001introduced it schoolwide and then she's been looking for kids that are modeling it during recess that she can come back and show us examples of how the kids are owning this and you know learning to work through things with each other. And then the last thing are the achievement badges. Um they're like the little brag tags or backpack tags that um we have schoolwide ones and we have the grade level ones. So the schoolwide ones they earned one at the beginning of the year when all of the classes could show that they had learned the cool tools or the JB way for you know how we are in the hallway, how we're you know acting in each part of the building. Um there's one for the working together with the buddies. Um each grade level
002has chosen an academic one. Like in second grade we have fact fluency for addition and subtraction facts within 20. Um it's a way of again getting the kids to work together, bringing the families in so that they know what some of those pieces are and what we really want them working on with us at home and that all of the kids are working towards a similar goal. >> Nicely done. >> Anything else? >> No. Oh, I think we skipped one. Yes. So, [clears throat] reflecting on last year, um, our first trimester instructional rounds and CHAMPS rounds when we looked at our data showed that when we compare this fall to last fall, we're actually starting out in a better place. And and so that was really exciting. That was a big celebration for us. um
003when we talked about the success criteria and students being able to say that's why I can tell you how they couldn't do that last fall and the same thing with CHAMPS all of our data across the board was higher than it was last fall um regulation stations you might remember me talking about that last year that was one of our um action steps to support um belonging last year we so this time last year they weren't even they didn't exist they weren't in the classrooms we brought them on board in the middle of last year and it's been a success to have students using them now like they're in all every single space they go use them on their own when I'm calling and partnering with parents they're saying oh yeah he's been telling me
004he's been using that regulation station it's really helping him to you know calm down or refocus um so those are in place and being used and that's a celebration when we think about where we were last year um our belonging data when we looked at our belonging data um and I compared again apples to apples I went to last fall compared to this fall we're starting out a little a bit stronger. So, that was a celebration. And then, as Jen shared, we had a really strong launch with our theme of belonging. And we're going to continue to focus in on this in second and third trimester. And I'll be excited to share some more things when we come back next time about some of the things we did with that. Our final slide tonight, you
005asked us to go out and get some information about um how is the impact of cell phones in our schools and in our classrooms. So, we follow the board policy and student handbook that's already up there and all electronic devices are expected to be turned off and put away. Um, students should not be using any devices to communicate while at school. The at JB Nelson, I sent out a Google survey. I worked with my BEA. We sent one out to the entire staff. And when I looked at the data, it really there was a range. There were quite a few staff members who have had zero conversations. Um, and then there were a couple staff members who maybe have had one to two this whole school year. We can approximate 60 daysish we've been in
006school. And um, then we have some people who say one to two times a day I'm talking with students. But it's watches. It's not the cell phones in our building. It's smart watches and it's them texting um, their parents. So I haven't had office discipline referrals as of yet. We've had a couple conversations and then I already shared what staff shared. I know there's a more official survey coming. Um, but that's what we had at this point. And that is all we've got. I'm not Rotolo. We're gonna stay right here. Questions? [clears throat] >> Just uh one comment. Uh I appreciate your comment about um getting families involved. I think um um that's going to be an important thing. We're we're talking a lot about that is making sure we have good engagement throughout the
007district and making sure we're aligned families are aligned with what the students are expecting or um you know student goals. Um I think that's a positive positive thing that Thank you. >> Really good. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. Am I getting stupid? [applause] >> Oh, we're just trying to make sure she gets her orchestra [clears throat] concert. [laughter] >> All right. Um, I'm Tara Paycheek. I'm the principal over at Rotolo and I have Kelly Bennett with me. She's our instructional coach and serves on our SLT, um, among a million other things that we have her do in our building. Uh so she's here to help present some of our information because she has a huge role in a lot of it. So first we'll start with our goals. Um these should
008look familiar to you because they are the exact same goals that we had last year. Um our building set goals that were lofty and we knew that they were lofty and we decided that we would set goals that we wanted to reach not goals that we knew we would reach. And so last year we made some progress in some of these goals, but we knew that they were still something that our board or our SLT really wanted to focus on. So our first one is really implementing impactful strategies from our tier one strategies. And then our second one is creating an equitable learning environment for our students, looking at belongingness, engagement, and academic success. And so when we're looking at our metrics and for what we wanted to measure for this um for our fall
009metrics, we're looking at growth. So I have our spring metrics for growth on there from last year because we don't have growth data yet for fall of this year. Um we will in the winter, but we don't have it yet. And then we have a mid-year goal of 67% growth and 80% or 60% growth. And then in math it's uh 70% and reading 70% by the end of this year. Again, those are still lofty goals. moving 10% in our growth category is something that is challenging. Um, but our teachers felt that those numbers were numbers that they felt comfortable with as goals for them whether or not they hit it this year or next year. It's just a number that felt appropriate to them for a growth goal for us. Um, when it comes to
010equitable learning, we have two things that we're looking at. Panorama data is our first one. Um, last year we had panorama as a metric we kind of looked at, but we didn't measure it in terms of intentional growth because we didn't know how our kids were going to respond to it. We didn't know whether or not we were going to change questions. We wanted to feel it out before we said this is how we're going to use this information. Um, so now we know that and we're better equipped to figure out percentages to grow and we've worked with our Panorama reps to figure out what they recommend. Um, and we are hoping to grow by 2% in our long belongingness score for our students. Um, putting us at 74% in the spring. Of course, we
011would love that number to be higher than that, too. Um, but the Panorama reps said that 2% growth is a pretty impressive growth for a school of our size to have over the course of one year. Um, so we're doing some tier 2, tier one interventions, some lesson planning and advisory and bulldog block to kind of reach those goals. Um, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in our action step slide. And then the second thing that we look at is our CHAMPS implementation. So, if you remember last year when I talked to you guys about CHAMPS, we were really just looking at that surface level implementation of CHAMPS, the visuals in the classroom, the specific expectations following specific vocabulary. Um, now we wanted to dig in a little deeper and get into
012the actual heart of CHAMPS and look at what categories can really improve engagement and learning in the classroom. So, we moved on to opportunities to respond. So, our goal by the end of this year is to have 14 opportunities to respond within our time that we're observing, which is about a 10-minute observation. Um, we're currently at 11.5. So, we have a little bit to go, but our teachers are behind that goal and figuring out ways to make that happen. And we're also taking time in our faculty meetings to look at the different ways that students respond. So 14 opportunities to respond that are all passive isn't engaging for our students. You know, stand up, sit down, get your pencil, put your planner away. Those are opportunities to respond, but they aren't improving our learning. So,
013we want people to really focus on um active opportunities to respond rather than just passive. So, that makes 14 a decent goal for us because it's harder to do more engaging opportunities to respond. >> Go ahead. >> You just gonna skip right over. >> Yep. [laughter] Um, so our action steps are very similar to last year's because they are the same goals, but we're looking at what we did last year and what was successful and then how we could make it even better. So we still have an aligned bulldog block. So every sixth, seventh, eighth grade um schedule, they have bulldog block built in that they have designated time to get support from their teachers, to go ask questions, to do their homework, to get organized. But 10 to 15 minutes of that class period
014is designated for their own personal growth. So it depends on the team and the grade level. But mostly Mondays and Fridays are designated for um just reading. So 10 to 15 minutes that they're choosing their book that they want to read. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, that 10 to 15 minutes is spent with so it depends on the team. They might do Tuesdays are math and Thursdays are ELA. It might be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are all math one week and then the following week they do reading, but they're spending that time on skills that are skills that that individual student needs to work on. So based on the benchmark that they do in the diagnostic, it gives them the recommended skills that they're working on. So this year our goal was what's the motivation for students that
01510 to 15 minutes they're working independently. Eighth grade they've done it, sixth grade and seventh grade. So keeping the kids motivated and wanting to do that. So whether that's goal setting, we've had teachers that do punch cards. So if they get a smart score of like 75 or to 80 as proficient, they get a punch and then when they get five of them, they get a reward depending on the teacher. That's different in different classrooms. Um we've had [clears throat] we've had other teachers try to gify it. So they do like a leaderboard. So the kids are answering their own questions at their own level, but they're answering the number of questions correct goes on a leaderboard and they get that the bragging rights of being at the top. Or we've had teams that are
016doing competitions against um two teachers. So it's a battle and the percentage of correct questions that each class answers correctly, then they can get their bragging rights for their team. So just getting those ways of getting kids motivated and wanting to answer the questions correctly instead of just flipping through and finding the best way to use that resource has been really helpful. Um and teachers have really gotten on board and helping teach helping the kids find the success in that. So um the buildingwide PD like Tara said we are looking at faculty meetings now as part of our department meetings. So once a month we meet as 25 minutes as faculty. Then we go on to our departments. So that might be a mini lesson and something that we are talking about in champs opportunities
