001afternoon and welcome to the curriculum and instruction committee meeting agenda and I would like to pass it over to miss Moriarty good afternoon everybody thank you uh this afternoon Elementary curriculum instruction uh presents item 1.01 field trip requests uh there are three requests one is for Bonville second grade to attend uh turtleback zoo in West Orange New Jersey it's a trip that they go on uh annually Foster Town School grade 3 2 attend Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk Connecticut and the third one is one that we discussed at our last curriculum committee meeting earlier in the month for foster Town grade five to attend on Medieval Times in New Jersey uh the conversation was did it was it really supporting the curriculum and was this a trip that we wanted to support however referencing the field
002trip policy it does State culminating uh end of the year activities for grades are allowable in the field trip and this is a culminating activity for this grade at rosterdam so these are my resolutions for today any comments or questions yes um be advised that I'm still voting no I just I'm just not here but on on the floor understood yes it's a deal I'm talking about knowing that one too I I saw the explanation that we're going it has something to do with learning about medieval times and things like that I'm I'm not sold on that for a couple of reasons one it's June 14th one week before school gets out I don't I think there's a whole lot of learning going on there but that's why it's falling on the the like end
003of the year culminating um trip it's not a quote-unquote educational trip is um she showed me the policy and I can't think of the number right now but there is a policy that states they can have a culminating trip okay with that said the trip above it is half as much money at a time where pressed for money so that's the best we could do is 75 a person for 100 people understood any other questions quote what you said in regards to the end of the year activity um so I actually have it on my desk I meant to bring it in it's um the the pile it feels like the excuse to run to her office if you'd have to dig through something else because she she circled it because she specifically wanted to
004show it because on Miss Mineo yeah but there there is a policy that says it okay I'm still adamant because I I have some strong feelings about this this particular trip and that's understood and I can certainly go back to the teachers and recommend that they consider a manager um I know that there are concerns about it but the what the policy references that uh field trips throughout the year should support curriculum however a culminating activity for the end of the year for a specific grade level is an allowable field trip it is a summarization of what the policy says thank you any other questions or comments so we'll leave it there um I'll talk to uh Ms Monica the principal to talk to her teachers and ask if they'd like to reconsider if not
005we'll put it over to the board and see um if there's board approval for the trip okay I passed to Dr Farrell we have some field trips today the first is um Miss um Giacomo Carbone South Middle School attending the SD convention this is the Premier convention for technology um and we're very fortunate because this spring they're holding it in Philadelphia instead of in San Diego or in New Orleans um so she will be attending uh the next is for Kevin Rothman and the third for Jerry Ortiz um to attend the New York Gear Up conference this is Preparatory to um completing paperwork and becoming more acclimated to the grant that we received that tracks our seventh graders from this year grade seven through their 12th grade year it provides funding on a per capita
006basis for each student in that cohort for a very identified special activities uh tracking them through 7th through 12th grade and then post graduation as they begin career or College um the next is for Frank Mayo uh CTE a college and Technical education career teacher at NFA North to attend the work experience coordinators conference in Fayetteville New York um this is to um further his skills in his particular area and the last is for Elder Grossman a math teacher at NFA to attend the College Board APA advisory council meeting in Kansas City there is no course for the district she was asked to participate um as a member of that panel which is a significant achievement so we are I am on to bring that request to you if you have any questions about any
007of these things they all seem very valuable okay thank you um the next one I want a culminating activities this is for grade 12 students at NFA West uh for 23 students and three teachers attending a field trip at Hershey Park there is some small curriculum attachment to this um but I will be quite honest with you this is a culminating field trip and they are graduating seniors so this is like a senior trip yes for this particular cohort any comments or questions just oh Madeline Madeline nail oh my God Madam president okay because they have done fundraising and receive donations thank you thank you for that that really makes a big difference thank you at this time with the uh I have one other item first um this um is a resolution to um
008authorize Dr Campbell to enter into an agreement with corporate Computer Solutions um to upgrade our ThinkPad laptops this is from our p-tech program um the current hardware and soft black capabilities are no longer in sync with RP Tech requirements so this is an upgrade of existing technology equipment for the program any questions or comments yes where's the money coming from that is from the p-tech budget okay thank you thank you from the p-tech budget and general funds or repeat the grant b-tech grant okay um at this time I'd ask your Indulgence um to entertain an additional field trip um this is for our barbering students and our CTE program to attend a conference which is actually a competition in Connecticut um this is a late arrival and I apologize for not getting it to you
