001good all right we're good to go good evening good to see you all the December 18 2023 Board of Education meeting will now come to order Mrs Mo roll call please miss Boon here miss Carl Mr contero here Mrs bumer here Mr eses here Mrs Hill here Mrs Sayad here Mr lobach here Dr micho here Dr Bruno here thank you very much Mr Loach would you please lead us in the pl let's give it one second I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands what nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all first up is the public hearing on the 2023 Levy and the public hearing will now come to order the 2023 Levy has been on file and conveniently available
002for public inspection beginning November 14th 2023 to date the district has not received any verbal or written comments on the 2023 Levy pursuant to Public Act 102-89 5 attached to this evening's agenda is the district treasurers report which illustrates the cast reserves balance of all funds held by the district related to its operational Levy and any obligations secured by those funds members of the public who wish to address the board on the budget should check in with Mrs mooch the board secretary and she will call your name when it is your turn to speak speakers are asked to maintain respectful deorum and limit comments to three minutes or less Mrs mooch is there anyone wishing to make public comment on the budget very good then board may I have a motion to close the public
003hearing motion second all in favor say I I the public hearing is now closed thank you all right let us move into our agenda and I'm wondering why we have so many friendly faces sitting in the aisle with some really impressive young people uh so Melissa maybe you have you can tell us about this absolutely I would like to um invite our wonderful um team of Music leaders up to the podium please and we are going to acknowledge um four students from District 41 who um were awarded at the Illinois music Education Association um District 9 so um we have some certificates and um our team is going to say a few words and then we will give the students their Awards and Erica you can get some pictures good evening I'm Chris Cooper one
004of the band directors here at Hadley um the music Education Association or ilmea offers the wonderful opportunity to audition for an honor Festival where talented middle school students come together for one day to rehearse and perform in a concert with a professional conductor and educator ilmea District 9 is made up of many school districts from our surrounding area including dup page Kendall K and parts of cook in will counties auditioning for Ila takes a lot of dedication and hard work good evening everyone I'm Georgia Alis I'm the Hadley Orchestra director uh we would like to congratulate our Hadley Junior High musicians who were selected to participate in this prestigious Festival eighth grader Simon Ellis euphonium eighth grader Jolene Jamie on violin eighth grader Khloe Kim on V Ola and sixth grader Emily scarles on violin
005these students were selected through an audition process and participated in the IL District 9 Festival on Saturday November 11th at West Aurora High School and good evening my name is Samantha Tri I'm one of the band directors at Hadley and I want to share that we are so proud of the students dedication and music musicianship Dr kasowski our Glenn Ellen District 41 superintendent and our School Board of Education would like to recognize the students on their accomplishments and also present these commemorative plaques to the students can we have Simon come [Applause] up do you want a picture of the group or SE we'll do both just keep okay can I please get [Applause] Jolene [Applause] [Music] Chloe and [Applause] Emily [Applause] we also have one more very special award to give eighth grader Alex Kohler
006was selected to particip to participate in the NorthShore concert band lifetime of Music concert coming up on Sunday February 18th at 300 p.m. at pix stagger concert hall on on the campus of Northwestern University the NorthShore concert band is a 100 member symphonic band active in the Chicago metropolitan area the NorthShore concert band is deeply dedicated to music education and offering performance opportunities for musicians Beyond high school and college part of their M part of their mission is to Foster and promote wind music and to assist in the music education of young people through this event they hope to demonstrate to younger musicians that there are opportunities for them to play and enjoy their instrument for their entire lives regardless of whether they choose a musical vocation demonstrating music truly is for a lifetime students
007were nominated by their directors and chosen by a panel of musicians based on their qualifications selected students will participate in one rehearsal with the Ensemble prior to their performance we would also like to give special thanks to District 41 beginning band and Orchestra teachers El Presley and Rita febor for starting starting all of these students on their musical Journeys in fifth grade a child's beginning teacher is so crucial to their engagement enthusiasm and development and these students would not be here if it were not for the strong Foundation set in their earlier years we invite all members of the community to join us for this performance in February and in recognition of Alex Kohler Alex come on [Applause] up [Applause] well before we before we uh close this joyful celebration I would like to offer
008any of the young folks who have been honored tonight if you'd care to step up to the mic and say anything uh we'd love to hear from you no obligation to do it I you may have a grandma here or a mother or a father who's willing to do it but I'm not offering them I'm we got to keep the meaning going uh but if any students would like to we'd be happy to hear from you but I understand too much pressure there're star performers in front of groups of people but this is too much pressure all right Emily well thank you all right we're going to [Applause] from the Ila has been such an amazing experience for me when I first started out auditioning I thought I really couldn't do it but but ever
009since the performance I realized that my te teacher missus has done so much amazing things for me and has opened so many new doors in my musical career well that's wonderful thank [Applause] you no takers okay well yes well come on up there you go yeah I remember in sixth grade uh when Mrs try and Mr Cooper were just talking about all the different opportunities that band offers I was one of those things up there and they were like oh well when I when you were in eth when you're in eth grade you can audition for this I was like well that seems so far away and now uh I auditioned for it I got in and I'm just really thankful for all of the teachers that have helped me practice the audition helped me
010improve with music along with way Mrs try Mr Cooper um and also uh my private teacher Dr Ryan Felman who's uh not present here but definitely to all the teachers and my parents um I've just had such a great welcoming community and it's been great pursuing music in this District wonderful [Music] [Applause] wonderful okay going once twice all right that's good I did want to acknowledge uh principal DIY you are here this evening and all of this is happening uh under your supervision and and Leadership um again you're you don't have to come up and say anything but we did want to acknowledge you uh for putting such a great academic and social and emotional and artistic program together here working with your staff at the at Hadley so thank you [Applause] Stephen okay that
011was very good thank you well we're going to turn now to Melissa for some other maybe less I don't know joyful they are all joyful I how you make an audit joyful but go for it they are all joyful to some degree so I'm going to turn it over to Eric and our audit team to do the audit presentation and I'm going to just keep turning it over to Matt Baron if you want to go up and uh present the audit and maybe about 60 seconds I don't know what it is about audit presentation always just clears out the room I don't I don't understand this happens every time it really I'm getting a complex over this this happens all every every board me know I go to so um I'm Matt Baron the partner
012that oversaw the audit again this year for for the district uh happy to be back to see you um we're going to go over the two main documents that were provided to you in the board uh docs for you um it's the audit report and the management letter so um order to get here tonight it was a big process working together with Eric Amy and the whole team um we started with an entrance conference early on uh to talk about what happened at the district during the year to help with our planning uh go through the request materials and lay out the schedule after that we came back to do preliminary fieldwork where we did a review of your internal control Cycles so make sure you had a adequate internal control framework in place this
013would been like cash receipts cash dispersements payroll um Student Activities like each of those different Cycles we come back we review to make sure you have an adequate internal control framework in place uh from there we then test your uh come back at fieldwork to review the numbers that are provided to us to help to make sure the um the numbers that are being provided to us from the district are they're materially correct or in other words they are what they say they are back to Source documents um and then we go into the report writing cycle where we write your report and put it in compliance with government Accounting Standards to bring us here today so it's a lot of work a lot of partnership as it goes along to bring us here so
014just want to say thank you for all the hard work that went into it from the entire team here at the district um as far as the two documents we're going to go over we're going to start with the audit report it's the thicker of the two documents not sure how many of you guys have it in uh paper versus electronic but I'll kind of walk through a couple of the main the main Spots I'm going to keep it at a high level so if at any point in time if anybody has any questions please feel free to ask along the way um I'd be happy to answer so first one at page 12 it looks like this it's got the labach and Aon letter head at the top this is the opinion page we
015gave the district an unmodified opinion again this year it's the highest opinion that we provide um basically what we're saying with that is those three main things one the district has an adequate internal control framework in place two the district's numbers within this Auto report are materially correct or in other words they are what they say they are and then three it's in compliance with government Accounting Standards couple Pages after that we go to the management discussion analysis so this is the section that is a narrative summary of everything that's within this audit report so if you want to read at a high level of what happened this would be the section to go to so rather than looking at all 150 Pages or whatevers in this thing you can look at this 8 to
01610 pages and get a pretty good idea of what happened here at the district so since I'm going to cover that within our presentation let's flip on past all of this and go forward to page 31 and 32 on pages 31 and 32 this is your balance sheet so your governmental fund so what you budget for as a board is right here in these on these pages so far right hand side is the totals across all of your balance sheet for the your funds second number up from the bottom we have a total across all of them about $ 42.3 million your your main driving operating fund is your general fund which includes your education fund is far left hand side second number up from the bottom on the far leftand side we have a
017total for the general fund of 37.4 million so how do we do this year we go forward to page 35 and 36 35 and 36 again this would be your income statement for all those far right hand side your totals third number up from the bottom we had a total increase this year of 391 uh 39 9 1,000 um as far as how did that happen we had this in the general fund again far left hand side we had a total increase this year about $5 million within the education fund um helped by positive revenues that came through this year and being under budget in that fund allowing a big transfer that came over to the capital projects fund because the district had significant capital projects that did occur this year that you can see
018over in the far left hand side in that capital projects fund to allow for that still increase um across all the funds of 931000 from there we always check what's the Financial Health where we compare the fund balance up to the expenses so we do that um we take out the on behalf payments from the state because they don't really count uh typically in my eyes for when we do this calculation um general fund ended up at 80% and the totals across all the funds at 67% so a very healthy fund balance for the district at the end of the year any questions about this before we talk about the management management letter is the other thinner of the two documents and it's good that it is a lot thinner because you don't want to
019be us to be reporting a lot to you as the board so what this is is um other items that we noted during the audit that we want to communicate to you so typically we keep it at a pretty high level um at this part of the presentation because we kind of went over it with Eric and went through all the comments what the three types of comments we usually give are informational types best practices that we see out and true internal control items I'm happy to report that within this management letter there are no internal control issues noted so if you want to put that all together between no internal control items here positive Year from the Financial Health of this and an unmodified opinion um another very successful year for the district's audit
020yes sir I'm sorry just want to make sure you were done Matt yes I am go ahead yes well first let me see if any of my board members have any questions about the management letter or maybe paging through the uh the the full audit had any additional questions we we did had did submit some questions ahead of time that we got responses to but were there any additional ones Matt can I just ask for one yes sir clarification just help me to appreciate the importance I did notice in in the letter uh that you you noted that you were recommending that the district have a cap Capital asset policy yeah and it looks like something maybe you recommended in the past and you still think is is important um but would clarify for me
021maybe it'll be good for for my colleagues too or maybe they understand and I don't but being a a tax exempt entity um uh and that you know removing those Capital assets doesn't really seem to impact to Financial Health why do you still think we should develop a policy for it so so this was a I don't know I remember how many years ago at this point I think it was before I was truly an auditor maybe 15 years ago or so when it started gby 34 happened so they that was a new accounting standard at that point that required that all assets get put on the books for government units so prior to that it didn't include these long-term uh Capital assets so the building these type of things they were kind of considered
022expenses when they went out they didn't have a place to capture it once that happened uh districts were required in all government units you know even the the city here had to start capitalizing all of its roads at that point in time so we had to keep track of them you have to then say these are your financial statements they're yours to report upon so we don't necessarily want to be the ones putting for putting forth a policy or telling you what you're supposed to then record we're going to give you some best practices some tips on what we want the policy to look like from a capitalization threshold so you want to be having it at $1,000 and up 5,000 20,000 like how much detail do we really want to have in these things
023and then kind of the useful lives of what your District tends to see of what you want your useful lives to be um so that's generally what the policy is so as management we look for you to set the policy um and the same as like a fund balance policy we want you to set the fund balance policy versus US telling you what your fund balance policy should be okay all right goodes sense yeah I'm actually looking for confirmation from Eric yeah but he's not in his head so you guys do you know you get some reporting you have these assets they're they're there we're now looking for kind of the next step forward of now what do we really want to have in here within within your within your financial statement all right very
024good well I appreciate your educating me and we're able to help with that we have templates we have other ones that from other districts be able to to use and just pass it forward and then once the appraisal then happens it then follows along with that Capital asset policy to make sure then what's in the policy happens within the financial statements got it thank you okay anything else are we good well Matt you didn't do so bad uh I don't know if everybody cleared out so I quite as much up feeling in the room I know but it's an AUD okay everybody's got a smile well thanks for the good work it's good to get a good report back uh uh from you so thank you absolutely all right thank you everybody have a happy
025holidays thank you so much much appreciated okay as Matt transitions absolutely I would like to then turn our Podium over to um Jeff Burke and Jamie principal and assistant principal at Ben Franklin and they are going to um share with the board an update um on the commitment that we've made that all students belong um and then they will also um revisit and share in more detail their school Improvement um strategies for this year and thank you I also appreciate Matt going right after the kids so we had that buffer between those amazing kids and then our presentation so thank you for that um yeah we wanted to talk just kind of get down into the way we started our year and then how we've been kind of working through it as as we go
026through the year we we knew that we had a a lot to work on last year you know there were a lot of underlying big emotions behaviors that had started to increase within our building and Jamie and I would talk about it quite a bit obviously during the year last year but then being proactive at the end of the year and over the summer we knew that we had an opportunity at with our parents coming in in August for our two curriculum nights for K2 and three through five and then thinking back onto the PAC work parent teacher advisory Council one of our one of our takeaways one of our charges that we wanted to recommend was that um Behavior expectations and classroom management have a bigger uh a bigger voice um at our meetings
027and that we would take advantage of having parents in the building to kind of share our message with them as well so if we could go to the first slide we dedicated both of our curriculum night chats to talking about Behavior expectations behavior management and big emotions and we did this in Li of our normal curriculum night presentation where we would talk about our building we've had some some slides they probably were a little tired talking about our staff where we went to college what our teachers said about us on our report cards and then talking a little bit about curriculum but that curriculum was going to be covered by the classroom teachers anyways so we felt like they could deliver that message so we had two pretty pretty good-sized crowds in our curriculum nights
028with our parents in front of us and we just dedicated it to having almost more of a conversational approach about behaviors that we were seeing and with the parents we focused a lot more on those big emotions and we know that coming out of the pandemic that that emot ions and social emotional learning were going to be key to our building and our district and we also noted that um you know it had it had affected everything like even when we interview teachers or possible candidates coming into Franklin our third question was always you know what do you think is the main concern for student emotional learning the main needs children have coming out of the pandemic and you know you heard the same things you heard anxiety you heard School refusal and things like
029that and so we use this opportunity with our parents in front of us just to talk about those big emotions and were able to use really really um literal examples on what the big emotions were like Jamie was very upset that her mom doed off Portell instead of Jimmy John's like she wanted so then Jamie have to be we'd talk her down we deescalate that situation or other incidences where kids you know just were used to being around their parents so much coming into the earlier grade levels really working on those big emotions and then really focusing on some of the behaviors for years we were Ben's bees be responsible be safe and be respectful and then we started adding a couple years ago be kind and then we realized that those would always be
030like our tent poles of our building but we needed to go deeper and so we we started talking about expected versus unexpected we talked about making classroom visits the charts that I'm going to share with you in a second we did them in each of our teacher classrooms and I think I have like 13 or 14 examples that I'm going to share up here on the slide as well but the big thing that we want you to know that our three main themes that we've been focusing on with our Behavior expectation conversations this year our tone how you say things matters um it was belonging how everyone has a spot at Franklin and then the last one were actions whether you know your actions with your hands with your bodies the actions towards other people
