001foreign good evening everyone um oh there it goes good evening everyone thanks for joining us this evening um for our October 25th study session and special meeting we're going to start first with the study session um can we first have the interpretation notification great thank you I think so for the broadcast yeah thank you foreign thank you um well welcome again everyone we're going to start with our uh Jack quarterly update um oh yes sorry oh of course thank you madam president Los participants foreign gracias thank you so much um this evening we have our quarterly update with the district accountability committee um Connie welcome would you like to start yes thank you thank you president Lovato and distinguished members of the board Dr Lauria I'm here to make a asking questions of the board
002and also to make some observations can you hear me at all okay um one of the things that we are studying in DAC this year especially under unified Improvement because you president or Lovato had asked us to do so last year after we finished our reading study and that is math and so we all know that the pandemic uh created hardships for everyone and huge gaps are being reported in all grade levels as far as math is concerned and not as bad in reading but it has really been affecting the map area uh fourth grade scores have dropped by a quarter from 2019 as well as eighth grade math scores have dropped so my question about this whole situation as far as math is concerned is what is the district looking at as far as
003interventions um what programs are we putting in place to help our students get their scores back up and get proficient again in math great question and thank you for taking the time to dig into that data um Dr lady Dr Lauria I can't speak today do you have a little insight I know we've um approved tutoring and and programs um with with maths corpse I believe that maybe you can talk a little bit more about what we have we're just looking for some some advice also on what we should as a as a DAC in the unified Improvement subcommittee what what data can you provide for us so that we can have a good study on that and Are there specific grades or specific topics that you would like us to look at okay Madam
004president members of the board I'm actually going to allow Miss Burke a chief academic officer answer that but just a very quick overview we are definitely focusing on math we are implementing an assessment strategy that is going to help us look at data in actual all grade levels or any great level I should say and and helping and supporting our teachers especially those who are focusing teaching math on a very specific about strategies to better support our students but I actually that was one of the days today we had a training for teachers and we're focusing on math with the Math teachers but Miss Burke can elaborate a little bit deeper into space thank you madam president Dr Arya Madam chair thank you for the question so one of the things that we're doing is
005really focusing on high quality tier one instruction we recognize the impacts of the panda pandemic has had on our Learners at all grade levels and we want to be able to meet that with high quality strong best first instruction we also recognize that there's opportunities for us to be able to continue with remedial services and interventions during the school day as well as after school during the school day we offer things at a variety of levels both in our grade span levels meaning elementary middle school high school so we still are continuing our contract with blueprint and the math fellow work that we have that is across two of our elementary schools that have the most significant needs at both of our middle schools and both of our high school campuses in addition to that
006we also just engaged in a contract with paper tutoring and so those services are going to be also offered during the school day as well as after school we also have interventions built in whether that's from St Math Alex for a variety of grade levels and so that helps with small group interventions that we run during the school day we try to do as much during the school day as we can because that's essentially where we have a bulk of our students so that we're not doing any competing priorities after school with any extracurricular activities and we recognize that the the student pool and impact that we have also becomes reduced because of those competing priorities whether it's extracurricular work based opportunities or family needs or those of the sort so we want to be
007able to impact them during the day but our highest Leverage is really the tier one instruction and making sure that's solid for all of our Learners across no matter their categories that they serve in and the interventions to help the remedial services and that helps with small group instruction and the interventions that are built into the day as well as the accelerated opportunities are we doing interventions at the high school also because what I've been reading is that it has affected the math learning to the point where when the student goes into high school they are ill prepared for a high school math classes so Madam president Madam chair thank you for the question yes we do have interventions going on during the school day at Adams City High School and at Lester Arnold those
008can be encompassing of the daily interventions that they have that are built into student schedules such as the math fellows and the class that they have to a math lab that students may experience during a core block of their day to having small group instruction where they may be working on Alex as an intervention platform they may also be working through unit recovery for credits and or assignments that they may be behind in as well as credit recovery opportunities our tutors are both in person and we have some that are doing Services remotely we also have Partnerships with um in addition to paper we just lost the name of it oh principal Garcia made looks to you not blueprints um the online one that is Alex uh Khan Academy was the other one what has
