

102calls per day that is on a slightly downward slope at the moment in regards to the types of calls coming in the calls are still largely technical of nature zoom links spot and internet connections and related to clever are the items that have the greatest frequency additionally one of the requests from last month was a request about the amount of devices and hot spots that have been at that are issued the district has 821 hotspots that are out with families and educators the vast majority are with families to support remote learning additionally we have over 5000 ipads and chromebooks that are deployed in the community with our families to support learning and that includes that it actually includes the ones that are with our students as well as some that have gone to our additional

103staff including paraprofessionals and support staff as we also as we have educators that have laptops in k2 we also provided ipads to support their ability to be able to show and navigate the learning with our younger students um and that's been an import that was a request that we've been glad to be able to fulfill repairs again we bring those into our technology to our schools and then they get repaired by our technology departments and supports we have repaired 402 devices to date since the beginning of school in august 2020 each time we receive a device we are turning that device or we are giving a loaner device to the family so they can continue to access learning and we're going to continue to use the information that's coming in from our families through the

104hotline to inform one the technology tips that we put in our weekly curriculum and instruction update that goes out to all administrators and educators and we are going to continue to use that information to inform professional learning that we design for educator choice days as well as role days in order to try to provide the type of learning that educators may choose to opt into to support the growth based on with the patterns in the district the fifth indicator is stakeholder feedback um we have really two approaches to gather stakeholder feedback this year one was to reissue a district-wide survey in this fall we are closing that out on october 28th so if there are any families or educators that are listening in that have not yet completed that survey we ask that you do

105this survey is based on items very either exactly the same or similar to our spring items because we had what we saw as being very clear five charges around what we needed to try to change for fall learning and we're interested to see from our families if we are successful moving in a positive direction in those areas in order to continue to inform our work we also have a student we have items that are also going out to the students but we wanted to partner that in another survey because we have a panorama survey out for students right now and wanted to balancing balance the surveys to students so that will be going a little bit later not within the same cycle it's november 16th as our target date there additionally as we move through

106the year because issuing district-wide surveys is intensive on our families our educators and us we're using shorter kind of pull surveys which are standard set of questions that will allow us to create a baseline of information throughout the year so as learning conditions change we can get a sense of how we are doing the first round of those assessments were given in some of our committee meetings last week for our educators and we'll have similar subgroups among our parents and our students we know that those groups won't entirely be representative what we're looking for there is a rep the relative shifts to be able to inform actions and we are going to work to get as representative a group as we can and that's going to be some of the outreach and planning that we

107are doing but that's one of the things that we're working through um i think you know i think as we look at that i mean we will bring back you know an initial look at the survey results with our next remote learning memo timing is relatively short so we're going to bring back highlights and then we'll see if there's more information we need to bring with action in the future point this is that's the complete update on the five indicators and i were willing to open up for questions and discussions i had some questions that i had um emailed and i want to make sure that i share them publicly as well um the first question was i was curious which you gave some detail to um this evening about the delay in the eureka

108math data as a result of um not having the assessment tools in spanish is that the correct okay so yeah my question regarding that was that my thought was that we had purchased this particular curriculum specifically because it provided the resources in both english and spanish and i think that is an important [Music] growth metric as an institution that we be looking at curricula through a bilingual lens and not solely through a monolingual instructional lens um but so i was hopeful and that we purchased a curriculum that was both um accessible and usable to our monolingual and bilingual um educators and classrooms i was concerned though with the remote learning update that that assessment tool was not in spanish as um [Music] i'd anticipated the materials would be it sounds like um the issue however

109is not that it wasn't in spanish but that it wasn't in spanish in a remote learning um platform is that a correct understanding so there are there are a couple layers to the challenge um we did squarely have two our two-way immersion program in our calculus and our decision making this summer and the lack of commitment to provide interactive pdfs assessments videos entirely from mcgraw-hill and em4 was one of the things that motivated us to make a move great minds which is the parent company for eureka math has a very you know has historically and currently provided their materials in english and spanish um and has a strong commitment to doing that work and to ultimately getting what is called in sync which is the platform that they've built to support remote learning which includes

110the videos the interactive pdfs and the pre and post assessments in a digital platform getting all of those things into english and spanish i think one of the i don't we've met and engaged with the great minds teams on multiple occasions because there are places where the delivery of this product has come short of our expectations they are working very hard to address these considerations when we look at eureka the basic curriculum itself all of the materials for the curricular materials which are the student materials the teacher editions the workbooks are in english and spanish the interactive the pdfs are in english and spanish the videos are in english and spanish but there are quality differences transparently in the in sync videos between the english and spanish and they are working to improve the quality

111of the videos moving away from dubbed videos to more authentic authentic language videos and so it was squarely in our calculus um it is a an implementation challenge that we are working through and one of the things that is unfortunate is that even with partners with a strong commitment to this there is absolutely a tendency to deliver tools in english before spanish because of markets and so we did move to taking our assessments they had this the assessments in spanish from the curriculum itself we've taken those and we've built them into performance matters it doesn't minimize the impact on our two-way immersion educators we do understand that we're continuing to try to find ways to address those concerns i think additionally within that commenter question was also a is this a perpetuating of past practice

