001This meeting is in session. Mr. Desawn, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Ford, I was giving thumbs up to David to see if we were streaming. We are good. >> Uh, okay. So, this work session tonight um is to help you understand a little bit more about the interventions that we do in each of our schools. I think we talk about things a lot. We throw around a lot of acronyms, but if you're not in our buildings, I think it's probably hard to understand. And when we say we put a kid in intervention, I'm not sure if you really know what that means. Um, how would you? You're not buildings every day. Um, so tonight we're going to give you an example and explanation of what we're doing in each building to help kids when they don't understand
002a concept or a skill or whatever it might be. So, it makes sense that we'll start with elementary and then just move our way up. >> Yeah. I'm going to pass out. I just have All right. I just have a little very small packet. I just kind of want to show you guys what it looks like for us. And I'm not going to sit here and blavor every single point, but you guys will be able to tell tell what I'm speaking about. But Max, here's one I got from the extra. Um, all right. So basically uh kind of before we take a look at the packet, I just kind of want to talk about the different kind of tiers of intervention and how it's very simple in the elementary building and I think Brandon's really
003going to talk about how it's different at the high school and then obviously at the middle school the students have a little more freedom and there's a little more wiggle room for some tier one intervention. Um there there are three tiers to intervention. Tier one um it's basically what all students receive. It's their it's our um ELA, math, EFL curriculums. Um everybody is getting taught standards, lessons, skills, and if we do that quote unquote properly, if we're successful at it, right, that's what the students are supposed to learn. It's your 2 plus 2= 4 and first grade, whatever it is. And all students receive tier one intervention. Obviously, as we know, tier one intervention doesn't always go according to plan. Some of our students learn at a slower pace. Some students come in ready for
004kindergarten. Some are not ready to be around other people at all. So, we have varying um skill levels that we deal with. And that is when we start implementing our tier 2 and tier three interventions. Um the there is a difference between tier 2 and tier three interventions, but in the elementary school, it's really muddy. And it's money because we start teaching skills in kindergarten. And obviously we're working on very finite number of skills. Um, and we're trying to build through tier one intervention. And sometimes it's really hard to tell what a kid knows and what they don't. If you go into a classroom, you'll be like, this kid really can't he's not spelling this word correctly. And then all of a sudden another word pops up and he's he's spelling it perfect, right? They
005have varying degrees of skill levels. And so for us at at our building, we really deal deal with extremely skill-based uh sorry extremely skill-based standards trying to teach students how to read, try to teach them how to learn words with phonics. And that is what we deal with in tier 2 and three interventions. Tier 2 interventions can happen in classrooms in small groups. You might picture um a teacher giving maybe a worksheet to students. they're working on it individually and then off to the side she has two, three, four other students that are working on a skill with her like one like one to one. Um that would be like a tier 2 intervention tier three intervention. Lucky for us, we're a title one school and because we're a title one school, we have title
006one pair of professionals that can either push into a classroom to take a group of students and retach a lesson, teach it in a different way and focus on specific skills. And then some of our older kids, we do what's called pull out house where they actually go to a totally different room that's quiet and they can work on those skills that they really need to work on in order to get up to grade level. So that is kind of the different tier system with tier one, tier 2, and tier three interventions. I know um Miss Horde and uh Mr. Gleason are kind of going to talk about how that looks a lot different at the other buildings, but for us, we do have to do a lot of tier 2 and tier three interventions.
007Um, we had done a lot better job of tier one intervention, which is curriculums happening inside the classroom. Um, I think that was a major change that we made. Um, jumping on the new EOA curriculum that I know it cost us a lot of money, but we're really seeing dividends pay off of that and our math scores are getting better. Um, but one thing we talk about with our teachers and with our office staff is when you have a tier one problem, you have way more students in tier 2 and tier three, right? Because they're not learning it when they're supposed to be learning it or we're not, there's some reason we're not getting through these kids. And so when we, you know, about two or what was it three or four years ago when
008we took over, if you have 70% of your kids in third grade that can't read, you can't tier three your way out of a tier one problem. It's impossible. There's not enough time in the day to pull enough small groups to catch them all up. So we've really focused on the tier one interventions, our curriculums. Um, our teachers have gone to a lot of PDs. We have an awesome awesome support staff that really helps the teachers and they know they have their backs. And so I really think that we do a good job of tier 2 and tier three, but for my building, I think we've just made such a jump in tier one, but we don't have as many students that need the tier 2 and tier three interventions. Hope that makes sense. I
009know that's a lot of mumbo jumbo and we deal with those terms all the time. So it seems simple to us, but anybody have any questions on that? Kind of just push in and push out. Who decides which way you do Um, for the most part it's pretty simple. If it's younger kids, um, grades K and one, it's way easier just to push in with them so that we're not taking them out the hallway where they have the time to like it might take us 10 minutes to walk down the hallway correctly. So, really, that's pretty much what it is. Uh, second grade, we do a lot of pushing. Um, third and fourth grade, we try to push in and pull out. And really what we figure out is we try to go in and
010figure out, hey, because we're going to look at just a couple of kids just for examples. Does this kid really not try on this test and he really understands it? Because if so, he needs to be in a tier. He needs to be with it the rest of this class. We you know, we don't want to I hate to say waste a spot, but if if kid A actually knows what he's doing, he's taking time away from kid B, C, and D that we really need. He needs to help. So really, if you could just imagine, hey, let's take these 5-year-olds all the way across the school. Well, that seems silly. We can just go in their classroom and work with the teachers and they're already used to kind of like, you know, moving their