009some self-paced guided lessons for students and tutorials that they get to engage with to be able to help get a gain a deeper understanding of learning and so all of those options are available to our students okay so what what can Dak actually look at that would help facilitate some of this where Madam president Madam chair thank you for the question some of the pieces we would look at I would encourage us to look at the progress monitoring dashboard that we have between Adams 14 and tntp that helps to monitor the six major goals that we have established within our partnership one of those is around the growth and achievement of our students to be able to see how they're moving and how we're anticipating that they're going to perform on state Assessments in addition
010to us progress monitoring the interventions and really the high quality instruction to see how students are responding to the instruction they're receiving is really going to come out in the progress monitoring in that dashboard so I would encourage US during our uip subcommittee to be able to look at that platform our board members have access to that and we can also make it live for our DAC members in the subcommittee to be able to look at us well that would be fantastic thank you for that one of the other questions we had is where do we stand on teacher positions what where are we are we still using a lot of Subs institutes are we still hiring teachers are we having problems getting teachers Madam president members of the board I'm going to defer to
011Dr McKenna he is our chief for HR [Music] Madam president Madam chair thank you Dr Lauria so with the exception of two of our campuses our staffing actually really looks really well compared to other districts most of our positions other than at Central and Adams City Middle School are filled we have been working with them on contingency plans we just are pushing out you'll see it this week a new robust uh platform media campaign for both of those two schools to fill these last vacancies we've been working with our partner universities and letters have been sent to all of their graduates so and then we've been visiting these universities continually and we also have additional visits this coming week to staff up those two schools we have been very successful for the most part more
012now this last month than previously with utilizing our substitute ESS system uh and providing more support to the subs that we get in place are we where we need to be absolutely not but we are working hard and we're hoping this new initiative will gain some traction we also have several um big job job fairs that we're doing as standalones we are going to Puerto Rico in early December we've already started pushing uh word out to Puerto Rico we have interviews already lined up in Puerto Rico I it's very unfortunate that Puerto Rico is being devastated or as devastated but it is our opportunity to go in there and get high quality teachers both Dr Boughton and I have done a lot of work recruiting Puerto Rico teachers over the years Puerto Rican teachers with
013a lot of success and we already have applicants that are are signed up to interview with us thank you that's good information to know yeah that's great I would like to add um Dr McKenna it was really appreciative to receive the report I think um we got it in our weekly updates about the um like each School in each grade and where we stand with um hiring of Educators is there is it a lot of work to provide that update to us a little more frequently and then maybe include Doc in preparation for their meetings um Madam president not at all that's a running document we updated daily and constantly that is our blueprint of where we need to go and where we need to focus so not at all we can get that as
014often as anyone needs it thank you okay thank you the next question is do you have any questions for us or do you have any assignments for Doc this year that I can put down and we can start investigating either budget wise unified Improvement parent engagement and yes um that's a no-brainer I think yeah are there are there specific things or are there thoughts that you have that could help us evaluate how we can get more parents involved in what's going on in the schools Dak is going to be present at Adams City High School on Friday for their trick-or-treat event we're also going to Central Elementary uh because like everyone else we were having a very difficult time getting deck and Sac members any help the board can give us with that it would
015be greatly appreciated because we are a parent organization is a place for parents to come and have a voice in what's happening and I don't I I don't understand why the parents aren't you know the information isn't getting out there through the principles or through the schools or something because we we have more ESS staff the show up to DAC meetings the parents and we really need to get the parents on board so I'm making every effort that I can as the DAC chair to make sure that we are if I know about an event I will try to get back to that event so we can have a table and they created the district created us a fantastic flyer that is a recruiting flyer more than just an informational choir and I think it's
016fantastic so that's awesome um yeah I'll open it up for comments I know for me um I've noticed the same and and it is um required by law that we have Sac so um in our discussion later today when we talk about school assignments I um had mentioned during doc it might be helpful for the board to kind of push when we have our check-ins with our principals like where are we with Sac do you have one how many members are there how often do you meet um for me a big thing I'd like to push as well is um a universal calendar it's it's hard to keep up on everything and when it's happening um I know we're really lucky because we have that insight and we have Ramona to send us invites to
