001All right, we'll get this board meeting started. Uh, we're at the work session. I'll call this meeting to order. Uh, roll call. Robert here. Glenn. Merl here. Heidi here. Jenny here. Kelsey here. Crystal chair here. Glenn here the door. Um, if you join me in the flight salute. I pledge allegiance 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. All right. Okay, I'll turn it over to you. All right. Well, we're excited tonight to uh introduce you to the next principal of North Marian High School. And so, Nathan Stanley is here. So, Nathan, you can come up to one of the two hot seats here. And so, uh, welcome to Marian. And I asked Nathan to
002spend just a little bit of time for you to get to know him a little bit and uh ask for you to submit questions in advance. But hopefully if you do have questions, they are lowhanging easy ones, Dr. Beaver type question. So anyways, I'll turn it over to you, Nathan. So, um, yeah, it's my honor and pleasure to be here and, uh, certainly appreciate the, uh, the faith that you put in me and, you know, uh, to be able to, uh, serve in this community, uh, these communities, uh, as the principal at North Marian High School. So, just a little bit about myself, uh, born here in Oregon in Oregon City. uh grew up um my dad worked for PPNL so we moved around a little bit as a kid but uh grew up in
003rural Clackmus County, went to Clackmus High School uh when it was a much different place than it is today and uh went off to college at Pacific University in Forest Grove where I uh did a number of different things. I uh kind of my claim to fame when I uh visit with freshman uh classes, we do a thing where the administrators kind of do like a road show and I tell them my senior year I was an all-American wrestler. I lived at the fire station. I was in the National Guard. So kind of a weird combination, especially living in the fire station, that seems to be the one that they're the most interested in. uh and so uh went from there got my master's degree and started teaching and uh I taught in the classroom
004in one or another way for about 19 years and then I was an athletic director which over overlapped with that. Uh and then I became an administrator which overlapped with being the athletic director and now I've been an associate principal for four years at at Twallet High School. So I also coached uh which for a long time was uh a big part of my vocation and avocation uh and was very passionate about that and found that I had some gifts in some other areas and uh just wanted to have a broader impact on um the community that I was serving. And so I felt like um making the move to a principal ship was an opportunity to use those talents and skills that I have uh with a broader impact. And so for me, you
005know, um it's very important to have a holistic uh approach to education and really educating the whole child. And um uh think about the four A's that we talk about you know with academics, athletics, arts and uh activities and really providing kids with a a first class experience and learning uh learning experience as well. uh servant leadership is kind of a central tenant of my leadership practice and so I feel very strongly about serving other people and um you know having an approach to leadership which is uh you know about making things easier for other people to be able to do their jobs and to be able to leverage their talents in that way. So, um, anyway, I'm just really excited and happy to be here and and thank you all for the opportunity. So,
006why don't you, uh, tell them a little bit about some of the things you're doing in trying to on board and get, you know, before even you start in, uh, in August. So, yeah. So, um, so I'm doing a a few different things. The first thing is tomorrow at 7 a.m. I've set up appointments with uh anyone that's wanting to sit down and and talk with me and get to know me a little bit better and vice versa just to kind of build some relationships. And so I've scheduled um four different days for me to come over and to do that. So hopefully my goal is to be able to meet with everybody in the school plus um by the end of May. And if they haven't had the opportunity, if they don't want to,
007I'm not going to force anyone to do it at this point. But, um, you know, just to get to know people and be able to start taking some notes about, uh, some things that other people are passionate about, what they want to share about themselves, and, uh, be able to, uh, form an opinion um, you know, that's a little bit more informed than just my own ideas about the way the world according to Garp, so to speak. So, um, and then also I'm spending some time, uh, just reaching out to some other principles of similar size high schools, asking some questions to kind of fill in. Uh, Deian's been very generous with her time and probably is a little tired of my emails back and forth, but was generous with her time the other day.
008We got to sit down and talk for a long time. And so, I've kind of gotten a pretty good idea about some of the way things have been done in the past. And then I was on a phone call today with the principal at Atoria High School about their ninth grade success and talking with the principal at Gladstone about how they run their professional learning communities and professional collaboration and uh so just trying to get uh orient myself and kind of see what other people are doing. I've had a long conversation with the principal at Scapus both about teacher collaboration as well as uh their schedule and they have some creative ways of approaching uh on track uh for their high school students and on time graduation rates. So uh just trying to kind of
009learn a little bit as well as still doing my job. uh it's a full-time job as it is, but uh it's it's uh fun when you get to think about what's possible and and what uh um you know what what things are out there that that we could do together. So, any softball EC law uh questions to to throw his way? We'll just go around the room and then um feel free to say pass and you'll follow up later if anything's too hard. Okay. Um, Robert, you got any cauliflower here? I do. I You know, they say that it goes and reduces over by time, but I have two. Let's see the other side, dude. Okay. You're legit. Legit. Yeah. Yeah. Is that good? Yeah. Okay. I don't have any questions at this point. Come
010on, bro. That's easy, bro. Yeah. I would say too, I I'm I'm excited to have you here, but the questions will come later and I appreciate your willingness to give time in these six weeks when you're doing double duty. Yeah. Shows commitment and interest. I What did you teach? I was a social studies teacher. So, I taught US and world. I mean, it's changed so much, you know, over the years of what the required standards are, but I've taught US history, world history, um, I taught Western civilization, psychology, um, I, uh, finished the last part of my career. I was the only government teacher at Redmond High School and so I got to teach a lot of government, civics, and uh, really enjoyed that. Uh, I did also get to teach um some some PE
011because as the athletic director at Redmond High School, they kind of plugged me wherever they wanted. So, they were always kind to me, so it wasn't too much. But, yeah. Hey, one more question. Um, have the schools that you've been associated with, have they had like AP programs or IB, whatever it is, or or have they have they had college credit like we do? Um, so, uh, yes, uh, I've taught at schools with AP. Um, our current school is an IB school. Redmond for a while was an IB school. And, um, Cleveland High School is an IV school. Um, and then I've been at AP schools. Lake it was AP. So was Redmond at one point. Um, so is Blackness and Sandy. Um, and then most, if not most of those also are dual credit.