011kids around the classroom. And all the all the kindergarten teachers, as you'll see, we start our pair professionals in there every single day when kids when kids come through the door because it just gives, you know, a second adult in there to calm the kids down and kind of get the day started. Um, so if you take a look at this packet real quick, I don't want to bore you guys with this, but the first every student when they come back to school, they take what's called an I Ready diagnostic. And what we see is we see where the kid is in terms of their reading skills and their math skills. Okay, so this particular student, you can see the diagnostic was on August 19th, so pretty much right back to school. Um, and this
012kid, this is the kids ELA reading score. So, you can kind of see off to the right the funological awareness, phonics, um, high frequency words, vocabulary, comprehension. Overall, you can see where green obviously good. This is a second grade student already testing at a late second grade level. Okay. So, this student would not be going to tier 2 or tier three intervention. They're on track. we know exactly where they're at. Now, a lot of our second graders when they come in, we want them to at least be at first grade level. That seems silly, but they've completed first grade. So, we would like them to have the first grade skills. So, [clears throat] if they come in and as second graders at the beginning of second grade, they test as first graders. That's okay with
013us, right? They have first grade skills. That makes sense. They went through first grade. That's awesome. Okay. So, the first example, and as you can see, um, I blacked out the the girl's name, but she's in the 96th percentile in terms of her reading score for the grade. So, this is a kid that, you know, we would project to pass the test, doing a great job. If you flip the page over, same class, okay, you will see that this student, this student is testing at a K level, okay, this is a second grade girl. So this student based on her score would be a kid that we would flag and send to intervention. Okay, a tier three intervention with specialized title one pair of professionals. If you look where it says overall reading score off
014to the right, you'll see grade K 416. This kid 416 the cut off for first grade is 434. So this isn't a kid that's like completely out of it, but they are slightly below that first grade level. Okay? And so if you look off to the side, you'll see the funological awareness grade K. It's yellow. All right? Phonics, sorry, grade one. Phonics is grade K red. All right? If you look at that off to the side, it's almost like a ladder for us, right? We look at funological awareness. If you don't have those skills, it's really hard to get the phonics skills. If you don't have the phonics skills, it's really hard to get the high frequency skills. If you don't have the high frequency skills, you can't get the vocab. So, it's almost like
015a ladder for us. So, for this particular student, we would place this student in an intervention that works specifically with phonics. With our UFI program, they'll get a double dose of phonics. They'll work with a group of probably anywhere between four to seven other first graders that are also struggling with that same skill. That would be the intervention that this kid got because they have a first grade pological awareness. They have a first grade high frequency word. They have a first grade vocabulary, but they're struggling with phonics. So for this student, if she improved her phonics score, right, she'd be at a first grade level. It's very simple. And if you look down at the bottom of this page on the bottom right, you'll see that this is page one of 25 for this one
016student. Okay? So, you're just getting a little this is a literal snapshot. The other 25 pages detail specifically what she's struggling with and we can really hone in on that. And that is what our title one pair professionals are for. So you So I'm just kind of showing you guys the difference between, hey, this is a kid that our tier one is working for. This is awesome. She's ready to go. Probably can pass the IR test right now or sorry, the Irene test right now. Ready to go. Second page is a student. You can tell the difference in her scores. And that would be the way that we would decide what intervention to put her in. >> Question. This information was gathered as a result of a test, a written test of the >> Yes.
017So, this is a test that is through IRB. Okay. Now, I'm not going to steal anything from Miss Horton because she's going to talk about something else, but we will be transitioning to a different program for our third and fourth grade next year. But that is because the state tells us we got to do the IR checkpoints. And I'm I'm she's going to describe all that. So, I don't want to, you know, bore you with that. and she's going to be telling you specifically how they're already using them. Um, however, I will say one thing that's pretty cool about this is kids get a chance to take this exact test three times. So, the first time they take it, we have what's called the summer slide. As you can imagine, not all of our kids
018are reading a book a day or they're, you know, they're not hearing, they're not working on skills with parents. So, we expect a little bit of a slide when they come back, but this tells us where they're at on this specific date. And then we put them through intervention until about a week before Christmas. A week before Christmas, we will have them take the exact same test and see if they grew, see if the intervention worked. Now, they take little tests along the way to see if intervention is working, but we'll see what they test out. And then at Christmas time, I take that data. I create a PowerPoint for you and say, "Hey, here's all [clears throat] the stuff we're doing and here's what it's looking like and all that stuff." And that's what
019you see in January when I when I start working on those those numbers for you. Basically, >> information shared with parents as well. >> It is shared with parents. Um, we also um kind we every kid basically kind of has a folder with all this information and with the growth and parents are talking to teachers on Class Dojo and other people as well. And we obviously have a lit literacy specialist that keeps um teachers and parents kind of, you know, connecting with the same language so they understand some of this stuff so they can learn about class. >> We're we're what a year and a half into the new reading program and comprehension all >> Yes. >> So what what is your take on >> like this this this kid's only in the second grade
020so >> they would have been probably way behind when we started. >> Yeah. >> I know the difference. start tells >> absolutely education. >> Oh, for sure. And I think you know there are some pitfalls with any new curriculum that you have, but based on how our teachers feel about it in general compared to the other one we almost chose that Cook has and they hate it. I'm very happy with what we did. The big thing for us is what we're learning is our kids are very limited in terms of their experiences, right? And so even if a kid can read, sometimes the test asks them to read passages they don't understand. Like one, you know, I can't I I can't really go into specifics, so I'll just use the World's Fair. Like a couple
021years ago, they had a question about the World's Fair, which is obviously different from the Greentown Fair. But our kids hear the word fair and they're like zipper, there is elephant ears. So, they're answering these questions based on that. They think they know, but they don't know. That's a vocap issue, right? That's an experience issue. That's that's not even testing whether they can read. It's testing what they know. And so, what I really like about our new ELA curriculum is that it kind of gets students out of their comfort zone. A lot of a lot of pictures, a lot of experiences. And our teachers are challenged to kind of create projects. style. If you see some of those videos online, we try to put some videos on where teachers kind of make things, you know,
