Committee of the Whole - March 6, 2023

001all right board where and guests and staff volunteers welcome we're going to start so if board members would turn on their likes please the March 6 20 23 Committee of the whole board meeting one outcome to order Mrs smoke roll call please Bernstein here miss bradfell here Mrs buttermer here trustees here here Mr Syed here Dr Martelli Mr loback here Dr Bruno Pier and Mr lowak would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right well thank you everyone tonight's meeting is focused on the Strategic plan and we have an extensive update uh my understanding six goal areas and four subcommittees but Dr kaskowski you will facilitate and introduce each of the issues and representatives thank you absolutely absolutely thank you um

002before we get started tonight a little bit of a celebration I would like to congratulate our own Dr Webster who we're not going to have to call Dr Dr Webster because last week she defended her second doctorate so we've lovingly started calling her Dr Square so congratulations to Chris here's just a little something for us um those are painful degrees and dissertations and the fact that you did it twice and the second one was in restorative education she's a high achiever so um but thank you Chris and we will put your second doctorate to as good of work and use as as we are your first so congratulations from everybody um excited to jump into um our second update as you know the first time we did this it was our first time working through

003a new process and kind of a new accountability Loop between our goal area teams and our subcommittees and so um for lack of better words it was a little awkward and a little wonky the first time around hopefully it feels a little bit cleaner and streamlined this time I'm not going to do all of the talking our goal area teams have really done the heavy lifting and the work so you're going to hear more from them and then you'll hear directly from some of our subcommittees as we go through this so um Andrew when I'm ready you just want me to tell you when to move it okay um so let's move on to slide two and just a very quick review of um how did we get here and for those of us who

004were with us during the journey when we did our strategic plan you'll know that when Dr Webb our facilitator from aasa came he really wanted us to start looking at how to align and realign our committees and and set this up so the dots are starting to be connected for people between the work of the Strategic plan and the work of committees and we've got a long way to go because anybody who knows us knows that we have many many committees in this district and so our next step will be to look at how our other committees either feed into these or support these but just know that our committee work is an is an ongoing process um so how does our process work just a quick review three times a year there there is

005an update that comes from the get committees and the some committees and then I'll do a final update um depending on timing whether we're going to do that at a committee of the whole or whether that's an update that I just do directly from me to the board because that is part of a step in in the evaluation process but again um just a graphic to show how our committees our subcommittees and the goal area teams intersect um why did we get here and it was really to as we went into the Strategic plan process it was about um finding a way to have that accountability on a more frequent basis to the board um moving away from just a one-time a year massive academic update um but you know to honor what the board

006had been hearing in in the professional development that they were going to that it needs to be more frequent um and so last year when we looked at our committee of the whole structure we decided that we would use some of this meeting time to do these updates and we can certainly refine for next year this is the first year of our plan so our first year trying this structure out will reflect at the end of this year and see if it worked um well or if we need to make any changes for next year um so for those again who were with us this will sound familiar and if you weren't just to give you a quick update but the boards charge at the very beginning of that process and and this I think

007is important to note that this was before the pandemic and then we picked it back up after the pandemic with a different facilitator but um the boards charged to um Administration into the Strategic plan committee was to create a strategic plan that reflects a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion um and so you will see that weaved inner weaved throughout this plan um what's new for this update um that the gats and the subcommittees will have more information to share and you'll definitely note that more action plan steps have been completed or are in process than the first time we did this and that makes sense um we're further into the year the goal of this is to really as a district work smarter not harder although I I think it probably comes in equal

008hands um it's all reflective of hard work by the people that are in the trenches and and doing this work so we are going to jump in and we're going to start with the first goal area team being growth focused learning again you're going to hear from all of the goal area teams and subcommittees so um Andrew you can't you don't want that one [Music] uh yeah it's I want to pull it up in here though just so that I don't have to um I'm gonna have to look that far foreign y so in terms of growth focused learning Dr Webster and I are going to kind of piggyback or um step in and and do this collaboratively together um so I'm going to start with going through the action plan steps and you'll see

009on this that the update is in blue so that as we work through the year you'll see the updates in different colors just so that it's easier for the reader to tell the difference between um these the first update and then the subsequent updates that we do um so investigate and adopt a data dashboard currently our internal dashboard is through edu climber consideration will be given to utilize edge of climber for our public facing dashboard as of January we're finalizing data points to report on and Dr Webster is actually working with um with Ken halbauer to build our own and we've looked at different samples that are out there and we believe that we can do this work and have ours be as quality as as other dashboards that are out there with the data

010that we have in a decimer so that is in process but we are looking to build it um based on some models that we've been looking at invest in ongoing mtss professional development with Ellie Hearn we've spent this year doing that so that is um I've got that checked off obviously the year is not over so we still have some work to complete with Ali but it was really about fine-tuning our our structures and processes for mtss across the district and for the SEL Behavior part in terms of building out both sides of that triangle of of intervention and so when we first shared out all dates had been secured we've been working through those data dates with Ali and different subgroups that have been going through professional development with her and that will conclude

011at the end of this year we believe that we can take on that work internally after bringing someone in to guide some of that some of that professional development we believe that we've built capacity and we could take that on and continue the work and refinements with really a priority on consistency between the buildings mtss needs to you know provide kids with a consistent opportunity to access intervention regardless of the building that we're in and also a smooth flow from elementary to Hadley for our MTS us model so again working on both sides of the triangle and also building out our interventions Dr Webster anything that you want to add on mtss no we are actually having a follow-up professional development session in just a few weeks on edge of climber and mtss forms to

012further streamline that process to provide the consistency across the buildings and that flow between Elementary and Headley our next action plan step was to investigate and provide professional development on individual student goal setting within NWA map for math and reading as we talked about last time the topic of student goal setting and I don't mean goals for an IEP I mean setting goals directly with students is is a huge one at the time when we first started talking about this obviously much more conversation was needed on this we have initiated additional professional development on the use of edu climber before you get into refining a process for setting goals with kids you need to make sure that your data piece and your assessment piece is really fleshed out and edu climber is a rich rich

013rich resource and so we've done a lot of train the trainer with edu climber at the building level with our principals so this is a huge and important step really to guide PLC conversations to guide BLT conversations and then to move us along into um discussing goal setting with students but really knowing how to use the platform that crunches our data for us both to understand what it tells you about the data but how to do those comparisons and so um perhaps later in the year we could actually have our principals talk about how it's kind of changed some of the conversations at the meetings just as they've built their capacity to work within educlimer and and really be more proficient at crunching data so that PLC time isn't about crunching data and crunching numbers

014it's about what does the data tell you and then what needs to happen in terms of instruction to use that data this is an ongoing topic investigate algebra for all investigate the algebra for all model looking at the research and again we had said that we would summarize later in the year we have started conversations at Hadley about math Pathways and looking at the pathways of pre-algebra algebra and geometry Chris do you want to talk about how the state data reflects um you know kind of the mismatch between what's happening at Hadley and how it's reflected in the state data um yes so currently we are showing in our most recent Illinois school report card that 57.6 basically 58 of our our eighth graders are passing Algebra 1 in our district and that's that's an

015accurate number but what that number doesn't reflect is the number of our the percentage of our students that are actually taking geometry um which is a step above algebra so um even Beyond algebra which is another I believe another 20 of our kids so the vast majority of our students are either in eighth grade algebra algebra and eighth grade or in geometry in eighth grade so um while this is a number that far exceeds the state average we exceed it even more because it's not including those students who are currently taking geometry as 8th graders um and you know as as I had said starting those conversations that had lead to maybe enVision Math a little bit differently and and look at Pathways um you know how to open up Pathways for students so that

016all of them um have opportunities within that pre-algebra algebra and geometry um staff members will engage in coaching Cycles to support and deliver on a guaranteed rigorous and differentiated curriculum um Dr Webster when she first came was working to clarify roles expectations and processes with and for the instructional coaches um one area that we knew um it was a need was professional development for our instructional coaches so again the update investigating professional development for district and building Administration as well as for our instructional coaches not all of our coaches have been formally trained in research-based best practices in instructional coaching and in adult learning the model being looked at for professional development was coaches Academy through learning forward so any updates Chris that you have no I'm waiting for information back from them when the

017next cohort starts okay okay our righty principals will participate in the coaching for leaders cohort that began in September and all of our principals participate in it um and all of them completed that PD they used it to kind of guide their conversations around student growth and just their professional growth and then their next step will be to pick how they want to utilize their new coaching skills in the context of conversations because coaching conversations are very different than evaluative conversations so this was a whole different strand of conversations for our principals to be be taught and engaged in and you know um as I said it's it's very different than conversations that you have when you're going through the evaluation process with a teacher coaching conversations is about coaching someone up evaluation is two

018but it's two unique purposes and very different type of conversation so all of our principles went through all of them have set themselves some professional goals even above and beyond their own um their own evaluation cycle many of them said it was some of the best professional development that they've ever participated in so it is something that's offered through the regional Office of Education and and highly promoted across DuPage we were we were very lucky that our principals were able to make that happen and kind of clear their schedules for those days to go as a group so a lot of their conversations and coaching that they received was individual but then they were also able to work and have conversations as a group of leaders um at that as well [Music] establish the curriculum

019review process as you know we talked last time in Dr Webster shared that we have a Five-Year Plan year one well and I'm going to say this year being year one for the review process but also year one of Dr Webster's time here so year one as you know is literacy and that process has started I'm going to turn it over to Chris for a brief update in terms of where they're at in the process I know there was just a meeting today because yeah actually the elementary literacy committee met today so as I mentioned earlier this fall that there was going to be a literacy review that would begin this spring it has indeed begun it started at the end of January committees are doing fantastic work I'm excited to kind of share with

020you the process and where we're at in the process and where we're going in the process so two committees have been convened when it Hadley when it Elementary they consist of elementary teachers that are representative of the grade levels across the district as well as the buildings across the district um also special education dual language and ESL are part of that committee as well we also have an administrator on each of those committees for that perspective so we began meeting in January the goal of the committee is to identify instructional resources that we would consider piloting for adoption about this time next year that process would be complete so we began by looking at our essential standards Ka to make sure that we are we're firming those and we had that clear again that Continuum

021between Headley and the elementary and then we looked at two resources independent resources to vet the materials so that they could be vetted to make sure they were aligned with standards as well as evidence-based and research-based we used Ed reports and in addition to Ed reports we also used a resource called weda Prime and we to Prime is a resource that looks at alignment through the lens of multilingual Learners so that we made sure that we had both both of our different representation there reports looks at again looks at research-based evidence-based and it looks to see if it's aligned with common core standards which are also the Illinois standards so from that we identified three resources that were considering piloting we have not narrowed it down yet to what two will be considered for piloting

022they're in the I'm taking a survey of that right now from there we will the committee and I will work together to determine the structure of the pilot this has been a very collaborative process I want teachers to have voice in how the process unfolds how the pilot is done the resources that are chosen um we will have that determination made for sure by the end of this year I will come back to a board and I'll share the process the two resources that have been chosen for piloting and the process that we'll be following for the piloting I'll give you an update as soon as that's determined the pilot will take place the first part of next year I anticipate about this time next year we'll have the feedback from the classroom teachers that

023piloted about what resource they recommend after they've had the opportunity to explore it with their students in real life we will be using the curriculum evaluation tool that has been provided by the Illinois State Board of Education to use as our final rubric to make sure that we have an additional vetted research-based tool to to measure the the resource that we choose that will then come back to the board for that two-step process there'll be a presentation about our recommendation and how we got there discussion and then at a follow-up meeting that would be the the decision to move forward the goal is to get it done at this time next year specifically so that we have the balance of the Year fourth quarter to spend on professional development so that teachers are have a

024deep understanding and knowledge of the resource before we move forward The Following fall right our next action plan step was to investigate high dosage a high dosage tutoring model and make recommendations for the future on this we were looking at structuring it possibly as a tier three support for academics similar to how we might utilize Chestnut as a tier 3 for SEL or mental health needs where we're at with this Chris has been working closely with gecrc and they are wonderful Partners but looking at how do we get the biggest impact from the gecrc supports and maybe embedding some high dosage tutoring into that and or implementing as part of extended day when we return to that model at Churchill next year how do we roll this into what was already happening prior to pandemic

025in terms of extended day there um develop and Implement an entry plan as we said we had checked that off last time develop an entry plan for assistance to both of student services we had done that develop and Implement for the director of special education um the next action plan step was to begin planning for full day needs pending referendum results as people who have been listening in you know still looking investigating the board has asked for facilities and feasibility study to look at how fund reserves might be used so that is still a conversation that's in process to begin planning for expanded Pre-K again investigation continues related to the master facility study and feasibility um that work is um was commissioned at the last approved at the last board meeting and will be in

026process review current d41 con committees for alignment to the new committee structure that we have that is ongoing work Mrs Moke and I are looking to unearth all of the Committees that we have some are much you know broader bigger well-known some are mandated through policy some are mandated through law some are mandated in our contract and so we want to make sure that what we're looking at is inclusive of all of the Committees that we have and again it's to look at do we have redundancies is there anything that maybe can or should sunset or is there any need for anything new to be considered so that is work that we're doing um that is our action plan steps and I'm going to turn it over to Dr Webster to do a quick um

027data review for you so slides so when we were at the last committee the whole meeting I presented to you our fall map data I have that same information but now with our fall and winter map data so you can see how we are progressing um over this year so Andrew if you could put up the reading by grade that'd be great thank you so this is the um our map Reading by grade it's a little trickier to read this time because I have two data points for each grade level so it looks a little busy but once you kind of see how it's structured it's not too bad so if you look the first two columns are kindergarten fall kindergarten winter the next two would be first grade fall first grade winter so you

028can have the side by side comparison for how students are doing from fall to winter on our map assessment so as you see our average trend line continues to be in the direction that we would we want it to be it's going up across grade levels that's the celebration what we want to continue to focus on of course is our students that are are not performing at those same high levels and making sure that we're working to close those gaps and Shrink those numbers down so that gives you the the perspective of how we're doing so far this year fall to winter in Reading and then the next one Andrew thanks sorry I should have cued you is math same information for math again each there's two bars for each grade level one is the

029fall score one is the winter score again we see the same progression across grade levels with that upward trend line as they are exposed to more education in d41 we're seeing increased achievement that is a celebration we also know that we want to continue to work on our students that have not quite made those same high levels of achievement to begin to close those gaps so we're going to continue to work on extending for our students that are high Achievers and supporting our students that are not there yet to join their peers in that high achieving category yes can you speak a little bit to um on both charts you see second grade um fall my Siri thinks I'm talking to it um that second grade was a little bit of a dip in the