009sooner uh this isn't uh Mohegan Sun Boulevard in Connecticut in Washingtonville I believe it is correct this statement I think it's okay in Washingtonville Connecticut um we have 40 students and two faculty members and three parents who will be fully vetted through our rapid program before they accompany the students on this field trip um this is fully covered in general budget any questions or comments yes so I was just up at school over the weekend and I walked into where they were doing the work over The Barbers and they got an incredible program over there opportunity for the kids and I've been hearing a lot of the younger kids got a really interested once they get to the high school they want to participate in that program so I love what you're doing over there
010with that program I did receive a phone call and I shared it with Mr Eatery from a parent in ballet Central who was interested in knowing if her child could attend our CTE barbering program I advised her to speak to her school district to see if they were interested in doing a cross contract and paying us tuition for that and if so she should call me back so perhaps we will have some income coming in which would be lovely yeah I I don't know we'll see what happens um and I'd ask your Indulgence to work on one more item and I'd like Mr E tree to present this item this is a resolution to improve the new sources as we have discussed several times for our middle school students um in CT exploration um the
011reason that um I'm asking you to entertain these at this meeting even though they were not on the published agenda is because we are not meeting illegal and these need board approval moving forward so that we can engage our staff in further curricular riding so that they're ready for presentation and implementation in September so this was a time sensitive item which is why we're doing it now yes and the screen is made Mr can you please explain his presentation yes thank you so typically when you go to middle school you have to get one unit not credit it's always different in the middle schools you get one minute unit technology education and you get three fourths of a unit of family consumer Sciences um as we looked at that and we worked with the two
012all four of the middle school principals and we spoke to stat we wanted to build into the curriculum of course is the interest kids that really want to make them go but I have a secret to doing this as well a good point of this a lot of this is exploration so that kids can really look at programs that we do walk around our school district um in this pile and I'll get to it is two newest programs very new uh that I'm going to be excited to tell you about and checks on it so the first course is entrepreneurship um getting kids to really look about business what is in business what are businesses in our community how do they get those businesses how does an entrepreneurship mean um hopefully interesting then because in
013all my programs we do study entrepreneurship because kids want to open their own auto body shop they try to really train our kids to give them the option yes it's great to go work for somebody but let's look at the option what does it take to open your own business I'm assuming you talking about loans to try to get I'm I'm just making sure they know all of the heart that goes into it right okay so we'll go through a whole process of like they're opening whatever business they're going to decide to open they're gonna break plans that probably modified plans right but so forth may even make a model of the business um how much would that loan be how can I need that let's look up the cost of the items that you
014need to put in your shop exactly okay it's the real fun part of my curriculum so okay thank you I have a question yes yeah that support entrepreneurship was of course in turning your course a long time um how is it different for the younger students and um are you gonna need additional staff not for entrepreneurship okay notice that I said not four yeah but um it's different than what we do at the high school it's a modified version it's only a half unit course where we go through this the whole year and it's more specific to the subject areas at the high school it's integrated in where it's not a separate class but they do have a school store in South High a lot of them have post office and school stores we're really
015getting these kids to look at what is business what is marketing so this is just a little interesting or something I may have in a new building in in so my second thing question is um are can the students choose this or is this going to be in the rotation it'll be in a rotation it's really based on the building so I'm leaving the principles but they in love with this they were part of the creation of this it's everybody's been talked to to bring this forth it wasn't like oh let's do this and not tell anybody they've been part of it it actually accommodates their schedules better having a half unit course absolutely yeah yes Mr Howard yes uh so I'm speaking of that so when you say in the rotation what does that
016mean okay there'll be several courses that the kids get to pick from actually it's going to give kids a variety of things to look at as I tell you the other ones you'll see that I've snuck in good ways for kids to look at our programs okay so I think this is a great idea and but my question as it usually is a kid at that age like some kids don't know what they're like and I'll give you a perfect example like the kid that's coming to school got his mother mine 100 Penny candies and coming to school and that's entrepreneurship but that's what they know how to do it how would how would we reach out or trying to get to those kids to make them understand this is a way to really be