022vibrant for students and more experience and hands-on stuff. We're sending them on more um field trips now. We're doing a lot of stuff with it. And I think that's a big reason we're seeing a jump in test and just understand what's being asked a little bit more. So, um and I'm and that's that's it for me really with interventions. The last two pages are just so you can see how we schedule our day. If you turn to the very multicolored colored paper, a lot of this probably doesn't mean anything to you, but in yellow are the specific intervention times. And I share that with you. If you want to come check out what intervention looks like, feel free to come in because it's scheduled to happen at the same time every day. I will note
023the question you might have is why is there no intervention for fourth grade? The reason is because we are working with them and trying to be more pushing for math which wouldn't be considered a specific intervention time. Um we also have um we have some different we have some different reasons why we've scheduled it like this because they help with some lunch coverage. To be honest with you, our pair title pair of professionals, we rarely have them all because sometimes they're subbing which is I'm sure something you guys deal with on a daily basis as well. So we have to work their hours in a very specific way. That's why there's some gaps in the times. So if you take a look at that, you'll see exactly yellow is during for intervention. You can come
024in and check it out. I would encourage you to do that because it's really cool to see in small group settings. And then the last page is simply those are our literal title one professionals and it and that tells us where they're at on a minute-to-minute basis. And you can literally see, okay, they're starting in K intervention and then they go to K push in. So they get pushin support. And then you see when they're on their prep and you can see when they're pushing into specific classrooms. So that kind of just breaks it down for you. And we place each of them have a specific skill that they really focus on and then we send students to them for that specialized skill. So it's very cool. Broken down by skill level. So, I highly
025encourage you guys to come check it out. And it is it it's very basic. It's it's it's nothing groundbreaking, but it works for us and it just gives our students an opportunity to grow. It's all we can ask. >> You guys I know I've asked this before, but you you guys talk particularly you and Heather so that Heather can say, "Hey, a fifth graders coming in. might see this or that or are there things that we can need to be doing better down there with the fourth graders or third and fourth graders? I I mean I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I definitely think that you know I would say that she obviously doesn't see some of the same things we see. Whether that be sometimes some of the kids I'm
026like, "Oh, you'll really like this kid." They go over and they're they're holding tears for her. Or the opposite way, this kid's causing us a lot of issues. And she's like, "I haven't seen this kid at all." So I what I'm what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is I think the island checkpoints that she's going to be talking about are going to help us kind of bridge that gap a little better because we are using I ready right now. She is using island checkpoints. I checkpoints are new. We're transitioning so that we're both speaking the same language and our kids are speaking that same language for intervention. But right now we're using a different process. Does that make sense? sense. >> Well, I guess school understand why we came all doing the same
027thing. >> So, like she's going to talk about the island checkpoints are extremely new. We had already paid for this program. This program is how what we taught our title pair professionals. This is what we work with with our literacy coach. Okay. Starting next year, we're not using this anymore in third and fourth grade. We're going to be using what she uses check. >> Yes. So that's it's kind of up in the air. We go to all these meetings, they talk about how we're going to use all this different data and they kind of just started spitting data out to us after we did our first checkpoint. So we didn't know what it was going to look like. So to me, we were seeing great gains with this. So I wanted to stick with this
028for as long as possible while I learned the island checkpoints. So that's why we made that decision. So we will be I have Mrs. Crouch and Mrs. High. They're really looking at the checkpoints and seeing where we overlap so that we can make this transition as easy as possible. So I say all that because I think next year the kids that will get receive intervention based on island checkpoints which is what she's doing this year. So we are not the same this year but next year we will be. And I think more succinctly to answer I think maybe where I felt like you were wrong with this our we do communicate at the end of the year like okay these are students coming to us this is specifically where they are like we I mean
029we're giving we are given copious amounts of data from the elementary that help guide us in terms of immediate placement when those fourth graders come into our building. And so, and we do have conversations like we've been very candid that and and Jake didn't shy away from this. We know our students struggle in that. We know that is a great area of concern and that's an area that they are working very hard to start addressing. And so, like we've been very open and having those conversations to know across the board, you know, I mean, Brandon knows our kids struggle with math. like these are open conversations and what we need to do better to help kind of start lessening these gaps. >> And I think for like I don't want to take a whole bunch
030of time for everybody because we'll eventually go over all this data again. But I think really the thing is we didn't really know what the island checkpoint data would look like to be honest with you because last year it was completely different. They really didn't give you any information at all. And so I was like, am I going to trust the state to give me all this information when they already didn't do it one time or am I going to trust what we know works? That's why we stuck with this this year. But we are working with that under data so that we can be speaking the same exact language as the middle school. >> I think too one thing that is becoming better is for years we just focus on the intervention. We got
031to do the interventions. We got to do the interventions. what we avoided probably the most important part which was tier one >> and that was the original instruction that you gave children >> and I think in the elementary especially we were just not there we were doing the wrong things and so now their tier one is correct so that means that the interventions will follow correctly because you've done the proper order beforehand and now this data matters if if your tier one is poor and the kids don't care and they don't try well the data doesn't mean anything you don't know what they you know, can't do. But I feel like now we've really dug in and we're getting better at tier one. We can still have a long way to go. But that really
