001all right good evening today is april 4th 2022 it is 6 30 p.m uh this is the olympia schools board of education this is a work session so we haven't done this in a while but work sessions all it means is we'll discuss topics there'll be no voting there'll be no action taking where normally it's a business meeting where we vote and we take action so tonight it's just um discussion on the strategic plan and uh no voting so with that i'll call the meeting to order ms hatfield please call the roll dr debraco present mr lester here mr o'brien here mrs patrick here and dr weiss here thank you all right please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and
002to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right can i uh have a motion to approve the agenda as written so moved second second okay any discussion on the agenda all right please call the roll mr lester yes dr debra ko yes mrs patrick yes dr weiss yes and mr o'brien yes thank you all right we have our only agenda items is a strategic planning discussion it's going to be facilitated by dr don weiss so you can please take the podium if you're ready thank you so much so i'm going to start up here and then i'm going to move to back there because my goal is just for you all to talk at me um so that's the that's the direction i'm headed
003just so you know and then if that's that complicates anything in terms of recording and such bring me back but it'll be easier if i can take notes sitting over there if that's okay okay well thank you all for having me um i want to talk very very little but i i'll sort of set the stage for uh for why i'm here and then what's happening tonight and then also tomorrow so let me start with tomorrow tomorrow i'll be working with the leadership team on on more of the strategic plan moving into the next strategic plan but as i was talking with them about that i said you know let we said let's get board input um so that we have an idea of where the board is where the leadership team is everything that
004is all in sync feel free to interrupt me i'm very very comfortable being interrupted so if i just start going on and on let me do a brief introduction to me so you know who i am several people said oh are you from here i'm not i'm from virginia um not loudoun county you'll be happy to hear um so i i although i'll share well this is getting ahead on my agenda i have spent a lot of time in columbus the last four years because my daughter is graduating from kenyon in may and i have finished my last tuition payment i'm great so my background undergraduate i actually studied uh grades 6 to 12 education and in my student teaching recognized very quickly that i was not cut out to be a teacher and i
005ended up working in higher education i spent 20 years in higher education ultimately as a vice president of the university and then ended up working for a consulting firm worked with that consulting firm for 10 years and then realized as i'm kind of nearing my own transition in my career you know i'm just gonna do this on my own for a couple of years and then i'm hanging up the saddle um when i when i completed my doctoral work it was specifically focused on strategy and strategy excellence in organizations so i can talk about strategic planning like all day i love it because it is truly and krista has actually heard me say this i think it's the most empowering thing organizations can do it's it charts the course and that's really what that what
006we're doing tonight and then also tomorrow um from a board perspective i have served as the staff liaison to a board committee i have been a board member i have been a board chair i've i advise several different boards now where i'm sort of a long term uh contract employee advising board so i've spent a lot of times with boards and from each different angle and so i try to bring that to the work that i do the majority of the work that i do now is not this although i love this this is one of my favorite things to do i advise a trade association on his research i do a lot of litigation defense expert work so for example if you're sued i'm a person who gets called to help i'm you i'm
007normally on that defense side um and then long-term kind of contractual advising with boards so that's my background i hope that gives enough of a precursor as to why i'm here any questions okay good i didn't want to spend too much time on that okay so boards and this is what i'm going to ask of you all and if you hear me if you hear me very much once i sit down it's because i think we're starting to drift when we think about boards boards are in the governance role and your staff team is in that operational role and so what i'm it what i have what i have noticed both as a board member and um as somebody working with boards i think it is a very natural thing for boards to move into
008the operational the operations right because that's that's where all the sausage is made right and the challenge of being a board member is trying to elevate that thinking and really focus on how the mechanics run at that higher level so that it empowers that staff team to then actualize that larger vision so as as you all are thinking about the questions i'll ask i want you to be thinking governance versus and they really are averses operations um and the analogy that i often will use when i'm talking to boards is if a board is spending too much time in operations it's not doing the governance part of its job right so we really do need to think about what is that long-term vision to move the school move the school system as we think about
009the next three years the next five years the next 10 years the work of a board these are things that i know you know that you all know but i'm going to say them so that make sure we're all in the same place supervision evaluation hiring firing of the superintendent and collaborative collaboratively working with leadership on long-term strategy those are the principal roles of a board um and so that's where i'm hoping we're gonna it's the it's not the uh hiring and firing of your superintendent that i'm hoping we're doing tonight i hope that we're focusing on the i know right uh on on the collaborative leadership um so but that's why this session is so important right having this tonight as the precursor to the staff discussions tomorrow um this this is what propels
010an organization forward at least that's that's my hope so does that all make sense any questions any thoughts on that first part of what i've shared do you facilitate the staff discussions tomorrow yes yes sir yep tomorrow tomorrow morning until we finish yep any other questions that's what's with our just with a leadership team sure yeah i guess it's more of a comment than a question i think we need to think of it two ways like if the board is in too much of the operational issues either um we're getting outside our lane or we're filling a void that the leadership team isn't filling right so it goes both ways absolutely and when we get sucked into operational issues yeah absolutely i agree [Music] yeah okay well let me tell you what i'm going to
011be doing with them tomorrow so you'll you'll know what happens with what we'll call your work product what your work product um we are going to be doing the same things tonight and then again tomorrow we're going to focus on each of the strategic initiatives so let's see do you do you will have copyright yeah we could turn yeah turn that and i'm assuming that uh that that looks very very familiar um but that that is what we're going to be focusing on and going through at the strategic initiative level um so and i'm sure you all know this it's your it's your it's your plan but the the wording that's in the in the color circle we're going to be focusing on each of those um and i'm going to ask you to give
012feedback on what you've seen as big successes if you've seen where there needs to be continued work in any of those areas and most importantly as we think about the next three to five to ten years what do you see as points where we that need to be emphasized moving into the next plan and that's what we're doing and then tomorrow what i'll do tonight is i'm going to type all this up and then although a lot of the folks are here which i'm grateful that you're hearing this i'll be typing this up and then we'll be integrating your work into their work tomorrow and that's pretty much the process you know my uh i often make a joke uh about well there's a lot of things that i think are funny about strategic planning
013i'm the only one but um i think a lot of people make strategic planning too difficult strategic planning is simply thinking about where we want to go right and being strategic about it and my dad my dad was a rocket scientist literally a rocket scientist and people will say well you know it's uh it's not rocket science um and it isn't but then again a rocket scientist my dad would be horrible at this um you know and so that's so it's not that it's just simply an easy thing to do unless you make yourself move to kind of that higher level of thinking and um to you know to fulfill that kind of that bored component of the conversation so that's my intro um i appreciate being here and i'm gonna go sit over here