030trend line on both charts but that it may be corrected in the winter can you speak to that at all so in second grade what we are noticing that we noticed in the fall is that they were actually one of the areas that we saw we had a area of concern because they seem to have the most students that were impacted um the this this grade level these particular grade levels were the most impacted by the pandemic just because of the point in their not only their academic career but also their development um just their growth and development um and so we are looking to close those gaps but that that's that's what we're seeing there and it's not unique to us um is those primary grades um actually our primary grades and if you

031look at the high school it's kind of towards the end the two bookends kind of of the pl of thus of the spectrum are the ones that were most greatly impacted by covid um so we're continuing to work on closing those gaps and if I'm look I look at second grade here we did see a decrease in the number of students for math in the in the red so we did see in that short period of time between fall and winter for second grade we did see a decrease in that area and we did see more kids move into the um moderately above category so we did see progress there um we'll we're continuing to work on that with through our intervention process so anytime obviously that we we are through our data collecting and

032through our classroom observations we see students that are um struggling or need additional intervention we have many resources in the capability to provide that direct intervention for those students to start to close those gaps does that answer your question it did okay are you hoping that we hold questions to the end I don't want to I'll defer to Dr kaskowski but if you I was going to wait till you finish but if you want to do it piece by piece I'm happy to entertain you want to let Chris finish up and then we'll open it up that's pretty much the trend line so I'm happy to answer questions okay well then let me did you I did have a follow-up sorry if that's okay um the in terms of the the literacy or the curriculum

033can you slide up oh yeah the curriculum review yes curriculum review uh process um which you talked about math and literacy and I'm just wondering if the new literacy curriculum then impacts science or social studies because I believe previous curriculum it was an integrated um type of knowledge building curriculum so that will not know that will not immediately impact science or social studies they are part of the curricular review so we will review so we will continue to embed them in the way that we have in our current model when we begin the process for social studies will be the one we do after literacy then we'll have that conversation about what is the best way to make sure that we are getting that we're teaching social studies with Fidelity right um and we will

034always be embedded as part of literacy because they're intertwined but it may be embedded with additional Standalone time dedicated specifically to social studies we haven't had those conversations at this point yet that'll be part of the literacy review and the committee okay so it's social studies review I apologize oh yeah so do you anticipate that like a year from now we would be talking about we would start the process of social studies or yeah we're going to be busy so right about this time next year we will be wrapping up the literacy pilot and I will be kicking off the social studies pilot so you're going to be seeing a lot of me for the next several years yeah and then science would follow is that yes how that's correct thank you let me see

035if other board members have questions for Jay your mic please so for the next four years we'll be reviewing the literacy curriculum the social social studies curriculum the science curriculum and then the math curriculum so the math curriculum was under review went before I started that process had started so they um we that process started this year so we are currently looking at Eureka squared which is the next iteration of Eureka which is what we are currently using for and that's being piloted by somebody it is being piloted that was started that pilot was created before I started and I picked up with that so math is the technically this year literacy is technically next year but we start the year before so that we're prepared and ready to go so that we can pilot

036in the year that it's being reviewed yeah and so the fifth year is is um specials plus okay specials and and um so it'll be in that rotation great thanks thank you absolutely any other board members I do have so I do have some comments that Dr martelly Who hopes to join us but I'll hold until we allow some community members to ask questions who who Allison did you want to I thought turn your mic on please introduce yourself I'm Allison prochaska um I'm just wondering what your recommendation is or where you guys are going I'm looking at this data I'm not going to call out grades this isn't the place to do that but I did notice that some of the grades have their data is nearly the same between fall and winter so

037have you spoken with those grade level teachers have you worked with them have you talked to interventionists what's the plan to address that absolutely I have um so after the winter data came out um I actually went to every PLC in the district um well K5 I'm still working on six eight that's a bigger a bigger Endeavor but I've been to every PLC K5 in the month of January beginning part of February we talked about data as one of the things we discussed um one of the things that we need to keep in mind with winter map is and we did notice this in some particular grade levels I know third grade we noticed it um the timing of the assessment in the winter can be a little tricky because I mean as you know

038it depends on what the children have been exposed to by the time the map test is taken in the winter and what they're being tested on sometimes there's a mismatch which is not the case by spring because they will have been exposed to everything by the spring so I did notice in a couple of areas that um in math particularly that there was a Content area like fractions at one grade level that was literally scheduled to be started really digging into depth right after map um and so it's not unusual to see um in some areas a dip or um not as dramatic of a line and that's that first semester also it's just half of the year um and a good portion of the learning really I'm a big believer happens third quarter that's

039that's when really is the as our our strong point but yes we did talk about it we did look at it to determine what were the contributing factors right um was it a matter of exposure um was it a matter of this is a gap and our students learning that we need to address either at a tier one or two two level um and how do we how do we close that Gap and then one more follow-up so you know this is overall math right and then you the other graph is overall reading but did you talk at the plc's by domain yes and really pinpoint and dig deep into domains that's exactly what we did so for us to be able to determine um was it a matter of exposure right like there wouldn't

040really be any way for us to know was the um whether it was a dip or less of a of an up trend line than we would have anticipated we did do it by strand we did do it by domain so we could tell this was an expo this was an issue of the kids haven't been exposed yet or this is a gap that we need to that we need to address and if it's a gap what's the action well it would depend so if it was um a matter of reteaching for that particular group like if it was a it depends on the extent right so if there was a broad Gap we of course would look to see um would it be a tier one intervention where we would just go back and

041provide that another opportunity and deeper look at that particular skill or concept or was it more of a tier two concept that there was Gap in Pockets where we would address more directly through an intervention small group intervention as part of the classroom we're tier two thank you Jesse Mike please um so you know this data just kind of looks over the current school year so have you presented any data on you know how we compare to last school year the pre-pandemic school year to really see if there is a growth to compare the map data between well there I can pull the map data so last year um would not be a good year for us to compare to um if you're looking for growth so I see your point about pre-pandemic versus post-pandemic

042if you're looking for that kind of comparison that would be the better comparison um I would be happy to pull that data yeah I mean because this just kind of paints a one-sided picture right um so I think to see where the students really are you know now versus pre-pandemic would really show that growth if they had any right but yes I'm happy to do that um just as kind of a side note to provide context to that as well last board meeting we had the president from Glen our president the principal from glenbard West here and he was speaking about how our students are performing when they go to glenbroad West and he actually specifically referenced how strong they were doing in light of the disruption of the pandemic as well so I know

043that's not this specific data but that's local authentic data that he came and presented about how well our students are can I just have a follow-up to that I should argue with that stating that a lot of the parents have supplemented you know with tutoring um and kind of where the school kind of did drop the ball so I think they are performing you know at glenbard West to the standards that he States where the parents really had to pitch in and pick up where the school did not so thank you thank you Jesse anything else from the committee oh I'm sorry you there it is okay yes go ahead Steph hi there oh Lord Stephanie Clark um I think Jess kind of touched on it but the one thing that we've kind of always

044been told is that the Writ scores kind of like a snapshot point in time and especially in Glen Ellen we're pretty high performing the kids kind of come in performing high before the districts even touch them but the real important thing is growth and I don't really see a lot of we're not real are we comparing our growth scores to how we're doing how we're doing at a national level like are we showing as much growth in our students as the other districts are seeing that's something I would just be curious to see you don't have to answer that but I feel like that's an important data point that um should also be evaluated because I feel like in our district no matter what you do your blue line is going to go up like

045that I don't think you would have to I mean even if kids didn't go to school it probably would still look like that but the growth is the one thing I think where we can see if we're really if we're set apart or not so thank you and this this particular chart does show us compared to the National Norms that does give you a national comparison another area that we have that same data point but a bit differently would be through the Illinois state report card which designates us as exemplaries in the top 10 percent of the state so it does show that we are growing at high levels however I do I do respect that that question and I'm happy to pull the data that can show um just for locally pre-pandemic post-pandemic what

046it looks like this is just showing the achievement scores it's not showing if we've met our growth targets correct that's I guess more what I'm talking about I know map sets growth targets for students are we actually meeting our growth targets is what I'm what I meant and I'm happy to share that data as well okay that's more of them that's helpful that's good feedback because if that's helpful I'm very happy to bring that data back to start that conversation so um I will definitely do that so Nancy Mrs moak is taking notes so I will um I'll follow up with her for that and I just said I don't know if it's a question or a comment about Lucy Calkins like I know when that came to be it was really presented to the

047district as a resource to the teachers but I feel like it's evolved into kind of a curriculum or the Bible as to what teachers follow so I'm just be curious to see you had mentioned the pilots will be for a resource but then you also talked about a curriculum so will there actually be a curriculum that's created as well as something that's used as a resource thank you for actually that's a very good clarification question so thank you for bringing that up so it is um I use instructional resource and curriculum interchangeably and I think I need to be more clear so thank you because that can that can provide confusion so it will be our literacy curriculum it is the curriculum we'll use we will use it with Fidelity across the grade levels to

048provide that consistent evidence-based research-based experience for our kids of course nothing is ever perfect off the shelf and we really respect our teachers and the art and craft they bring to the classroom so there will always be room for the teachers to breathe life into that curriculum but it is going to be our base and our foundation so thank you for asking that that clarifying point because I do tend to use those two words interchangeably and um I didn't I I wouldn't want that to be confusing so yes it will be our literacy curriculum yes you're saying it it being the curriculum that that we're looking at so whatever correctly we selected the new correct the new curriculum yes it will be a new it will be a new curriculum sorry it's Allison for Jessica

049again hi um you guys are committed to diversity and equity and inclusion but you're showing us a graph that includes all the kids lumped into one grade whereas the breakdown by those small populations of students I actually have more information on that when I get to my Equity subcommittee advisory report there's going to be data on that I didn't see it in the there will be specific information from our Equity Continuum um from isby that I'll show how they did a map by not small group so when you're committed to diversity equity and inclusion we need to be reporting out on how those students are doing by the numbers so how are our diverse Learners doing compared to the whole and are they making their growth targets right there is an uh and that like

050I said I'll talk about this more during the equity subcommittee meeting um but that is the the area that we're working on in an identified achievement Gap you're going to have data on that excuse me and there'll be data on that there will be not data like this but I'm happy to bring that data as well um I'm all about transparency there's really there's nothing to hide we are working as it we've identified self operations in our district and we've identified areas that we need to work on when we get to the equity subcommittee portion I believe there's I have a representative here as well as a board member Mr Suarez is part of that committee as well we're having open dialogue about those things um we are we are transparent those are areas we

051need to work on thank you board members any other questions Dr Webster just a question yes the three curriculums that you're looking at yes to in which you'll pilot can you tell me what the criteria the standards for the the pilots are and how they uh essentially are were selected what is it about these Pilots that you're looking at it does it diverge from what we're currently doing does it take us in a in a different path in some yeah otherwise can you talk a little bit so the the there's there's three resources we're currently looking at they are um no off the top of my head now I'm looking at like seven of them because I'm also looking at Headley um actually I have my notes because again not this is there's nothing secret

052about the work that we're doing um so at the elementary level we are considering at this point for piloting we have not chosen which ones were piloting yet um the committee is working on that now we're looking at into reading from Houghton Mifflin we're looking at uh Wonders by McGraw-Hill and we are looking at my view literacy which is by savvis those are the Publishers both into reading and wonders have been very well rated by both Ed reports and wider Prime so that we have both of those perspectives for both for our multilingual Learners as well as our monolingual Learners my view literacy is rated very well by um at reports but um did not receive that same high rating from Wida it's hard it's it's challenging to find resources that have both of those

053things which I see Mr Suarez nodding his head so what we looked for when we were identifying them is first of all they needed to be research-based evidence-based reflecting the current research that we have as we evolve in all in all areas right we learn more so we want we want resources that reflect the current research we want resources that include a strong foundational skills base which would be phonics phonemic awareness grammar conventions all of those things um we are looking for texts that are engaging for our students that still facilitate the love of learning of both reading and writing that are consistent across grade levels that have a good scope in sequence that are culturally representative so that we have representation in our curriculum as well as the ability to um be have intervention

054for specifically some of the questions we receive tonight do we have do they have embedded interventions that help us provide that scaffolding both for extension and for support for our students that need that extra support we also looked for digital components as well so that um that the digital platform was solid and works both well in person and heaven forbid we were to have a snow day or something that we needed that could transfer quickly to a day where we wouldn't need to go to e-learning if it's for snow or weather um that is our new reality so to see that it had that type of digital platform that's we look for vocabulary we looked for uh yeah everything we looked at every piece of literacy that you can in each of these three things

055thank you I'll get you Julie you had your hand up make sure you have your mic on sure can you repeat I missed it both times you said it the name of the third curriculum you mentioned sure it's my view literacy my view thank you and I'll be happy to share just for context um we are for six eight those were the K5 so for six eight what we're currently looking at and again we have not chosen anything to play these are the ones that we're investigating in our initial review would be studysync by McGraw-Hill and they are well very well aligned by both Ed reports and weda Prime we are looking at into literature from Houghton Mifflin which is highly rated by Ed reports amplify Ela also highly rated by Ed reports and Whit

056and wisdom also highly rated by Ed reports you good Julie I want to make sure you see Ted there at table no um go ahead go ahead Jess uh in looking at the literacy curriculum is there growth for to move towards that a higher level Visionary goal of personalization and how might that factor into your process um that's why we're looking for resources with that digital component that have the multiple Pathways for intervention um there is a lot of opportunity now and it's a growing field where um when the when you enter data on a student it provides a pathway that provides personalized Pathways for them for their own extension and or growth so we're looking at all of those things you're welcome okay before we have you completed this unit I haven't completed Dr

057Martelli is going to join us this evening but his work at Salt Creek required him to be there but he did want to share some thoughts and he sent me his comments as they relate to the work of the literacy committee so if you don't mind I want to read Dr martelli's comments into the into the record I would like to apologize for my absence tonight I have work responsibility that would not allow me to be present for tonight's meeting however I wanted to be sure and comment on the work Dr Webster and the literacy committee are completing pursuant to board policy I feel it is important to comment on this because literacy instruction is an important topic in our community and in communities across our country those that know me I I am a