032is the key. The tier one is sets up everything else. So >> our tier our tier one has improved. Now we have less kids in tier 2 and tier three. Now that's improving because you can really give that one-on-one attention to students that desperately need it. whether it be for a learning disability they may have or they're just simply not getting it and need to hear it and be taught a skill from a different person or from a different perspective. And that's easier to do when it's one-on-one or in a small group. >> We just got to we we've just got to get the assembly line going and everybody's got I mean we're we're just killing Heather. >> Yeah. I mean knows every I mean it's she she puts in more time than anybody else
033probably and they're just getting they're just getting beat up from a discipline standpoint from a educational standpoint. I mean like I said before you guys should have the toughest job right should be sitting in a in in the in the office like red arach smoke a cigar. I mean for me that's that's the that's the position how it should work but the middle school is just jacked up and I feel so bad for them >> and we got to do something to figure that out. They're they're in between you two guys and what how what are we going to do about it? When are we going to start? You know what I'm saying? When are we going to reap the benefits? I mean, we've been talking about this for a long time and we we
034think we've got the right thing started in the elementary. We got to start seeing results because it's just a disaster over there. In my mind, it is. I'm not speaking with anybody else. >> She listen. >> Yeah. >> All right. Tell me where I'll start with. >> Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. >> Tell me again, how does how parents find out about this? Uh, we we just share it with them. we can share with them via class dojo. We typically call and tell let them know that they're in title one interventions and talk about what that looks like with the parents and they also receive they also receive documentation in the mail. >> Okay. So you said we share it in dojo or we can call them. Yes. >> Okay. If you share it in
035dojo, do you feel like they're really looking at it? >> We can see if they look at it and view it. You can tell >> you feel like most people do >> feel like they look at it and some of them will reach out and see what kind how they can help their student with their skills, but I'd say probably at least 50 to 60% never really ask how they can help their student. So it does fall on us to be honest with you. >> So which is different. >> Yeah, that that was the basis of my question. You can get the parents to help. I know some cases it's useless. Yeah, we have meetings. Uh we invite parents to come in to kind of understand the testing better um and the intervention problems and
036we have we just had our literacy night which we had like 45 kids come which doesn't sound like a big number but it's like double last year or two years ago. So >> thank you. >> Good evening. I'll start with kind of where we just landed on tier one. Um, we know for our kids, our teachers struggle when we talk about tier one, just basic instruction. Our students struggle when we are doing a a guided practice. Teachers working through a problem or something on the board that students simply won't even pick up a pencil and follow along. Um, I was in Miss Oliver's class last week and she told her class, she said, "I'm going to tell you right now." She says, "I" and I I told you this, if you don't do it, but
037I'm going to tell you again." She says, "If you don't pick up a pencil and start writing the answers that are given to you on the board and put them on your paper, that paper will be a zero. I'm giving you the answers. That paper will be a zero." And there was groaning. There was grumbling. There were still students that sat there and did not copy what she was writing on the board. And so when we talk about apathy and and trying to target tier one and that's why it's we we feel in our building super passionate about just trying to find ways to motivate children to just simply do the work. That's all we're asking. If you do the work, that translates into likely a better grade. That translates into likely better learning. You
038know, if you don't practice, you don't play. you know, I mean, I'm a sports person. You got to practice to get better. And so, we feel like with our grade reward program that and and appreciate the support of that that it is so very important for kids to be talking about grades because they have to start practicing. If they're not practicing, our we just can't help them. And that's where we're we're kind of struggling with right now is getting students just to practice. And so, um, that's where we're we're our tier one. And that's where we're currently at. It's just trying to get students to simply copy work. >> Is there any any format or any >> any way I know we don't have enough staff probably, but [clears throat] when you see that there's
039two or three that didn't to address them then like the end of class or somebody and say, is there a reason you didn't pick up your pencil after that? You know, it's a zero. What do you In other words, get in their head. Why are you doing this? Why aren't you participating? >> I'll do it when I get to high school. So, you know, I just >> that's the answer we get. I'll do it when I get to high school. >> It's too late. They don't do it now. It's too late. Great. >> Yes. >> They don't understand. >> Yeah. I just had that conversation today with Terry. She said, "I tell I tell because she has 8th grade math." She goes, "I tell these kids every day. I translate no work, no credit, no
040diploma. I'll be running high school." That that is 100% mattered in middle school. >> Yes. Yes. We hear that, too. I've heard that. >> No. [laughter] So, so that's where we're working to try to incentivize and find ways to reward students to make them know that this matters. And sometimes if we don't keep playing the fieldhouse or some sometimes those things will matter to students and so just working hard just to try different things that's all we can keep doing is just try different things. So um so I will start um obviously you understood from Mr. Light obviously through the tears um when Mr. Deshawn and I were we were talking you said we're going to do this so he had kind of said you know can we really talk about what checkpoints are because
041obviously you heard Mr. might talk a little bit about this. So last year we piloted, they piloted in their building, we piloted, like he said, the data was >> non-existent. And so we really were just looking at the test is what we were doing because they provided us with nothing. So what I have given you is just kind of a very quick summary of what the checkpoints are and I can just kind of briefly hit it. Um obviously through English and math there's no science or social studies for the checkpoint. So we are approaching the end of checkpoint one window. There are three total throughout the year. They do not count towards the end of year what we traditionally know as the April May island. So that these scores not that they don't matter they