031and so we have been kind of sticking to that theme and so we can go ahead and go to the next slide and I can give you an example so one of the first things I'm going to let Jamie take over on this is we really wanted to reinvigorate our PBIS program but we wanted to also include a class reward and I'm going to let Jamie talk about this but it's been a really large success in our building this year so this year we started um doing class bear bucks and um classroom teachers cannot give them to their own classroom um they have to earn them from other teachers in the building and um the classroom set a goal so every classroom is different on what their goal is and then what they are working
032for so it could be a pajama day a stuffy day it could be um a free choice day um little extra reset they do um they come up with something together and then they set however money they want to earn and then they're going to it's through the hallways um they dur their lunch recess time um and any everybody in the building has uh the class bear bucks they're gold they look different than our regular bear bucks um even our lunch supervisors will hand them out and it's been going really well so our classrooms and everyone has different goals so some classrooms like our goal is five some have 15 um and then we do announce when the classrooms have reached their goal and that seems to be going really well classes love to hear
033um their names on the the Pas in the morning um so that's been something new for us this year in addition to our regular bear box that we do um and we use those in our school store and so we have a school store that students can come and shop at once a month um our parents have been um kind of running that for us and that's been a great incentive as well for our students so when I when Jamie said that we recognized the class rewards the teachers will send it to Peg and myself and we announce it every morning on the announcements when a teacher has reached it so these are just some of the examples that the teachers have sent us um Mrs shr's class first grade has earned a twin day
034they get to dress like their friends for meeting their class bearb goal um they've worked hard to follow their Ben bees around school keep it up first graders Miss ion's third grade class had 20 20 class bearbuckle and then playing a a kickball game against another class um we we are having our class reward of playing an outdoor class game can can you please announce tomorrow that my class has met their golden bearbuckle and we'll be celebrating with pajamas and snacks just wanted to tell you that my class has earned a golden bear Buck reward they worked hard walking silently in the Halls so we weren't sure how this was going to catch on but I love the component that that Jamie came up with where you recognized someone else's class instead of just recognizing
035your own and so we we love it cuz at a staff meeting someone will say like my kids need can someone recognize my class and then by the end of the day they have like seven bear bucks and then she's like oh dial it dial it back a little you know we want to reach our goal over a few days not the same day but just that communication between each other and knowing like hey my kids are having a tough day could you help us out by recognizing us for anything that you see us doing and it's just really ramped up that positive language that we're using between our kids and ourselves so this is the store Jamie can talk a little bit about this um so we have our school store we started it
036last year mid year something new we decided to try um and then we've continued it this year um it's on a cart this year so it does roll around um to the building um throughout the building and students um do earn bear bucks they can get them from their classroom teachers they can get them from anybody any adult in the building um and then they can come shop and every month we order we offer some kind of an incentive so offer something on sale a special item that's only available that month um and then students can come and Shop if they want we do have some students that are holding their bear bucks because they're trying to earn the 200 one um we have one that's 500 that's not on the cart so um it's
037been a great incentive for students to um to come and shop and then our teachers Jimmy does a great job communicating ahead of time where the the school store will be in the building if you missed your set time you're welcome to to go another time another spot in the building and then they share this with their kids they have an idea of what they want to do or else it would take forever with 28-year-old Shoppers looking at it so we try to keep it moving and give them as much ahead of time as we can so these are the charts so when we go into classrooms we sit down and we have it filled out like just just the framework examples on one on one side and non-examples on the other and we talk
038about expectations and you can probably tell a little bit between the grade levels like our approaches are a little bit different but kind of using the same three the three categories that we want to really focus on um and then we get examples from the kids and we just start filling it in and as we visit I'll pop into a class and I'll say this reminded me of something and then you know they'll watch me as I add it to the poster so these posters will look rather messy which is fine by the end of the year but we've we're on our third go round now of popping into classes and you know just them coming up we talk about tone I tell him how I was growing up in Safety Harbor Florida I was
039rude to a lunch lady in fourth grade and that I was never rude to another person or lunch lady after that again um because my mom gave me a huge talk about tone as did my principal and my teacher so I draw my own experience and talk about it the way I said it you know and we talk about how you can take someone's name and say it in three different tones and it means three different things so we talk a lot about how we say things and they came up with the words that you see around each of our topics they came up with the the descriptors to go with it and then I've always been even as a classroom teacher I always thought that there's a lot of value in in non-examples or
040non samples are showing what's unexpected so they have an idea of what unexpected means and so for everything on the left that you see is expected we do the opposite the unexpected um what we would not hope to see and then going down to belonging this is one this one was a huge one we started to hear that there were more clubs being formed outside at recess and throughout the buildings and kids are feeling left out and you know it could be like we're doing a dance club today or we're having a singing Club we're all full and we had some students that were going around interviewing others to to join their Club so our big thing the big message that was we spoke more on that than anything at the start of the year
041that you know we are Franklin like we always say like everyone belongs at the bricks like this is where we should be and then I had a first grader who said to me Mr brick what if it was a club where everyone can join and I'm like well we have that at school like everyone belongs here so we're still that one still has some HIC cups we're working on that one with some of our older grade levels um you know just the lore of being in a club whether you know what it is or not um you know we talk a lot about that but that's something that will be a work a work in progress at least for the rest of the year just kind of working on that with our like I said
042our older students that seems to be something and then the actions you know you know everything carries weight your words carry weight your actions carry weight we talk a lot about um the positive actions helping people out comforting someone and then not laughing when someone is struggling and that's something that also ties into the uh our Seal program Second Step so there we did a little bit of research to see that we could kind of have some parallel learning going on at the same time so this is something I sent to parents so we talked to our parents at the end of August for our curriculum night and then I've sent parents emails once a month I think I have nove or September October and November in this slide um just giving updates to parents
043on where we are I'm continuing to make my way through each of the great level classrooms I will again share the slideshow with the additional information and then I get into like my my chats with the kids are focusing on including friends tone and how we treat each other and how our actions affect others and then um I said like last week we had a few instan of students excluding peers from Recess activities I'm very proud of our teachers who dealt with this headon talking to both the kids and their parents we'll continue with our message that everyone is included at Franklin and then I put my little um My Little example of what a student said about forming a club with everyone so this was an email I sent to parents at the start
044of September just following up our chats and then my favor I asked that same email please continue to chat with your child or children about this very topic Franklin is for everyone it's more fun when we belong how would you feel if you were left out how great it is to have friends that want to play with us and ask themselves would my mom or dad agree with my choices and then I said you know we can't do this without you like we have to have those conversations going on at home as well as in the building more examp more examples of just charts these are three more more than Ben's bees and then this is a letter an update I put in no at the beginning of November um I'm literally smiling as I
045sit and type this note we've seen a marked improvement in overall student Behavior compared to the previous 2 to three years when I say overall behavior I'm referring to behaviors displayed in lunch recess the hallways bathrooms and classrooms I'll be the first to say there's work to do and differentiating our support for specific student needs I think back to the pandemic when someone said the students were weathering the storm but they were in different boats and I always think about that quote it was such a great quote not everyone had the same toolkit to get through that and I think that still applies today I feel the same with our student behaviors different students different needs different supports especially the experience outside of school and some of them have had much different schooling experiences before
046coming to Franklin Jamie and I both came from in city I was from in city um APS Atlanta Public Schools and Jamie came from CPS Chicago so we know what it's like how you know it looks differently in different settings um these behaviors are modeled in practice and when an incident does occur we meet with students to walk through their choices a think about it moment um one Franklin parent commented last week you guys don't give up on on kids and Melissa you've said that to us more at more than one meeting we don't give up on kids like we don't it's rough it's tough sometimes at Journey but we don't give up on kids and it's just going to go to more charts um why do I think we've seen this Improvement and this
047is part of that email I sent to parents Jamie and I were able to visit every classroom at least once now we're on our third goor round we've utilized large group meetings with parents at both fall curriculum nights and then Jamie and the positive behavior intervention system team ramped up the proactive approach for rewarding those class specific goals and to me this has been the leading factor with our improved behavior um and then I just give more examples but this is solely like Jimmy's been amazing with this like Jimmy has run with this with her team and it literally has changed it's been a game changer in our building like supporting each other and then that constant recognition recognition I'm sorry just is amazing for the kids and then again how you can support us
048tone how we say things feel like they belong and direct ing positive actions and words towards peers and adults and I thank them for reading my long note that happens kind of a lot my notes and then yep more charts and then this is just from um the note I sent two weeks ago or last week um this week we started visiting classrooms again we focused on the little things class chatter materials organization and hallway transitions I've been using a story about my own son he gets very excited to watch football at night um the other night we wanted to watch Monday Night Football but he had three little things to do he was 0 for three so I hope he's probably not listening he was um he was 0 for three and just he
049didn't check the boxes and those three little things so that didn't add up to the big thing of watching the Monday Night Football and we've been telling our teachers you know it's we have 20 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and that doesn't happen too often in our district or anywhere really with Thanksgiving being so early this year so that we are stressing to our teachers those little things Station to Station in the hallway line your kids up five at a time don't tell the whole class to go get their Chromebooks at the same time but they're amazing like our teachers are on top of these things but just tightening up those little things can really make a difference for the larger things and then let's see I'll be pres I'll presenting tonight the school board
050each School makes two board presentations a year and I share with them that my presentation will be what I've been telling them the first three or four months of the school where we're looking to go with our our Behavior expectations and yes this is the last one though I think ched no clubs you can tell that happened a lot in that room we're having some clubs going on there but that will be our message we'll just keep we'll keep working on every month with them and then the last part is that staff input we talked like we've talked a lot about our BLT and even at ad ad team working on that culture and climate and it was very rewarding for us to hear at our last BLT meeting at the end of November that
051uh we had someone say the building feels much warmer this year just more warmer with staff with kids there's there's a better Vibe and I think that when staff knows their supported that they're doing a great job and we're very consistent with our message on what what's expected like really good things can happen so that was just such a nice early holiday gift just for someone to say that they feel the building felds warmer and that that made our night like that was what we wanted to hear I think that that's it it's a lot of charts yes yeah thank you I guess um before we get into board questions I just want to share when we did our first cabinet visit um it was also very noticeable at the start of the year when
052you had started this way and what you had said to us that you felt like you were able to do your jobs as instructional leaders instead of running around putting out fires every day so I I think you know we've seen and heard a difference you guys are feeling a difference and you know this really does show the nitty-gritty of what this looks like we talk about all this stuff all the time at the meetings but don't really ever show what it looks like what's actually happening so thank you for that Jeff thank you well let me let me invite board members who would like to before we move on yeahh to the zip goals and action steps any comments thoughts Reflections on oh someone oh yes Carlos is your mic turned on there you
053go so I heard that ER what's your name I forgot Mr no M ER I heard that you work in CPS CH Public Schools I actually before I came to Glenn Allen ER all my schools were CPS I remember all the system all how it worked and I really remember that yeah in covid pandemic people didn't really want to come back to school but ER because there was like a lot of kids used to like being home comfortable but then a kids started coming back because they started seeing that their friends were coming back and all that and then when I saw the posters I'm not sure if you're doing that in the CPS schools but I remember that there was a lot of inappropriate and mean behavior when I was in CPS and uh
054those posters made me realize that a their kids can change over time because of those posters so thanks car like quite a compliment coming from a kid who would know I I just wanted to um offer and obviously this was very thoughtful on your part and your staff but I think you mentioned so there's there's both uh affirmative uh there's not doing something that would be mean not doing something that would cause someone not to feel C and you could say well I've never done that right I I don't say mean things I don't but I think you mentioned perhaps well maybe if you saw somebody else if somebody else said something you don't laugh yeah right so that you I I really wanted to underscore that degree of of action because that's a that's
055a bit more sort of assertive to right there's other ways I mean just because you're not saying it doesn't mean there's nothing you you can't do you could still support we talked a lot about especially at recess if you see the younger grade levels if you see someone sitting alone or sitting by themselves like go out and offer them an opportunity to play um we talked about comforting like whether you played sports or did dance in Glenn Allen somewh to get injured or having a tough time in a game like that's a good opportunity for you to offer comfort as an action that part of it so you could also be proactive with a lot of our with the what we hope to see the expected wonderful well thank you yeah anyone else okay Jamie
056forgot your name for a second Dr know um I just wanted to say as a Ben Franklin parent that some of these I don't hear that Mr bark came in the classroom at home but I do hear a little bit of these things that you're talking about so it is sinking in at least on some of the kids um and now I know where the trinkets came from that are floating around my house that I'm like where where is this where did this spawn I don't understand this but um yeah it's it's sinking in because it's coming home even if it's in just little sentences or phrases and not the whole story that Mr Burke came to my classroom today so thank you for your work and helping these kids cuz I do hear about
057the clubs and the things and that's it's when there I go to deliver lunches and Jamie hears me say this and they're like oh oh I'm like well no I can come in for good reasons too like I deliver lunches or you know something good as well so yeah it's nice to get in there yeah so thank you for your work yeah and I just want to give a little anodot story about kind of where these things also lead to um and and it's with Sydney and and in Parker's class and Sydney and Mr Black and and Bri body been to talk to the class about Down syndrome just ask questions right and just you have these kids give an opportunity these kids ask a lot of great questions and you know different things like
058you know watch's this and this that and the other and then and that's great and that's all well and good but it's when you have these opportunities for kids to ask questions and these things about a week or so two weeks after I came into class I got I got an email from from Mrs Audi say hey just want to give you a quick update um I gave an opportunity for Mr Black to come in and have conversations and said as a class we've been able to have conversations about leading by exam example um about conversation about how some people need more time processing their thoughts about being patient um noted how you know things be frustrating for someone it takes things longer to process and that kids are starting to recognize these kind of
059things just from these kind of things that just open up these conversations they can really sink in and they can make a big deal for things so I mean what you're doing is not just making it difference with your kids is making it difference with your staff as well okay thank you yeah we both appreciate that thank you thank you okay part two now to data so when we were here last month we presented our acade academic information um each school is going to use the same template for presenting our academic information from last year and we had mentioned a little bit like we knew that there were certain areas that needed to be worked on being fully transparent looking at some of our growth goals um with reading and with math so we we
060were able to sit down Jamie and I did some work together we're able to sit down with Dr K and Dr Webster and kind of walk us through you know whether these were smart goals whether this is is really what we're looking to do where we were trying to go with this so we came up with two um we did talk a little bit about um we talked about sip plan strategies when you do your school Improvement plan things that you could look to add to it and some of these were great suggestions from from Dr Kowski talking a little bit about making sure everything kind of weaves together and doesn't live by itself on an island when things live by themselves like that you don't tend to pay them as much attention but when
