001All right, I'm going to call this meeting to order at 601. Uh, roll call. Glenn is approved absence. Blake >> here. >> Robert, Merl >> here, >> Jenny here, Kelsey >> here. >> Crystal here. You'll join me for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> I open the floor for an agenda consideration motion. >> Make a motion we approve the agenda as presented. >> Do I hear a second? >> Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Motion carries. Do we have any public comment? Okay, moving on. We're at board communication. >> And we have two students that if they could uh come
002to before us here, introduce yourselves and your uh role within ASB. and then you can go ahead and give your report. >> Okay. Hi, my name is Dice Valencia and I'm the president of ASB. >> My name is Aliiana Garza and I'm the vice president of ASB. >> Take it away. >> Welcome. >> Yeah. Um, so for this year, me and Ally really want to focus on including everybody. Like I feel like inclusivity is one of our main goals and also having a really fun year for everyone. >> Um, >> yeah. Um, it was a very like hard, I think, difficult election. Um, thankfully our principal, Mr. Stanley, he did a very good job of just getting it together and getting everyone's opinions on how the election should go. So, now that that's over, we're
003really focusing the next few weeks on homecoming. Um, and prioritizing that right now. >> Normally, we don't ask questions, but I'm going to go ahead and ask you a question. So, what do you think about our homecoming plan? the homecoming plans for October 9th and all that's going on that day. What are your thoughts? >> Um, were you guys still planning on doing homecoming like the same day as all like the games and stuff? >> So, that's when like the homecoming football game is. Obviously, there's going to be a dance and I'll let you guys take care of planning and putting that together. But I'm just more curious about your thoughts on the on having all those games from right after school all evening. What are your thoughts? Um, I like it. I think it's
004a good idea. Uh, I think it I think it's fun for everyone. It gives everyone a chance to kind of go to each other's games and then the next day is homecoming. I I think it's a good concept and a good idea. >> Good. >> Tell all your friends to be there. >> And I feel like it'll be easier for those who don't have like transportation to go from place to place. So having like the games back to back is really good. And like everything's like just walking distance. So it's fine, you know. >> Great. >> Um, so can you spell your name for me? >> Yeah, it's D O R I S. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Um, so in the future, welcome. Thank you for coming and being here. if you would like
005to bring um dates and what each club is up to and what you're planning um for the future, we would love all that information and kind of a report out for all the different ones um because school board members try to come and be present at some times and everything. So, do you have any other questions for us >> or updates? Yeah, I mean maybe like the only update right now would probably be just like for like the themes and stuff of games like we're like taking approach of doing something new this year. We're putting out votes like on Instagram so like everybody can put their opinion on there and see what they like best and this this Friday's G game theme is blackout. Everybody Blackout so >> great. >> That's awesome. I saw it
006come across there. I thought that was a really good idea. >> I think it was really important for the whole school to have a a vote and what our whole school themes are because I think last year it was just ASB and some students really didn't agree with some themes and not everyone's going to agree obviously, but I think it's important to get everyone's opinions so that way we can have um just more of an open mind. >> Anything else? Okay, we'll see you next month. >> Thank you. >> You and I any >> they're not going to be here tonight. We do have kind of a new plan moving forward. So whether they are on the agenda or not kind of depends on whether they have anything to add. >> Awesome. Uh we will
007acknowledge the extended field trip for the district FFA leadership camp September 28th through the 29th in Turner, Oregon. >> Any questions? Good. >> Okay. >> Excuse me. >> I did have a question about the one to 15 ratio to students. >> I don't know if the 15 is final. I know once before we we asked the about that and they arranged to have more than one person in supervision, but >> I'd have to look into that. >> Okay. So Dan can get back to you. >> Okay. Just a note that the OSBA fall regional meeting is October 1st in Salem at WSD. That's actually one I've gone to before and it was um helpful to kind of just see what's going on around the OSBA and around our region. There's also one the OSBA annual
008conference November 6 through 8th. So, if you're interested in going to that one, um, up in Portland, there's an agenda, keynote speaker notes, and you would just let Diane know and she can get registered. All right. Consent agenda. If you've had a moment to read it, I had entertain a motion. >> I had question or comment on the minutes. Uh let's make a motion first and then we can open up for discussion. So I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as proposed. >> Second. >> Okay. Discussion. We had a question. >> Just for not that critical probably for the record the board retreat and workshop is listed as August 30th rather than September. Then there was another paragraph there that just kind of trailed off. I'm not sure where it should have
009gone. I really didn't notice that until it's the last minute. It's on page six of seven. Should OSBA draft policies remain consistent, the board adoption process expected to be straightforward. However, if re revisions result in broader or less restrictive language, additional board And it stops there. >> Okay. >> Do you want to amend your motion to take out these minutes or you want a bit? >> Uh, I'll amend the motion to remove the board meeting minutes until they're finalized. But move forward with approving the HR personnel report for September. >> Okay. >> Second. Any other discussion? >> Thanks. >> So, just to reiterate that we are voting on the consent agenda to only include part A, the HR personnel with an update being needed to the board meeting minutes. All those in favor say I.
010>> I. Opposed. Consent agenda part A carries. business and budget. >> Hi, Kim. >> Thank Thank you board members and uh appreciate the opportunity to uh present with you uh this evening. Excuse me. Within the agenda, we have a link to a memo uh for uh this evening and wanted to kind of highlight some of the background information before we really jump into presentation. I think it's really critical uh that our board has the information they need to be able to be as informed as possible. You're faced with some really really big decisions from time to time and more often than not. And I really think that um you know there are so many decisions that do have a financial impact whether it be direct or indirect um that it's important that we make sure
011you have the information you need. So, uh that is the goal with uh what I present to you uh as we move forward and uh we are always welcome to feedback because we want to make sure that we're providing you with with what you need to feel informed and be able to make those decisions that are best for the students and district. So going to start with a a uh presentation here tonight and I wanted to uh you know um we'll be going through a couple of slides tonight in the financial memo. there is a new format for a financial report and I want to take a few moments tonight to just kind of highlight you know while there's a lot of numbers a lot of figures on there what are those key things that
012that we should be looking at and what are those um those indicators that we should be watching and then great question was asked in the past uh I appreciate Merl asking this what's included when we call something when we title something so I have something to share with you tonight on that's going to help provide some of that background and then the projections and variances that are part of this report and explaining why these are important. So our next slide presents a a bit of a snapshot of the actual financial report. The financial report itself is a PDF document that everyone can uh download through the agenda uh through the memo. But your financial report begins at the top with a summary of revenues. And what this is doing is down your left hand side
013is giving you some categories. Uh your first couple columns are showing our prior year revenues yeartodate, meaning as of the date of this report, where were we a year ago and what percentage of the budget did that represent? And then in the green section, the larger section is showing our current year 202526 figures as year-to-ate actuals. Where are we as of the date of the report? What percent of the budget does that represent? What was that budgeted figure that you as a board and our budget committee adopted? And then projected total invariances. So what I'm sharing with you tonight, the projected totals are the budgeted values as shown. Uh we are getting ready to pro uh process our first payroll of the new fiscal year. That alone uh as we know we're in the people
014business. Payroll represents the majority of our budget and processing that payroll getting that um fine-tuned and what we call encumbering those expenses for the rest of the year. What do we think that payroll is going to look like by employee by each health insurance plan they chose by their PERS tier by their workers comp code? We get all those things put together and then we can encumber the entire year and then project where are we going to be. That's on the expense side. Of course, this here that you're looking at is the revenue side. That is driven by a lot of information that we're going to be getting in the next couple of days, and I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. But wanted to point out tonight that the projections in
015this financial report are just the adopted budget numbers moving forward. You will see live projections where I'm going to indicate in this far right column, do we think we're going to have a favorable outcome as compared to the budget. So in terms of revenues, favorable would be revenue in excess of what was budgeted. Unfavorable obviously we're missing, you know, potentially projecting less revenue than budgeted. On the expense side, it would be favorable if our expenses are going to come in under what we budgeted. So, it's a bit of a a you know, two-sided thing. But what I wanted to point out on the next slide though is the um on the next slide here, if we can go to that, these columns, and I apologize, I'm not sure why the second red uh cell is
016not there. The percent of budget column is really the key that I think is going to be uh your indicator of our financial health because we can look at things and say, "Oh, that's wonderful. State school fund, we're $400,000 higher than last year." Well, but what does that really mean in terms of our budget? So, what we want to look at and see is at this same point last year, where were we in terms of our budgeted revenues? we want to see very very similar numbers and it was incredible as you put this together you're right there you're neck and neck so you will see we are a little bit higher uh in our actual receipts on the first line state school fund we're at 26% already instead of 24% um that is indicative that
017we might be getting a little more revenue right now than what we think we're actually going to get as the year becomes uh a little bit more finalized, as our enrollment reports come in. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that as we move forward. But when you receive 12 payments a year, that should be equal. 26% is actually a little bit high because 12, you know, 112th of 100 is 8 and a3%. We should be closer to 24.9 uh% not 26. So, we could be receiving a little more state school fund right now than when they rebalance the state school fund, we might see that drop, but that's okay because we're ahead of schedule right now. So, it's it's constantly a massage. But these are the numbers that that I like
018to have have people really take a look at. If we go into the next section of the financial report, there's two sections where I'm providing you information on our expenditures. There's a section that provides information on our expenditures by what are known as the functions. What was the activity that was that money was being used for? And these functions are defined by the state of Oregon. And every school district in the state of Oregon must run their accounting this exact same way. So they're going to compare district by district. What are you spending on the instruction category, support services category, your enterprise facility? And as you can see, because we've been in the summer months, we haven't had a lot of expenditures through August 31st on direct instruction. So this particular report is just our
019general fund as well. So the instruction for summer school would not be part of these figures, but you would expect that over the summer you're going to have more costs in your support services than you are in instruction. Whereas by next month you're going to see a big change in that. And then uh if we can pop on to the next slide uh I want to show you here. Um >> I think it jumped. If we can go back one, if we can go backwards back right there. >> So again, we're looking at those percentages. Where are we in our budget? And this one came out almost uh almost exact. Yes, our next line we had $123 versus $970. Well, it's a big percentage change. Maybe it's it's because that budget is a smaller piece.