058proponent of explicit and systemic phonemic phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in our K2 classrooms I have had multiple conversations with Dr Webster concerning the work of the literacy committee for those conversations I feel extremely confident in their work to adopt a new literacy program that will comprehensively meet the needs of our students specifically and as you heard Dr Webster say just a minute ago the committee is in agreement that explicit and systemic phonemic awareness and phonics instruction is a necessity in our K2 classrooms and if the program the district is looking to adopt for K-8 doesn't provide the explicit and systemic instruction the committee is looking to adopt a supplemental resource to provide this instruction the committee's vetting of resources utilizing Ed reports and weda Prime is a thorough process their additional use meaning the

059committee's use of the iSpy evaluation tool when adopting an Ela English language assessment resource is yet another example of the thorough work Dr Webster and the committee are completing when making resource adoptions that require instructional practice to shift it is challenging work I give Dr Webb's during the committee of teachers credit for doing a thorough curriculum review and making the changes that are warranted I know this is hard yet meaningful work because I have led the same process in my own district and the work Dr Webster and the committee are now completing as well aligned with the efforts of school districts across the state lastly I want to personally thank Dr Webster for always engaging in critical and challenging discussions around our instructional practice specifically primary literacy instruction she has always welcomed these conversations and

060I know I am a better practitioner for having had them thank you to Dr Webster and the committee for initiating this work and listening to the evidence before them to Aid in making a Sound Decision hopefully Chris will join us soon all right where do we go from here all righty we're going to turn it over to the goal area team for safe and inclusive environments good evening everyone um for safe and inclusive environment um get report um Laura O'Brien and myself are the co-facilitator of the group and just for reference we want to highlight the the report that we're providing today is from a meeting that occurred on December 5th we are in the early side of the window of the meetings uh some of some of the action steps that we're going to

061be reporting today um you will hear more about during the subcommittees just because some of that work was already moving forward was moving forward after December 5th um the other thing that I like to highlight too Andre if you go to the last page um in terms of the data sources that we're going to be discussing today we are going to be providing an update on the progress on the action steps of this part of the Strategic plan for future reports we are going to be exploring where our committee what additional data sources we can bring um that will help us keep polls on how these actions items are impacting our our school our students and our community um so that's just for reference Andrew if you want to go back up to the top

062so the first action item that we would like to report today is actually checked off create an equity subcommittee under the district Dei committee um board committee to investigate Monitor and update the district online resources for safe and inclusive environment um this subcommittee was formed and it's under the leadership of Dr Webster um the main thing that would like to highlight here is that the me the subcommittee Met um last a few weeks ago on decem on February 22nd I believe and the purpose of that meeting was to review the equity Continuum for SB report Dr Webster is going to talk more about when she gives her report on equity I'm going to turn it over to Laurel thank you I'm Laurel O'Brien I'm assistant superintendent for student services and as one said we code

063chair this Gat and just to add to his first thing that he reported out on if you go just a little further down the next one is in collaboration it starts with the equity subcommittee it's just the next one there Andrew that's not yet checked off sorry I'm not making myself very clear but if you scroll down a little bit the other way it's not gone sorry thank you there you go you're almost there one more down in the blue there you go thank you so much um this is one that has one uh reported out on we were very early in the window um with our meeting so um as time has gone on um since December we have continued this work um so in collaboration with the equity subcommittee we have begun those

064conversations with stakeholders to start to talk about what that definition looks like for diversity equity and inclusion and we will be continuing our work through this next time period to both Define that and then align that with those attributes from the Danielson framework and to make sure that we take that back that's kind of the nice part of the Gat committee that we then are are charged with looking at whether or not we are taking it back to listen to the feedback and look at the lens of those subcommittees both the equity subcommittee that Dr Webster has and as well the the student services subcommittee that that I share with Molly Victor our director of student services and then additionally if we keep scrolling through the chart there I'll have to work on that with

065my um which way we scroll through thank you so much Andrew you can note that we have it already um checked off that we have established I think it's one more down in the blue chart there that we've established the purpose for the student services subcommittee so um this is uh been established we have met twice and we will be meeting again soon and when I report out on the student services subcommittee I will provide more details about the work but just letting you know that in December at that meeting that was the time when the team did take a look at those inclusionary principles and we really took a deep dive into both the timeline from 2017 and the work that had been done at that time by the students Services strategic plan committee

066that was a board committee and we brought that forward so that the team members could discuss and understand where the Board of Education went in the current umbrella substructure that Dr kaskowski put up at the very beginning of our meeting this evening so that we could look at the Recon commitment that the Board of Education made to the inclusionary principles going forward and then this current student services subcommittee was then folded within this structure so that we would continue the work so we focused on that in our December meeting and we talked about how our next steps would move forward for the student services subcommittee to be able to continue that work and then I'll turn it back over to one Andrew if you could scroll down to the Last Action I think right there

067this section review current d41 subcommittee for alignment to the new Dei Committee of Dei subcommittees one of the things that we discussed in our gats about this item was what does this item means initially because it was our first meeting when we met there was some questions about just the wording of this item when we met the second time around um we we were able to provide an update to the team about the reports that were given during the November 7 cow meeting um and it brought further clarity as to what this action means and what this action means Alisa's in in the understanding of the current uh team and will continue having conversations and continue to to understand this more is that all of the actions that are part of the gats committees the

068subcommittees connect one way or another um the graph the Dr K show earlier in in her introduction were the three circles um that's what this action means um so as a sub as a gat and a subcommittees we're going to continue keeping polls on on our actions and our monitoring to make sure that um everything continues to have an alignment and if at some point we feel that we need to adjust to make sure that we're still in alignment we will work through that through the process of the gas and the subcommittees and that concludes our report for safe and inclusive goal area team and we'll open the floor for any questions if there's any board members any questions or comments here you have one anybody no okay look yeah and we'll do it any

069other board no well then let me ask a question in terms of the conversations that you're having around around equity and broadly inclusive issues can you talk about some of the conversations you've had some of the topics that have come up some of the areas that you've addressed nature of any uh progress towards what might be changes things that the district can do absolutely the the main um topical conversation we've been having around that really circles back to the definition of Dei and what does DDI means for us as a district what does it mean for our staff um and how can we bring that definition to life um currently um that conversation is happening with multiple stakeholders and with multiple groups is happening in the students uh student service subcommittee is happening in the

070equity subcommittee it's happening at a cabinet level as well and we anticipate that by next time that we we provide a report to the to the board that we would have an update on where we are with Elise drafting a definition that makes sense for everybody and it is clear for all of those different subgroups can I just follow um just to give us a sense of the flavor of the conversations around the definition are there on one hand and then on another hand can you talk a little bit about maybe the push and pull around that so I think um hopefully I will answer your question because I think yes there is push and pull or at least as Juan was saying we're looking at this from the lens of different stakeholders at this

071point in time so part of the conversation is going on through that equity subcommittee and part of the conversation is going on through that student services subcommittee then also at the cabinet level and then we're pulling in those stakeholders so that we can put together the definition that we will take back again to those subcommittees committees to make sure that we sort of have that opportunity for additional feedback and think through what this definition means for us as a school district one of the examples that I can give you that I was planning to cover when I talk more about the student services subcommittee but just to go ahead and share it because I think it's really on point to your question is that some of the members that we have in our student services

072committee uh went into further discussion about our families who are multilingual and they have cultural diversity and so we had some discussions around how do we address and make sure that our families all feel that they are part of the work that we're doing in District 41 and how can we you know think about that through our definition of what Dei is and Our obligation to be inclusive of families with a variety of different cultural needs and that's kind of a I guess an example of where our conversations are at right now I think it's also important to note it's just it's not you talk about a push-up pull there's also an overlap of those definitions that kind of lead to that push and pull and how those things work together as part of that

073that conversation that at least through the services committee is having as to you know she gives an example of cultural diversity and then you know equity and inclusion those all kind of overlap each other when you talk about that you know that you can call push and pull I like to call it overlap yeah I'm assuming it would be okay very good all right 70. hi there okay I have a lot to say and there's questions built into this but just give me a second to get through this um I guess what I'm really struggling with this is you know this is our strategic plan this is what we're working on and everything I'm from a perspective as a parent and a Community member everything I see here we have all these committees talking about

074all the work we're doing and what our committees are going to do but it's one thing to say that we're going to be an inclusive district and embrace all of our students but what are we actually doing to help our students reach their potential I hear no discussion about that and it's so frustrating so frustrating I seriously wondered do any of our board members talk to parents or teachers of special education students because I think you would know there's a lot of concerns out there that are not being addressed um just for example we the last special ed audit which was done a couple years ago 92 percent of our staff felt they didn't have the proper supports in place to support the full inclusion initiative of the district I haven't seen that been reevaluated

075what have we done to I I don't want to hear we're just going to do professional development for our teachers what are we actually doing to address those concerns the referendum you said you needed more space for intervention because it was happening in the hallways why do we need more space for intervention in the hallways because we were told we were going to be fully inclusive in all related Services were going to happen in the classroom now personally I thought that was crazy but that was the initiative of the district that's what you were moving towards but we're getting no updates on why does that have to change why can't everything happen in the classroom why was that an unrealistic plan that we had um when you talk about a place you're a board member

076and you're interrupting me it's so rude could I please finish it I didn't interrupt him I think it's important in I don't understand I just want to say that we identify the work that was done in setting forth the district inclusive practices okay I think that's important and the the work that was done never said in fact we had conversations with our consultant at that time who was discussing everything should be done push it everything should be pushed and everything should be done in the classroom and the conversations were had at that time that District 41 is going to develop its own definition of inclusion and we're going to work at what's best for each individual child we will try to provide pushing services to the best extent possible that is not necessarily the best

077model practice for each individual student it was never part of the plan that every single service was going to be done push in so that's why while you say I'm interrupt I just think is really important that that be identified so there are context is out there you can say what you want to say but I think it's important that context is there so before we reconvene I'm going to turn it back to you Stephanie it for all of us to benefit particularly if you have very strong views it is a whole lot better if you do allow me to recognize people to give them the floor if they're going on too long or we're not getting a question or people who have a burning desire to speak I will ask the speaker to to

078pause but I want all voices to be heard so please allow me to manage this conversation brother Jason I appreciate your feelings on this and excuse me excuse me Jesse excuse me Jesse interrupted and I have acknowledged that I would have preferred that that not occur okay very clearly but Stephanie I'm gonna allow you to finish okay but Jason and I can agree to disagree on this one you don't have to but if you have so we will since it would be better oh okay it's just general well the the statements kind of fill what my question is I can't just all right so pretty much I'm wrapping it up I'm wrapping up we'll agree to disagree on whatever the initiative of the district was um but we know we have my concern is we

079have issues and I have not heard any discussion about how we're actually going to tackle those issues how we're going to support our teachers support our students um this point was kind of brought up before the divert and I don't necessarily expect I'm going to get an answer of this but I'm just I'm talking about the plan and I feel like this is lacking we talk about the diversity but the performance of a lot of our different diverse groups there's a big achievement graph in this District it's bigger than the state so I haven't heard us addressing that um and I appreciate the work that the admin has done but we don't really have any true measurements or any data to tell us what we're looking for what we're measuring but this whole diversity Equity

080inclusion really bothered me because I know there's concerns but I just don't see any information telling us that we're actually addressing them besides just talking on committees go ahead okay thank you um just because I I think you're right it's time to to answer that and we're we're outside of the pandemic and so taking a look at you know where we were and the audits that were done there are things we're looking to change for next year so one of the things that I've been working with Laurel and Molly on and Chris because you know as Jason said this is not there's overlap in between all of this and so um you know I I wasn't part of the training cycles that happened before but from my perspective where we are now one of the

081improvements that we need to make is to be very intentional with our pull out Services they've always happened and I think explaining to people that within a model um you know within an inclusion model we have kids that are placed out we have kids that are in other sender District classrooms we have kids who receive all of their services as a push into the Gen Ed classroom but then we have kids who have always received pull-out service says I don't know if that was part of that conversation with those coaching Cycles but I know that we have kids who need pull-out services and so it's time that we really are intentional about what those are and spell out what that looks like for our district and we've committed at the buildings that we've met as

082we've met with teams and done visits that whether it's material resources whether it's continuing to grow Staffing and we have addressed staffing issues I know it was built out at the time when they did those coaching Cycles before with the the thought that you know you can bring all kids back but you have to build the Staffing capacity well beyond just that you have to build for those kids who need more and something different if it can't be done in the John Ed classroom it needs to be done in a quality way so we are tackling that for next year um and and so we will be able to report out the data connected to our students with IEPs looks very similar to you know Stephanie is right there is an achievement Gap I don't

083think we anybody would try to say that there isn't our kids with IEPs achieve higher than the state but that can't be a benchmark you know I mean achieving higher than the state is you know something that I'm going to say we're doing better than the state but is that good enough no you know and so tackling our programming that we offer and being more intentional and strategic and not done in hallways and not having every special education teacher or related related service provider have to figure out what pull out looks like it will always be individualized but we have to be more intentional about that and that is something that we are tackling for next year it couldn't be something that we tackled inside of a pandemic but we're out of that now so

084there is a plan Laurel just one of the things that I wanted to piggyback on what you mentioned which I really appreciated in just in case anybody did want to refer to it as that when Dr kaskowski came she did have us do an update to that audit so on our website under the student services department it is posted there from 2020 so even though we were in the midst of the pandemic I know that you felt very strongly that we needed to check in on you know where we were at that time relative to that 2017 audit and I would agree that the work is certainly not done but just wanted to to share that in case someone wanted to look back at those two audits that are available there in the measurements that

085were used to the Strategic plan at that time right well and not just internal work I will say that this is a conversation happening at the Co-op level so there were changes made um to the structure and what our Co-op provides um some years before I came but looking at what do we need how can our Co-op best serve the member districts is something those conversations are happening now um so it's a matter of how do we fine-tune what we're doing internally for kids who need something more than what can be done in the Gen Ed classroom um and and then also what do services and supports from our Co-op look like that's the whole reason you're part of a co-op and so we're pushing them as well to think differently because um maybe where

086we were then is not where we are today yeah and I know you weren't here when it all happened but I think the whole Julie costen's Vision was you do not have specialized classrooms everything should be occurring mostly in a general education classroom which brought us to the point that we're at and just something the district should always continue to look at I mean I know we have families that are continuing to sue the district to get out place because we don't have classroom environments that they could thrive in so yeah and I and I will share our districts our sender districts that have self-contained classrooms are having the same conversations we've seen kids need change and we're looking at how do we provide refining and refreshing even for case management and how do we