061it's kind of inwoven with with what you're trying to do every day with your school committees and your District committees um it flows a little bit more and you and it it's right there in front of you all the time so we gave a little bit of background we're going to talk about two student student growth goals our background a little bit connects back to um our fall isol from this past school year when I was here earlier a month ago Jamie and I talked a little bit with you all about just how um we were noticing our numbers of first graders coming in we're struggling with some of those foundational skills we have 91 students in first grade and 21 out of those 91 students 22 out of those 91 students or about 24%
062% had not mastered their alphabet recognition and this is something we talked even about at our at our our openhouse for St to be kindergarten parents at our Kindergarten Roundup that this is something they should be working on so when they come into first grade we're a little bit surprised by that number increasing each year less students seem to be mastering their alphabet recognition so some of the things with more background we put into place is we started a jump start Support Program um we implemented that for 19 students and gave them five weeks of focus every day working on that alphabet recognition and then we noticed that even after that point there still were 12 out of those 19 that had not mastered them so we did jump start extension and extended it for
063another 5 weeks looking to really hone in on those foundational skills if they don't know their alphabet if that recognition is lacking it's going to be hard to read or to work on their blending sounds or even their sound recognition so our first goal is we want by the end of the school year may 2024 we want to say that 70 out of 78 students or 90% will have mastered 54 out of 56 of their alphabet recognition if you're wondering why not all 56 and I I learned this as well there's two fancy letters there's a fancy G and a fancy a that are hard for them to recognize because they're not used to seeing it so we're not going to hold them to those fancy letters and we're going to focus on the the
064typical letters that they see most often but that's our goal 54 out of 56 um and our assessments that we'll utilize we'll you definitely look at fall winter and spring isol just to see how that growth is for such an important skill the other parts of this that I put in here I'm not going to go through each bullet point but it it does it does Ally to our strategic plan and if you look at our district 41 strategic plan we have foundational pillars and one of them is data informed and we feel like by using the data provided by our isol assessments we've been able to double down on our intervention supports uh for primary readers this assessment data informs our response or our action to designing those interventions for such specific skills that
065are needed and then another pillar growth growth focused learning as a district that identifies with growth focused learning our growth goals and the action steps assigned to each goal depend upon a robust and differentiated plan um we're and our main thing we want to get a point across here is that we're not just looking for first grade what our hope is by really honing in on these foundational skills in first grade that our second grade and third grade students may not need as many literacy interventions down the line if you really work on building those foundational skills and we're even after talking with um Dr Webster focusing on kindergarten as well with that really focusing on those kindergarten foundational skills as well and and as part of that as well um this is the last
066part of that for kindergarten we really want to work with our parents we do meet with them for the incoming kindergarten parents that are coming in the spring we want to work with them at least have maybe one workshop at the start of the summer before they enter kindergarten and hone in on those foundational skills again like the recognition the alphabet recognition sounds and even working on number recognition um coming in we want students to be as ready for kindergarten as much as possible and that would be a huge help as well sure yeah and then our second student growth goal we'll give you a little bit of background first um we looked at our school report card um on the I uh 50% of our Illinois school report card is based on the i
067i growth looking at math and literacy growth as follows our math growth in our in our building for our our students we had 55.6% growth which meant that out of a possible 25 points the weighted index in our school report card we earned 15.85 our literacy growth was a little bit lower at 53.5% so out of that 25 points we earned 18.88% fifth grade students we increased their math growth indicator score by 10 points and that's where we've set it we didn't include third grade with our a goal but they're going to be included in our plan because it's not a cohort the third graders we have nothing to measure them against compared to last year so we'll compare them our fourth and fifth graders or third and fourth graders last year taking it so
068we can look to see that year-to-year growth but with all of our strategic plan in here we we're including third grade because it will be it will help them in the long run as well to be included in our plan so what needs to happen for this change um one of the approaches we wanted we talked really about was a stronger approach for extended math response um we want to for our third fourth and fifth graders the opportunity to craft responses to the math problems and you want to talk a little bit about an extended problem sure um so our Eureka math program has the extended responses embedded in our students do a great job um but the I is done on the computer um and students have to craft their responses on the computer
069um with symbols and some different tools that they may not be used to because the Eureka Math is all handwritten um and so we would like to focus the extended response with the the technology piece um getting our students more comfortable doing the typing extended response in math so that they are more aware of how to utilize those tools we have a hypothesis that when they're going to formulate these responses that there can be a frustration hit because they can't formulate or say what they want to say because they want to do a fraction a certain way and it's not coming out um and so they're just like you know what it's fine it's good I'm moving on um and so we want to really give them um the tools to have that um be
070more confident when they are typing the math extended response reading is pretty cut and dry because there's nothing fancy um that has to be done on the extended responses for the reading but the math with the different symbols and the different um pieces like the equations and um they just may not be used to having to type those and so we want to give them more exposure um throughout the year so that when they come to that in March it's more just like we've been doing this all year we're good let's just keep going and the focus would be on the content and not just that they're frustrated with how to do it that they'll have more time to focus on the strength of their answer so what needs to change for this to happen
071that's one of the things um also not only you know the the technology practice um but also working on those practice I extended response questions we do we have practice reading response throughout the year where we work on reporting details um for a statement or something based on a reading of text so math is just as important with those extended responses we want to talk a little bit about um similar rubrics that are used to measure and to and to score the iir like we want to look at that as well like if so we can practice giving feedback that direct feedback um one of the best supports for writing is conferring so this can lead to really good conferring between teachers and one or two students at a time looking at their math writing
072um we wanted to talk a little bit about uh administrators will be motivated by walkthroughs uh our district has done an awesome job giving us guidance for walkthroughs and observations we have a list of look fors connected to our math programs and our literacy programs and as we're doing those walkthroughs we really can use our walkthroughs and those checklists for really strong robust postobservation discussions looking at them um and just putting my glasses on again really quickly here if we look at our math checklist component part of our math curriculum and program right now is problem set in land and what's connected to that or the ility to show work and explain your thinking and then referring to resources for information and most importantly reflecting on their own analysis and so that's connected to Eureka
073which is our math program so this goes right into this is also a skill that they'll see you know day-to-day learning as they're doing their Eureka assessments as well and then kind of siphoning on down through our PLC strategies even more robust conversations Center centering on student data and then we can also look at our interventions and talk about you know do we need to have math interventions for writing just like we would for literacy writing um and then connecting that literacy and writing conferring to math just for the sake of that feedback for students so we would ask teachers questions how does your instruction or lesson connect to your intervention block so if you know like if you like Soup To Nuts like if you start the dinner with your soup and you're ending
074it with dessert or at the end there we want to know like if you're looking at one of your students what would an intervention block look like for them from the direct lesson that everybody gets in tier one to maybe some differentiated support down the line um we' like to ask our teachers give us an example of outliers in your class and what that looks like for them students that need to be challenged and students that need to have um some extension done for them or remediation and then discuss student engagement this is a huge thing in our building student engagement what was observed in class and that's that feedback that Jamie and I and our coaches could provide um including participation you know looking at that we used to say that in our district
075that small group instructions were the backbone of our instruction so talk about if they're how they're utilizing small groups um and then again what your continuum support look like for struggling reader or writer we want to talk about that and then most also importantly our coaching chats with eure compared to I look for those gaps you know are we closely aligned where we want to be or are we looking to measure two separate things we don't want to measure two separate things we want them to be closely aligned um we want to have those chats with our coaches that'll be a big part of that conversation is alignment so that's kind of those are our two growth goals that's the background where where we came up with what where we wanted to go and then
076I love the question like what needs to happen for change we have a pretty good idea for each of our growth goals what needs to happen and then that Parts on us to start it after the holiday not next year but this is a goal that's going to have these are going to start this year right Chris could you chime in just a little bit and then we'll open up for board questions about the development of the um literacy the observation checklists really the intent is as we prepare for a new literacy roll out we know that that roll out has to be tight and so this is to get everybody in that mindset of and and H and good habits when principles and assistant principles are doing formal and informal observations but do you
077want to share how we got there to be able to put the tool in people's hands sure so we worked uh the coaches and I primarily the coaches worked on creating um what A literacy or math block should look like what are the key components of it um so that both teachers had both teachers and administrators had Clarity on really what the flow of that should look like so while we're not loock step across the district um obviously that's where teachers kind of breathe life into it but there has to be a core Foundation that is the same for all kids for consistency across the district um and we also use it in additionally in addition to the walkthroughs the coaches are also using it as part of their coaching Cycles with teachers so the
078purpose of it is to help again provide that Clarity and consistency um I know at Churchill we had a teacher that went to observe another teacher with the math coach and they used the implementation and observation checklist together to look at what they saw and then they talked about the areas that the teacher that was observing um s like learned the most about and maybe some areas in that checklist they want to focus on so it's really a growth tool um it's not really a monitoring tool as much as as Jeff was saying it's really more of a a conversation starter and a consistency and Clarity Builder thank you okay all right well let me then turn and thank you both um to the board for any yes Dr Michael please just real briefly when
079when you look at these two presentations together it it shows a real holistic um approach to learning so I appreciate that with the balance between the associal emotional learning and then the academic side also um I appreciate that you put a tangible goal that you can measure I I do think you're going to hit that 10 points I'm pretty confident that you will get there and so um I appreciate all the hard work that you're you're doing there thank you thank you thank you Stephen yes any Jess yeah I I just want to say that I really appreciate the framework that you've used here and the the kind of the headings on this going through like how it's connected to the Strategic plan um specific steps about what needs to happen and the monitoring that
080I I find that really Illuminating and helpful to kind of paint a picture of of what this sip goal that's sort of abstract to me um really mean so I appreciate that level of detail and sharing and it it's seems very thorough and well thought out I do Wonder um you know as as I reflect back on last month's presentation about the performance and we looked at the different subgroups and and the the way the different ways that those subgroups are performing how how have you kind of accounted for that for that that maybe the special needs or or supports for the those subgroups that might be needed as you kind of look into this plan one of the things we noticed is that with the with the names that would come up when we
081looked at the head and mastered it they kind of overlapped some of the same information that we had shared with student names um so yeah we felt like right there that we were going to be not necessarily meeting that that needs but addressing like including those students in the work that we wanted to do um but even after talking with Dr Webster and Dr Kowski like we felt like like including third grade in our IR goal the more that are we included in this like it becomes a universal approach like that tier one it's going to benefit if we strengthen that Universal approach that every student in class is going to get it's going to benefit everyone down the line and they were included in our conversation as well but as we did like I
082said as we did look at the students that were not mastering it there are quite a few of the subg groups that were represented in there that we wanted to focus on as well great yeah and the the framework um Dr Kowski shared with us strategies for to go along with your sip plan so that was from Dr Kowski like was once you looked at those conversational headings you could kind of fill in the information so we appreciated that from her I mean we've done great work through the years with cycles of inquiry and all kinds of fancy things with um continuous Improvement but at the end of the day it's like okay what does your data tell you and then what's going to be different in your building and so we decided this year
083to do something different and let's take all the fancy stuff out and just come and be able to talk about what's going to be done differently in the building what's Administration going to do differently what will teachers do differently um be before Chris and I even had that conversation with Jeff and Jamie they were talking with Juan about strategies for different groups of kids in the building so I I feel like getting back to basics almost forced us out of our comfort zone to say but what's going to be different you know it it's great to show the data but what are you going to do now in response to it and so we took a step back to something really simple and said come and be able to talk about what you're going to
084do differently um and just in thinking about your uh Ela goal and you're talking about getting kids ready for kindergarten uh I am the board liaison for d41 kids foundation so I'm always thinking about oh oh uh that seems like something that the d41 kids Foundation could help with so is you as you might yeah as you might know uh we do participate in the Dolly Parton Foundation Library um program so we provide a monthly book to anyone who signs up in our district uh zero birth to age five so you know if there's if there's something we can pair with that to support the learning of the alphabet um Beyond just providing those books you know that's something that I think that group would be open to hearing about but you yeah thank you
085anyone else well you know Jeff I heard um Melissa talk about doing things differently what can admin do what can you do what can teacher and staff well as you get into this after the first of the year and you continue to work with the administrative team if there are thoughts and ways that the board can assist you in reaching those goals right if there are support supportes that you know we haven't thought of or maybe we should be thinking about um I want you to feel comfortable in having those conversations with the district thank you for that thank you yeah and I'm I'm not sure if you'll be here for the human X portion of the meeting which is next but I do have some questions related to that one in particular is one
086of our lower performing metrics is uh on the statement of I'm provided the materials equipment and information necessary to effectively perform my job and as a board member like I see that and I'm like well yeah let's let's provide it let's make sure we're providing what we need to provide so that teachers feel that they are um equipped with everything that they need and let's get that score not one of our lowest items so um definitely bring that back to us yeah thank you thank you both thank you all right I want to wait real quick before they take off I want to give I want to give Jeff a shout out um and I'm sure this happens at other schools um but we're a drop off for the morning and sometimes drop off can
087be crazy but the car is running in and out and I just want to give a shout out to jefff just making sure the kids are safe and going up and I've seen him on multiple occasions walk up talking to parents hey can't be doing this can't be doing that cuz you know it just is what it is and so I app I know you send emails out and whatnot but I just want to let you know I'm sure I'm not the only parent that appreciates I think the term is you shamed me into it the other day I did shame you into 100% I 100% did I got the staff to shame you as well but you've done it when I haven't shamed you as well and so I'm not the only thank you
088thank you B I did want to say one thing um one thank you for everything you guys are doing uh to I did hear you say that you know something that you guys are thinking about is that um offering some type of workshop for incoming kindergarteners parents to help you um get these kids transitioned in better and I'm just wondering how um you know for those parents where uh maybe language is an issue or accessibility is an issue just keeping that in mind I'm sure thinking about that but you know I don't know how many would be comfortable to be able to come or hours you know uh available if they're working you know things like that just to keep in mind so we we used to have when I was a Sy assistant principal
089we used to have with our ESO program they would come before school started to like help register and we'd have laptops set up and offer lunch and so I'm thinking something like you mentioned Steve the holistic like what is it they would need like just to come and listen to something like that and I know like between one W's reaching out with elanar working on that end and too strong who is our e elel teacher who's amazing with the community like we have have really good people that can reach out to different parts of it but I appreciate that as well because that is we talk a lot about that like um that is an underutilized sometimes area that we need to make more of and and include them as as more looking at our
090our numbers that affects every kid like that part of it so that's I appreciate you saying that thank you okay well thank you for going je first Jeff now you where's I won't not be in here in January I'm so um just for the board to know that you know you can expect something similar when all the buildings do we've had the same conversations about don't come just talk about your data tell me what you're going to do about it and so um you should expect the same but thank you for going first thank you happy holidays yes all right Melissa you've got one more um we do I'm going to turn it over to David and his team from humanex to talk about um our humanex data and what it means yeah hi everyone