017to respond. It might be something in some of [clears throat] our other goals. It could just be announcements and then when they go back to their departments they're using that time to do PD as well. Um, we're all reading the well SLT and TLS are reading 10 to 25, the book by David Joerger and looking at motivating students between 10 and 25. Um, and then SLT and TL members will go back to their teams and their departments and kind of have those conversations. So, it's spreading across the building. Um, and then we are continuing champs. So last year, our goal, like Tara said, was just to have the posters up and all of us using the same vocabulary, all of us um instilling the same conversation level so students could go from class to class
018and know what Champs meant. Now, we're looking at that engagement piece. So, we're looking at the level of engagement and how engaged our kids are during a 10-minute class period or more. Um, so we're looking at the number of opportunities to respond, but we're also looking at what types of things are happening in the classroom during direct instruction, during small group instruction that kids are engaged in, and what strategies can we use that works for that group of kids. And see if I forgot, have I forgotten anything so far? I think so. >> All right. Um, new things. And then the classroom visit. So we last year teachers started talking about just being classrooms and how much they learned from watching other teachers teach. And we did with um we had like informal where you
019could just go pop in the classrooms, but the more structure seemed to be more successful. So last year just even with CHAMPS walkthroughs and getting TL's and SLT members doing the Champs walkthroughs, we had um one of the eighth grade teachers walked through did a Champs walkthrough. Loved what one teacher was doing, a strategy that she had, and then he was like, I'm going to try that in my lesson tomorrow. So he intentionally like figured out how he was going to put that that strategy in, invited all of us in to see it and was like, "Hey, tell me what you think of this." And just getting that collaboration and that professional development built into the day was really cool to see. So, we tried to make that even better. And this year, starting [clears
020throat] in January, SLT NL members will all go visit a sixth grade classroom and then look at what's happening in our school improvement goals. So, what do we see that's working in engagement, opportunities to respond? Um, we're going to get into student discourse, how students are talking to each other. So, having them come back to TLS and SLT and talk about like what are we seeing in the building that is working. Um, so those classroom visits are really kind of spreading. And then in the new math curriculum, we've been in a ton of classrooms and looking at what teachers have been doing. Um, we've taught classes so that they could go visit other classrooms. The math teachers could go visit other classrooms and then, um, we've set it up so math teachers during their plan
021and their PLC could go visit other grade level teachers teaching math. So, and then just having that that connection of what's working in classrooms and seeing other teachers teach has been really helpful. Um, so the new things is a lot of those just making it better and then our goals of using common exit tickets. um math, the new math curriculum has the exit tickets already built in. So, our teachers are figuring out the curriculum. So, the lessons are long. They're getting to that exit ticket. So, they may not be using it to small pull small groups within their classes, but they're using it to decide like, okay, this is what didn't work this class period. The kids had a misconception, so I'm going to do it my next class period. So, just using it as
022an overall whole class. They have to switch directions. Um and then that will spread. That'll get better. and then we can spread it to other content areas. Um the student discussion again in math we had our first math walkthrough with our EM squared rep in October and our goal was to see more student discussion. Um our teachers were used to like the kids doing math and not talking as much. So we just had our second math walkthrough this week >> and the amount of kids talking math was incredible. um they had so much academic vocabulary. They It was not new to them. Like we walked in and they would do a turn and talk and the kids were like right on it. They knew what they were supposed to be doing. They were talking a
023lot of math. A lot of stuff I didn't get in the eighth grade one. Um so that was really exciting to see that progress of just having the teachers have that goal and they intentionally plan to put in those student discussions. So we'll continue to do more of that. Continue to report out the data from and champs. And then um our last one was that belonging piece to get some formal and informal ways to have that belonging. Um we had the author visit Michael Ley. >> Did I say it right? >> Lei um who came and spoke to the kids. Um he had a full day. So I think he interacted with every student in our building. He started before school, met with kids that had book club, talked to them about his book and
024his personal life. Then they he did a presentation in sixth grade. He did a writing workshop with our seventh and eighth graders. He did a question and answer session for anybody who wanted to come. Then he stayed after school to meet with our equality club from the middle school and high school kids and talked about with writing characters with diverse diverse backgrounds and kind of seeing yourself in your own writing. So he had great conversations with our kids um throughout the entire day. So that was great way of belonging. Oh, we had we have a bunch of different um positive reinforcements that we're trying to do in our building too, just because we feel that um shifting our attention to what's going well has been easy for our building. And so it also makes all
025of us happier when we're there. So we're trying to really focus on like bringing out the good and really talking and talking up the students who are doing positive things rather than focusing on correcting behaviors. And we're seeing a positive shift with that. Um our cell phone policy is the same as the board policy, off and away. Uh this is the first year that all three grades cannot have their phone at lunch. Um we cycled that through starting in sixth grade and now those are eighth graders. So no one has access to their phone at any point during the day. Um our discipline process is starts with very informal reminders and expectations. Bulldogs keep their phones off and away. Everybody remember the expectations, things like that. And then they progress into consequences if needed. Um
026this year our current recorded violations for cell phones are at five. Um with a building our size, we're pretty happy with that number. That doesn't mean that kids haven't received reinforcing um conversations, but that has not required multiple um interventions in more than just five of those cases because the multiple interventions would require us to document it in the way that we're um recording violations. So, we haven't seen a lot of push back from our kids because they're just used to it now at this point that it's off and away. Um, whereas when we were trying to change it for students who used to have it in lunch, to say they couldn't have it in lunch was not fun. So, we're finally at a point where it's just the norm to not have it. And,
027um, it's been going well. That's all we got for you. >> Yeah. So, do you feel like you've seen a change in lunch? >> Um, not. I think we've seen a change in lunch because of the amount of um work that our deans have put into behaviors in the lunchroom. And I think that cell phones being in the lunchroom fed into that behavior. Uh, but I think that overall our lunchroom has improved drastically in the last three years. So, in general, it's a far more positive and controlled environment. Um, some of that is related to cell phones, but most of it is just related to our deans being diligent and and thoughtful about what they're doing in there. So, I don't know that it's been like insanely obvious, but it's definitely there >> comments. [applause]
028Okay. I am Kristen Stevens, the principal at Alice Gufferson in the Early Childhood Center. And with me, I have >> I'm Jake Wyth. You saw me a couple weeks ago, so I'm back for different reasons tonight. [laughter] >> All right. So we we will start with the early childhood program goals. Um those goals this year focus on building those strong early learning habits. Um the first goal is uh related to growing pre-iteracy skills. So um identifying, matching and sounding out letters, writing letters based on their sounds and then students are progress monitored based on their individual goals. um which makes sense for someone who's three or four years old to um be measured in that way. And then they're also working on answering higher level questions to deepen their thinking. This is the second year
029they've been working on that goal. And that just really sets students up to be those um deeper level learners and and be able to comprehend more complex text um as they grow. And then finally, the students are practicing those independent daily um routines, arrival, dismissal, um handwashing, transitions, and all of those um experiences are much appreciated when these students uh transition to kindergarten and are expected to be um much more independent. >> Okay. We have two goals uh identified in our school improvement plan. The first one is a literacy goal, which you've seen uh for each school. I like that. Uh this year we've decided to focus on increasing the number of students as proficient uh in ELA. I think that's a uh certainly a goal we have as every year as a school. But
030so I we set our goal at 80% of students will score at or above the 50th percentile on ELA MAP. In the fall we uh had 79% of our students uh proficient uh on that assessment. uh for our sense of belonging, we used the panorama survey to uh create this goal and our the area that was weakest for our students was their ability to persevere through challenges. They're was labeled as grit on the assess on the assessment. Um and I think one of the things we found as a staff is just that we have by and large a fairly successful high achieving student population. So a lot of things for them come easily. So when they're presented with challenge that can be diffult. So uh the goal we set would was that um 100% of
031our students would participate uh in at least three learning activities that require sustained effort problem solving and grit. And a lot of those we're doing as a school uh involve our grade level buddies with younger students and the older students. So it does also bring a sense of belonging um aspect to that as well. >> The okay >> that's okay. the action steps we have for English language arts. Um we are going to focus on explicit tier 2 vocabulary instruction and the the numbers you see next to that are the uh Hadtie's research for impact size uh of those instructional uh strategies. Um teachers are working on incorporating um um map and I style questions into their instruction. Student goal setting through the trimester reflection and regular uh updates on that. Um, we have some
032teams doing rigor and relevance teaming um that are working on student collaboration uh and student teaming. And then Kristen's been doing some daily strategies uh in the morning announcements which are tied into our portrait of a graduate lessons to help support students with their perseverance and grit. One thing I was going to point out too, I know um JB Nelson mentioned the fifth grade team field testing the new uh English language arts resource. My team is doing the same thing. And one of the things I think is really positive is a lot of these action items I see as regular occurrences in the uh CKLA materials. So I do think from a systemwide perspective some of these high impact strategies are going to be further embedded with uh with potentially with a new resource. Okay.