020So, timing of things, but in the end, we've spent 5% of our budget uh as of August 31st. Again, those are the expenses by function. Our next slide though talks about expenses by what are known as objects. Again, another statemandated coding uh accounting system. And this will show you for those exact same expenditures, what were they used to be paid for. So we have salaries. Those are the gross wages that are paid to the employees. We have associated payroll costs. Those are your health insurance and PERS along with some additional taxes. Purchase services, supplies and materials, capital outlays. In the end, our expenditures are exactly the same. The 1.33 or excuse me 1.251 year to date at 5%. Interesting. Our expenditures are down, which we would expect because of our reductions in staffing. However, we're
021still at 5%. We're right on where we would expect to be on our expenditures so far. I did want to highlight one section and this would be something that maybe maybe 2% may or may not be concerning but what I would expect maybe a board to say is why if we're two months into our fiscal year have we spent over twothirds of the budget for that line item. >> So if we look at other objects line 600 last year we'd spent 66% this year we've spent 68%. It's because of what goes into that bucket. That bucket is the majority of that is our liability insurance which must be paid July 1, of course. So, we would expect that certain line items may be spent upfront. We would expect things like salaries and associated payroll costs.
022Those are going to be pretty steady throughout the year. So, I just I kind of want to point those out because they're really those key indicators that are going to uh be able to to help define what you're looking at in these reports. What you know, where should we be asking questions? >> Okay. >> So, one of the keys and I really appreciate Merl asked this last time. I I decided to build something called a general fund financial report key. And this will be page two of the report every month. And so what that's going to do is for that financial report that I gave you, what is in each one of those line items? So starting with the revenues, what makes up local sources or what makes up other state school fund? So this
023is giving you more of a a a readable, if you will, version versus our statemandated chart of accounts. What types of things would you expect to see in each of those numbers? So we have one for revenues. Moving on to the next page, I have one for the uh functions. So what is defined as uh you know support services. So support services which is where we saw a lot of our expenditures so far to date. Those are going to be um you know the things that facilitate and enhance instruction, the things that are required to allow us to operate as a school. our maintenance, our custodial services, counseling, district administration. A lot of that is included in the 2000s and that of course is where insurance and those sorts of costs go. The next slide
024breaks down your object codes, salaries and associated payroll costs, that kind of makes sense. But when we talk about purchased services, the state has us define it as that. that actually includes transportation, it includes substitutes, it includes contracted repairs, it includes our utilities, it includes our legal services. So, you know, when you're talking about a purchase service, it's anything that you would hire someone to perform because it is a specialized uh service. And then that other objects, and I apologize, I had some formatting things in my table here. I apologize. But the other objects that 600 line that had over twothirds of the budget gone, it is because the liability insurance uh is again the largest portion of of that item. So it's my hope that by providing some of this some of this background,
025it'll give you a little better uh ability to know what to ask and and how to ask how to ask it. But it's it's very important that we uh continue to monitor where we're at year to date. We continue to monitor our variances. If something is going to be significantly under budget, while that sounds like a great idea, that means though that there may not be resources available for something else that might be needed right now. So those are the conversations that we will continue to have as we move forward. So, the financial report ties really closely into enrollment updates and uh the finances of a school district hinge greatly on our enrollment as the enrollment is the number one driver of your state school fund. one happy to report we have seen increases in
026multiple grades since our June numbers where we ended you know you end one year your kindergartens kindergarteners that graduate one year and you you see what is the movement between that that June date and when they return in September the next few days though are absolutely critical so I really want to emphasize that the information I'm about to share with you is a snapshot as of close of school on Friday and It does. It there there will be some changes in the coming days. Um there is an October 1st official measurement date from the state standpoint. We're going to be sharing some historical data uh on that. But I wanted to take a second to explain what's known as a 10day drop rule because this impacts the district not only at the start of the
027year but throughout the year. The state of Oregon, Oregon Department of Education has a rule that any student that misses 10 consecutive days of academic engagement must be unenrolled from the district. So, as we are nearing day 10 of school, we will be having to unenroll some students who did not return. While some families do let us know if they move out of the area over the summer, some don't. And so we are marking an absence daily until that day 10 and then we must unenroll those students. So Friday was not yet day 10. So we do need to keep that in mind as we're looking at at figures. >> Do we know how many people that is? >> We won't know how many that is. >> I mean you have an idea if they've
028missed nine days so far. I'm guessing >> I had not pulled that data yet. Our our offices are very good at at getting those attendance uh in there. I did go back for multiple years to see what that trend line looks like. It actually I was very pleased that it was not dramatic here. But I also wanted to point out this 10-day drop rule. It while it does apply at the start of the year for students who do not return, it applies all year long. So extended absences, family vacations, anything that will pull a student out of the classroom for 10 consecutive days results in the loss of an enrollment count. Now, when that student comes back, even if it's day 11, day 12, we reenroll them. >> Sure. >> But the district does not
029get to count that enrollment for that period of time. So we really have you know this this fluctuation of the number of students that might be enrolled today is going to fluctuate day by day by day based on um you know those extended absences. So, uh, at the end of the year, uh, you know, your your enrollment looks very different because you may receive what they call fractional enrollment, fractional ADM for that student that may have missed maybe they missed 12% of the year. You're only going to receive a fraction of their enrollment when it comes to >> 10 consecutive days. >> 10 consecutive that is that really is the key and it has to be without academic engagement. So there are a lot our schools work very hard to reach out to families, find
030out what we can do to help them uh especially if there's any chronic attendance issues. You know, oftent times we know when a when a student may be gone for an extended period and that just is uh you know something we work with, but if they are missing academic engagement for 10 consecutive days, we must uh unenroll them. >> You had mentioned you looked in historical data. What did that look like? Uh, so I'm going to pop into uh some slides going forward and I'll kind of show you what that looks like. So, uh, the enrollment report, a full PDF is available online because I know this is very hard to see here, but I just wanted to point out that uh, what I've done with this is up at the top kind of in