042don't count towards that. So the checkpoints that we are currently taking, we are not using IRA because what the state has figured out that previously they were doing the formative assessment grant and they were paying millions to schools, schools like ours, we applied for the I Ready, you know, I mean for that for that platform to use and so the state was giving us grant money to be able to pay for that. Well, they also have figured out that they paid billions of dollars for I mean I don't know if they figured that out but I think they have but they paid billions of dollars for iLearn. So now they're going and we've cycled back around that those of you who've been here long enough or know we've cycled back around that we used to
043have incremental assessments throughout the year that led to the big one like you know Iowa basics is what we took when we were in school. I probably just dated myself but okay yeah if you want to raise your hand and join me great. If not but you know that was an eighth month exam that we took throughout the year. So we've cycled back around a few years later. We're doing the same thing again. So that's really what the checkpoints are for those of you who know Iowa basics. And so the checkpoints are giving us the data of what we need to be working towards or sometimes what we're trying to push even enrichment intervention can be remediation. Obviously, we know in MAC we have a lot of target areas that we need to hit. So,
044what we're doing and I gave you um and feel free to read through the sheet. I mean, it kind of tells you a little bit more about what the checkpoints are. Um again, no science or social studies that will still be a summited at the end of the year. So, right now it's just for English and math. And so, kind of the front page read through it. Um it is computer adapted as you see there at the top of the second page. So computer adapted meaning that it's adjusting to, you know, did I get it right? It gives me a little bit of a harder question. If I got it wrong, then it drops me down to a little bit of an easier question. And so um kind of tells in that first bullet point
045that checkpoints are supposed to be quick. We have some students who are approaching 90 minutes on their checkpoint assessment. So when I say supposed to be quick, um they are still untimed just like the end of the year summit test. So each checkpoint has around 20 to 25 questions. There's no writing. Uh they call that a performance task. There's no writing portion where the students actually have to type out essays or short answers or even long answers. Um they're just all like I said multiple choice kind of computer adapted. um students still have all the accommodations. And so what we do kind of that middle of that second page, we take the checkpoint data and I've just given you an example of a student you see at the top. So the first the first piece
046of data that you have, it says opportunity one at the top and then hopefully the second one. Yeah. Well, yeah, second one says opportunity two. I will look at mine for a second there. So with this particular student, the math teacher, this is a sixth grade student. So the math teacher, they give us basically an outline. Here's what we're going to test on checkpoint one. So they're telling you, you teach to the test. For years, teachers have said that like just tell us what kids need to know. Yeah. I mean, and we've always said for years that we just want to teach students organically, but that's not what the state wants. The state wants has and teachers have had to pick for years and Mr. Light was a part of this as a teacher. You
047look at the standards for a particular grade and the state basically for iLearn was telling you or even IEP that was telling you pick the standards that you think are important you think are important you think are important and we'll see how you do it was a gamble I mean that's all it was and so when we look at this like so we could have five of you se seated here all of you teach English and we either all have to agree agree on which standards in Vegas we hope will be on the test because there's no way we can dial in on all of them. There's way too many. We're not going to get there. So, we either all have to agree that these are the standards we need to teach and let's hope
048we're right cuz if we're wrong, that was a bad gamble, right? We lost on that one. And so, that's what they were asking teachers to do. And so this is from in my opinion, as long as I've been doing this, this is probably one of the better things that the state of Indiana has done. They've said, "We're now going to dial it in for you." >> Yeah. >> Because we tell teachers, begin with the end in mind. Look at your assessments, know what you expect your students to learn, and then teach them, and then give them the assessment. So the state has now given teachers a map that says this is what we are going to test on the first checkpoint. So we have taught those to our students. So we took the first opportunity
049we give them the test. And so you see for this particular student when you go to the second page it does tell you because again computer adaptive. So this student had six questions. So 83% of the test six questions that were below proficiency and then 67% or nine questions because of the computer adaptive part of this was at approaching and then 20% or 10 questions was at proficiency. So the overall rating for this particular opportunity was approaching proficiency for this student. So when we look then on to page three and page four, it specifically tells the teachers, this is data that they can use. It specifically tells them that on standard, which you see the academic standard there in the second column, it tells you the PLLD or the performance level descriptor that this student
050either check mark got it right or X got it wrong. So, we know we can look at this. Some student some students some teachers like to look at it in this format and they can print all these off by student or they give you and I didn't even even come remotely close to printing out the spreadsheet. They have a spreadsheet full of all of this data for this particular student. So all this data that you see here is also on a spreadsheet which is much nicer because if you're a spreadsheet person you know you can manipulate that. You can take what you need. We can then group students. For example, this student um which we wouldn't put him I guess I should pick one that he got wrong but um so like you say the
051first one in the pink it was 6 NS1 has trouble identifying negative positive number that represents equality in a real world situation. I guess actually they got that one right. So it's a bad example there. But teachers can take the X's of those standards and group everyone who got that standard wrong. So we can pull those students into what we call or what Mr. Light also called is a tier three intervention. So now we can't get everyone. So if we have to get everyone, we have to go back to a tier one instruction. This is going to be whole group class instruction because a bunch of my kids missed this standard. I need to retach that as a whole group because so many kids missed it. What we're trying to do is take kids part
052of it too who have to have a little bit of want about them that I want to come to a math intervention. I want to be pulled out because I want to do better on this. So we take those kids again tier three. We pull them into it's our seventh period class. It's 30 minutes every day and they work for about 3 to 3 and 1/2 weeks with the math teacher or the reading teacher depends on what intervention that they really needed. And so at the end of that 3 to 3 and 1/2 weeks, we have an opportunity to test that student a second time. Now we can work on this all year long. They have one chance opportunity too. So, opportunity 2 can be given clear up until April 10th on any checkpoint. So,