033And then our reflections. Um, one thing we have done this year is delve a little bit deeper into Panorama, especially as the SLT team, but also um during our PLC meetings um just really looking at that data and digging deeper into it. So, for example, um 92% of our students reported that they had a trusted adult at school, which sounds great, but that also then left uh 8% of our students that said they didn't. Um, and our SLT team decided right away that that's not okay with us. We wanted to really dig in and get more information from those students and connect with those students. Um, so we've action planned already um connecting them with adults and following up with them. Um, Panorama has just been really a a good wealth of knowledge for us.
034Um, and this year we definitely dug deeper into that. Um, it's helped us just better understand our students. um model of instruction for deeper learning. I've talked about that before. Um we went and watched Elgen School District do this. It's a cooperative learning model. Um as Jake said, our students uh are pretty high achieving. Um but we what we found is um they do struggle a little bit to work together cooperatively and um I can think back to college days having a little trouble with that myself. So um we're providing them a lot of instruction and it also gives us um the opportunity to do in the moment coaching. So um you know agreeing on one idea can be really challenging for students because my idea is right and Jake thinks his idea is right
035and how do we come to a consensus? Um and it's given us that opportunity to to really focus on some of those SEAL strategies that we talk about. um our students are really good at telling us what we want to hear in that aspect but then implementing it is is a little trickier for them. Um and then really listening to our students uh regarding feedback and again for the um deeper learning academic teaming um and speaking to some of the students we there's a facilitator in the group um and their feedback is the facilitator keeps bossing us around. So, um, just because they're facilitating doesn't mean they get to do all the work and boss us around. So, um, good feedback and we change some of our instruction based on that and really really value
036um, that real honest feedback that our students are willing to provide. And I would say too, one I I u am the sponsor of the student council at our school and I would say one of the positive things for me is that the student leaders report similar themes to what we see at SLT on Panorama. So the student leaders are often wanting to address some of the same uh needs of the school as we see on our panorama survey. >> Before you move on, can you go back to the previous slide? Can you explain again what what those numbers next to those categories >> stole my question so thank you either one of us can um there's a researcher named John Hattie you people I think have referenced them maybe before in presentations and so
037he looked at how um impactful certain learning strategies are for student learning so the higher the number obviously the better the learning >> what is the hype I don't know that >> it's above 20 I is good is good. >> So, but 48 does that mean that that's like what is 48 >> in for that rigorous map style questions? What >> are you trying to >> catch up? [laughter] There's a full body of work that reports it from like its lowest impact factor. So it's like almost like an impact factor score um where there's a the lowest of all lows and then he builds on what his research was all the way up to the top which is where you're heading towards one >> full impact. >> So it's like zero to one >> Rob
038a point four a point four in his scale is like a typical year's growth. So anything above 04 would be considered a high impact strategies. There's different strategies um that can be you know upwards of 1.2 2, 1.3, and things like that. Um, they're a little bit more complex than than just a classroom instruction strategy. But just to give you like a scale, a point4 in his in his system is like a year's worth of growth, if that makes sense. >> And it's a metaanalysis of a bunch of research on these. So, it's it's [clears throat] a combination of a lots of people's research on particular uh instructional strategies. uh and then looking at all of that data what's the impact the average impact of those >> but kind of the net thing that you're
039trying to impart upon us is that these things are >> someone study high impactful things to do correct >> beyond what you might normally do. He says that in education there's not much we can do that's harmful for kids, right? Like there are a few things like retention [laughter] >> most things are not going to do like set kids back in their learning but there are few things that really accelerate learning. So that's why he sets that at point four. >> Right? >> So he has a million different things that he's analyzed but only some of them rise above that point4 impact level. And there are other things that are related to this that are high impact like we set goals but [clears throat] then giving feedback on the goals so you can continue to
040improve as a high impact strategy reflections. >> Okay. And then our um uh cell phone procedure update um very similar to JB Nelson. We really do not have an issue with cell phones. um our students have those turned off and put away. I have never really seen a student pull a cell phone out. However, our many of our students do have um smartwatches and as JB Nelson said that's a lot more challenging to navigate and and enforce. Um and we have had some incidents where parents are uh sending messages to their students via smartwatch. Um, I've only had one conversation with a student, but that's not to say I know when our SLT talked about it. Many teachers have had conversations with students. Um, we're pretty lucky though because typically when we do speak to
041our students about it, they correct the behavior and don't do that um, again. And then, um, Mr. Modaf sent out a really great message to his parents about um, the board policy and things and so I just stole his message and sent it out recently. Um, so I'm anticipating that that'll give us even more community and parent support. And just just a reminder, >> do you have any questions for us? That Hattie one was very challenging. So [laughter] >> I got one. Can you go back to one of your earlier slides? >> Oh, that's just understand the type of questions and what those numbers. >> Sure. So, the more complex questions are, it's a little more challenging for a a three and four year old. Um, but thinking of it like from a let's just
042say a a first grader. Um, you're asking them to explain their thinking or go deeper into the thinking versus like what was the name of the character? You're asking more like a question. um how does uh their character trait impact them in the story or how would the story be different if this character wasn't kind and um they were unkind. So it's it's just asking them to um do more complex thinking um versus like the surface level type of questions. >> And so what do the percentages kind of relate to? >> The percentages are the percent when the classrooms were observed. There's a consultant that comes in and does observations. That's the percentile of questions that were higher level thinking. So in September um yes or no choice there were 13% of the questions were
043yes or no choice questions. Remembering 40% of them were remembering. >> Okay. >> So it's a comparison from September of 2025 to the prior year and it's something they've been working on really hard for a while and they have a consultant working with them as well. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you. [applause] >> All right. Uh good evening. Um, I'm very excited to be back here to share about Grace McWain, uh, the school improvement plan and our progress so far in implementation. Uh, with me here is SLT member Kelly Woodard. I do want to give her a shout out though. She's not only an SLT member, uh, but she's also an active ELA salt member and plaque member. So, she brings vast amounts of experience
044both in the classroom and across the district. Um on this screen you will see um our uh goals for this year which uh similar to other schools you're going to see is literacy and sense of belonging. Um typically we focus on comprehension but uh when we get into literacy but this year we want to take more of a whole language approach of looking at um uh oracy and writing which are some foundational components of literacy uh that we haven't focused on in the past. Um we're and um we're looking uh by uh doing that we're we're looking to improve our vocabulary use, our comprehension or crit and critical thinking. Um and we're we the reason we like these areas is because it can be stretched across the entire school day. Uh it's not that's not
045just in reading, that's in any part of their school day, whether they're in PE, art, music, uh and any uh of our students uh can certainly practice and improve in these areas. So, we're hoping by doing that we can move from 55.57 students growing uh on NWA MAP reading to uh in spring go to 58% of students. Uh we're also focusing on sense of belonging this year and as you can see we do have a superhero theme. You'll hear that a few times tonight. uh and we're using that theme uh to focus on portrait of a graduate components and u we're hoping by doing that along with some other um uh engaging pieces with student focus groups and things like that we're going to move uh the panorama survey results from 72% of students surveyed
046responding favorably to 76% of students. Uh some key action steps include monthly PLC data meetings. Um and that is to improve the data culture of our building. Um and with a good a focus of making sure that we are regularly looking at data and this is not MAP or I data. This is data produced uh from student outcomes uh daily in the classroom and then analyzing that data uh and using it to uh change instruction. Uh professional learning sessions. as you heard already that the district had the ICO, the Illinois comprehensive uh literacy plan components uh are being focused on this year across the district. We're doing those along with um uh some of the work that our SLT is doing uh as well. Um and it's pretty cool because it aligned with our focus
047of ORCY because one of one of the focuses of those um professional learning sessions was Ory. So we've dug into that deeply. Um our goal with ORS is to push towards academic conversation success criteria. So we want to define for teachers first and then students what it is to be successful with academic conversations. Um kind of kind of some examples I can give to you is if you're uh you know a student uh answering with a complete sentence uh citing evidence and reason behind their answers uh students um you know analyzing the answer of another student and responding to them. And that's the kind of uh things we're thinking about when we think about ORC. Uh and with writing, we're looking to align expectations uh across the building uh and build some frameworks and instructional
