9/26/23 District 97 BOE Live Stream

001set up as opposed to like you know um [Music] should be here oh Holly's out and you know let's give it another minute and then uh and we can jump in this video actually foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you I'm like [Applause] thank you all right why don't we get started I will call the meeting to order today is September 26 2023. um today at least in my memory is our first Committee of the home meeting maybe they happened a while back and I'll say a little bit about that at the start uh of our discussions but Lonnie can we do the roll yes Kurt Johnson here here more here Kim is absent Kearney here meeting calls to order it is 603 all right um we're going to start with public comment I have

002two folks signed up for public comment first is Nancy Schrader or Schroeder Schroeder Schroeder [Applause] hi okay my name is Nancy Schroeder and I'm here on behalf of Mom's demand action and on behalf of my three children who are students in d97 one of your stated duties is to connect with community so I really appreciate this opportunity for you to listen to us and our concerns and I appreciate being able to speak on behalf of the many parents who are concerned with the safety of their children thank you for including the national preparedness information from the September 15th and September 22nd newsletters including the smart information in the link of family resources that being said we are here to ask the Secure Storage messaging continue to be a priority I really want to be careful

003not to editorialize tonight but when I say that this was buried in a link called family resources and it didn't identify what would be included in it um I don't think of that as prioritizing so I know that the district has many tools at their disposal you guys have registration where we sign off on concussion guidelines you have handbooks District newsletters principal newsletters and direct communication from teachers frankly I see no reason that this can't be more thoroughly communicated and more prioritized I shared this in a recent op-ed but I'll share it here so that we're all on the same page hi to 1.5 of kids have a not allergy 0.5 percent of kids to 1.5 that's not a large percentage the d97 no nut policy is communicated in a way that is blasted at

004us I heard it from everyone at the start of the year and I hear it at the start of every year and thank goodness because if it saves one child's life right one kid that's important it's not convenient my kids love peanut butter that would be the easiest lunch I go out of my way to protect one kid we are asking you to do something that is embedded in our culture we read information from you um it wouldn't be going out of our way it's just information that we're asking you to share for a public health concern I read in the Wednesday Journal Gavin I believe you said that the board is concerned with appropriate wording great news for you the be smart framework and toolkit is already written for you it's been in existence

005for eight years and it's been adopted by dozens of schools across the country and 10 million students are positively impacted by the implementation of this policy it includes a draft resolution the wording is there and I think it's pretty straightforward that this would be a benefit I also read in that Wednesday Journal article that we don't know what surrounding districts are doing this who cares we should do it I don't care what other districts are doing we should be a leader in this it's important for our kids one kid right one kid that saves one kid it's worth it so I look forward to hearing more on your plans about safety tonight and I really appreciate the time and consideration of this issue thank you next is Laura Loveless [Applause] um I am I don't

006have a lot of prepared remarks um but I do um I do just want to communicate um I think some of we're obviously asking for resolution about Secure Storage and um the most important part to me is that the communication is um given to the parents in the registration process that happens each year I mean as parents that register our children for school we know that you go through Page after page after page that you have to sign off on and you get the weight of what you're reading right you really feel as though oh I it's really important that I read all of this um and so it's a great way to make sure that the eyes of parents go across it right the concepts of safe storage are pretty simple and straightforward but

007they're not so obvious that anyone with a gun knows how to securely store their firearm right there are a few ways of securing your firearms that will make the people in your homes much less likely to be able to access them and if we do this kind of rather minimal step of communicating it to every parent and making sure that they sign that they read it each year it will make a very big difference to people's understanding of what Secure Storage means and not only that but how to talk about it because whether we like it or not guns are vastly increasing across our country Oak Park is not excluded from that guns are coming into our community even at higher rates than they ever did before I realize that there are a lot of

008efforts legislatively to address this problem but this is something we can do in our own community that is baked out for us already right it's kind of just like ready to go for us and it will make a big difference because even though the concepts of it are really straightforward if you don't tell people what they are they won't know even the parents that I talk to at my own school so for example I'm a seven-year-old he's back there he's very quiet so I won't take too long because I don't want that to change but when I talk to um parents of his friends every time he goes to a new friend's house I ask the parents I say um just FYI we have a dog in our house and no firearms what about you

009all and that just gives it opens up the conversation it normalizes it so um you know anyone I ask knows that it's something that I'm paying attention to and it also educates people that I talk to about how to do it themselves right it's so simple once somebody laid it out for me but before somebody else told me exactly how to do this I just didn't know how I would approach it with other parents and once they told me about how to do that I was like oh that's so easy I'm gonna do it with every parent I meet from now on and so I do but this is something that's kind of baked into the same and that the be smart campaign it's just like how to normalize talking about this and it's so

010important and even though people know it's important they don't do it because they don't know how um so I just implore you to to help educate parents because they want this information and it's just hard as a parent to always get it if it's not kind of in your face and communicated with great import thank you thank you next we have Jason Jenkins good evening my name is Jason Jenkins I'm a d97 parent in Oak Park resident and I'm here to speak about 897's current literacy curriculums um you know but first I just wanted to say that I know a ticket for granted everybody in this room is here because they want to do best what's best for kids um I'd say that as a child of a elementary school teacher who taught her entire

011life um but uh you know prior to moving to Oak Park and it's kind of my story but it's part of moving to Oak Park is an avid listener of public radio I happen to hear an audio documentary by American public media reported by Aaron Heffernan called hard words why aren't kids being taught to read and it was all about how for approximately 30 years uh we have been using a curriculum in this country uh often referred to as balanced literacy to teach kids to read and it was about how balanced literacy focuses on encouragement and access to lots of books and physical space to read and all that sounded great until we got to the part about how it teaches kids to guess at words that they can't decode using phonics you know to

012look for other cues like the picture the context Etc there's a story with uh here's a story with pictures about Cowboys and we get to a word that starts with an H that we don't know the cowboy is riding a cowboy in the pictures riding a horse that we're gonna speak horse right and I thought that's crazy you know that's not reading that's guessing you know what happens when there's no more pictures what happens when the words get longer but apparently that's what we've been teaching teachers to teach over the past 30 years you know Judas immersed kids in books tell them the readers teach them a few tricks like guessing how to uh how to guess words and that will get them through and eventually they'll become readers and from there it went on

013to describe how balanced literacy and specifically the curriculum units of study created by one educator named Lucy Calkins became ubiquitous about school districts around the country and how at the same time literacy rates across the country have plummeted and how in the 30 years since parallel using magnetic resonance imaging and other tools that we didn't have at the time to study what's actually going on inside of our brains when we're learning how to read we now know that reading is not like speaking our brains are innately wired to learn how to speak put a kid in a room with enough people speaking the same language for long enough and barring other unforeseen circumstances that child is going to learn to speak doesn't work that way for reading okay we have to be taught how to

014decode those symbols into sounds um and this research has become known as a science of reading and frankly it's it's pretty incontrovertible um to the point where if you tried to do a publisher paper on that no Journal will accept it anymore because it's viewed by the scientific Community as a foregone conclusion so cut to the past summer and my partner and I have moved to Oak Park in 2020 in large part because of the schools and we're loving it and I mean that sincerely um you know before moving here I did a lot of work with g97 in a park as a whole providing programming in schools and I knew it to be a progressive community in every other yard sign that guard has a sign saying science is real right we have an

015aggressive climate policy it's a village Etc so I assumed that the 97 would be using a science of reading based curriculum and I'm speaking with another parent about this this past summer as we're getting ready to put our first child into kindergarten and I'm just not evenly going on about how I'm so glad that the schools here are using a science of reading curriculum and I was quickly uh in sort of an embarrassing way Brock's speed that we in fact are that we are still using uh balanced literacy specifically units of study by Lucy Calkins um even though scores of other states are I believe up to 30 across the country have either dropped that uh framework or are no longer endorsing it um even though the teachers College were Lucy Calkins uh entire units

016of study was based is now uh disassociated itself uh from that um and so I was pretty disappointed to hear that and you know I know that some of you many of you probably are familiar with some of this um I know that I probably don't have know everything that you know about what's going on behind the scenes I also know that school districts are aircraft carriers not speed boats and that change doesn't happen quickly and that things like curriculum shouldn't be changed in a Cavalier or capricious fashion but at the same time if the stats that I've heard recently that 58 of d97 students are reading at below grade level and 85 percent of black and low-income students are reading below a related level I think that it is an imperative uh that we

017make that change from uh balanced literacy towards units towards science of reading based curriculum and I implore you to continue in that vein that we're all trying to do the best for students and engage with parents to make that change as soon as possible we have I've talked to other parents about this it's a growing number of people it's a growing movement it's a growing number of d97 parents who are concerned about this so we ask that you please take this uh to heart thank you you um I think everybody probably knows that but thanks everyone for your public comments and both of those topics happen to be on the agenda tonight probably not coincidentally um and so you're encouraged and very welcome to stick around and if you can't we will send around a

018link to the recording of the meeting as well um but with that uh we are going to shift to our committee of the whole meeting as I mentioned at the front this is the first time we're doing this in at least in most of our 10 years on the board and I think that hope and goal for this is that it will lead to more in-depth discussion around high priority issues and and deeper presentations as well um there will obviously be opportunity to tweak and modify and iterate along the way so we'll see how tonight goes and uh you know we can make changes on the fly from there um one thing just to note and I know she was going to talk a bit more about the sort of the year of the committee

019the whole meetings but one thing to note is tonight we'll have a couple of presentations on safety and literacy I think what we want to try tonight to see how it flows is just that people have clarifying questions along the way in the presentations feel free if there's a piece of term of art we don't know jargon whatever go for it uh and then the substantive discussion will just hold for after the presentations if that works for folks and um we'll see how that goes and we can always adapt in future meetings if you need to so with that I'll turn it over to you great thanks uh Gavin and I think we're teed up here so yeah the purpose of this presentation is to give a an overview and an Outlook and um like

020you said Gavin um you know this is also for discussion with the board that's the with the committee of the whole it's less about um you know this is our information and asking questions but more also about kind of evolving the work together thank you Michael um so with this uh slide here tonight what we want to do in the next couple sessions here is uh to just briefly talk about the two types of meetings and to share a proposed plan um and uh proposal for the committee of the whole meeting and then of course to take some questions and feedback I can Gavin you mentioned about asking clarifying questions along the way in this particular presentation I did get a chance to say here's some pause points in the way that we talked about

021so future presentation we can try that out with this presentation but in future presentations we want to try to be thoughtful about where to stop and check in and ask for not only clarifying questions but for discussion points so we'll try that out here um so when you see this you know I've inserted the slide that looks like this and I'll pause on it when we get to one of them so basically um this is the you know two kinds of meetings this year the I don't know where it's going to look um so of two kinds of meetings here business meetings and committees as a whole and the business meetings are as they have been you know they're all agendas posted according to the open meetings act and then I've just listed the kinds

022of things that will be um reviewing And discussing at that meeting um you know what I've got an idea here so this is uh how about if I sit over here nah that makes too much sense yeah great um so um the um you know those surface of you know all of the the business of the board and we've had a mix of presentations and um and different um public action kinds of business items one of the things that one of the reasons we've talked about moving to this committee as a whole is the need for a different kind of space so the equity policy calls for some pretty large-scale transformation of how we do business and requires this creation of new spaces to kind of think and learn together and that's the purpose here

023is to provide um a space for kind of more exploratory um and and Equity forward learning between the board and the District staff so it's more of um a learning together kind of space as opposed to here's a buttoned up presentation and now we'll take your questions so that's the shift so here I have um the kind of it's still in the agenda posted according to the open meetings act these are the four strands that we're proposing uh would go through the committee of the whole meetings um and what I'll do in the rest of the presentation is to kind of slow down and talk about each one of them so um unpacking key transformation Concepts logic models systems change and then state of the district so let's look at the first one so in

024terms of design thinking the idea here is that we would across the five Committee of the whole meetings in the year take a concept that is really Central to how we're thinking about Reinventing and redesigning the district and kind of go slow and say here's our thinking about it and engage with the board around these questions so you can see that tonight um Dr uh coliner and I will be presenting on logic models which is a a driving idea of how we're thinking about change in terms of school Improvement and then you can see these other areas um in which and sometimes we could also have other experts or people come in to kind of elevate the conversation about these topics so then so let me pause so this is the kind of the pause

025and ask a question to the board slide here that I've dropped in the idea here is you know just recognizing first that the board just like uh Gavin said might have questions to say what do you mean by that or to just seek understanding of the work and also that we understand that your questions inform the monitoring of the policy and resource allocations that are the the role of the board and um when we when you ask us those questions and we engage with them together we understand that in the middle we're getting more alignment between the policy and what happens in the practice of the disc so that's the way we're thinking about that so given that um and what I just shared any questions or anything about this kind of design thinking and

026this unpacking of the the concepts and there are five more stop points so don't worry if you don't have a question this one and of course we can always go back as well okay okay so then the second um strand is school Improvement logic models uh this one the kind of the subtext is what are Oak Park the 97 teams learning and so here what we would have is each of our 10 schools would across the over the course of the five meetings would come to a board meeting to and have an opportunity to make visible kind of what they're learning about those changes in adult practice and how and how they're thinking about changing learning conditions and the idea here is how do we when we design learning conditions and change them for a

027football cohort that that would lead to better core instruction for all students uh every day and this is kind of the concept of Universal Design for Learning in action and so the idea here is it would give up give the board an opportunity to dialogue directly with the educators that are closest to our students experience and that that knowledge and understanding of what the work is looking like can better inform your policy leadership so again here I'll pause if there's anything I can go back to any points so I do have a quick question with that so seeing that we would be seeing each of the 10 schools um what I would say and I don't think this is the intent what we wouldn't want us to have the same presentation 10 times with just

028that slightly different flavor on it um my understanding is and I just wanted to make sure that this is a correct Takeaway on this is that there's a kind of a theme or a focal point for each of those presentations or how are you thinking about those yeah I mean I think by by definition the work is going to be different because it's the first time we're doing it and if um so and it's very much embedded in the thinking and the unique context of each school so I think just by the task itself will naturally um from it will naturally emerge unique presentations if there is a need to be more deliberate about like can you present on this and can you present on that I think that that is another overlay we could

029introduce although if the board is all right with it because this is their first time through you it might be good to say to teams here's the interest what's your what do you want to share that gets at this question and this interest of understanding how practical what you're learning about changing practice and how that impacts student experience so I you know um that would be my recommendation is to allow the schools this first year to identify what they want to share given that umbrella but if the board would like us to be more deliberate we can uh we can't ask them to to present on specific things they're just building their logic models right now so we haven't even looked at them yet to know how they might be different does that make sense

030yeah I have a question that may be better for when we have that discussion um and it's it's sort of kind of like Nancy's question but less about the presentation of it and more about the substance which is as schools are developing their own logic models and we also have this district-wide commitment to Excellence like how does the sort of individual School kind of uniqueness and the sort of ideas of what will serve all of our students like how do you balance the kind of district-wide and the school specific yeah those are the kinds of questions we're asking ourselves as well and so I think it's great because if I go back a couple slides here um this design thinking the logic models that's some of what we're going to talk about tonight is here's

031our best thinking about what we're trying to do here yeah and um and and how we're looking to try to balance that extent that our focus is on the standards and on competency that then becomes the you know the universal bar for Success right and then it's about um how our different schools um you know getting to that bar and what are the how are we um clear and fixed on the outcomes that we're looking for and then providing the flexibility for schools to determine how to get there but a lot of that is exactly a love that you asked that question because that's what we're trying to think about here is these aren't I can't just kind of give you like here's six sources on that um to answer that question um because our