112where two-way immersion educators and the program is thought about after the monolingual and how what is curriculum and instruction doing to try to not perpetuate that pattern i it we do have a problematic history of doing this we made a decision as an example you know one of the examples we've made to move away from this was last fall we made a decision that broke with historical trends in district 65 to say that the spanish language ela spanish language arts curriculum no longer had to be tied to the english language arts curriculum and the reason we made that decision last fall was that we could not find a vendor who built a high quality ela curriculum that was coupled with the spanish language arts curriculum it one is translated which makes one weaker than the

113other so amy and elizabeth began to so our director of emerging bilinguals and literacy began to lead the curriculum review to identify that spanish language arts curriculum last year that review did get sidelined by coveting remote learning in the spring they are returning to that and this is a review where we're saying we need to center the needs of our two-way immersion program our spanish language learners while we're holding on to cultural relevance cultural responsiveness and cultural representation and so you know we there are still changes and shifts that we need to kind of absolutely build into the way we do business but i can say in the work that we are pushing forward with the spanish language arts curriculum under the leadership of amy with the support of elizabeth and with the intentions this

114summer it hasn't worked out yet but there is a different way of which we are centering the needs of these learners and we're going to continue to do that work and to listen to our educators we're extremely intentional about the two-way immersion educators within our group and within our decisions this summer and we're going to keep pushing on our curriculum companies to be able to deliver these tools sooner and faster to the best of our abilities while we build the internal supports for educators so we are working on it we don't have a good enough answer yet but these are the steps that we're taking thank you um i do appreciate that i think i would um ask that maybe we also dig deeper into what the implications of this historical pattern um say about

115the focus of two-way immersion on our spanish-speaking and emergent bilingual um population rather than on the native english-speaking population and ensuring that the program is operating with fidelity to the intervention that it's meant to provide absolutely yeah thank you thank you um i did also have want to i wanted to save my comments about the transition conversation for this actual update um i appreciated the information that was provided about how we're supporting kindergartners and sixth graders with their particular developmental and social emotional needs to support their transitions and the years that they are in with us um i the information about community building was uh reassuring to hear i my question for kindergarten because that update i believe was based on the question that i asked that our last remote learning update um my original

116question i was more so thinking about how educators um are encouraged to include and share with families the different songs or chants or things that they typically incorporate in in-person learning to support young people with the emotional transition from [Music] one activity to another and the all of the hard starts and stops that are happening during the day um because that is that kind of develop brain development and emotional development is a significant part of kindergarten um [Music] so i'm wondering how that expertise and those practices that typically exist during the school day in order to help children establish some regulation for themselves are how that translates to remote and how that information is shared with families in order to help families for instance maybe at the end of lunch and recess time there's a

117particular chant to help children regulate themselves with that transition and i'm yeah i'm wondering election i think it's something that i would love i'd be happy to look into i think that that's um in the reflections i know there was some mention of the use of song um but as an active practice or strategy the way you've just described i'm not exactly sure and it's something i'd be happy to look into to see working with curriculum and instruction to see if there's something more specific we can look to understand and also maybe it's something we can highlight in our instructional practice but it's something i'd have to look into okay thank you yeah absolutely and then um in terms of sixth grade transitions i did notice um the mention of switching up the small groups

118so that kids are able to be in groups with different folks in order to establish relationships um and the check-ins the um social emotional options for check-ins uh made me smile and i'm hoping that that's probably the same for for the kids where they have to um have the chance to engage with those um but and biz i don't want to speak for you but i think that um [Music] the question that you asked at the last remote learning update was how the kids have the opportunity to have those informal interactions that allow them to kind of find their people and establish new friend groups um yeah i guess the larger question i appreciate the information that you did provide i think that was helpful um i think one question i had which i imagine

119parents of sixth graders have watching it is that probably those things are not happening in every school and i think generally in normal times we recognize that different schools do things different ways and there's lots of different ways to get there um it seems like the menu of options is a little smaller for success in remote and i'm wondering whether there's like a a prac practice of sharing best practices or tools that are working across our middle schools so that there can be more consistent tools that are being utilized because i would think you know a sixth grade science teacher is is having a similar experience no matter what school they're teaching sixth grade science at so if there's some ways that a sixth grade science teacher at haven have figured out some ways to

120foster connections then you know i i'm thinking more of kind of what's the structural piece um that we're putting together for middle school educators um because it my guess is it's fairly inconsistent of what teachers are doing what things um and then if you take that from from classroom to classroom and then take that from building to building like i'm wondering if we can have a more robust set of best practices or recommendations and tools that we're providing our educators so that they they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel figuring out how to do all of these things either they can say somebody at this school did a great job on it hey try it at your school um because i think that there's still probably like i was looking at some of