017an entrepreneur because I know a lot of kids like that that I mentioned oh I know a lot of them we call them hustle they hustle exactly but of course like this would be very beneficial to those kids how do we reach and get to those kids and let them understand what this course is truly about well I mean the guy's counselors of course talk to their kids in the middle school but we'll be talking about it in the other courses to get them to be interested okay and this is only the preliminary work at this age group okay so as we move forward hopefully we'll be able to build on it and expand and then it made the come a mandatory part of rotation the next course is called food and production the best
018way I can describe this towards Little chefs I'm gonna have them look at everything to do with in the industry of being a chef in a restaurant again there's my hint to opening a restaurant there's my business and everyone has a small end hinting over to entrepreneurship and business my goal is to have a collaboration between the two courses so that at some point in time the little chefs will be baking or cooking something that the entrepreneurs will then be peddling it so okay she's always giving me more work next one yes bulls have the facilities please open up the classrooms and space to do all these courses perfect yeah but we're making homemade fun now we're going to make it little chefs like a lot of church are going to home equity is self-esteem
019and get those pieces those will be embedded but they're going to be cooking all the time and kids love them to cook it doesn't matter what I could do it at elementary I could do it at middle school and I could do it at high school David Loft to code they get to compete cupcakes in the clock I mean there's so many ways so the next course is called apparel and textile and design again this is another part of home economics curriculum this is the sewing creating building which we want to inspire kids that want to go in this field as well because in the high school we have a fashion program and we have our programs that publish these kind of kids to go into these programs any comments or questions uh the next
020one is nutrition and wellness um where kids learn what does it mean you have a child how do we feed ourselves what's really good food how does the food work within our system so they're creating food they're cooking but we're going to teach them about taking care of themselves confidence again we're back to self-esteem but also cooking so healthy cooking healthy I need to take that class actually yes yes cool I think this is a great course is there any way to try to incorporate this with the athletic department and what I say is this is something that all children are wanting to get involved with sports and stuff and nutrition and wellness is very important and it's something that that they're building on at the upper levels now and I was curious is it
021anyway that we can tie that together or we can absolutely agree you know we have nutrition and alternative medicine so we can create a better titled course I think maybe bring one of the courses back because we are teaching this already and I have to why I say we bring it back for a new title you gotta get the athletes to think that's for that absolutely absolutely it's always marketing it's always marketing yeah uh the next course questions okay the next course is called exploring trades and Technical careers that's your auto mechanics you're welding uh electronics between construction it's all Hands-On Tech we already teach it we're just putting it into a new course and organizing it a little differently the dentist who like carpentry and stuff like that they're gonna actually be doing birdhouses
022I believe oh okay okay any questions or comments that's another plus I think I'm going to take I'm just saying now these are the two biggest anyways the first one's called Lego brick here this is where I would need staff for each of the buildings both courses so it's one person per building um in Brick Cube the kids are creating with Lego sets but we're tricking them again and this is important to me and also to my programs as we look forward underrepresented kids are all over the district as well as females in many of my programs in this course we are training kids to look at physical sciences but also engineering kids do not feel confident when they go oh an engineer I can't do that and so this is a way of showing
023them how we apply some of the stuff that they actually are learning right in the middle school so and we know that they love it because the 21st century summer program has that and then kids love it so I mean you tell the kid you're going to go build Legos and all sudden you're tricking them into learning something they didn't even know they were going and they're like oh just like we do in auto mechanics and stuff at the high school kids go Oh I have to drain a brake line it's an algebraic equation below you know so it's getting ties in one of the things and Lego is universal I find most kids love it any questions or comments um the second half of that course would be Lego spike Prime um that is
024where we're getting kids into computer programming it is number one in the fields it seems to be growing but I need more kids even though I said I need more kids we need more middle school kids to think they are smart enough and are underrepresented and our females will join our program I recently had a conversation with some of my fraternity Brothers out of uh United States Military Academy in their engineering major computer science majors and I think it would be a great opportunity if we can bring them to speak to some of the middle school kids and express the importance of what if we're going to integrate that so that happened since my courses and they will they can address that under represented population because they look like them and they can see the