017when things are happening but nobody should have to dig for that information about when it's happening where it's happening um things like that yeah and I would uh just like to add that I think one of the strategies we can use is ask our parents right like what is it that's a barrier and coming into our schools and partnering with Dak and um you know I think that historically our education system in general hasn't done a really good job of um providing welcoming and safe environments for our families and so thinking about going back to kind of like the root causes and just asking our parents like what is it that is a barrier are we providing safe and welcoming environments as school leaders as teachers and then going from there on to okay now
018we can go ahead and attend different school events and promote what we're doing and things like that but I would I would say also partnering with our family and Community engagement personnel partnering with them and seeing if if possibly apparently liaison you mean apparently liaison's yeah um and to see how you guys can create some kind of a plan to um to engage more parents I too was going to mention that we do have a department right that that's their sole job is really to look at parent engagement and it would be really nice to probably invite them and have them meet with DEC and see what strategies they're working on and how you guys could partner together the other thing I would like to do and it's something I've requested in the past is
019to have an opportunity where now there's three of us but we can't tell three me at the same time but we're bilingual and we would love to meet and and have an all-spanish get-together with parents um I think it would be really nice to have a DAC meeting per se that's all in Spanish and invite Spanish speakers and have us there to be able to communicate with them directly I think that that would be very appealing because we've been asking for that for a while and I think that this is a good time to to start bringing people back and start explaining to them and in a way that they understand from us as to what's going on the state of the the district right now and how we can how they can help support
020us by attending the sex attending deck and participating in the schools a little bit more and how we can you know what should I say motivate others to participate because I think that's the problem for years and years people have been demotivated we know as parents at least I do for a while there I was demotivated I was not being motivated by any means as to why I would participate and what is I guess what is the end result and why would I give up two hours of my time on an evening after I worked two shifts to come here and do what right so we need to do a better job of coming up with a plan like Janet says let's go back to asking them what works for them and um how we
021can you know help and at least get those first ones initiated and going and have those conversations going I don't think that that would be too much I don't know might be too much for some of us but we will make it work um to be able to have we ever thought about going back to 2019 oh I remember those they started having Community meetings at the high school no not at the high school at every single school that's right they had these meetings that's right and I attended two of them one was at camp and one was at Kearney and they were listening meetings they were not telling you stuff they were for you to come to the meeting and give information to the district and they were well attended uh the one I
022went to at Kemp Elementary I remember it was done in Spanish I was an English speaker so I had to wear the device it was an eye-opening experience to hear interpretation in that manner and so I think uh Janet's director Janet's statement about meeting them where they are and speaking to them in their language is a crucial part of what we need to do but I think these listening meetings maybe we should look at maybe reinstalling those and we were supposed to do three meetings and we had one at each school and that's over and then started yes yes I remember and it was exciting to see people being so excited and talking about things and putting putting ideas up that they really want to see so just a suggestion and that's all the questions
023I have for you tonight too Lucy thank you so much miss Connie madam president of the deck it's uh always been an honor to serve with you all these years and I'm so happy to hear the um you care so much I really appreciate everything you've done up to now miss uh thank you miss Connie um I had a question I don't know who this goes to as far as because I was part of the doc and some of the things uh as a parent what one is we do need to build that trust maybe you know also time there's like we need to Value the time of our parents when we think of some of these sack Stacks I mean I remember the SEC when I was in high school and I was part
024of the student SAC at the student accountability committee at that time in my high school and some of these some of these ancient laws that you know the state in our education system don't apply to us anymore some of our parents work two to three jobs it's hard for us to get there sometimes um I don't know if it's a like in a lot of other committees that we are also non-profits uh we offer stipends to some of the parents to show up to Value their two hours there along with their dinner I don't know if that's a possibility or I don't know how it works through a district uh perhaps even offering some kind of stipend um to Value their time because some of these people like they're bringing they're coming with their children
025uh sometimes we have to come home and cook like Maria was saying coming from work just to uh and that would be one thing is uh that's listening to our our parents building that trust that has been broken for years um and I'm I really hope that I am honored really to sit here before you with this amazing board and this team to be able to bring these changes to our community so those are just my thoughts and I don't know who to ask about that if that is a possibility thank you thank you madam president members of the board um director Molina that's a great question I'm actually um following up as you know taking notes following up to um um with my key finance officer to see if there are any possibilities so