048goals around IR. Uh IR when we get our results, it does uh include uh the standards that we are proficient on and areas that we might need to grow on. So we've been using that the last couple of years uh to figure out uh how to improve in different areas. And this year we we're focusing on writing for SEAL. There's uh we had monthly student we're doing monthly f student focus groups in the past. We've done it by trimester and we're increasing that uh because we found that those focus groups um help us really guide our our school leadership team. Uh I get to sit with those students and then I bring back that data to the school leadership team. Uh so they have uh a student view of of the decisions we're making. Uh,
049as I told you, the superhero poster uh are going are bringing our portrait of a graduate uh components to life. Um, each uh month a grade level uh picks a component from the portrait of a grad and turns it into a superhero so our younger students uh can can get a better idea of what we mean by communication skills or things like that. Uh, schoolwide boosts are definitely helping with all of that. That's all tied into our superhero theme. Um and uh you'll hear from Kelly a little bit talking about our SEAL uh walkthroughs uh which we are focusing on student engagement in in kind of a different way this year and I'll let her talk about that next. >> All right. So some reflections. We did get an exemplary designation on the Illinois report
050card and we went from 51.6% to 68.4% 4% and we really attribute that growth to all the professional development that we have been doing doing around reading instruction. So um we've been doing monthly PLC data meetings. Um so teams are getting together with our instructional coach and Mr. Modaf to work together to identify priority skills and knowledge and then either choose or create um assessments to inform their instruction. Our second grade team has been field testing CKLA um in reading and writing and these meetings have really helped us comb through like what is the most important in the curriculum and then um come together to look through our data to inform our teaching to move forward. Um professional learning sessions on the components. Our reading teacher and our coach have done such a good job
051of leading professional development on the different components of that. We've really um dived deep into the different components and they've given us really practical things that we can use right away in our classroom. So, that's been exciting. Um in SLT, we wanted to make sure that our goals that we were setting for SIP were really um that all of our professional development was going to be focusing on what great reading and writing teachers do instead of aligning with a particular curriculum because we know we're kind of in that weird situation right now. So, we really wanted to make sure that it was just what good readers and writers do, what good readers and writing good reading and writing teachers do. So, um, ORC's been a big one for us. Um, like Jeff said with the
052academic conversations and the success criteria, um, we're in the midst of this right now. Actually, we discussed at our school leadership team what we thought some good criteria would be at different grade levels like K1 band, the 23 band, and then the four five band. And at our last staff meeting, we kind of passed those out to everyone. We got in those grade level bands and discussed, you know, like, oh yeah, we agree with this, we don't like tweak it here. Um, so SLT is going to take that back and look at it and then, um, you know, hopefully we can move forward with that. Uh, writing, we're aligning expectations and frameworks and instructional goals to the IR exemplars. Um, this is something we'll do the second half of the year. We haven't really dove
053into this yet. Um, but Jeff's already emailed all of the second through fifth grade teachers, the I exemplars so that we can take a look at them and be prepared for January when we hit that. Um, our SEAL walkthroughs um to promote student engagement and connections to academic discourse. Uh, we've committed, SLT has committed to record ourselves during a lesson, which was kind of a tough cell at first, but we got it. [laughter] So, we're all gonna record ourselves. And then, um, we have a rubric that we're going to use to evaluate ourselves on student engagement and, you know, academic discourse. So, we kind of have like a rough rubric. I think we maybe use chat GPT to put it together, but we're like, let's just use it, see how it goes, and then we
054can tweak it as we're evaluating ourselves. So, and then after we've all done it, then we're going to come to the staff and be like, "Okay, we all did it. It's not as scary as we thought it was going to be." And then we're hoping that staff will jump in and try it, too. So, >> and I want to just say I also am included in that. I videotaped [laughter] myself teaching. >> I haven't watched it yet. I haven't watched mine yet either, [laughter] >> but we're going to rip off that band-aid and check it out. I'm sure we did fine. >> Yeah, I'm sure. >> All right. And then you've heard in the other presentations about the current practice, our current practices aligned to board policy. Um, GMS has had three office discipline referrals,
055but they were all involving smartwatches because at the elementary level I I mean maybe fourth and fifth grade, but I don't see phones in second grade, but smartwatches, almost all my kids have the smartwatch on their arm. So, um, conversations with students, Jeff did send out like an email asking teachers, you know, how many conversations and he said, um, teacher reminders were like 60 plus. I can tell you I mean almost daily I am reminding them to you know it's usually it's the parents texting them. So um if it's if it becomes a distraction too much they just put it in their backpack and you know usually once I don't know some of them it's it's not them it is the parents. So um but he kind of sent out like it's okay to tell
056them like put it in your backpack. So that's just kind of our blanket statement now. If it becomes a distraction, just take it off and put it in your backpack and then they're fine. >> That's what prompted the email to the parents that >> Christine talked about. >> Yeah. >> They come home without their watch, check their backpack. >> Yeah. Right. Right. Right. [laughter] >> Before you panic, >> right, right? >> So, any questions? Thanks. >> Yeah. >> I'm supposed What uh we're missing an acronym. What is A, please? >> Oh, source assessment of readiness. Okay. It's our standardized test that we take once a year. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> Uh just to draw connections for the board, when Brad showed you the Illinois report card last month, the one section he went over
057when it was talking about student growth and accountability, that was the I that's the same same I >> so sorry. Um, congratulations on the exemplary designation. Um, is there any unique strategies? I know you mentioned professional learning, you're attributing that, but anything unique that you've been able to share with your colleagues or um some of those efforts and and it I think it goes back to like for everyone is like how are we how are we sharing some of those best practices that we're using. >> Yeah. And this actually happened at one of our principal meetings um uh where I had a chance to share it out where two things we did. one was actually getting into uh the back end of the A data to look at what what standards our students are most
058proficient in. It does do that along with like how many questions uh are related to that that standard. So um that is helpful um to our our teachers and I shared that with the principles and then the other one was just using the exemplars uh to show the level of rigor that is expected within those standards. um you know uh for example a fifth grader is expected to write like a five paragraph essay. It's well organized with transition words um and um and that's just helpful for students to see and then uh teachers use that to kind of teach toward here's an here's an example of where I want you to be by the end of the year. Here's how we're going to work toward it. So those ideas were shared last year at a
059at a principal meeting. Right. Well, thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Good evening everyone. HC storm over here. Chris Milka. I got Lauren Gallerini, fifth grade teacher and SLT member. I am just going to apologize in advance because I do talk quickly. So, get ready. Here are our goals that we got. Although we have lots of goal areas that we are focusing on for our school improvement plan, we are purposely going to be looking at ELA proficiency and growth, uh, which is aligned up to our strategic plan priority one. If you look, those are our starting metrics that we have over there. The red is actually last year's spring scores. So that was kind of what we built everything off of. And then we got our fall data that we added in over there
060as well. For our priority two, we got sense of belonging, but we are actually going to focus in on those three areas. I don't know if you can read it, but the specific wording for those three questions are down over there. But we definitely want to look to see if our staff or our students have a supportive adult in school, feel supported by those adults, and have a sense of belonging. So when we look at that, some of our key action steps, we are going to continue on our journey with the high yield instructional strategies. I'm glad that you asked Kristen that question about Hattie and the different types of uh metaanalysis scores. So, check that one off. So, I appreciate you that. Uh we also have our PD just like all the other elementary
061schools focusing on the ICLP and we're going to be very purposeful with our ELA instruction and we're going to revamp our instructional rounds because since we're putting so much PD into this, we want to empower our teachers to go into other classrooms in order to be able to see the implementation of the ICLP. Uh, our SLT is utilizing the street data book. So, we want to kind of avoid some of those biases in our conversations and get caught in those equity traps and tropes such as that deficit mindset or hey, we're shifting blame. We really want to look at the data in order to be able to kind of move forward. And part of that, we actually did a focus group for third, fourth, and fifth grade students uh focusing on studentto student respect. And
062from that, we want to empower their voices to find out what does that mean? What does it sound like? What does it look like? Where does it occur? and what solutions do you have to help us as adults be able to address those areas that you guys have identified. Um so we got students included in decision- making. Uh we're going to continue to go with our clear academic expectations in responsive tier one SEAL focus with CHAMPS portrait of a graduate. We have four out of the sixth grade levels doing second step and then we are actually diving into panorama playbook a little bit more. Um they actually have researchbased lessons and activities. So based upon the data, we actually will give those over to teachers so they could actually implement in part of their classroom.