121the things in terms of finding people who have similar interests and things like that's something that we could do lots of different levels of interaction with and it probably is something that didn't happen in the same way in every building um and it doesn't have to be exactly the same but just making sure that we have kind of a menu of options that all of our middle school educators are working from um to reduce their workload but also to make a more consistent experience across middle schools because i think that we just you know we tend to have a lot of variance from school to school in normal times which i think is okay um but i think when we have a smaller menu of options for people to choose from making sure everybody has

122as many tools as possible is really important so i'm not sure what has been done in that kind of best practices space for the middle middle schools but um i don't know if you can speak to that a little bit uh terence just kind of what what the that might look like as we continue to be in a remote space well what we do is in our weekly principal meetings we share um best practices i can't tell you we share everything all the time but you know what comes up we um work on in our small plcs and then we share out the information that was provided and then we come back and we share like some of these videos or things that nature that the teachers have done to the other principals i understand

123once we do that it's kind of a week behind so they try to adjust it to their school yeah and certainly the principle the principal sharing is really important i don't know if there's um uh tools that we can use that also get it at every other level within the middle schools to write it that it does there's a lot on the principles list um and so you know maybe there there could be some databases or things that our educators could access that don't have to go through the principle for best practice sharing in terms of that social connection piece because i think you know if we're looking at uh the time period in which we're likely looking at for middle schoolers to be back like i have i have a sixth grader right now

124um and i have two fifth graders and i you know i'm like what what if they're all starting middle school in person at the same time right what am i what is my sixth grader going to know next year about and what kind of connections are they going to be able to foster so that it's not like a lost experience and biz um the cell learning toolkits that the cell toolkits that dr kogady mentioned earlier or a set of activities and tools we did provide some professional learning on that at the beginning of the year i know donna cross and the team that worked on that are working at kind of a second pass that would be reissued and so we can think about whether where we have the opportunities to weave that into learning

125and interactions with educators and paraprofessionals and others so um we'll i'll check back in with donna see where the group is on that and see what we can do to potentially kind of use that work to accomplish a bit of what you're talking about thank you yeah and i know that the advisory space is the most natural space for that but i think we want to be thinking broader and thinking about our subject our content teachers as well and like i said that was a great point and we definitely get with our content facilitators and we'll sit down and try to make sure we get all these um points out to our teachers because i think many of them are doing great things but let's let's borrow good ideas from each other thank you point

126taken point taken yeah seth kill here i just wanted to comment on some of the practices that you shared earlier in the presentation on the transitions i'm delighted delighted delighted whenever i see a chance for children right to share something that's of interest to them and they're connected to the content that we're trying to teach them because to me and again the research is really clear on this and that to me is cultural competency right when we can we can really speak to where children are coming from and what their context is and bringing what they care about and tying it to what we're trying to teach them in english language arts you know math science social studies um and as as was evidenced in the public comments um in the letters that seventh graders

127sent us you you i heard the work that we're trying to do is a district around equity and in this case it was based on something that the children cared about as debate right so they were able to equate that so one you know that's very promising to me you know to see as an educator uh and then again if you think about again for all of us who do this work in education i mean that is very very promising um to see uh you know the children to be able to articulate and make those connections and really uh get there get their head around uh you know what we're trying to teach and what we value as a community and tying it to uh you know their education or something they care about uh

128as a teacher that's what i would try to do uh and and i got to tell you when you know when i worked in neighborhoods uh you know i i had to look to work in my neighborhood one of the neighborhoods i grew up in in chicago and i would take my kids out to their this was around 26th street a little village right historically immigrant neighborhood and we would walk down the streets and i go i go this is i would tell my third grader i would say this you know this is this street right here uh shows how resilient our community is we were able to build businesses here right because other in other places in the city they wouldn't let us build businesses so you should we should be very proud and

129i know you guys come out here to the stores and and go grocery shopping with your mom and dad uh or go to the you know you get you go to the local restaurants because i would go with my grandma and and so then when i had whenever we can have children and educators tie their interests together uh and tie it to content we're gonna see we're starting to see uh again the values that we want them to pick up the critical thinking that we want them to learn uh and then that way we we guarantee a better future for for for how we uh again for the society uh on these children who are gonna you know inherit it so you know as we think about moving forward you know i'd love love love

130to see particularly that the cultural competence right and making sure that we know and we encourage our educators to really really dig into what is it that interests children and their families and what impacts them and and bring it into the classroom and tying it to language arts math social studies science uh because again it's just going to pay us dividends and then it's going to help us close that opportunity gap and again we've got to stop thinking about oh well we have to get a good score uh as a school district around reading and math and everything yeah that we'll get that if we connect with children and families in a substantive way and and i just think it's you know for me i think that is you know if we think about progressive