026we can come back to that uh there are very there are a lot of specifications in in constrictions on how we can spend some of the funds but uh we'll look into that because that's a great um a great idea we want to honor their input and their time and also as far as meetings if I may mind process and some of the comments Ms Connie was making about the meetings we already have some uh very well attended meetings that are starting to happen at Central Elementary through the community um the the Kobe schools model and so those are happening so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna connect miss Connie and the our director Mr Matias so that we can also combine those because as we look forward to expanding the community the Community
027Schools model to other schools the the goal is to to include their input the parent input into engagement in a genuine manner so we can start there so that we can bring back this this meetings happening at the schools but we we have that one already happening and they have several a month because it's through the work that we're doing to implement Community Schools um again thank you for your time tonight and I appreciate the opportunity and the fact that you're meeting with us quarterly that's fantastic we so appreciate Doc and appreciate all the work because aside from the meetings I know there's lots of external work that's being done so even if we look at Financial thing um like like an internet stipend or something just like various opportunities would be great um one
028thing I wanted to add too as we continue to rebuild trust and and rebuild a lot of the relationships that were broken um I I encourage us to work closely with the City of Commerce City because they've had a lot of um city-wide activities like the Fall Fest that just happened or they just celebrated their 70th Anniversary but just so we're on the front end of that and maybe we make sure we include Doc and that as well because thus our community they show up there and that's just another opportunity for us to do community outreach Mr Amador did you have any questions or comments okay great well thank you so much for um Coming Connie and and for all of your work and and providing those questions you're welcome um next on the agenda
029we have connected presentation um Dr Lydia are you doing that or okay yes Madam president members of the board thank you um today uh you're gonna hear from Mr Gary he was here two months ago maybe or three okay so yeah you've been here a couple of times already and um I I am very pleased to inform that we have had a lot of traction with the um with the work uh in to redesign how we are educating our students that was a charge that USA board um gave me and we have had a lot of traction there has been a lot of there have been a lot of meetings a lot of people involved so I'm gonna pass it on um as you can see here we also have um you know several members
030of the of the main group The Cadre group uh the ones who are making it happen and I'm gonna allow them to you know as they share to introduce themselves for the record and um and then just hear the great um the great things they have accomplished thus far so I'm again I'm very pleased with it and Mr Gary if you want to take it over or Sheila actually foreign there you go all right apologize for that so I'm joined by several of my colleagues specifically Dr Josh Cochran who's our assistant superintendent Mr Ron Ruby our director of Career and Technical education Mr Chris Garcia our principal at Adam City High School Mr Tom deguero or principal at Lester honorable high school and one of our academic Partners from connect ed Mr Gary halklander so
031he's the president of connect Ed and again we're here tonight to be able to provide you and our viewing audience with an update on the academy work we've been completing for our secondary program we're going to begin tonight with a presentation followed by a short video and then we're going to end with the questions and answer session our materials have been shared with you via board docs and we have prepared a folder with some of the handouts that we're going to be referencing during tonight's presentation so at this time I'd like to be able to turn our presentation over to Mr hoaglander from connect ed thank you so much Madam president members of the board Dr Lauria other colleagues I'm delighted to be with you this evening and I want to begin by also acknowledging
032my partner in doing this uh Miss Russell Weiss who has been with me throughout this journey that began now five months ago with an initial presentation to you and I also want to emphasize this sort of evident from who's here tonight this has been a team effort um that has engaged District leadership site leadership teachers community members so it and that's what it takes to do this work I we work with now we work in 11 states around the country with more than 30 school districts doing the kind of work that you're doing here and if there's one lesson that we've learned it takes a community to do this work you can't turn it over you can't turn it over to Ron or you can't turn it over to just Chris and Tom it takes
033everybody to to make this work and if I can make the clicker work [Laughter] which it doesn't seem to be there we go um I just want to set a little bit of context for what you will hear from all of us uh this evening the word Academy or the word pathway means lots of different things to different people when we presented to you initially in May we emphasized that the basic objective of creating four academies at Adam City making that accessible to Lester Arnold we'll talk a little bit more about that as the evening goes on um requires a comprehensive approach this Career and Technical education is a critical component of this work but this is much more than a career in technical education initiative it's really about transforming the high school experience for