091thanks for having us um before we get started I just want to introduce um Caroline Young slonik she's with humanex um if you recall last year we had Brad Black come and Brad kind of gave that global view of kind of where the the state of the district is talked a lot about the the survey itself some of the the analytics behind it and when Melissa and I were talking uh a few weeks ago or about a month ago we talked about let's bring it more granular let's bring it to the root and what's kind of going on in our buildings and um give you a little bit more information as to what we actually do with the data when we uh after we we survey the staff and then what the building principles are
092doing with it um next slide please Jim thanks um tonight is like a two-part presentation the first one we're going to talk about is about the data the culture the climate uh and then we're also going to get into the Dei component uh but the the thing that I need to look at and when we talk about it is more is when we develop the future and that started about 18 months ago when you all extended our contract with uh humanex in relationship ship that gave us the ability to keep consistency with the messages that we're using the analytics that we're looking at all those different pieces prepared us and Carolyn and myself to start the collaboration uh and seeing what do we want to do as we look forward when we did that after
093we accepted that that relationship Hern and I started meeting and saying okay what do we want to do in the next 12 months for when we come back to the buildings uh and to the board and tell them what we've done uh and the first started with differentiated Consulting work with the buildings so Carolyn and her team has gone around to each one of the building administrative teams and work with them to meet them where they're at what are your hopes what are your dreams what are your needs what are your wants and how do we problem solve that and how do we build that capacity with our building administrators so that they're able to lead this in their buildings through their school Improvement plans and just every day because one of the things is
094is we want to make sure that we're talking about positive culture and climate but we also have to be doing something about it right and we have to show those actions um and that started really with our administrative teams participated in a team explan that Carolyn's going to talk a little bit about this experience was really good I think for a variety of reasons one last year we had a lot of new people myself Dr Webster Juan Molly Libby and so we went through a process to understand who we are as leaders and then what does that look like in a group and Carolyn's going to talk about that a little bit more in depth so the team blend plus process is a compiled process where we're building some literacy on strengths of talent but
095then also culture and in that piece we're looking at the culture within the Team Dynamics so we started first with the administrative team and each person went through an individual assessment where their talents were profiled and we were able to then create a composite as a team of what are the top talents and performance uh traits of the administrative team and we had some really profoundly impactful conversations of where can we have some momentum moving forward and where do we have some individual talents within members that can be leaned on in certain situations so there was a really strong goal setting process just around the talents in the first place and then as part of that we dissected the culture of the team um similar to our uh inside X that we do for the
096culture of the building we have a very specific survey called the teamx which looks at performance engagement and relationship engagement within the team so how happy is everybody to work together how much do we trust each other and then how well do we work together and how much do we understand about each other so by beginning with that we really began to build some literacy around culture as a whole and what it meant first as a team and then we were able to build out into the individual buildings can I before you go on can I just take us back to that meeting because um I don't know that anybody will grasp the magnitude but when you sit in this chair and a huge portion of your team turns over you just think this this
097can go any way it can go really well it can not go really well and I think back to that meeting and we weren't sure what it was going to say but I remember you being surprised I don't want to put words in your mouth but for a new team that was just forming I think it was extremely reinforcing to us um but I'm going to push you a little bit to talk about that because it felt like um it was a a pivotal moment for a new team I think to hear the feedback that we got from you guys and I think the process as a whole allows for that transparency where with a new team you typically have that honeymoon period where you're learning about each other where this helps you kind of
098pull back the curtain a little bit more directly and you learn how each person processes how they take in information what their workstyle is what their typical relationship um perspectives are and it begins to um build that trust from the very beginning so um for a brand new team there was already cohesion in the beginning and that allowed some very very important conversations that then led to processes that changed across the district thank you yeah I think Melissa kind of stole some of my talking points is is yeah no it's it's actually correct um we grew as a team right not just a cabinet team but an administrative team because our building principles uh were part of the process as well and so we were able to have the kind of those open and honest
099conversations of who are we as an administrative team who are we making leading these buildings and and this District um and it kind of came out some topics that we needed to have conversations about to grow as a team one of the things is is trust as a team that came up clear across when we looked at our team and it wasn't a bad thing it was one of those ones is we're all learning each other and we all want to trust with each other another one that came up is when we started establishing our Norms was making sure we have our our devices closed during cabinet and we're paying attention the fun part about that is is that we were able to have those conversations so that if it did come up at a
100meeting a month two months even this year we can reference back to that meeting um and we can also do the same with our billing principles as we having that discussion the goal this year is to now incorporate our assistant principles into that we did a lot of work with cabinet and the billing principles and we'll talk later in the presentation about next steps but we're going to bring our assistant principles in because they're as equally as important as the superintendent of our schools and so we really want to build our capacity across all those administrative um strands after we did all that and everything both here at the CSO with the cabinet team and the building administrators went to the humanex summit the the value of that was to was a big reason of
101being together hearing different messages that both professional speakers and also local school districts are doing to enhance their culture and their climate using the human humanex um the the the the humanex tools if you want to call it and so that was a really powerful two days for us to experience it as a team and again bringing us together bonding having those open conversations of how to support one another uh once we came back then the summer kind of came and went and the school year started and we started having those conversations Carolyn and her team that she'll talk about later in the presentation but start having those conversations at biling levels again what do you need as we start this year last year we did a lot of work and preparation now it's like
102the the the proof is coming in the pudding and so we have to start working on this start building that we took the survey we got those results that we'll share here in a minute and the last part is is as you're hearing from from Jeff and Jamie and you'll hear from the other principles is how are these pieces going into this strategic plan or into the school Improvement plan with the focus on that all arrows that we talk about at a building level are also pointing towards a strategic plan because we want to make sure that everything we doing goes back to that plan and and we're consistent about it so um we truly believe Fortune is in the follow-up we talk about that a lot um and so that's kind of where the
103path on our journey is right now is those follow-up conversations and what we're doing as we we move forward next slide please okay so and we'll start over no joking thank you Jim um so here's our snapshot you've seen this before you heard us talk about it uh a little bit our participation levels are on the left hand side there districtwide 79% uh Hadley had a 50% Franklin 92 2 Lincoln 91 Forest Glenn 100 Churchill 73 uh I will talk about participation levels at our next slide because I'm sure there's a few questions as to why those numbers look like that and we'll address that in the next Slide the nice thing that we want to focus on is our right hand side so you heard last year we talked about the having the dream
104box and then the sweet box or the the outer L and and then the red spot um we increased so if you look there in our upper right hand corner that's staff that is reporting that they're highly satisfied and highly engaged we increased if you look in the the rectangle by 2% when you look at those those four uh circles we increased by 3.25% overall when you add all of them together and then you look at last year's the difference is plus 3.25 it's a celebration right it's a celebration because not only did we increase by 3.25 but when you add all those numbers up that puts us at 94.9% that are in conversations and what we're doing but a lot to be cele because even when you look on the outer L uh our
105numbers are going down so where we are in the lower section of low satisfaction or low engagement those numbers are decreasing which means what we're doing is working and we're headed in the right direction would I love to sit here and say we're going to get 100% in that upper right hand corner absolutely what I love to say that is that reality it's not reality and so we have to accept that and make sure that we're hearing all the voices that are in our organization and make sure and we're addressing them when you look at participation Jim next slide please this has been a really interesting conversation over the last 18 months because um we've talked about it coming out of a pandemic what does it look like how do we drive it how do
106we drive participation this slide here and what we've talked with the building principles is about and with cabinet is we have to make sure that our staff here will make sure that they see and hear what we're talking about that's part A so they take this survey and a lot of times they take this survey and they think well I just take this survey nothing happens right or I just tell you all these things but you don't do anything about it so the focus for the building principles and assistant principles are to make it come to life so that we could tell them your voice matters your voice is being heard your voice is is making positive changes you know one of the things that Jeff and I talked about last year was is when
107he was talking about um getting support for his building and his staff was asking what's going on or where where's everything going he said CSO is listening CSO is addressing things and so that's been really exciting to do I'll I'll call the elephant in the room right and Steve sitting here to my right and we knew this was going to happen right he knows his participation is at 50% he's had discussion there's reasons for that that his BLT team has owned and accepted saying we've had a lot of new staff that doesn't understand the survey right maybe it's a technicality and their staff has said we need to do a better job messaging this messaging out what the survey is about and the importance of it and we've had healthy conversations around it that um
108his BLT has owned as well and so it's not just me going to stepen saying hey you're at 50% that's unacceptable it's what's going on here and what do we need to address and so by us having those conversations at a building level has actually created more conversation where they they wanted to take the survey again and I said that's great we have to wait till next year and I'm sure we'll see Improvement there and but then they'll own it right and that's the piece about this is we can ask everybody please take it but if they don't don't own it there's nothing there so I'm excited for for Steve and to Hadley to see what happens and thank you for letting me um to use you tonight for that that's why he came I
109think yes ma'am I don't mean to interrupt but comparing staff size to the other schools Hadley is bigger so do you have that ratio do you know what I'm saying like because if it's a bigger staff and you're trying to reach more people it's not as easy I don't know I'm I'm just thinking a l yeah he has almost double the size right and and one thing that I think when when Steve and I talked to double the size double the people to get um we also don't want to make it structured right like we don't want to say we're coming to a staff meeting everybody sit here take the survey because if we do that their response is well they made us take it that's why it's at 100% this is natural and so
110how do we do it naturally that does come into play but that's where the BLT team talked the building leadership team and said we need to do a better job and looking at our peers and our friends within our departments or grade levels and say this is important because the the information we get out of it then the BLT team can look at it and have a direct convers or a specific conversation about how to correct it or make things better in the environment his his scores are are still great with 50% participation I'm excited to see when they get into the 80s next year so I think I kind of answer your question but I don't think I really did sorry in a smaller building if a couple people don't take it it makes
111a big impact so you know Steve has more people get to take it but they can do it Elementary also is motivated by some healthy competition which I think you know just Hadley doesn't have another Middle School to compete with David sends out reminders and updates and there's a little bit of healthy competition in there um between the elementaries that does help too Jim please thank you sir so current realities right where are we going with all this so we we shared a brief snapshot that I'm turn over to Carolyn and she's going to get into the the celebrations and kind of where where we're heading and what we're doing at the building levels and her conversations that she's had with both building principles assistant principles and their BLTs you're welcome so just to uh
112dissect the survey just a little bit and we will um in our next um component look at some of the dimensions of the survey survey itself is 92 questions um and each of those questions is organized into 15 different dimensions and each each of the dimensions measures four different perspectives it's how do I feel about myself how do I feel about my team or those I work closely with how do I feel about my relationships with my supervisor and how do I feel about the organization as a whole so when we're looking at this data the data is holistic the data looks at that Continuum of perspective from my own influence and my own personality and my own perceptions to how do I feel globally within the district um when you're looking that's a snapshot
113again of that same dream box on the bottom districtwide um as David mentioned you are up um globally uh above 70% which at our organization just to set a little context um typical business average Dream Box in that red circle is about 35 to 40 typical education is more in the 55 to 60 so you're already in a really really really strong place you have been using the humanx tools and services for a number of years which is what does allow for some of that Trend data and that's why this year we tried to really dissect what's been done in the past what is working and to continue that momentum forward so what we did is look at each building what are their student growth goals what are their um sip plans what are their
114sip goals and then how can we take the data that's specific to each building and overlay that from the the culture aspect from the seal aspect really taking in the voices of each of the staff members in each of the buildings and differentiating what each building is doing to both look um granularly at the building level but then globally at the district level for commonalities so as you can see up there there's a breakdown for each building what their dream box was their dream box is that red circle and then the dream box and that inner L is the top four boxes a celebration that I would like to highlight is absolutely every building has at least 90% or above in those four powerful boxes um there has been tremendous work already done and from
115our conversations that are taking place in the first part of this year moving forward giving some momentum to the data giving some intentionality to the data the goals that have been put in place for this year have been really really powerful excent so on the right hand side here this is that Dimension breakdown so all 92 questions will fall into one of these uh 15 buckets and um you can see here your average score and then your change from last year so a an area of Celebration is almost every single Dimension is at an area of strength and and almost every single one has made growth so again as you're moving in a a progressive um momentum forward that is something to celebrate because a dimension is much harder to move than a single item
116when you're um setting your building goals on a single item it's very targeted but when we're looking a little bit broader we're looking at relationships we're looking at commonalities and we're looking at Trends so on the left hand side I met with each of the building principles and we really dissected what is going on in each building what has been your staff response how did the year start what are your goals where do you want to go and then we looked very specifically at each building's data and um landed on dimensions of focus so you can see there is some overlap in your dimensions of focus across some of your buildings relationships is a dimension of focus recognition came up quite a bit um and with each of these buildings we had very targeted conversations
117of now what happens we set uh set the ball in motion so to speak but then the BLTs take this grapple with it try to dissect it try to figure out what could this mean and then bring it back to the staff and it's a cyclical continuous process of trying to really understand what was that message what was that voice so instead of a single uh item being answered one time it's something that now becomes becomes a mantra of the school yeah before we go to the next slide I think you know I mean one of the questions came about the the low Dimension and and what's going on with that there might be discussion later uh but it's exciting to see pride right at the top there because that means they have a pride
118for where they work a pride for district 41 um which is really exciting and that they they believe in that because when we talk about diversity Equity inclusion a little bit later that Pride or that megaphone or Champion piece is going to play into that conversation a little bit um seeing relationships on the high end too is another one because we're building those strong relationships with our with our employees across the boards you know you get into those lower ones and you look at support and equip um lots of people see support differently and they answer that question you know very differently one of the things that we're proud of this year that is still coming to life is the support that we invested in special ed with our co- teing model um adding staff
119across the board and those things I would say is when we when we took this survey those were still developing so could that been a reason why it's a little bit on the lower end it could be right could some people think I need more to do my job absolutely and those are the conversations that the building principles assistant principles and the cabinets are having every day of how can we support you and what can we do more and sometimes it's just building capacity too of saying we know it's hard and maybe you don't need Manpower but you need something else a restorative practice or some other type of service to to support you that doesn't cost anything but it's just a conversation well and I think you I think you made a good point
120when you answered Jess's question about what can the board do to help raise that support equip and one of the important things is that I think we need to do a better job of defining that I think everybody's understanding of what that question asks or what that means is probably very very different yeah and the the exciting thing is is that the more we have conversations about the terminology the use of Dimensions uh and how we're focusing on it and and we bring that vocabulary into our own Norm our regular conversation the more understanding and capacity is built of saying I understand what that means now when I'm asked a question 18 months ago the word supervisor threw people off because I was sending the survey out right and they're like well is it is