031a faded gray. I wanted to provide where where we were last year. So, I've shifted everything. So I have our kinder number from last year lined up over this year's first graders because that is that's the movement we want to see. Right? So if we ended the year with 88 kinders, we now have 95 first graders. Great news. Right now, do we have 95 first graders in their seats every day? Probably not. So how many of those 95 are on day eight or day nine? Excuse me. Kinder just started a week later, I believe. But so that was the other part with the absences. We have kids that start on different days and so some kids are on different day counts. But uh but that is that is what we're what we're looking at. We
032had run the numbers on the 5th. We ran the numbers again on the 12th. We saw just a very very minimal movement there. What will happen every month is I'll be adding another row for for you to show uh how that movement is happening throughout the year. The next slide I just wanted to give you guys a a a graph just just this is reality that since 2010 we really are just seeing the trend line um decreasing and um it's been relatively stable if you will uh decrease the last few years. uh you know we we peaked in 2015 at 1,992 and so right now uh being at 1582 um that is you know definitely a significant change for the district. Uh this this chart shows enrollment on October 1st except for of course 2025
033not having met that date yet. This is the September 12th number for 2025 but we'll be updating that for you as well. The next slide though shows I think kind of what what we're asking to is what what's that movement? Um this these are October 1st numbers. Uh I will say that the September 10thish number to the October 1st number I didn't see big drops. Some years I did see 10, some years I saw two. So it but it wasn't percentage-wise a huge huge drop. But what I've done is I've given a projection based on that historical data that I think we could be at 1575 on October 1st. Based on this trend data though for these prior years of what happens throughout the course of the year October through June, every year we do
034see a drop come June. It might be due to positive things such as a student graduating early. It might be due to unfortunately some students choosing not to finish out the year. It could be due to moves. It could be that. But there is an October to June ratio. OD uses that in a lot of their data sets to really see what's what's going to happen. You know, what could potentially happen within a district. So we can see the 1.46% is has been kind of our average reduction throughout those those postcoid years. I will say a a lot of us try to take the tw 2020 2021 year out because that was just a very difficult co year and in fact keeping the 21-22 school year in here is is can be difficult but we
035look at uh when we look at this overall um you know we're seeing pretty consistent figures. So I'm projecting we could end the year around actual students. The budget that was presented and approved was built on 1565, which puts us right in the middle of where we're projecting we could potentially end up. So, I don't have significant concerns in terms of the financial projections. I think our team did a phenomenal job of looking at that past data. Do would we love to have more students back? Would I love to be wrong on my 1552? 10,000%. you know that's but this is this is uh the data that suggests that this is what we're what we're uh preparing for. So >> so I know that was a lot of technical maybe not sure if it's I
036I love the nerdy stuff like that but um hoping it provides you guys some some insight and I'd be happy to answer any questions on any of that. Great. Blake, do you have anything else? >> No, it's been partic. >> Uh, not super specific. I like this format. I appreciate it. All the information is good. Um, are we able to drill down like on the function like to see Oh, I love drill. So I would I would love uh to know what level of of detail um uh you guys would like to see on the on the function. So um his that is something I was used to is actually providing it by function. These are what they call parent functions, right? You're rolling it up to kind of parent uh uh activity. Uh we
037could drill down as far as you want. We have tens of thousands of account numbers that we manage. But sometimes having a function maybe broken down to >> there's a function 1111 is for education of K through 5. >> 1121 is education of 6 through 8 and 1131 is education of 9 through 12. Maybe not every function but kind of maybe our primary and maybe breaking out some of those major pieces. Our special services are in 1220 and 1250. our, you know, maintenance is in 2540. Oftentimes that's when we want to see what are we spending on maintenance versus all of our other support services. Um, so I, you know, I absolutely am happy, I would love to create to have some sort of live, um, you know, Microsoft BI had done, you know, something
038like that. I'd love to have something live like that. I don't >> I don't know what kind of scale we'd be looking at. And by that I mean cost. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, yeah, >> be happy to um honestly I could probably have something that this is the standard report, but then maybe there's a detailed report that could be in the background. Um >> yeah, I'm not I'm not asking for any of that, but maybe on a quarterly basis if everybody was wanted to kind of drill into, you know, pick one. Hey, we want to drill into this. I I don't know. I I like numbers. I like drilling into the weeds sometimes. >> Very senior in the weeds. >> Maybe a little bit. >> Yeah, that's okay. >> Maybe keep the elevation
03930,000 ft. >> Um Kelsey, >> I'm good. Thank you. >> I'll just say like this was phenomenal. I love this. Like all the information, all the details, >> the comparisons. I think this would is very beneficial had I would have had it like when I first started. So um thank you so much. I really value transparency and your projections and keeping us um with all this information. So and maybe we'll see >> on your thing. Any others? Good. Yeah. I say, yeah, compliments to Kim for the way this is presented in a very easy to understand, but also like you're talking about it makes it also very much easier to get curious and want to drill down. And so it's it's presented in a really good way because I got really curious because I hadn't
040really seen this until beforehand and and saw that we dropped 30 students from October to June last year. you know, saying that's the largest percentage like where what school was that those kids are at? What, you know, what systems can we create to try to say we know why each one of those students, you know, exited our our system. So, um, just having it presented in a way that goes, "Oh, I want to know more about that." You know, is a is a really good thing. So, thank you, Kim. >> Yeah, you're very welcome. Yeah, it's, you know, and and you know, we want to be very clear like the 10day drop, that's not intended to be a punitive thing at all. We encourage families to do, you know, what's best for them and that
041sort of thing, but it is a way to equalize funding throughout the state, right? >> Um same thing with, you know, a a drop throughout the school year, it >> while some of it may be a loss to maybe another program, was it an early graduate, a senior that graduated after, you know, early? So having the context for a lot of this is is just as critical as having the information so that we can have these these great discussions and start digging into it so that we can be be the place everybody wants to be and wants to stay and Yeah. >> Yeah. Excellent job. I'm looking forward to next month, especially that number. >> Yeah. >> of enrollment. >> Statewide. Everybody's holding, you know, that literally it's a it's a statewide, you know, everybody
042knows they're uh they're waiting for that that number. So, >> excellent. Okay, moving on. Dan, you good? >> Yep. >> Okay, moving on to board action. We have an OSPA region 11 board position nominee opportunity. I brought this up uh last meeting and brought forward the name of of Satcha. And so I'm I'm prepared to and I'll read this motion because it's not my usual language, but it has my intent. And I would just say this on his behalf that I believe he would bring a balance to the board that OSBA and we do depend on them for certain uh substantial information. So now therefore be it resolved motion that North Marian School District 15 nominate Satcha Shandrigi uh for the OSBA board of director position Marian position 11-year term. Do I hear a second?