087have our Co-op change in response to student needs changing too so we're not alone in this but I think if we try to say that every kid needs the same thing that's not never has been and never will be the way to do this and so um for me it was you know our next step here needs to be to fine-tune what something more specialized within what we offer in our four walls can look like okay no I think I you know I just want to jump I don't want to dismiss the professional development that our staff is going through either um as some of you may know I am a parent of a special agent child I have a son in first grade with Down Syndrome um so obviously as an IEP and and

088his individual education plan has developed through these IEP meetings um and just today we we have ourselves IEP meeting and staff said listen we've um we've gone through this training over the last few years we think we can do something different for your son based on the training that we receive we'd like to do this and we feel that we're in a place to do this so I don't want to dismiss train that's just an anecdotal piece of information but I don't want to I don't want to have that thought that PD is something that's just the days we stop doing it is the day that we stop learning as an organization and so does it need to be the same for everybody no um but no matter what changes we make that training piece

089has to follow along and in some cases be done before the change but absolutely I think you know we have to um always should be looking at okay here's where we have but what what can we fine-tune and what can we do a better job at okay well one you had please you yeah I just wanted to chime in real quick um and thank you for the sense of urgency that you're racing um being new to Glen Ellen um and you having worked with um multilingual families and families from different backgrounds I know how important it is to um make sure that we bring this in super urgency and um I can tell you that I'm one of the people in our district of many other people too that will join you in that as

090well now to address your question about what we're doing and having worked in four different districts in the past um and when I looked at the research and um regarding Improvement and change process um the Strategic plan and the the structure that this district has established is a very good foundation for future initiatives that are going to lead to the change that you are advocating for um I can tell you um in all of the districts that I worked um not every district has this similar structure and for me as the leader of the language program it provides me with a framework to continue racing some of these issues and also working towards improving those areas within uh within a framework that is in alignment with our district there is an alignment with the Strategic

091plan and that is also going to happen over time um we know the change is now going to happen from one day to the other and in order for us to make sure that whatever we change sticks we have to be very strategic and the Strategic plan that is in place allows us to do that one of the conversations that occurred in the student services subcommittee similar to the questions that you are raising um because their the group is very eager right they want to see change they want to see Improvement and one of the things that Laurel mentioned uh to the team is that the Strategic plan we're in year one of five years um and as we continue to adjust and we continue to keep polls on how we're progressing things you'll start

092to see how things connect better and that's just for all of us including myself within the areas that I lead thank you Juan and maybe a good note to end on the recognition that the room was filled with people who feel a strong urgency to close achievement and opportunity gaps now that's that's heartwarming however we we make that happen so thank you very much Melissa third we're going to move it on to the social emotional learning all right the social emotional learning Gat um is co-led by David Bruno and myself um our I want to just highlight that the last time we met was the end of January so some of the things that the Gat talked about or the data that we looked at has now moved on as our data is always changing

093um we'll start right here um the SEL Gat looked at three different lenses for social emotional learning we looked at some student data we looked at some uh staff data and then we looked at overall culture and climate within the district um so uh Andrew if you just scroll up just a little bit more um this is just a snapshot of our Rhythm usage uh looking at grade levels your First Column looks at the the rate then you're looking at active users and total users um what we talked about as a team is really looking at is rhythm giving us the information that we we want is it helping us understand what our students need and are we able to give them the right intervention or the right support based on the feeling that they're

094feeling in that moment the other student area we looked at was office discipline referrals we looked at August through December um so again just a snapshot this is just the overall total by grade level of office discipline referrals there was a lot of discussion related to training around how and why referrals are put into the the the system um we also talked a lot about the the supports that are in place for our students and for our staff um and and really looking at um are we consistently documenting data in the same way so um some buildings may be using this system to document individual Behavior plans where other buildings may not be using it so um there is definitely more discussion that needs to be had around this um and we are in the

095process of doing that with our administrative teams um and you know with the idea of rolling it to the buildings soon um moving to uh staff mental health and well-being um we have a couple different data sources we looked at we looked at the employee assistance program usage um HR has done some work around helping staff understand what this resource is how they access it our current data point is 1.4 of our staff have access EAP uh simply by logging into the system once beyond that that initial login we don't know what they do in there that's not something we track um one of the other staff uh initiatives or staff supports is the wellness committee that planned our January Institute Day by providing the focus on the gift of time um we got some

096general great feedback on that um and staff felt that we really were listening to what their needs were and the last data piece we looked at um under the staff lens is our staff attendance data this is available within our Illinois school report card um and really looks at the percentage of Staff using more than 10 days in a school year so Andrew if you scroll up a little bit more um this is directly out of our Illinois state report card um certainly there's some question about 2020 and 2021 those were different years um there was some uh you know different accommodations that were happening for staff um and so really if we can we maybe don't look at those quite so closely and we look at 2019 and 2022 um you know we're trending

097down from there um not so much raw data here but moving on to our mtss process um Melissa talked about this earlier Ali Hearn work continues um I'm happy to report that we have a new cohort of Staff who are one-third of the way through the training that allows us to build capacity within our building teams um and you know just again highlighting the edge of climber uh training that is scheduled for later on in March I'm going to pass it over to David to talk about climate and culture yeah so when we we heard I think a month or two ago from humanex directly Brad black came out and spoke to us about our data and what it tells us um I think the biggest thing to to highlight here is what we start

098at the beginning of the year is Dr K and myself went to all the BLTs we visited the buildings and we continued to visit the buildings to engage with staff on climate and culture hearing what their feedback is what we can be doing more and then taking those those comments back or those questions back and seeing how we can create an environment where when we look at the human X survey our staff is highly engaged in District 41 and they're satisfied in District 41 and putting those two pieces together to make a healthy and and healthy work environment and a high culture because we know if there's High culture and there's a healthy work environment our students are the ones that benefit from these results we've actually expanded that too to use our Wellness committee

099and really engaging with staff that want to help and support their colleagues is that by recognition is that by initiatives at a building level district-wide all these things we know go into the mental health of our staff in supporting our staff and so we continue to do ongoing initiatives throughout the year to support them we're in the middle of a teacher shortage as we know and so these we know these Topics by addressing them with our staff will retain our teachers and also help recruit our teachers when they hear all about the great things that they are supported by by their employer and then also everything else that we do here as well and Andrew if you scroll up that will show the the three by three that we talked about at the board meeting

100about a month or two ago so any questions for Molly or myself yes sir I'm sorry now David since you threw up something up on the screen people haven't seen something like this in a while if you want to just explain what people are looking at to those who aren't aware yeah so so this is what we do is we survey in September all of our staff we asked him but it's an 88 88 question survey that they answer anonymously and then from there we get a three by three each building gets one of these three by three and the goal is really in that right hand corner is the magic spot um where you want to be that means that your staff is highly satisfied and highly engaged and so from there then you

101can see goal areas would be in the red you'd love to see people in the black rings too when you get into the lighter Grays you start asking yourself questions why is Staff Not So Satisfied why is staff not engaged and through those 88 um 88 survey questions we can dial into what is it is it workplace environment is it recognition is it a variety of different areas that could support us in in trying to make a healthier work environment and by doing that we continue just to build off of these to try our goal is of course always push people to the far upper right hand corner of course we'd love to see 100 there but we know that's not reality so again we just continue to reflect on this data have conversations around

102this data and then just circle back and see what else we can be doing board members any questions for either Molly or David before I see if there's Community any Community questions for either you or Molly um so the I'm intrigued by of course I was very pleased with the human ex score and the report that was brought as you note and how high it was particularly in comparison to lots of other districts and I'm thinking back to the Rhythm incident data which are incidents as opposed to individuals but um is there do you imagine or expect that there's a relationship between the two in that if culture if human actually studying climate and culture and that sets the the sense of Wellness for people in the building for their staff do you expect to

103see some correlation or some relationship to students who when they check in report Maybe have a need on a particular day I don't know rhythm is still new we've been doing human X for a while but any thoughts so yes couple pieces to unpack your question right so that we're all on the same page so Rhythm right here the data that Molly shared is rhythm is this is usage right and so this is what what students are telling us right and that they're using it they're using it but then what Rhythm does is it tells us pieces of information how they're feeling how their day was trauma other topics like that from there a staff member can see those different ways they answer questions and we can provide immediate supports from them so that's part

104a right Part B goes to how our students feeling with their staff is what I heard you say right I think it's like anything we want our teachers to be happy and healthy so we want our teachers to come that way because when the students come if they come to our buildings and they have a teacher that's smiling that is loving them which I think all of our employees do then there's a different response to a teacher standing with their arms crossed and just saying let's get to work right there's that response there so I think when you when you look at Rhythm like that's usage so we can't use that data I think what we have to recognize is that our staff like every school district there's high stress right now in education right

105with for a lot of reasons and so how are we addressing their stress levels and supporting them through this year right I like to call this the pandemic hangover right as we work through this and sort ourselves out and so we need to make sure that we're supporting our staff and if they are struggling what are we putting in place to support them we would love to see EAP increase right but it's hard to get people to go to EAP so us going to the buildings and having open conversations being vulnerable about these different topics sharing success stories hopefully we'll address other teachers that might be feeling in the same situation or just having a friend at work right one of the questions that they asking is do you have friends at work if someone

106doesn't well we need to find a way to link them there because we know the power of having friends within the workplace so a little short snippet I don't know Molly did you I mean it's it's an interesting question Dr Bruno because Rhythm does give us a Tempo score within the classroom and then within the school um certainly we haven't used it long enough or triangulated the data to look at how it connects to human X um it's possible there there's a connection but we haven't looked for that yet fair enough Jess I think you were there you go I'm just curious in the Rhythm data are you seeing Trends in uh what videos are being shown to the kids or so are there certain topics that you're able to zero in on that are

107are trending concerns um so interestingly that was one of the things that the Gat talked about is that at the teacher level there's no real way to see what videos the students are watching so teachers can assign videos but the videos that are assigned by the program the student gets three choices and so there's no true way to look at that or to track it across a classroom um so it's just a it's not available within the system right now so that's not something we can look at and so Molly would you say it's fair to say and I know it's up here that sometimes the way a student checks in is not an accurate depiction of the behavior that they are actually presenting um so I don't think any of us would say that

108the Rhythm rollout has been completely smooth I think we're finding things that it you know the intent was a quick way to do a check-in with kids in the morning while teachers do you know all that housekeeping that that happens when kids come in in the day I I don't know that we've worked through all the Kinks yet with this um and certainly sentiment by the adults that they don't want to lose that human interaction and this was never intended to be that but there are some Kinks that we're noticing that kids can check in in a certain way but yet it's very clear that that's not reflective of their true Behavior when they come in so is it a um infallible tool absolutely not absolutely not we are nowhere near there yet um you

109know in making that determination so we have found some just disconnects between actual student behavior and and how they rate themselves just as you I guess I'm just curious yeah what are the next steps with that then to determine is it is it a training issue is it a is it a limitation of Rhythm and we need to look for a different resource or like where are we in that process yeah it's a continued conversation um that the administrators are having with their buildings and then are bringing back to you know us at the district level um at this point we don't have a clear thought of what next steps would be um certainly should we continue with rhythm more training is needed um and you know we need to spend some time really looking

110at how will we use the information um I think that's part of the the rollout piece that that Dr K referenced um so you know it's a work in progress and and an ongoing discussion you know just I think we will definitely bring back a recommendation of is this a tool that's doing for us what we had hoped it would do or isn't it and if something isn't working uh you we wouldn't continue doing it I mean for people who have been around during all the PBIS work that's happened over years and years and years in districts there's various ways to check in with kids this is only one way so if it isn't giving us what we need and if we see a disconnect with how kids rate themselves and what their actual behavior

111is saying you know we're not going to continue something just for the sake of continuing it but we're not there yet to to say it's a it's a definite no-go for us but if it's not giving teachers the information that they need to respond and kind of triage Behavior then we'll keep looking um you guys are speaking about rhythm with the assumption that all of us in the room exactly know what rhythm is the way my daughter is my daughter's in first grade and she tells me I don't know we hit the button so I I don't know admin have you ever gone into classrooms and watched our children use this it's just a thought um yes um you know part of it is how the teachers interpret the data or work with the data

112but also how are kids using it and getting that feedback from kids so yes and you know that's why we've identified some glitches or some mismatches in it um in terms of is it meaningful to kids are they just clicking a box um you know and I think going back to what was the intent behind Rhythm for us it was twofold it was how to do that quick check-in so you can triage help and resources across the building in a more streamlined way but also we were looking at a tool because years ago this District had established student attributes you know kind of the profile of a learner that the high school talks about all the time and Rhythm was a tool that you could actually custom build an assessment and knowing that we wanted

113to try and find a way to you know actually measure if those attributes are as important as we say they are how do we actually measure that and Rhythm does have the ability to customize but if it's not meeting our needs from the first level of what we were using it for getting to the student attributes is is a secondary you know need um so yeah is there some just clicking we absolutely know that and teachers are asking kids principals have spent a lot of time number one with teachers and watching kids and so you know part of whenever you try something new is what's good about it but also where is it falling short for us and is it an implementation issue is it a training issue or is it just really the wrong

114tool and we will come back and say you know if we feel it's a it's a training issue and there's something of value there that'll be our recommendation if we feel this is just not a good match for us we'll say that too and it's a way to check in on how a kid's doing when they come into school is that yeah representation yeah I'll just explain it briefly so our kindergarten through second grade students have a two question check-in um those the questions are under the realm of how are you physically feeling and then how are you mentally feeling and they choose an emoji um so the Emojis at the start of the school year are explained to them what each one means they're given some sort of um training around why you would

115choose one you know that all is supported third through eighth grade has a five question um that looks at a little more Nuance of feelings um and so what that gives the the teachers is a Tempo score for the student and then a Tempo score for their classroom so it's a way like Dr K said to check in on a student right so if you I see that a student is checking something they don't typically check right that would be an opportunity for for a teacher to say hey what's going on this morning you know is everything all right um or if you see a student kind of revving high right there's another point to intervene also within the system once they make their choices um as just reference there's a 60 to 90 second

116video that the system chooses based on how they rated themselves and it might give them a strategy so if if I choose that I'm feeling high energy today I might get a 60 second video that shows me a calming strategy um and those are individualized based on what the student has chosen that's just a quick quality Molly so the emojis that you're that you talk about that are those similar to life emojis that you'd see at a doctor's office with Rick is how you feel it do they have the Emojis on the board does that come with that similar process you mean certainly the Emojis are a little different right the um there's one that comes to mind of racing thoughts and it's a brain wearing running shoes um so it's you know kids specific