014and look at your plan and ask you questions and ask you to reflect and that's what we're doing any any questions about tonight and how this fits into tomorrow awesome then we're going to start with i have to look closely one we start with students and stakeholders and i think you've got you've got a memo that gives where things happen and uh some identified areas for further growth and i'm just gonna [Applause] i'm not going to record names unless i'm just going to take so yeah i missed the question what's the question to us um what you think you what you see as uh there are a couple questions great successes on each of these areas where you see need for further growth and where you see things as you think about three years five
015years ten years you can answer any of those questions yeah it's kind of within regards to the strategic objectives of alleviating barriers to learning expanding community engaging relationships and promoting culture of inclusive excellence if if indeed there's something else that we want to consider as opposed to as uh uh an objective related to students and stakeholders or you know alleviating barriers to learning will always be evolving we'll always have barriers there may be new barriers whatever you know coming out of the pandemics and new um pandemic was a new barrier that we didn't plan on we didn't plan on we made this plan uh way back when um you know are there other opportunities to expand community engagement that you value um you know i don't think you know that promoting a culture of inclusive
016excellence is another one that's ongoing we're not there yet but other ways we can go those things we still value that's again with two new board members we created this plan years ago so that's kind of where the discussion should should head thank you i'm sorry no it's perfect thank you do you have any comments yeah so i'll jump in i mean as as a new board member i i can't speak for the past as much right i mean certainly i've been a parent in the district for a while and we have seen how the schools play out if we start to think about you know what is working and what has been a success um certainly the the district's focus on inclusivity and inclusive excellence has been obvious right it's it's um explained in
017everything we do we have um numerous events that go out via email we have numerous events in schools we have the the one community conference we have the days of service we have all these things um that are being promoted significantly and that's great um and that's something we should continue to do right and we can't that that is not something to me that you just check the box and say we're done it is something you have to continue to focus on over time and and do it proactively i mean one of the things especially as i've talked with with parents in the district is being really thoughtful about pro-activity anticipating needs and then being inclusive once we've already we start to think about what people are going to need before they even say it
018um there are always going to be issues we miss there's always going to be a new circumstance that we haven't thought of but there are issues that happen every year and there are things that we're going to figure out that we that we need to do and so having that proactive mindset and doing it and and never being satisfied with where we are but continuing to do it um i think the culture of inclusive excellence seeing the results that we've gotten from that to me it can be expanded over to a culture of mental health especially of the coming out of the pandemic when you ask about three year five year the next three to five ten years we're going to be seeing the future of the kids that came into our schools in the
019in the pandemic and we started to see how it's affecting them but we're going to continue to see that play out from both a learning development a social development and emotional development and mental health development if we aren't focused on not just providing the supports which we do and we do very well but then evaluating how they're working and how they're playing out over time we're going to be doing a disservice to our students so as i think about how that how much we have made that a priority for inclusivity for equity for diversity i think we've got to do the same thing for mental health um that's the thing that worries me more than anything else um over the next is for as difficult as it is for kids um growing up today anyway
020and then you throw in all the issues with the pandemic that to me is an area we've got to focus on the community engagement again we've done a great job we have all sorts of ways that we're working with community from you know the coffee chats that mark does to you know the parent academies to all of the outreach there i think we can do more there as well i think that there are ways to engage the community for work groups and for other things um just sitting down and talking with parents and hearing where they are there are a lot of times where people say i know that there are avenues but i wasn't i wasn't ready to do this or do that but i'm so glad that someone wants to talk to me
021right and i know how much work all the leadership team puts into that and and how much work our teachers put into that showing that focus and showing that we're serious about it is essential to maintaining those community relations so i think good job let's continue to go further there the barriers to learning i think we'll talk about that in the learning and organizational development section as well but um i think the pandemic is going to be creating a lot of barriers to learning um as we've seen people you know originally miss some time uh instructional time the one-on-one time and how we start to deal with that as well as how it's it's impacting them um so you know i think there's work to be done there uh as well great so so if
022you have any questions about what we're doing that was all that was perfect that was great feedback thank you any feedback to his feedback well i i just offered maybe two comments so one is um we shouldn't have an expectation that we're going to sit here and rewrite the entire strategic plan right the strategic plan should be a framework from which it lasts you know has some durability things will come in and out of the plan from time to time depending on environmental issues other things but to sit here and rewrite the whole plan again maybe not setting the appropriate expectation with the community then right we're not here to rewrite the plan but update refine revise et cetera and so to that end you know in this in this bucket of the circle um
023we just need to think about the whole community engagement parent engagement model um it's been a tough two years right with kind of community engagement and are there things that we should be doing things we should be thinking about to change the way we engage we we the board leave the administration you know engage with the community and try to get it you know a more positive environment well i just i'm reading you're nonverbal and it looks like you were ready well it was about um culture of inclusive excellence and i know one of the initiatives that administration took was to identify students that maybe weren't going to take ap classes you know to look for all students to be taking those classes and i think the same thing has been done with a career
024and technical where teachers are reaching out to students and presenting them with options i also sit on the career center board so i i still feel like there's a general lack of information about all the things that are available to our students like you know parents still have that well i don't want them to go to the tech center you know and there's a lot more to the tech center than um than parents might think same thing with stem you know we're we're a stem capacity and we want to maybe revisit that whole initiative because it seems to be very popular we're limited on space so those were some things that i appreciated you know direct initiatives for students at all ends of this spectrum of learning and ethnicities opportunities for them really really reaching
025out and you know letting kids know what their options are so that's something i appreciate and i don't want to go away anyone down here comment to put feedback i think um in the limited time i've been on the board and seeing how things work um i'm very thankful that you did students and stakeholders first in our discussion because if we run out of time and we only talk about students and stakeholders that's that's why i know that all of us are here because that's what drives our work yes inclusive excellence yes community engagement but i think the overarching strength in this category of students and stakeholders is that we're very critical when we do when we miss the mark and we press really hard to keep getting better and that's hard in a district