131education uh and and guys like dewey and horace mann that's what they would talk about is again how do you connect how do you make life because life is the ultimate teacher and you know how do you make life part of what we're trying to teach kids and implicating to them uh in ensuring that we have a society that functions and that that critical thinking uh is something that that the children develop in order to inherit a society that is much more uh uh much better than the one that we have right now right so so just just putting that out there uh for my for all of us here as well as the educators who are doing this really really difficult work you know what what can we do to make sure that we

132are being culturally competent to me you know i think about you know it's like my kids like video games they like uh you know among us is the new there's anything they're playing online what you know as an educator i'm like okay well that's an opportunity because then you can see you then you can use you know video game and talk about in our class talk about how to design it and you see and i've seen that in my in some of my my kids art teachers are utilizing the video games that kids love so that that's exciting to me you know again that there's a cultural competency that they're getting to know the kids and what they what interests them and it's just that's just exciting and so again kudos to the work that

133you guys are doing and i'd love to see more more examples of that spread across uh you know the whole district that you know because to me that's what cultural confidence is and it's just going to pay us dividends in the end thanks eddie yes sonny um so i have a couple of questions one is around the metrics that we're using the engagement metrics am i correct in saying that we're going to be getting the regular reports that we're going to see at the board level are around fifth grade logins we chose essentially three kind of if that slice using our analytics three different reports that will pull consistently each month the first is around all app use through clever so that was the first graph the second one which was on the slides tonight

134is focused on fifth grade and the reason we pulled in fifth grade was that the devices we distributed in third fifth grade were chromebooks and the clever analytics are more um actually work through the chrome plug-in and work better on chrome devices so it's a higher degree of reliability with the data as a representative slice so we're focused on fifth grade there and then we're pulling the st data and looking to increase the amount of minutes and puzzle completion over time to get to essentially their kind of research-based recommendations and so the app usage and the so st math is just k through five right through fifth grade and the apps usage will show across k through 8. so there was one additional paragraph in there which i didn't address in your slide so thank

135you suny um we would ideally like a measure that indicates google classroom usage and ideally in middle school um but because middle school uses clever less their other clever access less than our k5 um that data right now when we reviewed it wasn't um it's not reliable that the google classroom analytics is not clean we have a bunch of extra classrooms so we're working on adjusting that if we're not able to do that we will use our study sync data which is our new tier one ela curriculum in sixth or eighth grade and i did share the usage the initial usage of that curriculum and its online app in the memo so if we are don't feel like we can get to the reliable data around google classroom and one of the challenges about google

136classroom as a learning management system is it's a great tool but it's not developed with the district hierarchy if we were using a canvas or a schoology there's a district hierarchy that has an automated role up for reporting google classroom does not have that and so we had to hire an outside we had to pull in an outside software provider analytics company to get that data and it's not at a reliable level yet so we will either have that resolved for the november 16th memo or we will move forward with studysync to give us a middle school indicator okay okay yeah i just wanted to make sure that we had something that lets us know i think it's really important to to have an idea of middle school engagement and if there's something that we

137can pull out that shows specifically you know at the earlier like maybe k or one engagement it seems like those are to me it seems like those are touch points if that's a doable thing um for us to see so that we can you know at least you know for our youngest all the way up to our middle schoolers that we have some idea of of how um how often kids are logging on and making sure that that's happening my next question is around um you know obviously this year for as long as we are remote we're not going to be seeing the usual um discipline and suspension data that we would normally be getting and that's going to look different in so i guess my question is you know i've heard some things anecdotally

138about classroom management and maybe kids being removed from the zoom classroom if they're being disruptive and things like that how are we in addition to monitoring how kids are engaged how are we monitoring how classroom management is happening across the district and how are we supporting um you know our educators in in dealing with you know the kid who is maybe being a little disruptive or whatever like what what tools and strategies are we using and how are we just making sure that in a digital environment that we're not replicating some of the exclusionary practices that we saw in in person a couple of things that i would highlight um that's a great question if i may jump in first here um is that we've worked very closely um our deans of culture uh theresa

139quinn and elijah palmer worked closely with engaged both dec and our administrators in really adapting our handbook our discipline handbook um to be adapted to the virtual world so so to think through that those punitive practices we want to make sure that those exclusionary practices were not continuing and we were drawing in our restored practice learning um so that's the first thing and so i would say that that they adapted the handbook to and it's in our student handbook the kind of like making sure that it works in a virtual world and we think about the way in which we're engaging our students um while there are challenges we've experienced and so really helping teachers think about you know rather than excluding a child you can move towards let's say a breakout session and and

140create an opportunity for dialogue between the teacher and the student um also uh principles are on deck both in terms of prevention and being able to be very visible we've had a really significantly high number of classroom observations school leaders are in classrooms uh minimum of three to three times a day um across and then you know 15 times a week which really and so principals and assistant principals are visiting um we've had you know hundreds of classroom visits just to really support the environment to help kids know that they're there they're the and the teachers are being supported and so that's the other part of it um and then i would say the last thing is really when there are challenges we continue to use our multi-tiered system of support which is that which