053you have all year to remediate. So, they give you some flexibility. You have to take opportunity one by the end of the window. There's three windows. Opportunity two, you can remediate all year long and then give it. So, if we chose to remediate on this particular checkpoint in February, we can still give this student the second test to see if what we did worked. You see, he's still at proficiency on his second opportunity. We pulled this student into a three three and a half week remediation. But when you look at the difference in terms of the computer adaptive part, we did show some some movement. Not quite the growth of putting him at proficiency. I'm sorry. Sorry. Mark his name, but it is a young man. So you see that there was some growth. He
054still, you know, 83% of the questions were still below, but there was movement with that. that on the first one he had six questions below. I think I left these right. Second one had 12. But when you look at his approaching, he did approve in the approaching area. And he did improve on some of the questions in the at area. So while we didn't move the the needle clear to at proficiency, which is going to be really hard for our math kids, let's just be honest. our our math kids struggle number one with confidence and then they struggle number two with skills that we still have students who may not know multiplication facts. We have students who may not know 7 * 3 is 27. >> I was seeing if you were paying attention. Good
055job because it's 21. We got a problem. Well, darn. I should have tried harder. >> So, so you show, so you see with that. So, this particular student, he doesn't have a chance to take another test for 10.1. Like either we have to give another assessment or with other students who maybe if we hadn't got an opportunity to get to, we can still test them if if we want to or need to. So Heather, we can only give opportunity two once. How do we know from November 5th to April 5th whether it's improvement or not? >> We have to find a different assessment for that. So we can use for math we can still use I ready because our math adoption is I ready. So we can still assign students particular standards and have them
056take that assessment. So we're still lucky with that. um our English uses some different methods like common lled there's some different things that English can do to test or it just has to be a teacher >> teacher derived why you do it once >> well we can't give all the answers away and you should keep trying >> yeah it's kind of like I think they could see like seeing at the free throw line you don't get to keep shooting until you make it >> and then win the game >> they're going to use that data too in school like all this data Well, >> so this is not like your test. Yeah, your test didn't matter. >> We we have we have a summit of test as well. We have a summit of at the
057end of the year, >> but your I learn checkpoints you said didn't counting up to >> the checkpoints don't count against the student or the school. >> Correct. >> They're just for us to have >> they're for us to use not like that. Well, it would sound like what >> opportunity two is not like that because why couldn't you do it more than once if it doesn't >> Yeah, you're one of them. >> Okay, that doesn't make any sense. They're they're work they're that's kind of my problem with it, right? Like that's it's harder it's harder for us to track it that way. We're trying to figure out a way to do it. I It sounds like they're trying to do the same exact thing. They're trying to figure out navigate how we can continue
058to get interventions and then pull kids out when they do understand. But that's why I was that's why I'm using the I Ready right now because I feel like that works and that's kind of where we're at. But that's why I think we're both working on that so we can make it work for our students. And we also have some students that we're pulling into what we call intervention, but we're also doing enrichment of those students because we're trying to also move the needle with students who are getting it but don't quite got it. You know what I mean? Like so those students still because sometimes we want to tend to focus on the students who are just they're completely not getting it because we want them to get it but then there's also students
059who they just need kind of a little and then it's that aha moment and then we realize with those students that like I can do math >> right I just gained confidence which we see is our biggest hurdle in our belief I suck at math >> exactly I can't do math So why try? And that's the mindset. So we know that those students who are kind of trying and have given us a little bit of grit, we're going to help you and you're going to walk out of here. And we've had some students who find kind of that bubble of air that I got this. So that's what that's what we got to have. >> Do you ever you ever have have you thought of having students? >> Yeah, they try, but those kids >>
060Yeah. I was better in high school perhaps. >> I had talked to Stephen a bit about >> we know the kids aren't doing their homework, right? I mean, that's obvious. We don't want to go back to that stupid idea where we put signs out everywhere saying, "Hey, come to Taylor cuz you don't do homework." What do you do you talk with other principles or our teachers get in groups and talk about how do we how can we do a better job in the classroom to get them motivated? I mean, what can we do to to where they're learning during classroom time and and and they're not getting homework, they just we don't give it. But so I don't want to say force them, but how can we motivate them to learn? >> We just met
061last week on our 30 minute on our 30-minute time that we have on Tuesdays. We just met as a staff last week and we developed a spreadsheet of things that we can just just generating ideas and we talked about that last Tuesday saying what are what are you doing? What are you doing? What can we do? And >> do we talk to other schools or other teachers or other principles or >> I mean our teachers definitely talk to other teachers and I mean and a lot of our teachers are just looking up stuff. You know what I mean? Same as everybody else. They're on social media and they're seeing things and they're trying things and >> and that's part of PBL. That's part of the reason we want to do that because you can bring
062real world concepts in where you can say to a child you will use this and this is how rather than I'll never use that why do I care about I'll never use it you know >> but there are ways to build in projects things that they will do and hoping that it's more fun to do a project than to do a worksheet >> relatable >> for the most part you're dealing with the same parents that you dealt with Uh, how do you feel they're responding to these results? Any different than he did? >> The parents can see these results. Um, I did send home a parent square message that gave them a link um that you have to call for your individual specific code to get into your child's obviously account. >> Yeah. for heaven's