121it is it is it Dr Bruno the supervisor is it is it Jeff Burke is it is it you know Molly Victor who's my supervisor I don't really know how to answer this question so just having a little bit of messaging before the survey went out about your supervisor is the person that evaluates you kind of calm that that that question down a little bit Jess um I guess as I compare the left side of the slide to the right what stands out to me is that on the left side recognition is the only one that falls below like I don't I don't know if 4.0 is a threshold for you because you said most of them are your from a position of strength so it's position of strength of 4.0 and above is that
122how you're doing so I guess that stands out to me me is um that that's the only one that's below the 4.0 that shows up on the left side so what was the driver you know what was driving the dimensions that became dimensions of focus is is it because those weren't the things that were below the position of strength at the building level I guess I would I guess am I articulating that Clearly Now absolutely so I think um because it is such a differentiated process the the data is not living in silos so what we did is we looked at each one of these we did look at the ranking and the Continuum but then we also overlaid that with what is currently in Motion in your building and so it needed to be
123something that would be very embedded and so every building at least at this point wanted to pick something that was already purposeful was already something that the staff was buying into and was already going to reinforce a goal of the building and often times in an academic way and in a social emotional way for students by reinforcing that staff um some of it does have to do with the dissection of the language and the transparency and understanding all the language the same way so we looked at the Continuum and I know as Educators we always go right to the bottom it's how can I improve this um but the the piece to keep in mind here is some of these Dimensions have far more leverage than others for support and equip the and and even
124your mission conscious some of that just has to do with being intentional with verbage being intentional with language and being intentional with process and bringing some of that out into the light so that the same words are being used the same way the same processes are being referenced the same way so when we're reinforcing quality and Innovation those tend to be far more powerful and have a lot more leverage than moving in into something that might be a little bit more based on vacular or process any other questions I'm just wondering if you can just elaborate what is recognition like they they want to be known by name or like praise for what they're doing like what what what is recognition yeah um I I'll tackle it and then I think car can uh some
125of this recognition is just being recognized right but it's also being given feedback right there's questions in there I receive feed I've received feedback from my supervisor in the past two weeks I think or five 10 days sorry two weeks 10 days um there's those pieces too about being recognized being seen being heard right um giving positive recognition I've received a positive compliment one of the things that we talked about at CSO was as a Cabinet team how can we do a better job of recognizing those those little things that people do and I remember I walked by we talk about it we always start our cabinet meetings we just kind of talk about what's going on in the buildings or within CSO and people share a lot of positive stories and so our team
126has made it an effort that when you hear those stories if you see that person share that message uh one of the things Chris Webster and I were talking about was with Danny Minter and social studies and all the great work he was doing in leading the department two days later I was walking through Hadley and I ran into uh Mr Minter and I said hey I just want to say I heard a really cool message uh from Dr Webster about what you're doing with social studies boom boom boom I said I said I really appreciate that keep up the good work and like just him self lit up and was like thank you so much I've never really talked to Danny or anything but I heard it and I kind of just happened to
127be with there and I like I should acknowledge that I should recognize him for what he's doing um and he's lit up or when I've seen preschool uh Carolyn Jo Dela at the printer and I said I just heard you're killing it with our preschool parents like how's it going and she's like I'm loving it I'm like well keep it up because I hear you're killing it again it lights up and all of our team is doing that they're also sending out uh cards thank you cards or just acknowledgement cards so we're really trying to get as I call him touches on the ball to to recognize people anything to add no that was beautiful thanks I try um other question thank you thanks for the thanks for the recognition right I love it well
128played all right where are we headed Mr uh Mr Jim where are there we go where are we headed all right um so the work never ends we know that right um so we need to talk about next steps and where we go we did all this great work uh over the past 12 months but the work's not done and we need to continue to to to move forward forward our building principles and assistant principles are working right now with their building leadership teams to to guide them in that building level work some of the dimensions that they talked about on the left-hand side from our last uh slide is what they own right they pick those they own those so now they have to to keep that message going forward throughout the remainder of
129the school year and into next year because we know if we can be successful and do better in those areas we're going to see a direct re correlation and reflection in our surveys next year uh we have to continue supporting our administrators uh both at the cabinet level at the building level um we have a new superintendent coming in board that we need to make sure that they understand humanex and the talents and everything that we've done and they need to go through that process so that when they join our team what does that blend look like um going forward as well uh cycles of impl implementation as we know there's always different stops along the way of that cycle so we want to keep that going this is a lot of the work that
130we just can't let the work go on the shelf and collect dust because if we do that it goes back to our participation levels that then people say we take a survey you do nothing with it we need to keep it coming to life over and over and over which ties into talking to staff and administrative at meetings we talk about these things all the time we do it actually just we just do it right like it's it's those it's built into our DNA it's things that we believe in so it just has to keep happening um we know as a cabinet that we get really busy and we get caught up in things and sometimes we have to step back and say what are those dimensions and what are we doing to make sure
131that we're we're we're championing those messages uh connecting our building goals to the wellness committee so one of the good things about we know there's an Roi when it comes to culture and climate uh about staff feeling well and we know there's a direct relation impact to our students and so we want to make sure that our Wellness committee and the goals that they're working on are directly tied back to our culture as well and so we've been having a lot of conversations with the wellness committee and what we're doing at buildings to see if they can fuse together uh one of the things that we're using is is kind of giving them the autonomy with some of our funding from the EBC that they get to do different incentives that meet their buildings needs
132so that they can meet their staff um if it's a a little perk a prize whatever they think it is but how are we doing those things so that we're giving those shots in the arms to support them along the way and as always it's ongoing this even though we finished presenting here the conversation keeps going the talks keep happening all these things continue to move forward so part two of our presentation um diversity Equity inclusion three very big topics three very big words um and there's two ways that we have to look at this oh go back one don't tell don't steal my thunder just yet joking um we have to look at it organizationally but then also human resource I think there's two pieces there right uh the board I remember last year
133one of our first meetings came out with their uh their their statement of of of Dei which is great we have to live that right and we have to build that within our staff so that they know what is our philosophy here what is our core beliefs here and so please Jim now you can go forward um when we look at that that's the organizational piece right we need to look at ourselves as Glenn Allen School District 41 and are we building that capacity and understanding and what I mean by that is are we educating our staff on what does diversity mean by itself what does Equity what does inclusion mean all by themselves and then how do we bring them all together and that's providing different types of professional development understanding unconscious bias um
134having conversations about different things around Dei it's easy to say hey we we we do Dei we love Dei but are we really doing anything with those three words or are we just saying we do that uh that's the first part the second part organizationally is are we building an environment that welcomes diversity that welcomes equity and welcomes inclusion right and those are the conversations that I think everyone of our staff has those conver has those discussions all the time and what does that environment look like so that that we're that we're a welcoming District we could say we're welcoming inclusive District that supports all people but what does that really mean right and and what are we doing to to promote that I think the way to do that is is by celebrating two
135different things is being seen and being heard and I've talked about that a lot but I do say feeling seen because one of the things as research will tell you is is if you are in an environment and you feel that your culture or your um your culture or who you are as a person uh is is respected and welcomed there is a direct relation that you a will be a better employee but B um if it's people of color they're going to they're going to gravitate towards that district and want to be in an environment where they feel seen uh we look at I was I had the opportunity to be at Churchill doing our our new ID badge roll out and it was happened to be on uh Mexican Independence Day and uh
136people were were dressed up to celebrate the Day and and I remember going up to someone and I said I love your energy and I love what you're I love your energy and I love how you're celebrating your Independence and they just said thank you for recognizing that right because a lot of people look at him and like oh that's great and we don't even acknowledge it but the fact that we can acknowledge that and they feel seen goes a very long way or when I was talking to another staff member and I said why don't we have an old friend up Pres you know in in one of our schools or to celebrate that part during a Mexican heritage month and they were like do you know what a friend is I was like
137well I worked in Berwin for three years so we had him in every buildings and just having that conversation which ties into a sense of belonging that we as a district is do we feel that sense of belonging that your culture can be discussed right and can be openly talked about and even even as a as a white male if I have a question or another person has a question they can ask those conver those questions and it's it's not because we're we're we're we're we're being disrespectful or not we're really inquisitive about wanting to know more right and and how do we how do we create that environment not just for our staff but also for our students um this side is more staff heavy because of what we're talking about and if we
138do that with our staff we know that will trickle down into our students as well so the organizational part is is what I just talked about my department the human resource and what our administrators have done an amazing job is is how we attract that diversity within our staff and I know that's been a clear goal from the board of aded is is how are how are are we doing that and there's so many different ways to do it but the the big way is is that we have to create an environment and we have to do that by what does our branding look like what does our social media and our print uh information look like when someone opens up one of our newsletters or goes to our Facebook or our Twitter account and
139Scrolls through do they see themselves in our district or do they just see another district and that's a conversation I think Eric and I have a lot with is is when we're marketing things and we're starting to gear up for our recruitment with stuff that she's learned from inspra is are we doing that and being intentional about it not being over the toop but just being intentional about this is who we are as a community and we're we're embracing that right our strategic diversity recruitment are we partnering with the right Multicultural professional associations we heard last year Juan talk about being with I Alis right but then we also wanted to look at with the ow Summit coming out of isby and iasa about um uh looking at um administrators that that are diverse and
140how are we making sure connection there because when people think of where do I want to work and maybe they're a person of color they think of I want to go to District 41 not just because I want to go to Glenn Allen but because I know I'm welcome there and my my background or my culture or my uh ethnicity is welcome to be there and so that's what we continue to talk a lot about um and and our staff is our biggest megaphone we have staff that that always talk about we need to bring in uh more diverse uh diverse staff and and I said okay how do you do that do you know people do you want us to talk to people and and one of the things is is we had a
141we had a PE teacher that was in a biracial marriage and she said I have like five or six friends that don't know a lot about Glenn Ellen and would you be willing to talk with them I said I'd love to talk with them Steve said he talked with them and so we met with them and it was almost like a reverse interview before we even interviewed them right but they had to ask questions because they had to feel secure in applying to Glenn Ellen right that that type of school district and so um through that we found some some amazing candidates this year and we talk about talent and betting on Talent one of the things that we do need to highlight is last year alone our hiring class was 30% people of color
142uh and and that's a huge number and and we're proud of that as a team what we did um we know our work is not done we know we still have other avenues to do but we're in the right direction because we know the talent being our employees is critical for our students and if we can make sure that we're putting students uh or we're putting uh staff in front of our students that look like them we know those relationships and those connections will go to a whole another level of learning during uh by doing that oh next slide please so one of the things is we always like data right and so that was a little bit of um our our kind of non-traditional data but three years ago human X started doing their
143Dei data and this board decided to invest in the Dei plus index and so I'm going to let uh Carolyn talk a little bit about these four areas but the the really positive thing is is look where we have been three years ago to where we are now and that's just not because people are clicking the right boxes on a question that's because the intentional work of our administrative team and our teachers and what we're doing in the classrooms and at the buildings and at the district office and we're we're in the right direction which is really exciting but Carolyn's going to talk a little bit more about these Trends and this data so going back to the way the survey is structured shirt if you remember it's like a bullseye From the Inside Out
144perspectives I have perspectives I have within my team perspectives I have with my supervisor and our relationship and perspectives districtwide and what's really powerful about the uh Dei index is that it allows that granular dissection of where are some of those breakdowns where are their strengths where might there be some miscommunications where might there be some targeted um points for improvement so looking at diversity there's questions that are all surrounding on variety of experience variety of perspective variety of the way in which those um that variance is embedded within the culture of the building of the district inclusion is how is that variance brought within how is it brought as part of everything that we do every single day and Equity is how is it supported how are our processes responding to this variety in
145the variance and perspective um the trends are amazing but the piece I really want to point out is the transformative commitments because that particular index focuses on the ideals the intention for improvement so the Dei focuses on what is it's a perspective of here's how I feel right now this moment but the transformative commitments the items within that theme are here's where I want to go I believe this this is where I want to to see District 41 this is where I want to see the relationships with my team my supervisor and districtwide are the questions related to Dei part of the existing survey or are they additional questions they're additional questions on the back end of the survey okay and were they provided to us I they were okay I didn't see them I
146will find them we'll let you continue to go I'm gonna wrap us up right here right so final slide there sir everybody likes to hear the final because they know we're almost done right um and I think this is a great hashtag right so this is one of the things that Erica started last year about hashtag we d41 and and doing her uh her video campaign that she's been doing over the past year and a half I think it really sums up who we are and this is what we're trying to do with our culture right is who we are as d41 um so that's how I'm going to end it but what questions do you all have for us um before we hop into questions I also want to take the board back and
147give some context on this so when I first came the district was well into humanex had given humanex um for years for a long time and had some really good data but when the board wants to know how do you support for support and equip this was one of the ways you supported because we took the next step um the piece that the district had not done prior to that was all of the coaching and mentoring and working with humanex Beyond just the survey so um the surveys used to come back and CSO would try to figure out what to do to raise certain things and work on certain things but there was none of this mentoring coaching support and followup work with humanex the buildings would get it and they would try to guess
148what do we do to boost this up the approach to using the data by bringing human X in for all of these pieces I believe has totally changed what we're doing with it it's become um who we are what we live HR it's it's constantly being talked about it's work that they do but when you want to know the importance of support and equip when we came to you and said we want to spend more money on this because we don't want to just give the survey and look at the data and take some guesses about what we could do if we're going to do this because all of it is a big Financial commitment then let's really do it and make it our work and so that's the difference that I think we've come
149in a couple of years in including during a pandemic when I think we were the only client District that increased things um during that time then we took a little bit of a backpedal and now we're on an upward Trend again so um but I think giving principles that support to have somebody come out who understands this and then can work with their building leadership teams and work with the district has been huge for us I mean it's it's hard to move up when your dream box is already so strong but we're looking at this in ways that we have never really looked at it or understood it before yeah before I ask the the board for comments or or questions I I just wanted to underscore Melissa's point and um really Express an appreciation
150for her making it because it does show the relationship between the work that happens at the Strategic level at the board table and what it's impact is with what's happening throughout the cabinet and what happens down at the school level so there really is an inter dependence uh in in in that regard um and sometimes it may seem like maybe an insignificant step to take but then you begin to see how it puts some real meat on the bones in terms of the actions that you're going to you know take uh in in in classrooms so just to reiterate the teamw approach um and how important it really is um that we understand the the the interdependence of all these components all right so Jay sure you're up you know one thing me and just