026like ours it has such high levels of achievement that we're still growing kids academically i think that's a huge strength of our district inclusive excellence is very important to me um and i know it is for everybody but it is for me because i work with so many kids that maybe don't fit in in in in certain ways and um we want them to we want them to feel like olin tangi is our home is their home and we have a huge population of students that live in poverty even though you might not see that that's important to me and our students that learn differently that's important important to me we've had students speaking the last few weeks it's important to me that they feel like this is their home and that this is they
027they can thrive here i know those are kind of on the list but those are the strengths i i think i'm excited about how we're going to continue to improve to engage the com our community especially those who are critical of our work because we can learn from what anybody has to say about what we're doing students and stakeholders really glad you we started with this [Music] for sure [Music] and broaden that outreach or are there additional ways that you seek to engage yes and yes um there's people that i've spoken with that i disagree fundamentally on on their approach to what we're doing but i still learn from them and one of the things mr lester's done is really model how to listen to folks and folks that we might disagree with and we've
028had opportunities to spend time with them in different in different settings that's really important because people even if they're even if we don't accept what their recommendation is they deserve to be heard and that's a big deal it's not just talk it's it's really what we need to be about um and i know that's a strength but we also can get better at it but a key is you know people disagree oftentimes on their positions right on a particular issue you and i any number of things that we may sit down with and you know i like this on my pizza you like that right we may disagree but we'll have fundamental interests in common um finding ways to get to those interests to be able to to to get past what the position is
029and identify where our shared values are allows us to then make decisions that are in alignment with that that people can appreciate even if on a particular issue there's disagreement um and and i think we've done a good job with that i mean i honestly do and and as i've seen some of the decision-making processes coming in and and seeing the ways that we've taken things to heart even if an individual you know may disagree with a specific decision they feel like all right we're headed in the right direction on this even if this this particular battle we lost the way that we're heading this way is good um but we can't lose that focus of wanting to get to those interests i know this is just really the board's discussion but just just so
030we're you know again as you guys are the the one setting the direction of of the district the representative voted to represent the district and setting these these big picture the vision where you know where we're trying to go and where where then we're as administrators you know steering the ship that on the course that you've given us you know what i just heard was loud and clear that this goal of promoting a culture of inclusive excellences is very important to all the board members and and that that's where it matters for us then to know that we have then the ability to chart the course to meet that goal and it's it's very important that the community because there are people in the community that don't want us to go down this path and
031that's a common um which which again and i also heard that you know a lot of times it comes down to uh you know we've heard that the the pushback about some of the racial issues and some of the uh gender identity or or uh you know issues related to those kind of things but there are more to this promoting culture of inclusive excellence than just those two issues they they become the hot buttons you know inclusivity about jack and i received a very strong email about inclusion with kids especially with kids who learn differently who are you know so so it's important that we can look at now then for us then okay so how do we expand on this and strengthen the the work plans behind those goals so just so i just
032wanted to give you an example of what your discussion is now churning for all of us because i'm seeing these heads nodding out here like all right we got it we're going sorry anyway that was awesome yeah no ambiguity on this end absolutely yeah i'm not checking it off yet i didn't watch you do a check mark i'm not gonna miss it i'm just no you're just on the one piece anything else on students and stakeholders i appreciated you bringing i heard mental health and learning differences as sort of subsets in that area and anything else you think needs needs to come up that that hasn't been discussed no listening one thing i i that comes to my mind was um when it comes to understanding what is meant by culture of uh inclusive excellence
033and is how are we define it are we educating the community to say this is exactly how we're viewing it and it's out in the forefront so when you have that education there you know we see it but do we have that are we educating and do we put it up front like this is what we mean it doesn't just mean it's a racial or it doesn't just mean this is for transgender or things like that this is what falls underneath this and i think that kind of would help with understanding and people seeing the entire picture versus just this little window that might be a hot spot or you know a hot button i mean so i think that's one thing that you know that education piece has to be up front so that
034the community know i mean everyone knows and we're always on the same page on what this exactly means i think that's a great point because until we define it they're going to define it for us right yeah and the community people will make assumptions about what it is and what it isn't uh we just need to be crystal clear to dr weiss's point on what it is and what we mean when we say it yeah and in measuring if we're doing what we think we're doing right right is is knowing exactly what this means and then continually re-evalu you know is is this way that we're doing this getting to that end because we it can't just be a paper inclusivity it has to be actually in practice and making sure that it's working right
035yeah that's a great point we could have a whole work session on that alone that's right we could now are we ready to move on to the next one so i'll just start so this is one i think that you know it's got a great story right in terms of cost per pupil and you know the value of having a school district that's at scale right so we're optimizing the resources of the community in terms of how we run the district it's a bit of a tweak but i think it's an important tweak we've talked about maximize investments and revenue it's probably going to be closer to optimize because there are so many constraints on what emily cannon can't do with the investments right if and you want to do it on a risk-adjusted basis
036right you don't want to take a bunch of speculative bets to maximize when really we're trying to say is we're going to balance risk and reward we're going to you know invest within the parameters of the state of ohio set for us in terms of what's acceptable it's not acceptable but you know we're going to actively pursue that portfolio and actively pursue making sure that you know both investments in revenue are operating the way we need them to operate but in terms of fiscal responsibility and transparency i mean we get award after award we're redoing the financial reporting package so i think we've got a really good track record there thank you i think there's a really clear understanding of exactly what our assets are in managing them that seems to be the number that
037everybody knows can i do this what do i have to give up i mean it's it's always being managed that's where like um jeff gordon does a great job with we have a 30-year capital plan who has that right where we know building by building when we need to chill or when we need a roof when we need asphalt we need all that stuff so i think it's it's probably a pain for jeff to do it out that far but it helps significantly with long-term financial planning yeah i i mean we i've been nothing but continually impressed by just how professional and thoughtful um and and how well this goal has been met in in everything that i've read i think the the issue for me more than anything else is thinking about three five
038ten years on this goal because of the issues we're going to be seeing around population growth about building needs and our ability to do that that's where a lot of this plan is going to be taking effect on the facilities committee where our needs for new schools are lining up with a period of time where construction costs are rising exponentially where land costs are rising exponentially and where people are moving into the district so swiftly that it it's forcing us to consider this sooner than um that may be expected originally as we've seen that growth so to me it's everything here we're doing is great it's the next three to five to ten years with the need for new schools is going to present a significant challenge for how we do all of that how