141can be used for academics and behavior and so when a student is experiencing either disengagement or an adverse experience or in the the learning environment our goal is to develop a response that's going to be really centering that child's needs and then think about some benchmarks and some goals to really help support that child to be successful in that space mr little thank you yeah and just to piggyback just a little bit off on the league like the key is west though once again when our teacher when our principal my administration team is going into those classrooms and gathering that quantitative data i mean qualitative data they're giving that back to the teachers as far as coaching them around that classroom management piece and it's instant feedback and that's the key like everybody wants instant

142feedback everybody wants to see exactly because it's stuck in their mind okay the principal came to see me today well assistant principal came to see me today what did they see and so now you're we're showing the the teachers this is what we see and this is how we're coaching you around that situation so it doesn't get bigger the goal was and we completed our goal was for administration to be in classrooms on day one so we wanted to be preventable instead of reactive so that really helped us out with a lot of our classroom management issues just being in there on day one to ensure that that positive climate is starting to get built and that we're giving our teachers instant feedback and that they know that they have support so that was a

143a big win for us as a district this year you cannot cannot add to that um i try you know i try to i work with them to leave and uh a little uh directly you know instead of working with the principles in that regard but i do get a chance to go into west stone consistently and i look at a lot of the action steps and logs that they put in around communication that administrator will send to a teacher around behavior or classroom management and that i think that process is really it's new uh and our teachers are starting to respond to that uh in a really positive way so that's one way it's again um as you stated suny in the beginning it's a new world of how we support and manage uh

144and i think this is the best way that we have been able to uh provide feedback and then also i would say doing our reality checks we're now down to having three left led by kylie a lot of a lot of this information is bubbled up so we've identified some trends as a district uh that we know we can do and not just with uh classroom management like the questions asking but also around instruction and implementation of curriculum and the use of data so those are some of the things that we'll be bringing to the table uh with our principles as we move forward and since we've now identified those trends we gave really good feedback that was specific to schools according to what data we were able to pull all right great thank you

145everybody um i have a couple of questions um regarding the student engagement and i know that you explained why we're why we're only seeing fifth grade but it makes me wonder about all the other grades and i would really love for a report to include just any sort of information about how our other grades are faring with information that was provided for fifth grade it lists that there was 2503 students that have not yet signed in i was hoping you could tell me a little bit about this the report that you provided also shows that we what we from what we do know um there's 25.7 percent of teachers um that are not using clevver um and have not logged in and so i was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about

146tell us a little bit about that second sorry i was spinning so that's where um a bit of the information in the memo and why we've started to reach to different data points is an important piece of information the clever analytics gathers information when they log into clever using the plugin in the chrome browser our educators use macbooks and the majority of them do for that and within that data set a lot of our educators are not logging in through clever they are logging in through safari and not using the chrome browser so if they don't use the chrome browser clever is not pulling that data and that's why specifically we went with fifth grade because we in the third fourth and fifth grade we issued chromebooks as opposed to ipads in our grades where

147we are using ipads we don't our data is not as reliable in those spaces and then additionally when we look at the devices issued one of the things edu families could we offer devices to all families but as we can see in the data the vast majority picked up devices but not all we have about two-thirds of our families who are using district 65 issued devices so if they are not accessing learning through the chrome browser if they're not going to the chrome plug-in we are not registering that usage so we are what we see in that clever data are essentially the certified the users that are accessing clever in that manner and so that's what you're picking up on rebecca and it's also when i monitor this i am looking across all grades and

148i am sampling across different apps but in the space of bringing forward a board memo i wanted to identify a couple consistent data slices that i felt like gave us the best quality data to be tracking change over time um so okay thank you for that clarification um i think i i wonder if teachers are aware that we are collecting this data and if we're able to tell them that um it would be helpful for us to collect that data through the through the google plugin seems like something you know it's just a different a choice of a different web browser i think that's information that's important for us to have um but so then the 2000 um the 2000 figures for students that are not logging it that don't have that google uh plugin

149you're saying correct that is a logical assumption based on what we what we are seeing within that data we can see our baseline of the data that we are receiving so that's my logical assumption on that um but keep in mind too um you know we monitor and our principals monitor seesaw engagement at the school level seesaw also gives really good school level analytics but does not give a district roll up and so we are able to monitor kind of that k2 and monitor across schools around the numbers of postings comments and feedback okay yeah um one of the challenges i guess we brought forward the best quality data in a sampling of spaces um but it is this is not exact we're still working towards we're bringing forward the best quality data we have

150but we don't have the perfect answer yet okay i know i know that you're still working on it but i think for for me it just it just provides a glimpse uh and a slice of all of everything that we're providing and i would love to see how how we're doing overall um for for everybody how everybody's faring and so that um that makes me question how how we take attendance like how are we ensuring that um that kids our kids are coming to school in e-learning um because i'm assuming that a lot of that data that you collect um you're you're plugging in for providing um attendance and so i you know for next report it would be helpful and it would be good to know how how other grades are doing and how