034students at Adam City and at Leicester Arnold and so as we think about this work and the kinds of academies that you would like to create at Adam City and at Lester Arnold keep these four core components in mind and like you know they don't think the clickers working there we go uh so are you going to just advance okay thank you um so the first component of each Academy is the core academics um the math the science the English the social studies the World Language and here's the hard part taught differently much more emphasis on real world application performance assessment project-based learning easy to say hard to do the second component is a cluster or sequence of Career and Technical education let's talk about that there we go usually at least three preferably four
035courses in a cluster in a sequence in information technology in Engineering in architecture and construction so that students can take up to at least one Career and Technical education course each of their four years in high school thank you um and that cluster or that sequence is aligned with the core academics all of this is organized around a major industry theme like Health Professions and the the objective is to create a really coherent experience in each of these four academies that aligns and integrates the core academics with the Career and Technical education that is surrounded by a third component which is a Continuum of work based learning many people think of work-based learning in terms of internships that's an important component of work based learning but we like to emphasize building a Continuum of experience
036starting with mentoring or job shadowing in ninth grade evolving into internships paid or unpaid preferably paid as well as school-based Enterprise so that students have access to a range of work-based learning experiences that really culminate with an internship in their junior or senior year the fourth component is personalized student supports so attention to College and Career counseling the social emotional needs of young people and ideally accelerated instruction in Reading Writing and Mathematics we already heard this evening the challenges that we have in front of us You Are Not Alone every District every school in the country is struggling with this issue and if we don't provide accelerated instruction we're setting students up to fail so as we talk to with you tonight about the way the academy effort is evolving please keep these four core
037components in mind and approach it as a comprehensive approach to creating a really different experience for high school students at both Adams City and at Lester Arnold so as Dr Laria indicated we have been very busy since we first met with you in May my colleague Rocio and I have probably been here at least once a month if sometimes twice a month over the last five months and this is a quick summary of what we have been doing over that period we started by visiting each of the schools we visited Adam City we visited Lester Arnold and we visited two of the middle schools as well um we conducted a series of stakeholder focus groups we did a focus group with students uh fascinating the way they perceive uh and this was both Adam City
038and Lester Arnold students together we conducted a focus group with two focus groups with parents with Educators we met with post-secondary Partners Front Range Community College and then the community Advisory Group which included employers met in July one of the first things that we began to do and you'll hear more about this from Ron Ruby in a little bit is to work with the district and the school sites to begin to develop what we call a graduate profile um this is what do you want students to know and be able to do when they graduate from Adams 14. that is the North Star for Designing these academies and programs of study that will be offered to students if we don't know what we want students to know and be able to do how can we
039design a really effective and important High School experience and program study and Ron will have a lot more to say about that uh we did some labor market analysis to look at what are the kinds of jobs uh openings and where are the growth sectors uh in the Denver region um we looked at data that had been collected from the community about Community priorities for the kinds of pathway themes that they would like to see be part of Adam's City and Lester Arnold we did orientations at each of the schools and then we would meet monthly with the district leadership team many of the people around this table and began working with them to help build the district systems and policies that will be necessary to support this work we conducted four pathway or Academy
040design institutes four hours each with a group of District leaders site leaders and teachers to help engage them in the selection of the pathway themes and the design of programs of study uh you'll hear again from Chris and from Tom where we are in developing uh pathway themes for Adam City and for Lester Arnold we've been conducting a series of site leadership teams um primarily right now at Adams City but that will also begin to take place at Lester Arnold and then finally we're beginning to address some of the master scheduling issues that will be necessary to support this work I think you all know how important the master schedule is to making it possible for teachers to have common planning time for students to be able to move through their classes together again that's
041something that's easy to say it's not so easy to do so I'm going to turn this over to um oh Tom's going to do this oh I'm sorry I thought this was going to be run my apologies Tom um so as I said we spent a lot of our early effort um helping to design a graduate profile this is a work in progress I think the goal tonight is to share it with you to begin to get some feedback but it's by no means a a finished profile but some great work and I Tom's going to present it I have to give credit to Ron uh he he really has helped spearhead this and facilitate it it's not that he didn't do it on his own but he has heard it all of our cats