151peeking back off what Melissa said as to you know while we're up high in that top right corner right and it's hard to really move that forward and trying to take transportive steps and really work on things outside the box it kind of couples on what what Jeff and Jamie were saying earlier as to we are a high performing district and and we're seeing high achievement but really then as you're saying you really getting back into the nitty-gritty as to improve our growth and it's kind of what you're seeing here we got high achievement but where can we still where can we grow that and you know it it's so it's not just something that working out with our kids it's working with their staff and working our cabin with their Administration it's a whole
152thing and it's neat just seeing that correlation between the two okay board any question can yes no yes Jess yeah please I do but go ahead um I found the questions and I had read them U so yeah just didn't remember so thank you for reminding me that um the so I I realize that the focus is not going to be the support and equip for everyone and that's fine these questions aren't like because I want people to change what they're doing but I got curious and so on and asked a question um one of the uh lowest there's there's two metrics on the support support and equip is kind of broadly except for one building um one of the lowest metrics and of those lowest metrics there's two pieces that are often the lowest
153there and I already mentioned the materials one the other one would be I am provided the opportunity to spend quality time with my supervisor are and I'm just curious like what it whether it's human X has a vision of that what that looks like in education as the ideal or Dr Bruno if you have like do you have a beginning definition of that or how are you g to create the definition of that yeah I'll let I'm G let Caroline go with the human X piece then we'll talk about District 41 so that actually has it's a twofold question because um so the the materials one is sometimes more just about okay again that visibility piece but when you're talking about the quality time with the supervisor that can go into the relationships piece so
154there could be a whole variety of reasons why that quality time doesn't exist or what quality time means and so it's almost like dissecting what does quality time mean universally do we have a structure in place for that and are we reinforcing that relationship that coaching aspect of it so that particular item even though it falls under support and equip does also lean into a lot of other dimensions and that's where um it's it's powerful to look at them in silos of the dimensions but you almost have to look at the interdependence of that so for that particular one there I can tell you there have been a lot of conversations a lot of candid conversations of how do we open up the lines of communication how do we create a little bit more fluidity
155in our relationships and a little bit more trust so that um that those conversations can happen very candidly and what I'm chomping at the bit to say is and this goes directly into the why of what we did with the observation tools and checklists you don't have to be around a teacher very long or do a formal evaluation cycle on a teacher very long before you will hear I need better feedback I mean need clearer feedback I want those conversations to be richer and so my guess is as principles and assistant PR principles really change the nature of their conversations during formal and informal observation you're going to see that change because um those are really hard to go in and and and clearly Define all your look fors and listen fors but to empower
156administrators to actually go in and have very instructionally related conversations with teachers and I think you're going to see that change because that's you know as as long as people have done this you always hear oh you know what comes out of those we need better conversation so we're equipping our administrators to have the kinds of conversations that teachers are itching to have about teaching and learning and their instruction so we've taken it to that level of of how do we build that relationship that's about instruction because that's one of the most important things that that principles and assistant principles do as instructional leaders yeah so for us the pieces fit um it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the data moving forward and and Part B to that to answer your
157question piggy Beck and on what Melissa said is visibility and transparency at all levels right visibility and transparency at all levels meeting if you know what I mean if the principls are interacting with their staff if CSO administrators are acting with the interacting with the staff those play into those conversations because if they're if they see themselves like I think Molly started doing her special ed walkthroughs and so and Dr Webster was doing them too and people recognize that right like oh wait a minute this is this is this is different and there's a value there right so they see that so to answer your question kind of how is what Melissa said and then also just being present mhm yeah I love I love that um and I think as we as we looked
158for our next superintendent visibility was one of those pieces so I love to hear that that's kind of that's that's pervasive um because that that seems so impactful and the I I dive into questions and pieces for improvement but I do want to recognize that these are great results and that's that's the result of the hard work of everyone and it's really great I do want to shout out um I'm sure there's not one person that this is this responsible for this result it takes many people but in the communication category there was the question of I feel in on things that are happening in our organization and it had a 1.0 change which is massive and um so just congratulations to everyone who was a part of that that's not an easy metric to
159move by any means I think communication is one of the most difficult pieces because everybody's got their different ways that they read it right so um well done and um thank you for that that's that's huge yeah that's one of those exciting ones I just because I love talking about the stuff I'll stop soon um all the newsletters that our departments are putting out the the the newsletters that Erica and Melissa are creating the digest like we've added so much more ways to communicate our principles just meeting with with their buildings and just giving them real time information to know what is going on is is why we saw that right there is you could go down this row and all the different things that are occurring is is why we're seeing it which is
160super exciting to see yeah let me was there anyone else just a a clarification U because of the different layers starting from the center and then moving out the questions that relate to the organization you you made clear who the super Supervisor was C can you clarify for me the organization is it just sort of abstractly thinking about District 41 that it encapsulates Administration encapsulates the board or is the organization School the school leadership I mean I looked at each school too to see how these scores kind of varied and just and got curious so who's the organization no that that's an excellent question um so we're looking at consistency and in understanding here so to go back to the um supervisor piece and I know this is a conversation we had with um Hadley's
161BLT is a very healthy conversation that start as I want to pinpoint somebody so I can give feedback on that where that's not the most meaningful expression what's what's most meaningful about culture is that consistency in the relationship so we kind of stepped back a little bit to say when you're thinking about supervisor it's that dynamic between your evaluator and the conversations you're having it doesn't matter which administrator is your evaluator so it's more of that that ongoing and that transfers also over to the organization as a whole so the organization as a whole is the global district and often times when teachers take this it's an opportunity for grievance and what we do during a lot of our uh discussions and our dissections is to break that down it's not them and us every
162single person is a component of the district so it's not the the district that each teacher is separate from it's the district that everyone is a part of and so that's really where a lot of our conversations begin is if that that specific items related to the organization were answered in a negative way first it's trying to unpack that a little bit what was the underlying message here is this a grievance or is this a communication is this a structural challenge where do we need to go with this so um the organization is global d41 so to go back to what was up there before the hash we are d41 it's everybody well I I really appreciate that because you can you can see some what appear to be contradictory measures where sort of organizational
163level scores versus my work and the teamw work or the school work but to end on a real positive note that I I think maybe addresses some of that cont contradiction I always put a real emphasis on that Talent fit score because I think organizationally nothing's proved more powerful than whether you feel like you you fit there right um and that score was again above four and it's been above four uh for for for some time and so that so even where there are some questions or maybe there are some grievances what you are saying is I fit here and something is happening so that I do fit here so I'm not going to probably exit if anything I'm going to look for an opportunity either to fix or even to uh uh improve and
164so you know lots of questions here lot of scores but I went looking for this one uh throughout and it was it was good to see that that score so hey thank you so much uh anything else before we let well I don't know if David's going but we can let you go all right well thank you both really and thanks for the work really appreciate it I guess we let David all right you go we get our principles out of here yeah thanks for staying it's a long night appreciate it Juan before you jump up we've got we've just got some public participation to take care of but just hang right there that's okay you're eager that's all right um members of the public who wish to address the board should complete a form
165and submitted to Mrs Mo we ask that speakers respectful maintain respectful to Corum and limit comments to three minutes or less Mrs MO is there anyone who wishes to get public comment no okay one perfect timing one before Juan starts to give his newcomer update I I really do just want to take a minute and um set the stage by explaining what the work in W's department has looked at looked like and when I say um and I and I believe I did say this to somebody who was asking me about um newcomers and what we're doing and I said said Juan literally walks around with a paper every single day where he's monitoring the numbers from morning to afternoon and so we've been talking about newcomers every time I pass them in the hallway
166um but you know um Wan is going to share with you some data about the newcomers that we've had to the district um how we are supporting the newcomers that have arrived to the different District some new processes that have been put into place um and then really assure people that um we're we're not in crisis mode on this um you know if we say that we value and celebrate Dei then we need to value and celebrate the fact that we're welcoming newcomers and newcomer families to our district um there may be some challenging moments at time but overall um you know if if we were at the point of saying we need more to be able to do this we know we will come to the board and ask for more um but that's
167not where we're at right now so so I'm going to let onean share the data and talk a little bit more about it um but assure people that we are um very aware um throughout the day each and every day but also feeling that we're in a good spot in terms of having a very consistent and planned approach for how we welcome and onboard new newcomer families thank you Dr K good evening um I'd like to provide an update regarding our strategy and response to welcoming and supporting English Learners who qualify as newcomers before I dive in into the presentation I'd like to stay for the record our newcomer families and students find a supportive School community that advocates for their success and works daily to support them from a systemic approach we have systems
168in place to help us do this work it is great benefit for our students that as a community we welcome them and although like Dr K mentioned not free of challenges we are equipped and prepared to support their educational Journey next slide please we follow the definition of the US Department of Education to identify our newcomers that is newcomers are students who were born outside of the US and have arrived to US schools within the last three years and are still learning English next slide please to establish some contexts as to why we welcome more newcomers this year than perhaps we have done in the past this graph truly speaks for itself these are National Trends showing an increase in Immigration patterns Across the Nation regionally and locally we see similar patterns and i' like
169to provide you with an update on what that looks like here in District 41 next slide please for more context our strategy and response is centered around these three big rocks or priorities if you will as we monitor enrollment Trends we adjust our supports in one Outreach and engagement efforts with families two providing supplemental resources and materials for our teachers and our students and three keeping a polls in our programs in our case that is dual language and ESL uh which are the language programs in place in our district that are um established to support English Learners including newcomers next slide please in this slide you see the total number of English Learners we've service over the last 5 years as you can see with exception of school year 21 and 22 our Trend shows
170a consistent increase in El enrollment next slide please these are the total number of newcomers as of as of a few weeks ago these represent students who are new to US schools and have enrolled within the last three years with Churchill and Hadley welcoming a higher number of students than the rest of our schools next slide please this is the same data represented by school year our local trend for 2023 matches what we see nationally and regionally next slide please we are very proud as a community of the diverse language backgrounds our students represent our new our newcomer students represent 14 languages and 22 countries around the world I'd like to pause and acknowledge how great it is to welcome students who add to the diversity of our schools and bring different perspectives based on
171their cultures and their languages next slide please our newcomer population is represented across all grade levels this graph shows again the majority of our students being service at Churchill and at Hadley next slide please this shows the 22 different countries around the world from where our students are from there are many parts of the world um they are from many parts of the world but in the most recent months we welcome students from Ukraine and Latin American countries such as Venezuela Mexico and Colombia next slide please now that you've seen our Trends I'd like to Circle back to a slide shown earlier this is not a comprehensive list and credit should really be given to many Professionals in our schools it truly takes a village this map represents our support from a systemic and proactive
172approach from an Outreach and engagement angle our goal is to be a good source of information and education to our families we do this by strengthening our bpack community and offering support groups session every month we call these snack and chats and are hosted by our multilingual family leasen um Elanor kley in regards to materials and resources our goal is to put good tools in the hands of our teachers and our students to help them do this work these have been supplemental instructional materials for our ESL classes translation devices for our offices and teachers and authentic multilingual books in our libraries I'm happy to let you know that by the end of this week all of our year one newcomers will receive a book in their native language for their home Library this was supported
173by our title three grand finally we continue to keep a polls and monitor the capacity of our e programs and services in our case dual language program at church Elementary and our ESO program in all of our schools both of our programs are research based and are fully staff with certified e and bilingual teachers whose main expertise is supporting English Learners including ucommerce also we have offered our general education teachers with professional development to help them support El last month as an example we collaborated with glenar West and were able to send five of our general education classroom teachers to a PD opportunity regarding the scup model scup is an array of strategies teachers can use in the classroom to support English Learners we are actively seeking other opportunities to continue supporting our teachers in
174this next slide please to wrap up just a few updates regarding our two programs our dual language program is available to English Learners at Churchill and Els from other buildings whose main language background is Spanish in this program native language Spanish and ESL instruction is provided by bilingual certified staff since the Dual language program does have limited capacity we have a waiting list system in case it's needed as of today we've been able to enroll all of our students who qualify and whose parents has have expressed interest in the Dual language program however as noted as noted before our ESO model is fully staff and has the resources to supporting our students in their home schools as well next slide please ESL is offered in all of our schools in this program we offer ESL
175instruction by qualified El certified staff again all of our schools are fully staff and structuring their master schedule to offer a combination of push in pull out shelter and ESO classes next and final slide just a shout out to our multilingual family leasen Elanor kirley she has been very busy this year she leads the snack and chat sessions every month these have been of great benefit to many families for example families have signed up for library cards connected with Community organizations and have also had a bit of fun as this events typically involve food we are hoping to bring a group of parents to the bilingual parents Summit offer in the summer by the Illinois Resource Center we're excited about that next slide please and with that I conclude my report thank you very much
176one board members any observations Reflections comments can I ask you you can't help but um first of all thank you for welcoming newcomers and helping them to feel like this can be a place where they can do well and be safe and be happy and and prosper and I know it's a work in progress right that is correct I want to acknowledge the the hard work and the effort uh so when you look at the numbers and given residential housing patterns being what they are obviously Churchill is going to carry a lot of this weight um it's going to carry the need to be responsive right its numbers are going to be higher right if I calculated I Churchill and Hadley what's that Churchill and Hadley and Hadley yes I but I think Churchill was
17749% of the uh of of of the of the newcomers and and just since 2021 and my math could be off but it looked like the increase was about 84% in those numbers so and 11 of them at the grade level were kindergarten big things will be happening at at Churchill we're excited about that uh and and so I want to raise again and I I think I've brought this up uh in in the past I want to make sure that we practice Equity across the district and so if there are extra demands on that building and on that staff and on those people that we have courageous conversations about and that you will bring right you you will bring to us what it is we need to do in order for that building to
178to prosper we want all our buildings to succeed we heard great stuff from Jeff tonight and we'll hear from Churchill in their plan later on but uh I I want to be in en and and very obvious about that that I think this board would welcome hearing what we need to do if we need to do more all right I don't have a specific thing to ask you for here but I just want you to be yep and I think that that really speaks to the commitment of our community and the commitment of our teachers you know there might be many places Across the Nation right where that that may not be the case so our our families really are in a good spot to come to a community that values the diversity that values
179their assets that they bring to the table um and as Dr K mentioned um we continue to monitor our enrollment numbers right and if at any point um that prompt us to come to the board and say hey we need additional resources or we need to adjust our model or we need additional staff um we will do that um we're not at that point um we are as Dr R would mentioned um fully staffed with with our eel um teachers and and um and also we have the two models in place that help all of our students support um and grow linguistically and academically thank you one yeah thank you very much yes anyone else are we yeah and I think I just want to kind of hearken back and I remember when you're talking