025importance that they too hold me part of that sometimes you know what you see you'll be when they see it in people so that's something we can talk about right I know this is yeah these those two courses would make the idea both buildings are half unit courses so they do one in the fall one in the spring um that would require one teacher at Meadow one at temple on it south and who am I missing all right oh my God we do I'm sorry okay go ahead I do have those availabilities um because as we discussed last night during the budget and prior to that um in the budget information that was forgotten if we have um four local positions that had not been filled that we are able to use for these hickies
026those vacancies for these positions and the middle schools were excited about these because there's no more study halls because they don't always work you know sometimes the kids are just messing around or doing whatever being kids with the computer science quality the only little concern I would have is that um kids always think it's hard in a sense that you need certain math and science skills for computer programming because I've done it and it can't get convoluted for lack of a better word at times so the kids need to understand that although some of those skills are required at this point it wouldn't be like real detail like when somebody is actually programming or making up a language for a computer so we need to try to make it a little more interesting because when
027they hear math and science that they tend to freak out a little bit so I'm not telling them math oh okay no I'm making that's why I'm calling it Lego spike Prime okay not probably till their third third of the way through that the kids will go this is this is how we create video games exactly okay this is how we create and believe it or not that's an interest right yeah okay and it is a great field look at these kids I mean yeah they can play video games with their eyes closed most of them they're amazing yeah okay that was my concern thank you no any other questions or comments no okay won't comment yes it's just fantastic I it's so nice to see things like this yeah it didn't it really is
028yeah thank you very much and thank you for letting us thank you thank you John next item that we were going to discuss an update um about Plato and and mentum that is software that's used for credit recovery unfortunately um we were scheduled to meet in-house to discuss the details of the program and with budget preparation we were not able to do that so with your Indulgence I'd like to postpone that for our next meeting okay conversation and report on that any questions or comments about that postponement okay um and the next item the eighth grade Regents um we had briefly discussed um having our eighth graders take the Regents exams this June at our secondary campus we were able to work out Transportation but this is also the first year that in many years
029that our eighth grade is going to take our three through eight assessments SED assessments and even though they are at a different time of of the Year this has created um a little bit of anxiety on the part of Staff who are involved and some parents had questions so they are going to be participating in the three through eight assessments from SED because that is a state mandate but we are going to lead to grade 8 regions on their home campus this room but all of the Proctors and administrators for the Regents exams at those sites were trained with our NFA North and Main Proctors and regions um so that and not to suggest that they were not well trained but so that we have uniformity across the district with the understanding that as we
030move forward next June we will again examine the possibility of having our students take the exam in one setting okay and just so you guys know it's only for the a Mac in science because you see grade eight regions you may think is all of the regions exams that high school kids take is strictly for Math and Science earth science living environment and we have one last grade a cohort who also takes will be taking U.S history but this is the last year for that yes Mr Howard thank you madam chair so I'm going to play double David here for a second understanding the importance of those exams exam time is just like all of anxiety it was the need I like what we're doing this year keeping them in their building but for some
031kids maybe going to a new building at test time doesn't it add to the anxiety well I I spoke about that at the meeting I was saying I think that they should be able to stay in their building but you know that was just my opinion but I spoke about that at the meeting I feel I'm just curious because you know you want to try to remove anxious moments and anxiety from kids in some ways we'll discover anxiety won't even let you know but the results come out on the test I'm sorry the Hill school principals did bring that up the middle school principals did not find that to be an issue um they were the middle school principals were more um ready to move forward with having the eighth graders um sit at the
032secondary campus and the hill schools um but I understand that because you have a different atmosphere in a K-8 building than you're doing a six seven eight and I think that's part of it um but because those because of the SED testing the three through eight for the first time in many years happening again and also because of those Express concerns we said let's revisit it and work out the details more finite like rather than Rush yes Madam president how are they going to do scoring that is something that we're going to discuss at the training because the scoring should be done in the same manner um but you can't score your own case exactly and it we need to identify scores from other buildings that will cross for um because not everyone and not
033to not to minimize the skills of our eighth grade staff but not everyone is prepared to do necessarily an algebra exam that's correct so we we will work all those details out with them and we do need to do things in a very uniform manner in addition um doing beaches week at the high school the students who are not taking reach the exams are not in the building so that the building is completely free except for students taking exams at the middle school all students are in school so it was brought up that it could be a little complicated because they don't need to hear Belgium when it's time to change a class and stuff like that they don't have that in middle school so I mean at the high school so that's why they