012And I know that um you know there's a a movement back toward dual credit. I don't know if it's back toward or whatever but um yeah so and I'm familiar uh we we have dual credit classes as well as being an IB school at Watton. So can I ask one more question? Absolutely. Have you had experience with semesters versus trimesters? This is like this I'm leaving school board. This is my last harrah. So I just it was like something I've been looking at for the last 16 years. I've always just been curious about it. I'm just asking. Okay. So, when I was at Redmond, we went we started at trimesters year one. So, we're we're going to do like a four-year cycle here. So, we did trimesters and then the economic collapse of 2008 09
013we switched to a seven period day. Uh actually, we went to uh a seven period day and um we only had school four days that week. So, which was kind of an interesting uh thing. And then we went to a semester schedule and then we went back to trimesters. So I and I've I taught in you know AV block. We have an AV block now. Um you know I've seen lots of different uh schedules and actually that's something that uh I talked to Atorian principal today about their schedule which is mixed both block and standard periods. I talked to um uh Scapus. They have like what's called a January term. So I kind of you know I think administrators are always looking at other schedules. You know I don't know if any of them uh
014if I think there's strengths and minuses to each one of them but yeah so I have experience in those. Okay. Thank you Jenny. Uh I'm going to echo what they've said before. Thanks for your time and, you know, coming over and making the transition easier, I guess, for yourself, but also for us. Um, and I look forward to learning more about you and how we can support you and your role as princip. Thank you, Kelsey. I don't have any questions, but I'm excited to have you there. And I'll wait on questions, but I am thrilled to have you here. Thank you so much for your dedication already to listen. Yeah, thank you. Look forward to opening watching. And as you can see, you know, already putting in in time and excited for that. He uh
015served in the final interview for our head football coach position. So, we brought him over and had his final interview with that. And so, that was good. And just want to echo also the comment he made about Deian helping and being so gracious and uh really being a collaborative uh transition. And so we appreciate that Deian very much. It's been very very helpful. So yeah. All right. Okay. Yes, you're good. Thank you so much for being here. Okay. Be a policy, please. Yes. So these policies are So if you recall from some of our policy work, the the dates and the months run together for me. So I'm not sure. I think it was February, we had some policies pulled off because there was a court ruling out of Kentucky that kind of changed the
016the rules. And so these policies are actually were the policies of the district back in 2020. So when this court case that I didn't look too in-depthly on uh ruled, they basically threw out the the the current policies and everything reverted back to 2020. Is that accurate, Diane? Yep. So these have been our policies before. They are now what OSBA is recommending to be in alignment with uh a late the latest court ruling on these sorts of issues. This is just a first read. So unless there's recommendations for changes or things that you'd like us to look into, they'll be on next month's agenda for uh adoption. I don't know if they review these. They probably do at OSCA, but there's one um word change on I think the third one is page five where
017it should say complainant instead of complaint. Where are you at? Which policy? I don't know what is it. It's the one that has eight pages and it's page five. GBN JVA. I'll find it. GBN JBA A R2. They don't have that on the front page. Have the thumbs. Where are you at on there? And on page five, there are two sections of one, twos, and threes. And it's the second number one. Um, JBN JBA- AR2 page five, the second number one, where it says, "A complainant notifies the title N coordinator in writing that the complaintant would like to withdraw, and it should be the complainant." Oh, great catch. withdraw. Yeah. Otherwise, it seemed to me, like you say, it's just a reversion to a previous previous policy because of the word change and brain court
018decision. We'll get that change. You're take that one change. Heidi, I have a question. Did we do press and adoption? Well, so I noticed that that we I and I neglected to to say this is that I'm I'm noticing here that this was up for an action item that we could adopt these tonight since they've been our policies before. So, if we'd like to take that action tonight, you can do that. Obviously, we'll amend the one one word So, um, but this would Go ahead. No, go ahead. Sorry. This would make one less thing for us to have on the May agenda. Um, I do see the number in his office. Yes. We noticed that, too. And so when I send them back. Uhhuh. And this is not, you know, this is from them. So
019it's not Yeah. They work in a different system than we do. Yeah. Not the first time I've seen their numbering be wrong. Yeah. Where's the numbering off? Uh on. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, as I'm looking through it. Yeah. So, I mean, is anybody else interested in doing uh adoption tonight besides the first reading to kind of shorten up that May works uh May board meeting because we have a pretty hefty agenda for May with the budget. I don't I don't have an issue with it. I don't mean you're good. Go ahead. I'm okay going forward. Unless we're unless we're material changing them between now and then. We're not materially changing them. Take the action. All right. Robert. Yeah. Okay. I can make you make a motion. Um I move that we accept the policies as
020presented with the um changes as noted by the superintendent that will be made. I I make a motion that we do first reading and adoption. Do I hear a second? I'll second that. any discussion? Um, I don't have any discussion on these specifically, but I um did want to just ask that when we get policy changes or updates if we could see the red lines like we have in the past. That's always super helpful. These didn't have any red lines. Okay. These were more reverting back to the original policy that was already adopted. So, there were no red line any brackets, stuff like that to resolve. I saw a couple things in there that were on the end. Yeah, there's there's there's a couple of them. There's a few things, but I think I was
021just looking for more over like this is the difference between, you know, I just heard Dan say that these are old policies, but we didn't see anywhere in our packet that's saying like we've had these policies before. That's all. It's not a big deal. Oh, was it? Yeah. I also did have problems only being able to view part of the actual policy. It would only pull up like the front page. So I don't know if that's a Google thing. It might be because even London I tested again today and it worked fine. But yeah, it must just be on my Google stuff. But okay. But if you were to look at and I understand what you're saying Jenny because we typically do explain every red line to you but these are just a little bit
022different and so at the beginning of each policy right there it tells you what that change was the policy. Okay. So that's why he needed C red lines. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And so for Moral the other thing that I I hadn't been aware of Rich Stuki's message to us is that we had not adopted everything last time that we thought we had when we to do that. He says is that right? Not sure exactly how I can explain it. It's that one we were talking about. This is a twin to JBA GDN. Uh-huh. And so when we submitted all of our policies for the rewrite, they're they're exactly identical. Those got left out. So we just they're back. So they're here here now. I thought he was saying, you know, there's no they're reversed.
023It's the same exactly the same policy JVA and DN or whatever and then vice versa. And that we just approved one and not the other. But if they're both here, Yeah. and we're approving them, then we're okay. I would say though, I agree with Jenny, that if we had approved a different policy with the changed wording that was under the Biden administration, they changed the definition. Yes, I don't how the wording has changed, but they could have shown the way it is now and crossed out and substituted. And that's what we want to see. See what was changed when we're going back. So, as we move forward with policy updates, I will pay closer attention to the red lines and when they're missing. I will contact Dan and Diane and ask them for a redline
024version or to request a redline version from OSBA. I don't have a contention with it either on these with I think we're ready for vote. Any other discussion before I move to a vote? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries. Uh, we are going to appoint a budget committee member. Is he on there? You don't see him? Hi, Jim. I know you don't have a microphone, but thank you for um applying for the budget committee. And just so you know, uh, you can contact Diane for the information and Linda around when our meetings are and they'll get that information. I'll be putting out an email around the 1 of May on when, where, what. I think Diane already mentioned put it up to the whole committee and you know how
025to get a hold of me. So if you have any issues, you can contact me and I will um, get you connected. So do we need an action for this piece? I think we do. Okay. Uh, I'd entertain a motion. I'll make a motion that we appoint budget committee member Jim Ying. Yep. Y. Yeah. Position five. Do I hear a second? I'll second that. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Welcome aboard. All right. Uh the next thing on the agenda is that uh as you know we concluded bargaining with our classified union and it was a very successful bargaining session. uh went through uh pretty quickly and uh so we provided you this is the same information that has been shared with the classified union membership
026and they will be meeting Wednesday afternoon and then conducting a vote a ratification vote. So when we come together in May, uh it'll be hopeful that the classified union ratified the contract and then it'll be up for for you to approve. So we thought we'd have a discussion if there's any need for discussion here tonight and then that way on May 12th it can just be voted upon that's under the assumption that classified union will ratify uh later this week or I think it might the voting closes early next week. And we've got the the summary changes posted here. Will we eventually have a copy of the full contract? Yeah, there's a red line copied in the Oh, thanks. So, there's two. There's a summary page and a red line. Yeah, I did see that.