043I'll second. Any discussion? >> I was contacted by someone in the Woodurn School District uh school board that uh also recommended this individual. So, speaking of >> Excellent. Great. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> Nomination carries. Um Jenny or Dan will you maybe Kim will you one of you remind me to make sure we get our documentation if there's any that we need to fulfill for that? >> Yes. >> Thanks. Um then on to district reports. Hello board. We are here to give our annual 2425. So last year's report about our integrated plans and programs. This is going to be kind of dry because I'm doing exactly what the state is requiring of us. Last year I gave a more broad overview and then we had to technically represent because we
044didn't say the one thing we were supposed to say out loud. So we're going to do that today. Um so the SIA the school um invest school investment >> account that's what I thought student >> um the student investment accounts we are required by statute to report to you all about our annual progress and how we're doing on our plan and we need to give it to give you guys this report not as a consent agenda item where it kind of gets snuck in but an actual report during an open meeting. Um we'll also uh because of this have one extra question that we are going to answer today because we set longitudinal growth targets. Um and the next slide talks about what is the integrated program and if you guys remember but we have
045some new board members so this is our learning of the the session. The um integrated program was designed to take a lot of different funding streams that are coming from the state and braid them together so that we can create one cohesive plan since we know that a lot of our work all intertwines and connects to each other. So we have um funding streams that are around um high school success. We have funding streams that are around um well-rounded education. Um we have oh what are some of the other ones? Our student success act. What else? >> There's a early indicator and intervention systems and then yeah and just the three for 242. >> Right. So um but all of these connect and they all connect to the the direction that we have been setting
046as a district this whole past year. um all of Dan's goals these past years about our eighth grade math success and our third grade reading success and our ninth grade on track and our graduation rates. Those are all part of our longitudinal growth targets that we're setting. And the state asked us to not only measure how we're growing in those areas, but also how do we stretch ourselves to grow a little faster? How do we really make sure that the funding we're doing um targets areas where we want to continue to improve? So, we have three questions that we have to answer this last this year. And so, I'm just going to do some reading here. The first question was, as you review your progress markers and overall reflection responses and reflect on plan implementation,
047how do you see your progress contributing to the outcomes and strategies in your plan and your longitudinal growth targets? local option metrics. And I will say we did remove our one local option metric that we had. I believe the state is going to be adding it back as part of our new accountability systems. Um but it was around our CTE calculations because we're working to um come up with some better ways to measure that. Um before it was the um counting of it was really difficult and so the state said let's just take those off and then we'll be adding them back in another way. Um so and then we want to discuss one outcome where we feel we've seen progress towards implementation. So as we continue to reflect our implementation efforts, one area where
048we've seen measurable progress is strengthening parent, family and student engagement, which is a key area in our integrative plan. Building on last year's foundation of workshops and community events, we have now intentionally expanded our strategies to gather authentic feedback and increase representation. For example, we are now collecting data through youth truth to better understand the experiences of our students and families. And we are in the process of developing Spanish- speaking parent advisory teams in each of our buildings to ensure broader access and representation. In addition, we've made a deliberate efforts to eval to elevate student voice by working directly with students to identify needs, provide feedback, and shape school improvement priorities. These actions continue contribute directly to our outcomes related to family and community engagement and align with our strategies to foster inclusive decision-making and
049shared responsibility for student access student success. They also support our longitudinal performance and growth targets and our local option metrics by strengthening the conditions that promote attendance, engagement, and academic success across all students groups. Early indicators show positive momentum as families report feeling more connected and empowered and students are demonstrating greater ownership in their learning experience. This progress is not only addresses immediate outcomes but also builds sustainable sustainable structures and long-term collaboration and improvement. So we saw a lot of these just to attach some data to this. We're seeing a lot of this data reflected in our youth truth data. Um parents are saying yeah I'm I feel my principal is reaching out. I feel that there's good communication that's happening. We saw improved um participation in a lot of events. I know we were
050hearing buzz just today about the football game um on Friday and as we see more community come out and be connected, we know that we're going to have better representation from our families and that's a key part of the integrated um plan. So narrative two, where have you experienced barriers, challenges or impediments to progress towards your outcomes and strategies in your plan that you could use that you could use support with? Discuss at least one outcome where you have seen challenges or barriers to implementation. While this year's test scores show encouraging improvement, they are al they also understand underscore the need to sustain and deepen our focus to meet meeting the diverse academic and language needs of all groups. One key barrier we continue to experience is ensuring that every teacher fully embraces their role
051as a language instructor, not only just content deliverer. As student as our student population has grown more linguistically and culturally diverse, our instructional practices have not always kept pace with these shifts. This creates uneven experience for students, particularly our English learners who need consistent and intentional language supports in all classrooms. While we have made progress in providing targeted interventions and supports, the broader system systemwide challenges lies in equipping all teachers with skills, strategies, and mindsets to integrate language and development into their daily instruction. Without this, games for our most vulnerable learners will may not be sustained. Uh to overcome these barriers, we could benefit from additional supports in professional learning and emphasis on languageri instruction across content areas. coaching that helps teachers translate strategies into practice and structures that ensure accountability for meeting the needs
052of English lang English learners. By reinforcing these expectations that all teachers and language teacher are language teachers and providing the right tools and ongoing support, we can continue to close these achievement gaps and strengthen student outcomes across the district. And I will say that the reason for that focus um in terms of our data is that we see that our Englishonly students are outperforming our um bilingual students. And for us to be able to ultimately close the gap on our report card and show those really high numbers that we want to achieve, we got to make sure both those student learning groups are achieving at the same level. And so as soon as there's gaps and we're averaging those two scores together, it's always going to bring our overall scores down. Um and on beyond
053that, we're going to talk later um this evening about our focus on language instruction and the fact that because of our population, our need to focus on academic vocabulary is going to be one of those focuses where uh the rising tides rise all ships and we're going to really see improved outcomes for all students because of it. And our last question uh and this is just for this year. Review the annual metric rates compared to previously created longitudinal performance growth targets. And what was >> local? >> There you go. Love. Thank you. My goodness. >> And share reflection on progress. Describe how activities are supporting progress towards targets and if and if any shifts in strategy implementation are planned for the future based on current progress. Use specific metrics and type and target types in
054your reflection. When reviewing our most recent metrics against previously created longitudinal growth performance targets, perform performance growth targets and local option metrics, we see promising progress uh and areas that require continued focus. For example, our state assessment data shows an increase in overall proficiency rates in third grade English language arts, moving from 17% last year to 27% this year. In grade 8 mathematic gains were modest raising from 8% to 23% proficient. This is still represents forward movement towards our LPGT target. Attendance one of our LOMS has also improved with regular attenders rates going from 62% to 66.5% though this remains above though this remains above our goal of 20%. Our current activities are directly improving this about are directly supporting this growth. Expanded family engagement efforts such as creation of Spanish-sp speakaking parent advisory groups
055are helping reduce barriers to attendance. The use of the use of youth truth surveys is providing more actionable data to address student engagement and our focus on elevating student voice is creating stronger ownership of the learning process. Additionally, targeted literacy interventions and increased professional learning in evidence-based reading practices are continuing are contributing to gains we are seeing in English language arts. That said, our reflection also reveals the needs for shifts in this strategy. While subgroup performance has improved, achievement gaps remain, particularly for English learners. Moving forward, we plan to strengthen professional development to ensure all teachers integrate language development strategies into their content instruction. We will also expand coaching support to help staff with these strategy apply these strategies consistently. In mathematics, we intend to refine intervention approaches and better align them with grade level
056instruction materials. In summary, while metrics show encouraging progress uh towards our targets, sustaining and accelerating accelerating this growth will require continual emphasis on equitydriven strategies, systemwide professional learning, and deeper integration of language supports across all classrooms. That is your official report. We've answered the questions. Um the state also gives us a bunch of progress monitors uh markers that we rate oursel on. Um and I can bring those to a future meeting. If you'd like to see all of them, we will be posting them online as well. But there's some areas of strength um where we are seeing that growth or we've already hit a really high standard and we're continuing at that standard. We see improved community engagement, communication, use of equity tools for decision- making and financial stewardship. And that's an important one considering
057that during those transitions and shifts, we want to make sure we're keeping that at a high level. And as today's report shows, we are we're trying to keep you well informed so that we um have a high mark for oursel. We have opportunities for growth though. We want to continue to engage with student voice. Um we've been excited to see the leadership shifts that are happening. for example, at our high school, which is just a prime opportunity to really engage more students and have them have an active voice in their school. We want to really work to improve our 9th grade on track systems. Um, I met with both Nathan and Lindsay and um the WESD. That is going to be a key component to us securing future dollars for our high school success. We