063Uh we also have in the- moment coaching. What that means is I go out and I referee football and whiffle ball for certain grade levels. But before I go to referee, we actually brought all the students in and we actually had a lunch bunch just to kind of come up with common goals kind of classroom agreements of what does sportsmanship look like? Okay. Now I'm going to go out there and I'm going to hold you accountable because this is what you said. I have it on paper. You probe this rule. You agree and then that actually helps out and then we go over the rules. So, it works out pretty well. We're going to continue with our supportive relationships and our classroom buddies um partnering with our PTO. We got very highly attended events which
064is great. And then uh we are also doing a literacy night which all of you guys are invited to come into. Uh that will be actually February 12th. So, I believe you guys got a calendar invite. So, we'd love to see you. It is based in alignment with the Winter Olympics. So, we're calling it the reading Olympics aligned with all of the six competencies. Actually, there's five competencies in that sense of belonging um in Panorama. So, that will be our focus for those six weeks. And then we're going to go proactive attendance and nurse visits. Uh we looked at this in Blit. Is Blitz on your sheet? >> Nope. That would be building level intervention team. So, building level intervention team. Uh so, that's like kind of our tier two, tier three team. >> He
065said it >> [laughter] >> So, we look at different types of things and we saw some of our students um a group of them actually had more frequent nurse visits. So, we actually had proactive communication with the teachers as well with parents. And of the ones that we noticed, every single one improved after we had those proactive communications. One still kind of struggling, but we'll get there. And then also looking at our attendance, we did a deeper data dive into everything and we found out that our Illinois school report card, our Hispanic and Latino population was at 12.33% chronic absent, which like okay, we don't know which metrics they use. So we did a historical data dive and from 2016 to the current school year, they actually have an that PEPO agent has a 94.25%
066attendance. So I don't know where the disparity is comparably to the scores that were reported in the report card to what we have in our data point systems and even more currently well actually going back that historical aspect over the last three years we've had a 2% increase of our Hispanic and Latino population coming to school more regularly which was absolutely fantastic and our current data is actually showing that we have 54 students that are at 95% or higher attending 15 students that are at that 90 to 94.9% attendance and then we only have five students that are falling between 75 to 89.9%. So it looks like some of our proactive communications are actually having a positive impact not only for that subgroup but for all of our population thus far. So hopefully we could
067continue that and go from there. And that brings us over to our reflections. >> I know why. >> You don't have a [laughter] >> my staff love me in the morning. I on Thursday mornings >> super fast. Yes. [laughter] Maximize the time that we have together. Uh some of our reflections, one of them um is that we want to support all of our students and especially those students that are in the 90th percentile and higher um because they need our support as well as everybody else. Um we did find that um our math scores are continuing to be consistently um high and um we've been doing professional development as a staff and we've gone outside of the district um through the um regional office and attended um workshops on that. One of the things that
068we did find were that um some of our subgroup populations scored lower on the overall sense of belonging and seal competencies. So, we're working, like Chris said, with those um peer groups. Uh, and I happen to sit in on one of those and it's very interesting to get the perspective of a 10 or 11 year old and what you think you're doing that is right for them and then you sit across from the table and they tell you, "Yeah, you got it all wrong." >> So, it's been very eye opening and very satisfying to meet with those students. Um and then as far as um the discipline referrals, we've been working on um skill implementation and replacements. Um making sure that their studentto student respect and strengthening those relationships with their peers. Um this year
069or this school year, we've had 30 referrals. Um and out of those 30 referrals, 17 are the same students and um that's about 5% of our population. So there's been multiple infractions within the same students, but we've been able to decrease those with all um 12. We have one little guy that is a repeat offender, but we're working on making him be more successful. >> So, it takes eight times to have that conversation. So, we're only at number six. [laughter] >> We'll get that. Um, as far as the cell phone procedures, like everybody at the elementary level has pretty much said, it it doesn't really um we don't really see cell phones. Every once in a while you you'll hear one go off in a backpack and the kids are mortified that they have to
070go out and turn it off or silence it. It's more of the um smartwatches. We did have um two parent notifications and they were in favor once they understood the guidelines and Chris had the conversation with them. Um and one of the things that we have found is that parents were showing up at our building to pick their kids up and we had no idea because there had been no phone calls. The students hadn't gone to the office or the nurse's office. they had used their smartwatch and said, "I I'm not feeling good. You need to come pick me up." And so that could be an issue. >> Just a little. >> But that's all that we got. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. [applause] Hi. Oh, I do the I thought someone else
071was doing the clicker. I'm doing the clicker. All right. Hi, I'm Sean Dougman, uh, principal of Hooverwood, and with me is Jill Robinson, uh, our instructional coach. Hi. Our two goals, uh, one is for literacy and then one is for sense of belonging. Our literacy goal is for us to increase um 60 uh by 2% 61% of our students meeting or exceeding uh their MAP growth target uh in reading, moving that up from 59% from last year. Uh we don't have a midyear update yet because we've only taken MAP once. So we're maintaining our our our final goal of 61%. And then our [clears throat] sense of belonging uh we were at uh 70% at the end of last year. Last year in the fall we were at 79% and then it dropped to 70%
072um after um after the course of the year. Uh so we decided we wanted to maintain that 70% this year. Uh which we hit in the fall at 70%. I'm hopeful when we take it in the winter that it's going to hopefully go up. Um but we decided maintaining it would be a good a good course of action for right now. >> Okay. So I'm going to talk a quick minute about the um literacy action steps we have. Um and this will be a repeat on some of the things you've heard tonight at um with the other elementary schools. Um last year we started an initiative of a student collaboration and getting the students to work together more often across their day. So in any setting um not just the general classroom. Um so we're
073continuing this for year two. Um that initiative came out of our instructional rounds. We had a consultant coming in and and that's how that came to be at um at [clears throat] Hooverwood. So we're going to continue with that this year. Um so um I've been working um with teams with all grade level teams weekly team meetings to support that work. Um so I we talk about collaboration how to um support the kids in in the classroom and um working together. So um just doing that that teaming um AGS talked a little bit about that teaming work. Um so they're having good conversations and building their critical thinking skills. They're learning to problem solve and not relying on the adult as much. Meanwhile, the teacher is um filtering through the classroom and being more of
074a coach. That's that's kind of their role instead of being the problem solver. Um so, we're just we're we're just continuing that journey this year. Um and we're also also digging into the um ICLP as well as uh the other buildings are doing. So, uh, the instructional coach and the reading specialist and Hoover are also, um, giving staff professional development to, um, learn about these, um, components to the ICLP. And, um, we are, um, embedding those or going to be embedding those into the daily ELA instruction um, and supporting teachers around that work. Very similar to the others. And then for our belonging action steps, um all of our students participate in a buddy reading program which is across grade levels which helps them with their oracy and their oral reading fluency. Uh we also
075have wellness Wednesdays which are designed to foster self-care and emotional management and those are created by our two social workers that are given out to the staff. Uh we do our morning meetings um to foster that classroom community. But something I've been adding this year is I do video announcements every morning. Uh and then within the video announcements, I embed um videos that go along with our portrait of a graduate themes, different uh videos throughout the week, and then those lead uh into discussions for the morning meetings for teachers to try and have like more of a a connection across multiple multiple mediums. Uh staff also will submit uh digital how heroes and uh care sheets. Care sheets have been um at Hooverwood before I got there, but they were paper pencil. digitized them this
076year to um to help me better track data and to uh reach kids uh quicker. Uh and then Highway's Heroes is something I brought from my previous school. It's essentially a uh positive reward system. Uh it's also digital. So uh if a kid goes above and beyond, uh teachers can submit it digitally to me and then I share it out with uh with the staff and um the parents. And then that's also looped into our video announcements because certain kids will then win award. We pulled out a raffle raffle prizes for um being a How's hero? Um something we're doing this year too that will be happening uh soon in the second and third trimester is I'm meeting with student council executive groups plus um how's heroes award winners and kids that also were receiving
077care sheets. In the past, it had only been student council exec members that met um with the staff. But I wanted to loop in those kids that are uh getting those How's her Heroes because those are kids maybe that aren't necessarily your extroverts, but they're doing things to go above and beyond. I want to get uh get their uh get their input. And then the students that are receiving those care sheets, you know, those are the kids that maybe feel like school isn't designed for them or uh school isn't um set up for them to succeed. So those are the kids also. I want to I want to hear from them, too. And I want all those kids having discussions together so that we could have a school that's uh right for everyone. Uh and