042as we have uh put this together so with that Tom I'm going to turn it over to you thank you very much come on good evening Madam president Lovato distinguished members of the board and superintendent Dr Lauria my name is Tom diguero I serve as a proud principal of West Arnold High School The Graduate profile serves as the goal we are collectively working towards and what will be true when students earn their high school diploma from our district The Graduate profile was first developed within the connected District leadership team the team consisted of several Adams 14 academic teen staff members Gary and Rocio from connect ed Mr Garcia and myself as a team we reviewed graduate profiles from schools across the United States the team provided input and a draft profile draft graduate profile was
043created the first iteration was then shared with the connected District leadership team as well as the academy design team where we collected feedback and this will continue through several drafts currently a survey has been distributed to parents community members and staff to gather further input in our efforts to provide a final draft of the Adams 14 graduate profile and what will be true when a graduate earns their high school diploma on the next three slides you'll find the six areas that were team identified in the profile these include critical thinker creative and innovative communicator collaborator culturally competent and career prepared each of the six named categories have bullets describing the traits each graduate will possess when they earn their diploma we have included a hard copy of the Adams 14 graduate profile in your folder
044for your reference good evening Madam president Lovato distinguished members of the board and superintendent Maria I'm Chris Garcia and I serve as the principal of Adams City High School the academy themes that we're sharing tonight came from extensive work by our Academy design team and they were completed during approximately 16 hours of work led by our partners from connected the academy design team is composed of teachers counselors administrators from Western Earl high school and Adam City High School in addition we had District administration Mr mingleton our board members and from ms-14 Foundation Mr mingleton from Madness 14 Foundation who served on the team the academy design team utilized data from three sources When developing the academy themes our working teams reviewed input from the original Bond work that built MCD High School the community's voice
045was important in our work and we felt it was important to incorporate their voice both past and present we also surveyed our current middle school students current freshmen to determine their future career interests finally we considered current and projected industry Trends and Market data knowing that we needed to design focused academies that would lead our students to Quality post-secondary options and the input from the sources just named We propose the following themes Health Professions in human services architecture construction engineering and design business hospitality and tourism digital information and Technology and big picture at Lester Arnold High School currently a survey has been distributed to parents community members and staff to gather further input in our efforts to provide a final draft of the themes and programs of study for consideration good evening Madam president lavada
046distinguished members of the board superintendent Olivia I am Ron Ruby director of Courier Tech education the academy design committee uh has begun preliminary work on the programs of study we will move forward once we have reviewed the input from our stakeholders in the survey and make modifications based on those suggestions Mr Garcia and Mr de Guero will provide an overview of the proposed programs of study for Adams 14 and how students from Lester Arnold high school and Adam City High School will be served Mr Garcia students will self-select one of four academies at Adams City High School within each Academy they'll choose a strand to focus their learning students in each Academy will have the opportunity to earn concurrent enrollment credit industry credentials and participate in work-based learning the current proposed strands for each Academy
047are in health and professions and Human Services careers and health services and Human Services and teacher prep architecture construction engineering and design we'll have p-tech architecture construction and engineering business hospitality and tourism will have business and a strand for hospitality and tourism digital information and Technology we'll have coding and digital media I want to take a moment to share some opportunities we are problem solving as we move forward those include facilities and space as well as strengthening our partnership with Lester Arnold High School Mr Aguero Lester Arnold high school students will have the opportunity to participate in the academies located at Adam City High School and efforts will be made to schedule Career and Technical education courses so students can earn industry credentials we're also exploring a model referred to as big picture for Lester
048Arnold students big picture focuses on developing 21st century skills such as creativity collaboration communication planning and goal setting each student has an individual learning plan that is tailored to their needs interests and passions student learning focuses on the individual strengths interests and involves increased internships with real life application and relevance We are continuing to engage and explore this model and how it will complement the academy work as well as work within the structure of Lester Holland High School so we still have a lot to do the work is not finished by any stretch we need to in terms of some of the next steps that are on our plate we need to finalize the graduate profile which we hope to be able to do in the next month or two uh we need to finalize