058have to demonstrate um better efforts towards 9th grade. And um I was excited to hear some of the ideas that the high school is already putting into place, including using our Wednesday time to really um use teachers to uh create interventions for for 9th grade. And then we're really wanting to focus on our nine our 412 literacy and our new grant that we received will help with those efforts as we put in our literacy framework that's going to be district-wide. So those opportunities of growth, we already have some readymade things that will push on those to get better growth out of them. With that, I'm open to any questions. Else, you get to go first. >> I'm good. Thanks, Liz. Jenny, >> no questions. thorough. You report that you're making progress toward Spanish speaking advisory
059committees in each school. >> And that's apart from the advisory committee that superintendent is doing. >> Yeah. Kind of curious. You say you're you're you're making progress. When do you expect to have that come to fruition then? >> Great question. And what are those expectations, superintendent? >> Well, we haven't formally uh we talked as an admin team in August about having one in each building. We have one at the intermediate and middle school and so looking to have one at the primary and the high school. So, want to get the school year off and running, but trying to see how we could duplicate some of the good work that's happened at the intermediate and middle school at the primary high. >> So, so two of them are operational. Two two of them were 50%. >>
060Yes. Yes. Two more. So you are progressing. >> Yeah. >> And those were two grassroots led by the principles that saw like I need to be better connected to our Spanish speaking community. >> That that's that sounds good to me. I I genuinely believe that that parental involvement with their students is a key. >> Absolutely. >> You are absolutely correct. which is why we need to be engaging with those families all families. >> Wait. >> Yeah. When you were uh sharing facts like 8% versus and it's saying increased up to 20. Is that for the state testing? >> Yeah. >> So, one of the things I like having kids in the district is when friends and kids are over at our house, I just like to listen. >> And I've heard him talk about state
061testing. And it's such a hard thing because you're judged on it here. Yeah. But the number of students that are involved in TAG and other areas that their parents get them out of even taking the testing is difficult and they can say for whatever reason they want to not take the test >> and if some of our students that are achieving or doing well in school are not taking the test obviously that hurts. My question is is there a way to better help parents understand the importance of the testing? Is there something there that can help translate that? Because for myself, who's not sit on this board and um my wife Savannah does a lot of that school side of it, if I had a child that was like, "Oh, we do these state tests,
062we have no idea what they're for, who if I didn't know the upside to it and my child was complaining about be like, I'll just sign and be done." But is there a way to better close that gap? Purely a question. Don't know. Maybe you have, but it makes me wonder like if parents understood what could be the upside of it or what could we do to help them know of the the reason we should do that? >> So, um, >> does that make sense my question? >> Absolutely. It would make sense. I think there's twofold. The the first part of your question in terms of what could we do? I think that's a like a question that has like potential to it. I don't have a great answer for it, but I do think
063that the more we can reach out and communicate the better. I know that our schools, especially um intermediate and middle school, have done a really great job the last couple years of really trying to communicate with families like this is the purpose. We're not using these to judge your kids, etc. And our um optouts from the middle and the intermediate school are really low actually. Um typically we see that the the optouts there tend to be more towards students who have anxiety. Um and who the test is really an anxiety point. Um but the the number the percentage is really low and we have been making our state we have to try to get at least 95% of kids to take the test. We've met that. Yeah. at our middle and our intermediate school every
064year. >> High school not so much. And that's the hardest one. Um, and I would say like the high schools is >> I don't have the never off the top of my head, but it's very it's it's pretty abysmal. Um, >> what's the like what if you were selling me on why my kids should do it? >> Why why why should they do it? >> My kids do it. I'm just saying like if I'm a parent and my kids in high school and I'm battling with my kid on X, Y, or Z, >> why am I going to involve >> why am I going to have them do it? >> Sure. There's a couple like paths at the high school where there's some benefit to it. For example, I believe, and this personality may or
065may not know, but I believe to do your honors diploma, you must take it and you must receive a passing score if I'm not correct. Okay. And so there's an honors diploma potential um for kids. Some of the other reasoning though the state has taken away. So for example, it used to be uh that kids had to um demonstrate uh essential skills in order to graduate. And the test was a way to demonstrate the skills. If you pass, you you made that check mark and you were good. If you didn't pass, we'd have to do additional things to help you demonstrate those. And honestly, passing was the easiest way to do it. It was like just take the test. Um that went away with the pandemic and they have not reinstated it. There's rumors that
066they might. I don't know. I don't think so. >> It's a statewide issue at the high school level. Uh and superintendents are frustrated across the state uh of the high school level. And I think even actually prior pre- pandemic and and Nathan, you might know this. They they it used to be like this said that was probably the easiest way for kids to demonstrate that essential skill is to pass that test and then other tests like ACT started becoming if you pass that one. Well, if I'm I'm already going to take that for college, I passed it. I'm not that you started to see the decline. U when when the Oregon test was was not the probably your easiest pathway to demonstrate that. Um, so I do think that we may have I don't know
067for sure if we saw an increase or not. I don't know Joe if you remember if we saw an increase how we test students it versus you know like what's the testing environment may be an indicator. Dez, you're shaking your head now. >> No, our opt outs were just as high last year. >> What percent do you do you have an idea? So if the other two two schools were at 95% or better, what would the high school be? I >> that's ballpark now though. >> I would say we're closer to 70 if not even less than that. >> And so with 70% of students only 20% pass the test. Is that what I understood? >> Yeah. Cuz so the other issue we deal with with the high school tests is the students who didn't
068get they students opt out in a number of ways. Sometimes they do it officially. They have their parents sign or >> they don't take the test. So that's the question I have is listening to those kids over at my house and they say, "Well, if I take the test quick, I can go do X, Y, or Z." Yes. >> So if you write your I just I'm trying to connect like how do you get them to engage and what's the Yeah. >> I'm sure you've spent hours and days working on it. So it's not me trying to answer that. It's justly a question of >> how to connect those possible. I think it's one of our most difficult things to um answer. I will say this, I I believe that there are ways and I
069think the student voice component of this discussion is actually a really key part of it. that part of what would help a student be connected is when they feel some ownership and pride in showing I go to a great school and I want to demonstrate that with these tests. >> Do the kids know that? >> I think that's something we haven't talked about enough >> to help them understand the purpose, the goal, what we're trying to do, >> right? And I think it's not only that, but I think it's also giving them something they want to be proud in. So if part of it is we want we need these scores to be up and we want to show how proud we are of North Mary and someone's like well but I'm not super proud
070of that then that involvement isn't there and so the more we create ownership and buyin and this is my school and I am super proud to be a part of North Marian and I'm super proud to demonstrate that I am one of its scholars that is going to go up and I think as we see the messaging that we're hearing ready. Um, where kids are feeling more wanting to be involved and demonstrate themselves, the better that's going to be. I I'll just give an example from when I was a a principal. Um, you know, I I worked in a school where we talked to kids about this and and we were kind of doing some experimental things and we could kind of say for us to justify why we're doing this experimental thing, we need
071to be able to prove that it's giving us good results. And I remember students just being like, how hard can I work because this is important to me and I want to be able to demonstrate that. And so I think there's correlation to that buy in. And I think as we um the more we get kids involved, the more we give them student voice, the better that. >> Yeah. With the kids being involved and them selling their friends is going to go a lot further than any of us sitting in this room talking about how to help them do it. Sure. And the best way to demonstrate that is that that is actually what impacts opting out more than anything else. One kid opts out and then they tell their friends and we will literally
072see one opt out and the next day 20 opt outs and the next day five more opt out. >> Is there any restriction on opting out? Didn't they just write a note and say my kid get gets anxious taking a test and they're done? >> Yeah. So, with the um when Oregon adopted the Smarter Balance Assessment, it was actually built into the legislature that parents could opt out for no reason. Like they did not have to have a specific reason. They could just say, "I'm knocking out." Um for the science test or the um like the ELPA test, those are other two, they have to have a specific reason. It's either a religious exemption or a because of a special education need. Um, and so our science participation is higher than all the rest because
073kids don't go to that extreme. But the other one is just sign the letter >> and there's no other way of requiring them to that's just they could just write it out. >> We do our principles do a good job of reaching out to the families and saying like, "Hey, can I tell you more about the assessment?" But usually by the time they filled out that form, it's >> they're not looking to read. >> No, they're not looking to change their >> last question. If we were at 20%, what was the state average? >> Um, for math it was about that same. We're we're not too far off the state average. Math is kind of not great across >> board. There's a dashboard online that you can access all of our information as public. >>
074Yeah. Yep. Um and then and we will have school report cards coming out here fairly soon. Um that will show it as well. The state average for English, I don't know right off the top of my head. Thank you. That's all we got. >> Yep. Thanks, Tess. >> Two quick add-ons to just I agree that establishing the culture of we always do our best and everybody's going to go and do their best amongst the kids is the best way to go. Uh at the intermediate school, Dave did a thing last year talking about the importance of test. And I heard uh I don't know what grade that kid was in, but he got up and said, "I'm doing it because North Marian Intermediate, it's a great school and I want to tell everybody, so I'm