078then the last one I have is um we implemented uh dement drops. That's something also that I brought with me. It's a digital Google form that all second through fifth graders have access to that they can send me messages um whenever they whenever they want. Um I probably get you sometimes too many, but like um I [laughter] got I got I got three today, but I get notifi notified right away. So I was able one kid was having trouble in music. I went to music and talked with him. another kid was having an issue with someone from recess, so I was able to pull both of them. Just gives them a way to to get to me quicker instead of having it make it through its way through the grapevine or a lot of kids
079use it um a lot of kids use it proactively to like let me know when things are starting to happen so that I could come in and help intervene. Um so our reflection Oh, you're going to do the top ones. You go. >> Don't do mine. Um so we are go so our reflections um academically we're going to continue the ongoing collaboration um so that we can keep engaging in those good conversations with the students um helping them to continue that good teamwork and just really empower them with their own skills so that they can be their best learner and again not rely on the adults to um have all the answers which they think we have. We really don't. Um so we we really want to empower them with their own skills and they
080really are on their way. They can do it. Um and then we're going to continue that deepening um of our understanding of those core components so that we can all be good teachers of reading. >> Um some other reflections, the use of the digital how's heroes has helped with our positive referrals. Um we are going to hit a hundred of them before winter break which is awesome. Um and then it's just one of those things where it's like the more people do it, the more often they do it. the more that I push it out and talk about kids earning them, the more people are like, "Oh, yeah, I should I should give these out." Um, so that's a hundred different times that I've been able to reach out to parents about positive things that
081their kids have done at school. Um, and then creating the digital versions of the care sheets has helped me because now everything's tracked through a spreadsheet that um, lets me know what locations are are are incidents happening, um, what grade levels, um, what types of negative interactions are happening. So then I know what to target whether in my video announcements or retaching groups with kids. Um it just gives it's makes my work more targeted and more meaningful than just doing broad tier one uh behavior management. Um and then the video announcements and the drops have helped foster a sense of belonging at the school. Um all the kids get to see the same announcements every day. So everyone's getting the same message. Um kids are invol there's lots of kids videos in there. I put
082pictures of kids in there. um when kids are doing um cool things, it gets uh it gets added to there. Uh and the Degma drop again, you know, it gives kids they feel like they can they have direct well because they do, but they have direct access to me. Um [laughter] and that they see that I follow up on it. Um and I don't just let it sit there for a week. I either get back to them through uh Google Classroom or I get back to them in person or I sometimes I'll reach out to their teacher and just copy and paste and be like, "Hey, I think this is something you maybe you should look into." Um and let the kids know that their teacher is handling it. But that's just um a few
083of the ways that I feel like we're working on having kids feel like they belong. All right. Uh cell phones, again, we're not seeing the actual cell phone usage at all, but we are seeing the smartwatches. I I haven't no one no one has come down to my office about it, but I do know that it's in in each classroom there is there's talks of like put your put your watch away or there's no texting on your watches, things like that. So, it's definitely happening, but we haven't had anyone that's done anything that's required coming down to the office for it. All right. Any questions? >> Could you explain the care sheets? Like what is the >> Yeah, so a care sheet. So, that's for like if a student um you know, teachers do a
084different way. Sometimes kids get like five chances in class to be corrected and then if they still do, you know, um are shouting out or not doing their work, then a teacher can submit a digital care sheet about what happened to me and then it gets sent to me and then I'm able to if a kid gets three of them then I talk to them, hey like we're seeing a trend going on like what's going on in class and then I can reach out to their parents and talk to them about it too. So, it's just a way a lot of times, you know, a lot of minor things happen with students um and it kind of goes un unchecked or unnoticed and then it kind of builds up to bigger things. So, this is
085a way to be more proactive and get it when it's smaller. And then a nice thing is it used to be paper pencil. So, like if you were uh a classroom teacher and you wrote a care sheet to someone, then I'm the music teacher and I wrote one to someone, those don't ever intersect. But now that they all do it digitally, I can see, oh man, this kid's having a rough day. He got a care sheet in music and he got one in recess and then he just got one in math this afternoon. Like I should probably pull him down and see what's going on. Or she they got him sometimes too. Um and see what's going on. So that's uh that's what a care sheet is. >> From the teacher perspective, I think that's
086been the best feedback is that it's lessen the time in transition when a teacher goes to pick up from a special and they have to there's not a lot of time. So then they don't have to communicate that right then or lunch and a lot of times they didn't know that was all happening throughout the day. So it is a nice streamlined system now. Um so that the teacher is aware, oh gosh, well he's in it's not just happening and [clears throat] the parents too. It's not just happening in one setting or it's not just the classroom. It's actually this this kiddo's having trouble. This kid's struggling throughout the day and that's important to know so we can get support to that child. >> Um you're uh back and I'm sorry if I missed it
087but you did you say the sense of belonging went down from 79 to 70? Yes. >> What are you attributing that to? >> Well, I wasn't there. Um, [laughter] >> so it's all going up. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we can only go up from here. So, um, I don't I don't know. Um, again, I wasn't there. Um, from what I see, I mean, I feel like students feel like they belong at the school. Um, I'm trying my best to to put in initiatives and do things where the kids feel like they're heard and they're seen, um, and that they're valued at the school. So, I'm hoping when we uh take it this uh coming winter after uh winter break that we see numbers higher than 70. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you guys.
088[applause] >> Oh yeah, you do the clicker. Uh, good evening. My name is Aaron Colehagen. I am a first grade teacher at Louise White School and a member of the school leadership team. And I'm here with my principal, Mike Wall, to tell you about our SIP. We, like all of the other schools, have a literacy goal and a sense of belonging goal. Our literacy one is we want overall growth. Um, 60% of our students will meet or exceed on their MAP. And our final goal is that they will um to stay with that. Our sense of belonging is on peer relationships. Um we want to improve our end of year score by 10%. And looking at our we base this data on last year's and starting with this year we're already at a plus 3%
089in inc uh improvement. So we only have to grow seven more. So we're heading in the right direction. Perfect. Um, there are a lot of words on this slide. I'm going to read them all to you right now. No, I'm just kidding. [laughter] Um, so I'll just highlight some things and leave you wanting more and then there's questions you can always uh ask. Um, so within literacy, we kind of broke it down for kind of the major action items that we're doing. And then for each one of those, what substeps are we doing to make that happen? How are we measuring each one of those actions? And then what's our goal in each one of these areas to say like we're in control of each piece of this and how we know that we're going
090to be successful in these things. So one is our continued PLC work. This is where um our staff is self-evaluating in their professional learning communities. What is a we as SLT came up with what does a perfect PLC look like and then made a rubric and backwards mapped and and teams are working on that. As you've heard from other schools as well, learning intentions and success criteria is an ongoing um uh point that we're working to improve on. So that is kids knowing what they're learning and how they're going to demonstrate their their learning for the teacher by the end of a lesson. So moving from task completion to learning focused ICLP practices, Illinois comprehensive literacy plan. You heard about that from other schools and it's also happening at Louise White for SEO focusing on
091a few areas of how we're going to increase uh the peer relationships [snorts] and how positive they are is one explicit peer conflict resolution training. So this is kind of a three-step process. So one is the low-level behaviors and stop, walk, talk is the strategy where if someone's bothering you, you first make sure to tell them to stop. Uh, anyone that spent time around kindergarteners know this that that's a key step. Many times children won't tell the other child to stop, but they will feel distressed and want to talk to an adult. So, step one, tell the other person to stop. Step two, if that doesn't work, walk away or get some distance from the other person. And step three is talk to an adult. And so, teaching some kids some independent problem solving for
092low-level behaviors. Um and then the other two things on there step and peace path or uh other levels of behavior and problem solving. The step process is uh reflection on what happened and thinking about the options that you had as a as a person and which option is going to have the best outcome for you. And so that's kind of how we think of uh that as adults and helping students to think of that. And then the peace path has come out in the spring where we'll spray paint on our playground the steps to peace. Uh where when kids have a conflict they can work through each step in order to resolve those things outside. One of the bigger things we're doing is colonies. Uh we're the prairie dogs of course as you all know.