049the academy implementation plan we will be looking at how to adapt the master schedule particularly with respect to the freshman year next year but also looking out over the next three years we need to share this plan with key stakeholders and continue to get input from parents from students from employers from post-secondary institutions the full range of community stakeholders we need to finalize the ninth grade program of study what is it that students will be experiencing in ninth grade of next year develop a Communications plan for reaching out to to parents and to students we need to determine the professional development needs that will be necessary to help teachers counselors site leaders District leaders implement this work at Adams City in Western Arnold you know this is a heavy lift it doesn't it doesn't get
050done easily it's going to require building the capacity of academic teachers for example to connect their discipline to real world application in the industry themes that are the focus of each Academy it's going to require building the capacity of both academic teachers and Career and Technical education teachers to align curriculum and integrate curriculum and eventually not immediately engage in cross-disciplinary project-based learning um that's that is a large challenge so we'll be working at both of the schools to identify what those professional needs are what the priorities are for beginning to address them and then we will continue to meet monthly with the district leadership team and the site leadership team at each School finally this is our timeline for the work so we began in May and through August we worked at pre-planning data collection
051designed our advisory teams and preparation for the design team work in August and September we created that graduate profile that is in the draft I think 5.0 is the version of it now and uh created the academy theme and programs of study those are also in draft form but we like to have a visual for people so that they can see get an idea of what what it looks like in October we're seeking constituent feedback both from surveys presenting to you and getting feedback from our board and getting information back from those constituents our work through November and December will be Analyze That feedback and adjust as necessary so that we can get things approved so we can start working hard to get things moving forward because between January and July we'll have to build
052our academies do the program planning design the master schedule and provide the staff development needed to be able to execute it so that we can launch the ninth grade academies next fall in August so we'd like to close by sharing with you a video when connected started doing this work in 2008 one of the first schools that we began working with was construction Technology Academy on the Kearney complex in San Diego and there was a remarkable young student you're going to hear and see her in just a moment named Anna sequel uh we have followed her from her initial years at construction Technology Academy in um at Kearney High through college and into career and what she's doing now and it's a fascinating story so let's play it [Music] my name is Anna sacall and
053I graduated high school in 2008 I went to Kearney Heights construction Tech Academy before I went to construction Tech Academy I did already like school my parents really were never kind of fair wandering if we went to school or not ninth grade started in my Traditional School and I didn't go for like two months until like somebody called my mom and then I started going family problems happened and I ended up leaving so it's like I dropped out twice why do we need to learn this that was always my question that's why I didn't bother and I could they're actually showing us that we're gonna need these skills when we get to the real world so they're trying to prepare us for not just college but like preparing us for Life After High School what
054is the material that you're using about what do you use them for because like you can like lighting so you don't like stomach so it's just me I know but I mean when you actually should just be able to build it thank you right now I'm in my last semester of college so I'm here at San Diego State University in the JRP laws construction and Engineering Management program a construction site Academy was different from your Traditional High School because they have architectural construction engineering integrated into all the courses the first day that I started CTA the counselor said hey if you're going to be here you have to be here every day you have to do your work and turn it in construction psych Academy prepared me for college because we have you know we
055have to follow those requirements a through G requirements but they also have advisory projects where each year for one advisory project like they would show us different career Pathways so you can go to college or you can go to apprenticeship or you go military like they expose you the reason I really wanted to do it is because one day we had a job shadow I had to follow a lady for San Diego City schools and she was a project manager she just motivated me she gave me that drive we had a lot of group presentations so we had to work as a team so we learned how to work as in a team environment so now that I'm an SDSU that's nothing to me I know how to work with the team I know how
056to be a leader how to take charge and you know assign tasks like I learned that in high school so is that how much money they're gonna give us to pay for the solar or no they're going to give us 50 cents per kilowatt of production I'll be graduating in May 19th so we have two more weeks left kind of of school and finals I got an offer from the University of mechanical so I'm going to start working with them I'll be using red and narcad which I learned in construction Tech Academy so I'll be putting those skills that I learned there to use saying oh something got bigger than that means okay yes when I was 14 or 15 years old and I did not think I would be working here when I was