063sakes. >> CC. >> Oh, yeah. Well, part part of it, too, is and I'll be honest, one of one of the kids that I mentor up at 08, the teacher said, "Coach, can you help him at lunchtime with some math problems? He had five problems." And I said, "Yes, ma'am." So, I helped him and she called me that afternoon. She said, "Hey, stop by tomorrow." She said, "The the answers are all correct, obviously, but she said the method's wrong." So, It was like 36* 10. So, you know, I I just did it like normal. I Well, I went in and I said, "Well, how would you do that?" And I mean, it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. 30 30* 10 and put in a box over here. It said 300 and then six times
06410 and put 60 in a box over here and they had the two boxes together. And I said, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever who's coming up with this stuff." >> That's why they're confused. >> We got parents that can't help. >> That's the other bad part. The ones that want to help can help because it's just ignorant. I mean, the whole thing is just ridiculous. >> Yeah. I'm fortunate. I know math teachers in our building. So, when kids say, "Can you help me with math?" I say, "Yep, right here." [laughter] >> And we walk straight to the bathroom. >> What we've done? No. >> I'm good. >> I think I'm good. I don't know. >> I know. We use a lot of papers, right? We digital. So I shared two documents with you but
065with the essence of time. I'm ours is a little bit different in a terms of when it comes to the high school you know whatever Jake has done leads into what Heather's done. What Heather's done I have to mimic it. So there's no shop. Our kids from kneeh higher grasshopper all the way up and they need that structure that routine the exact same thing. So they know building to building classroom to classroom it's the same. So from that, we've adapted a lot of stuff um at the high school. So our interventions, we're going to talk about special focus areas, what that exactly means. I'm not going to give you data. My number one data is I better shake more handshakes at graduation this year than I did last year. That's my number one data. My
066number one goal is for Mr. Moon. I told this to all the parents, the freshman in my speech, Mr. Moon to read your name, me to shake your hand. End of conversation. How we get there has to be unique to every child because our kids are all unique. they come from other schools for a unique experience at Taylor. That's how we operate. So yes, we went up uh 21% in our SAT scores for at proficient. Um you know, if our kids get the ultra one skills, they can do 60% of the math on the SAT. Okay. We also went up um I have our you know bio, we were at 39% last year. Here's the last three years scores 19% 18 and 10. So whether I know Heather's feeling pressure, but what they're doing and
067working is coming here. Bottom line is more time kids in a classroom even if they sit there and don't pick up pencil this or that they're under they're at least absorbing something and those kids will do that. So talk about academics, I break our interventions down between two categories, academics and behavior. As simple as that. Tier one, tier two, tier three. As Mr. Light said, tier one, that's everybody. Tier two a little smaller. Tier three is that 10 to 15% range or 5% range. So, how we operate here is Taylor High School, all schools are on. Our number one drive is academics. If a kid can't meet a test score to graduate, we look at academic or sorry, we look at attendance next. So, we need to make sure they are in in the seats.
068Credits, we track, interventions are off track. Mr. to ruin myself as we're knocking on the doors. You know, we're probably the only school around that would challenge us that that we go to someone's door and knock on the door say you have 3 minutes to get dressed and and come to school with us or X Y and Z has to happen for the state code. Kids will come and do that. Uh behavior, restorative, trauma informed care, all these trainings we go to, college and career readiness, everything in there. So, as we're going through, what makes us unique is we're that small schools. We know the story. We know this person had this going on. We had kids. So, how can we go about there? Our relationships are key. I know that from the elementary all
069the way up to middle, all the way up to the high school flexibility. Being a smaller school, we can get creative with schedule. We have play recovery through admenum. We can do the career center. We do all these different flexibilities. Find out kids pathway. What are we passionate about? As you saw, once you're passionate about something, they're going to latch on. As I told you, my number one goal is to shake more hands this year than I did last year at graduation. community. We have the ties. All this workbased learning is coming. 100 plus hours. I talked to the other area school principles. Where are we going to get this? How are we going to get these hours? I want every kid to start on a track with the seal. Whether that's enrollment, employment, enlistment,
070we need to start on a seal versus trying to make it up. So, we need to get ahead of it. And we already our project based learning, the community ties going out there. And then our staff, we always connect. So, so I'll just show you here quick. So schoolwide, this is for all. I break down our interventions. We don't need all this data and numbers. Number one goal, get kids to graduate, get kids at school. Okay, we look at prevention, positive culture, strong relationships. We accomplish that. These things will happen and they have happened. So academic side, standardsbased instruction with differentiation. This is great with project- based learning. You've invested a lot in us. Project based learning is basically take the standards, be collaborative, tie a community piece, make it relevant, get that engagement, get
071the grade, graduate. So, it's simple as that. What are they passionate about? Uh, we have something pretty interesting right now with our um social studies is linking with art, making ceramic poppies for like all these things. They're interested in that, but they're learning all the skills. They're learning the history. They're learning the ceramic skills in both at the same time. They're just doing it in a different way. And that different way is okay and tailored. We have to be unique to get every kid to graduate. So we go through here crosscurricular projects, formative assessments to guide instruction. Talk Heather talked about that going forward. Study skills and organizational strategies. At one point probably the most hated man in Howard County when I said if you have this grade and after you're going to go to
072study tables. If you miss practice, this is what happens when you go. Our study tables are now um some of you that probably just walked in, you may attend our study tables from time to time, but it works. You now have goal sheets and folders. What are you doing? Why are you in here? How do you study? How do you take notes? How do you actually do something? By the time you read a chapter for a test, if you mastered those skills, you can probably write the test yourself. So, they're working on that. So, Mr. Weeks, Mr. Murphy, as well as myself and Moon do a great job at that. After school tutoring, we talked about and then we have win uh flexible time for students to catch up on learning. What's great about after