093Uh prairie dogs live in colonies. So colonies is what we called uh this arrangement where we have intergrade level groups. So like two kindergarteners, two first graders up through fifth grade. We've met now twice where we've gotten together and in those colonies then we're focused on whatever our seal focus for the month is or the learning piece on there. So we've done one on community and one on empathy and so um students report that that that's great. What's really awesome is teacher buyin on that. I wanted all the teachers to talk me out of it because there's uh so much work and there's so many potential issues with schedules and all the things that can happen. But um everyone's really committed to it and um the feedback from kids is they wish that we did
094it more often. And then finally uh family connection. So this is we have a monthly focus each month and so sending home tools or conversation starters for families to use um so that those conversations can continue at home and we can partner together together. So what we've done already, I probably said a lot of this already, but um is for PLC teams have we've created the rubric. Teams have self assessed that each grade level team has set their own goals for themselves for the year and are identifying professional development or other steps to improving. For learning intentions, we've set clear expectations of what minimum best practice looks like for that and then had our school leadership team, SLT, I bet that's on your sheet. Our school of leadership team uh leads some uh professional development
095on that. Um for the rest of our staff giving examples and problem solving ICLP as you heard about our coaches are leading and reading specialists are reading those u professional development sessions u for conflict resolution training. Again we've done the first two have talked about that as a um uh as a school. One good thing I was talking with the parent and they're like, "Well, we've told them to stop, walk, talk, you know, and it's like, so parents using that same language and I use that language at home with my boys with mixed results and more effective at school than at home." But, [laughter] uh, for colonies, then we've met uh, we've met twice and we plan on meeting four more times this year um, kind of every other month and we'll see how that's
096going. And the bigger picture there for sense of belonging is that the colonies then depending on our feedback as we keep going. But that those would continue yearon year. So then it'll be the same group of kids meeting together and then when the fifth graders leave uh they will move on or fourth graders then will become leaders and then they'll add a few new kindergarters and that way they're deepening relationships uh with the same students across grade levels over years and with a a different adult in most cases. So, um, we we'll see where that goes. >> You forgot the exclamation mark by colonies. >> Oh, sorry. [laughter] I made a typo. Usually, every time I said colonies, I put an exclamation mark and Miss Colehagen was point out my flaw right now. Thank you,
097Miss Colehagen. >> Okay. [laughter] >> And then family connections. Then we've been sending those home with our different focus areas. Um, for cell phones, as you've heard, um, not as much of an issue here. We've had no office referrals. I've had uh one conversation with a student and I've had two conversations with parents about dogs on school property for context [laughter] what issues come up. So it's me >> both. >> All right. Uh any any questions? >> [applause] >> Is that like an ongoing joke though because people were like also excited about colony to have that exclamation mark? >> That's hilarious. [laughter] >> She's not excited about him anymore. >> Didn't want to do them. [laughter] I feel like following up on a really good comedian when you're the next person to go, you're like,
098[laughter] >> Oh, thanks, Mike. Um, Joanne Smith, principal at Batavia High School. >> I'm Kim Pearlman. I teach junior and senior English and speech and I'm on SLT and CAC >> and Scholastic Bowl and Okay, we'll we'll stop there. [laughter] Um, so for our goals, we really just took the board goals that you adopted as as our goals for our building. Um, we're a little different at a high school versus maybe an elementary school where we don't all teach literacy. I mean, obviously incorporate literacy in all our day, but so we do have different goals. Um, our goals are proficiency goals. So that that means is if you look there, for example, the starting metric is our ACT scores from last spring. That would be our current seniors. And then our goal at the last
099column, the column on the right would be our current juniors taking the ACT in the spring. So last spring, our for example, our current seniors, uh 60% of them met the college readiness benchmark for ELA. Your goal that you set for us was 55%. So our ELA teachers bashed that goal last year. So they did a amazing job. And um our math also met met our goal, but obviously we're increasing that for next year by to 50%. And then finally, like everyone else, we have a sense of belonging goal that's being measured by Panorama. Um, last spring, 64% of our students uh reported uh having a sense of belonging. This past fall, just our our current group uh 70% and our goal set by the board to 67% in the spring. We're really excited about
100that number. It's, you know, I think our SLT looked at that number at first and was a little bit disheartened that only 67% of our students feel that way, but it does put us in the 90th or the 90th percentile of all high schools that take this assessment. But obviously, as an SLT, we said we still have to address that 30 some percent of students that are not reporting that sense of belonging. But we feel like we're in a good spot. We just want to keep getting better. >> Okay. So um the what our key action steps are uh first for ACT prep preparation uh professional learning communities all of our professional learning communities all the grade level ones are working with our curriculum um ACT yes is a test and is what we're measured
101by but that's not the only thing our curriculum is our skills and our curriculum and our skills are aligned with the ACT so all of us are working to improve what we're doing and working on sound strategies we are constant uh currently implementing the mastery prep program. Uh that is our new ACT platform and that is for 9th through 11th grade. I'm working with it right now with the 11th grade. It will provide support and consistent college readiness development. The one thing with the ACT is it's changed. It's now the enhanced test which means it is shorter test, fewer questions, longer question time, but the other thing it does is it adapts based on their answers. So the program does that as well. So I'm currently working with that. Um students take a pre-EST and
102then the the program determines individualized lessons. It has like video micro lessons. Um there are assorted platforms. There are bell ringers. There's there is a ton of information. Right now it's Whoops. It's kind of like we asked for a glass of water and you sprayed us with a water hose. But we're working on it and we're we're figuring out and the kids are responding well. And then the last thing is is that we're also having high impact instructional strategies that we're working with. There's like eight of them that the PLC's are all meeting and working with and like for example questioning feedback um formative assessments. So we're continually working with those. And then of course sense of belonging. Uh the key building teams are working with sense of be uh belonging. They're using data to
103identify and support students who have specific needs uh whether that's attendance um seal and well-being uh targeted interventions so like blit and blit in the houses but the school leadership team we're also working with that as well. So, we're examining the disparities. We decided to focus on the disparities with lowincome student data and we're emphasizing on their ex their extracurricular participation as potentially a driver for engagement and belonging. Each of us have a cohort that we are meeting with to to take care of with that. Um, but one of the things we're also doing that we've kind of found out is that we're also continuing to use those equity trap cards to kind of make sure that what we're what we think we're seeing is actually what we're seeing and we're not making assumptions. And
104then when it comes to um the reflections um ACT, this is an evolving assessment which means it is evolving continually in our class and like for example the mastery prep, there's going to be a learning curve. Uh the nice thing is being on a block schedule, we get to try it first semester and then we get to tweak it and work with it next semester and continue to change. It's also something that students will be able to work with at home if they work with it at home, but it's something that they they won't just stop access with once they leave our English, math, or science classroom. So the the materials and the availability are there for all, which is an important thing. And then the sense of belonging. We're really taking a look at
105the four questions um that impact students. And those questions being how much support do the adults um at school give you when you're at school? Uh how much do you feel like you really belong there? How well do people understand um the kind of person you are? And then also how much respect do students at the school have for you? So, it's kind of a full circle thing with student, school, student, teacher, and staff and one another. >> Okay. Our cell phone story is a bit different. [laughter] So, you know, we >> Oh, I can get that. >> Um, so we h we have off and away. That is our policy and we follow the board policy around off and away. Um, I put a couple pictures up there. So um we do have a
106a flexible way that teachers can implement often away. Um and this came through feedback from our like BEA leaders also from other high schools. I meet regularly with other high school principles in the area and everyone's trying different things, right? And so got some advice around having like a one-sizefits-all approach that wasn't maybe as helpful. One thing you have to remember is 25% of our students are 18 years old. So, it's a different world. They're we're in a different world. Um, but those pictures are a couple of options that we have. One is the cell phone pockets. One is like more of a caddy situation. Um, many teachers are using the pockets. So, as students walk in, they pop the cell phone in the pocket and they sit down and that's how teachers take attendance.