039we how we meet our obligations to the community and how proactive we need to be in both procuring you know all the things that we're going to need for all of that stuff to to continue to optimize what we're spending um in that regard because those costs are just going crazy right now it's just sky-high it's not fun being on facilities is it yeah it's a little too much reality yeah it is it is so miso for sure okay is that me or doctor i don't have anything good and revenue if if there's one thing that and i i guess people probably sick about hearing about our efforts to maximize our revenue that we get because we've been ignored by the state and it's um it's not right it's not fair to the the folks
040in our district and i'm thrilled that the district continues to to exert a maximum effort to maximize revenue how long do we have tonight on how important that is our our families are yeah i mean if there's one thing that i hear from folks is that um they want to make sure we're getting a fair shake and funding in ohio is is about as complicated as it can possibly be but um the second thing is is with the the committee uh audit and accountability just contin just i think we have we had one or two meetings so far we've had two um so impressed with the skill level in our community of people that volunteer their time to help fine-tune how we present our financial picture to the community because the folks that live in
041our community understand financial things that are presented so our challenge is to continue to present in a way that makes sense and the folks on that committee were i mean it was a good press to to get everything in a way that we can see and we're talking about ways so i mean folks can already see every every expenditure which is a good thing but just not accepting where we're at continuing to get better and manage assets wisely i think that's an unbelievable strength of our district when i go to into schools they look pristine and um and i go to a lot of different buildings a lot of different grounds for sports and stuff and um i'm proud of our district and how we take care of stuff it's the right thing to do
042to steward resources because when we're all gone we're going to leave these buildings to a new group of folks and we're going to leave them in a better way than we found them and that's a big deal yeah it is important i mean that is uh very important for that planning purposes and managing enrollment growth because the need for buildings is going to probably come before the need hopefully if we get more state funding the need for operating costs which would be a you know a huge win i appreciate the comment about the 30-year plan and we look at it in terms of 10-year plan a 20-year plan and a 30-year plan because it's setting the stage for the fact that as we continue to grow and age we will need more operating dollars or
043permanent improvement dollars to continue to address our needs at in 2016 it was the first time we ever added a pi and we added to it and the plan has been to add to it incrementally um and older districts have that uh so um you know those are the kind of conversations i think that are set in stage for the future and it's important to continue to tell that story to the community again most people get it when they drive around and see all the building to know that we're gonna probably need a new building here soon sooner rather than later but yeah but i think they also appreciate the explanation of um the difference in funding and how it's not just operating five-year forecast dollars that we're looking at bond we're looking at permanent
044improvement that there's different funding set up to maintain and be specific and poignant about those pieces and parts so that their kids coming through still have the same quality of building that they experience now and you know that they are maintained and kept up i think that's important to the community when we had the have had those conversations [Applause] it's like this is when we're obviously to establish our brand identity can come off you can come home i think we can be consistent to our brand we can be consistent to our brands so i don't know how to phrase this correctly but i'll just try to say it i think there could be work to be done around um consistent delivery of curriculum so that you know within reason a student at orange high school
045should get a similar academic and curricular experience at liberty at oral tangy at and i'll just say it you know kind of get the rogue curriculum out and make sure that the staff is adhering to the curriculum policy more consistently that i think we've seen over the last two years especially reading curriculum just saying especially reading that's my favorite topic teachers need degrees of autonomy to to teach the curriculum how they think it it's best provided it's still consistent with our policy that's we're being clear on our policy is is helpful and how in some of the stuff that we've started to see um you know around the literature selection processes and and the good work that's going on there it's i think your point is right on that the teachers have to have autonomy
046it can't just be on this day everybody in the district is learning prescriptive that's right right but there has to be we have to be sure that we're putting a lot of thought toward our processes that we're doing it in a way that um that ensures that we're continuing to provide that high level of education and we're doing it consistently and that once we've set those processes once all the good work that that that all of the team is doing and all of the building leadership is doing um to make sure that those standards are out there that we're following them and the people understand that they're they're things we're serious about and we're serious about them because they're best practices um yeah i completely agree i tried to capture that and tell me if
047i'm capturing this right balancing autonomy with direction we should give them degrees of freedom provided they stay within the policy and once they go beyond the policy they give up their degrees of freedom um if i can suggest something to we're saying we take the brand identity out right so if i can suggest something to to take its place um our value identity right so what are our value identity identity what are our values as a district um and how do we lay those out in a way and this goes to i think everybody's point of you know what is it we're saying and what does that mean and what are the values that we're operating from so that we can anchor back to those and that's what we do right i mean i i
048see the way that people are responding to to questions that we get and we're always angry to that but to say it this is something that's important to us as a district is to be very clear about what our values are and that's what every decision is going to anchor back to i don't know if that goes in leadership and organizational development or learning and organizational development or somewhere else but being very up front about our values and making it a priority to continue to talk about them to me is essential it seems like we're going in order on all of these that's okay we always sit we sit in the same places every week we're every two weeks so the order is fine yeah i mean that balance is always hard to do you
049you want teachers to feel like they're trusted and and not just the feeling of trust but none of us up here are in the classrooms every day knowing the kids do a degree so we can adjust instruction to meet their needs and that's what that's what's going to drive in part mastery learning is is differentiating for each student and there's a whole bazillion ways you can differentiate from assessment to instruction everything so but there's got to be a balance and and the supporting our students with the curriculum and our teachers with the curriculum it is a balance but when you come from a good place where you're not trying to micromanage i think those things can happen i think there's there's always room for growth but i'm excited when you when we talk about what's
050coming for this good things are coming i want to see how those shake out um [Music] could talk more about leadership development you know if you spend time developing a culture with shared values you you want those leaders to stay in the district and perpetuate that and um as they you know as they do what they do as leaders and i'm i'm thinking about like as they continue to grow to to to make a difference in our district um we could do a whole session on brand identity i think below under looking ahead what is creation of the hub is that something that's new um creation of the hub it is something within jackson yes a collection of curriculum resources towards the end of having greater consistency across the schools so not just a resource
051but then how do you implement it so it's a support for teachers it's an internal resource so like electronically here's the here's what you have like a cloud or something or photo yeah yeah it's it's computer-based it's in the it's in the cloud it's on the internal server so you started that a couple years ago didn't you so it's got a name yes okay and then what is jack since you're you've jumped in um focus on the k-5 math instructional model are we is that being completely revamped or is that something we're in the middle of right before the pandemic we began work on creating a math framework for elementary math instruction trying to model it after all we did with our reading framework um again towards the goal of greater consistency and the pandemic