034were thinking about going taking the kids to the high school because when I brought up my concern they was like well you know none of the kids in the building at the high school I was like yeah that's right I forgot about that so it's a nice quiet environment for them to take that test because in the Middle School like I said the other sixth and seventh graders are still there going about their business they're not you know they're still in the building so that could be a difference but we'll work on it I will just relating it back to me being a kid from Newburgh I know NFL was a that first day was incredible just being at that big building and it's a different building it's a different feeling you know if we
035go forward with this next year if one of the things we need to do is make sure that um our eighth graders have the opportunity at least once probably twice to visit the campus but it comes to know you with the layout this is where you're going to take your exam because this is where you're gonna you know do this and that um and work those things through it which this year we just truthfully we just ran out of time to do it really any other questions or comments okay and lastly um but certainly not least we have a presentation today on our Ela English language arts activities by our director of the English language arts Miss Nielsen good evening good evening how are you thanks hi um second slide grabbing them so I'm excited
036to share the work that we're doing uh in English language arts it's progression of what we began doing pre-covered um so I wanted to share the updated New York State Ela timeline New York state has presented new standards that we're all aware of uh the next gen English Language Art standards because of covid they provided an additional year for us to continue to build our capacity before the new state assessments are implemented this year is the first time our students in grades three through eight will encounter the assessment that's aligned to the next gen Ela standards um and our high school students will experience this in 2026 so they have a little bit more time what we've done to build capacity on this um we've unpacked the advanced literacy briefs and those are just fancy
037terms for uh research that was presented by state Ed that is gonna that that is designed to help teachers understand implementation of the next gen standards as well as uh strategies it gives kind of the theory behind it so we unpack that we have productive standards we talked about cross-referenced it with common core to understand uh what has changed and how that could potentially change our practice and uh We've we've done a lot of discussions and prep work prior to doing our our revisions on our curriculum map so all of our Curriculum maps are aligned with the next gen Ela standards this drives our work you can go to the next slide please so these are some of the findings from the last Administration for three through eight as well as the recent administration of
038the New York State uh Regents exam our majority of our our Scholars at the high school level uh take it in January so some of the things that we've unpacked we've identified strengths based on our students performance we've noted that our students formatting of the constructed response which are the essays or the shorter paragraphs in three through eight there they do that really well that is a similarity we're seeing with the regions um and three through eight we've identified or we've seen a growth in vocabulary that seems to be one of our stronger strands to be honest with you and I know over the years we focused a lot on vocabulary development and vocabulary skills we're seeing a stronger performance in the literature when they're reading and analyzing literature and we're also seeing strength in
039craft and structure and what that means is how does the author present their idea how are they are they building um this theme the central message the character development and then our areas of need you'll see some consistencies across the board um so we need to focus a little bit more on developing our our Scholars ability to analyze the text and to better connect the evidence that they're pulling they're able to pull evidence but better connect it to the theme to the claim to the central idea um and then at the high school level they're able to format that what the teachers are seeing and through our common assessments which I'll talk about um after this is that we need to have a more complex um more complex central idea or more complex claim there
040are two things that Ela works on so they're they're a little simplified and it's harder for kids to to connect the evidence to it so they're they're working on developing that if you go to the next slide please thank you um these are the four action steps that we're taking this year in order to continue to build our capacity and to address the the needs of our scholars in literacy so we're looking at common assessments we're looking at a data cycle around that we're looking at professional learning and we're looking at fostering A literacy culture so I'm going to explain some of the highlights for each of those components in the next slides you can go to the next slide please so with our Ela common assessments um I have it broken down into format
041and frequency there are common assessments one per unit we have four units in Eli K to 12. so at the end of each unit students will experience a source-based meaning they're going to have a text and they're going to write a response about what they're reading or at the K1 level what they're listening to um and they're going to um explain and analyze the text based on this prompt um and it's available in English and Spanish for our students at the K5 because of bilingual program and the Dual language program in grades three through five they're modeled after the New York State Ela format we did this intentionally because what we're seeing is that we need to focus a little bit more on writing writing accounts for 50 of the test yes so we need