107Um, every student has the number that's assigned to them. Teachers are getting really creative assigning groups using those numbers and all kinds of things. Um, but that is kind of the those are kind of a couple of ways other teachers prefer just it's in your backpack. It's in your backpack and if I see it then it goes in the pocket, you know. So, there's some different approaches to how people are using it. When we talked at SLT, um the frustration isn't necessarily over the policy. The policyy's often away that, you know, that's very clear. Um, I think what the frustration might have been is the inconsistent application of the policy from staff member to staff member. So that's where we're at and that's always a little bit tricky situation because we don't want to ever
108pit staff members against staff members or you know that kind of thing. So we're continuing to work through that. We are seeing more and more teachers using the pockets especially for students for teachers who have freshman and sophomore students. It seems like you know maybe we're taking a slightly differentiated approach as kids get a little bit older. Um, and then as we get our freshman next year who were at middle school who've never had a cell phone, you know, that's also a different approach that we can look at too. Um, but I'd be have Oh, sorry. We have 66 electronics violations this year from 10 different staff members. Any questions? >> Questions on the ACTs. Are we doing any kind of a like um student population demographic analysis or breakdown on that and >> are
109we adjusting our strategies accordingly? >> Yeah, I think that was one of the you know we always look at all of our data. We always disagregate our data based on a lot of factors. For example, students with IEPs, students who are low income, all kinds of different demographic factors that we look at. I think that was a big reason why we brought on Mastery Prep. We know students who have a little bit more privilege may be taking part in like ACT prep programs in the evening, tutoring, you name it. Um it may not have access to a program such as mastery prep because of just maybe lack of funds, lack of support. So this mastery prep program is an individualized approach. That's just one example of how, you know, we're trying to fill in some
110of those gaps. And then obviously in our classroom, our teachers >> are looking at those preassessment scores. where are students scoring on those preassessments and then different differentiating their instruction in class to meet the needs of those kids in class? So, we have science, math, and ELA using the mastery prep. >> And as we work with the master, [laughter] like I said, we're we're learning the Mastery Prep program right along with the kids integration was very, very easy, but how to learn it, how to work with, and how to use it because we're getting a lot of data from that. So, you know, learning to use the additional resources because there's there are lessons that we can do. There are videos. There's actually videos that the kids can listen to that mine have been incorporating
111today. I just had a five-minute discussion with a kid about the use of the word scarce and why that was the right word to use. Okay. Um, so I I think as we use the program more and we get more familiar with it and kind of learn the benefits, ins and outs of it, it it becomes a more effective a more effective tool. Yeah. >> One of the things I've always I really, you know, my kids went through school. I can't sing the praises of the block schedule and stuff enough really about it. But one of the challenges from my perspective always is is like the test is here and they take the classes here and there's a whole semester in between. But I presume that kind of mastering prep allows that >> flattening a
112bit that they can do refreshers or they can keep [clears throat] building on that or if they're choosing different classes at different times over the year, they may have a whole year where they're not doing a math because they already picked all got all their math or whatever done >> that they need to in that time frame. So that's really interesting. I kind of really like that idea. >> Well, I know that when I when we started it, I sent a letter out to all my parents saying, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is what we're doing. It's available. the it it's available at home and it will be available when they're done and I know the kids will be thrilled because [laughter] when we're done at the end of the semester I'll be
113sending home another note and I'll send a note in April you know like getting up say just hey don't forget that it's there so it's >> it's there available so that's what I like is that it's available for all the kids >> to be able to use so it's also teaching them a little bit of responsibility as well that it's it's not just us saying you need to do your 20 minutes. It's you have to do it on the other end. >> Very much. [applause] Well, thank you very much for all the time and effort you guys all put into that. I mean, me personally, I kind of love hearing the little themes that are kind of going through it. Not only like, okay, elementary school, it's not about the phones, it's the watches. And
114if the if we could control the parents, maybe that would cause h the problems to go away, you know, that kind of thing. But, um, you know, just it's it's really kind of one for me to kind of see the passion and the focus. And I know sometimes there's a lot of data you guys all have to focus on and learn to draw from and sometimes that seems to be probably a challenge to when you got to do the rest of your day job as well, you know. So, thank you for the time and effort on all that. Anything anybody else wants to add overall. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Um I did want to offer an opportunity for Kristen to share a little bit about what she learned with uh some
115of the reorming of our assessments and our report card. it it's a uh it's applicable to the conversation we're hearing tonight, but it's also going to be a nice little leadin to what we'll do Tuesday night as well with with our district level presentation. Kristen, did you want to share some takeaways? >> Sure. Um, so I watched an ISB webinar called New Standards for Student Proficiency: What Board Members Should Know. I found it really helpful. Um, it's there's a recording on it on the IS website if anyone wants to check it out. Uh so the state has changed their um their assess their their proficiency bench benchmarks. So the whole webinar was about how we can't just look at those benchmarks now because they've changed. Um the so federal law requires that states adopt standards
116and assess student performance but states can kind of do that how they see fit. Uh and so Illinois has decided to change those benchmarks. So if we are just looking at benchmarks we're not going to really get an accurate idea of student growth. Um so they suggest and I think this is something that we generally do do is looking at uh growth percentages. Uh he gave an example of like if you go to the pediatrician and your child they show you the growth chart and some kids are maybe in the fifth percentile some are in the 90th percentile but what we really looking at is do they continue to grow? Um, and so looking at kids and if they're growing is more important than looking at if they're hitting these benchmarks. Um, and to close
117gaps, then you have to accelerate those benchmarks. So if a kid's at 50th percentile and they stay at 50th percentile, they're still growing, but to close gaps, then you need you want them to see like, okay, now they're at 55th percentile, 60th percentile. Um, so I just I found it very interesting uh and helpful for me especially as a new board member um to always be looking at student growth and not necessarily those benchmarks. >> I appreciate you sharing that because uh kind of goes back to that saying I think I've said in some recent meetings is I'm not worried about the end game of the the score of the end of the game. I'm worried about are we taking each play getting better at what we do? Are we doing things the right way?
118Are we focused on that growth aspect? Because then I believe the scoreboard just takes care of itself. You know, if we're we're an organization that's focused on growth for our students, focused for growth on our teaching practices, our leadership practices, everything we do, you know, from top to bottom, from board all the way down and from all the way down all the way up, right? like and so that's why Chris I really appreciate [cough] you spending time looking at that and sharing some of your reflections and and so wanted to give you that space here for that and that'll tie in really well to the presentation we'll do on Tuesday evening um as we do the final like midyear check-in with the district level information uh we're going to see there's been tremendous areas of
119growth we're very proud of there's areas that are indicators that we need to have some concentration on and I I think that's really important and and and it's all really well aligned to our strategic plan. Um I think that's the critical piece of it. We're able to really focus in on what resources we need to dedicate towards addressing those areas and also supporting areas where we have momentum. >> That's all we have. >> Thank you for tonight. And then item 4.1, as a reminder, we're moving that to the meeting on the 16th. And unless there's any other board comments, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. >> I just want to say thank you too and also thank you for taking the extra time with the cell phone update. >> Yeah, appreciate that. >> That's
120why I said any other comments. All right, the entertaining motion still floating out there if someone would like to. [laughter] So moved by Katie, second by second by Kristen. All in favor? I >> opposed. Many of you want to oppose. No. Okay. All right. It is now 8:42 p.m. and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you guys. Was there an over 9:00