052did derail us a little bit but the work has continued to slow down a lot but we're trying to embrace what are the philosophies of math that we're trying to embed district-wide starting in kindergarten so that we're adequately meeting the rigor that we expect in the math standards where do we have the drop off in math fifth grade or eighth grade eighth is the is an indicator we've missed and and you know again we've been the last two years it's been difficult to pinpoint it because of the gaps in state testing and those kind of things and this has been an area of um interest of mine especially as a former high school math teacher in our total in our math model i could say that consistently across our elementary grades k5 because we and
053we we developed this balanced literacy framework 20 years ago and implemented it at the and when it came into the district in o 304 every elementary school had two literacy support teachers primary because primary um literacy instruction is different than where you're teaching kids how to read is different than three through five literacy instruction where kids now are reading for comprehension and what they have to do in those intermediate grades as we grew and that model wasn't sustainable we pulled back and we only have one literacy support teacher in in each of the elementary schools now but they work with with the element with the elementary teachers on their literacy instruction and and i can say very strongly that across the board literacy instruction in all of our elementary schools is consistent very very similar
054it's but we don't have that in math and historically if you ask most of our elementary teachers what's their least favorite subject to teach it's matt they became an elementary teacher because they didn't want to take the math to become a middle schooler high school teacher so you know so so strengthening our math instruction so one of the things we've been playing when we've been we've been planning in our long kind of long range planning is can it was a we've long believed we've needed math coaches math instructional support coaches in our elementary schools and middle schools to make our all of our instructors across the board better math instructors not that they're bad because we do by and large hit the numbers but we can do better in that area it's been an unsustainable
055um uh it's something we've never felt we could afford quite honestly with the esser money we we're getting we can use that money now to possibly um fund those positions and and believe that it could be sustainable for the future so that's something we're looking at as part of the five-year staffing process a five-year forecast process here coming up in the spring to see whether or not that is something we could sustain because it would be an additional 16 positions across the district at the elementary level if we go that route but but again we're so we're so large that um that you know that's not even even now that's not a huge number anymore fortunately or unfortunately but um well you're talking about one person for 700 kids but the point the person works
056directly with teachers it doesn't it doesn't necessarily work directly with it's leveraging one person to make five fifth grade teachers and four fourth grade teachers and you know that person better so how many teachers in a in a elementary building a 700 kids if you just round numbers five 30 for five per grade level jack 30. and when do they start departmentalizing fourth and fifth typically so you're talking about working k through three and then math teachers four and five so probably 20 something teachers we're not saying it's gonna be an easy job no that's a lot i mean i'm excited to see that framework what's your timeline on that and the hub as well like what's your timeline to say this is running we're now fine-tuning it uh we're definitely fine-tuning the hub at
057this point it's populated the math framework i think we should be complete by next year i'm sorry no i'm probably making weird things as i'm thinking about what you're saying so don't interpret those anyway but as that's coming to fruition it's kind of the opportune time to to have those um math coaches there to really implement it and ensure that it's done with fidelity you love that work but that's that's really i mean again and see you know some of our elementary administrators are very good we're very good elementary teachers who are very good elementary math instructors they that's not it again there's just some of them have that area of expertise those of us who are high school people you know observing a science chemistry lesson or a spanish lesson when you're in english
058or math teachers you know we're not all content specialists so staying in our lane i would just say it's a good thing and i look forward to seeing what they come up with um is it i recognize the importance of a good foundation in k25 especially in getting people excited about it and making sure that as they get up to middle school they're not being left behind because you know because they're not um comprehending or not as advanced as they need to be but recognizing that we do have an issue as we get up to eighth grade is there a reason we're stopping at k to five and not going k to eight we're looking at having the coaches at middle school as well currently we've got kind of quasi coaches at each middle school
059where there are some teachers who are able to coach a few periods a day so we would like to make those full-time as well to continue it so it is a k-8 initiative isn't our one of our large problems for eighth grade is the students sometimes take algebra in eighth grade and then they don't get tested until high school and so there almost needs to be like a refresher before okay so whereas in every other grade level the entire grade level is performing on a single math state test at eighth grade for us we had half the kids in one test and half the kids in another test so our issue is with a half of the students who are taking the eighth grade math course at eighth grade and it's not a unique issue
060it's a state test issue as well so it's certainly a target that we want to hit but the way the standards are structured when math verges right there's acceleration in math some districts do the sixth grade some and seven we do it in eighth grade every district sees the issue that we're seeing just at different grade levels i think we found that there's only four schools in the entire districts with schools in the entire state that met every indicator on the report card from middle school math so everybody's experiencing an issue somewhere again that doesn't mean that we can't or will be hit again but it is more than just an eighth grade math issue it's and that's where that hub comes in too so rather than a teacher encountering a student with difficulty and
061then perhaps googling a you know instructional strategy we want them going to the hub and finding something that's been vetted and tested and that aligns with the resources that we have in so the short version of that is our eighth grade score for our district can interrupt me if i'm going off track our eighth grade score for our district is comprised of students who are not in the acceleration correct because we have eighth graders take algebra entry and algebra two right so our eighth graders that aren't accelerated yeah that's i don't know if we can add value judgments but um i'm proud of their efforts they're um they're they're growing and um but it's i don't think it's honest intellectually honest to say that our eighth graders as a whole are doing doing poorly and
062it's it's just not accurate what percentage of our eighth graders are accelerated yeah well and that's all fine and well but but the last year we had a full full full-blown testing we missed the indicator by eight students and what eight and and that was the kind of straw that broke my back on it because we'd use that accelerated issue as an excuse for a long time and it is valid but there are eight kids we should we needed to do a better job of identifying those eight kids and getting those eight kids over the bar to meet the indicator so we're we it's now to the point where they're done with excuses on it we've got to hit this indicator i don't think it's an excuse superintendent but i you probably you better not
063know this answer but i would venture to say there's more than eight kids that didn't take the test so it's important to understand how the numbers eighth grade is a very unique year for math the fifth grade you're not going to see those scores so we're not suddenly doing awesome in four five six seven and then something magically happened in eighth grade that magic is it's it's the acceleration part where you pull that out of the puzzle out of the equation i should say so definitely not excuse absolutely want to get better but goodness gracious and when we talk about it it can't the vision or the the the story has to be how well we're doing in areas and how and where we need improvement but if we're getting to the you know to