151other student engagement can be captured um through this um and you know just a comment um given that you know where we've got several weeks of experience now with uh with e-learning and with transitions and back to the comments of um i i'm really excited to soon hear what our students will tell us i'm really happy to hear of the student advisory council we got a really good suggestion from student you know just explaining their their experience about um you know preferring to zoom in the morning and then allowing for some time in the afternoon to be able to do uh to do school work so just i think being able to glean from our educators that are doing well and being able to grasp the the the successes that we are capturing in e-learning

152i think the that 25 also makes me made me wonder when i reviewed it without knowing about about the plug-in um totality was um i know that some of our educators are struggling with um you know and getting up to speed to uh with the technology divide so you know a comment that i made earlier on you know i know that some of our educators are more comfortable uh with technology uh than than others and so being able to capture the successes that from educators that are doing it well and um really allowing allowing them for for them to lead as well as listening to the voices of our students um who often times are a lot better at this technology stuff you know than than we are i get a lot of help from

153my kid on a daily basis for for things that i'm i'm just not learning so i hope that we're that we're listening to our students um and which brings me to my final comment in that um i'm concerned about just the amount of screen time our our children have and so i'm curious how as uh how our educators are encouraging off screen time um if you could talk a little bit about that how we're you know we know we know now that they're on screens and what percentage and you know through a duration but i am a little bit concerned just about the amount of screen time that our students are engaged with on a daily basis the um so screen time is it's a challenge um one of the things you know there are

154a couple different you know there are couple different ways of looking at this one we really are trying to make sure that as we are supporting educators through the curriculum resources instructional strategies um that we're helping people think about what are the ways in which we can make learning active at a minimum and one of the things that talking to actually a educator through erickson and their technology institute who said that they try to view screen time in kind of two different buckets that there is a difference between passive reception from the screen and interaction and active thinking and doing when you are on a screen there is a reality in this environment when we are learning from remote that our children are receiving more screen time than many of us may be comfortable with

155but we want to make sure that the screen time they do have is active it's in you know in actively engaging it is interactive it's kids in breakout groups it's conversations it's manipulating learning so that there is so that we are actively engaged and one of the things that i am hearing you know we saw in common sense media and others kind of waved their age group screen time regulations because they said you know what there's a reality here and if it's going to be screen time let's make it quality screen time the second thing that we are working on is with educators we've tried to really worked on the idea that let's focus on mini lessons let's focus on getting our instruction in quickly or if we can flipping some instruction so that again

156when kids are with us they are active and they are doing and we're doing small group work we're working together and then when there are things where we can release kids to be working independently that we do release our students to do that work and so this is a pattern of learning how to kind of design our learning a bit differently and you know as we move forward we are you know we focused on early on like it's a gradual release of responsibility it's a gradual release within our lessons and it's a gradual release as we figure out the kind of ebb and flow of how we do remote learning with our children so there are a couple different things one how do we make the time together as valuable interactive and active as we

157possibly can and then two focus on on shorter mini lessons and three when we can let's release those kids to be able to do the work free of our screen as possible the last piece of this is you know we are working with our department leads for a second round of potential material pickups on this kind of last spike of covid um is gonna we have to kind of re-strategy to strategize but we have multiple departments that are looking to get materials out to families and we're gonna work with principals and schools to try to coordinate another round of pickups and materials can also help our ability to release from screens thank you stacy um and then i just i wanted to compliment the um the lunchroom idea um of you know being able to

158meet through lunch and also um maybe trying to find more ideas similar to what acc is doing around the morning affirmations and how we can even though we're doing e-learning how do i'm curious how schools create school pride and cohesiveness for you know for a school community i was really happy to read the update on acc and i know that the morning affirmations was a really important part of that program and it's something that i would love to see offered throughout all of our schools and again just provide you know providing students and hopefully we're going to get some really great ideas from our student advisory council um i think that you know we should be following the lead of of our students as well and i'm excited to hear the results from the survey

159so thank you stacy thank you rebecca thanks rebecca sula thanks um i sent my questions in rather late um so i don't know if you will have prepared them but i just for the public and for maybe for next update um i was wondering if any of the data you could disaggregate along the lines of some of the priority groups that we had free and reduced lunch or the students who have struggled academically et cetera or if you had any qualitative data about those students at each of the individual schools and and whether we're still able to engage them and support them um and then since and then my other question was um since we did have those remote learning camps for a short period um just an update of how those went um and

160whether you found them to be successful in supporting remote learning so anything you can share about those i can talk a little bit about the remote learning camp sula we did see out of a hundred and i want to say 52 registrations we did see a steady group of students participating around coming daily working with staff uh having meals snacks um and just you know really trying to meet that need of of helping with engagement i know that um the three sites that they were located kingsley dawes as well as oakton each school leader being president as well as school leaders from from the other schools joining and checking in on students and so i do think that um the number of students that we were able to serve that impact was was definitely uh