027I was just It'll get cleaned up after the vote if it's Yeah, it's right up there. Not hearing any questions. Any questions? Like I have something. So, I guess I just have to There was a note here about vacations and added language. I wondered if that changed the number of days. No, it didn't change the number of days, Merl. It just was clarifying when they could be used and if they weren't used, what would happen? Okay. And I noticed one other that said many changes I didn't the discipline and dismissal many changes but I didn't see anything that egregious when I looked at the contract though yeah we we changed the probationary period to be uh 180 days or essentially 6 months versus a percentage Um and so and that does not count count break
028period. So that 180day is so you would not include winter break, spring break or summer break. So it just changed the how the probationary period is determined essentially 6 months. So that was one change in there. Um and that was the probably the same. Yeah. And there had been anou previously related to some state legislation that got brought into the brought into the contract regarding dismissal of probationary classified folks. So are we still on a year three reopen? Is that was correct? Is that part of the deal? Okay. But it is only the year three is only wages. So insurance is locked. So only wages and each party can bring can open two articles of their of their choosing. Yeah. Any other questions before I move on? Well, I just want to really thank Linda
029for how successful this was? Uh, I knew it was going to be successful when we met with the union in January, February, and the word I will never forget was when they said, "Linda, we want to get started so that we can finish while we're still you're still here because we trust you." And I thought that might be the best compliment I've ever heard in a negotiation context. Uh, and that was and really the proposals that we had for that last session were all Linda's and really were the key to that that successful last session. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Makes you love strong per usual. Yeah. All right. All right. I'm going to move over here with my partner in crime here. I'm trying. So, they didn't leave any
030masks. So kind of you could actually just do it as a slideshow. Just hit the button at the top. Left was uh more right. More right towards. All right. So this uh presentation came from the last board meeting and there were a couple questions that we heard uh that was kind of the basis for us to uh to build this and when I say us it's mostly dev uh and so and that was the question of of you know some questions or concerns around not getting getting enough traction on seeing some improvement in our data and a question related to have we ever looked back to see when our data was stronger and you know kind of learning from that. And so this is a pretty deep look into probably the last 10 to 15
031years of student performance data really just to kind of ground us in what does the history say about our student performance data. And so going through this we'll just start going through is talking a little bit about the demographics of our district. And you know, as we know, our student population is is dropping. And so that just tells you how many students are coming came to school, I guess, 12ish years ago to how many are coming today. Then the next slide uh talks about the changing demographics about who's coming to school. And so you can see um there the the blue is anybody who the percentage of students who have ever been in our ELLL program whether they're still in or uh or were in the English language learner program. That gives you an idea
032that we've been increasing in that capacity. Um and then also as we go through the slide presentation you'll see different what you can call subgroups or groups that are categorized. So, um, so our two primary groups and sometimes you look at things through race and sometimes you look through ethnicity. And so, uh, when we capture information when students come to school and their parents sign them up and they check boxes as to either what race or ethnicity, we have two primary groups. So, we have, as you can see there, um, this current year we are, uh, 39% are white and 56% are Hispanic. And so, and sometimes you'll see Hispanic and sometimes you see Latino or Latinx and they're used interchangeably. So, there's that, you know, people have their own definitions. You'll most likely hear
033me say Latino most of the time. That's just my own kind of experience and kind of just how I typically say, but I've used Hispanic, especially if I'm reading it on a screen. So, um, so that's our changing demographics. Go back one slide, too. Um, another thing to point out with this is while our, um, Latino population is growing, as is our, um, students who qualify as language learners, you'll notice there's still a gap between those two. So just because our student population or a student might identify as Latino does not automatically mean they're language learners. So you know 41% are language learners but 56% overall. So um a lot of them who come in with English as their first language. So that aspect is something to consider too. Next slide. And so we're going
034to just give you a brief Oh go ahead Merl. I think you answered my question, but I was puzzled over what is ever El and I think now I know that means having ever been in that program, however little or much. Yeah. And I thought it meant everlastingly. Well, it kind of does. Um there's there's two aspects of it. One is um typically a student takes about five years once they've been identified to exit out which means they've gained enough lang gain enough language proficiency to pass the alpha. That's the test we use to determine their eligibility. But what we know is even though they passed the alpha, there's still language that they're learning and will continue to learn in part because just like for all of our students, the language becomes more complex as
035they move through the school system. So they may exit the ELELLL program when they're fifth graders, but sixth graders, the language demands a little higher. In eighth grade, it's even a little higher. In high school, it's a little higher. And they stay in monitoring status for two years, three years. I think it's three, three years. So we watch their grades to make sure that they don't slip. um students who maybe were doing well when they had extra support through the ELD program, but maybe uh like we see that once they don't have that support, they're struggling. And so we monitor them for two years and then recognize that even when they're out of monitoring status, they still need additional supports because language acquisition for all of our students is ongoing as the language becomes more
036complex. Yeah. So still significant to know that's where they've been. Absolutely. Yep. All right, Sam. So, this is a quick history lesson of education in the United States. So, uh we're just going to come over some a few uh important events in in public education. Go ahead. Next slide. All right. So, the first one is around IDA, which is our the laws that help get students with disabilities into our classrooms. Prior to LA like um IDA passing, only one in five students who had a disability were in a public education setting and allowed to receive a public education. Um that meant that sometimes they had were homeschooled, they were institutionalized, they um went to special schools and weren't allowed in our public schools. Once 1975 and that law passed, we saw an increase of those
037students in our schools and our schools had to change to learn how to serve them better. Between 199495, 63% graduated and 34% students with disabilities dropped out. In 19 uh 2027 to 2018, we see that increase of 72% and with a 16% dropout. And a lot of that is reflected in our data too. like what are we changing to make sure that all of our students have access um and have their specific needs being met. Next slide. Y. All right. So, go ahead. Yeah. So, the same thing goes with our language learners. There were laws that were changed um between the 1920s and the 1960s. Uh the laws basically said if you came in and didn't speak English, you were plopped into an English only classroom. and if you were struggling and didn't want to
038come to school anymore, you dropped out. And we didn't really do much to make sure that we had the right supports in place to um have them access education. And throughout uh the 1960s and 70s, we saw changes in the law that allowed us to put things into place to ensure that students could get appropriate education, including laws that allowed us to teach in a bilingual setting, etc. And in 1994, we saw a really comprehensive reform of the educational system that allowed us to build programs that increase professional development to make sure that teachers had the right um tools to access and help students. All right. So this is where we've been over the last uh 20 25 years is we've been on a kind of a roller coaster ride of a lot of different
039initiatives uh aimed at improving uh education and so uh you can read the list of things there that have uh come about and I think in the last 5 to 10 years you know um this has become ever more politicized And with the polarization that you see in our country, you also see it and we'll show you some data points later on in our own local context that as things have become more polarized, you're seeing uh you're seeing that play out even in our schools and do you want any anything to highlight in that list there? Yeah, I mean I the for me the thing that's so interesting and part of it is like that span is when I basically started my teaching career. I started in two 20 or uh 2003 and the reality
040that that we've had that many initiatives just in the span of my teaching career let alone a lot of your kids' educational career. Every time one of those changes happens we have to upturn everything we're doing. our reporting changes, our funding changes, how the standards we're using changes, the um pedagogy that we're supposed to be using changes, and then in Oregon specifically, every state, seven years they revised the standards, and sometimes they stay kind of the same and sometimes they're very, very different, like when Common Core came in. Um, and the state assessment system, how we're measuring how kids are doing, has been in constant flux since Smarter Balance came in. And the last five years it's been in like every year something changes that like how many questions the test is going to take,