064our mission being here as maximum learning for every student for sure then that means every student and and that's that's the goal that we're working on so we shouldn't you know we're not going to be perfect in every area all the time right we can't expect and say we we fail if we don't if we don't hit perfection but we darn sure better you know aspire to it and that's and that's where i think this work is coming from right i mean everything that you're saying is we're working hard to do it and this is part of it if this is going to get us there that's great and if it doesn't let's do something else but but it's where we have to be i think key for me is we got to understand what
065the where the numbers are coming from before we can have a vision of how to you know what i mean oh yeah like we yeah yeah for sure okay we're coming up on the hour so well i i know i want to make sure i've heard a lot about elementary and middle in this conversation anything we want to talk about that those grades nine to twelve well what is what what is being done with nine and twelve i mean i know you have kids here in algebra calculus you know all those higher levels so what is being done for those students who may be struggling in algebra in front at their freshman year geometry their second year or pre-cal i mean just all of them like what resources are there i know the hub but
066what's there for those teachers who are working with those students to be able to help those who are struggling well at liberty high school i know they have they instituted like after school tutoring um where there's teachers that are staying after and helping kids i think two days a week is math and i think another couple of days are it's english and history so then let me rephrase that what's happening across the district so um particularly with regards to math at the high school level we developed courses for additional support in algebra geometry and algebra two we call them double block classes so kids who need additional instruction get two periods of math instruction and we typically co-teach those classes with an intervention specialist so there's an in the class isn't just all students with
067ieps it's it's a blend of kids um normal class size 20 25 kids typically um in those classes but they get two period allows the teachers a lot of flexibility with an intervention specialist in there when the state changed their math model is algebra 2 required now or equivalent for graduation it was really important because obviously it's a very difficult altitude very difficult class and so uh you know that that has been proven over time and we've been doing that ever since i've been in the district um a a good proven strategy to get our kids to a level of success with with the state with regards to the state testing and with regards to just their overall uh math instruction um you know it's one of those it does cost us um because you
068know a teacher typically at the high school level teaches six classes if they teach three double block um they would teach the street classes so half the students so um it's been some of the most powerful classes i've ever had the the pleasure of observing um i always remember the first time i observed it i couldn't tell who was the math teacher and who was the intervention specialist because there was a very very seamless instruction um between those two teachers um i always you know when jeanette kenny obviously you know she's our director of the data and assessment and um she presents to to the board frequently um i always she was literally the best math teacher i've ever seen because she taught double block algebra and she taught pre-calculus which is probably the most
069difficult class in our high school curriculum and she did them she did like honors pre-calc so so it was just amazing to watch her teach so those are the primary supports we have at uh um high school um co-taught math classes in addition so we're classes that we have an intervention specialist if a student has math goals on an iep they're they're in a co-taught math class with a um highly qualified intervention specialist somebody who's you know been trained to be a math teacher or an english language arts teacher that cons you know highly qualified designation um so they're in in those classes where they're you know better better suited um so those are areas of you know how we support kids at the high school level but overall our high school achievement i think
070you know i i still remember this vividly when i came in 2003 i i kind of viewed our instructional model as a pay it forward because we really invested a lot of resources at the elementary grades when i came from another district i had kids in a high school level that needed a lot of remediation and and we invest so many we were investing so many resources in the younger grades in those early grades to get kids on grade level reading and then with their math you know level of ability and math um because then you know in the other disciplines they all carry out those skills carry forward into language arts or social studies and in the sciences um you know if you're not can't read you're not going to be successful in those
071other classes so when i got here i just noticed we didn't have to do all this intense intervention now we do have other intervention supports for high school but it wasn't as intense as what i had in other districts because our kids were on grade level or above you know you hand a kid with a seventh grade reading level an english textbook or a socialized textbook that's written at a 12th grade level they're going to struggle we don't see that problem by and large okay internal processes we've touched on on this in a two ways we talk about branding and branding the values some of that i think it may have some connection to internal processes as well i'm not going to go first you guys could change it up well oh okay just to
072break the silence um so um what we do a really good job i mean a lot of this stuff as we come in and we see how well things are running right and it yeah mark just to your point there it's great to come into a place where you see things running well right you don't have to do a lot of remediation later so that just prompts you to say what can we do even better um we do a really nice job of developing people and building them up and starting to to elevate them and all that sort of stuff when i think about talent retention and talent management it's it's what is the culture that they want to stay why why do you want to stay here what is it about this district that
073you're not just here to to build your resume to go somewhere else you're here to build your skills to help give back to the district one of the things that i open by saying that i think mental health and supports are really important for our students i think we need to focus on our employees and what we've seen there um the challenges of the past couple years the challenges of the next couple of years especially as we're growing especially as we're seeing um the burdens that growth puts on people over time as we start to swell and then we get a new building and it alleviates some of that but in the meantime that's stress and that's pressure so how are we building a culture where it's clearly and i think i think we're already
074doing this right in a lot of ways but how are we doing it so clearly that we we show people that their that their health their wellness um their careers their their lives are important to us um that we are putting that first and foremost because that's how we retain people right anybody knows that an olympia teacher um is working in a great environment and and they're going to be valued for that and people are going to be interested in seeing our administration that coming into their districts to support that we retain them by showing that we care about them right and um you know randy sends out these weekly messages to people that are just beautiful to read right and it helps to do that right and it helps to show our values of
075those sorts of things um it's just it's always working from that focus of of your health and wellness and your lives and your careers are important to us and and how that's how we're going to keep people so that to me it's essential regarding the digital conversions hr and finance are in sync now right so is that complete and we can remove it the digital conversion it's at the bottom of our operational excellence i i mean i think in terms of implementing the software putting the tools in place yes they're complete i think we've got some training to do we've got some expertise to build back up within our departments so that our teams feel that they can work effectively within that new software right they have they're starting from scratch to build um how