117right so students can understand sort of the connection to the words racing thoughts and a brain with running shoes on right so making that connection for them Dave and Molly is that that's all we have thank you okay goal area four thank you all right Early Learning programs and Facilities I'm going to turn it over to Eric oh sorry well if I would lean forward it might work Early Learning programs and Facilities I'm going to turn it to Eric and Dave okay um Andrew if you can scroll down while he's doing that I would just offer that you know this is a little bit of a unique Gap in that a major focus of this cat is the Early Learning facilities as Dr K mentioned earlier we're kind of in a holding pattern on that

118we're going to wait and see what our facilities and master plan study kind of returns from the architect before we move forward uh it's also going to take some uh further discussion with the board on really what those next steps are so as you'll see as we go through this goal area summary here there's a lot of TBD in here um having said that the other area we really did focus on this year because it wasn't something we're waiting on any feedback from was the Early Learning kind of community our Outreach to that community and really as you can see here when we reported in the fall these are areas that we started off really well with because we had a lot of momentum this is something that's been a focus for a while and

119what we we have been able to kind of change this year is really an expansion of that program specifically The Early Learning the younger Learners those those age two to four kids before they even come to pre-k um recently I got an update um since the fall I can share we added a lot of technological tools to that in the past it's really been a kind of a word of mouth we would reach out to you or you would reach out to us but now we have opt Tunis online for people to connect electronically additionally we've really streamlined that that onboarding process where you can set things on the website it's automated and we can get screening scheduled through the website and it's really helped us reach a very larger you know much more expanded

120population this year which I think is a great success to celebrate um and additionally we've partnered with Juan and through the bpac you know kind of use those parents and those leaders to really kind of expand our reach in that area as well so those are two things that have really been our Focus this year as we've waited really for more Direction on the facilities side of this goal area that's kind of short and sweetened to the point happy to answer any questions though Dave if you have anything to offer feel free to run with it you're good well boy any question comments obviously Eric is correct we're we're waiting for a couple of reports to come back from from White which will give us some hopefully some direction and then greater discussion which will

121fully address this goal area so to be determined and thank you all right all right goal area Future Ready skills and Innovation I'm going to hand it over to Andrew all right um so my goal area team met at the end of January and we had yet another wonderful conversation discussion working through our topics that were listed we have a lot as noted last time a lot of investigate review and kind of searching for this year one we talked about identifying current media used by students to communicate research and collaborate the dls's kind of are going to take this on as a charge to create a survey in order to do anything with it we need to know what the teachers and the staff are using it ties to another checkpoint of what are the

122students actually using but before we can talk to the students we need to know what the teachers are using with them so they're developing this survey and we should be able to have those results to report back on our next goal area update exploring the inquiry Concepts and time frames fit into current units we talked about how these are spelled out in our state standards so our coaches and teams work through this continuously in their plcs they have discussions and continue to work on that on a regular basis reviewing and aligning academic resources to allow for appropriate technology integration through digital tools as Chris and Dr Kate talked about earlier we've got our regular curriculum reviews going on but our dls's have also taken on looking at the alignments of the Illinois computer science standards

123and looking at what they're teaching in the elementary pull out classes that they do and making sure that they're meeting as much as they can through their time with the students and they're also reviewing what standards are there for computers technology standards across the various curriculums and state standards as well to find out what they can do and how they can work with plcs to meet those goals as well looking at capturing student voice this is the one I'm talking about that we discussed how it ties directly and we need to know what staff is aware of what they're working with kids before we can talk to the kids and how they're using it and better work with them so this is tied to that first bullet point reviewing the existing technology again this is

124very similar to the other bullet point where we have ongoing working with TLA as well as the DLS is reviewing both their standards as well as the integration of Technology across all of our curriculum standards for the state standards looking at training opportunities we had a great discussion around this that part of that also looks at do we have the right leaders leaders identified for providing training we one of the groups we have been relying on with Prometheans have been our first group that we had identified last year we had that proof of concept group and we had a good discussion about are those the right people continuing forward to lean on as now that every teacher has them do we need to re-identify as an example group to to look at and in talking

125to each building then do they have those Tech leaders outside of just our dls's that help as Champions and providing kind of an internal PD from time to time have we identified them correctly and are we using them to the best that we can as we move forward some of our other goals here and then I've pulled some other data points that we've identified below to just highlight that using a learn platform we have 43 paid resources that we've identified and um fleshed out through learn platform and then 100 another 161 that we've identified and gone through the review review process through learn platform and then there's a number outside of that but these are ones that we've clearly identified there and then our staff laptops we have about 500 of those about 4 100

126staff and student Chromebooks that are being utilized in additional 361 iPads that are used in various ways throughout the district so I thought maybe we're pausing if the screen was going to I was taking notes Here okay I'm here I'm present oh any board member I actually I have a couple of questions is your hand going up oh yeah and you want you need to get it in before you have to run and pick up as you're looking for those leaders to do some of that internal PD what what kind of incentives are there Beyond like it feels good to teach other peers the awesome things you're learning what are we doing to support them and I'm probably not going to listen to the answer because I have to go pick up my kids sorry

127so sometimes there's that opportunity where they get to have the first like with our Promethean group they were the first to have those panels so there's that bonus that rewarded hey I'm the first one to have it other times they're helping to then provide that direction of where we're going and the utilization of that so with the staff laptops that we're looking at how are those going to be used we're we're going to be you know providing with a new um we're potentially bringing to the board is that two-in-one style laptop so looking at folks to Champion how that's used they're going to provide that guidance for other teachers and how that is so not only like you said um the the good feeling and being that but helping to guide that direction along with

128the use of some of those Technologies and the way they're used with the kids and their devices as well I'd like to chime in too because what came out of one of our continuous Improvement meetings which every building is represented at um was just this on you know a request that we find ways for our own internal experts to do some of the PD and you know they didn't ask for any incentives other than the opportunity and then a nice balance between when you do need to bring in outside experts because sometimes you just have to so it is really kind of being responsive to what our what we heard that our teachers would like us to find opportunities for them to collaborate and teach their peers and Technology tends to be one of the

129areas where um you know you've got people that it it is really in their comfort zone um and and they they like to show those things sometimes the incentive is they get their hands on new stuff sooner so yeah we've got some excellent staff that do great things with the technology and get outside their room to show that off is just something to show another strength that they have Andrew and just to show that I was fully engaged I have two questions just couldn't write fast enough the first one you talked about the staff survey that being done and is is this the instructional software that's being used in the classroom is that when you say use use of the technology is that what we're talking about so the survey I'm referring to here is

130more on the media so how are they it does lend itself to that a little bit but it's it when you look at some of the Illinois computer science standards it specifically references are they using digital media video media how are they taking in um the information around them in their world and so we're wanting to find out how our teachers working with the students to look at and what what are they using with them how are they using it how are they teaching them to use that media whether it's digital whether it's paper whether it's video and how are they what are they doing now they're going to take it in but then how do they reproduce that and what are they putting out so kind of both directions with that so in order

131to talk with the students and know what are they what's their comfort level what do they feel they're doing we need to know what the teacher is doing first so is there a spot we need to say oh we need to work more on you know doing you know visual media with teachers they can do more of that or is it just putting it all as a big package more for them to feel comfortable offering more options for students okay thank you but it does tie to that other piece you're saying the actuals they connect with some of those other tools yeah okay there's that direct connection very good then the second question was you mentioned the Promethean boards um curious as to how we would be assessing that tools used to improve contribute to

132Advanced instruction the way it's actually getting used to have a somewhere in this process an assessment that you can bring back on on that technology actually I can when we present on the staff laptops that was part of a survey I did asking for feedback um for staff feedback with um the next device they wanted and I did ask questions about the Promethean usage so I can actually present some data points to that wonderful thank you I thought I hit the button I just want to piggyback off Bob's question as to um looking at the different technologies that are used at everybody new technology in the classroom how does that work with the the current curricular reviews that are going on because I saw that mentioned in and so how are you utilizing technology in

133the classrooms part of the the curriculum reviews that are ongoing of being piloted Chris and I are working very closely with that I actually am sitting on and when I can't another member of the technology team is sitting a part of the the curriculum review so that we're fully engaged as a part of that process and can support that process be a part of the conversations and not only answer from the technical standpoint but be aware of what they're is being reviewed by the Committees and make sure that it works with our technology we have make sure that it's incorporating and fully looking at it from that aspect as well so we're a part of that Chris if you want to chime in yeah Hadley and on the elementary for that exactly what Andrew said

134right and Andrew correct me if I'm wrong but with the the purchase or turning over the teacher laptops which they can be used as a tablet or a laptop that'll actually support um a more efficient use of the Promethean talk about being tethered correct you know with the old laptops versus what we will be putting in teachers hands yes and again and I'll hit on this more when we do that presentation but that idea is that it frees them up it's Dr K's Point it'll free them up to be even more Mobile in their classroom currently the primary way that a staff is using their current laptop with the Promethean panel I'd say majority of time is Tethered having a the cable connected to the Promethean to the laptop uh moving forward the goal is

135to free them up and be able to do that wirelessly have the ability to move around the room use their laptop in a tablet mode and have that flexibility to to work whether it's just to present what they're doing from a different spot really fully leverage their classroom management just be free in the room you know be showing one student but the whole class can see and have that up close and really take the advantage full advantage of the Promethean their device student devices and really engage every part of it right now they're kind of hindered to either their desk or connected and it just doesn't have that freedom to move okay good point yeah yes so I know you had mentioned like student input on this whole technology review um I don't know if

136you know this at this point but what would the students be like putting their input in about and what stage in the process would they be doing that so that that was kind of our next step where the committee's kind of look at how we wanted to to engage and get that back but part of that would be once we know what the teachers see they're doing with the media what you know those levels is how the students see that's being used and how they feel you know their comfort level with it their use of it you know there are things they want to do more so that we can match the student views and desires with what the teachers have an understanding and capability and get that all on a similar page that people

137are working together moving forward so that student input is put in there because if you look at the original um the top part of the document one of the goals is to have students take a little more control of that and have more of that power in how they're using the technology and their learning so we want to make sure that we understand the the student view on that before so we can Empower them as well thank you thank you Angel and Melissa then the last goal area Community Partnerships and engagements yes thank you I'm just like all the other goal area teams we have a list of action steps and work happening within the goal area teams that's also spreading out and we're partnering with other areas in the district uh the this is

138not an exhausted list I should say this is not exhaustive we have things that we've reported on in the past like creating the community advisory subcommittee that I did not include in this report because it is done and we're moving forward and actively working with that group but the first listed here on this report is creating a new plan effort with technology to help with translation services which also helps with engaging families not only Spanish speaking families but all bilingual and multilingual families working with Juan I'm so glad that he's here in the district he's a wonderful partner for Community engagement we have learned that 51 languages are spoken at home in the district our top five languages are English Spanish Urdu polish and Vietnamese since I've written this report we have partnered with the

139Glen Ellyn Public Library also the village also Glen Ellyn food pantry they're all looking at similar devices to help with translation and so if we could all partner together and use similar devices our families in the community that are in need or need support in different languages will know how to use that technology so I'm really excited about that partnership in addition we have a position here in the district it's a Spanish Community liaison position some of you may remember Gabby Escobar Hernandez was with us doing a lot of Engagement with the bilingual parent advisory committee translations working with families at Churchill and Hadley and across the district well she has since taken a different position and we're happy for her but it also gives us an opportunity so we're looking at how could that

140type of position help us more with engagement for all different languages that are spoken in our homes so um in fact bpac and if Juan wants to jump in he can I thought it was a really neat idea they presented a program in English and had translations someone who was here earlier was one of our translators had everyone in the room that were speaking different languages translated to their language so there were multiple languages learn you know learning and hearing what the program was all about and I don't remember us ever doing that in recent years I'm sure we have before but it was really exciting and um so I just want to thank Juan because we are moving in I think a really positive direction to be able to engage more families that speak

141all different types of languages did you want to check um no I I just wanted to say that that was a really cool event it was a little messy but it was fun um and we actually had families that previously had not come out to participate in our bpac events they came out to that particular event and um as a result we were able to invite more community members to join the leadership group of the bpac group so thank you for the partnership um the next item on the list is really oh go ahead if I could just interject sorry to interrupt I went to that same event and it was wonderful the the speaker was fantastic but the best part about it was the um the the talk afterwards with all the parents um

142relating how they their parents were speaking in their native language when they were growing up and now they're trying to care for that same tradition that was terrific and as far as having an event where you had translators there I I went to one of those years ago that was in Spanish so I had the headset on and so everybody was laughing and then I'd get the joke like three seconds later but it was it was that was wonderful too there's a lot going on in this area across the entire School District community and I'm just really excited that with Juan's leadership we're able to jump on board and do this together yeah and then I just wanted just to jump into for a half a second and just congratulate you guys and Juan specifically

143as to a little trans translation device it's little it's simple it's easy but it really will make a big difference he modeled it for me and I was really kind of surprised at how real simple and I mean he just gave it to me I said use it and it's really simple and easy to use and really an easy way to start Communications where you aren't otherwise able to do so so yeah that was the first step each School we're trying to expand capacity across the district and helping people in different languages so it's not just one person that we need to call or a service but that someone at a front desk or a teacher could use this device very quickly and easily to communicate with parents or other community members or anyone that

144needs it and so um to be continued if there's a lot going on but I think it's moving in the right direction anything else on that okay thank you on the next item is we're still always grappling and always looking for advice on how to reach the 78 percent of households that do not currently have children in our district when we've done research on this really the best way is to snail mail it old schools send people newsletters or postcards to let them know what's going on so we're going to continue to do that kind of going back in time but we know that we need to communicate through all of the mediums not just through social media but also through those mailings we did send a connect 41 newsletter which is not new to

145us we just didn't send them out very often because it can be costly but we did send one out in February and we're looking to do another one in June kind of wrapping up the school year just wanted to mention that uh working there's a lot of collaboration going on in my goal area team but working with student services and and Molly Victor we have created a form and a survey for our student services staff specifically social workers and um asking them what types of resources do they get requests first from our students and families food shelter Winter Wear supplies what are those needs and are how are we matching them with the Community Resources and are there gaps so we have you know we're the village of volunteers here in Glen Ellen and all