032we are designing yeah yeah and I also um we have our assistant superintendents here tonight but I'm I'm just guessing that having an assistant superintendent for middle schools and assistant superintendent for elementary schools helps make kind of connections and through lines across schools is that also part of the kind of thinking that that is that is part of the hope is that seamless kind of experience but to be um just to be fair and honest it's like yeah that will take some time for that to emerge but we have set it up so that yes I mean if we think about what might happen let's see what these logic models look like what we probably might need to find like okay we need to redesign that template maybe it needs to look like this to

033you know or we need to introduce some new ways for schools to in share their thinking with each other but as that process happens we're creating more learning and more Synergy and more alignment right because we're talking about the right things being tight which is the standards and the outcomes but then saying what are you learning about how to do that what are you learning how to do that and that's kind of the the vision eventually but it will take some time uh for that to emerge but yes it's that it's that balance yeah um so that's the logic models and and the intention there um and then the third strand is what we're calling kind of now next systems change and so this idea that we're kind of going from a current state to

034a future state in some key areas of work and so we're in the process of mapping those out on this slide here you can see some of them even tonight's safety presentation we're moving from a current state of what we have in terms of our safety systems to a future state of um you know more alignment and Clarity and drills and systems around our safety uh processes and so you'll see some of that work and the way that we're shifting from current state to Future State and over time we'll be even more explicit about what are the metrics that we're looking at and how are we measuring what is and what is going to be and talking about that change process so also in terms of community responsive schools the board has seen some draft

035communication protocols we're really thinking about how to use the let's talk tool to hold ourselves accountable to make sure people's questions get answered again these are things that are going to take some time but what's our current state of clarity and systems around communication and what's our future State and then talking to you and sharing transparently that process in terms of data governance reporting and automation we have a number of areas there again where our systems have gaps in them or we see opportunities to use technology differently and so the teams will be thinking about how to move from now to Next in that area in terms of employee culture and Clarity we for example don't have a currently have an employee handbook that's something where we want to say we don't have a handbook

036and now we do have a handbook right um and also in terms of the employee culture there are other things where for example exit interviews we want to capture the learning from exit interviews to help inform the culture these are examples of some of the now next processes there and then in terms of out of school opportunities right now we don't really have a system-wide picture of what those opportunities look like who has access to them and so we're in the process of mapping and inventory what that looks like as well so those are now next systems updates and so let me pause here as well I can clarify anything about those so for a question for both the now net systems changes as well as the logic models I um can we be sure

037to have um I know what now looks like and what next will look like but we can we also be sure to um as much as we can at timing on there so we understand this is where we are this is where we're going but when do we get there or even with the logic models like it's it's evolutionary but I I need to I would like to have a better sense of if this is the change that you're going to make because you've identified a problem that change will take place X or Y so that I I can follow along better with the progression yeah I think that's right and kind of um and it's not so much of a and I know you I know you're not suggesting this not so much of

038a light switch of liking up here it is and you know it's not here and it's here but kind of what are some of those benchmarks along the way what are the some of the things that we're what we're looking at and I think thinking about it in that way of like what's the project plan to get us from one place to another is is the way that we're talking about foreign and then uh the last strand here is the state of the district and so we kind of have um you know the Illinois report card and publicly available data so opportunities to reflect on that I've put kind of three um these are exactly the way that they appear on the Illinois state report card is uh teacher and administrator data student data and

039then District environment data and so what we intend to do here is to take snapshots of the publicly available data and to kind of have you know compelling discussions about what they mean and um and and kind of unpacking those for the purpose of saying where are we as a district as it relates to publicly available data so those are the um the four strands um I have a question um and um in the equity policy one of the things it talks about is sort of an annual kind of plan and report on like what is our progress towards achieving our Equity goals and it I think consistent with what you're describing here is intended to be an opportunity to assess how things are working think about where we need to go changes we need

040to make that kind of stuff do you envision I know the state of the district is an external thing but I'm wondering how you see that kind of intersecting with if it does or if it's a different thing like how you envision like that kind of state of equity sort of piece fitting in yeah I think it's embedded throughout and one of the things we have started to do and can do as we do these presentations is to show how the different areas there's the implementation section of the equity policy items a through I and they're actually embedded in this work and so we can be more explicit about showing like when the schools are presenting on their logic models it's you know it in the way that we've constructed them around local student cohort

041experiences which is really thinking about the students that are furthest away from um that from that um achievement bar that we have for all students we are embedding our awareness around Equitable access when we talk about um you know the community response of schools where we are embedding that understanding of stakeholder engagement in the process so I I think um it's embedded throughout and we can explicitly identify yeah yep so it's not a separate report um and then so our next steps we're going to kind of um questions asked here any other questions that the board would like to ask and then we will kind of map out and have already started to do this but really start to map out and um sy24 Committee of the whole schedule so that the school-based teams as

042well as District staff and the board know kind of what's coming when and then of course just holding ourselves accountable to kind of try out this new space to to show how do we engage in next Edge learning to to have really good you know governance and shared leadership and one thing to flag on the schedule is we'll send it around to folks and if there are questions or things that aren't on the schedule that folks want to suggest as Community the whole topics Etc like it'll be a collective process so all right thank you thank you all right uh any questions before we move on or comments was there somewhere like would it have been embedded in um one of the topics for us to to again take a look at where we are

043with Equitable practices or our Equity policy and how we are measuring ourselves up against that policy and do not yep I think it would be embedded throughout um so the equity policy the a through I kind of the implementation areas um each of the different strands that we just talked about touches on different aspects of that Equity implementation policy and so yes we can be sure and maybe we can make it a a pattern that before we start the committee of the whole uh presentations every presentation can start with saying we see this body of work as connected to these areas of the equity implementation plan so we're explicitly making that thing no we can do that yeah as a board member I I don't know that I have a handle on how well we

044are implementing the policy we crafted but then also does that policy need Revision in either things that are missing or that are obsolete or you know I just feel like we need to I feel like as a board I would like for us to operate a little more closely to that policy than we have in and that's not shade to anybody I just think back out it's just I wasn't there wasn't yeah daggers or anything I just feel like that's our that's a big charge for us and and I don't feel like I'm I have a handle on how well we're doing with that chart yeah I so appreciate that and I think that that's the right balance for us to hit is exactly what you said is as the as the governing body that

045leads through policy especially the equity policy we you're absolutely right we are held accountable and those are the exact right questions is as you describe this body of work help me to see where you're seeing the connection to the policy and then for you to uh you know to make sure that you see it that way or to um you know to challenge us to make sure that we are reflecting the intent of the policy work that that's exactly what we want to see happen other questions or comments if you look pensive Colleen um okay so nothing else we will uh we've got our community and school safety presentation and discussion yes great and so we're going to welcome uh Dr Felicia Starks and we have some members of the community as well thank you

046I've got deputies yes partners are like what all right uh welcome uh do you see Jacobson and Patrick pope from oprf and I think um Cindy Guerrera was going to be here but couldn't be here and so thank you for joining us tonight and Patrick Patrick okay thank you well I I got it now thank you sorry about that um right now okay great well welcome everyone um the title of this presentation uh as you see here evolving our partnership oh Parks try agency effort to balance the community's calls for school safety and racial Equity so this is a um actually the third round of presentations since last fall to really um you know make sure that we're coming together around the intergovernmental agreement last fall it was um Greg Johnson superintendent D200 Village manager

047Kevin Jackson and myself that did a first round at all three boards we took questions and then we did a second round at all three boards to release support and have the IGA signed by all of the agencies and so one of the things that we committed to was coming back to kind of share out how things are going what we're learning and so for that we're here and we uh and we welcome all of you so this next slide gives um an agenda for how the time tonight is structured so you can see that there are three main sections here just some background to refresh everyone in terms of how we got here in terms of the timeline The Guiding values and the Big Ideas in the IGA and then in terms of implementation

048some of the um aspects around community outreach questions around the law the presence of law enforcement in schools and some of the positive outcomes as well as some of our next steps so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Starks thank you uh Dr Shah I just want to thank the board for allowing us to be here this evening to provide the safety update and my agency partners are here uh for support they won't really uh they will be participating in the uh in the presentation but like last time when the agency leaders went to each other's boards that's what we're doing again this time okay so I'll start um the presentation by just giving an overview and a background of how we got here um and the um developing of the

049IGA so this slide shows a timeline of the IGA implementation and things started uh back in the summer of 2022 when the leaders from the village the police department and both school districts got together and started to meet to discuss ways that we could strengthen our partnership between the agencies and then in September and October of 2022 the agency leaders began to collaborate and develop the IGA and then respectively took the first round of the IGA draft to the boards for review and then in November of 2022 the final IGA was taken to each of the agency boards and each board did approve the IGA which then LED in December of 2022 of the formation of the tri-agency work Group which uh meets monthly and uh that group consists of leaders from the village the

050police department and the two school districts and we really talk about school safety and then reviewing the the IGA to make sure that we are implementing accordingly each of the school districts are adhering to the state law while providing a safe and Equitable learning environment for all of our students one of the key areas of focus is reestablishing positive relationships and consistent communication between officers School staff Administration students and their families I think you're doing good so far as the triagency group began to meet we were inspired by the work and training of the I love you guys Foundation which you'll hear more about in part two of the safety presentation so it was really important uh to the tragedies work group to ensure that we develop foundational values and beliefs as we began our

051work we wanted to have an emphasis on the physical and emotional safety of our students really making sure that that was a priority area for us we also um aim to develop a comprehensive approach um to school safety and also really wanted to Leverage The expertise in all of our agencies as we worked on together on maintaining a safe and healthy school community in addition we wanted to ensure open community find the relationship department and focus on a holistic systems-based approach to school safety and emergency preparedness training as we um began our work we wanted to be intentional about ensuring that our work was done through the racial Equity lens to accomplish that when we had our meetings we really wanted to ensure that there were staff members who had a seat at the table

052whose daily work focused on diversity equity and inclusion so just a reminder um these are the key provisions of the IGA it ensures compliance that the district and the police department are legal obligations concerning the sharing of information between our agencies it designates uh which individuals between the two agencies would be privy to that information it also establishes clear limitations on the procedures for handling uh criminal activity and police matters within the school building and lastly it ensures compliance with the requirement under the state law that Enforcement Officers serve on the district's credit assessment teams in November of 2022 after each of the boards approved the implementation of the IGA and then we began with the answer work so we wanted to ensure that our stakeholders were aware of the purpose and the implications of

053the IGA so our communication efforts included developing a comprehensive FAQ we also had a one-page in Surge in February of 2023 and the op FYI and we had local media coverage as well so um we are aware that one of the primary concerns of the IGA was how our students would be impacted with having law enforcement officers in our schools and I want to reiterate that this IGA in no way promotes law enforcement presence and District 97 or District 200 schools rather it ensures that appropriate procedures are in place for instances when there needs to be cooperation between the school districts and the police department in our schools there are three primary reasons why law enforcement would be in our schools one is to address matters of Public School Safety those instances can exclude violence

054weapons medical emergency fires Etc another reason why police might be on site is for our annual lockdown drills that schools are required to hold and the police of per state law are required to be there to observe prior to a lockdown drill being scheduled at the school level the principals will send out specific communication to parents with the exact date of a live drown down drill and earlier this month in our news from d-97 Amanda did put overall information as a point of awareness for the community regarding lockdown drills uh the third reason would be uh threat assessment teams um because the police officers will be on site when the credit assessment team meetings are held at each School so beyond that as we look for further opportunities to strengthen our partnership um again looking

055through our actions with an equity lens we are asking ourselves some some questions for future planning a couple of them are how would we engage in new practices with the police department that are grounded in our commitment to racial equity and also what does police presence look like outside of the incidents and drills and these are questions that the try Agency Group is is working through again as we look to expand and enhance our partnership so in addition to the technical aspects of implementing on the IGA we also have some positive outcomes that have come from this work one of them is a repairing their relationships that were impacted following the removal of the students officers in 2020 we have the monthly try agency meetings that consists of leaderships between the village District 97 and

056District 200. we also have weekly track agency safety meetings and those meetings as myself um Cindy the director of campus safety at oprf and also Sergeant love from the police department and the rapid to the left was developed by the trade agency work group and that um kind of um depicts the parameters in which our our discussions are guided when we meet in the weekly try agency meeting we also have the um information about assessment teams and you'll hear in the next safety presentation about specific training that our safety teams went through last year and we'll be also participating in this year and uh our work focuses on the increased alignment and school safety and emergency response protocols across the agencies um okay so moving forward so as we move forward um we recognize that

057the implementation of the IGA is complex and that it will require ongoing communication and collaboration between the agencies so as we look forward for future planning we will continue to have the try agency monthly meetings at during those meetings we will continue to review um IGA implementation we will also continue to discuss and develop guidelines and protocols for law enforcement presence in our schools we will be implementing this year let's tabletop exercises on in those groups so we can work through some scenarios we will also continue our work with emergency preparedness the clear present danger reporting protocols I know District 200 staff already had training our training is coming up um I'll later uh in November I I believe with the with the principles and we will be working on developing protocols so everyone has

058your understanding and guided expectations and then we will also look for um more opportunities for Community engagement around the IGA and I thought hi thank you uh at this time we'll take yes before you take questions all right I wanna um so similar to Venus's last remarks it will be super helpful to have some type of timeline and next steps on some of this because we view so much and I think sometimes things fall through the cracks and we're like whatever happened to that like we don't care back so if there is a I know that Kevin you just mentioned like the calendar if there's a calendar where we can revisit this um month or so to see like where we are um but I just I want to be mindful of all the work

059that you've put forth with this but also making sure that it's on our radar so that you're not just I know my job I do work no one ever asked about it again I'm like I did all this work so um if we could have like a just a timeline of when we can expect to see some updates and also I would say more specifically um that third bullet between the guidelines and protocols for law enforcement presence in Oak Park schools um one of my concerns would be an original IGA and overall it made sense and I love that everyone has come together that you have the regular meetings that really I think you're working this through with um inequity lens on it in a very very good way a very solid way um but

060what will that those guidelines also include concerns where students need to be questioned by law enforcement like are we looking at protocols in that way as well because that was one of my the devil's in the details on some of these and um so is that going to be part of the work that's coming that um every reasonable I've heard will be an A2 to no contact parents first um and so we would definitely interrupt like that in schools protocols I would say for us um in District 97 as I look back at all of the police calls to the to the school I'd rather than wrestling by someone else there was never an instance for us from November to even today where police interviewed a student on campus that just has not happened we

061are very you know cognizant of that aspect um not saying well ever but in another situation but we really take the steps to ensure that doesn't happen I had a kind of the same question may be slightly differently which is uh or broader maybe is that the IGA um has a few places where there's discretion in this on the district's part one of them is when to reach out to law enforcement to help with searches when they reach out to help out with interviews and then there's this notion of reasonable efforts to contact have parents present for interviews and I know when we first discussed it one of the questions we asked for for follow-up is is just what you were saying what are those guidelines for how District staff exercise that discretion so we

062know that how it happens isn't just dependent on what teacher it happens to be or what administrator it happens to be is that something does that exist in any form yet or is that something that's cylinder construction or what are the things that because we heard that you know loud and clear so one of the procedures that we implemented is that if there's ever a situation where the police need to be contacted that I am contact um so that we could talk through um you know the situations and so we have done that um which is um led to as I mentioned like about the law enforcement officers aren't there um questioning the students and police have been very Cooperative um in those instances so that is that is something um and I can be