161not as great as we had hoped but i definitely think that it was taken advantage of by by those families and in the interim while we are uh suspended right now we are making sure that our face team is communicating with them just to ensure that whatever the needs were that drew them to take us up on the remote learning camp that that doesn't fall by the wayside so whether it is just checking in for um academic support social emotional support food encouragement just what have you so we are making sure that uh there's definitely that phone connection and and um internally grateful for our uh sacc team our school-aged child care team uh who has just shown up and kind of taking this journey with us because it is not easy to you know

162having to be the first group or being that first group that started so we were learning and we learned some things from them even to help assist us in our other onboarding and and opening uh routine so that's just a brief update thank you thank you man from the data um i think kylie can you share a little bit about uh a project that you'll be working with to learn a little bit about the learning loss from over the summer um i think there's a there's a we exchange some communication about a project that's going on where we can kind of measure to some degree uh what the loss look like you know do you recall what i'm referencing to kylie i think you're talking about the recovery report from nwea um that's it's not

163direct uh to the question but i think it really is important for us to just um uh discuss and get out in the space so nwea has created for school districts and for schools a really fantastic resource that helps to assess students learning learning outcomes compared to where they were prior to the pandemic and where they are now and so you can look at that change over time and it can be positive it can be kind of the same or it could be negative change over time and we're working to make sure all of our school leaders have access to these reports and understand how to utilize them and really use them as part of their school team so that's going to be a fantastic resource in regard to the question regarding whether we can

164drill down further on the aggregate data unfortunately the data that we are able to draw out of the clever system is not as robust or rigorous as the data that we manage internally and so we're not able to make that individual level connection that i think you were you were interested in seeing in in lieu of that though our schools are being very strategic i'll say on following through with students who have perhaps had you know um various experiences with engagement so we had all these school-based meetings and um it was really fantastic to hear all of the various strategies that our school teams are utilizing to make sure that they're providing interventions they're really leveraging the mtss process they're making sure that they are tracking and monitoring supports that are being provided for students

165they're bringing together their school-based teams to really almost do a case management approach on an individual student level and so all of that work is happening at the schools i know it's difficult to um hear that it's hard for us to aggregate that up and a reliable data-driven way but i can assure you that in the conversations that we've been having school teams are doing an incredible job making sure that they are looking at multiple measures of student success and really monitoring that everything from engagement the platforms to engagement interaction in classrooms and social emotional needs and supports and you know creating a really robust web and network of supports for our students so i don't know if other colleagues want to chime in but that's what i would those are some of the things

166that i would highlight that i think would help answer the question that you post thank you i think it'd be just interesting to hear even if there are trends or patterns that you're seeing among the schools as you're talking to the school teams and principals right what are the challenges or what are the patterns of engagement that you're seeing across it can be qualitative you know it doesn't have to be all numbers right uh but it'd be interesting to hear that in the in the coming updates and we will we will have also i'm sorry we will also have the qualitative data from the surveys that stay similar yeah that's going to be really great qualitative information about those patterns of engagement and we'll be able to report that great thank you thank you um

167support colleagues were there any more questions joey was that did you have a question um yeah mine was mine was more of a forward question i really appreciate the conversation the questions the responses and i can't say a big enough thanks to all of our educators and for the administrative team for all the work there's nothing convenient about this there's nothing ideal about this and people keep showing up and it's it's amazing so thank you my question is really about we have this window of time now um since we're delaying the opening um you know schools have gone through the process of trying to imagine what school is going to look like when it opens i know for my kids one of the things they ask me all the time is that what's what's going

168to be different what's it going to look like and i know we've got some model classrooms set up hopefully we've got some model schools set up but i wonder if in a future meeting or in a future communication um there's an opportunity to give people that real estate look at a school um how do we show people what it's going to look like are we going to have one-way hallways are we gonna what's the the procedural difference what's my um what's my my seven-year-old's expectation when they arrive at school where they used to gather on the playground and huddle together and line up in a crowded place and then go through the doors all at the same time what's that look like now because we do have a window of opportunity when we're not getting

169ready for that moment to help people prepare for that moment and i think that that could be um not to just throw one more thing on the plate but that could be something that um could actually pay dividends on the social emotional and the anxiety-reducing end because at some point we will open our doors and at some point um i heard the the words and i read the words from our union leaders um wanting to know you know what some of that so what's it look like question um because we can only talk about it so much yeah we're gonna wear masks but what does that look like and do i have to wear them outside on the playground and whatnot but if that we can put that into the cube i think that would

170be wonderful so can i thanks joy for that um we've had let's get it right scene and i'm a little shocked because we had union members on those teams that were part of the design of our building so they were in the trenches with that design giving great feedback and also adding to it and i guess the whole package we have a video that we put together by melissa we haven't released it yet because we don't want to um you know get people worked up and we want to know when we're ready we have all our buildings have been positioned to cover up those questions that were asked today by the union they've all been covered in multiple conversations and also in writing but uh we will continue to communicate that maybe it's not making