041how long the test is going to take, what they're going to give us in terms of data, every year something's new and our grading practices on top of that have changed. So for me and for Dan, as we were talking about this and we started to think like when are we going to see traction, these are some of the things that impact our traction. They impact every school's traction, but we definitely can feel how they're impacting our traction. I think the last thing to comment on here is just kind of almost what sort of feels coming full circle because uh their No Child Left Behind, which was obviously a national initiative was heavy into accountability. How do we hold schools accountable for student performance? And you know, I think that um 2015 with uh Every
042Student Succeeds Act tried to kind of change the the the approach. Um now, Governor Cotch has pretty much demanded that there be new accountability measures within the state of Oregon, which I sent you uh something today on all of those bills and the different aspects of those. So, those are currently in legislation right now. Um, we do have both within the business department and within the administrative department trying to speak sense into those bills. Not because we don't want accountability, but we also want to be able to manage the accountability and be able to provide the data to support because we do want high expectations for our students. So, going to pause there. Well, this last thing is is that all of that to say that public education is incredibly complex. When who you serve,
043how we serve is always changing, what we do is an incredibly complex thing. So, we'll pause there. Are there any questions on on that? Robert, no questions. I have comments on my head. Uh so on this slide with education reform that last comment about grading practices have fun fundamentally remained the same. Is that sort of an editorializing on standards have changed but the way we the way we grade a particular student within a class to either move and you know advance them. That was my editorialized statement. So are you saying that that has not kept pace or or does it is it a mismatch for what's what we're trying to achieve now? I think that was my statement that and it is an editorial statement is that while the standards are always being revised, my
044concern with that is how do we communicate to families how their kids are doing when we are especially and this is more at the secondary level when we when families are still relying on the ABCDF system to communicate how my child's doing. Is that adequately telling parents how their kid is doing? it's actually and I'm not I'm not here to propose that we do that because that you know that all sorts of of tough conversations but it does make it problematic because if you go back to a previous presentation from several months ago where I talked about what our grades in math look like versus our scores there's a huge disconnect. Yeah. So how do we effectively communicate to families how their kids are doing to the assessments when how we communicate is largely the
045same thing we all grew up with at the secondary level. Mhm. So, is it a fair statement to say that standard standards there is a a whiplash sort of um environment there? Now, like we have standards and then we change them and then we change them again and add to them. Add to them and we've never really like um Okay. which isn't a problem that we can solve here. No. Um however, it it's definitely a factor. Yeah. Yeah. including the fact that you know one thing that's always kind of a common there was this uh I'm not going to get it exactly right but there was um a statistic they did like they took all the standards and said if you spent like an hour on each standard that we are asked to cover you
046would have to add like two years of schooling to just talk about them for an hour not spend weeks to actually help kids learn. So then the other aspect is when the standards keep changing, we have to always be thinking what what are the priorities? What do we anticipate that they're going to be assessed on? What are the standards the kids have to know so they can learn the next thing and learn the next thing and learn the next thing? And when that's always changing, it's like you're going towards a moving target. um including when what we know is they're going to be given a test, but we're not exactly sure what standards that test is going to cover because we know we can't cover all the standards that they've told, nor could they test
047on all the standards they've asked us to teach. They're going to pick priority standards, but they they aren't always super transparent about what those priority standards are. So, we kind of have to make a best guess. And it's possible. We have had experiences where um like teachers will like oh I gave a test they asked a question about this I'm not going to cover that for three more weeks like the there and the kids couldn't get the answer because of that we haven't taught it yet. Um so like there's a lot of that and having to every time there's new standards it's okay well what are the priorities this time we have to redo our maps we have to redo this to be able to figure it out. Why do homeschoolers get it right? How
048come how come they're getting it? They're not guessing. Well, it depends on how like homeschool students don't have to take the same assessment they do. So, there would I I wouldn't know how they're doing on that standardized assessment. So, I don't know if I can compare how a homeschool student is doing compared to a students going through our system. Ed, well, I was had some question if you could just explain a little more what the massive changes of the past five years are. And then my other it was more of a comment I guess or saying just is this a matter of an everchanging goalpost that hinders the teaching process? Yeah. and assessments and standards from a book I once read, unstable with water. Yep. Yes. True on that. The massive changes. So, I'll give
049a good example. Smarter balance when it first came out um which was about 2014. Yep. 2015. 14 145 is when that was the first year of that test. So, it's been 10 years. the last five years they went from that assessment um when it first started and the first five of years it commonly they would give an estimate it was going to take three hours. It typically took six eight hours. Um these last five years they're like we've got to cut down on these tests uh and make them shorter. So we went from a test that was like 60 questions long to a test that was 24 questions long. That is a very big difference in what they're actually assessing. We went from an assessment that was largely um they would do what was called
050a performance task. That performance task was largely handgraded. It's now graded by computer. So even the feedback we got um the it used to be we would get data from the state that would say these are all the different kind of categories of standards and they would give you a check plus minus in terms of is are your kids meeting that standard. that's now been cut down to like three I think um versus like eight pieces of data. We we get like three pieces from it partly because they've shortened the test so much. Um and the state has changed from saying like these are the this is the purpose of this assessment to kind of saying h don't put all your eggs in this assessment basket. It's just kind of a snapshot of the health
051of your district which is a very different message than we had been receiving in the last five years. So, those are like just a few ways that that test has changed dramatically. Um, our schools used to prep to have testing last weeks and now usually we can get it done in a couple days which is great but in terms of the data we get less informative for sure. Yeah. Heidi um I'm okay with it. Jenny, I if the the data that we are getting is less informative, then how can we use such a small piece of feedback and expect our kids to make these giant leaps forward or and our teachers too like let's not forget about it's not just the kids not being able to learn but are the teachers able to teach with
052you know curriculum changing, standards changing like target is moving So the mostly rhetorical questions just yeah I mean I'll give a short answer to it which is like that's where our need to create a better system a better assessment system that is more about our internal assessments than it is reliance on this external assessment so that we have our internal knowledge of we know what the standards are. We have data to prove it. We have evidence. we have student portfolios, things like that, versus let's see if we can do a shot in the dark on one test and see if it proved that we did the right thing. So, you're absolutely right. It's really, and that actually speaks to Dan's commentary on the grading like that piece of clearly articulating what are the standards we're
053teaching and what is the evidence we have to know that kids are making it um or not. And then how do teachers use that information to inform their teaching and make changes? Okay. So, um, what we're going to do, we're going to kind of break this down. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on each of these slides, but this is that longitudinal data that we have. Um and so this is just to kind of de show how we have done over time um and how our different uh you know demographic groups have done in comparison to each other. One thing that's an interesting observation that I made as we were looking at these graphs is usually when we talk about this kind of data we talk about the blue bars because we
054were looking at an all student group. And so there was these times where especially in like 2011 where we were at a pretty high level. The difference though is that if you look at our subgroups that high level was bolstered dramatically by our white students. Our um Latino students were perfor underperforming and underperforming the all group. And really, it was the average of our white students with our Latino students that got us that nice blue bar where it's at. So, we know that we're having a a group of students that we're just like dramatically not serving so that those like we want that green and yellow bar to be the same. We want it to be pretty even. And right now there is such a gap that we know that we're we're not serving our