063found um and the principles no so they call me and say I've got this you know situation happening um sometimes we do have to call the police sure um but they they know that they've reached out and in every instance um it leaves up until now from November to now they've reached out to me they've reached out you know to the parent depending on the matter of school safety we may have to notify the police person that they're on their way but then we call um you know the parents so that um is something that we will like formalize but you know that it is you know in writing but that is something that the principals are all aware of and and do you have like when that happens do you have kind of in

064your in your mind or somewhere like well this is where we notify this is where we might ask for a police assistance like what what those kind of different levels of need are yeah we talked through that and there have been times we've been on phone and I'm like oh we know because it is something that um there are certain um instances in the IGA where we are like required you know and so we kind of like walk walk walk through that um and and together we're like you know making a a determination um because we want to make sure that we can fight with the law um and we also want to make sure that we um provide safe um for our students so where we can you know we handle things on our

065own um sometimes in some of the instances um it's been a matter of student safety or like I said it wasn't us that called um showed up to the school it may have been a different agency um that that call to ask for assistance for you know from someone else is there a timeline are you going back to kind of marry Sheree's question with Gavin's question is there a timeline for the internal d97 implementation procedures to kind of be more codified um I will say that um as a try agency birth group we are working through them because as much as we can we want to be in alignment and so those are the some of the agenda topics that are on um on the agenda as you can imagine it's a very rich discussion

066because there are some differences a little differently in your high school and in your elementary school so um we have to bat you on the exact time I mean we are actively um wanting to get that done sooner rather than later um with those so I should say having a timeline like as you come up with the test yeah last question I have but if you have one go ahead I know you go ahead oh okay I was just gonna ask um you mentioned in the slide like doing the IGA implementation review are there particular like questions or metrics or things that are guiding how you do that review some of them it like when I talked about the like the tabletop you know activity so there's some um instances in in the IGA for

067example outside of tabletop so I'll be making sure that um with the IGA mentions that risk goes exchange information about what who's the contact in each agency um and they've been an emergency so we make sure that we have that done um there's um information in the in the IGA that talks about you know the officers being a threat assessment team so we want to make sure that we have those are more some of the kind of technical details ensuring that as we're looking at things I'll wait we gotta make sure we're looking at this through our racial Equity lens um and then there are some other you know techno aspects for like for example like what we talked about um you know X situation happens and so um that the police you know have

068to be called then what happens when they get there um and so we're kind of working through those things again very different in the high school than Elementary School those are those tabletop exercises um so that um again we have a common understanding of as much as we can how we are going to handle the situation um to ensure again the safety of our students but also that we're complying with the law um excuse me so um first question is well another question I have rather is um can you tell us a little bit more about how you plan to engage the community which is listed on the slide in particular I know for black and brown communities this is area of concern and so I want to make sure that there are efforts to

069include folks in the conversation with any things that we at the table or this table or the committee may not be thinking about people who've had experiences so that we can learn from those mistakes or oh I didn't know this incident happened how could they have gone differently work in progress um something that again in the tri-agency meetings we are bouncing around ideas do we have like a community Forum you know so we're we're brainstorming ideas about how to engage the community so we're open to suggestions but at this time you're still in the planet so you know there was a survey you know we're kind of playing around with some different ideas uh my second question is I noticed that the park district is not part of this and I'm wondering especially as it

070relates to the new community center where d97 students will be um are we making sure that I know we can't make them do anything but at least there are some conversations about how these rules are applicable if the police have to something spills over from school to the community center how are we then reacting to that are these rules applicable or is it like Park District grounds we don't have anything to do with it that include the library in that as well yeah too maybe we can um I I would say that this IGA is specific to these three in the governmental agencies and I would not believe that the rules would carry over to those other agencies but that's not to say that they wouldn't be interested in potentially similar similar type of arrangement

071I just I think that's important because our students are not just in the buildings and a lot of times um when people were bullying me and I had nothing to do with it um things that spill over from you know the Middle School to the library there's a fight that started it never starts at the library it never starts at the community center it starts at school and it spills over so I think having uh both those entities at the table would be really important um and then finally just I hear a lot of we're working on it which I can respect and understand but I just again want to make sure that maybe this is put on an agenda monthly or as their updates that are being like okay we're definitely going to do

072this that we're getting something because this is really important it was really contentious when it first came up it was really contentious to move sros from our schools so I definitely don't want to read about something in the paper um and that'd be the first time that we're here what would be um I think the the questions around the kind of the regular updates um as well as um the idea of the procedures being finalized and then the community forums what would the in what way would the board like to get those updates and just so we can be responsive to that request what would you envision that being something kind of a in writing kind of update or a presentation update or what what would you envision well I don't want to speak for

073the board as a whole but I think just after they've met kind of similar to how we do our committees like we met today this is what we talked about like what are the high level things if there's a decision to be made um I would like to you know weigh in on that because I think that we all are super passionate about this so that would be my my thought but I'm certainly not the authority yep so maybe kind of um when we have the trade agency meetings just a follow-up to the board like here's what we talked about and here's what we're thinking about next that kind of update I think that makes sense I think also as like the internal guidelines get put into place it would be great to to see

074those and then um it sounds like so far in the school year we've been pretty good in terms of um you know interviewing and searches and stuff but to the extent that uh it gets put into practice uh and we we need to do those things I think it would be I don't think we need to talk about it at the board table every time it happens I don't think we have the bandwidth to do that but it would be great to just have a sense of if we're seeing it in action and and what our sense of how it's working out is I also don't speak for the homework I do have a clarifying question which makes me think further so you mentioned like what internal process are I may begin reporting wrong um

075I'm tired um internal processes are like I'm just thinking like if we have like written guidelines for cures when we reach out to the police here's here are the efforts we'll make to contact parents before doing interviews that kind of stuff where the IGA gives the district itself the discretion to figure out when to do those things and so my understanding is as a district we will be developing some kind of guidance around how to do that and I would be interested not I mean this is implementation stuff I don't think it's for us to approve or disapprove it but I think I would I would be interested in seeing it and having an opportunity to yeah so that was the point I was going to say like I don't think we need to be

076on the weeds and like every single thing but I do think there are certain categories like we want to have some input because I think like the first time I was like wow like this is a lot and I we had a very robust conversation at this table um so I do think that at certain versions of this are near completion or like I would like to have a conversation about what that looks like because I don't want to say well how do we miss that we didn't see that um so that was what I was gonna get into yeah well maybe one of the things we can do when we get the committee the whole schedule out is just think about like when it would be productive to have another kind of deeper conversation

077on this and in the meantime just what folks would be interested in getting updated on too yeah I think the categories there seem to be um kind of the data around um you know what's happening um where are we with the guidance um documents where are we with the Outreach plans and then you know what's a check-in on how our other agency partners the park district and the library you know just even if there's not a governing aspect but just to check in to say here's where we are just to even inform them of our work maybe just a proactive approach do those sound like the right four categories that would be helpful to an update I think I have a clarified question so prior to this IGA the other IGA was if I'm right

078about 10 or 20 years old and no one had the 1999 one yeah no one had was it 1999 I think yeah oh yeah but so it is we were implementing it I guess as is but I do know that there was a huge lack of communication specifically between d97 D200 and the police department now that you have a regular Cadence of meetings are you finding that um that things are have changed and or in the case of an emergency that because although it's a work in progress that because you have an idea of what's going on and you talk to one another things run a little bit more smoothly when there is a need for a police presence at each other's either on the schools meaning deep 200 or 13. um based on a

079petition 97 I'd say yes and based on the conversations and the IGA work group meetings I would say um yes also we um really are making efforts to streamline our policies and procedures where we can practice without seeing procedures where we can um so um to so that everybody kind of is aware of how things operate inside of each other's buildings like you know the chief often says like when we come into your schools um you know we are there and we want to take direction from you regarding you know how we engage and so um access a little different in high school the students are older but those are the kinds of things that we talk about those are kinds of things that come up in the tabletop exercises um there may be some

080practices that we have in place that you know future Congress going oh okay I never thought you know thought about that and the vice versa so when I say like things are involved I mean yes I make these agendas and Dr Sean knows this these agendas and we have like four topics on the agenda and we're still at topic one because I mean it really goes deep you know in the conversation um because we're really appealing back the layers of of the onion to um you know talk about these topics that are there that are so important so um from my perspective I don't know um effective okay no I would say that yes these the the regular meanings of regular communication is definitely helping us with regards to implementation of the igas across the

081board uh you know it's it's always good to touch base and you know share information on on what's Happening and how we're working through these things and obviously with the weekly meetings too between myself and Cindy and Sergeant love just I mean it could be something you know as basic as we met last time I said you know hey on Monday the 25th like we don't have school just remind you so you might see a lot of students out in the community because when she's like oh yeah they have our calendar but it's like oh yeah I think we talked about um you know the um was it Oktoberfest or whatever that happened this weekend I think and just kind of something just uh to to be aware of so those little tidbits of of

082information just to put on everybody's radar are uh I have found to be very helpful I'm sure that never requires a pleasure around one in the morning on Sunday oh wow I think you know that on that positive outcome slide um where there's that diagram um uh yes this one you know just to Felicia's point about you know taking the time like even drafting this I remember we spent a lot of time as a tri-agency group thinking how does this need to be structured this Monday check-in so that we're very thoughtful about what's appropriate to share and that D200 student and you know if there's any D200 students any d97 that we're not sharing information in any way that is problematic but so just to the point of that Felicia was making really taking the

083time to um kind of carefully consider the collaboration and um the values any other questions comments thank you all for joining us tonight and thanks for listening thank you discussion now I'll have more friends come up are you saying you're here you get to leave but Felicia gets his day so thank you so thank you for being here so um at this time we wanted to share um an example of a safety training that we provide to our staff on Institute days and then um two subsequent trainings um for the district office staff and we're just going to run through his presentation with you you got to get it exactly as he gave it to our staff so the presentation is presented by the operational excellence team which is by Seth Michael Amanda and Sheila

084and Amanda Sheila I'm here tonight and then we let um Patrick and Fernando's Title Loan too from the court Excellence team to help us deliver the safety Readiness presentation to our staff yeah come on thank you all right um I I am punting and taking Amanda's side um oh yes first slide um so um as Amanda would say uh you know um into in today's presentation we will be providing some foundational information regarding school um Readiness planning um that we are implementing in District 97 and uh today would not be the last time that um this information will be shared it really is intended to be an introduction uh some safety efforts and planning that we are doing the school year and um as you listen to the presentation um certainly we want to hear

085from you because today is we have an unlimited amount of time so this is really one way information sharing but we do want to hear from you and English your input so um we encourage everyone to use uh let's talk to provide any questions or feedback around our presentation but also around safety planning in general foreign agenda we will cover uh three topics um the first one is what we know industry 97 and then we will review some safety principles and expectations and then go into information um from the I love you guys foundation and information regarding their uh standard response protocol I do want to say as we share this information about the standard response protocol this information for those of you who worked in schools is not new you uh that there are

086things that you're very familiar with however what we want to do is standardize the language that we use around emergency preparedness and standard response profile okay um we will um Begin by sharing uh what it is that we know about creating um safe schools and with that I'll turn things over to Patrick and Fernando where's my Michael so one of the first things we highlighted we wanted to make sure that um the staff understood that positive relationships with students will make our schools safe and so we just wanted to make sure that this year our goal is to make sure we're creating safe spaces for our students to grow academically where they feel safe and they have this sense of belonging and so one of the things we really wanted to highlight with this quote

087is just making sure that staff understand it starts with you and really creating that safe environment for students from there actually we took time to also explain to the staff about importance of research work that we do together and there's no such thing as a Playbook of all the emergencies that can happen racism will happen whatever you're not even thinking about or it's just about how we actually learn together use the same language and train ourselves to build capacity to address those things that might happen around and emergencies so when we think about building safety capacity I want to emphasize that it is an ongoing process um as I mentioned before this is information that will be shared again in another format with staff and uh as a team and as a district what we

088are doing the episode we are making it is focused on continuously working to enhance safety across all of our district 97 buildings and I will also add with our Community Partners as well so this slide kind of gives an overview of some things we've done in the past and some things that we are in the process of working on so I'll just pick a few um topics to highlight um we are working on um ensuring that all of our buildings uh conduct the required emergency safety drills last year we um the threat assessment teams went through sea stack training level one and level two and see stack stands for a comprehensive threat assessment guidelines for schools and for those new members of the photosystem team this year they will also be going through the c-stag

089level one and level two training and the purpose of that is again to develop a common understanding of protocols for how to respond to potential threats inside of our schools we also entered into a partnership with West 40 to help support us in our safety operation um some things that we are implementing this year is the training and implementation of the I love you guys standard response protocol we are also working to develop a district-wide emergency response uh flip chart and we also are working towards establishing consistent visitor management procedures across our buildings if you all have been into multiple buildings you know that every school has some form of visitor management um but um it's not the same and we want to make sure that we look at tools of resources to make sure

090that the process is the same no matter which school you go into and it's the same for parents community members that uh that might come in so that everyone expects um the same thing when they enter our buildings okay um at this point we want to share information with you regarding safety principles and expectations that we have for our staff so for uh safety principle one as we talked about this share with our staff and our buildings here at the central as well so staff members monitor uh safety of our students are clearly visible as members of the district team wherever that might be whether it's a recess whether it's for school after school during the day whatever that might look like a couple different pieces along with that so clearly visible as a staff

091member that they're wearing the badge at all times so when you're walking around you're able to see who they are and that they are at District staff members regardless of you or work [Music] sorry so we're walking around buildings that people may not know us um at the first time or new people of the staff that they can clearly identify that we're a staff member uh we are wherever we're at but then before and after school lunch supervisors they're wearing their safety vests so they're clearly identifiable who to go to sport maybe a fifth grade teacher or whatever and they don't a kindergarten student second grade students who may not know them but they'll be able to clearly identify them because of that dust that they're there to support them they're moving around the space

092actively supervising when they're out of that space and then uh during the game during that supervisory time that they have walkie-talkies and that's conversations that we've had with the buildings to ensure that they have their functioning they're working they have enough of them and that's a lot of conversations and food should have been working with building time so far so as we talked about principle number one about our staff and what we're expecting around some of those kind of practices there we think about that for visitors so our buildings must remains secure throughout the day and visitors when they come that there is a purpose around students and how are we centering that and focused on the supporting that environment for our kids we know that there are events and things that take place in

093our buildings but for the most part really the main purpose when they're coming in to support what's going on with students um all visitors says Felicia kind of talked about streamlining having a consistent process um and continue to do that throughout this year uh but there is a visitor log I know in every building again some of the questions and how they do that uh may vary but uh being able to ensure that they are showing ID and if they're walking around and that they have a deserve badge so again if I'm in the building or another teacher's in the building they're maybe on the third floor and they can clearly identify if they don't have a badge on we create some consistent and comfortable questions like hey how can I help you to then

094streamline that conversation to um I see that you don't have a badge have you checked into the office are they aware that that you're coming in or wherever you're supporting and then we can direct them back down to there if they haven't done that we ensure that that they're there um did you say consistent uncomfortable questions consistent and comfortable like having to streamline the conversation yes um and then also that all our exterior doors must be closed and locked at all times so again we've secured the building and we really direct everybody to that main location the front door so they can have that visitor log that process that they're doing and really talking with their abilities make sure we're not property doors again as we can secure the building that way for our staff