171it to all uh all of the members but we will we will continue to do that and there's uh again our buildings have been prepared uh and we just did not again didn't want to release that video uh prematurely and you know and get people worked up and there's some great uh great guides that our special programs have created with pictures of the schools with all of the guidelines that cover everything from a to z um we definitely talked about that today on the lebanon um and we will be having we will be releasing that shortly awesome thank you and as it relates to communication um i think it's i think it's actually wonderful that the communication is only going through certain channels and i think it's just a really good time for all parents

172of our community all staff all employees of the district to read the communications as they come out and to not ask principals to rebrand communications or restate them in their own words i think this is public health and this is compliance driven so that we can get back into our buildings and i i think put it in as few places as possible and let everybody just reshare it exactly to where it's supposed to go and uh you know i'm i'm so happy that we give all of our staff met most of them technology that they can have at home and log into the websites and read it themselves and i'm sure parents can do that too so thank you for streamlining that all in one place thank you um i just wanted to echo the

173desire to have the data more comprehensive data across all age and grade levels i think i i want to ensure that we're on the same page in terms of the intent of our remote learning updates that um i think we as a board want to ensure that everyone has access um to the the public good that we are providing for our community and we also want to do a temperature check on the academic progress um for children is and then i think the general wellness as well for children and families um and i appreciate the work that you all have done so far we are i i struggle to capture fully the amount of emotional and intellectual labor that you all are engaged in on a daily basis both pivoting our entire instructional framework to

174a remote platform but then also at the same time working to build the and prepare our our buildings and our um entire staff for in person during a public health crisis i mean this is incredible and tremendous amount of labor and i know that um it's being done from from the heart and i appreciate the commitment that you all have brought to this as well as the expertise that you bring to this and i look forward to continuing to talk about how we we capture what how how children are doing how progress is going and um have that qualitative and quantitative data to um share that narrative as district leadership but also with our community um so i just wrote a couple of notes in terms of our next remote learning update i think we'll

175be looking to see data across more grade levels that is um [Music] comparable over time um some explanation about the consistency of strategies across buildings and how successful strategies and information are being shared so that there's some consistency and experience um curious also about the attendance and i think how we're we're certainly measuring the engagement with the apps but is there a measurement for daily attendance and do we have a a target outcome or benchmark for that um and then to hear a little bit more about the the model schools and model classrooms that we have set up and what that might look like for kids and families to learn about um [Music] i think that that captures the prevailing no oh i think for i would also like to have some consistency in how

176we are measuring and talking about access metrics so there was um a number a raw number provided in terms of hot spots that have been provided to our community are we clear that that has filled the gap do we know raw number in comparison to need um is there a percentage can we say that we have 100 addressed the percentage of requests um how how do we measure that number in terms of what does it tell us about the access that we're providing to our community and gaps that we may have filled or may still need to make progress and filling um the those are the general notes that i have is there anything else for colleagues that i miss that you were hoping to see in the upcoming remote learning report i think the

177only thing that i would add that i don't know that we've captured fully up in addition to our gratitude is for us to really think about pacing for cabinet and principles and all down the line the urgency we know there's urgency but we also recognize that this pace of which you all have been working since the pandemic began is not sustainable um and i you know i greatly appreciate all that you guys have done to continue to deliver and continue to pivot but i i think we need to be strategic about when when dates get moved and when things get adjusted how do we how do we adjust our pace so that um we can continue to do this for however long we need to because i think we all are incredibly appreciative of what

178you all have given personally to get us to this point but you know we want we want you all to be healthy and well as well and i i personally don't think that the what we've been asking you to do is something that you can do throughout the entire school year without some some give somewhere so i hope that that's part of your um what you come to us next time too about how you're all how you're figuring out how to do it as smartly as possible so that you all can be intact throughout this year because i i don't i don't i think all of us have incredible gratitude for what you're doing but also care about you all uh personally and everybody who works on under you to make sure that the pacing

179is something that we can sustain thank you biz i was actually just gonna say this regardless i just also want the board to be aware that the next remote learning memo is coming up on november 16th which is a very short turnaround time and so we will absolutely take the feedback that you've given us um but i the adjustments to the next memo will probably be more focused on the qualitative feedback from the survey and we'll work towards some of the other requests and actions so personally i i'm hopeful we can hear more of those kind of things from you all like let us know when our timeline is not reasonable or when you have to make choices between we can give you this for the next board meeting and then the rest of that

180will come at the following board meeting it's not intended i don't think by any of us to say make sure all of these things happen in this way and on this date at your own expense so thanks stacey thank you [Music] um i did all of that biz and i appreciate you clarifying that stacy um that took a lot of time but that was the only discussion item on our agenda this evening um so i'll draw folks attention to the fyis on the agenda and other than that i would no further business before the board i adjourn this meeting at 9 48. thanks everyone good night