146of our communities that we serve are very giving generous and we have many many support Partnerships and support organizations so we want to make sure that we are connecting those organ connecting with those organizations and we're getting the resources to our families and creating that Foundation that they need for the kids to learn so this is to be continued we just now sent the the survey out to them and we're looking forward to that feedback welcome and also looking for new organizations that are popping up I learned about one in the community that's in Lombard it's a new type of food pantry but it's really a grocery store for families in need so they can come and get groceries just like they're going to a store like everyone else they're not just getting handed a

147bag of groceries so there's some some really wonderful organizations that help out our families finally we are looking to investigate Mentor programs for students the original idea through the goal area team was that they would be that fifth grade that there would be students in fifth grade and there'd be mentors that would stay with them through the transition of middle school and there are some districts that do this it's a heavy lift so right now we're just investigating how this could work with us again we are super lucky to have Glen Ellen children's Resource Center that actually provides some of the support but do we have other students that need more long-term mentorship relationships with our community members and so we're looking into this there are several districts in the area including district 15 that

148has a mentor program and so we're looking at it and looking at the viability so right now we're in the research phase and that is all I have to report until later very good board members any questions for for Erica Erica if I could I'd just it's not a question but it's just an obvious a point that the Outreach and the Partnerships to groups particularly that can address real material needs for families is consistent with any efforts that we take to address learning learning opportunities or Equity around learning opportunities or opportunity gaps that they go hand in hand so you know people should be aware that you've got a committee that's focused on sort of the academic numbers and the work but then here is a committee that's going to address some real human needs

149and the I think the strength of the Strategic plan is again we set equity and inclusion diversity we're all all of the goal areas are meant to support the other goal areas it may it may not be so obvious this is the way that you address academic achievement social and emotional learning but if students come to school and there's Wellness right and you've invested in wellness and you can do that through this committee's work so just to make that thank you point clear well and and Bob we learned this year that um certain people know the information so our social workers might know what Community Resources are out there um but yet we also know that when you get you know directly in the classroom with the kid people who are closely connected closest connected

150to the students they don't always know what the resources are and so figuring out you know what are those most you know those high level requests but it's also about getting the information in people's hands because you know we know there's I'll use an incident you know recently where somebody posted on social media that they needed winter gloves yet the school has a closet full of stuff and so we just need to make sure as we bring on board new staff members our veterans know what we have for the most part but making sure that we keep up with new people so that they know where to go um and that we have a handle on what are the biggest requests and and that we're looking a little bit more broadly in that too because

151absolutely we have Wonder wonderful Partners we just need to be efficient with it great okay back to you Melissa alrighty um and I want to thank our subcommittee people for bearing with us during this and so let's start with the student services subcommittee and you guys can give your update foreign O'Brien again sorry I had to get the microphone here um thank you for introducing me again I did talk about um several of these pieces as we were talking about that Gat but I will kind of Step through this and talk about um some highlights as to where we are now so thank you for scrolling down that's perfect um when we met as I said at our first meeting actually our first meeting was back in September and at that meeting we met and

152we really talked about kind of the timeline and then the charge and what we need to accomplish as we step through the next five years in the December 6th meeting that was where we really dug into what I referred to as that timeline from 2017 it actually began in 2016-17 before before my time here in Glen Ellen with um an outside audit of the needs from both the staff perspective as well as the um parent and Community perspective for special education specifically and we talked through that and actually had a little presentation about how that timeline has gone through the years and then we actually looked at both the inclusionary principles as they were originally developed by the special education strategic planning committee keeping in mind that that was a board committee at the time

153and that we did develop this with all of those stakeholders at the table including our parents including our community members including our teachers related service providers general education teachers we had stakeholders across the board who determined what our principles would be and that indeed they would be such that we could provide as Melissa talked about earlier um services that would both allow for students to have services within the classroom as well as pull out services so um I do frequently talk in smaller groups as in larger groups that from the onset of our inclusionary principles and our plan with the special education strategic committee we always refer to that opportunity for students to have both a resource level of services and an instructional level of services and that those Services never had to be provided

154in what what sometimes is referred to as a fully inclusive model but rather we could have a Continuum that would allow for pull out services for students who need that so as we continue on through the years and now here in July of 2022 the current Board of Education really took a great step in recommitting and reauthorizing those inclusionary principles and expanding them a bit to even and make it more clear about the Continuum of services for our students so I'm grateful for their support and for the fact that then sitting here today we have that opportunity to continue this work through the student services subcommittee of this current strategic plan so in doing so um if you just go down just a scroll just a little bit further down into the chart thank you

155so much we um we met and I know Juan referred to this um in this December meeting after having that conversation about where we would go next and looking at our Dei definition that that we talked about a little bit earlier this evening we really did talk about the reminder that this is a five-year timeline and we put some tentative dates in there for when we would address these other um or tentative times or not even dates but when we would address the other items on our timeline which include that multi-tiered system of support you'll see it there our evaluation process the d41 Continuum of services and then academic excellence and social emotional well-being as you can imagine there is overlap into the various other committees that um that we're hearing from tonight both with

156regards to the Gat as the gats as well as those subcommittees for example um some of the things that Molly and David were talking about earlier in um in there on their Gat team for social emotional well-being and so a couple of things that we are in the current process of talking about you'll see it says presentation at the next meeting so that as we step into our April meeting that's a really important area for us to dig into deeper uh we've been having conversations about also uh combining some of the work that um again many of you in the room may know but were required by the board annually it's a standing board committee to meet with What's called the parent teacher advisory committee so that we get input from our parents about our

157discipline our code of conduct policies such as the policies on bullying and so this is a really important way for us to combine the efforts of our student services strategic plan committee and this requirement to look at promoting academic excellence and the social emotional well-being that we have some um some work that we're planning to do in combination with that standing board committee we think it's so important to make sure that none of this work sits alone but rather we're weaving in what we are doing as a school district and as stakeholders who we work with annually into this process so we'll do that and um and then the other thing that I wanted to mention that we have held in December which was really just a a fun um planned event but it was

158important to our student services committee to have some fun and so we held a little meet and greet uh here um just before one of our board meetings in the little presentation room we just had some hot cocoa and since we had so many new members to our teaching and learning and student services departments we invited both staff members community board members whoever wanted to just pop in and have some cookies and hot chocolate and visit and that's that's exactly what it was about and it was really kind of cool that our student services committee said hey this is important to us could we do this could we at least offer this for our community so those are really the highlights as to where we're at now and um a little a snapshot picture of

159where we'll be going with the goals with which we're charged thank you Laura report any okay next subcommittee please oh I didn't see you Jesse I'm sorry sorry I was waiting for the board um so Laura I just wanted to follow up I guess it goes along with this and then it kind of piggybacks off of the last conversation and I know you had said that there was an update to the special ed audit back in 2020. correct okay great so I did pull that up and just something that I want to just quickly highlight so it says you know like as the committee highlighted The Guiding principles they've also shared shared several several stressors associated with the changes that include some confusion on what inclusion is in the practice and how it should be

160implemented how best to address the range of needs within a classroom and what aspects of the Continuum of programs supports and services should continue to exist to address the needs of the students in the district so I guess I have a multi-question um statement but you know like what have you guys done to move that needle I think that's a great question thank you for pointing that out and it is um it very much a dovetails back to what Dr kaskowski was talking about earlier and how we're working to better Define I think the board really did kick us off in um July in terms of right now and defining that Continuum of services but also the work that we're doing internally both with our administrative team as well as our teachers and related service

161providers to make sure that we're providing ongoing professional development and building those um spaces that um that do provide opportunities for direct instruction as well as services that are pushed into classrooms so both are important depending on what specifically for IEP teams depending on what an IEP team decides with our parent input and the professionals at that table both pieces are important on a Continuum of services and as well we always look at providing Services first in the least restrictive environment as we're required to do and as we believe in with our inclusionary parents peoples and then in addition to that we have a Continuum a Continuum of services that also includes the possibility of students being placed outside of District 41 it is um it is not a preference so to speak when you

162look at our inclusionary principles and what we um what we really strive for to make sure that we are including all students at the same time we do recognize as both a school district and has really been um aware and making sure that we're including parent input into those conversations that there are times when that is appropriate to consider for individual students so it comes down to that in the work and response to the the work that will really always be ongoing for us is looking both at a systems perspective that we continue to work on as well as that individual perspective for each child who's here in our system thank you and then you know kind of piggybacking off of that you know I know um Stephanie Clark who's left you know did say

163I guess in the original survey that over 90 of the teachers did state that they did not have the right resources and it looks like that question was re-asked um and it was pretty much the same results you know I mean teachers there was only uh you know 40 positive and 36 negative responses um you know in terms of you know if they had I'm sorry there was 31 positive and 30 negative um in terms of sufficient supports for inclusion instructional practices so what have you guys done you know since then um you know and teachers too are overwhelmingly they had a 73 negative response to that question so what do you guys what have you done to give that support to them so that they can be successful Laurel I'll take this one um

164I think you know part of what caused us to go back and look at the three years of coaching Cycles because this was a district when they made this shift committed to bringing in a consultant to work directly with teachers went in and did classroom observations and then brought that grade level team out and that teacher team out and gave them feedback on how to do this and then we were in a pandemic and so circling back to do they you know so to say that they didn't have have training or professional development is absolutely not an accurate depiction of where we were there was an incredible amount of time and energy spent on that but when we came out of the pandemic is that where people say say that they want now know what

165they said is they want coaching they want somebody to be able to come into their room roll up their sleeves and say how do you do this with the kids that are struggling most and so we do have um an amazing inclusion coach this year and he is you know when you see him out and about across the district he's in gym shoes running from one building to the next but he really is a resource to get into their rooms roll up his sleeves and if it's a behavior plan that you're trying to roll out or how do I modify curriculum to to keep this kid in the genuine setting knowing that they have some different needs he is uh in their rooms giving them feedback but the most important part is that he's helping

166them figure it out for that individual student and that wasn't necessarily a takeaway that I think they got when the district first made this shift and they had those coaching conversations it's very different to have somebody in their room actually doing it with you than just giving you feedback after the fact and so they have a Hands-On coach in their room whenever they request them they also have um we have a bcba who could do the same for Behavior so if you're struggling with academics and differentiating you can call on Jamie he actually supports them in the realm of behavior as well but then we also have a behavior person who will do the same thing so it's not just I'm going to meet with you and talk at you but somebody who could be

167in the room roll up their sleeves and help them figure it out so we're not going back to a model that's just you know um for lack of better words that PD where you're having the coaching conversations and observation like people want it in their rooms and talking about how do I make this work with this specific kid or these individual kids that I have in my room so we have changed our approach to how we're supporting them thank you I'm going to come back to you yeah and I just want to just just piggyback what you said and in it is apparent as I said I had my kids ipb today I actually saw words in the IP that I hadn't seen before from a of an accessibility modification perspective and it was simple

168things and the one that sticks out for me was modified paper and I was like what is a modified paper like oh well it's just it's just a way that it helps among the student about put their thoughts onto a paper whether it be through you know a graphic organizer or other boxes or through lines or have you but I'm like oh it was something that was really simple but that was articulated in a way that really made a lot of sense it is in this small modification really works um so something I'd never heard before right well and our Co-op is taking that approach to so instead of just I'm going to come in and you know have a PD session with a group of people outside that they now are pushing their people

169into rooms so let's talk about how this looks with real kids in a real classroom situation so we're changing up how we're trying to support teachers better I mean higher level training is wonderful and it's needed but what we heard from people is they want somebody who can roll up their sleeves get dirty be in my room you know and help me figure out how to make this work for the kids that I have in front of me so it's a different way of looking at it but absolutely based on the feedback that came from staff and then I just I guess I have just two questions like so is it one person for the whole District so our inclusion coach is one person for the whole District our bcba Molly what is our is

170we have two two people but a 1.0 allocation who share that yes so two one would be more for academics although he bleeds into behavior and then one really for that behavior side and then if I could just add to that we also have a 0.5 um BCA ba so that's as if that's sort of like a bcba um light not quite that level of training similar to being able to help with that implementation and that's a 0.5 as well so lots of initials but uh really I'm still that similar focus on coaching and training into that behavioral part yeah I mean it sounds like you guys maybe have made some little um traction um but it sounds like this you know survey definitely needs to be redone you know I mean we tend to

171throw our our taxpayer money at every other survey so I mean this does seem like you know it does need to be done if you're saying that you've made a lot of strides and work in this area I think let's get the data to see if parents feel that way and and teachers feel that way so we do do a post IEP survey that parents can take immediately following the IEP meeting um with Molly and Laurel really pushing our assistant principals to work with parents to get that the participation rate is lower than we would like the the data that came back was extremely supportive I think it was a 91 satisfaction rate on those couple of questions but we know that we've got people who are not taking it so ramping up our efforts

172to say here we're going to pull this up on a tablet and make it as easy as possible for people to take it right away that was communicated out not too long ago to our assistant principals because they they serve in that capacity so between our assistant principals and then the um um case manager so the special ed teacher between the two of them asking people to take it we do have a mechanism we just need more people to take it so that the data really does reflect the vast amount of of parents that are attending but I think it's also important to have the teacher's input right because they're the ones in there every day and they are the ones that really are having to deal with you know the right wide range so

173I think getting that feedback you know in a survey setting like these other audits I think it's time and I I would agree that um or I'm sorry is that okay that's okay I just want to thank you um I do think that continuing together that teacher perspective and information is very important to our process um in and I just wanted to refer back in that um 2020 when the audit was redone one of the things that I thought was really powerful for all of us to to re be reminded of by um tnj Consultants is that when you're changing a process and you're changing structure and you're changing culture it is like you're referring to it's that continual getting that data back reassessing and remembering that we're in the thick of it and we

174have to keep moving forward and making those changes so that we can truly impact those outcomes of learning and in that way and at that time in 2020 we did have over 95 percent of our staff members who um said that when they were surveyed said that they did believe that the efforts being made were positive and were going in the right direction to be able to be effective with their inclusionary principles so that was a very uh positive outcome from that update and I I look forward to continuing that work yeah yeah I think our visits have been something too that just gives us different data sitting down and talking with people um you know and we had not a union rep in there because they needed a union rep but also because we

175know that they serve sometimes as for lack a better word to complaint managers you know what I mean that if people don't know who to go to they'll go to their Union reps so giving them the opportunity to walk in and say we need this we need that um we have committed to having those on an ongoing basis and a lot of the changes that we've made have come up from those conversations you know so I think surveys give you one thing sitting down to actually talk to people sometimes you get a whole different you know response from them which is where it was heard loud and clear like High Level Training is important and needed but what we need is a roll up our sleeves kind of person and that's what we really looked