095for our students too oh that's me again so um board policy 810 us to believe that there are only two people who are otherwise to speak initially on behalf of the school district and that is a superintendent and the designated communication sleeves which would be Amanda or uh Rebecca so um the principle of the safety x-ray principle is that during a crisis all media inquiries must be sent to the designated District communication leader so that is Amanda and that staff members may not communicate with the media on behalf of the district um and and so um with this as we've shared this information with staff like staff have asked about um you know during a situation like you know so probably like an email like what do I say what do I do so I'm

096working with Amanda on some um talking points just general high-level talking points that may be applicable to any situation just to answer those initial phone calls from parents and give like front office staff who are using first to encounter parents some talking points to ensuring that your children are safe and working on a communication will come out so that again that consistent message that will come from each building in the event of any any emergency out of the situation goodness squid okay so um esperando alluded to earlier uh we use common um training and language and visuals in our response to emergency situations and so for the safety announcement number four all staff members are here to support staff and student safety through standard response protocols from the I love you guys Foundation mostly while

097being empowered to exercise in the moment options all district 97 staff members will attend designated safety trainees participate in emergency drills and review shared resources and materials um and then this is so important that we want to make sure that this information gets to all staff that again we have had subsequent trainings for people who may have missed a training initially um the first time we also have already lined up with West 40 for them to come back in and provide more in-depth I love you guys foundations to our staff they're also coming in to talk with our principals and we have um the um other trainees lined up you know for our staff so this is something that we're rolling out and one thing that I have to explain is that this is a

098multi-year process so because we can't carrying all the training you know into one years old will continually be uh built upon so that we um built the capacity of our staff to respond to emergencies tables looks like so this is I'll be I love you guys um foundation so the I love you guys Foundation is a organization that is committed to providing um safety resources to schools um people who sit on the board of the LA guys Foundation are people who are law enforcement Personnel uh people who have themselves been through um large um emergency situations um in either work setting other school setting and uh we just um for us here addition 97 and also to try to see a work group really um were in tune to and in agreement with their mission

099which is to restore and protect the joy of Youth through educational programs and positive actions and collaborations with families schools Community organizations and government and one thing that we like about the elevated guys Foundation it is not only resources for schools but also resources to share with party agencies so they were all in alignment because any bit of an emergency qualified from the police department to come in and so sharing this information with those agencies as well so that again everybody's on the same page on streamlining um process and so for the standard response protocols there are five protocols which are hold secure locked down evacuate and shelter in place and this is where um when I was sharing before about these actions are not new they just have some of the new names to

100them we have been you know Sheltering in place we used to call like hard and soft lockdown we don't use that terminology anymore we would use um Sheltering places so um different names but um pretty much the same concept I also say that um posters have been ordered for schools with information about these uh the standard response protocols with these images so we also plan on sharing it with parents of these images are also being printed on um these what do we call these ID these hard ID cards um so that the the staff have them in front of them um so as and we also want to share with our community uh which um information um has gone out as we do our safety um campaign for this month so that if it was

101someone anyone in the community comes into a school that you see the lockdown holster on the door and kind of have an understanding like nobody's coming in nobody's going out you know something has happened um and um no we are um instead of directed by the situation but again that is something that we are um planning on rolling out we also uh will be um in the next month or so in after what I'll be working with a group of teachers also to develop some kid-friendly um I like a lesson plan to share with students so that they um you know have access to this information as well that's let's work I'll do a little bit in the future um okay next slide yes yes um this is very easy to understand is there a

102plan and you're saying you're going to roll it out to students which are most important but is there also like are each of the principals gonna then roll this out to the families so that they have an understanding of what's going on do you have an idea of how you plan on doing that just I mean just asking so um the first sharing of information again came from the district level and Amanda was embedding some of the information I believe is in the most recent um newsletter that went out as part of our um safety campaign so that that's level one um then my next step again is to make sure that you know the teachers have their training to get into two of the students uh in my um District safety team committee meeting

103which means twice a month at first meeting was today this will be on probably the next agenda to kind of talk about principles on rolling out the information to parents kind of how we're going to to do that so stem process oh to this slide um so this slide so with each of the standard response protocols um there are specific instructions that come with each profile and this will be I'm shown to you there's a short video so you'll it'll be more clear to you regarding The Specific Instructions so in the uh you'll see this in the video so let's say that um there is a lockdown so you hear the principal or someone come across the income income that they'll say you know locked down like lots lights locks out of sight and those

104competed again locked down Lots Lights Out of Sight and so with just those few words then everyone has a shared understanding of what's supposed to happen and the reason why we want to share with parents and even our communities because there might be visitors in our building when we have a lockdown so at least they've had some introduction to our language and know that you know something has happened and they need to unfollow the directions all right um and then again um so after each action again as I just shared there's all a specific directive um that is um followed um regarding the um specific standard response protocol and then next up is so this is the video of the video is he shows everybody's kind of geared towards students um but um if it

105gets the message across um I think it goes a little bit more in depth regarding on the standard response protocols stuff important things the adults don't like to talk about but if things happen at school I need to have a plan and I need to know that the adults have a plan so I'm going to talk about the standard response protocol it's all about these simple actions the first action is hold stay in your classroom clear the hallways the second action is secure get inside we all feel a little better when my third action is yeah the fourth action is evacuate a location will be announced fifth action is shelter the hazard and safety strategy will be announced so let's get started and learn about hold [Music] something is happening in the halls and the

106school needs to get it stored why is this stuff important there are things the adults don't like to talk about but if things happen at school I need to have a plan and I need to know that the adults have a plan so I'm going to talk about the standard response protocol it's all about these simple actions the first action is hold stay in your classroom clear the hallways the second action is secure get inside lock outside doors the third action is lockdown locks Lights Out of Sight the fourth action is evacuate a location will be announced fifth action is shelter the hazard and safety strategy will be announced so let's get started and learn about hold yeah clear the Halls all in your classroom or area clear the Halls something is happening in the

107halls and the school needs to get it sorted out so we'll stay in our classroom even if the Bell Rings try to do classwork but remind your teacher to lock and close the classroom door well Ivy Mark tardy for my next class not during a hold and if I'm in the cafeteria or the gym depending on what's Happening you might be asked to stay in your area if you aren't in a classroom unlike a lockdown a hole can be released with a PA announcement students all clear all is released I'm James I'm a school resource officer kids get inside Hustle secure get inside lock outside doors why are we doing it we're doing this because something is happening in the neighborhood near the school and we have to get you guys inside could be crimes

108out there could be riots could be a dangerous animal could be zombies games zombies aren't real you don't know that here's what happens get everyone inside the inside you just keep everything normal even class changes stay on schedule except between buildings initially nobody can come in or go out of the building depending on what's Happening your teacher may ask you to text your parents not to freak out school is happening just like normal and if they show up they probably won't be let in anyway that's right nothing to see here chill chill sometimes it's a pain like when school gets out or during lunch but usually you won't notice much what about lockdown this is serious pay attention because something bad is happening in the school oh things adults don't want to talk about first

109I'm going to talk about stuff that we do know data and research about attacks at schools then I'm going to talk about what to do depending on where you are first of all 70 of these are over within five minutes ninety percent are over in 10 minutes heavy first let's look at one thing that they have learned an attacker has hardly ever gotten through a locked classroom door hardly ever where do you see that get on the web and look at the Sandy Hook commission report the FBI has some stuff too so the teacher teacher right then what happens I got this first we're going to get out of sight of the corridor window what else are you gonna do then we're going to get low on the floor I'm going to make sure I

110can't see out of the corridor window then I'm going to take a deep breath this is an important 5 or 10 minutes I'm even going to silence my phone or turn it on do not disturb turn off your data and Wi-Fi too this helps the First Responders keep their internet access but can I text my parents yes but not at first your teacher will probably have you wait about five minutes until it's safe if it's safe a few of you at a time can text your parents here's what to text I'm okay we're in a lockdown I'll update you every five minutes I'm going to add this I love you guys text your parents don't text your friends don't post on social media duh here's one thing a lockdown can be scary and it's probably

111going to last a long time I need you to support each other listen to your teacher what else do you keep in mind don't open the door for anyone what if they say it's the police like this please open the door I don't know if it's really the police or someone trying to fool me so I'm not going to open the door for anybody or even say anything right law enforcement or an administrator will unlock and open the door same thing with an announcement on the PA you're going to stay here until administrator or police comes and opens the door what about the fire alarm when we're in a lockdown we're going to treat a fire alarm a little differently unless it's really a fire in the room we're going to initially stay put although

112I might look at other ways to get outside if you're in the hallway cafeteria or gym try to get behind a locked door or try to get out of the building remember five minutes so go quick think about other locking doors like staff bathrooms and some offices the student bathrooms are probably a last resort no locking doors but at least you can get out of sight this is a good time to talk about evacuate sometimes we just need to leave the building depending on what's Happening we might be asked to leave our staff or we may be asked to bring it if your phone's in your pocket keep it there if you hear lockdown and aren't in a locked classroom remember self-evacuation is another option that means getting out of the building and going to

113a safe place quickly once you're there call your parents tell them you're okay the school might also give you an emergency number to contact what happens when police release a lockdown police or an administrator will open the door and begin the classroom evacuation now don't be surprised if they are a little loud or they keep shouting show me your hands got it they're going to be loud and keep my hands empty and visible can I bring my stuff probably not just what's in your pockets they'll probably bring us to a secure assembly area like a cafeteria or a gym before moving us to where our parents can pick us up at the assembly area don't be surprised if an officer searches you they just want to make sure there's nothing dangerous out there got it

114they're going to be loud they're going to search us if you think about it you're probably going to be stressed so it's going to feel a little more intense than it really is they are probably going to be a little stressed they probably don't know you but we all have the same goal in mind to keep you safe so what you're saying is cut everyone a little break and we can actually help reduce their stress and our parents stress okay there's one more action let's talk about shelter different schools might do different things but here are some examples of what might be announced tornado get to the storm shelter earthquake drop cover and hold Hazmat seal doors and windows tsunami gets a Higher Ground this is important I was in fourth grade at Sandy Hook

115Elementary School on December 14th 2012. I got out my little brother was at Sandy Hook too he got out but it was a close call my older brother and sister were at the middle school it was a tough day for them too so I just need to have a plan have some options and you need to know the adults have a plan too I was the school resource officer at Arapahoe High School in 2013 when the attack happened there I'm going to ask you to do one more thing when you go home today talk to your parents tell them about what you learned today [Music] so as I mentioned acne started the presentation we definitely want to hear from you if you have questions or you know comments regarding I love you guys make sure

116you use the QR code from let's talk and leave someone from the Operation X these students thank you thank you you guys don't have to use the QR code [Laughter] I I do have comments more than a question well I do actually have questions my first comment is school safety especially I mean we none of us well I think all of us are overwhelmed with guns in this country and school safety and I know just as a parent I mean I'm getting overwhelmed right now with this piece of it that there is a desire to want to do something to fix it to make it right and one of the pieces that I take away from this conversation and from all the conversations we've had is there is no one quick fix depending on this

117um there are things we can do at a school level and I want to commend the district for the work that they have been doing to make sure that our students are safe when they are in the building um but that's part of a bigger system of you know State and National legislative work um so I appreciate the thoughtfulness that is going through this the coordination through the IGA to ensure that our student safety is there and also just want to highlight the fact that there are a lot of pieces in play in this there is no one bit of information that's going to solve all problems but the district has been doing I think a good job with a very difficult topic and a difficult difficult information to share both with students and with

118parents that has whom we had a public comment earlier tonight with components that and I know that we do not have a policy yet on the books but I do know that the district has been sharing that information and working with that and I want to highlight the fact that the district has been very seriously looking at this information and what can be brought out and what can we do to make the school safer for our students um and I'll highlight actually Gavin the work that you have been doing with looking conscientiously at a policy with relation to gun safety um that it is it can be easy to take a policy that is pre-written and just say hey look we did it but I actually applaud the fact that the district is taking time

119to be thoughtful about not just what policy can we put in place but implementation because implementation is where the policy hits the road and it's what actually makes a difference and what actually makes people safer so a little round of applause to everyone on that piece of it um one question I have for you specifically with relation to this is um what about programs that are d97 adjacent if you will that are in our buildings so after school programming and summer programming with things like base camp are they getting the same sort of training piece with this so that we're consistent year round or just with programming in general that is in the buildings so ebony is very persistent and one of the things that as she talked about was sharing this information with our

120Our Community Partners most of the school so that they are aware of our efforts and I mean you've started that already but yeah yeah she was all over it from the very beginning question comment recommendation suggestion whatever all in one um I think this is great and one of the things that I've brought to ishma a couple of weeks ago my concern is um I think this is all great like our current process when you get it you sign the sign in right um but if by that time it's too late so I would love to see like when you come up to the when I walk to my kids school it shouldn't just be I get buzzed in and then I come in because for them I don't care about you if I'm there

121to do harm I don't care about your sign in so for me as a parent what has been super disappointing is that on many occasions I walk to my kids school someone's doing this buzzes me in and then I'm like hey um and so like I said I think we can have great sign-ins and we can have all this but at that time it's too late because someone's in the building with a gun or or something else and so I think like how when you first enter that building is what I would like to see more work on maybe it's not an ID because your ID is not going to tell you anything either who are you here to see like at my job with adults that's a common practice who are you here to

122see do you have an appointment you make sure that that person is there um that you have a you have a purpose in this building you don't have a purpose you don't need to be in this building and so I I would love to see like just more I shouldn't be able to access that building um if I don't have a student if I don't have a real reason to be there and so I just feel like that the sign in is great but by then you saw Sharif signed in and then she did harm to our students I mean you have a camera but that's not gonna that's not gonna make me feel better after something has happened to my student I'm like I'm like oh thank God they have a camera and they

123signed in um so I think can we just go back to that very beginning basic thing of who are you here to see why why are you here before you get buzzed into the to school yeah that's some of the things that the um you know School personnel with the front office staff and I talked about um you know and many of our schools now you don't come right into the building you keep it to a holding place you know first before you get buzzed in so asking those questions I know our front desk reception is here that's what it may help you um who you're here to see you're not here for a background check you know whoever and then they get um buzzed in so that's something that definitely is part of the

124business management procedures that I know the front office staff has you know talked about and we also want to streamline um that process you know I'm just maybe because some people um they may know that may be buzzing you in I don't know I'm just going to speculating but even with that um just a routine practice of a standing a set of questions to ask when you know someone presents themselves um at the front door of what they just was because it hasn't been my experience I literally just walk in like someone's like I'm like hey I'm here I started explaining before I can say I'm here too I'm buzzed in and then I come in and either people are looking at their computer they're looking at their phone and then I say what I'm

125there to do so it's not consistent and I will be honest like no one knows who I am and I like it that way um and that nor should they care um and I and I guess I'm like Nancy I'm passionate about this because we just had an incident at work we had to let someone go and for the past um for the past like couple of weeks we have been on edge just wondering like is this person gonna have asked to grind with us are they going to come back and you know part of me to my staff I was like don't worry about it but there is a little piece of me that's worried about it there's a little piece of me that wonders is my staff gonna say oh that's blah blah

126blah I let them in um so I just think like if we if we know these things happen life less prevent them as much as possible and I don't care if you're inconveniencing me and to be honest if someone's upset that you're getting asked questions like I don't care about them either what I care about is that my child is safe um and that we're being present and visual like I said if someone's coming to your house you're not gonna just open the door and be looking at your phone you're going to be like who's there and it's just not happening consistently sorry I had a question about I mean I love hearing about the school safety and particularly like drills and things like that but I am curious about whether or not staff is