055students. The next one, this one like this graph makes me go for it. You have a question, Heidi? Yeah. You know, when you look at our L, you know, Latino, are you including the um ELLL in that or just everybody who's Latino? That is just Latino. So, we know that um our students who identify as ELEL's, I don't have that a bar for them specifically. That's included in the Yes. Yes. Yeah. cuz some of and some of our language learners are white like our Russian language learners for example so we don't have language learners on here and like our sped line that is not a separate demographic group they come from all demographic groups right it's just a it's a subop well when you said when you make a comment like you know I mean
056I'm just going let's be realistic you take somebody who hasn't grown up under a certain language they're have to learn a new language no matter what country you go from one country to another country I mean it's always there's always going to be a gap there I mean that's just the reality of it right and so um and I know that you know you always want to bring everybody up of course that's natural and so I just I guess when I hear things like we want them to be the same I'm I'm at the point where I'm just like let's just admit the reality there it's there's always going to be there a little bit of a difference maybe after they've been here x amount of years, you know, and you become more conversant. It's
057you, you know, that's I guess that's what I'm saying about that. And about the sped thing, um I think we have to be careful with sped numbers because sometimes you're talking about such a small group in your sample size that one or two students can really shoot you in a different direction. And so, um, I, you know, I just think you always should take that in in a in a district our size. I think it's misleading sometimes when we see spend numbers going in a way because you'll have a group that are really impacted and some that are do better. And so that's that's my advice. Absolutely. And that that range of need and services within that that specific population is best, right? like it can be students who have um limited accommodations that they
058need and they're going to be great and some that need a lot more and are going to have some struggles. I think for me to the points you're making um it's like how do we at least attempt to close that gap though because right now it's significant and we know that um there's always going to be challenges and especially to the point you're making like if if statistically it takes seven years for a student to exit out of EL then yeah we're asking them to the same tests that a student who's only ever spoken English is being asked to take. And we don't offer them in Spanish or another language. We can in math and science. And the issue with that, like we have forms that teachers can fill out if their student would benefit
059from taking the test in that other language. Um, a lot of times what we see though is their Spanish literacy isn't high enough to read and write in Spanish in a high enough level to do well on it reading it in Spanish. Also absolutely not available in reading because we are testing their ability to read English. So this is an Englishon test. So schools that have dual language programs say would they would they probably would have an easier time in those Spanish language? Absolutely. Yeah, one would assume that that they're building that L1 that language first language and and improving that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, this graph is to really place some of these scores in context and part of it is from conversations um that I know things that have been brought
060up um by uh teachers and different people. We kind of wanted to place things in context. The first kind of set of bars that I want to acknowledge are those first few years listed here from 2011 till 2014. Um we had a really high percentage of students being successful. Again, this is where our ranges that would have been reported on the school report cards were in the 60s. We see our white students though were doing really well on the assessment. um the the the resources though that we were using were not as good for um our Latinx students. Um and that specifically for the elementary schools was success for all. And I will say like my son grew up on success for all, had good success from it. Um I know it kind of came
061up at the last board meeting. We know that success for all had some positive pieces to it, but we also know it was not success for all. It was success for certain populations. Um based on those scores alone we can see that the big thing though that happened is success for all had been part of the curriculum actually before 2011 even and we had seen some good results. The place where we suddenly took a dive though was that first year of SBA. They basically what um was publicized and and made well known was that SBA was going to be a harder test. And so students who had had success for all their entire educational career took the harder test suddenly and bombed. So we know that while success for all had some components that were
062yielding some good results when we gave it a more rigorous assessment, we did not see the same results anymore. Then from 2015 to 2022, um the elementary schools were using Wonders and we can see while we dropped pretty dramatically in 2015, we were starting to kind of make some traction back up and then COVID hit and we dropped back down. So, we're we're getting some traction back up again right now and and are feeling pretty positive. But as part of the reason why we wanted to give a little bit of a history lesson is those big moves sometimes are where we're seeing like was there a time where we were doing really well? Yes. And then something dramatic would happen and we're dropping back down again. And this is like when I was putting all
063this together I was like wow it is so black and white. Like you can see this spot the harder test comes in we're struggling. COVID comes we struggle. So we're seeing this kind of up and down. As soon as we start to kind of get some traction something else happens. So this was it was kind of interesting to pull this information together. And I know I said I was going to pause at this point but we've kind of I thought maybe we'll we'll get through all of ELA before we take a pause. Yes. So we'll just keep going. Yep. So, same thing for middle school with ELA. I'm not going to belabor anything. We're seeing very similar like trends, some gains, and then some falls. Again, um a pretty dramatic dip when we had the
064new test um come in at 2014 and again at CO. What's the A mean? Um English language arts. And again, you can see those same things. The one thing that I am feeling positive about though is um we're seeing some bigger gains um specifically within the ELA scores um and we're really happy with their curriculum and we're going to talk about that a little more at the end of the presentation. Other quick question. Yeah. Um is this are these the testing the tests like the kids just got done doing? Are in the middle of doing? Yes. Right now. Yeah. the middle school just was like this last week was in the middle of doing it. So, um there's an option to opt out your kids. Yes, we're going to talk about that on the next
065slide. Oh, okay. So, I'm curious like how many kids are opted out and take a look at the next slide. Yeah. So, so again, you know, I think with the I attribute that big drop there and you can see the note at the very bottom. We're stop we stopped, this is at the high school, we stopped meeting participation rates. So if you go back, you know, 15 years or when you talk about when accountability started coming around and No Child Left Behind, you were judged as school district was judged based on your participation rates because previously to that people would not test all their students. If they wanted to inflate their grades, they would not test all their students. And so then it was started becoming a requirement that you publish your participation rates so
066that you couldn't just hide behind your high achieving students. And so for a long while we had really high participation rates. I mean it was not uncommon to have 100% participation rate. And specifically at our middle school and our intermediate school we've stayed at really high 95% or above. Our high school we were at 95% or above until 202122. And so we've just coming out of COVID when they there was a a little bit of backlash, political backlash on testing kids and making it more uh requiring districts to notify parents about how you can opt out. And we what we've seen the trend is is it is often times students who would be very successful on these tests opting out. And so you see this very sharp decline because we have more students opting out
067of the assessment. many of whom we believe would do well. So, what's our what's our um participation rate for the high school as of this year or last year? Both if you have it. Is that our graph? I don't think we Okay. I don't have that. Um I have to I can bring that data to you. Last year got better. This year I think we're at like 40% participation as of right now though we are still in the process of testing. Um but we have a ch So there's two things with high school specifically with opt outs and Deian can speak to this better. We have the opt outs by following the rule which means they filled out an opt out form and then we have the opt outs by I'm going to skip school
068every time you try to test me. and they basically get to the end of the year and we just have never been able to capture them long enough to get them to finish a test. Um, and so that's kind of like opting out by omission. Um, we're we have some different systems in place this year and our overall I filled out the form is lower this year than it was last year. We see a good upward climb in terms of our participation, but we know that we still have kids who are going to just avoid the tests by like like last year Deianne had issues where she'd submit a pass to a kid like go get tested and they just wouldn't come. They just would hide in a bathroom or you know do other things