076they do things what the processes now look like so i think the the software is there now we're at that that learning phase and getting our growth in that um in terms of students and teachers i think there's we've talked about the hub i know our students do a lot within schoology i think our other members of the leadership team would have some more information on that but we're also working with professional development and linking that in to the e-finance software for hr and finance as well so we're trying to get as many modules connected that may not seem may not have intuitively sounded like a good connection but it's helping us from departments in different aspects as well the forward-facing stuff is what we did first parent forms so uh chromebooks teacher laptops those
077things but we still have at least another year's worth of work on the internal um professional learning which is our staff management software and also at least work to do with our enrollment for new student registration so i think this piece needs to evolve to more of what's our technology strategy period right so all the things we've done on the front end well what's been the benefits of those investments are we getting more efficient are we able to scale up what are we doing and you know me personally it's shifting our investments out of equipment into bandwidth and network right i don't like being in the equipment business because equipment gets old and it gets stale i'd rather create a very powerful fast network that people can access on their personally owned device and then
078supply devices when necessary but not all the time you know i think that's that's you know what's our cyber stance how well protected are we from potential issues so i think a more broad comprehensive technology strategy both what we're doing internally but then how we're driving and leveraging technology to make the classroom more efficient to make teachers job more efficient to get out of photocopying and printing into e-documents and e-delivery things of that nature so i would take digital conversion in a different way and um i we've maybe had informal conversations about this but i think we have to have some sort of understanding of what it would take maybe we need to understand what the state can do to relax its prohibitions or how they heard you know where i'm going with this um
079for an online learning option k through 5 k through 8 um i just there's so many students that that may be a better option for medically fragile students just a whole bunch of different students that that might i don't know how it works nine through 12 when your classes are so how do you do a lab online right i mean you can do a reading class maybe online or a math instruction online and and still do key components but i don't know how you do science and and all those things so i i don't know and i don't have the answers but i would love for our district to figure out what it would take to offer our parents and i know there's state limitations so this isn't an indictment of where we're at but
080it's a challenge to see what it would take and i know the other part of that is it's expensive so i'd at least like to know the options um because if we're talking 10 20 30 years from now it's hard to imagine delivering instruction that doesn't have some sort of online component i mean we need to reflect a little bit we stood up a 5000 student online learning academy in about a month right right so it's pretty impressive to get that done i mean that's a small school district in the state um it's actually very large the digital transaction that's a good size every size school district statement has about 800 kids yeah and don't give up the digital transformation has been a game changer right instead of filling out a hundred forms i can
081fill it out in one place and get everything so it's been um see a significant change to the parent experience um so the work we've done has been great it's just how do we now take it to the next level well i think it's been a bit since we've updated our overall technology strategy that and you know time for a presentation i mean our approach with devices and you know we've heard that comment before about not being in device businesses has been you know i've never taken a stance that we should be a one-to-one district because why am i going to buy a chromebook for a kid who's got three at home or they just keep taking them home on their own sorry dr wise um the but you know so it's we've had to
082have a minimum level of technology available for state testing and that's kind of been our the bottom bar so that's really where we've take we've started it um and now maybe it's just us tweaking the word implement because we have made significant progress in that implementation so even if we come up with a different word for that to continue on that path but even digital conversion may be not the right word right right i mean i mean to kevin's point the world is changing right and it sped up a lot with the pandemic as we realized what we could do but you know three five ten years down you know i mean iphones are only what 10 12 15 years old right i mean the world is changing quickly and as we are becoming one
083of we are one of but as we're becoming one of the largest school districts in the state we're already a premier school district in the state um being forward thinking about what technology means and part of it's maybe a lot you know it's it's it's talking to the legislature about it and maybe that's part of our strategy too is being more assertive about what's important to us as a district because of our statute we hold a little bit more heft but school is going to look dramatically different from when any of us were in school it already does and it's going to look even more dramatically different over the next 10 years and if we're not on the edge of that we're going to be missing out i just don't want to take what the
084state says we can or can't do i mean i would press them i would press them it's interesting though we did something back in 2010 called project 2020 tried to envision what school would look like in 2020 and how vastly different but aside from having a chromebook in front of the kids what we've found over the last 12 years is people still want their children in front of our teachers by and large and so i don't know if it is going to be that much different it may some of the delivery may be different but that personal experience of learning from a person and and being in that caring environment and you know what our parents found out with pandemic was teaching was really hard one of the best comments my wife heard was early
085on in the pandemic she said when a parent said to her hey the last report card you put on for my child that they're a pleasure to have in class you lied [Laughter] i would be curious when parent surveys go out how many parents would not be interested in but but just be i mean whether it's short term if there's an illness or long term to be curious how many parents would want that option and it's i agree the kids got to be face to face you got to be able to read nonverbal communication it's not and we're able to do those those things when they happen just not again we'd have to discuss that uh the scaling of it but right you know in those cases we provide home instruction or we provide you
086know those resources and we talk we've worked at we've we've done this in the past where we developed our own kind of we use a pro product called apex to deliver some online we purchase classes but we've looked at developing our own where our our own olympia teachers develop the class and then here it is and it's more self-guided self-paced so we're still working on some of those yeah i'd like to see what those conversations look like i think that just opens up another door for online and standardization um online is my world so that standardization makes a big difference okay how do we do on your hour 15 minutes over here [Laughter] what haven't we talked about [Applause] i don't know i've covered the topics i wanted to cover nothing um this is this
087is as good of a meeting as i've ever been a part of so i feel really good well maybe i'd flip it the other way is there's specific issues that the administration would like some more context on the prescription yeah i would just say it's probably something we need to be able to digest in our process tomorrow and then to be able to come back to you with kind of a cross-section of ideas if there's what would you want the direction for us to take you know we'll absorb this work from tonight with dr weiss's help and then be able to circle back with that that makes sense yeah we had we had our central office we you know emily and i do these um updates to the staff uh all throughout the district and
088today we kind of did our last one with central office and um uh and kind of was just thinking in terms of this and and i said to the group here because the central office people are typically the most under-appreciated they don't get the day-to-day building love of you know the good stuff from the kids and the parents that that our people in our building get and tried to emphasize to them how and but i just was so i stood there and i was so impressed you know i looked at our food service director we we haven't had one supply chain issue with food service and other districts have had so many of those and transportation where other districts have had to shut down or the the one person we have who gets all of