127receiving training on de-escalation techniques in the buildings um curious well we have the CPI training like the color Burwell escalation technique so there are being taught and then it's uh ongoing PD that is offered throughout the year throughout the year multiple times for people to have access to that sort of always have everybody training yeah so for clarity when you talk about the escalation is it with students or adult students with students yes yes yes yes yes let me tell you like those techniques they work because students adults that really helps out to really to understand how the behavior process of the escalation and when how to interact in each of the components throughout the escalation process so it's very uh is people get certified for that training and that's something that we're lucky that

128we offer here in business we got trainers we have your capacity in a known institution to train staff Within we have a hand up at our first Committee of the whole meeting uh go ahead hi um I just I just threw eighth graders from today watching that video it says it's for students yeah so um it would um if we were as I worked with the staff to develop the lesson plans that is something that we would consider the age of the students and this certainly would not be shown to all age groups this video is probably for like middle school and high school you started by talking about faculty creating a safe environment is this something we don't feel like already happening at District 97. can you clarify that I'm sorry you started this

129entire your portion of the presentation talking about staff creating a safe environment that's priority number one is that something we don't feel like is already happening at District 97 no that is something that so part of their presentation was aligned to what we already know and so I say we already know that creating positive relationships with students is the first part of making sure that our schools are safe and so that's a priority that's always been a priority for our staff members in building those strong solid relationships with students so yes that's something we're already doing did I answer your question I'm sorry I want to make sure I hope you're commending our outstanding practices of course of course uh I think that they're great at the school level yes and um that would be

130a real flap in the face by that with me it's on you oh no we started off the presentation with staff members by saying this is something you're already doing um and we even kind of brought examples out of um the work that they're already doing I think we started the presentation was actually showing a picture that captures the schools in action of like doing this work so no we started that off by just acknowledging the hard work of our staff members in each of the buildings so thank you for asking that all right go ahead and then we're going to need to move on in a little bit but go ahead um would like to ask that if this information when it goes out to parents and families that we include information about thank

131you uh other questions do folks want to take a quick break before we get to yeah okay thank you all thank you thank you maybe an opportunity thanks [Applause] um thank you I think that's uh right here announcements no so maybe not it was important they're not foreign [Music] um foreign [Laughter] [Music] okay so much I'm really excited thank you nothing excites Nancy like a logic model a data conversations Christmas in September you feel the energy it is yeah presentations of a fireplace yeah as much as I hate to see summer go and I do hate to see it for myself I am looking forward to turn on fireplace I love the weather we've been having this all year if I can get it live in Seattle yeah I don't want like the constant weather

132the older I get the less I can handle I'm gonna be like an old guy with a blanket on his lap in the middle of summer oh you get cold a minute or losing people like I'm just gonna stay here as an anchor you know if anyone to give us the Irish goodbye they have to come back their water bottles are all here yeah [Applause] thank you [Applause] jump English I love that salad I think that's how it looks a little small I'm coming sorry it looks a little small you should see the family size one I think we are good to go uh the section of the committee of the whole meeting that we called a design thinking on packing key transformation Concepts and the one we're focused on today is logic models so

133um Anna and I will start with this slide you know basically anytime we're making a plan it seems like it's about two questions what are you trying to get done and how are you going to get it done and I think um just the idea that these same two questions are used you know for little things that are um like for example something I'm thinking a lot about is for my mom how to get you know out of her bed into the bathroom safely what am I trying to get done that task coming in and done you know installed you know um grab bars all the way along the wall right so um something is micro and concrete and clear as that to something like what are you trying to achieve slow the effects of

134global climate change how are you going to achieve it a little bit more abstract complex and um you know macro um and so I guess we kind of wanted to start with that because these same two questions are used to um all school districts to kind of understand Improvement and school Improvement and it's kind of in between my mother's grab bars and Global uh you know climate change but this idea of what are we trying to achieve is really Improvement in student outcomes and Universal Student Success and we do that by making School Improvement plans and so what we want to do is talk a little bit about how we have approached that in District 97 and take a look a little bit to the past of some of the approaches um and then what

135we'll do is to also kind of share where our thinking is and how it connects to logic models and how we're thinking about um School Improvement going forward so with that I'm going to turn it over to Anna here to talk a little bit about the past that's the school Improvement polls with that stands for so again where have you been in the recent past last seven or eight years or so without reading all of the texts on the slides I think just suffice it to say we've sort of moved from a place where an art district was really School managed schools set their own School Improvement plans brought in a consultant we iterated on with someone with the Consultants shared with us centralized things the district office great templates created some proposed goals Etc

136and now here at the place all the way the right side where this year we're implementing logic models as a tool to help us get to a student-centered design Solutions oops I'm trying to enhance the wrong place here and so what we would like to propose is that kind of as you saw that change over time and how we've done School Improvement planning in some ways it really starts to look like a decentralized approach to a centralized approach and now where we're Landing is what we want to propose as distributed leadership sort of approach to doing school Improvement planning and rather than trying to just describe or Define distribute leadership on my own I'll turn to The Experts so the MIT Sloan School of Management um a little blurb on one of their uh faculty

137or staff member offered this and said top leaders are flipping the hierarchy upside down their job isn't to be the smartest people in the room who have all the answers but rather to architect the game board where as many people as possible have permission to contribute the best of their expertise their knowledge their skills and their ideas so that's a place that we want to land and are seeing logic models as a tool to help us get to this place where we're using distributed leadership um to design our way toward the outcomes that we desire so the question then is how how does logic models how does this fit in here how's this helping us get there um you have seen this before I believe in the presentation from back in February when we proposed

138the idea at that time we were kind of talking about logic models in the evaluation space thinking about it as a tool to help us structure evaluations um it belongs there it also belongs in planning and implementation and this this image comes from an IES such as Institute of Education Sciences which is the evaluation statistics sort of wing at the U.S department of Ed um and so they had to find a logic model as a graphical representation of the relationships between the parts of a program and its expected outcomes and they also defined it as a framework again for program planning implementation and evaluation so whereas before we're talking about logic models and not the evaluation space we're just kind of talking about it on the front end of program planning in the context of

139school Improvement so just some things to remind ourselves of what we've seen before this live shows some different components of a logic model which I want to highlight so one is the problem statement the logic model names a problem to which we're attaching a solution um and and the logic model helps us name what that solution is um all the way on the right hand side you'll see blue boxes and on this graphic they're kind of different shades of blue to just to delineate sort of short-term outcomes midterm outcomes and long-term outcomes but logic models always name the big outcomes that we're looking for and of course help us think about what it takes to get there so all the way on the left side those three Yellow Boxes are together what we kind of

140consider the process part of the logic model where we're thinking about what resources um or need to be put in place what activities do we need to do um what things do we need to get done what products or trainings do we expect to see as a result of that work and what I want to highlight here and we'll see some of this um kind of come to life a little bit as our colleagues present even later on tonight um is that we are at a place now where as part of our school Improvement planning process we are for the most part fixed on our outcomes we're able to name you know we're all sort of in agreement I'm not sort of we're all in agreement about the fact that we are trying to move

141the needle on student outcomes specifically on academic competencies and whole Child Development and so the task with a school Improvement planning is we can sort of fix those into place and then we turn to our schools our Educators who are closest to our students and ask them what is it going to take to get there what does the work need to be knowing where we need to go any questions or clarifications based on what Anna has just shared about kind of the structure of this and and like she said you'll see in the next presentation kind of our iteration of it our first version one um that the schools are working on right now but just to pause here any questions about this so I'm going to throw in um you mentioned you know we're

142at the stage where we had outcome and from my understanding and I just want to paying this to make sure it's a correct understanding these outcomes are basically rooted in the equity policy and the changes that we have set up with the beginning stages of portrait of graduate is that where these outcomes are coming from are they more specific what level of outcome are you talking about so we have outcome goals around um academic um two in the academic area so on math proficiency around learning standards um reading your Ela proficiency and then um on the kind of what we consider socio-emotional stuff looking at um students sense of belonging the percentage of students who report having a positive sense of belonging um and the positive sense of Engagement so there's sort of four areas

143Loosely bucketed to academic and socio-emotional that we're looking at the extent to which so you asked two other parts which is rooted in the equity policy and tied to the portrait of a graduate and I would say that those places are still evolving um one way in which our approach is rooted in the equity policies that we've asked our school Improvement teams to and our our teacher teams to think about the experience of students in the focal student cohort and for us right now this could shift as our data shifts right now um we've asked the teams to think about and center the experiences of our black students that qualify for free and reduce lunch that have an IEP as our focal student group to think about right now and so that's a way in

144which the um we're embedding and hard wiring like let's make sure that we're being attentive to the experiences of this group of students in our logic models so that's a connection to the equity policy the other question you asked was about the portrait of a graduate and I would say at this time we're not able to make those links I would um anticipate that once we have the portrait competencies that the logic model template would evolve and we would be able to form over time a tighter link between those things but I I would anticipate that to be a process of at least a couple of years thank you I had a question that you may have answered in answering Nancy's um it's different though so you can tell me what uh but in looking

145at the components of a logic model and problem statement I would imagine for a school you could have 20 problem statements that all kind of roll up to the sort of overarching goals that we're working towards and I'm wondering like how you keep how this process becomes specific enough to actually drive activities and inputs um if it's like a one logic model for an entire School I can start to answer that by telling him and I think you have mentioned before too that logic model so officially schools are not have not yet been asked to submit it's due on Friday I think so and and we've um set up the expectation that it's an iterative process we as we'll talk about like we expect it to evolve we expect everyone's logic models to look different

146at the end of the year than it does sure okay um so with those caveats um uh one one thing I want to mention and I'm going to go back and think about the other thing I wanted to say um what some schools have done is they've set up a logic model sort of at the school level and sort of named and articulated and we're actually give ourselves permission to talk about this opportunity statements instead of problem statements um and so and have offered schools our theory of change and to offer sort of like what we see as um almost like a sentence starter um to respond to to say like it's weird you know what what um sort of a changes in adult practices do you think need to be made in order to

147focus on the focal student cohort in order to get to the student outcomes that they expect to see for all students um so practically with that what I've seen and overheard schools doing with that is because I started with a school level logic model and then as sort of a basin foundation for their school and then turning to their grade level teams and saying and what does that look like for kindergarten what does that look like for fifth grade recognizing that grade levels are different recognizing that staff are different and and the physically the actual students in front of them are different human beings in addition to being at different developmental levels um so I don't know if that answers your question but that's one of the concrete ways I've seen yeah our Educators already

148start to wrestle with that come up with really interesting approaches and those questions are actually related to the next five slides where we've tried to just um put some words on what are those design principles that we are kind of um expecting to play through these logic models and they touch on this question you just asked Gavin around um you know proximity to the classroom um and that's where you know there's a grade level logic models that then Nest up into the school's work and then also um um just in terms of the the competency-based learning so you'll see those Concepts so here's here's uh kind of some five um draft tiered um design statements that are driving our work so that our logic and school Improvement logic models use the achievement of academic competency

149and whole Child Development to set the bar for what are we looking for in terms of Student Success also the logic models value the collective efficacy of the practitioners those grade level teachers the building leadership teams that are in closest proximity to student experience that we are prioritizing changing adult behaviors to support students in our focal cohort with the understanding that when we do that we support the development and excellent core instruction every day for all students and that as Anna mentioned just a few moments ago that these logic models are fluid not static and that we expect to learn and grow that the point is learning and change and building capacity through that process as we go and then finally um recognizing that out of school times are potential future spaces for us to

150really explicitly collaborate with families so that we are being strategic about competency-based learning both inside and outside of school and this is where we connect to your portrait question because even in kind of that organizational structure we know that the portrait of an over Park eighth grade graduate goes across our understanding of what happens in schools once we have that defined as well as becomes an organizer for us for out of school time and that's the plan to level the playing field and families and Community needs to be a space for that question yes I'm going back to prioritizing change prioritizes changing adult practices to support the students local student cohort what does that look like first question and then the second question is I I want clarification when you like what our role is

151in that out of school time yeah and so what I I think what's going to be great is when the schools schools present their logic models you'll will get to see what does that mean okay and that's going to be kind of the focus of those is to say here's what we're learning or thinking about when we think about centering the experiences of our focal student cohort and we think about who the students are as individuals these are some of the ways we're thinking about changing our practice in order to make the learning conditions optimal for that group of students so that's that's what we're hoping to hear and learn from our teams you'll see a little bit of some of that um at least it's starting to look in the next presentation uh around

152the early literacy but again it'll be about the school teams talking about that and then the second question you asked was about the out of school time are you asking the role of the board or the role of when you said what is our role do you mean so it says recognize out of school time opportunities as potential future spaces for schools to collaborate that would be d97 so I'm not or a specific school so I guess I'm looking for what what do you mean by that what would that look like yep and so um what we would what that would look like is that when a school in the future this is something that we have kind of just uh flagged in the logic model as a future area of work it's not um

153something that the teams are delving into right now but when we have the portrait of a graduate competencies one of the things that we would Envision schools asking themselves is what do we know about where our students are learning outside of school and how are we seeking opportunities to connect with families to say here's the set of competencies that your student can work on should working on is working on and let's think and talk about how do we Leverage The assets in the home and in the community to make sure we're using those competencies both not only inside of school but also to build the capacity of the student themselves as well as the family and the community to um to say you know at the CRC these are examples of ways that we can

154support students to learn this set of math competencies or this set of art competencies for example okay and so I think that's um what it actually looks like is going to depend on a lot of things that are just being seated right now including what are the competencies of a portrait what do it as I mentioned that now next systems um you know part of the inventory of what do our um after school opportunities look like right now who's accessing them so I think there's a lot of different pieces that over the next years you know will come together so that um we're really doing work that actually tries to get at the ambitious aims of the equity policy does that answer your question um so today correctly there you guys are building a competency

155so there are no there are no competencies right now correct there are so we've gone to two words two kind of things used interchangeably standards based learning and competency-based learning so absolutely there are standards right now and so we can use those words interchangeably so it is the case that we have standards that teachers use them are required in the state of Illinois we have learning standards that um are um that learning is designed to me uh what we don't have in place is which are those standards that we are prioritizing in Oak Park to say these are the ones that matter because of our portrait of an Oak Park eighth grade graduate these matter more and we want to make sure that we're being very explicit in how a set of competencies comes together

156to say in our district we value that students are are financially literate that's one of the dimensions of the portrait and so these are the competencies that we're going to guarantee everybody has Mastered by the time they graduate eighth grade so I think what the portrait will do is there's a you know a lot of standards and even the state of Illinois says these are the priority standards out of all these standards and I think to some extent as a community we're going to say okay yeah and these are the ones that our community has said every 8th grader needs to master and we're going to guarantee that that happens all right so I guess my next question I am maybe you're gonna ask us the next slide but I guess I'm just trying to

157figure out like what we're doing with this information because I think we've saw a lot of like models and graphs and charts um and I feel like what has been missing for me um is really understanding like what are the standards like what are we what is the rigor that we're looking at and I understand like what matters to Oak Park is a part of it but at the end of the day I think like we want to prepare our students for the next step so like how are we aligning with what the high school is expecting what and not that every child should go to college because we have proven that is not correct but for those students who do want to go to college or do go to trade school like what are

158those standards and how are we working towards that um and I guess just like how will you measure how are we measuring success like what are the goals and for every every school that is doing their logic model like what are their challenges I I just I'm whether or not we like and I'm guessing you guys are working on this so that's why I guess I'm a little confused like that data that being specific can't say the word um but like being very specific I think is what I've been saying maybe that's going to come later but I'm I'm sitting here and I'm just wondering like I see this model this logic model and the other slide looks like it was from some like this yeah so it has like so this is like yeah