176hard for um and and so far you know this is Jamie's first year but he is really making proving to us that that's what he is that he can go from a middle school classroom to an Elementary classroom walk into that classroom hold his own with teachers and with the instructional conversation but be willing to roll up his sleeves and do whatever they need and that to me is sometimes far more important than bringing in an expert okay thank you good discussion the language program subcommittee please isn't that next I'm sorry Melissa I guess that's your introduction I just read it before I jump in and give my update on the language program subcommittee I'd like to thank um Janice Casas she's here with us today as a representative of our subcommittee she is our

177fourth grade dual language teacher on the Spanish side so thank you Janice for for being here um so our language program committee met um on December um and the best way that I could describe this meeting as a very um interactive and engaging um because we tried a collaborative protocol um to help the participants engage in conversation um one of the things that we did we asked participants to participate in a Delta plus reflection activity using the growth Focus um the get reports that were shared with us um and the intention for that was really for our committee members to um engage in conversation and to look at how action steps were drafted in those reports and practice making recommendations of potential action steps that will meet the purpose of the language program subcommittee so

178how would this impact um student learning or students in general the team agree that we are going to meet again on March 16th that's in a couple of weeks I'm excited to to be with the team again and during this meeting um we are going to continue um practicing making recommendations of action steps that will meet the purpose of the subcommittee so Andrew if you could scroll down a little bit this is a simple protocol that we are going to be looking at more deeply in in a few weeks we started looking at that last meeting um and what you see here all the way to the left where it says subcommittee purpose um that is a sentence by sentence breakdown of the subcommunity purpose that was determine when the subcommittee was established these action

179steps these are just samples some as an as a way to help the participants of the of the group brainstorm potential activities that they could recommend the language program um to initiate um or to be part of a program Improvement plan as that continues to be developed how are we going to know that we're making progress um in a few weeks when we meet again um we are going to be looking at um how how these uh action steps what what which one of these section steps that are recommended could be embedded into the language program Improvement plan and what we're going to do we're going to introduce the team to the continuous Improvement cycle from Illinois in power um and any changes or recommendations for update to the program Improvement plan would be consider

180within this framework and that concludes my report I'm looking forward to the meeting in a few weeks and to continue learning more with the team together questions from folks Juan can I ask a question I think it was the the first paragraph you were talking about this is probably my term uh Rich conversation around completed or a positive Rich completed and I'm just can you give us a flavor of what that um yes this activity generated a rich discussion I it was the exact word right that included positive comments and questions about can you talk about something completed or in progress that you found was an example of what that what that racist was yeah the um I don't have the specifics of of the actions but I can tell you that the the action

181steps that we were looking of how those were drafted from the from the gats reports that were presented to the board in our last cow meeting um so to a lot of the participants um if they had not watched the board meeting or have not participated in that board meeting that was the first time that they got to see they got reports just like any other committee members who also received them um so the conversation was really around why how did that how did that action became an action right um how do we why is that action part of the Strategic plan um and how is it that we're monitoring that specific action um so those were directly from all the different Gadget reports um and we're gonna follow a similar process to make recommendations

182of actions that could then meet the purpose of the language program subcommittee thank you my friend thank you you're welcome okay Eliza Melissa let me close that on I think it's also important too so we chose to share the action plan steps a lot of districts when they write a strategic plan um don't actually share the action steps because it's kind of an internal working document but we wanted the board and the community to see how does this plan actually change the work that people are doing and that's that's a document that doesn't always make it out there for General consumption it's considered more of the internal piece of a strategic plan but the power in a plan is really what are you going to do differently you know and so we we did choose

183to share ours and in talking about you know accountability it's kind of hard to go there without saying well here's the work that we've done since the last time we got together but you know most districts that have a strategic plan have action steps but those steps don't always make it to the public domain for conversation it's it's used more as an internal document but I think it it really does capture the work work that happens related to a strategic plan and and if you don't ever talk about it no one's going to know how the work looks any different so it makes for a much longer um much more tedious update but if you don't ever hear about how the work changes I I don't know that the rest of the plan makes sense

184thank you all right uh early yes let me give you this of course okay thanks Andrew um okay so again um what is the intent of this committee work was was twofold in this particular meeting was to review the district data from the equity Journey Continuum as well as to share the just the work that the district is doing currently in the area of equity So based on that meeting we had really there was a a two-fold outcome as well so based on this review of the data I would give the members of the equity advisory subcommittee um some familiarity with our areas of growth is whereas as well as our areas of celebration in this Equity Journey um and I have I will share with the data I share with them as well and

185then based on that information as well as the personal perspectives of the people on this committee provide feedback on action steps and suggestions and comments they have about the work that's happening in the district which will happen in May um so this will obviously directly impact students as we try to expand opportunities and remove barriers for all students to have high levels of success both academically and social emotionally um we'll know that it's making progress by if the action plans are informed and reflect the feedback from the committee if we're not making progress we'll also know by the data right our goal is to impact the data and see movement and growth and if we're not then we'll have to come back and revise the revise our plans to make sure that we're meeting the

186needs of kids so we use the equity Journey Continuum as our conversation I'd like to introduce also Melissa caponegro did I did I say your last name correctly um she is also a member of the equity advisory subcommittee who's joining us tonight as is Ted Estes he's our board member um both Juan and Laurel are also part of that committee that I facilitate so the information that I shared with the subcommittee so um the the state on the equity Journey Continuum uses multiple data sources that we have to upload to them anyway and so they're actually mining the data they already have and they provide feedback to districts and give us actually part of our accountability rating is how we um how we rank in these different areas for what they were they refer to

187as special populations special populations are not just special ed however special populations in this definition would be um students from low-income households special education students and non-native speakers so multilingual learners so our areas that was broken down into three areas what would be a larger Gap one would be a moderate Gap and one is more of a celebration so for our district the areas where there was a larger Gap identified was access to high quality Pre-K so that is talking about students in these special populations again that would be low SES low household income special education and multilingual Learners and their access to other participation in high quality Pre-K that just reflects their how ready they are to start kindergarten as compared to the non-special groups we also had a larger Gap in eighth graders

188taking and passing algebra so they're underrepresented in that population of kids and they are over represented in our suspension data both in and out so there these populations of kids are showing more regularly and disproportionately in suspension so those are the areas that we need to focus on specifically according to this Equity Gap those are the biggest gaps we have um a moderate Gap we have is achievement Gap and I know this has come up previously so I wanted to take a little bit of time to address this as well so we do have an achievement Gap and it is it is there it is real is something that we're working on um but I want to put that achievement Gap into context as well which isn't to minimize the importance of addressing it so

189please don't take that as a a way of me trying to explain away the achievement Gap because I'm not um the reason that our achievement Gap part of the reason our achievement Gap looks so large is because we are such a high performing District so when you look there's a reference made earlier to the state achievement Gap versus The Districts so when you look at the performance level of the state so let's say this date just to grab a random number is 50 of kids let's say our meeting or meeting or exceeding but these special populations are only 20 are meeting or exceeding that shows a gap between 20 and 50 right so that Gap is lower when you have a district like ours that's so high performing the Gap is wider because our top

190end is so much higher and so it exaggerates the Gap because we have kids that are so high performing because we're in the top 10 percent that the gap between our top performing and our lowest performing is much broader than it is in most districts across the state because our kids are so high performing so obviously the goal is to close that Gap but the reason it looks so pronounced and so different than the state is because their ceiling is different right the the ceiling in the in the bottom the floor are different so again that does not mean that we don't have an achievement Gap that we're working to close it just means that it's exaggerated on the school report card because of our high achieving students so that's good important context to have

191and that's an area that's why that's a moderate Gap and not a large gap and that's determined by the state not by the district um we also had some celebrations um one of our celebrations was our English language Learners progress for proficiency so they are the target is a five-year path for our students in Yale to progress through El and then exit El to be proficient we are achieving that at high levels our kids are moving through that at a high rate getting through those five years and in a way that they are exiting the program in the five-year timeline the other exciting thing is that our students that are exiting our El programs are having um very good success in their post El experience in a in a monolingual Ela classroom so that it

192monitors it in two ways it monitors both um their progress to proficiency so they can actually kind of graduate out for lack of a better term of the El services and into the other classroom as well as then how are they doing once they exit so they're going through they're going through well and they're doing well once they exit and to me of those two I think that is really key is that they're continuing that success after they exit the program so that's a that is a credit to the district the other area is um meaningful parent family engagement showed up as a celebration as did access to effective teaching our teachers are highly qualified and it shows in the data as far as their years of service their level of Education I wanted to

193pop back if I could just for a second to the moderate Gap I apologize I missed one in the moderate Gap area and the moderate Gap area it's the sense of supportive environment education environment and that came back as a matter cap based on the survey that was completed by students 59 percent felt like this was their school was a supportive environment which is actually like one percentage point away from from not being a gap but we want a hundred percent of our students so for us we want 100 of our students to feel that way so that was our progress to Proficiency in General on the equity Journey Continuum and then the other part of the conversation was to talk about the work the district is doing um towards equity and we highlighted those

194quickly and just to highlight them for you there are other things that we are doing as well but these were the bigger things and that's partnering with Dr Wu looking at Equity through belonging moving from them to us the equity focus is part of the math and literacy instructional resource reviews which I spoke about earlier by including the Wida Prime and looking for cultural representation working with Hadley to increase eighth grade eligible enrollment as you heard earlier talking about those math Pathways and how do we expand those Pathways HR Dr Bruno is focusing on Diversified recruit recruiting and hiring he's done all sorts of things to have a more representative population communication to families regarding State Testing is now being translated to our top four languages as Mr Suarez has mentioned moving beyond providing information

195just in Spanish it's been a high priority of mine to make sure that we're reaching out to more than just our Spanish-speaking families as well and then partnering with the Glen Ellen library to increase access and decrease stigma so those are all areas that we spoke about the next task for the committee it was a great conversation um very very engaging conversation a very upbeat conversation lots of good ideas so they're tasked by our May meeting is to take all that information and to re and to think about ideas and comments and suggestions they have they will bring those to the next meeting I will bring them to Dr kaskowski based on that Dr kaskowski was part of our last meeting as well so that in a nutshell is the work that we did that

196the committee was very excited to be able to take some time to to digest the information that I shared with them at the meeting and to bring back their feedback and and thoughts about next step forwards for us as a district so that's all I had anybody that was at the committee have anything to add that then we'll turn to the board Jess I just had a little trouble following along with your words to the yeah there's a lot of scene on the screen um but did you cover the elevating Educators piece yes that the elevated elevating Educators was the um the port the part where we had the access to effective teaching the one thing we are trying to improve is the there were no large gaps we are trying to improve representation um

197so that our teachers represent our students as far as their um their culture um and their backgrounds and that's with Dr Bruno is also reaching out trying to diversify our Workforce in that area but the access to affecting teaching is the celebration that we're showing highly qualified teachers with multiple years of experience and advanced degrees you're welcome hey Chris yeah you had mentioned the achievement Gap yes have we ever looked at that data in relationship to growth I mean do we have a growth gap for those El students as well relative to other populations of students yeah it's on the Illinois state report card so the achievement Gap is reflected in both would be affected both in growth and actual achievement yes and it also is showing that same thing um obviously we have an

198achievement Gap it looks larger than the state Gap because of the higher ceiling and floor and I say that hesitantly I think that context is important but I don't want in any way for people to think that that minimizes the importance of the work of closing it because I'm not at all trying to explain away that Gap it exists and we're working on it but I do think that context is important it does make a Chris a little bit harder when we look to find districts that we can possibly model after or have they figured out something in terms of closing the Gap that we have yet to figure out and it's hard to find a district with similar demographics um you know in similar achievement that is doing anything intentional we're still looking and

199we said that at the committee that if you become aware and find out about a district that has something that would be good for us to take a look at you know but finding districts to kind of model yourself after in terms of who has found that kind of magic puzzle piece you know in terms of closing the Gap we have yet to find a district that looks like us right The Benchmark from an achievement level that has a smaller Gap and we will continue looking yeah okay one yes I see her again yeah I just like to jump in a little bit and provide a little more context with the El PTP report um one of the things that um we know about English Learners is that the more proficient they become in their

200language the more they're going to be able to show us in English um what they know and are able to do so we monitor language to proficiency and as Dr Webster mentioned the state gives each one of them five years but that measure is student um um an individual growth goal that they have to meet um for each year that they participate in the access tests and that data is viewed on the individual student basis so I just wanted to kind of address that that it doesn't represent the growth tours academics but there is a connection that the more um that they're able to reach that proficiency and and be able to represent their learning because of their language abilities then we'll um we'll be able to um be able to know more how to

201support them in the academics but that measure is a growth measure for Els yes ma'am hi sorry I was getting it to turn on um and I'm sorry if what this was mentioned earlier just introduce yourself oh sorry my name's Helen um where was I going um if it was mentioned earlier is the achievement Gap more constant is it the same between math and literacy or is there um is one wider than the other that's a really good question um so it is uh similar across both math and Ela but I will tell you that it's larger in ela we should be reading in writing it is a larger Gap in ela than math and then just a follow-up question because that's kind of what I was thinking um because one of the critiques of

202the Lucy Calkins curriculum is that it does disproportionately affect low-income dual language students because of well I guess for a variety of reasons but um because I know that we're going to switch to a new curriculum which is wonderful and it looks like it's going to be more research based and science-backed but in the meantime what are we doing to you know because I might be wrong with the timeline but whenever we implement the new curriculum there's still going to be this chunk of time where obviously kids are still in school and still learning and still struggling so are there things that are going to happen to and I don't know if we can necessarily like minimize the Gap per se but just to help with the the pitfalls of our current curriculum until we

203make it to the new one absolutely another good question thank you um so absolutely yes um in any content area whether it's Reading Writing Math Science Social Studies whenever there's an identified Gap we would provide intervention for those kids if it's a broader gap which I think I spoke to earlier this evening was it would be more what I call the tier one Gap so just to put it in non-educator jargon so tier one is what happens at the classroom right primarily the classroom interventions that would take place or the reteaching that would take place so if it was a broad thing like a group of our kids needed more support in that that's how we would approach it if it's pockets of kids or small groups of kids that would be more like a