069to avoid the test. Is there a way on the test that you can tell if the kids just a a a b just randomize like I'm just gonna get through it? Yeah, we can watch it as they're happening because the teacher can see like their like the progress they're making that their line is closing really fast and we teach the teachers like if they see that to ask the student if they need to take a break but we can't actually stop them. Um that's one of the rules. So no doing really well. Exactly. I've got this nailed. I figured out my rhythm. Um, I think the thing for me that was like as we pulled this data too is again this is a spot where we see our gap closing. Like our difference between our
070um different population groups is actually narrower and this to Heidi's kind of point is more of what we'd want to see. Like they're pretty close. Like they're not exactly aligned but they are in the same direction and and kind of following each other's path. Um, so it's it saddens me when we know that that COVID year hit and it we took such a dip because we were actually outperforming at the high school level um the state averages. I remember that. Yeah. And and consistently even with Smarter Balance in 2014. Dan. Yeah. So it's the essential skills that will require for graduation and that happens and we've talked about that other board meetings. All right. So and same kind of just snapshot of it and then we thought we'd throw so the next slide just looks
071at a a a cohort group where we have one more. Yeah, one more. Yeah. uh where you could see the so current eighth graders which are testing right now this is how they did in fifth, sixth and seventh grade and then also current sixth graders um who are also testing right now how they did as third fourth and fifth graders. So that's another way we look at data is how is the cohort of students doing as they move through. So, uh, for the sake of time, I don't know if we want to whip around or any thoughts on the ELA data since I asked you since I told you I was going to ask you. Anyone? Uh, I would. So, the intermediate and the primary um or excuse me, intermediate data, you definitely have a
072widening like you don't have the rebound in our Latino students. Any is there any reason? Is there any um I mean, can we look back and say with any clarity why that may be happening? I think it's a good question to explore more. I know that our um on track language proficiency has also not seen a good rebound. We have students that are like struggling and not exiting out of EL services as fast as the state wants them to. Um, and so what I can say, not necessarily to why is this the case, but I will say that we're deeply like looking at our ELD program model and like analyzing like is this working and making some changes for next year. Um, because I understand there may always be a gap, but trend line is
073I mean the trends are what worry me is because we're not seeing growth. It's going this way. Yeah. You've got a you've got a So we com combine what Heidi said earlier with your I mean that's what we're trying to look for is we understand kids are going to come if they don't come from English homes that they're going to naturally struggle when they hit school with these assessments. But can we look at trend data to say that we're closing that gap? I mean it's it to me like the high school it's it's kind of an anomal not an anomaly but you're seeing that you know what I mean? you're seeing right direction, right growth in in all categories. I understand there's still a gap and that's you know what I mean. But um so
074any that was my only comment about continue. Any others? Okay, moving on to math. So math is a lot the same. We you know see that that gap that still exists. we see a pretty dramatic dip that comes with our first year of Smarter Balance and um much to Blend's point like we saw some gradual increases but right now in terms of um postcoid we're really flat we're just not seeing growth the way we would want to or expect to um in a general sense one of the things that you have to do math has become much more language intense um it is not just memorizing math facts. You have to have a strong vocabulary and you have to, you know, you have to explicitly teach the math vocabulary, especially for your language learners. Um
075because if you start if you um if you just work from a place where you think kids will use context clues, you'll have some kids get it by the use of just context clues, but if you don't explicitly teach the math vocabulary, kids are going to struggle on those assessments and struggle in math. I couldn't guess. Well, and the other thing I will point out that's a difference between the math assessment and the English assessment is that one thing um as a former English teacher it that's really obvious is our standards really spiral once you've learned how to read. It's like read and tell us what you read, read and tell us what you read, write about what you read, read and tell us what you read. And it kind of is the same thing.
076The only thing that changes is it's a little more complex. It's a little more age appropriate, etc. Math is a different test every year because they're brand new standards and some of them you know spiral in the sense that like as I learn to be a good math problem solver or has as I learn to apply certain skills those are every year skills but the difference between like what I would learn in fourth grade math and what I would learn in algebra very different right so it's not like once I get some traction I'm going to do better on this English tests every single year. With math, it could look like brand new content. And what we see, especially at the high school and middle school level, is if there were skills that are missing,
077it is really hard to close those gaps. And those scores really reflect that. One of the things to just kind of echo that and we'll then we'll we'll we'll pause with the math piece is that it's also really difficult for math teachers to want to move on and expose kids to other standards and other aspects of math. If I know the biggest it's always the fractions. When kids don't pick up the fractions then it's really easy for teachers to want to sit there and go I'm not moving on until they we get this. But then we also don't prepare them for other as aspects of math that they need to know. And so trying to kind of keep people to a scope and sequence of math can really be difficult when you don't think that
078they're ready to move on. Can I have ask one more question about math? I mean just the the high school math just begs the question these new math materials is it just because there's so they're so different and difficult to teach? I mean why are the scores so low? I think that's the participation rates again. I would agree with that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Our hope is actually we're seeing some growth, but the participation rate is definitely it's it's the worst of the high school. It's very hard. Is that the only school that's able to opt out? Nope. Everyone else can opt out, too. Um my gut, if I was to put an analysis on it, is that in the elementary and middle is just like everyone's testing at the high school um family like
079parents don't want to fight their teenager on it. And so when their teenager comes home and says, "Sign this permission slip for me, please. I don't want to take this test." It's like, "Okay, I'm not going to argue with you and off you out." So maybe some of the parents don't even know that the permission slip comfortable. Very possible. Very possible. Yeah. I thought it was a band. I didn't know about this field trip. Did 2122 have an anomaly on on for sped because I see a spike on two different metrics here. Um it did we just not test because we were in the throws of COVID? um because it's showing up in the intermediate map and it also showed up in language. Um and I just didn't know that was the year that the
080intermediate school data, right? Oh, I mean it was an anomaly because of co I understand that I just it was an anomaly because that was the one year that opt outs went really high at the intermediate school. Okay. um as specifically they no wasn't it that every student the state report card student that's what it was we made a mistake on the state report card and reported that basically the entire intermediate school was sped on accident and it was like a powers school thing and so we did great that year because everyone was just fly and I so that was what it was thank you what happened so That's there was a an Aaron power school that marked all the intermediate school as sped and so there was misreporting which is why you got a
081like a weird a little weird spike there. I was just trying to figure out red lines and that was Yep. Jenny, did you have a question? I'm I'm just wondering if if we know that it was wrong. Can we go back to the state and say this was wrong? Nope. We tried. I will tell you it is my first year here it was like oh that is quite a mistake to make because we just didn't catch it in the data um yeah like thing. So yeah. Yeah. And I think on one of the state report cards it even said like oh we have like 70% identified as disabilities. I was like oh no that is not that can't be right. No. And if you went and got the report card that at that time if
082you go from the state it's still wrong. If you got it from our website at that time, we put a disclaimer on it that's like, "This is inaccurate data. Please see this instead." But the state wouldn't change it for us. They're like, "Sorry, there's nothing we can do." I was like, "Well, all right. Thanks." Okay, Dan. All right. So, ninth grade on track versus graduation. We're gonna go through these a little bit quicker. So, um, yeah, the only thing we really want to talk about with this is that both of these are really high actually and, um, high at the state kind of level as well. Like we're right up there with state averages with both our nth grade on track and our graduation rates. And we have pretty insignificant gaps between our different student