159this is some regional thing with different states down at the bottom so this isn't specific to Oak Park um and I'm just wondering like where do we when do we start to get specific and we're on some of these things like what are the standards are we meeting the standards if we're not why not um I think like a big um a big concern for a lot of folks in Oak Park d97 is you know you come here for a great education are we getting the rigor so I think like as we look at these things I'm like I want to know what's behind us like why are we doing this so I guess that's just I'm just a little confused like what are we doing with this right now yeah so we think uh

160that that makes sense because there isn't a lot of specificity here these are kind of like the the bigger design principles the the bigger Concepts and models that we're using the questions that you just asked Sharia are so right on like what exactly is this looking like in practice and so I think I would ask that after the next presentation where you'll see an example of what the d97 logic model looks like see if that starts to address your question and then certainly when the teams come and present to you to say here's how we're making sense of the complexity of our work and trying driving at those um measures the long medium and short-term outcomes that are about College and Career Readiness because those standards they line up that that is the measure of

161College and Career readiness so I think that what we're trying to do is lay the groundwork so that the questions that you're asking can be answered with the authentic complexity that is the work of teaching and learning and that's just gonna if that's a um you know the teams coming to to share their work is as and and in this structure with this specificity and this frame on it is our attempt to answer your questions and so I uh and I know that through that dialogue with us with the teams we will um get clearer on how we need to get tighter around which things so related to that and as not necessarily a question for tonight but as the presentations evolve um we keep talking about teens one thing I think would be helpful

162is so we'll have the school teams coming in to present their pieces but obviously even though it's a distributed model part of that is the back and forth between the different nodes and understanding how that is being facilitated by teens I think would be helpful for folks as well to understand you know what role does the central office play in that what role how are we ensuring that schools are sharing good practices um just as as this evolves I think that would be a really helpful piece to kind of call out absolutely and I think we will need to change our systems to answer those questions better right so right now as far as I know um at least in the last year um you know maybe um you know there are ways to be

163more strategic like oh what are you know what what questions are you running into in your school Improvement maybe then we form cohorts of schools that are you know seeking um and going deep with common areas of practice maybe across the you know third grades across the district maybe there are you know a few third grades that are working on problem a and that commit to work together on on some kind of an action research project related to their action their their logic models like and their school improvement work so I do think that there are lots of potential outgrowths of that and we'd want to design that I think our understanding of central office is to facilitate and to create the infrastructure and to be responsive to what we hear from the school saying

164I'd love to X and we're trying to create the conditions for us to know and then make that happen um that's the whole I have a clarifying question so you talked about we were talking about portrait of a graduate we were also talking about State competencies and then you move to some of um like okay and then that's that that I want to make sure that the we're doing state I'm asking the question is is the state competencies and then on top of those competencies is it both heart competencies to create that portrait of a graduate it's same competencies if it's just it's this the same competencies the you know College and Career the state uh learning standards it's just about how they're organized and which ones are prioritized so say there's a hundred standards

165in the state of Illinois state says you know what of these hundred standards these you know 83 are really important and for us to say yep okay as a school within the state of Illinois those 83 are really important and in Oak Park because we've identified these these you know 67 are especially important and we're going to design the 83 yeah exactly and so it's not that the the base is as all of the you know the state standards at the end of the day there's a lot of them and so um you've got to make choices around which ones are the the ones that you know you design around um the state does that too and so that's what we're talking about but we're not you know we want to stay in alignment to

166the rigor of the state standards well that I think that sort of leads to my next question was sort of piggybacks off yours we can achieve greater rigor if if that's what the if that's what's appropriate for the student within that so we can do we can still we can still create the rigor that we're looking for um to create that portrait of a graduate within what you're seeing correct the standard is the rigor yep and the standard um the standard must remain the bar okay um I just have one more slide yep um so I just want to slide to end on so um the literature sometimes will talk about constructing logic models from a forward logic or a backward logic so really the difference is moving from the left side to the right

167side forward logic is starting with kind of resources like what you have and asking a series of if then statements so if I have this then what can I do if I have if I do this then that one can happen um and I just wanted to call out that um the way we have implemented logic models with our school Improvement plannings is using the reverse logic I just pulled um this is um this is from a university of uh Kansas resource and it's sort of an adjacent field in community health and development but I really like this quote where they talk about um using logic models with reverse logical so again that's what we're done we're doing when we start with the outcomes we're saying we want our students to be proficient we want

168them to you know they're so emotional uh well-being to be prioritized we started with that we agreed on that and and we're moving backwards to say all right what's it going to take to get there that's the approach we've taken this backward reverse logic and so I like this quote um um they say uh and if you don't mind you want to read more of the quotes you're not inundated with text from the slide there but this approach begins with the end in mind it starts with a clearly identified value a change that you and your colleagues would definitely like to see occur and asks a series of but how questions again we want our students to be to meet our standards on math and reading and be um so emotionally healthy and so we

169ask ourselves but how are we gonna get there but how are we going to get there but how are we going to you know how are we going to accomplish those things um how are we going to align ourselves and and deliver things for our students and how how are we going to use the resources that we have so it's backwards logic I'm going to continue reading the quote um at first you may not agree with the answers that certain stakeholders go for these questions their logic may not seem convincing or even logical but if they're in lies the power of logic modeling by making each stakeholders thinking visible on paper you can decide as a group whether the logic driving your initiative seems reasonable you can talk about it to clarify misinterpretations ask for

170other opinions check the assumptions compare them with research findings and in the end develop a solid system of program logic the product then becomes a powerful tool for planning implementation orientation evaluation advocacy so again I'm just trying to tie together what we're talking about the logic model then becomes a tool to ask our our Educators who are closest to the students how are we going to get there we know we want to get we want our students to be proficient on these Early Learning I think it's like on these learning standards the Illinois learning standards how are we going to get there we're asking them to help help us do those distributed leadership so we're using I'd like to propose the logic models as a tool to support a distributed Leadership Model of moving towards

171student-centered design for the ultimate outcome of all of our students for outcome outcomes right two were I don't know how to whatever competencies were social emotional so I'm trying I want to anticipate what I'm going to see when the schools present their logic models so will all of the schools have those for opportunity they'll be part of their opportunity State those four goals of course those outcomes we offered schools an actual percentage of students that we think might be able to be proficient on reading standards this year and their math standards and a percentage of students we expect to be able to say that you know that that have a favorable sense of belonging and report a favorable um sense of Engagement okay so every school has has that to start with um like as

172I mentioned before um they're also then going to the grade level teams and their area teams to say how how are we how are you going to do it in your classrooms your grade level teams but yes what will become public um every school has at least four goals um outcome long-term outcome goals and an opportunity segment so these are the long-term goals the short term and then the the mint term and the short-term goals may look different we actually fixed those as well um all the goals are fixed yes it's short long and yeah yeah it's the yellows the yellow columns that are um the variables yeah and this is as you mentioned like this is just we pulled this from a reputable resource to say like this is a template that we started

173with and we made it we do 97 did made it pretty and colorful and a lot of our colors um but this is like the core structure of what you'll see in our school Improvement plans um I got a lot of questions I'm sorry that answers my question but since the goals are fixed okay yeah would it be possible for us to see those goals so that we can keep it in mind as we're walking through of course yeah the logic model for your school absolutely I wrote down the ones for the long-term goals and I'm glad you told me they were long-term goals because I wasn't sure yeah where they fit in in the yeah okay thank you so if I'm understanding correctly each school is going to have their own logic model but

174the goals are things so my question is how do we assess because there are so many variables right we know that each school has a different personality based on where it is at Oak Park um the average income of you know families within those schools and so how are you coming to A plan for a better word for how to address those issues when they're going to be so all over the place but your goals are the same so I can imagine for they're not well yeah so I guess I I'm trying to understand like I'm thinking about this in like evaluations right so for each board member right we all have strengths and weaknesses we all have different Lifestyles and things like that so if you're gonna say like shree I want you to

175work on your soft skills um Nancy I want you to work on here oh this is good Nancy is data I am soft skills it's really hard to compare those things and come up with a a fix so to say so I'm just wondering like once everyone comes up with a plan is there going to be a team to say okay like let's tweak this or I guess I'm just not getting like if they're so different but then you're basing on the same criteria or what criteria are you basing on to come up with a solution for the goals that they're working towards correct maybe I should clarify my language the the percentage of students we ex you know the the the areas are the same as math reading engagement and belonging so that's fixed

176the um we are asking schools to grow from where they are now to where to a certain level of expectation like we expect everybody to grow and improve in those areas so while people are starting from different places that is sort of the attempt to sort of recognize we're starting from different places so we expect to end and you know but we want everybody to go up a little bit but to your point yeah I don't know how I don't know how to tell a school hell a third grade team at X School how to do you know that's that's where the distributed leadership comes in like they have to tell us how that's well yeah I guess that's my question like how are we judging our criteria if these things can be so different

177um and then what are the goals the same like is the goal that every school is going to be at 90 reading okay well and what I think one thing that's sort of analogous is if if you think about the equity policy like the equity policy clearly states like every kid in d97 gets an excellence in Equitable education like that's non-negotiable right how you get there obviously varies a lot may vary by school it's certainly going to vary by Kid it probably won't be as different with a school of hundreds of people than it is you versus Nancy you know because you'll have a mix of like lots of things but I think that's kind of the way I think about it is it's like the ultimate ideal or place we're trying to get to

178is is a universal standard that we want everybody to be able to achieve and that's Excellency in terms of academic skills it's it's the social emotional it's just a path that may vary a bit maybe the presentation will help I just feel like this is super theoretical um and so I'm waiting to see like it's intentionally theoretical I think in part because it's we talked about sort of like let's make sure people are grounded in what is a logic model what could it look like in District 97 the next piece is going to be more about what does it look like in a particular instance you know if we go back here it's like these are kind of this is the first of a series of like design thinking that's the big umbrella because the

179truth is there is no plan that we can Implement that gets at Universal Student Success and so I think you're right and we have to strike that right balance and your questions help us to do that tacking back and forth between what are the big design ideas that do have bodies of literature attached to them but how are you then putting them into practice to drive at universal student outcomes and that tacking back and forth and hearing from the people that are actually doing the work and shape for us to shape like here's how we're trying to set up for them to be supported to do the work that's the dynamic that we're trying to reach and you asking those questions is exactly what we need to kind of up our practice and so this

180is the process as a vision no I want I want to do you have a question I don't want to step open okay so I want to understand that you're taking you be by I'll be Lincoln [Laughter] you're looking at the Historical information about performance through performance for bi and for Lincoln as well as um the I belong surveys I know I know they have a different name I just can't Panorama but what's it called Panorama is that oh that wasn't even in mind I wasn't gonna say that you just knew that okay anyway so you're going to take the historical data what school did I say I was you're going to take testosterone okay whatever school I said Lincoln and buy and and then set the parameters for improvement and okay this is what

181we think you can achieve by this is what I think you can achieve Lincoln so it's specific to that school and mine will mine at Lincoln will look different than hers and each grade level is unique as well okay with the idea over time to get everybody out to yes top level yes and another driver is that even though the measures are in the aggregate in the practice we're saying Center the experiences of the students who if we're not deliberate we know from our student outcomes haven't haven't been uh served as well and so we're saying let's deliberately think about what the learning conditions need to do and when we do that we get it aggregate as well so will that be pulled out or will that be pulled out of each person's like will

182it have a specific line item I guess it's a better way for me to say it in each school's logic model or is it implied the focal cohort is in explicit focus in each school's logic model in terms of the focus of the actions and then so it's not the one line item it's everything everything has that Focus okay I have two more questions I promise I'm done um so one are there any examples of schools that have done like done this and they've been like super successful like any success stories I watch a lot of documentaries on schools and I know like so what's going to New York I forgot what's called now but they have talked about like how they've you know just taken these students who were like barely reading and now

183they're all like super Scholars so is there any like best practices or examples that we can say like like why do we choose this logic model and like what are we hoping like what are the outcomes I guess um so if we could say like I don't know Timbuktu um Elementary they did this and their scores Rose by 20 so I'm just wondering like why this was chosen and like is there a model for this uh like why we are going this route and then number two like when you talk about the teams is it gonna be building leadership meaning primarily like principles assistant principles or our teachers got to be a part of these teams that are creating these logic models yep so the uh first question I am not aware and I don't

184think we are aware of schools that have had phenomenal results based on the approach that we're describing we're designing this approach as we go I do anticipate that we will have a documentary written about our teachers and our teams and our schools um I I think that we are very being very deliberate about putting together the right elements that get at um the policy um and yes I just I think one thing about the first question that may or may not be help helpful and responsive is the logic model isn't the specific strategy it's not the reading strategy it's not the math strategy the school that you listen to a documentary about or watch the documentary about they have used a specific reading strategy that they said if we use this strategy these are the

185results that we expect the logic model is just a framework to hold schools and the district accountable to these are the outcomes that we want and we are holding ourselves accountable to working backwards so that we know we're using strategy a b and c and if we do a we expect a to results in this outcome this output which leads to this outcome I guess my question comes from the fact that this is a framework a toolkit so I'm assuming someone used to be it's a planning tool okay it's pretty I've used it in my work I think it's pretty common for programs and things I would imagine given where you found it that schools use it in a lot of places but using the logic model is different than like we're going to use

186a strategy a I think of it sort of as like the thing that we've been asking for a lot and that the that the equity Policy Act actually calls for is like tell us what you're planning to do tell us what you think doing that thing is actually going to accomplish and then tell us how you're going to assess whether it actually achieved the result that you wanted to achieve okay that makes sense and part of it is that it's ongoing so one of the problems with with this is the success model that we used for this one piece is that it may have worked with that set of students or that classroom or in that one instance may not even be directly relatable between Lincoln and buy they may each have different pieces that

187need a little bit more support to get them to that piece and by using a logic model that's more distributed you get the successes from different schools oh hey that's working over there that's addressing a similar problem I have we can share that information but at the same point in time you're not just saying everybody just go do the same thing and hopefully that will work for everybody yeah I have a second question uh Sheree about um who is doing the logic model so yes it would be um administrators and teacher teams and grade level teams and so this is a driving kind of um model and idea that people that are educator staff is is engaged in I do think that as we go forward we want to want to expand the participation to

188parents being on the on the teams if I'm sure we have that in some places ideally students serving on those teams and really being even more inclusive in terms of like how people are feeling like we're all part of the Improvement of the school but for this year it is the um the educators yeah I just want to know what love will look like Educators versus Administration yeah no it's it all of the teams and I think all of that is a perfect weekend to the next presentation um so we're gonna invite um Jen Logan um Dr Tawanda Lawrence and Patrick Robinson foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] but no thank you so much for um kind of taking the time we know it's been a long night uh but really we want to just kind

189of take the time to really just kind of walk through and hopefully some of the questions um you had around logic models and how it actually looks and play inside of schools hopefully some of those questions will kind of be answered towards the end of this presentation um as we take a look and talk about our approach to early literacies and making sure that this year we're really working with um our teachers close to the work and really making sure that we are ensuring that our curriculum is really meeting the needs of our students especially in those early um grade levels and so with that should we introduce everyone Patrick Elementary School which is a great start I'm Tawanda Lawrence senior director of teaching and learning and Jennifer Logan the curriculum coordinator for grades Pre-K