204tier two Intervention which is a smaller group instead of just a whole class that we were interviewing directly on whatever it was particularly that where their Gap was where they needed extra support or extension it could go either way so that's the way we would we have been addressing it and that's the way we'll continue to address it um to make sure that that our kids get what they need um while I absolutely um hear what you're saying about the pitfalls of Lucy nothing is perfect and I agree with you there are some there are some gaps in in that resource however what I want to remind us of is that the vast majority of our kids are doing are really achieving at high levels and we want to celebrate that but we also want

205to move more of our kids to those High achieving levels and it is through those interventions that we that we do that work so um does that answer your question or did you want me to do you want to follow do you want me to follow up on something Helen yeah I think that I think that mostly answers it I do just worry I and I don't I know it's anecdotal it's just my experience so that's why I'm cautious it could just be my one child fell through the cracks you know and everyone else is fine but um I do feel like like we're still like missing kids like for example my children have never been like qualified for intervention but they really can't read and write well at all um and we have paid

206for tutors and we've gotten outside help so we have the resources to make up for that uh that gap for us um but I just wonder if I know that it's been mentioned multiple times and through emails with me personally that there are interventions that take place when these kids aren't um meeting the mark but well we still have the achievement Gap so if we so if we are really identifying these individuals and giving them the help and intervention they need then I guess why would we still have the the Gap per site obviously it wouldn't be closed completely but then in my personal experience and with other parents I've talked to I don't I just don't know if maybe is it that the the bar is that it's okay to not be a good

207writer in fifth grade or I can't determine exactly where what would qualify you for the intervention is it that you have to have a low enough map score um you know because we just keep moving on grade to grade to grade and then we just get our own intervention by hiring a tutor but I just can't find out where is that we just keep slipping through the cracks or you know or is it just that everyone is like that's the bar it's kind of maybe I have a higher image in my mind of where we should be than where the state or the district thinks children should be I can't quite like find it but I just get worried as we get closer and closer to Junior High that we do have fourth and fifth

208graders and well even sixth graders that at the beginning of this curriculum didn't get the phonics implements that came later and that they were just never caught and then they also never qualified for intervention as well so first of all thank you for sharing your um your personal story I appreciate you sharing that with the group um and providing that personal context for us on your experience for your questions so thank you for that first of all um as far as what qualifies for an intervention um I guess that depends on so I'm going to try and answer that as fully as I can without going until midnight because I know everybody's tired um so part of our mtss process which is a multi-tier system of support right we do have qualifications kind of that

209qualify people so basically the 30th percentile and map is when we start to look at a really significant intervention for a student through that process but that's just the mtss process so that's the answer to one question when you ask if there's a benchmark so that's one of the benchmarks however it doesn't require that's to get into the formalized intervention mtss process however it doesn't require that for a teacher to provide Intervention when we talked about like the tier one in the classroom so as soon as a teacher sees or senses that a student is struggling that's when they work in small groups especially in literacy they would work in small groups to address those gaps with whoever in that classroom is experiencing those gaps so um to your point which was another good question

210is if those interventions are in place why do we still have achievement gaps right um so that's something that we're looking at closely now and to be really totally honest and candid with you I started July 1st so I'm digging in as deeply as I can to try and figure as many of these things out as I can especially post pandemic but that is an area that we're still working on so and that is an area that that we um have high expectations for ourselves that will close right um and to your other point it will never completely close unfortunately because there will always be that Gap but we want it to be minimized um when it comes down to individual students when a a parent or a family feels like their student is really

211struggling um that really is a classroom and a building level conversation um because at the district level I don't know the students to the same in the same way that their classroom teacher does or their building principle does and it's really it the the central office level the district level is to kind of set like the go forth and Conquer together like this is this is the plan now implemented at the buildings and they're the ones that bring it to life there so for the more personalized part of your story um that for intervention for your particular children it would be done at the building level within the structures that I kind of just described more broadly at the district level um and I hope it answered your question but if it didn't please ask

212ask me a follow-up because I want to be able to answer your questions you know what Chris I want to jump in I think Helen had a good point if the focus of intervention and one of the things we've talked about is we have to have consistency from building to building so what gets you into an intervention in one building needs to be the same in another building so that kids have a similar experience here but it's it's finding where you intervene not just to catch kids up because in the meantime everybody else is grown you know what I mean so your interventions have to be intensive enough that you not only grow faster than you were but will never cross close the gap unless we start to accelerate and that's where we have to

213push on our intervention you know how we approach intervention is it intense enough to actually accelerate because everybody else is still growing you know what I mean so if you're starting out behind and you get an intervention just to catch up the rest of the group has grown so it's going to come down to how do we intensify enough but it's that balance of then what are you missing when you're in intervention and that's the struggle that I think a lot of places face is there's a finite period of time during the day how do you intensify an intervention enough without having kids miss other really important things and so I don't think it's just us that struggles with that um and trying to find somewhere that actually has done the acceleration not not just

214catching up to where they should have been because in the meantime everybody else is continuing to take off and um okay I'm I'm sorry I wanted to give board members if there were board members who wanted to jump into the conversation or ask questions I just want to say thanks to Helen for giving that personal I'm a piece of it um because I think it's important to parts of the story and I always like to give the perspective and when I tell a story that I tell stories I decided about my son's IEP today and but I think it's important while anecdotal is that Helen's family is probably not the only family going through the situation just like what I'm experiencing my son's IP is I'm probably not the only parent I'm a experienced on

215the IEP so I think it's important um that when those stories get brought up because a it really personalizes it and B I strongly doubt that it's a one-off so I just want to say thank you for that very good anybody else I had a yes I thought I saw you go ahead sir yes just please just sorry um there's two of us I wasn't I wasn't sure who you were looking at um you mentioned intervention versus extension can you just that's that's I just speak so if you could Define that um so intervention we use that as a as a word to explain um to identify when a student hasn't quite met expectations yet and how we provide the supports to help that student meet expectations we use the term extension when we're talking

216about the students that have already met what we and what our goal is and how we extend them past that so they don't so that they are having the appropriate level of um challenge as well okay and um just to add my own little anecdote uh the conversations that happen in my house are uh I have worries about how the kids are doing that my husband's an educator and he tells me not to worry um and so I guess one of these one of the things is you know in turn related to the writing right um I have kids at a couple different ranges high and and I'm not exactly sure where right now but um the the writing piece is like why aren't there any capitals and periods in these sentences and um why

217why can the person in this house that reads like five books a week not spell any words and I keep getting told not to worry about it and so I think my expectation is that those things are going to happen but the educator in my house says it's not as important as some of these higher level skills can you speak to that a little bit from the district to perspective of of like the importance of spelling and punctuation and and where that falls and the prioritization of what we're trying to do I would say both are important because um those the skills you spoke about the more foundational skills which I spoke about earlier in the instructional review give you the capacity and the fluidity to do the writing and the reading that give you

218the fluency in both of those things um but I think it requires a balance between those two because you have to be able to practice both so um which I know sounds like a wishy-washy answer but it's actually like that's the balance right is having that solid foundational instruction that provides the opportunity for for spelling and phonemic awareness and phonics and all of those things that are foundational to provide you the opportunity along with background knowledge building language comprehension all of those things that that help build a solid reader I'll need to come into play and when one of those pieces is missing that's a piece of the puzzle that's missing so to say that one is more important than the other I think they have different functions but they all lead to the same

219thing and that is um a solid reader and writer made up of all those different components so I would say they're all important just did you have one and then yeah I just had a really quick one so I kind of wanted to piggyback off of like what Melissa had said and also what Helen had stated where you know her kids like haven't been reached out for those pieces like for interventions and also you stated that it was done at the more at the school level right but if that's not happening I think that just goes back to that 2020 special ad audit right where teachers are saying that like and one of their concerns was like how to best address like the range of needs within a classroom you know and those constant you

220know aspects of Continuum of programs so clearly the teachers aren't feeling support so we have one person that's running around to all these schools but there are still people kids falling through the cracks right and that shouldn't be so again I think I I would put it back on you like what are you doing to close that Gap right well I mean I think we've talked about number one tightening up our approach to intervention and the non-negotiables across buildings and that's how clear it needs to be because how mtss looks from one building to the next there can't be that wiggle room so that all kids have a who have a comparable access to intervention regardless of what building that they're in you know um it's looking at the curriculum review process and making sure

221that we have a that the next choice has um you know the representation that we need for our language Learners that it's strong in all of those components and then it's also holding people accountable for the instruction that happens in the classroom it's all of it it's not one thing um you know just like there's not one program there's not one program that we could purchase that would solve everything and do it all because some of it comes down to the magic that happens between a teacher and the students because we know based on years and years of research that the one really driving Factor on Student Success is teacher quality you know so that's why we we don't ever want to lose that focus on professional development but it needs to be the right

222kind you know and it's it's a process that you keep working at I mean I know that doesn't sound like an answer but you have to put the right materials in people's hands before you put it in their hands you need to train them on it you know and and that's the piece that goes with the review cycle so I don't know that there's an easy answer I wish I could tell you District a b or c has found the Magic Bullet to close gaps they haven't and we're looking for them if they have um you know we're starting on an extremely solid foundation because we are um you know our district does really well for most kids but I'm not going to sit here and lie and say it's for every kid you know

223so our challenge now is to figure out how to get it closer to being that for every kid thank you Dr hey you had made a statement earlier about Dr Bruno recruiting diverse staff no the other Dr Bruno oh further comment S no the other doctor we have a Doctor David Bruno to Dr Bob Bruno well one um I just wanted to address uh your your question about what is it that we're doing to support closely achievement gaps for some of other subgroups particularly the English Learners um as Dr K and Dr Wes Webster mentioned um we do see um similar patterns um at the state the national level and we know that there is achievement gaps with English Learners um we also know that there are resources out there that are research based that

224can help us determine um why some of the students might be underperforming or struggling Wida which is uh the similar the same organization that we were using booida prime offers a tool that is called seven integral factors and it's a systemic approach to analyze the performance of our English Learners and and determine help us determine what might be contributing factors that um causes them to struggle and also to help us make decisions so what might be an appropriate culturally responsive intervention that would help them um perform better so currently we are working very collaboratively Dr Webster Molly lauro and myself and in looking at that system and exploring what that system is and how we can initiate the potential use of that here in in our district to help us make sure that we're looking

225at supporting English Learners through that lens um the other area that is also very collaborative between Eric David and myself we know that the El services that we provide I call those Equity drivers um we get um and um a grand for the state of Illinois that is a supplemental funds to help us determine what can we do in addition to what we are already doing um to help and support English Learners So currently we are in the window of looking and preparing for Grants applications for next year um and we are taking a closer look at how we can be creative and Innovative in in meeting the purpose of those grants and also bring uh the resources that are needed for our English Learners at the moment so those are two um real things

226that are happening at the moment that we may not see the results right now but they will contribute to better results of English Learners in the future thank you Juan all right we have one final subcommittee and that would be Erica's Community advisory okay will we saved the best for last right um and actually this is the best committee because they are doing double duty um they've been meeting regularly as the sub Community advisory subcommittee we have another meeting already here coming up on Thursday but the majority of the committee has agreed to participate in a working group which is a community engagement working group and the reason I asked them to participate in this group is because a couple months ago the Board of Education directed the administration to present a plan with new

227ideas for engaging the community so members of this group agreed to join and to create a plan and they're going to present this plan at the next board meeting March 20th so I hope that you come they were charged with evaluating what is already being done in the area of communications and Community engagement and to help generate new ideas that would enhance strategic engagement with all of the commit communities and stakeholders that the district serves I could not be more pleased with the diversity of thought of this group how they've come together to take this very seriously these ideas that will be coming to the board are truly from the community right from them they'll even tell you know some of them think yeah that would be good but I don't care that much about

228it but they you know like another idea better so you have all these different ideas that will touch different types of people different stakeholders all the folks in the community that have an interest in our school district so I'm thrilled to share this report with you on March 20th the committee is not here today because they know they'll be coming on March 20th to present this full report with me I just want to thank Dr Martelli he's also a part of the group and has engaged as well but really they're rolling up their sleeves so they've been meeting you know twice as much as other committees and evaluating what we're doing and presenting some new ideas that I think the board and the community will really appreciate so I'll end with that and more to

229come on March 20th I just want to weigh in on that and say when I sat in on their meetings what was most impressive is there was a lot of back and forth and I don't even want to say call it disagreement because that sends a different message but definitely a group that was throwing ideas out and felt comfortable disagreeing in a respectful way so I'm eager to hear the report I would say there was a lot of diversity of thought yes during our conversation absolutely wonderful wonderful well before we move into there's actually still a little bit more to this meeting we want to allow for any public participation but and I think I was remiss maybe in not asking the district to do some clarification so it's been a long evening and we

230did a lot of work in six go areas and then four subcommittees could you just revisit the distinction between the charge of the Gat and the Committees and the difference between their charge and their work so it's clear to folks how they're contributing to their strategic plan I should have asked you to just briefly do that the goal area teams really are it's think of it as staff work you know so these are the people that created the action plan steps that would help us achieve the big goals in the plan um and then the subcommittees involve other stakeholders and so when the Gat does their update those go to the subcommittee so that they have that information on hand but it's it's a way to move it from staff work into some stakeholder ownership

231and input okay good simple clarification I appreciate it all right thanks to all the subcommittees all the staff people involved the community members that are participating and to my fellow board members for their time on these committees okay members of the public who wish to address the board should complete a form and submit it to Mrs moak speakers are asked to maintain respectful decoruma limit comments to three minutes or less please note that due to YouTube Community guidelines the audio from the public participation portion of the meeting will not be available on our live stream however recording of public comments will be available on the district's website tomorrow Mrs moak is there anyone who would like to make public comments Ellison prochaska Allison thank you Allison why don't you go up to the podium right

232Nancy yes and make sure the mic's on please good evening thank you for providing map data by grade ahead of tonight's meeting while it is helpful to see the that was it oh you have one yeah yeah yes I thank you all right now we will move on upcoming meetings we have March 20th 2023 public hearing regular board meeting uh and then April 17th 2023 uh any items board members wish to present for consideration to a future agenda very good then may I have a motion to adjourn the closed session to confidentially discuss section 2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismiss all specific employees including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee to determine its validity section 2c2 Collective negotiating matters between the school board and its employees or the representatives

233or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes or of employees and section 2C 10 the placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students motion second peace hearing none Mrs Mo please yes Dr Martelli yes Mr Robot yes yes the board will not be taking action after closed session the open meeting at this point is closed