075doing my best. You should all do your best >> like where did you say that at? >> In front of the whole school at the intermediate school. >> And so that was that was pretty cool. And the only thing that you know that you in the political arena could do is when this issue comes up and it periodically does and it usually falls along party lines as to whoever initiated that test, the other side tries to debunk it. And that's where you see this politicizing of, you know, one group wants to say, well, we put too much emphasis on tests and the other group tries to say that, you know, that the state's doing too much controlling, so we should let kids opt out. So, you can use a political arena and just say they
076all should test. >> All right. Thanks, D. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, how do we want to >> I don't know. I think I can sit up here for a minute and share and then I'll swap out and then run it when the principles are talking. >> Okay, that sounds good. >> The ready for the link >> right now. Anybody else want it? >> Anybody else wants the dashboard link? >> You probably saw it. Thank you. >> All right. Okay. So, um, first of all, I want to, and I'll say it again at the end, thank, uh, the principal team for being here this evening, uh, to share, um, their work getting the school year off to an amazing start. And so, uh, on the next slide, this has been our focus, our initiatives
077for this year with um, this wheelp, sometimes it's a puzzle. Uh, it all fits together though. And so where we've really been able to share with the staff uh what is our focus for this year and it's in this area of collaborative teams, educator effectiveness, and supporting language acquisition. And I'm not going to read those bullets out there, but it gives you some greater understanding of what those things are. And so Dez and I are going to tag team the first part of this and then hand it over to our principles. We're kind of covering the the why and then they're going to talk about the how and what they did in various aspects of this. So the collaborative teams really is based on the premise that teamwork if you've ever been a part of
078an effective team you know how powerful teamwork can be because you have common goals, you build trust and you have mutual support. You don't have to carry the burden on your own. And having done this work for a really long time, public education has really encountered some common challenges. And it assumes that team teaming occurs naturally. It actually doesn't. Oftentimes, especially as teams are kind of put together, you know, it's not like trying out for the basketball team and the top 10 kids that have already always played together made the team. You have teachers that have come together from different universities, different backgrounds and experiences, and now they're expected a team. And in my experience, you could have you had 10 teams in a school, maybe one or two at the most would just kind
079of click automatically just because the right makeup. Everybody else honestly struggles. And so, uh, so those have been some common challenges. And the other big uh uh challenge is uh when we try to force teachers into teams and give them unmeaning work and then teaming feels like a big waste of time. So these are just kind of two things to be talking with our principles about is making sure that we're addressing these common challenges that teams have. So the keys to success is go slow to go fast. So don't give people too much. My encouragement to staff was to stay curious but be honest. So in other words like give this a little bit of a chance. Stay curious that these teamings uh these teams that we our principles are designing for you be curious
080about them but be honest if it's again that waste of time piece and giving that feedback which you'll hear me talking which is really the next thing there is feedback up and down the chain of command. So how do principles give teams feedback but then how does that feedback go up back up the chain to say this is our team's struggling because of this or this is not meaningful work. So the other piece of the why, just to talk a little bit about what we're doing with collaborative teams, this is during our Wednesday early release time and we've been doing some form of this for quite a while now, but what we've seen is that we feel like we're um only unleashing a small part of the potential. Our our like teams usually grade level
081or subject level work together. They do a lot of planning together. where we see good work happening, but we know that if we could actually leverage them to also share their expertise about instructional strategies or how to reach certain kids or if they could share data where they could talk about where they've seen successes and analyze why they got those successes and seeing if we could scale up those successes to the rest of the team, that's when we could see some real progress being made. So the the work is going to really focus on helping teachers understand how to collaborate better by teaching them protocols and different strategies so that those conversations are really effective. And on the next slide, the real driver of this is actually based in research. So John Hattie is an
082educational researcher. He takes he's a meta researcher. He does research about research. And so he's looked at all the different research that's been done about all the different things you can do to impact a kid. And he looks to see what the effect size is. The effect size is based on the concept that one year's worth of like effort should equal one year's worth of growth for a kid. And what they have found is the most effective thing that it can impact a student's education and getting a over a year's worth of growth from them is when we have good collective efficacy from teachers. And collective efficacy is basically when teams collaborate and they're all moving in unison and really saying, "Hey, we have a common vision. We have a common goal and we're working
083on it together." We can get 1.6 six years worth of growth out of a student for one year's worth of input. So we know when we're working on our collaborative teeth and actually really doing it well, we could make be making substantial impacts on student growth. >> So then shifting into uh talking about supporting language acquisition is I I presented this slide to you in the spring and I presented it to the staff uh at the kickoff. We have changed, our demographics have changed in North Marian. And so, uh, we have to change our practices in response to who we serve. And really, as Dez was describing earlier in her previous presentation, next slide. You know, language acquisition is language is how we build connections with one another. And uh, when we have assumptions that
084we all understand the same thing, that's why sometimes it's important to slow down. We do a lot of acronyms. Slow down and make sure are we all on the same page? Because when if I'm a teacher teaching and I'm assuming that maybe through context clues the word that I used made sense to everybody. Uh that assumption creates confusion because not everybody is going to uh is going to understand the context clues that somebody used in the classroom. So, we have to get more explicit with our language. Um, and all students benefit from this. All students benefit from clear language instruction. Um, and so for this year in this particular area, we're really trying to get greater clarity and more intentional focus on what does it need to what does it mean to be a uh
085a language teacher? So, and that connects to what I was saying where we know if we're doing this right, it will actually benefit all students because the core to the language instruction and this is a crux of the grant we just received is focusing on the concept of disciplinary literacy. And for a long time, the concept of disciplinary literacy fall fell more into this category of like reading across the curriculum, like we're going to make everyone read. But the thought was like we're going to make you all read novels or everyone would do silent reading or everyone would do some writing activities. And often they would feel frustrated. Kid the teachers would feel frustrated and kids would feel frustrated because they're like, "Well, what does this have to do with the class I'm in?" But
086the reality is actually kids are back. Um the reality is that there are specific learning and reading and writing and speaking strategies that exist within each content area and that we actually have to teach students how to be math readers, how to be social studies readers, how to be English readers. Um and that those are different skills for each one. So for example, if you think about what it is to read a literature textbook, you're looking at stories and short stories and excerpts from novels. How to read a maths te math textbook completely different. How to like know what's important, what's not important. How to write so that you're being literate in math even more so in social studies. How to read a social studies, how to read primary texts, how to read original texts,
087etc. Those are completely different skills. And if we do not have our teachers within those contexts teaching students how to read in their subject area, students are lost. Much like Dan was saying, it's not a common shared vocabulary because these are students. They're still learning. And so our goal is to help our teachers understand what are the reading and writing and speaking strategies I use in my discipline and how do I teach kids how to use them more effectively? I there's a great statistic out there that I I'll have to bring in a future meeting, but they were talking about language roots like roots and suffixes of words. And often when we teach those to students, we only teach them in your English class. But the majority of them are never actually used within literature.
088They're used in science and math. So if you think about bio for example, that is completely used in a science um concepts in science concepts. If you expect me to teach it within the concept of a English teacher as a literature teacher, I'm going to give you a good understanding of it maybe, but you're really going to understand it if I'm teaching it to you in your science class. So helping understand all the different layers of language that they need to be approaching as they help kids learn in their subject area. >> And the last part of our puzzle is educator effectiveness which um really is about our new evaluation observation system. And I really, this was the slide I presented to the staff and this I previously was titled feedback and because really educator
089effectiveness is about providing great feedback which I like to refer to up and down the chain of command or the chain of responsibility. And so feedback that goes down the chain from from an administrator to a teacher should build confidence. It should provide clarity around is the teacher hitting the mark of what the things that we are looking for in classrooms and it affirms uh their efforts and their work. Um, but we also need uh feedback up the chain of command because when you're able to go to your supervisor and give them maybe some critical feedback and you're not afraid of repercussions or reprisals that is a huge trust builder in a school and it leads to a healthy climate and culture. So we want to one of the things we're asking the principles to
090do they did it right after the inservice week was how effective was the inservice you know that they presented and provided and what areas could they do uh do better after doing observations did was the feed they're they've developed a short survey was the feedback I gave helpful so when teachers will be honest with their supervisor about the feedback they're getting uh that will lead to a healthy climate and culture uh which only exists when staff feel safe when the feedback is focused on skills and all of our behaviors change as a result of the feedback that we're giving. So if a principal gives feedback to on the skills that maybe a teacher needs to improve on and behaviors change as a result that principal is going to be more inclined to give more feedback.