190advice so as we get started we really just kind of wanted to root this presentation really we and we titled it in love with literacy and so we really just wanted to highlight this quote because as we think about this work and we think of our early literacy um our goal is for all of our Scholars to really develop a passion for reading a passion for books so when our goal for us is this quote comes to life when I think about the book still left for me to read I am starting for further happiness and that's really what we really are inspiring all of our Scholars uh when we think about early literacy in our buildings and so our roadmap sorry I'm clicking here thinking it's all right so our roadmap for um this

191evening is to really kind of ground our work and our beliefs um and not just our beliefs around early literacy but our beliefs around how we approach core instruction throughout our buildings um number two where have we been with early literacy where we are going and then provide the opportunity for questions clicking the yeah and so our beliefs the first belief is that we really value the expertise of those closest to students experiences and so we want to make sure that we're engaging them in this National debate around literacy instruction so we know that there is a national debate going on around what is the best approach to early literacy right we we've heard the podcast we've heard or seen or read the different headlines out there um around the different approaches one approach um

192talks about this is the best way another approach since this is the best way and so as a district we're really trying to kind of take all of this information in and really kind of figure out what is best for d97 right we also know that across the country many districts are changing their curriculum and they're adopting new curriculum because of the research because of what is out the headlines are saying and so we want to make sure that as a district we're kind of taking Dr Shaw's um saying a little kind of slowing the bus down and really making sure that we are including all of our stakeholders in this in point conversation around how does early literacy really look in our classrooms what is it that our teachers are saying what are the

193resources that they need they're the ones closest to students experiences they're the ones that can provide us with the information that we need to really make a decision that is best for the district and so we begin this conversation earlier um in the year um January of last year actually and we really just kind of began to have the conversation with all of the K through second grade teachers around what does early literacy look like in your classroom how does it look what are the resources you know what are things that you need from us how can we really support this work and we receive a lot of feedback and a lot of um information from the teachers we highlighted just a few and what we received we received a lot of teachers saying um

194yes there is a gap and we need some additional resources right we had some teachers saying you know we have a lot of resources within the district but as a teacher I need more training and how to use those resources right um and then we had some that says I'm working closely with my team we have figured out how how to really find that balance between phonemic awareness between comprehension and we're doing it so we have teachers across the Spectrum around where they actually fit and how they're approaching early literacy so our job is to make sure how are we bringing all of the teachers to the same point in which we're figuring out our next moves as far as our curriculum and where we are going thank you no problem so as we continue

195to discuss our beliefs about literacy um we do have expectations that we have established across all eight schools as it relates to early literacy so we expect all students to demonstrate competency in the foundational skills of reading and recognize that instruction and Collective teacher efficacy our primary and resources are secondary so this table outlines the reading foundational skills standards from the Illinois learning standards for English language arts so there are four of those standards that Focus primarily on foundational skills and building that understanding with students print concepts biological awareness phonics and word recognition as well as fluency so you'll see that in the left column we've outlined the amount of time that we dedicate to focusing on those particular standards every day within our classrooms in the right column we've listed the resources that we

196currently have in our district that supports each of those standards as well as the instructional strategies or practices that teachers utilize to implement those standards in the classroom so some of the resources just to highlight a few would be reading units of study Hagerty phonemic awareness finding students to study and words their way and some of the instructional practices that teachers utilize are shared reading small group instruction one-on-one conferencing um and as well as meeting with students in small groups we recognize that strong adult practices in our core instruction will support students specifically in our local cohort but also when we focus on that focal cohort it will also result in positive outcomes for all of our students core instruction refers to the foundation of learning that all students receive each year core instruction uses

197best practice and research-based strategies to teach our grade level standards here you see an image that shows you the different tiers of core instruction and which students receive each tier of instruction tier one instruction refers to the instruction that all students receive from their general education teachers in each of their core curricular areas and the emphasis here is that all students receive that instruction tier two is also delivered by the general education teacher to students inside of their classroom who through various data points have demonstrated the need for additional support in order to be successful with their grade level standards tier 2 instruction is delivered to students utilizing the small group instruction teaching strategy and one thing to note is that tier two instruction is layered on top of tier one meaning that in addition

198to tier one instruction students are receiving tier 2 support and then finally you'll see the smallest tier the tier three instruction and tier three instruction is usually delivered by a specialist or an interventionist here in District 97 to students who continue to receive both tier one and tier 2 instruction and they have not up until that point been responsive to those interventions so this type of instruction is usually delivered to students one-to-one and if it's delivered in a small group ideally the group is less than three students can I ask a clarifying question is the individual teacher assessing the child's or the students um need for tier three uh usually we use a variety of Assessments so it is the classroom teacher but we also are using like our benchmark assessments we're also utilizing um

199formative informal assessments so it could be that general education teacher but we also have like teams of um that we call mtss teams and those teams meet um at a pretty regular Cadence where we're always looking at data and each of the schools has an mtss person and so their job with the instructional coach as well as like the building leadership is to be making sure that they're tracking students data so it's not just one set of eyes but we have a number of of Educators that are looking to determine whether or not those students need additional support or maybe they've graduated from that support and they are you know back in tier one for lack of a better word can I ask you another question so realistically how soon is a student identified for

200that tier three support let's just say it's a second grader where reading is they're on the cusp of their learning words they're learning how to put them together and there's a lot going on as an early reader so realistically how soon are tier three supports provided to that student who's an early reader um but but isn't Meeting those benchmarks I think it all depends on the student because I think when you're thinking about early literacy it's also developmental so when you're in kindergarten there are strategies that teachers the classroom teacher they're implementing to kind of see where the student how where almost trying to diagnose for the need of the student right and so before just that one assessment making a call that teacher will then kind of go back in small group 101 try

201another strategy say it is a strategy working but do a multiple um do multiple things before that call is made and if the if the teacher feels like okay this student is not responding to the tier one kind of uh practices then I want to try some tier two instructions so it can to answer your question it can be a short amount of time but it can also take a couple of months depending how the student is responding to the interventions by that teacher okay I would say like generally in second grade we've already had data unless they're a new students so it wouldn't usually students don't just like pop up as to just meeting tier three but that we've been tracking them throughout this um you know last two years where we have various

202data points that would be telling us what that student needs additional support in I I get what you're saying I guess what I'm concerned about is I don't want the intervention you don't want the invention too early but I don't want the intervention too little and I don't know that I guess that's what I'm asking how do you know and when that third level of intervention that the tier three is is needed but not too late and it's very delicate right so I think and that's when you depend on your team so that's when you know we want to use our professional learning communities to really kind of make sure that hey to Wanda I have this one student that I'm struggling with XYZ can you give me some strategies you try I've tried these

203things it's not working and that's where their Conversation Piece is coming in with the professional learning committee but then you can also reach out to the instructional coach you can also reach out to other individuals in the building to kind of support you and then when we see like okay the student is not responding to these interventions you've had that meeting with parents you you included them hey try these different resources at home I think once you kind of figure out all of these things and you've tried all of these things that's when you have to start making a decision or so do we need to try tier two interventions first we don't want to go straight to tier three but we want to make sure that we try that um we're trying different things

204before we move students along that but I get what you're saying like how long is too long right before a student gets far behind I think that's something that as a team we have to kind of monitor as a teaching and just to add I think also the way we incorporate our balance assessment system where we have benchmark assessments we have those one-on-one conferencing with students we also have progress monitoring happening throughout in between those benchmark assessments it's really giving teachers that data to inform their instruction and also give them the information they need to see a student's progress or lack thereof so I think the way our assessment system is built also helps us to continue to monitor a students progress or to you know in in terms of guiding and informing our as

205it relates to those particular students I think it's really important oh go ahead oh no it's just going to say related to this because you brought up parents um I would be curious to hear kind of where the parental involvement is in this because I do know you know there's some cases where a student is passing by in tier one but as a parent you may see they're struggling in a way that's odd you know I I can see where I think this fits in but I'd love to hear kind of where you see the parental role in with movement between tier one and two and three and also as you mentioned as a partner in working with the student and I think that goes to the priority standards really understanding so in kindergarten these

206are the priority standards for early literacy for math these are the standards that when they by this time of the year they should be showing progress towards Mastery and we know that if a student is not making that progress then we need to try some interventions right and I think that's when you start reaching out and talking to parents around we are now going into the second month of school we get this assessment I only notice that the student is really not progressing here and so we want to try these things or can you try these things at home here's some resources that you can try so I think you bring the parents in early on to be part of that Journey that you're taking on The Scholar and on the reverse side if a

207parent is having questions they bring that to the teacher they bring that to the instructions where would they go to the question it starts with the teacher first you know I think I also uh wanted to say that you know these questions around kind of the timing of the intervention not too early not too soon how frequent is it who's the delivering you know um the professional culture like Patrick's talking about where we check in what strategies do you have the family communication all of these are really important things I do want to note and I know the team will agree that one of the things that happens however that's related to our Equity policy is this whole notion of oh looks like you need a tier two intervention oh looks like you need a

208two or three intervention oh looks like we need to qualify you for special education is disproportionately happening for black students and one of the things that we're trying to do here and the reason why we're focusing on core instruction is we're saying that is happening because the blue triangle is not as robust and culturally um responsive as it needs to be it's actually not a deficit in the student it's a deficit in the system that we are offering at the bottom of the pyramid in the blue and so I guess I just want to also just kind of note that that's why the team is called the core instruction team because one of the big Equity moves is to say hold on a second what is happening at tier one and what different needs to

209happen at tier one so that we have Equitable outcomes because fundamentally there's a problem with the system and not the student and so I guess I just you know so that's what what happens and what's happening here is what happens in our in our schools across the country is that there's a rush to the tier two in the tier three and that Rush happens disproportionately for kids of color and just naming that as one of the slowdowns and how do we look at the adult practices to make sure that we're changing the adult practices because if I'm giving the student the same intervention but I'm expecting a different result I mean that's Insanity right so I think how are we kind of working with the adult to kind of say well you tried this how

210about we try something a little different you know how about we try this and I think that's where the professional Learning Community comes into play that's when the instructional coaches all of the support systems that we have in place to make sure that we're providing the adults that kind of be reflective and kind of take a look to say okay what do I need to do differently when I plan for this particular group of students I remove the barrier for all students if that makes sense so as we continue to talk about our beliefs around literacy um we do value professional learning and we understand the importance of making sure that teachers have professional learning opportunities and its impact on teacher practice so we invest in ongoing professional learning opportunities to expand teachers knowledge of

211evidence-based instructional practices for supporting emergent readers so last school year um during our grade level meetings in February um we had an opportunity to focus on for grades k-3 a refresher professional learning session on some of the core resources that we have in place to specifically support students in the areas of their foundational skills so that that went very well last year and so this year we're going to continue that professional learning but this year we're going to expand it we're going to expand it to grades four and five because we understand that it's important for teachers at the intermediate grades to also have this support around early literacy behaviors so um you're gonna watch a video in just a second but before play on the video um this is going to give you a

212little bit more insight in terms of how we're going to be designing those Choice sessions for k35 teachers for our upcoming grade level meeting and we're really excited about um the rollout of this but before we play um I'd like for you just to highlight some of John Hattie's work as it relates to this as he focuses on Collective teacher efficacy and it having a large effect size on student achievement so as you're listening to one of our instructional coaches being interviewed by our one and only Jen Logan um I want you to keep that in mind um as it relates to Collective teacher efficacy so this is from today it's from today yeah last year and then I was like well she got up here yeah yes so that was recorded today yes hosted

213by me Jennifer Logan your K-5 curriculum coordinator and I'm here today with special guest Betsy Perkinson instructional coach at Irving Elementary School and today we are going to be talking about the upcoming K5 district-wide grade level meeting um that will be centered around literacy practices and instruction um this October 11th meeting will be a continuation of work that was started at our previous District grade level meeting last February first Betsy thank you again for taking time and for joining me with and agreeing to you know do this interview um I know that you're really busy it's a really busy time in our schools and I appreciate just you squeezing in this um interview with me uh it's no problem we love having you at Irving after picture day when we're sharing spaces so without having

214you here thanks JLo of course so all right let's get started um Betsy can you tell us a little bit more about the um District grade level meetings and you know just this these updates that we've made this year to the meeting structure sure so we always meet once a trimester um as a district uh traditionally it's been by grade level this year we are mixing it up a little bit and offering Choice sessions for our teachers which I'm really excited about so the teachers can drive their own learning and um have the opportunity to really strengthen their instruction based on something that they know they need in their classroom awesome what benefits do you think this will have to our teachers um I think it really strengthens strengthens the idea that we are all

215a learning community so I am excited about collaborating with the other instructional coaches um in planning these sessions but I love that we've also expanded it to our language arts Specialists or our reading Specialists and other teachers across the district um just to really provide lots of opportunities for our teachers to learn in productive ways awesome um yes what a really I feel like this is a really collaborative and fantastic way for us to feel like this tight-knit professional Learning Community um is there anything else that you wanted to add to how the structures have changed um so we tried this last year with our primary teachers and the choice sessions went pretty well and so we are excited to expand it to fourth and fifth grade especially because traditionally we have um centered our

216literacy instruction especially those foundational skills with our primary teachers so we get to offer it to our fourth and fifth grade teachers this time um just to kind of strengthen their understanding of what is happening for those foundational reading skills and meet their students right here I think that's going to be a really great experience for those fourth and fifth grade teachers well as well as K2 to three um so would you mind giving us a little bit of a sneak peek into what a few of the sessions might be about sure so I'm excited to be collaborating with our language arts specialist and our speech pathologists who might have just seen um and we are offering a session on sound walls which is a tool for teachers and students to use in their classroom

217to really um strengthen that sound to spelling connection so that's going to be a great opportunity for our teachers to learn a little bit more about that tool we have another instructional coach his who is working on the eight components of a strong phonics lesson so that's another session and then we have sessions on vocabulary strategies for classroom teachers and kind of all sorts of great options because there's more of us presenting which is great awesome um wow I just really think that this is going to be an amazing learning experience I can't wait to not only be a part of it but also to hear how much the teachers will learn and grow their professional practices and ultimately increase Student Success so thank you again Betsy for taking the time to speak with me

218today um we're so lucky to have you as an instruction leader here in District 97 and I can't wait for this first meeting on October 11th so that was just a bit from our instructional coach Betsy Parkinson and and Jen Logan I think we have over 10 sessions that we're offering um yeah so they get to choose where they want to go and what they want to learn so we're really excited about that community and I think one thing to highlight is that we're expanding those PD opportunities three to five because one of the things that we hear a lot from that great band teachers is that early literacy or foundational skills like I'm a fifth grade teacher that's something that I need more training at so being able to provide those teachers with that

219opportunity across the board is really kind of identifying what's the common language what's the common strategies across the board to really help all of our students thank you so our last belief we designed School Improvement logic models which engage teacher leaders and early literacy teachers in identifying resources and professional learning opportunities to inform future curricular review decisions and so this is an example of the d97 logic model um and so one of the things that I'll just quickly to kind of go through and I know um the last presentation did a really good job of kind of unpacking this but when we think about that opportunity statement again having the the teacher teams really focus on the change in adult practices and core instruction that will support the success of all students in the focal

220cohort when you design with those students and mine you as I said you're removing the barriers for all students and really creating uh educational experience for all to succeed when you look at the model it's really kind of divided into two parts so over here in the orange you have the flexible piece that's the part that's controlled by your school teams and then over with the recommended short-term midterm and long term that's the fixed part and that's the part that we have already identified for schools based on the need of that school and based on where that school is currently at and really what we really wanted to push teachers to do is to really discuss like what are those resources that we have in the building especially in our early um and K12 to