073school tutoring now we have so many leaderships on campus now for schools whether it's the key club student council uh the Titan leadership academy those kids come and tutor after school now it's part of their hours it's part of the requirement to get towards graduation so that's how we're going to do it academically schoolwide literacy uh we're going to initiate and launch this now come Monday is you have nothing to do you're reading a book staff's going to read a book's going to walk around sit in the classroom and read with the It's the 30 minutes of reading will go a long ways because as I opened this up with the SAT numbers went up great because the English teachers found the formula. It's the vocab. It's the reading but it's doing it all the
074time. Don't take an off day on it. So that's really helped. Um as far as behavior then we go you know our PBIS stole it from Miss Ford. I said your assemblies all you do that's awesome. We did our first one in October. We had kids come down. They're excited to get certificates. That little recognition pushes them to try that one. Not asking for A's, not asking for B's. Get your credits to graduate. That is what you need. Uh so we have a fivestar story. You build the relationships, clear expectations. I think our handbooks have been great with this. It's clear from building to building what's exactly happening. There's no wiggle room. This is what we're doing. That's an intervention because we're all doing it consistently. Uh, schoolwide recognition. We talked about student of the
075month, Titans of the Month, just anything to get a kid motivated. Man, I may not get B's or C's. And you're going to hear some students of the month today. They're not the AC, but they found a way to excel and that needs to be noticed. Not always taking care of the top and worrying about the bottom. It's what about the middle that does the right thing? They put their paper in properly, but they're not getting seen for whatever reason. That can wear on you. If for 3 years you're not getting recognized, that wears on you. So why try? Well, we're done not seeing everybody and this has been evident. So assemblies, um competitions between grade levels. We even do attendance competitions and we do ice cream Sundays. Uh Paula, don't worry. It follows the
076um smart snack there. We have it all mapped out. But it's those little things. They get each other accountable then. Okay, we all need 95% attendance. Let's do this. How are we going to do this as a class? Go through there. Win again. Grade level checks, daily check-ins. So that's that's what everybody is getting every day. So now what do we get a little bit more for that smaller group? Well, we have lab now. We know these kids are not they didn't come out of with all their math skills. So I throw them into a class that's fastpaced. They're already going to take the app. That's not smart. We know that's educators. So we created a math lab. It slows down the skills, breaks it down for them. We have reading labs, all those things
077to try to stop the problem. If we know with the new graduation pathways you need, you know, algebra one, geometry and four math credit, then why don't we focus on those credits that are on the SAT? Algebra one is a huge part of that. So, schedule adjustments, kids not working this, we can move their schedule. We need half days getting your five classes, figuring it out. We also do credit recovery uh through Eden and Plato with Mr. Ostapoa, study tables in there, check-ins in the resource room. We have amazing resource teachers, amazing uh amazing parents, amazing sp education teachers. Go check in llyingal at the high school have binders that every kid knows. I can go in, I can see their goals. They I exactly know what's going on and the kids know. Goal setting
078and progress monitoring. Um attendance meetings, like I said, we'll go knock on those doors. I mean, it happens. You have three minutes to come or you're going somewhere else. That's somewhere else they don't want to go. Um conference with parents and home visits. We have these re-engagement teams for that, you know, that 10% plus chronic absenteeism. We know it's a thing. The states talked about it. We're not afraid to talk about it here at Taylor. So, we're getting ahead of it. Behavior side here. Go a little faster. We have behavior skills specialists, counseling, our 4C services, behavior contracts, mentoringship programs. We're that's with um I believe the high school kids. You guys asked about is there mentorship programs? the high school students from some of my leadership teams. I actually met with Miss Hord about
079coming down and doing eighth grade. How are we gonna we need to start partnering with eighth grade before school's out to show them this is how we transition. This is how it's going to be. So that I'll fix it in high school mentality. That's not real world. And a lot of freshmen are figuring that out right now. It's not how it works. We had to have conversations where this far in you're already off track of graduation. What are you going to do? How are you going to fix this? It's fixable but you have to put in the work. And then the parents are like they start to understand it. Uh tier three these are more of our you know intense ones. So uh Miss Wickham you guys last week or last month you know she's
080our district um EL ELA or EL to record. So academics you know ILPS IEPs ILP meetings. Are we following everything? We make sure every kid has every chance to succeed. So much so that I know Heather and I have both believed that when they do those um project based learnings, they need an admin signature plus a plus a special ed signature to make sure these are fair for every student to get the credits to graduate more wind and resource room. We go through collaboration with special ed modified curriculum or pacing. We work at all that, you know, we look at VIPs. Hey, they need extra time. This that modifies your pacing. All these different things come into play. Um, just regular meetings. I know time some more intense ones, you know, we we have services
081come in and counsel students. Hey, if you're not right in the frontal cortex, you're not going to be able to sit down and think about math right now or history or English or any of these things. So, what can we do there? Um, you know, behavior plans. We have wraparound services, partners, social workers come in and talk to our kids, safety, crisis plans when needed. Like I said, all hands on deck. We believe massively in mental health at Taylor. All of you have supported that. We're not going to shy away from it, but we need to continue to make sure every child has everything they can to succeed and that is not shying away from what's in front. I know that was fast because Jake went 45 minutes. >> Whoa. Oh my god. But the
082bottom line is interventions look very different at the high school. Meaning we don't have the testing stuff all the time. They're testing us. Are they getting their credits? We run credit checks. We do all these things. But at some point it's clearly working. We don't just jump 20% 30% in some subjects. We have less kids in the office. You know, I know there's some teachers here. Hopefully they would admit the halls are less, you know, crowded. kids where they need to be on time, be in school. If you don't pick up a pencil, at the very least, at least you're listening to it and you'll remember something. But any questions there? I said my number one thing with data is we getting kids graduate period and what roadblocks are we removing to help them? Anything?
083>> No, not for me. >> You guys get all the question back. >> Thank you very much. Um, I'll admit kind of old school thinking and my past law enforcement experience when you guys had interventions, my mind went way off, way somewhere else that we just can't deal with today. But thank you very much. I appreciate it.