083populations. And what's great about this too is that what you don't want is a big gap between ninth grade on track and graduation because what that means if your ninth grade on track rates are really low that means we're working really hard to get them to graduate. But if they're leaving nth grade on track that graduation is is an easier number to hit. So as we continue to increase our nth grade on track which we're seeing that you know some trends in that direction. We're gonna keep increasing our graduation rates as well. We got some comments there. We'll just keep moving through and go on to regular attendance there. Well, any questions on the graduation rate? Great. Correct. Well, graduation rates have to do with attendance counting hours primarily. Yeah, it's credits. So it's well
084credits attendance putting in the classroom time. No, that's kind of that's a very it Yeah, you have to pass the class, but we have like attendance isn't a complete fac. It it definitely helps like the better your attendance, the easier it's going to be for you to pass the class. But we have good systems in place for kids who are maybe struggling with their attendance to still get the work they need to be able to pass. Still, it used to be that you had actually required seat hours. That's not the case anymore. I was trying to understand why the success with graduation rates when math achievement is at 9%. And so I'm thinking it must be easier to amass 26 and a half credits or whatever the benchmark is than to actually learn the material
085and pass these classes with a with enough learning to score better than that on the exam or assessment. Well, I think you've hit on, you know, some of these data points are sort of in competition with each other. When your when your district's judged on your graduation rate, it's easy. I mean, we want kids to graduate on time. We want to award them the credits. And so, but how tightly aligned are our internal assessments that teachers are giving to the state standards? So, the there's a better comparison between the grades they're getting. And I mean, there is definitely a very a big difference between our state assessment data and our graduation rate or the grades that students are earning. Yeah. And I think there comments somewhere in here that there's a difference between North American
086school district standards and state assessment standards. And I think that that is an assumption we can make based on what we know like they're all supposed to be really well aligned but right and I think the other factor that's difficult is to the point like Jenny made too which is like I would not assume that because a kid didn't pass the estate assessment that they don't know math because there are plenty of kids who work real hard do not take that state assessment very serious. seriously and there's no incentive to take it seriously either. Um, so there's not always a direct correlation, but we know we have some gaps to fill for sure. Like for sure, for sure. I have a question just real real quick on, you know, when we talk about the grades,
087there's like so many math credits required. Two two questions, I guess. Are we giving math credits for like welding or engineering or construction? No. Okay. Um, does it have to be grade level math? Because in my day, it was even if you're a senior, you could go to freshman math and get your credit. What? So, it has to be once you've earned a specific credit, you've earned it. So, you can't just earn ninth grade math three times. For sure. Right. Yeah. Um, you can be below grade level. No, at the high school it has to be algebra 1 or above. So they do algebra 1 their freshman year and then usually our sequence is pretty standard. It's geometry then algebra 2. We have some more like technical math um statistics things but all of those
088are still algebra 1 or above. Um and so you're progressing through harder and harder math. um they we don't have a um you know low-level this is technically eighth grade math and we're gonna because other and that used to exist when they updated the math standards they said nope from this point you earn three credits of math and all the classes have to be algebra algebra one or above okay thanks so even at one point I remember at the high school we debated should we offer a pre-alggebra class for kids who are coming in struggling and we didn't want to because we knew kids wouldn't take it because they could only get elective credit for it. We couldn't give them math credit because it was below algebra one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right now though in
089algebra one first trimester is free algebra. And they do end up getting an elective credit because it's a year-long math. Yeah. So then they get in the second and third semester they get a competitive Yeah. Okay, sorry. Sorry. Moving on to regular attendance. So, you know, this has been a focus of ours and so this is just showing you uh you know where you can see at the different schools where we're seeing a a good trend in primary and our regular attenders data. Um so uh we don't need to spend a lot of time on the these slides just to show that we are uh we are making a difference in this area. And so we can go all the way to the slide that's a screenshot. We're going to stop there for just a
090moment. I like that we took a screenshot that has your little icon in the upper right hand corner. I was in the screenshot. I'm like, there's Jason little thumbnail up in the upper right. The day I got hired. So I only point this slide out to you because when we had the vice principles come and talk about this, this is this is how we need to be thinking about how we solve some of the issues in terms of of you know noticing when kids are and I will say attendance is an easier one to address but when you see a kid not meeting the standard that you set, how do you apply apply an intervention consistently to that group of students consistently to see does that intervention work. And so to where you can mine
091down from going, okay, we're going to give all the kids that are in this attendance group are all going to get an attendance letter or a parent contact. Did we see that group respond to where you finally get down to the individual to figure out what that individual's needs are? That's the kind of theory that we need to be practicing in our in our content area classes too that when kids are not at standard, what is our universal response to that until we get down to the individual student level. So that's why I threw this screenshot up there is because we need to apply the same kind of thinking in our content areas too. And then the next one. Yeah. So I think as we were reflecting back on the data we're presenting to you
092because it it's information that you've had before we put it in a different context and there wasn't this moment like it was like odd if we could go back to this year we just repeat that we'd be great or this is the trend. So we didn't want it to seem like we're making excuses for why things are struggling but we do want to paint a picture of where we're going. And one of the things we've been talking about as an admin team is really understanding how to use data more effectively to make decisions. This is from the book Street Data. And she breaks down data at three different levels. There's satellite data, which is a lot like what we looked at today. It's big. It gives you a picture. You can tell the Amazon's on
093fire, but you can't tell which trees are. Map data. We're starting to zoom in. We are looking at buildings. We are looking at maybe individual teachers or grade levels. we're starting to figure out questions like um Glenn asked where we start to know more about what specifically is going wrong and then we can look at street data and that's where we start to understand what is the experience of the end user what are our kids actually experiencing when they're sitting in class because it's one thing to look at all this data and say like oh all we have to do is this with our our teaching or whatever but if a kid's like I hate this I don't want to be here and I'm disengaged then we're not actually solving any problems So understanding what
094our kids are actually dealing with as we zoom in even further and things like youth truth or or student interviews help us with that. And what we're seeing is by having Go for it, Linda, you're good. Um by having those conversations, we're starting to see results. And so this is hot off the presses. Um, right now we have about 67% of our sixth grade ELA scores reported and our current passing rate and actually we believe it's actually up to 41% now which is above the state average. We're at 38% passing. Um, our uh the current passing rate of 34. Our 2024 passing rate was 32. So we've jumped six points. And actually if it is 41 it's even more than six points. And our state average right now is 40. And that's just with 67%
095of the scores being recorded. And we know actually that our ladder scores tend to be even better because these are the kids that are still taking the test and they're trying really really hard. So we just tend to see a trend of scores going up. Same thing happened with our seventh grade. We have 59% of those scores reported at this moment with a 35% passing rate. The seventh grade passing rate was 36. State average is 39. we see some climbs and you can see what you have on the graphs above are our cohort data. So this is like what they the like overall how have these scores jumped and all of the trends are going up. Kids are scoring higher now than they did in 2022. So they're growing growing growing um across the board.
096And with 8th grade we're at 53% um reported. current passing rate is 31%. Last year was at 21% which means we've already jumped 10% and the state average is 35 and we anticipate this will go up also and our eighth graders took great. So, and this is really a result of some phenomenal work being done by our middle school teachers specifically around gathering at data and going where do they have gaps and doing intensive interventions in the classroom not expecting the school to do it but like really focus on who is in my class what do I know that they need and giving them what they need and suddenly we see these jumps and we anticipate that this will go even higher. Um we do not have the same data for the other two schools.