221really identify what are the resources that we have to really focus on their early literacy standards what are the actions of the adults what are the professional development that's needed and based on that what's the output evidence that we're looking to see to make sure that those adult actions are actually working with the resources that we actually have and this is a way for us to collect that feedback from teachers around these resources we have these are resources that we need this is how the resources are currently working in the classroom and so I really wanted to kind of identify one of the logic models from one of our schools so this is homes first grade so again just the kind of review we have the school-wide logic model and based on the school-wide logic

222model each professional learning team then says well this is the part that first grade plays in achieving these goals and so one of the reasons why I kind of wanted to point this one out in particular when you think about the resources they're identifying the resources in individuals in the building they're identifying time as a resource they're identifying the different resources that we have to current teach um those early literacy standards and then what are those adult actions that we're looking to see how are we using the adult collaborative time together to really hope to really focus in on these strategies and then how are we evaluating those things and then you look towards the green you get a chance to kind of see what are those fixed um outcomes for short term midterm and

223then long term if you think about the short term it's more of like the knowledge that we want the adults to kind of have so teachers will be able to name and understand the priority standards at Ela um students and the focal cohort understand priority standards and how that standard looks at the Mastery level families of the students in the focal cohort understand the grade level standards and all of our families really understand those standards and then what are the changes we're looking to see in the behaviors are the midterm outcomes and then the long term is that if we do all of these things correct then hopefully we will see that 65 of proficiency in our students at Ela and so this is is just how the logic model kind of plays out in

224schools and when I say this is something that is fluid it kind of changes because if we notice that hey we didn't think about these actions let's change that schools have the flexibility to do that if they say hey this is working that's something that we're encouraging schools to say hey then that should be something that you celebrate school why and see if we can replicate that in other great levels and so this is a document that we're encouraging teams and schools to really use as like the the core of the work that they do together as as teams for staff develop staff meetings for mtss meetings always visiting this tool and then making the modifications that's needed are you um specifying like time parameters for short-term midterm and long-term no because it looks different

225depending on what the outcomes are okay yeah and when they and when the schools produce them like does it filter down to like here are things we intend to do this school year here's things that will yes yes and I think one of the things that you know when we say is fluid they're noticing that hey we already have achieved this let's move on to the midterm or let's add another short-term goal and so these are things that we have identified but we've also given um schools hey if there is something else that you feel like is really part of the work that you're doing with your school that you want to make a short term or midterm goal ethos to it and so they also have the flexibility to kind of do that because

226we want to be able to kind of celebrate the schools that have that freedom to work within their context and then I just wanted to add into this um one of the beauties of this model is as you have just said it's not it's fluid it's not meant to be we're trying to get to something that's set in stone you know that hey we're done now in 2005 2006 2007 we're just gonna use the same 27 we're just gonna use the same thing year after year um just to make sure I'm kind of hearing that correctly and that this is how it's being used here is the idea is that each year as you get new cohorts of students you get new resources you get new questions this can change and grow to keep coming

227up with as we those green areas you know the basic goal levels and those can even be going up as they go along and it also goes back into like are we asking the right questions if we're noticing that we're not maybe the outcomes especially the long-term goals why not let's kind of go back to the resources the actions to kind of figure out why are we not making the progress that we're looking to make and then really kind of working with school teams to kind of say let's let's step back a little bit that's kind of peel the onion and kind of figure out what's really going on and that's kind of the beauty of this model um so now I get to take you on the Journey of where we have been um

228until present our journey with an Ela curriculum began in the school year of 2016 2017 with the adoption of the reading and writing and it's a study pretty quickly um into the curriculum adoption Journey um we saw and it was identified by our practitioners that there were some significant gaps in the teaching of the foundational reading skills so after those gaps were discovered which is step two here on your slide it was determined that we would need to supplement our core yellow resources of ela and writing units of study um in the areas particularly of phonics and word study um and that is when we started the word study curriculum committee this committee completed a phonics word study resource review Andy pilot which resulted in the decision to purchase finding students to study words their

229way and hegarty phonemic awareness um that was 2020 I believe because um we tried to roll out finding students to study during the pandemic which did not result in good things um so then finally here for our step four of this journey was during the school year 2022 2023 teachers participated in a number of professional learning opportunities with phonics word study we sort of touched on that in that video um where we began this like Journey um with our reading foundational skills training as well as udl and as a result teachers focused on learning how to create a flexible learning environment in which information was presented in a multiple in multiple ways and allows students to engage and demonstrate their learning best suited to them so now that we've talked about our beliefs around literacy

230and we've also reflected on our journey it's now time to discuss where we're going so this timeline takes into consideration our beliefs about literacy um it also takes a consideration excuse me how we're valuing the expertise of our teachers as well as um being intentional about our approach moving forward so this timeline actually goes back to last year where we started engaging families and teachers around this discussion about literacy so we established the dyslexia awareness committee this was established in April of 2022 and went through February of 2023 and it consisted of a group of parents and community members who had a vested interest in our approach to literacy um as it related to their experience their lived experiences of parents of students with dyslexia so we worked with this parent group we we met

231with them we talked about various professional learning opportunities that teachers can engage in and we continued these discussions with our teachers so during our Institute day in January of 2023 we held a K2 session where first we Revisited the components of effective literacy instruction and then we shared various research with our teachers just so that we could start that conversation around best practices and then we provided teachers time to engage in dialogue with each other as it relates to literacy as a result of this institute day session um a new committee evolved um the K2 phonics ad hoc committee which was facilitated by Jennifer and this was really allowing us to continue that discussion with our teachers around literacy we had representatives from each School participate on this committee we took a look at our

232existing scope and sequences for English language arts we also reviewed our existing curricular resources to identify where some of those gaps may still be and what professional learning we may need to support students and teachers in those areas and we also make sure that everything was aligned to our reading foundational standards so this year our work begins as Patrick mentioned with the logic models so we will continue Gathering feedback from teachers utilizing the logic model beginning this month going through December so this will be our time to really dig deep in terms of what teachers feel like they need really getting their insight as it relates to best practices and literacy and this information will help inform us as we move forward and we start to review various curricular resources that are out there so

233beginning in January of 2024 through April of 2024 we will engage in a resource review process so this is where we will be bring teachers together across the district and we will review various um resources that are out there that are relevant that are culturally responsive that are standards align and they are K5 Ela resources to support student learning so the goal of bringing us together will be not only to review these resources but also identify resources to Pilot the next school year so by the end of this year we will have resources that select schools we'll be piloting during um the following school year 24-25 as a result of those Pilots we will meet with teachers we will share surveys with families because we want all stakeholders to be involved in this process but

234by the end of that year we will have resources that we would recommend to the board of education for adoption and we would be ready to roll those out staff and students school year 25-26 just to be clear on that timeline yeah um in because it's a span of concern and has been brought to the board on any occasion yeah yeah while the adoption plan isn't until you know piloting 2425 adoption after that in the meanwhile students are still learning so those resources are still yes I just want to make sure it's explicitly clear yes we can repeat that as well students are absolutely learning phonics we are explicitly teaching it we are also providing teachers with professional learning around it hence the session question that we'll be doing with those Choice sessions with teachers

235so we are students are learning students are reading um we do know that we need to explicitly teach phonics more to our students so as we look at those resources through our resource review there are some components that we will specifically be looking for that are aligned to those reading foundational standards but yes students are reading and students are learning and I think for us that's why we really wanted to kind of take the time to make sure that we're being very intentional on how we're engaging in this work and we don't want to make such a drastic change so quick when not without having that time to really kind of talk to teachers and really kind of see how is this living and breathing inside of schools and I think for us while we

236know that learning is taking place in the classrooms we are able to kind of create those spaces where we're talking to stakeholders we're making those informed decisions so that when we do identify our next steps our next curriculum we know that it's going to service all of our students the question is and this actually is related to Beyond early literacy given the 2016 through 2020 time frame there is a group of students who may have had a weaker phonics space that are now currently in our middle schools is there any thought of how that could be underwater enforced in Middle Schools or any thought of looking at that area for as a possible area of support for our Middle School students I like to highlight is that last year our Middle School teachers um engaged

237in a collaborative process where we really looked at all of our units of instruction and our goal was to ensure that all of those units were aligned to the Illinois learning standards for ELA so that was a process that Vena rajashek are actually in the audience right now our curriculum coordinator for middle schools helped to facilitate and guide teachers through that process so we have actually um gone through the process of reviewing and Reinventing those units so that we are focusing on the standards that we know are priority for our students to know at that level we also made sure that students had multiple texts in there so we purchased a great deal of text students could have choice in what they were reading and so we've done a lot of work around those units

238at the middle school still have a little bit more work to do but we have started that as of last year in continuing that process oh you want to see questions no I'm good so I want to first of all say thank you so much this was speaking my language this was like this is my love language I hear words like data benchmarking there was qualitative and quantitative um it was it was it was great and I loved the examples that you gave it really did help me to understand the logic model because I could see like these examples I was like oh that's what you mean um so I appreciate everything in this um I do have just two quick questions uh how often will this be assessed so I know Nancy made me

239think of this when she said there's going to be a and cohort our cohort of students that will go through this so will this be assessed like on an annual basis every school year or will it be right now we have grades one through four and then once they graduate we start another assessment to see are these goals still relevant or do we need to tweak them a little bit with the logic model yes or yes so the logic models so we have a structure set up where so they're due this week and so we would kind of go through and actually meet the school teams to kind of provide feedback around their logic models looking for areas in which we can kind of celebrate you did a really good job kind of explicitly stating

240this or and asking questions like how about how would it look if you do XYZ um we're noticing that right here the actions are very general what are some more details so that's something that we will kind of we have in place throughout the year to kind of check in with school teams around their logic model to kind of see if we need to adjust anything in those models but each year each year it will change so as we think about next school year um depending on how well the school did the goals will be adjusted it cannot reflect that change cool and then I don't know how to wear this but like who's accountable like who determines this is a good job or no I want you to go back like who's the ultimate

241I'm I'm thinking about a mocha who's the like who's the mocha team um like manages I forgot what all the mother stands for but who is the ultimate like approver to say like I think you should do this like you can put more detail here or if this is good yeah so you're referring to like the project manager or the the team yes yeah um and I start when you think about like the Project Lead that would be your building principle okay and really kind of managing and so there we're supporting them and really kind of while we're saying here are the goals that you have said or mentioned in your logic model these are the goals that we're kind of holding you accountable to achieving the principal is then working with the teams to

242kind of make sure that what's on the models is actually being implemented in the classrooms and so one of the things that we kind of have in place um throughout the years they kind of do walk-throughs with logic models so this is a school-wide logic model when you said that we're going to see small group instruction we're going to see collaborative conversations with students we're going to see clear learning objectives let's take this um logic model and let's walk into some classrooms and kind of collect data around how we're doing so we visit five classrooms out of those five classrooms how much information did we kind of collect here and then we're not collecting that what's your next step so are you going to provide feedback to the teachers are you so I think as

243as layered right so they're receiving support from us uh principals this principles are receiving support from us principals are then supporting teachers and implementation of that if that makes sense so when you say we you're talking about when I say we are going to go to the core instruction team and so when I say the core instruction team does um Dr Louise Tawanda Donna our um curriculum specialist our udl director so the core instruction team is really kind of wrapping around our support with schools um and then my next thing is just really an Ask um and you kind of alluded to this and ushma did a really good job of uh alluding to this too like the accountability I find that and this is not just a d97 problem but I think in Progressive

244communities um there is this I think we've kind of gotten away from Hoda students accountable because we don't want to have conflict I've heard from teachers within a district and parents that you know there's an issue with teachers that want to be labeled as racist or you know they want to avoid that conflict and I actually think that's the absolute opposite like not holding students accountable and pushing them to their limit is like the epitome of racist um and so I feel like when we talk about change in adult practices there has to be that pushing students um to their absolute Highest Potential I think the saddest thing is like going to the middle school and seeing a group of black students and a teacher's like asking them questions and they're like whatever and then

245Stu and the teacher just like walked away and I was like no no no like get back over here challenge them like make them do this work and I understand um you know there's this fear of like I don't want to be conflict but like also that's the that's part of your job and so I would just ask that we are continuing to push our teachers to be uncomfortable to get uncomfortable to to get parents involved I know like when they do the assessment sometimes teachers or students or parents sorry are not hearing about the results of the assessment until parent-teacher conferences so I'm that parent who's like I want to update every week um or I want to know how my child is doing so that I could be doing things at home but

246I feel like there are so many teachers that are like I don't want to bother the parent or I don't want to talk to the parent and then by the time you know you go to parentage conferences in October the damage is already done so I think like we really need to hold teachers and parents and students accountable and have those uncomfortable conversations So within this curriculum and just our teaching in general I hope there can be an emphasis on yes this is a black student and maybe you have to call that parent several times but that's what needs to be done so that we're getting the absolute best for these these students so I feel like that is something that I'm hoping we'll see but like it was it was a great presentation like

247timeline I was waiting to act on the timeline he was like so I really enjoyed this presentation it was really really good but I think just that accountability part um across all curriculums like holding ours is accountable I would agree with that so I think we agree and I think that's the purpose of our Universal Design for all students right so really kind of holding students to high expectations but with that kind of figuring out what are the barriers so why so what do we need to remove in order to kind of help that student hold as soon as the highest expectation and when I say removing barriers like if we know that this student um maybe as a visual learner you know how can we provide something visual for that student while we're up

248talking um if a student needs additional time to do something how can we in our planning say that we're going to do XYZ so I think in really bad intentional around how you're planning for instruction holding students all to that high expectation but within the planning you're making sure that you're thinking about those things that might impact students learning thank you all right thank you thank you so much thank you thanks JLo have you heard it [Laughter] um what's our next presentation I think we were the last one yeah thank you thanks I don't think well some of our other presenters are still here thanks everybody for the presentations tonight I thought we had a really great discussion uh I certainly learned a lot um so overall successful first Committee of the whole meeting I

249would just say if folks have thoughts about what they think worked well or ways we can strengthen them like please let me know if other folks have remarks they want to share now feel free so is that this is our first Committee of the health insurance is this does this follow the same this might be a question for liars does this follow the same do we have to follow the same protocol as like regular board meetings um as far as opening the meeting having Quorum yeah place the corner but because there's no action we don't have to follow those other required rules so if we didn't have a forum we would be fine because we're not taking we didn't take action on anything it's still a committee of the whole for the board so you

250need a form because it is a committee of the home for the board we either need four or two because if it's two it's not subject to RMA if it's subject to Oma it's got to be aborted which needs Forum I like bring that up because I was wondering like I okay I think this was helpful super helpful and so I mean I'm sure John didn't watch it but I was just thinking like would it have been possible to be like we don't have all board members let's do this again or like how do we involve them in the conversation so the presentations tonight presentations tonight were shared ahead of time in a Friday update to kind of tea up the conversation so you come in knowing kind of where our videos are going to

251come to the table and present this information um and then there's also these opportunities for following so if the questions didn't come out here when we do the Friday update this upcoming Friday there's an opportunity for you to provide us with some feedback and then we can go back to the team with that and then in the next committee as a whole if it's more aggressive during the next public business meeting that will follow up with these are questions here's the responses civil schools I would also just say I know there was some initial like uncertainty about whether tonight would happen or wouldn't happen and that's how Holly ended up in the period when it when it wasn't on the calendar she made other plans so that's that but the rest of them are all

252on the calendar um I would be very loath to try to reschedule something given how hard it is to schedule anything with all of us so I think the best we can do is hopefully folks can can block it out and we'll have the recordings and other ways for people to ask questions if they aren't able to make it enough all right uh anything else do we need a motion to close yes [Music] thanks everybody