180about this and you're talking about the kids you talk about you know you can look at all these kids as numbers right I remember when Lincoln was here doing their student attributes and they all said something in a very different Lang languages that they said and one thing that stuck out to me and in each of these numbers right um there there's a whole bunch of different languages um but inclusion is the same in all those languages the word inclusion is the same in each one of those languages absolutely thank you for the good work sir we appreciate it you're welcome thank you care good evening all right meliss you're not done yet you have yet another update do we know if Brenda's on I believe she is yes I am here thank you for
181waiting Brenda I warned you it was going to be a long and very exciting meeting um so thank you to Brenda um as the board may recall Brenda is one of our mental health consultants um Brenda is joining us virtually tonight um wanted to Circle back because if the board recalls when we gave our last update we were waiting for confirmation from kth as to whether they would be able to pick us up and serve us this year under our Federal grant dollars and unfortunately cth is not um but fortunately there have been some great there has been some great work and developments happening across the county and we are able to partner with a company called referral GPS um who will Service District 41 for a full year to expand upon the supports that
182have already been put in place so later in the agenda we will be asking to take action to approve a $14,000 investment of the Federal grant dollar so that we can move forward with our first phase in with referral GPS um and this is really to provide all of our families um with access to care navigation support that Brenda's going to talk a little bit more about in detail in a second um before I turn it over to Brenda I just want to say that we will be coming back later in January um to um make a next um investment in referral GPS and that will wrap up our grant funding but it will really expand us into the realm of direct face-to-face services for kids and families um want to also share that this
183fits really with everything that we're doing um with parent guidance so parent guidance to date has been offered in both English and Spanish thank you again as Juan said to Eleanor she hosted a live um session for um our Spanish-speaking parents to take advantage so they got together and hosted a session in person to do the virtual Spanish um parent guidance s session that was offered um but we're monitoring the data and parent guidance continues to thrive participation is going up um with notable attendance rates according to parent guidance when they compare our data to other you users um in both participation in the webinar as well as the participation in parent coaching so again um the data that we have right now does show that our community is engaging and is interested in what's
184being offered through parent guidance um the addition of referral GPS will help us expand um so think of this as us building out a tiered model of support for families outside of school so um I'm going to turn it to Brenda now and she will talk a little bit more specifically about referral GPS because she's involved not only with Glenn Ellen but also with numerous other districts across the county who are working with referral GPS thanks Melissa so um speaking about parent guidance we've been really excited and um remember the webinars are essentially our tier one um disseminating all kinds of wonderful information and if you haven't had a chance to get on one of those webinars I really encourage you to do so they're very interactive and [Music] Le and so referral GPS is
185going to be perfect for families whether or not they're in involved in the coaching or whether or not they're going to the webinars but they could be engaging in this way and realizing that you know what our family needs something more like we really believe that therapy would be good for our child or for us as a family and so referral GPS is a local company um developed right near um right near you all in Glenn Ellen and um the navigation piece essentially we will have our own District 41 interface dashboard that families can go directly to and put all of their information in and get a list of the closest match to them um for for therapy so they can put in their child's um uh concern you know whatever their their child's struggling
186with they can put in um their insurance or what kind of um funding they have they can put in um whether they want a um a therapist that speaks a different language than English right they can put all this information in and out will come a list of resources now that's if they want to just engage all on their own um The Beauty with referral GPS yes is that they have over 11,000 providers around the area that are into in this um navigation system and the whole point is to not have any of those therapists sitting around doing nothing when there are families that want to get in and so referral GPS will um support families in getting actually connected to those therapists so if a family just wants to they can do it all
187by themselves click click click and I'll come list of of providers that meet their criteria however the really nice thing is there's a button for care navigation So a family can click that button talk to a live person and the um the care Navigator will help them work through the dashboard and what's especially nice about that is that those care Navigators know availability like up to the minute because they are communicating with these providers all the time and they know whether they have opening or not so that is super important um and so they can um get that care navigation help and get connected with somebody right away that fits their criteria fits their insurance Etc and then um there's also the capacity for our school providers to do that as well so if um
188we want to engage say the school social worker and the parents and the care Navigator um on on uh in real time we can so this is um navigation in order to get um our students essentially kind of to the front of the line right um there are waiting lists all over the county um some of them 250 people deep and in fact it's it's every bit as difficult to get connected with a therapist even when you have good insurance right now and so referral GPS will get um young people and their families connect connected to a therapist that that meets their needs very quickly and um when we come back in January we're going to talk about ways in which um we can ensure that families that um families can get connected to the
189therapist that's right for them kind of like regardless of whether they are insured what kind of insurance they have and um all of those pieces are there any questions about um what referral GPS um has to offer I think you just answered my question as to what we talk about in January so I'm glad to hear that yeah um I can talk just a little bit about um the um number of school districts that are using referral GPS there are um 10 new school districts in DuPage County alone that are sort of on boarding with referral GPS right now so um we are um able to kind of piggyback on the um it buildout and all those kinds of things that will be unique to District 41 um because um you know there are a
190lot of people right now kind of doing the same thing um Indian Prairie kind of was the lead in this um they had um not only um navigation connecting to providers in the community but they were also having providers come to the school and that sort of thing and we're looking at um connecting families with local therapists in the area in person or offering if they would prefer it um a t therapy uh medium either with people local to um The Glenn Allen area or just across the state of Illinois um if a family has very unique needs um it might be that the teletherapy opens up a connection to a provider that's a better match for them Brenda you can continue I don't know whether there aren't any other questions coming from the board
191so I didn't know whether you wanted to continue your comments or you go ahead that's all I have um Melissa was there anything else that you wanted to share no we'll be back in January and we'll have somebody from referral GPS joining who can talk in Greater detail um they've been extremely helpful and gracious um as we've had to Pivot and do this um and and getting us on boarded and getting us ready so tonight's action will let us officially get started and then we'll come back in January and tell you the rest of what we want to do um you mentioned sorry you mentioned that c uh is not available are there competitive competitor products that that perhaps would be available or are they pretty much the only game um so they actually did
192um commit to work with us work with the district in the future they just were not able to take us on but between what we will be what we're already providing through parent guidance and the coaching and then what we layer on with um referral GPS all parents will have access to that coaching component and then now anybody who needs will have access to whether it's virtual or inperson actual services so while it didn't end up being C we're we're providing that coaching and will be providing Direct Services so um different vendor um but sustainable because of the work that's going on um in D page and then really it will be for the district to take a look at the data at the end of the year and see what's been most used what's
193been most meaningful and make some decisions there about about um you know supporting ongoing work in that area with District dollars because we know the Federal grant will be over um but there are grant opportunities that I anticipate will come in the county because of work that's taking place um but again we will have um a year of some data to really see what resonated with our our parents and our families and and what made an impact thank you thank you Melissa BR thank you for good work appreciate it all right we'll move into reports board reports first any board members who wish to Stephen you look like you're firing upad bum uh I think our students are going to have to leave pretty soon I'm wondering if maybe we could move them up Stephen
194we're gonna ask you to take a back seat no objection yes we've kept you here late who um Evette do you have yes please okay so I attended the PAC meeting on Wednesday it was my first one that I've attended it was really great we discussed a new bullying policy regarding how and when parents are informed of an alleged bullying incident and also just the basic definition of bullying in general which is very interesting um here at P we have started to enforce hall passes a little bit more so if a student for whatever reason wanted to leave class they would have to bring a hall pass which was not previously um required but it's been very useful in helping to determine when students should be in the hallway versus when they shouldn't um some
195new clubs starting an Italian Club which is focusing on just celebrating Italian culture and also our kindness club which is a new one is collecting winter gear for the homeless so helping to collect and distribute any um winter clothing that people um might have need of seventh grade specifically had a really great Thanksgiving Spirit assembly with some games competition um also seventh grade we've been noticing responsible Locker usage and getting to class on time which this year our required Locker usage is new so students have to use their lockers they can't bring backpacks around the halls anymore which was tough at first but we're adjusting and it's um it's being very successful thank you thank you we've that that that was a lot by the way with the Italian Club will will there be food
196just wondering all all right thank you Carlos please uh I am going to ER say the things that Evelyn had on her report not specific to the sixth grade so uh in the week of November SE 27th uh there'll be a I don't know how to read that I'm sorry hard to else exactly I'll just move on to the next thing go right ahead December 22nd is sixth grade has a orchestra concert from [Music] 1042 to 11:30 with guest musical Rachel Barts and pine there's a PBIS raffle this week There's a Chipotle gift card a McDonald's breakfast and the big one is a four tickets to a Bulls game I put all my PPS points into that there's also an orchestra concert from ER oh never mind I just read the same thing there's going
197to be a sixth grade assembly in the auditorium that there's going to be a famous violinist coming here and Performing the sixth graders are going to be there the eighth graders are going to go to the gym to have their Spirit assembly and that's my board report and thank you you were doing double duty there yes thank you my bra thank you both and if you do need to transition is it at that hour if you do need to leave we can give you a minute but thank you both thanks have a good night thank you thank you thanks oh okay well Ted thank you for catching my attention I appreciate that all right Dr Michael now you're up yeah it's hard to follow that but I'll be brief um I just want to talk
198real quickly the holiday giving program that was run out of church Hill school was really wonderful the organizer and participants deserve a lot of credit and I saw a lot of smiling faces through the whole process and they did a lot of good for some very deserving families so um we visited a couple Thea and I visited a couple schools um we visited Hadley and I was impressed by the Dual language program the the technology courses the projects um the family consumer science program with Allison rer was excellent and I was um particularly impressed by the conflict resolution program U between students that Dina Sabara does it was that was excellent that she facilitates we also visited Forest Glenn and um I was impressed by the creative use of space um the robust prek program
199um that Forest Glen takes the bulk of in the district and of course the artwork in the Halls is always excellent um I attended a couple meetings the PTA executive board and the community advisory subcommittee and there were some common threads there um the new superintendent was definitely part of the conversation and um and questions related to full day kindergarten and um in the community advisory sub committee we talked a lot about ideas and how to get that information out to um introduce the superintendent to the community U through various events and um we also uh looked at ways of communicating issues related to full day kindergarten with busing and traffic and those kinds of things and so those are being worked on um so that's what I have for now was a lot thank
200you Stephen thank you uh let's see who else any other board members Jason well um I know it was a week of Music here at at Hadley last week and it's really transitioned into this week but again and I know I said it last but I appreciate the the Hadley band and Orchestra Department inviting us to to these um to these concerts because it's great to see you know the talent in in our kids we had a couple showcase here this morning I was able to attend um the concert on on Tuesday and so it's always great to see those kids so yes it is okay wonderful Ted so I actually got to attend a couple of the concerts um on the 29th was the Hadley orchestra concert where I got to see um Jolene
201Khloe and Emily who are just here um actually do special performance with the guest artist um Mr Tom bowling who led some things and also used a little bit of um little technology to do some cool looping of some violin things and stuff it was it it was really entertaining um and uh just on last week U Hadley Jazz Band concert um I know Dr Bruno and Dr Kay were both there um and then I wanted to give a shout out to two uh District 41 students um Simon and had his um Simon says give blood drive over at um Abraham Lincoln two weekends ago I donated um and uh Evie L had her hot cocoa stand that she does every year um the benefits Easter Seals and uh this year we had a special
202guest or not we I was I I didn't have anything to do with it other than showing up and buying some hot chocolate um but Santa showed up and I got I got to get my picture with that so nice nice nice thank you T uh anyone else Jess yes please I did attend the forest Glenn PTA meeting I did have to dash to a board meeting across the street so I gave my report but I sadly didn't hear any of the updates but wonderful group and I thank them for always inviting me and and allowing me to crash their agenda um I um also attended uh d41 kids Foundation meeting and doing great work there uh working with the district to improve the sound system here at Hadley in support of our theater programs
203uh is something that they're they're talking about and working through as well as uh a continued community Assistance as we learned about our newcomers there's there's a few that need some additional support that the foundation is is hopeful to provide and I mentioned the Dolly Parton's Imagination Library earlier but our grand total of books mailed since our Inception is 8,791 and that's probably increased since the meeting uh however that is um going that's now going to be a Statewide program and so it what that means is basically the state will match our contribution and so it cuts our costs in half and will allow us to send double the books so again if you have anyone in your life that's zero to uh five it cuts off at five um then sign them up there's
204there's no um income requirements or anything we we want everyone to sign up uh so that they can get a book mail to them every month that's an important part of our kindergarten Readiness this so please do it it's in everyone's best interest and will we have more funds to do that now and then for GPS we have some really great speakers coming up one more before the end of the year is Lisa bis on December 19th that's tomorrow uh dialing back the inner critic compassion and kindness and parenting and then when we're back January 11th there is another presentation changeable the collaborative problem solving method to reduce anxiety or challenging Behavior Uh these are always fantastic presentations they are now virtual so very easy to attend and you you always take something away that
205you can apply to your daily parenting frustrations I I mean I have them daily I don't know maybe maybe that's just me but um it just gives you a little bit of uh reset that's always very helpful so we're very blessed to have this in our backyard and um and that they're free and they're they have daytime and evening session so check it out beautiful beautiful anyone else forget one oh I guess we'll go to I'll be Oh no you're okay I'll be fast um I attended the um Elementary chorus concert which was a delight um I love to see the kids up on stage doing their things so that was really fun so thank you to the uh the chorus teachers and everybody and uh Dave's Department moving all the chairs around and get
206everything set up for the room so that was great so thank you to all of the people involved there and congrats to the kids uh The Bravery of standing on stage and singing is no small task or no small feet um I attended a Hadley PTA meeting unfortunately I utterly forgot to bring all of my things so I don't have the notes in front of me so my apologies but thank you for having me um and in a bout of curiosity I signed myself up for the newly formed lend Federal committee um so I attended that first meeting and um first order of business is figuring out the goals for the committee so that will be that will be what we'll be working on for the next I don't know it seemed like a couple
207months probably um but we will not meet again until the new year and that meeting was a couple weeks ago um so I'm excited to be a part of that and to um learn more and hopefully find a way to contribute um that's all I have so Jay you're up all right there one thing that I should talk about um and I figure since Jeff's here I really should talk about this because it'd be weird if I didn't about rock your sock drive to celebrate World on syndrome day but we have a couple new partners this year that that we're partnering with so um every year we distribute socks through all our staff members in the district and we do do a sock drive to help others Rock their socks um throughout our community um
208this year along with the village of glad Island we're also partnering with the Glad Island Park district and the Glen Island library to set of collection sites to um collect socks last year I don't remember it was over 2,000 sock to donate to to a people's Resource Center so I'm excited about that excited about the really do have the whole Community behind behind is to really to to celebrate you know the differences of in in members of our communities and and to really rate collect these socks for a great cost so excited wonderful wonderful yes T um so like uh Dr Michael said we got to visit um Hadley and Forest Glenn on Wednesday yes uh last week and um I really appreciate if if my fellow board members haven't had a chance to VIs
209the buildings please do it's a very different perspective this was my first experience since being on the board to actually go uh in the buildings and and get like a little bit of a tour um and see each school's Dynamic um and how even that you know this culture that we're hearing about today what it feels like in each building um and how they're working with what they have and I'm just really impressed with um everything they're doing you know especially like Dr Michael said you know we saw especially Forest Glenn's creative uh ways of figuring out their space issues but I was telling them that um this is a good problem to have because we are getting people in our kids in our schools and um of course we have to figure this out