042to we need to develop the skill we need to talk about the skill we need to talk about instructional strategies with this skill um the writing component of the New York State assessments also evaluates reading so we're hitting both with the writing prompts if that hopefully that makes sense um with secondary we did things a little differently so secondary all of the exams are available in English only what we did for our newcomers I worked very closely with Dr Morales Martinez Morales on what this could potentially look like we collaborated with enl Professionals in the district in order to develop an exam that kind of takes away the language barrier but still addresses the skill so what that could potentially look like maybe we have a shorter passage maybe there's a visual text that they're
043analyzing instead of the written text because that's also a skill that they have to do on the English exam and there's still writing about um the same prompt or a similar prompt and we're still analyzing this similar skills or the same skills the middle level is modeled after the three through eight um model so they'll have a two-point short constructed response or the four point extended response and the high school is modeled after the two types of ela constructed responses one would be an argument or they have multiple texts that they're reading formulate a claim and then support it and explain its connection and then the other one is a literary analysis they're reading uh maybe a short excerpt of literature and they're identifying a theme or talking about how the author develops um that
044skill that message thank you after students take the assessment a teachers go through a data cycle so we've been working on what that looks like right so we developed the assessments uh students take it and then we meet in small groups what you see up here are the questions that are guiding questions that we use to analyze student writing teachers bring in and look at actual student samples names are removed they're just looking at what our kids are doing across grade levels these conversations happen in common planning and they're looking for Trends across grade levels we're seeing some similarities and Trends so when we come together at the secondary level with um multiple grade levels in one room during common planning we could talk about that across across the department and have a conversation on
045what we could potentially do programmatic wise as well as instructionally to support our students um so they also create um a plan it's okay in singer they also create um an action plan from that so it's not just analyze what you're seeing what are we going to do about it and then we have conversations in order to support it these are some examples of the last um analysis so this is from Quarter Two quarter three is happening now this week um for middle and high school and then Elementary will happen after um spring break so you'll see some similarities we're seeing in our common assessments which we also saw in the state results our kids are really good at formatting um the short constructed response I'm sure you guys have heard the race strategy used
046right so they know how to um they know how to use the strategy to fully answer the question all the different components of the question but we need to start working on is how to go a little bit deeper how do we how do we share our original thought that's what I call it um what do we think about the text and then support it and explain why it supports they're able to come up with a main idea or a central idea or a claim and then pull out evidence and we need to build the capacity to connect that to um so the purpose of their writing um so that's what they're doing you'll see the areas of improvement are pretty consistent with what we're seeing with state so the common assessments are helping us
047to to better identify well better and to do it quickly not just wait to the state assessments and then develop plans throughout um some of the action steps that teachers are coming up with are to use one-on-one conferences writing conferences not just write feedback but sit down with students and and do that um they're talking about direct explicit instruction of certain skills in our common plannings and in our group meetings we talk about what that looks like teachers share what's working in their classrooms and they're sharing it with colleagues and we're building off off of one another we're sharing about some of our struggles and we're working together and collaborating to help one another out we're talking about our students who are struggling we're talking about our students who are newcomers and are struggling with
048language and showing me skills and we're collaborating with enl and we're collaborating with exceptional Learners in these meetings it's not just Ela talking into silo and they're also talking about increasing Writing Practice and exposures and looking at teacher modeling and student examples and analyzing that so that they can students can see and have conversations about um skills and strategies that they need to incorporate next slide please I'm trying to give you the Reader's Digest version you know Eli we talk a lot um so this is some of the professional Learning Network that we're doing the professional learning is both for teachers as well as building administrators so you're going to see examples of this up here so we talked a little bit about common planning about what we're doing about instruction common planning is pretty