089our subs assigned and and coordinated who who who got you know got us to the point of never having to shut down because we didn't have subs or you know the communications team and the technology team and the things that we were have accomplished in the last two years throughout the pandemic that we just have so many great people working here you know doing ieps in a pandemic area doing i mean just thing one thing after another i just couldn't you know stop coming up with compliments and and i and i also shared with them the the fact that the community you know uh supports us continuously at the ballot but then you know the the electing board members and in the five of you that i try to re-emphasize for our staff the the
090importance of your support of the work they're doing uh being true champions of public education um you know that that that's what makes this all work and it's interesting elaine eddie popped in and she started walking around the building and nobody was at their stations she got she thought we were being held captive she got nervous this was like the last place she looks and she found all of us you know 100 people in this room and and but that partnership that we have with the associations about just you know that makes it really all work so well together that you know this just made for a great end of the day so thank you do you feel like the board should have a larger role in celebrating some accomplishments because i mean we depend
091on you to tell us we're not in the buildings right and um you know i one of my favorite things to do pre-pandemic was to go to buildings and celebrate some of their accomplishments or programs that they had implemented i loved doing that i loved going to the buildings but like you know so we've talked about what we need the direction that we need to give you but what about direction we need i think that's a great great point and you've talked a little bit about that with the conclusion or the revision of the strategic plan but i think you bring up an excellent point um yeah our culture one of our culture things is that we can always do better so we always work hard we don't pause oftentimes to celebrate as a leadership
092team celebrate those accomplishments and highlight the good things that are going on so i don't know the answer to that question and maybe i just think what came to me was maybe it's an additional layer of our communication strategy like i send out the board recap after every meeting and maybe we start thinking about messaging you know a message from the board president or a message from specific board members or those kind of things to you know how we message that like you know you have your board president's report but maybe that's another type of message we send out or push out or you you know as you guys use your social media accounts you know you're sharing our information but also sharing those kind of things i think mr lester's initiation and leadership with
093the zoom things that he's started as something that we need to we need to figure out how to get that on the calendar about every month or so at least because it gives people an opportunity to be heard that's longer than three minutes and it gives you know i think the first couple that you you did mr lester um it was probably 58 minutes of listening and two minutes of talking really um so i think that's something that we need to figure out how to get time to listen to people both internally and externally right i mean it's it's it's finding it because i think mark your point is really well taken um and it it should never be seen as we're just here to come in and make some decisions when we leave right
094i mean we're invested in this district's success and that needs to be felt um and whatever we can do to to make that message felt not just we as people but we as the entity that's shaping that's helping to shape the district um that those things are important to us and that their success is important to us and that we we hear what's important there and we recognize it and we're going to be using that to help help get there i think is just exceedingly important so anything that we could do and we we personally need to be proactive in thinking about that but but any support that you guys can give in in helping us find ways to do that is great i would love to do the same thing that you you're talking
095about yeah i think that that's important but then you know i have heard a lot of parental comment that you know they want the board to hear their point of view and they only have a you know a limited amount of time but then i i attended several of our town hall meetings and the turnouts very low so i know there's a new coffee chat strategy so you know they're always looking for new ways but i think there's a general mis like again this is an educational component that people don't understand you talk to the board about this but the board none of us are in a building we're not we're not in the weeds of operations so when they come here and i feel like i get caught with my pants down you know
096i i don't know i don't know what's happening in that building i'm not quite sure who the vice principal is and who's the english teacher that suggested that book you know so i feel like um to have those types of conversations and i don't know how your online zooms have went but the right people have to be in the room right because i can't we as board members we can't necessarily speak to the problem on the sports team or the problem in the english class and um i think that's just maybe we haven't done a great job of communicating you know you need to start at the building level and then once that's done you've escalated it then then maybe we can get involved but you know i have i try to go to a
097town hall meeting if i can but they have they have a structure so i don't know what the venue would be for people to have conversation felt heard without us violating sunshine laws and um i think oh sorry the the you know it's one thing to talk about day-to-day operations issues you're right none of us are doing that right and so you know i'm sure we've all gotten questions about you know so and so some teachers said this and and we always say go talk to the teacher right right we're not we're not it it one doesn't make any sense because we don't have the the context of it but two what good does that do to have the board jump in and and start micromanaging something it makes no sense whatsoever right it goes
098to the operations governance thing that you were talking about to begin with so you know when we have conversations with the community it ought to be at that higher level of what are what are our values what are our interests what are the things that we're going to be using to to achieve that governance function and maybe there's a discrete issue that we understand we can talk about you know that is maybe not an individual thing but it's a broader thing how we you know the the curriculum questions that we've gotten and how that comes in more broadly and what's our strategy about that but it always has to be at that higher level it can never just be oh we're here to fix your individual issue right i mean that that just doesn't make
099sense but maybe some of the um surveys that come out we could have a little bit of input to help people feel as though their voice was heard right you know we need to do a good job of taking notes about comments that we're getting and then possibly you know like kevin had mentioned online now the states kind of tied our hands on us being able to have an online platform we have to have a separate school district but that might not always be the case and what is the interest in that um just one example right all right dr weiss bring us home all right okay so i'm gonna tell you some general themes that i've heard first of all awesome discussion so thank you great thinkers this was this is awesome people values
100excellence transparency i wrote structured flexibility listen communicate as sort of some high level themes you hearing those is any feel like i missed any of the high level themes continued growth growth thank you did you mention struck us technologies strategy well i i i yeah i was sort of seeing that as like a like under it yeah i'll make sure i write it how about that treatment and growth i mean i kind of look at those together i i hope that's how you heard it perfect yeah and responsibility i think responsibility goes a long way toward both our fiscal but also the just how we're we're managing people how we're engaging with the community responsibility is is big great you all are great thinkers you made my job tonight very very easy i'm going to
101type up my type up your thoughts and uh use these tomorrow when we work when i work with the leadership team thank you thank you thank you have a great night nice to meet you nice to meet you all alright so i'll now entertain a motion to adjourn so move second second please okay any discussion on adjournment nope call the role please dr weiss yes dr daberko yes mr lester yes mrs patrick yes and mr o'brien yes thank you we're back together on april 14th is that right with a regular working session this thursday the candidate night april 7th big deal liberty high school right yeah