210but it it's a blessing in disguise and I'm grateful for that um and I appreciated um Mr diely kind of addressing our tour based on what we've done as a board and showing us you know the the results the work and progress um with things that we have approved and um that we really are passionate about so it was really eye openening and one of the things he talked about was the newcomers um and and how to accommodate them which I also um we talked about in our language programs subcommittee meeting uh last week that got very passionate and you know um like Juan said was one of the things he said to us is it's an emot emotional topic you know and people are very sincere um with this concern but um I I
211I'm glad to hear that d41 kids Foundation is going to be involved I had said you know to push our ptas to get more involved um in helping them support them those families um but yeah it's a it's a thing that we need to really figure out um as a community not just as a district but as a community Community um and I don't know if we've talked about our attendance at ISB at all um so I really enjoyed the conference and um I was able to attend uh kind of uh my focus was Dei and since that is such a big part of our strategic plan I attend a bunch of different um talks and presentations on how different districts are approaching this and one of them um I attended was we did like
212roundtables and so I sat with um the people from neille District 203 um and I met uh Dr leaks who's the diversity um administrator over there but one of the things I really appreciated was they were sharing this um group called success um it's a really long acronym I don't remember what it stands for but um basically one of the principles they have so schools but one of the principles uh in the schools uh in the one of the schools approached four different parents of students in the black community that were doing really well and he said um I would like you to step up and see if you can form some type of um um group to engage this community and um see you how we can you know benefit all of them and
213so um they were sharing their Journey and how successful it's been and I would love to see a model like that here not just for the black community but different minority uh communities here that would benefit for something like that um and then there was another one I attended with um this District in the South where they have an actual um administrator that trains the and I was going to talk to you about this eventually Dr bro um that they they train the the staff on um diversity Wess and uh it's it's not just professional development it's like literally from top down everybody um from Super to um you know the the custodial staff everybody is involved and they come together and they they talk about those uncomfortable topics and they address um you know
214subjects like microaggressions and implicit biases and really have educational um and sincere um discussions on how to fix this and what people are actually experiencing and what we may not be realizing we're doing but is happening um within our uh buildings and uh community and classrooms and all of this stuff so I really really um I appreciate that I took down their information and we can um share that later but it was it was eye openening for me because I feel like you know this is so important for us as a district and there are other uh districts that are doing great work that we could learn from as well so that's it from me and I was late because it's my daughter's birthday today and I'm here at the board meeting so yeah so
215I'm glad taba mentioned the ISB because we were all in attendance and maybe multiple days um in in attendance and and Julie representative Us in the delegates assembly so doing kind of double duty and I think we all did look at different workshops and different sessions and and and take a lot away from them there's real value to as a team going and attending these and you will bring back good examples and you can learn certainly from other districts so thanks for noting it I'm going to just end this by noting that um I had mentioned at a previous board meeting that I got appointed to serve on the state's full day kindergarten task force uh that IB had asked me to serve as their rep uh and we held our first meeting which was
216mostly about agenda setting uh and where where the task force would go and then there was some basic data that was uh presented around the number of kids in kindergarten to split between full day kindergarten half day and we certainly know that we're in the uh we're in a small minority of of of schools that are still just doing a half day but as that begins to ramp up and there's more data that can be made available I certainly want to share it uh uh with all of you and and get your feedback so that I you know feel like I can bring more voices into those conversations okay all right um there are no items scheduled for discussion although it seems like we've been in discussion all night long but anyway U talk about
217Norman clature we'll just get past that and we'll get to the action items uh the consent agenda are there any items board members would like to be removed from the consent agenda to be considered separately hearing none may have a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes the employment recommendations and resignations noted on the Personnel report the November 2023 Financial reports the open or close meeting minutes of November 10th 13 14 15 16 27 and 28 wow did we do all that as noted on the board agenda motion second roll call Mrs MO Mr eses yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr Michael yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes thank you all right we do have uh some recommendations we'll start with approving the 2023 Levy early in the
218meeting a public hearing on a 2023 Levy was held information on the levy has been available and posted since November 14 2023 may have a motion to approve and adopt the fiscal year 2023 Levy as presented motion second any discussion roll call Mrs Mo Dr banko yes Mrs Sayad yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Hill yes Mr eses yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes second item is to approve the service agreement with referral I referral GPS this recommendation is directly related to community project grant for the six District in supporting our Mental Health Services in District 41 may have a motion to authorize Dr Melissa kasowski to engage and execute the appropriate agreements as presented and outlined in this board report motion second I think that was Dr Michael got that in okay finally finally
219I got one any discussion further discussion on this all right roll call nany Mr lobach yes Mrs Hill yes Dr M yes Mr eses yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr Bruno yes our third item is to approve secondary legal counsel may have a motion to authorize superintendent Melissa kasowski to engage with angler Callaway Baston and shraga LLC for secondary councel as needed and outlined in the report motion second there we go any discussion very good roll call Mrs Sayad yes Mrs Hill yes Dr M yes Mr eses yes Mrs buer yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes all right the next item is to approve a settlement agreement uh this item on the agenda is the approval of an agreement settling a two and one half year old complaint and lawsuit filed by
220a psychologist who resigned from employment with the district during the winter of 2021 and then claimed she had been discriminated against under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act the district was successful in having of her claims dismissed except for an issue as to whether she was required to perform too much work while on a part-time leave under the FMLA the FMLA claim was set for trial next month the federal court judge handing the case recommended in a settlement conference and the district's insurer agreed to pay in lie of the time and expense of a trial $48,000 under the settlement agreement that is before you before the Board District funds will not be used to pay for the settlement I am asking for a motion to approve the settlement agreement
221as presented therefore may I have a motion to approve the mcamera Ada FMLA claim settlement agreement substantially in the form signed by Miss mcnamer on December 10th 2023 and approved by the district's insurer and the board's attorneys and to authorize the board president to sign the agreement is so move I think I heard a second by Jay and a motion by J uh any discussion Mrs Mo roll call Mrs Hill yes Mr eses yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr Michael Yes Mrs buer yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes also approve a memorandum of understanding between Glenn Allen District 41 and and be all riall YMCA for school gym and summer outdoor space use may I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding with the YMCA for school gym use and outdoor space use
222for this summer during their construction project motion second there we go any discussion and roll call Mrs Hill yes Dr Michael yes Mr lobach yes Mrs Sayad yes Mr AES yes Mrs buter yes Dr Bruno and there is one final item on our uh agenda and that is the approval of the new superintendent employment contract for the 24 to 27 contract term U and before uh we before I call for the motion and invite board members to offer any comments I do want to add a bit context and perspective to the process that brings us to this moment um the most important decision that a school board can make is hiring a superintendent our preparation for the retirement of the district's highly respected current superintendent Dr Melissa kasowski began in August when we interviewed four
223search firms before hiring School exec connect to assist us in making the appointment over the subsequent four months the board developed a district 41 superintendent leadership profile we solicited input into the hire by holding an unprecedented 10 focus groups with principal staffs and seven Community Partners including an open Community dropin session we also conducted a community service survey together Insight on what characteristics the next leader of our district should possess our deliberate process attracted an impressive 42 qualified applicants over two long evenings we interviewed eight semifinalists it is far more typical in executive School searches for a board to initially assess between three and five candidates but our applicant pool was so strong in the interest in working at District 41 so intense that we examine an unprecedented slate of quality first round candidates it
224is important the community knows that the search firm explained the robust size of the applicant pool and quality of the semifinalist Slate by pointing out that District 41's reputation within the broader state school network is extremely positive applicants noted the district's High academic achievement its engaged supportive parents its strong Administration team skilled staff and high functioning School Board as reasons to apply in the words of the search form we are a destination District if everyone should take a moment to celebrate and acknowledge the role of our community in elevating the district's reputation ironically however being a destination district for future employees did not make it easy to choose one to be superintendent after nine hours of interviews spread out over two long evenings the board decided to advance two candidate candidates from the eight semifinalist
225to the final round we then spent another six hours over two consecutive nights in interviewing evaluating And discussing the merits of our two impressive finalist in selecting a new superintendent the school board comprehensively examined candidates on their record of performance professional skills the demands of the job their fit for our educational Community their commitment and understanding of our strategic plan their personal attributes and their ability to build productive relationship with the district leadership and staff we also invited and received feedback from our entire Central Services administrated team who had an opportunity to meet the final candidates their contributions to our thinking were important to the board's decisions and we are indebted to them and all our stakeholders for their guidance finally after an exhaustive process spanning four months that included reviewing many pages of resumés
226and candidate backr on information and approximately 14 hours of deliberation over four days the board selected Dr Jeff MCU Dr Jeff McHugh is a dynamic educational leader who has the experience skills temperament and personal qualities that fit very well with the core values and future work of our school district Jeff brings to our district 41 Community a record of school accomplishments and a passionate desire to both lead and Advance the work being done by our talented leader leadership team and staff and with that I will open it up to any other board members who wish to offer any comments on process or on the uh candidate who we will be voting on here in just a minute Ted so first off I'd like to um comment on the the process School exec connect did a
227really nice job um Dr David Negron and Dr Philip saly Simi slamy I re did some nice handholding but I thought they also did some really good um you know uh probing questions you know you know and it was very nice to get all that feedback that you you mentioned uh I'd like to thank um the community who uh participated in the focus groups and who uh gave their input via the surveys we had um uh quite a number of focus groups um uh Beyond just the general Community one including students I believe yes um I'd also like to thank um the CSO cabinet for um their input I'd like to um thank Dr Kay for her commitment to a smooth transition which I believe is already underway don't Ste my I get to WRA
228this up I right and uh I just want to point out as uh Dr Bruno has that um Dr Miku will be stepping into lead a high achieving district and as we navigate our way through the goals of our strategic plan he has demonstrated his commitment to his success and I am very happy to welcome him aboard thank you Ted uh anyone else Stephen I was also impressed by the process and uh the input from the community um I was particularly impressed with Jeff's work ethic motivation and drive he has a great skill set comes highly recommended and has great experience with communities that are similar to d41 throughout his interviews he showed that he'll be an excellent fit for d41 and will continue to move the district forward I am very much looking forward
229to the community getting to know him and I'm confident they will have the same ideas about him that we all have so thank you anyone else I'll just say Julie a little bit um I didn't write anything down but uh Dr Miku I think conducted two really impressive high energy inspired interviews um and this is a great district and you seem like a great fit and I just wanted to say welcome and um congratulations and we are so excited to have you here anyone else yeah Jess yeah uh just to add I want to Echo my fellow colleagues comments as well and to add to Bob's statement about what Drew people to our district in addition to everything he said it was also our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion that we heard over and
230over again and uh it was a huge part of why you were selected that you could deliver on transformative structural change uh so that we could close those achievement gaps and really embrace the meaning of diversity Equity inclusion so uh that's that's our challenge among many others um but we felt like you're very well equipped to handle that and so we're I'm very excited about where we are yet to go so thank you for joining us thank you Jess all right are we good Jay yeah I I we can all say thank you to to to our cabinet and to our community and to our students for being a part of the search process but K you gave up your your evening to spend our time with our finalist candidates and David you know after
231that you sat with us for however long you sat with us and kind of go through some question and and honestly like I really appreciate it because this is a this is a hire for our entire community and and to have you guys a part of it and to give real time and and real effort to the process is we really appreciate it because it shows your commitment to the district and it really it really shows why we are as I said at the start of this process the best damn District in the state um I'm not going to be as presumptuous given we have a vote but I'm looking forward to welcoming you to the district I think you're going to bring a lot of energy um I think you're coming in at at
232at a great time you have a great district with great opportunities um and I look forward to you embracing them and running with them so I'm looking forward to welcoming you in in the next few minutes anything else good yes all right very good well then I'm uh I'm going to ask for the motion to approve the superintendent's contract with Dr Jeff McHugh and authorize the board president and board secretary to sign the contract substantially in the form signed by Dr mchu motion second discussion got it I think we had it all right Nancy one more time Mr eses yes Mrs Hill yes Dr M yes Mrs Sayad yes Mrs buter yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes motion you want to close this segment by turning to Dr kasowski Who really did want to
233offer some some closing thoughts so I did I did I just wanted to share that the couple of weeks actually longer than that that this process was going on was horrendously hard because every single thing in the district is my business until it wasn't and so the unknown was some really brutal times to live through um but as I've said to Bob and to the other board members we you and I and the team my team that will be your team um have the opportunity to show this community what a rich transition could be and what it could look like and I said to Bob he I'm going to share he he said is this a hard day for you I said absolutely not I had a chance to he said how is your phone
234call I said fabulous you know so breathe a s of relief the roll call vote is over and now we just get to have fun bringing you into the fold of the district and you will be more than ready by the time July 1st comes so I have a little welcome basket for you wa come on up so on behalf of your new cabinet team and from everybody sitting over there sincere welcome what I had said to them is on the last day when I put my keys in your hands it was important to me to like the person and I could tell the minute we talked I would like you so you are going to do fabulous things should she step around do you want her to step around Jason said it's authentic just
235going to go thank you congratul Jeff I I do want to though uh inquire uh I know there was some discussion about attire for this evening and and apparently you and Melissa were pretty much on the same page around sparkly and gy was that what we were we'll pull that off for January we'll and I so on that I do want to note that uh Dr MCU will be joining us at our January 8th uh 2024 community of the whole meeting to present the entry plan that you are working with uh Melissa uh on and that we will also host a reception for the community so people can get to know you a little better and you can get to know them and we would hope that you'll bring your family on that occasion okay
236all right uh let us then um conclude here U are there any board governance learning together items I have an other you love that other I do love no it it's other it says other right there I want to congratulate our very own Dr Robert Bruno his fifth book gets published Jes no it's a fifth book that's a big deal and I will not read the book I'm just going to be honest that won't read I thought about thinking about reading the book but I did read the summary I did read the summary he read the flap on the back I did I did but in reading the summary it's quintessential Bruno it is and the book is called um uh what is what work is and Bob being a professor being a teacher talk
237to his students about the question work is blank and is utilizing those response is to write this book and that's just you I mean that that's just you um and that's just kind of cool so congratulations that's very kind and look you don't have to read it but I won't can buy it give it to somebody who will read it yeah just gives you the world these right all right now that's that's a good reason to use that other all right I finally found one all right that's very sweet of you all right um upcoming meetings I just mentioned the committee of the whole meeting on January 8th and then we'll have a regular meeting on January 22nd uh and then follow that up with the February 12th regular meeting are there any items board
238members wish to present for consideration to a future agenda if not then I'll move on to um we do have reason go to close session may have a motion to adjourn to close session to confidentially discuss section 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the district or legal council for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity section 2 C 10 the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students and section 2 c14 discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the open meetings act whether for purposes of Schoolboard approval of the minutes or semiannual review of the minutes as required by the ACT motion second okay
239any discussion no yes Mr smoke Mr AIS yes Mrs buter yes Mrs Hill yes Mrs Sayad yes Dr micho yes Mr lobach yes Dr Bruno yes the board will not be taking action after closed session good night thank you folks thank you [Music] all