049much about instructional Focus so um one example of how we're going about doing that besides these discussions we're doing book studies so there's an example of a book study at the high school level of all NFA campuses um have a copy of this book it's about teaching critical thinking this is a request from the teachers they wanted to dive a little bit deeper on how to engage kids in discussions about topics that you encounter in Eli and we all know that there are some heavy Topics in Eli so um they do book studies they they look at a chapter a month and they talk about it and then um they share practices that's the design of of the common plan around this plus what we're seeing with the the common Assessments in our department meetings
050um we're unpacking the units and we're talking about it with the common assessments so teachers are looking at common assessments they're looking at the end product and we're talking about backward design right so this is where we want kids to go how do we get kids to there let's talk about what the standards are asking our our kids to do and then talk and share about um what that looks like as well as let's look at our common assessments and give feedback on it because we want to have a very meaningful assessment is it aligned with our unit we also have job embedded coaching um one example of this uh you'll see a picture up there we had a writer in Residence that worked with our um 12th grade teachers this year I'm hoping um
051to expand it what it what he did was um foreign he presented narrative structures and narrative strategies so he modeled for teachers uh he had teachers go through the experience as a student he went into the 12th grade classrooms he showed what these practices look like with the kids and he sat side by side with teachers showing them how to coach kids through this narrative writing practice this this went along with our unit that supports students with the college essay um so that was in place and if kids aren't interested in the college essay um there was a piece that they can work on a narrative um a narrative piece about themselves and their experience that also helps us as teachers in the beginning of the year to get to know more kids so um
052he did that teachers loved it they wanted him to come back more and more I told him we'll have to hold off and and see where we are he's actually working with um our West teachers uh now on a really fun project and I'll let you know what that is when when they're ready they're just starting we also have one-on-one coaching sessions um with District coaches and I'll explain that in another slide with our Leadership Learning we have our leaders that come together and we um half the standards we talk about District resources we talk about theory behind all of this and we're building our capacity As Leaders on how to support our teachers with implementation of the next gen standards using our district resources um we look at data during these meetings and we
053come up with action plans and we support we support that way um we also have Learning Blocks so there's a picture up there of a recent learning walk that we did um the middle level we we went to Ossining uh last month I think on the 7th and um we visited them because they're uh they're using the 100 book challenge so we want to learn from their implementation what's working there what will work with us let's talk to teachers let's talk to administrators there were 14 district building and classroom teachers from from Newburgh that attended this and it was um a great conversation great practices um that were learned through this um so that was one example we also have plcs at the K5 level where the the building admin visit classrooms um and they
054help one another and support one another on implementation with literacy um in the classrooms and and how to support that you go to the next slide please so uh we're using an instructional coaching model um this is from this is based on uh Jim uh Jim McKnight or Jim Knight's uh research so this just tells what an instructional coach the purpose of an instructional coach and the the um the things that they do so we follow that little graph where you identify you learn and you improve so the identify part is where the teacher and the coach comes together identifies a goal that they want to work on uh the coach will do the research will model uh and then we'll coach them through that's the learning piece of it and then there's a reflection
055piece where they're they talk about how it went right not only for the teacher with the goal but also the coach in order to build capacity in both and to present and share it with with other classroom teachers so we're doing this in all of the secondary classrooms um we're doing this in all of the well Maine north Heritage and South right now and hoping to expand it next year um but we're targeting those schools to to kind of learn from this process and to tighten it up and to also address some of the needs that we're seeing if you go to the next slide please in order to foster a literacy culture um we are we did a couple things um in ela world where uh we worked with um face and presented current
056universities we went over the three through eight exams as well as the New York State Regents exams that provided parents with information about the format the purpose and strategies um in order to to help at home we also have a hyperlink um we have a website or a web page that is connected to the district website that parents can go to for resources information about our curriculum information about assessments um there's a hyperlink in there but I don't know if we have time and we're also sending home the home update which uh which provides parents with information about their students reading abilities as as well or their child's reading abilities as well as information on what they can do at home to support you go to the next slide please um prior years ago um