091Hey, I saw you use a different, you know, call uh strategy with your students. Great job. I saw more kids participating. Um, when we focus on those skills and if a principal is responsive to the feedback a staff member gives them, um, teachers see that and it's going to reinforce that, hey, I can give feedback and it's a safe place to do it. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our awesome principal team uh to talk about how they rolled out one or more aspects of this basically one aspect of the puzzle. >> You want us to like fill up? >> Why don't you stay as a team there? You're already lined up. You're looking pretty. >> Yeah, there you go. >> Perfect. All right. >> Hi, preschool. So, we spent a
092little bit of time um on the inservice days in August. um laying some groundwork. And then last Wednesday we dug into um collaborative teams a little bit deeper where um we went over the what about collaborative teams. These two I already kind of shared that but um about the common purpose and then student learning at the center and it's really going to go through a cycle of inquiry. So over pro about the first each trimester we'll go through a new cycle of reflecting of of did the students learn what we wanted them to learn what kind of information are we analyzing taking data into consideration did the students learn what we wanted them to learn and then based on that information making a plan and then acting on that plan. So we'll continually do these
093cycles um throughout the year and um really working on trust and shared commitment. So at the primary school we have a variety of team compositions. So um the obvious one grade level uh so we had um kindergarten, first and second grade meet together but then we also have Java likes. So um this last week we had PE music and library meet but we also have are having conversations about a K5 Java likes meeting. Um special education will meet um once a month or once every other month. K5 and EL. We also have classroom and building programs. So, maybe a lead teacher and instructional assistants or, you know, kindergarten teacher and the instructional assistants that might be, you know, helping their classroom a time to come together. And then we may have teams that have reading
094coaches, learning specialists, behavior specialists, counselors. And so what we have is kind of a fluid. So depending on what's happening or the information, the data we have, our teams may fluctuate a little bit. Um, and all of the agendas are shared with our entire building. And so if we have the ability to kind of see what's happening and maybe sometimes our reading coach might join second grade or our counselor, we might be having some, you know, things happening and might need to support at grade level or vice versa. So we have some fluidity in that. And so on Wednesday, we went over all the why and the what. And then we came, our teams came together and established norms and how they want to um operate and feel as a team. And then we used
095a a specific protocol for that. And then um teams are beginning to um look at their curriculum maps, look at their pacing, look at standards, and um and we even had some teams having conversations of hey, we have this assessment coming up. Do we need that information to move forward with this learning? And you know, do we we all need to do it or one person does it? Should we all do? You know, just having those conversations about what kind of information do our teams need to be able to um look at student growth and learning over time. There you go. All right. Um, you know, when we first returned and we had an opportunity to see the initiatives wheel, uh, it brought real clarity to us and it was nice to to be able
096to translate that clarity to our staff. Um, and I I know that there's going to be um an opportunity um um for for Dez to to receive some some props for this, but I really want to say that um when we got back and we saw that issues wheel and then we saw the um the website and all the materials that she had designed um some real great thinking um deliberate um intentional thinking had gone into how to make this happen that really supported us as an admin team um and made it uh um easier for us to be able to transit over to staff Um so again coming back to the inservice days um we had a unique opportunity at the intermediate school this year. It's the first time I've been there um that
097we didn't have to have any kind of curriculum or assessment training. And so we had a little bit more time to kind of dive into it and um um so we were able to really dive into all three of the initiatives, but we spent the bulk of the time on the collaborative teaming and you can see why. Um you know, you've already heard it, so I'm not going to repeat it too much, but it just it leads to all the other great things. Um you know, that was that is the major catalyst. Um, and like Cheryl was saying, you've got a variety of teams from grade levels to specials that uh um ELD and there's some wrestling in that with how do those team compositions make up? Because if you're a technology teacher or a
098music teacher, you ask yourself how do I team when maybe there's no one else that in this building looks um and sounds just like um my content. And um but uh you know the the four overarching questions that we're encouraging everyone to ask and and there's kind of a not kind of there's a loose tight model to this and the tide of it is some of the logistical pieces and how we're working through how we're taking a notes um how we're agreeing on team norms uh facilitation roles um and then there's four questions that are driving all of this work. Um you heard Cheryl reference it's a shift from getting together and talking as a team about what are we going to do tomorrow? Oh, we were on page 263 today. Are we going to
099get to 265 by the end of the week? It's a shift from what we're teaching to a shift to what are students learning? Um, and then asking yourself the question, how are we going to measure that? Um, what's a reliable measurement of that? Uh, is it just the the weekly test at the end of the week and then you just move on? Hopefully not. Hopefully, it's a a better common assessment that you're able to look at and go, gosh, how do we now come together as a team and really say who's got it, who doesn't, and what are we going to do about it? Um, that's what's one of the most exciting components of this whole process uh to to me is is the fact that typically in my 26 years, we just keep moving
100forward. we have this this invisible compelling force that tells us teach a lot of standards and keep moving forward. Um more than ever in today's world, we've got to be able um to teach less and learn more. Um we've got to be able to give ourselves permission to to kind of come back to those questions and say if they're not getting it, why would we keep moving forward? Why wouldn't why wouldn't we say how many need to get this and and how how are we going to respond to it? How do we be creative with it? Um, and that's what's exciting and compelling about this to me. Um, the loose of it is is how they go about it. And so, um, our current focus right now at the intermediate school, since we've done some
101of the the the norm work and stuff, um, they're they're diving into the the the standards and trying to identify what are the essential pieces uh that we really want kids to know and be able to do. Um, they're they're um really analyzing their curriculum maps and seeing, do we need to make adjustments? Um and uh and that's the work that they're doing. And then what we've done um to be kind of creative uh at the intermediate is um you know the legislators um um passed uh some some legislation a few years back that said we have to have 150 minutes of PE every single week but they didn't pass extra funding for that. So we don't have an extra gym, we don't have an extra teacher. So, we've had to be creative with our
102schedule at the intermediate. And um we created a near 30 minute um period every day called spark, which is an acronym for structured physical activity and recreation. I forget the K. Um but it's something cool, right? Spelled wrong. Um it's cool with K. Uh but um we're going to take and establish a weekly rhythm uh when we when we run the professional learning time calendar and and we're coming up to cloud teams every Tuesday. myself and the and the PE teacher and some of the instructional instructional assistants rather than teachers going out and running that that 30 minute spark time which is a structured um u extension of of PE um not not an additional recess every day. Um we're going to tap in and give teams those that time to go and and congregate
103and build their agenda and get their resources together so that we're not losing that time on Wednesday. So then when they come on Wednesdays and collaborate teams, they can jump right in. They've already talked 24 hours in advance. What are we doing? What are our what are our our facilitator roles and who's taking notes? Um and then we designed a share out. Cheryl and I were talking about gosh, how great would it be if u folks can come back together and just even share out. Um we're going to have the first at least till December we're all going to work in the library together just to kind of space ourselves out so we're not overly loud. Um but then um uh at the end of every one of those Wednesdays, they'll they'll they'll go through
104that share up protocol and come back Thursday morning and just quickly share out. So we we all know where other teams are making progress. Um so just really compelling and um um great work that uh um I'm so uh curious to see where it goes for us this year. >> Great. Thanks. Middle school. All right. Well, the beauty of a wheel is it's got three parts and it takes all of them to roll. So, uh, you know, so middle school we're kind of working on collaborative teams. Just one point on that real quick is with all of our staffing changes. All of our teams are new in some form or fashion. Our science team is the only one at the middle school that hasn't had a new member. So, either somebody from one of the
105other buildings or got shuffled around within the middle school. So, as Dan talked about, building trust within those teams so they can be effective. That's that go slow to go fast that we're working on. Um, so beyond the collaborative teamwork, we're focusing on our language acquisition. Um, again, that was another staffing change. So, we've got a new teacher, that's our ELD teacher. Um, and then providing some resources for them. So, with our ELD teacher, you know, we've got classes for everyone from newcomers to our level threes and fours in addition to uh monitoring those that have exited the program for those remaining years. Um, then for sixth grade, our model is a little bit different. We've actually embedded that to one of our former EL coaches social studies class. And one of the primary reasons
106we've done that is um middle sixth grade already has middle school academy. And so if those students were also in um their ELD class, they wouldn't have access to any of the other electives that sixth graders get. So by embedding that in the sixth grade, that still allows students receiving LD services to at least get one of their elective wheel um options throughout the year. And so um that's kind of how our program is set up. But as Dez and Dan mentioned, we've got language learners in all of our classes and all of our teachers need to be focused on that language development acquisition as well. So, um, Elevation is a program we subscribed to last year and we're working on kind of digging into that and how we can utilize that. It's great one-stop
107shop for information about all of our language learners um, as their up-to-date information and assessment scores. Beyond that, one thing I think we take for granted, those assumptions we make is that, you know, we tell a teacher, well, this student's inter intermediate at writing. What does that mean for a seventh grader that's intermediate, right? So within this uh website tool, you know, describes that. So an intermediate writer will be writing this kind of level of sentence or complexity of sentence or um essay or if you're a beginning writer, yeah, probably not jumping right into that five paragraph essay right away. So we're going to build the scaffolds and supports not only the classes but in all of their classes so they can be successful, access the academic vocabulary, access the content. Um it also really