097Not because of anything um bad. The intermediate has not started testing and the high school is um didn't well we do have some high school. Um so they're at 42% of scores reported uh and that includes our optouts and the current passing rate is 34%. Um and last year is at 42 with a current state average of 48. But that's with a really low number reported so far. So we anticipate this will go up as well. We just don't have yet. And I just want to kind of comp make a couple compliments is that you know one of the reasons we added the middle school data because one of their teachers reached out to us last Thursday and says I got to show you what's happening. And was really excited. And so uh you know
098the the principles are doing a great job of really uh prioritizing this and building a culture where this really matters. Um and so uh you know we just we thought we just we just had to share this you know we were done with the presentation but with the middle school coming in saying here you got to see this we just felt it was necessary. And today I was at the intermediate school and uh uh Dave Sheldon had a pep assembly to promote uh trying your best on the state assessment and he had four fifth graders that he interviewed to talk to the whole school about the importance of trying your best. And one one kid said, um, you know, he says, "I want to do my best because this is a great school and I
099want the whole state to know that this is a great school." And it was just the cutest thing. And so, um, and so again, building that culture of always doing your best. Really hats off to the principles and the teachers for building that culture. And I will point out with the 11th grade data, we still see these trends going up. Um even uh like and they only have two data points because they haven't tested since April. Remember, they don't test except around 11th grade. So we're still seeing really good trends um in the right direction. And so we we know that we're we're heading in the right direction. All right. Round robin. Robert. Well, I mean, thank you for presenting all that. He's worked hard on it. So, it's Thank you. Good information, Glenn. Um,
100I don't have any necessarily questions. I'm assuming regular attendance is sort of like ripples on the pond. You'll see, you know, you'll see it show up later. Um, I'm assuming in the data. So, the kids are actually coming. Yeah. actually in the seats that have a higher likelihood of doing that. So yeah, I'll say what I should have said before I ever said anything else and that's that I am really impressed with the energy and the effort and hours that went into doing and it's hard and I still would encourage looking at a bigger picture in part and looking at other factors and there are more things that come to mind even as I'm here. One of them is screen time and its impact on scores. But I know it's hard. I took algebra 2
101and new math and Merl didn't do well. Well, the credits here on the presentation uh Dez put, you know, we she started on this and like how many slides is this going to be Dez? Like it was I try not to talk. I get super excited about this stuff though. It's it's us being aware of it is what's going to change the culture. Yeah. So, three nights ago, I got out the algebra 2 book. Oh, no. And I worked nine problems and I only had to look at the answer four times. So, I have a lot of work ahead. Heidi, um, this was a really good presentation. Thank you very much. and it helps me to understand a lot. Um especially these last few slides. They're very helpful and encouraging. Uh I I kind of
102go back to um some slides you provided us several maybe a month or two ago. You know, they showed kind of they were comparison with other districts and where we were and that was quite alarming to me especially when we look at districts which I think are good comparisons like Jervis and Gladstone. Um, and so I always wonder like what is you know because there's so many factors that go into that number you know like you said like participation rates and you know you know your your ratio of your demographics and all this kind of stuff. So, it's hard to know how to compare, but um you know, and so I guess that's why I'm uh I'm just curious like what is North Mary doing or not doing that other districts seem to be doing
103that, you know, and I don't know if it's curriculum. It's a lot of different things, but this has helped explain some of it. And I I I appreciate and I think that you guys are the right people at the helm to to and our other leadership people in other leadership positions and I I appreciate your efforts and I hope that says everything. Well, I still haven't forgotten about that strategic plan thing that we said weeks ago. Yeah. Um yeah, I would echo what everybody else has said. Thank you. We asked for data, we got it. I love it. I'm the opposite of Merurl. He wants a higher view and I'm the type I want to drill in and really see um you know data is great. It's great to have. But I really am excited
104to um see an actionable plan put together that's really going to ra raise the roof for everybody. um not just not just our English language learners but also our English speaking students because I mean it's obvious it's across the board that everybody's struggling. Um and I specifically wanted to ask about the interventions that are done like early interventions as far as math and reading. what is done and like give me a couple specific examples at the schools because I feel like sometimes we're just pushing kids through you guys might be struggling but we're going to keep going and you'll get it eventually you know so at the two elementary schools they take their um ongoing assessment data so through their universal screeners um STAR and um HMH age growth and they take that data and
105it kind of disagregates into what standards kids are specifically having gaps on and then they are forming independent kind of small groups and then they have intervention time throughout the day and those small groups get specific intervention um teaching by different like basically the whole fifth grade stops. kids shuffle to a new teacher, that teacher knows what gaps that student has and does specific interventions for them. Um, that's right now at both of those schools primarily focused in the area of reading and they're looking to start layering in math um like next year um is the hope or find new ways to approach how to do that intervention from at the primary school. They they're doing some interesting things at like the um kindergarten group. So rather than having kids go to a new teacher,
106they actually are pushing the teachers in and doing those interventions in the classroom a little bit more so that kids aren't losing time in transitions. Um so little things like that are happening at the middle school and the high school. That's where our intervention models need work. Um because it's hard uh to pull kids out of classes, to take electives away, etc. Um and so that you know the middle school I I gave as an example they're doing some additional assessments. Um see what is the slow fluency slow fluency where they're able to identify elements of their reading and reading comprehension how quickly they can read etc. And then teachers are saying okay in my class I'm going to do some small groupoup instruction and pulling kids and doing specific interventions with them and whole
107group instruction just on different strategies and reading. Um, and that's why we're seeing some of those results at the middle school. What What kind of like I guess things are are being sent home or trying to include parents saying like your kid needs a little extra help reading, do this. You know, I'm I'm just thinking back to like SFA when you had the reading and you signed off that you guys read every day, you know, that that type of thing. Those pieces are still in progress. I think I think it's probably like from what I've heard from the two instructional coaches that piece of parent communication is their next thing to tackle. Um and it's that piece of like how are we just really clear um of what are the standards kind of like Dan
108was saying we know that it's a gap because when we look at our youth truth data that was we were actually talking about do we add this one more slide about youth truth we hear from parents at the two intermediate and primary school saying I don't know how my kids doing and no one's telling me and then teachers saying I don't know how to talk to parents so those were actually both really high scoring um Yeah. Questions that tell us we aren't communicating well and there's a fear of communicating and being really transparent with how is your kid doing. So that's the kind of next thing to tackle. Great. You know, I used to always go through my kids backpacks. I mean, and there was a lot of stuff that was printed like there was
109a report, you know, that was put out at the end of the week and then I got the, you know, the the principal letter and a lot of printed stuff. And I don't think that that's necessarily bad to have some printed things. We don't have to be paperless and everything, but um Oh, that's just I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for bringing all this data. I'm looking forward to many more data sessions. And I would just echo um Jenny and the fact that I would love to see action plan pieces and I know that's going to come along with the strategic plan because data you don't do anything about it. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So, I thank you both so much. Just we're near the end, but you want to Yeah. So, we, uh,
110have aid showcase on Wednesday. It's actually a practice for a fall one, but when we invite more people, um, that focuses on, um, Abid in a rural school, a small school. And so, um, I have the agenda there. You are all invited. We'd love to be prepared if you would like to drop in. So, just RSVP if you can. West Coast is not very hard, but but it' be great. Um, but if you just want to drop by, you can. We're going to be in some classrooms. There's maybe a student panel and some briefs and teachers, you know. So, it's just to find out a little bit more about some of the programs and and our classrooms we would like to have. Anything else? No, that's it. That's Thank you again. Thank you, Nathan. I
111appreciate you guys being collaborative in the transition. Thanks, Linda. I know you're doing a ton of work right now. So, um I'll adjourn this meeting at is it 7:47? No. 37. Yeah.