057you might be aware there were student um there are students who would go to classrooms periodically in order to to read to elementary kids so we're fostering literacy culture we started um the literacy ambassador program we have high school students that have joined in order to read to kids I know that West does something similar with their internships we expanded it to Maine and North so this started with uh athletes who went to classrooms in order to read to kids kind of build this culture of reading and share the joy of literacy and also work with kids so we have five kids currently I'm hoping to expand um and they're working in K-2 classrooms in Gams as well as fostertown right now I know I'm trying um so I'm really trying so um we chose
058Gams because it's it's easy to get to get to get there from Mina North um if you go to the next slide please and I also get to work with library media studies this will be quick um if you go to the next slide we're working on three things it's pretty much understanding the new standards that they have so it's the um Empire uh State informational fluency standards the graphic there just shows um the research behind it and the the process behind the work that they do and they're also working on expanding their culture their library to include more culturally and linguistic texts go to the next slide please this is these are the four major components of the um the library media studies curriculum if you go to the next slide please and this
059is what it looks like in action so multiple literacies students are consumers and producers so what you'll see are students reading multiple types of literature not just books um not just having book studies but also producing so there are two examples of student text from the elementary level and these are usually centered around monthly celebrations where they're they're researching and learning about different cultures and different heritages go to the next slide please um these are some other examples we're really focusing on inquiry and design thinking which goes along with the the digital citizenship work so you see some kids working on different components there we're building confident independent Learners through through group work you go to the next slide please and we're building research skills um many of our Librarians are partnering with family and
060communities um Partnerships uh we're also doing a lot of work in our libraries to support Core Curriculum so kids will come to the library in order to learn about the setup what databases are available how they can support research in their core content it's not just reading it's reading and speaking listening and writing so there's a lot involved thank you any questions or comments I have some courses but I'm not going to ask but it's too late I'll first of all I would love to understand it's already horrible assessments are those tests there's a writing component and I'm going to be perfectly honest with you a lot of the children that I work with in the district yeah I'm not being mean but their writing skills it's not where it needs to be I'll leave
061it at that they like to where they talk a lot of times thank you like you know like can anybody here tell me what Iowan means what who I owe him I Owen say this when they do the writing courses on these tests they're not using a computer um we're in the process so so I can be an administered print or digital set up to do both so whatever preference wise because K1 they need to work on like we need to work on handwriting so yeah and I think it's something we need to continue also because I'm talking about middle school and practices hmm a written paragraph is and I know they're going to be scored on that there's no way they're passing and it's not about an intellect level intelligence level and some of
062these kids are very smart but they're writing delighting oh my God are we expecting that and I'll say it is a couple of um College entrancing uh essays that had to be written you know and I thank God for some of the people in the district who wrote it over for the kids but if they would have handed in what they had they would have been an outbox and it's sad because we're putting these kids out into real life without written communication skills that's all right stuff like in getting a paragraph It's a top priority for us but but I I think it comes from texting because they the same way they text and stuff that's the way right but that's not all students because I've seen some students who can write well but the
063students who have issues it's it's because of the way they talk and communicate now and and they put that on paper they have what they want to say they know what they want to say but they don't invite it out well and I would eventually ask but those are skills that are learned in grade one two three absolutely and those have to really be strengthened because when they get to do 100 the science regions they've got to write when they get to do the math groups and I would eventually ask I don't need the answer now but from a demographic standpoint I would love to see the amount of kids of color how they how they score on the ELA Rhythm I'm just curious we can get that for you I hate to say it
064I work with it shocks me sometimes and like this is not 10th grade or ninth grade or eighth grade it's very nice example it should not be it's very and I know we're running out of time but it's very important that we integrate our writing reading and oral speaking and listening skills in all of our country area yes but once we start to do that when kids are writing for narrative it's great when kids are writing explanatory it's also great when kids are writing content area they're also mastering the content as well as improving their writing skills and more than right the better they get yes thank you I'm sorry no it don't don't be sorry it's what it is because I I'm still confused that how a high school student can confuse all of
065theirs they're being a fight one there and if I I can't I I can't so yeah any other questions or comments thank you for your implementation thank you and that concludes our agenda oh okay um if no one else has any questions or comments I would like to adhere in this meeting thank you okay thank you