108dep privatizes that because when we have that information that's kind of in the head or the computer programs of one or two teachers, yeah, they want to get it out there, but that opportunity there's, you know, one ELD teacher or coach, six academic teams, when can they get to them in a timely manner. So, this really gives that opportunity for teachers to get in, find that information when they need it or when their cloud team is talking about a certain student who maybe a language learner that they can kind of get to those specific levels of where they're at and adjust their instruction and their scaffolds based on the needs um versus kind of guessing or doing their best work. Um, so that's kind of where we're focused right now getting started, but of course
109that all ties together and we're hoping that through that work with RLD program that makes for more rich conversations on our collaborative teams to build on level language acquisition. >> Great. >> All right. So, one of the things that we worked on last week and we did a number of the the same things that the other buildings were working on through the pre-ervice week. Um, one of the things that we wanted to do was to draw a real coherent through line between these other areas and the professional goals that our teachers are setting. So, or our licensed staff are setting. So, Senate Bill 290 back in I think 2012 changed the way educators do our professional goals. So it required instead of um back back in the day um teachers would set a goal like
110I want to get better at using instructional technology and then they'd kind of have like what I need to do that and then that would be something that they turn in and then at the end of the year their evaluator would meet with them how to go and that was it. Yeah. >> Um so the Senate Senate Bill 290 required accountability so that you have two student learning growth goals and one professional learning goal and those uh student learning growth goals or slugs as some people refer to them uh have to be written in smart goal format. So, um, what we wanted to do is to try to, um, leverage those collaborative teams in order to it to help, uh, our staff create goals, professional goals and student learning growth goals, which are directly tied
111to the work that they're doing in their collaborative group. So um if we flip to the next um well I didn't talk well one of the things that we want to use or leverage is improvement science which comes actually from the medical uh profession uh in particular hospitals where uh what people try to do is implement a change idea and it's just a one small step and then they go through um it's plan do study and then act. Uh and the idea is that um tomorrow or on Wednesday when we meet uh we're going to be going over some different options that they can uh work within. And the idea is to get beyond um a real f a finite um process where I set a goal like at this unit I want to see
1128% growth between the preassessment and the post assessment or 50% growth or whatever it is. And that's typically the way it used to be. I'd have like unit two in my math class. I take a preassessment, we do the instruction, and then we take the post assessment, and then we measure that growth between the two. And it's real simple way of doing that. What we want to do is keep that growth going. And so we're colle uh uh collecting all sorts of different change ideas which is just really it could be an instructional strategy, it can be um something uh that you do greeting students making them feel welcome and then trying to measure that impact uh over time. So uh if we go to the last slide. So th the this is just an
113example um that r that you can implement. So show growth between uh trimester or two um using a particular change idea called structured roles. The idea is that in group work often times students will dominate the the work or the talking some kids will recede, some kids will do more of the most of the work or try to dominate the air time. And so the idea is that everyone has a very specific role and that protocol ensures 100% engagement. So the idea here, the the theory of action as it were is that we're um implementing this change idea and that we'll see an improvement in student learning um over the course of four weeks. And so we've also tied it specifically to uh the effective educator framework. Uh and then you can see just kind
114of the outline of of a PDSA. So uh anyway, that's pretty much the the gist of it. All right. Do you have any questions? >> I will say this is very informative and um yeah, we do use that in the hospital and uh I just really like that each school each of the principles in the schools are collaborating together to make movement for the students. But I'll go around Kelsey. Oh, nothing. Jenny, >> I don't have specific questions. >> Thank you for your presentations. >> All right. Well, I want to thank uh our principles for giving up another night of their week and uh for being here and putting uh putting all the time in and the excellent way you've implemented this. That was great to see you during your inservice weeks and I know
115you're busy preparing for the Wednesday early releases and whatnot. >> Um, and as Dave alluded to there, uh, Desiree put in a ton of time over the summer. Uh these guys got to come back uh from summer and then had folders uh electronic folders uh had bribes of of resources at their fingertips. And um she is an incredible teammate to me and uh you know it's great to work alongside someone who who not only thinks a lot like you do, pushes on you when you need to be, but then also can kind of come and and have a vision that makes sense to people. And so I just wanted to take a minute here this evening to thank her for all the work that she is doing uh to make this vision and really comes
116from a place of she's an incredible supporter to those who are doing the work. She really loves to serve uh those that are doing the work. So I don't know if uh anyone else wants to add to that. I spoke to a little bit, but I was out I was actually floored when uh when she said, "Here's the here's the some of the materials." And and then we got to kind of start to dive into them, the levels that exist. Uh I thought to myself, and I think I even told Dan this, and I don't know if I told Dez this, that probably would have been too embarrass, but I think I think I said Dan, I was like, I think she's in the top 1% of organizational brains. Uh it's it you guys she's
117created an entire website for the entire staff with all the the the repository areas for all the materials and it's all linked and it's it's accessible. Um and it's it feels like in one month she did about five years worth of work. >> So I don't want to give up all your time. Yeah, >> I was going to say I've worked in uh the seventh and the uh largest seventh largest and the largest school district in the state where they have armies of people doing this work and they do way less uh than in the short fraction of a time. So yeah, it's pretty admirable to very cool to see the productivity and effectiveness that has. >> Yeah, I've had the benefit of being on the admin team with this in the past for a
118number of years. I know you're going to get what you need. Um, beauty of this, especially with being a transition with the middle school this year is it allows me to focus. Like I know I can find something without having to dig, without having to go online and spend hours and hours of research that she's already done on our behalf, put it together in a very functional way that has thought out not only what we will need, what questions are the teachers going to ask as they dig through it. So, um, yeah, it's a how to FAQ and get it done all in one. I went into this convers like this presentation like we should have practiced this but it really came together and that is a testament to what Dez has put together to
119help lead us as building leaders for our teachers and students. Um just being able to bring this information to you in this way is is all and setting up for our success and student success. The last thing I'll say on on on this is the educator effectiveness piece uh I've shared with a few uh superintendent and HR people and uh she even call it she says did you tell Hood River about this and this and so now it's getting out uh kind of the work that she's done because she's removing all the barriers that districts have been have been dealing with forever and >> hunting Yeah. >> So, uh, even to where they said, "You guys should present this at an HR thing," uh, because she's really removed a lot of the barriers that make
120that make the evaluation piece hard. So, thank you very much. And I'll just add to that um being on the board for a long time with Dez that I appreciate all the information that you're willing to bring forward constantly and I even appreciate mostly that when I have feedback that I need some I need it in a different way or I want it to drill down or I want to understand the background of some of it. you're so open um and willing and you're you feel like a collaboration with the board where you're right alongside of us to help us learn as much as we want to learn and to help us make um educated decisions from this aspect. So above and beyond all that you do for them, you also make it really easy
121as a board member to ask questions and to make decisions and I appreciate that immensely. So thank you very much. I will say this. Um, not that I almost I'm almost gonna regret saying that, but it's my birthday today. I thought it was a nice little gift. Happy birthday. >> Nobody knew. >> That's also why I was randomly not paying attention because I'm getting text messages. [Laughter] >> A that's so good. >> All right, so we're wrapping up here. So uh the board retreat is on Tuesday September 30th and we have four uh planned activities and it's uh so one of it will be having a discussion around the strategic plan. >> Uh another one will be finalizing the board superintendent working agreements. Uh, we will be doing an activity where you will get to
122interact with our new teacher evaluation rubric where we will I'm I'm thinking what I'll do is probably put you in twos or threes and have you come up with a list of if you were looking for this in a classroom, what would you hope to see? So, that's an activity that our principles did. We're going to compare with what you come up with with what they came up with. >> Absolutely. And then the last thing we'll be doing the first read on the policy. So it's a work session retreat uh on the 30th and we will be providing dinner at 5:30. >> Yes. >> Questions on that? >> Is there anything? Go ahead Marl. >> I miss two. Number two uh was uh superintendent board working agreement I think or uh strategic plan >> and
123then the you guys will do an activity where you're looking at our teacher evaluation report >> 5 so it's at 5:30 >> at 5:30 uh work session retreat immediately following and it'll be in here >> in here. Okay, >> I know I jammed a lot into it. >> I promise we'll look for that. >> And so, and then the last reminder is feedback or questions on the board policies by the 25th, which is next Thursday. I am going to be adding another AR into the mix of a policy. It's a staff expense. Uh we don't have an AR for that policy. I've drafted an AR. I'm going to throw it into the mix there for your feedback. So, >> okay. >> How would you like that feedback? >> Just an email. And if you want
124to put it on a spreadsheet, if you want to create a spreadsheet, create a document, however you want it developed, however you wanted to, just email it to me. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I will make a note um before we adjourn that I had forgotten that Robert had an excused absence for this evening. Forgot about that. All right. Uh anything else quickly? >> All right. Happy birthday to Dez. >> 1944. I'll adjourn. You know, Peggy's