05715 years old I was working at Jack In The Box and that's where I thought I was going to end up because after my parents worked and that's where the rest of my family worked construction doesn't just mean having trouble thinking dirt you could be a carpenter you can be a painter you could be a sheep and a worker you could be a plumber you can be an engineer there's all kinds of Engineers so you could be a project manager you can you can start from the bottom and actually own your company one day I really love what I'm doing now and I can help others that's really important to me I think mentoring is really important because if it wasn't for people mentoring me I would have probably not gotten into this field Amanda
058Camp stands for mentoring of their own construction and this is a summer camp that is a week long that occurs at CTA May wig which is the National Association of women in construction they host this camp for the girls yeah yeah we're gonna go all the way around I've been part of it since 2008 when I grew up when I graduated the first year you know I was an apprentice the second year we built something and now I'm like the project manager so I supervise the girls and make sure that they're working safely foreign it's it's really fun to watch them out there I I love mentoring and I love watching the girls grow and every year I learn something new I'm very excited um for my future I think finally I have a place
059where I belong sometimes you don't know where life's gonna take you or what you're gonna do but you always have to keep trying to accomplish anything you have to keep keep moving so that's one of the things that I've learned there's so many things out there that you don't know and the best thing that you can do is learn [Music] so just two other things about Adam she was valedictorian she went from having dropped out twice to being the valedictorian at construction Technology Academy when she graduated her mother and her sisters were homeless living out of their car on the Streets of San Diego this summer after she graduated but she had a full scholarship from San Diego State and she went on and persevered in construction management and this is who she is and
060what she's doing today [Applause] members of the board um you know this happened this just one story happened several years ago and uh we get emotional with it um because this is um these are our students and and it is personal it is personal um so the goal for today we're going to open up the mics for you to give us any feedback um to reflect back on the charge that was given to me as your superintendent to start the work redesigning how we are educating our students how we engage them how we prepare them for the future for the demands that they will face um some in a few years some others you know in 10 years or 12 years but is this um something that when you when you said you know let's
061redesign is this what you were envisioning um I made sure that the team was always seeking out for the community one thing I I do want to clarify this is not my little projects the superintendent's little project or Dr lauria's little project this is the communities project this is the product of the feedback from the community from the students from the parents from the businesses we still have work to do going back out to them in in um bringing the the details to to this work but this is an opportunity for us to hear from you uh your direction your vision uh any any suggestions recommendations so that we can continue the work you heard in the timeline it is an aggressive timeline um it's almost like we only have aggressive timelines here um you
062know redesigning in one year uh Central in one year um you know it's uh but it's long overdue for our students and my my goal as a superintendent is you know whenever uh you know the time that I am here because I'm here at your pleasure uh but how long I am here the moment that I leave there are structures in place that belong to the community not not to a superintendent who will leave and then you know things go with with the superintendents so that has been part of my message and they have heard loud and clear over and over from me what is the community looking for you know and how we're going to build because when it is I built bottom up it is a much stronger structure for students in the
063sustainability will be much much better so I'm going to pass it on to you and um you know we're going to be taking notes thank you so much for the great presentation everyone uh colleagues and a couple questions comments you're going live yes again wow I I I'm sorry I I wasn't here when all this was going on but thank you um I uh I think it's I I used to run a music program I'm I would like to see also our artists music I don't know if we uh I was part also the cultural Council here in Commerce City we have a lot of wonderful we have Norberto Garden is a fashion designer uh New York I mean we have a lot of artists here musicians um also uh we live in one of
064the most polluted cities in our nation one of my concerns has always been a just transition for my community sustainability teaching our students about climate change and how we're going to transition no matter what it's going to happen and I do not want to see our community left behind I also know that there was a 500 billion dollar infrastructure bill that went through right from our current Administration and how some of that funding could be you know directed to our districts and our cities and our communities to start bringing some like sustainability programs to protect start protecting our community also another thing I was uh regenerative agriculture uh you know when you when I think of my city like there's a lot of farming definitely that was awesome because my family runs a roofing company
065my daughter my son our roofers they have to learn how to roof um I don't I don't know how to read them it's the but also um so the the project man that that is very Commerce City um but also there's also a lot of farmers and immigrants right so um I see other uh schools or programs coming up north bringing regenerative agriculture also protecting our community and our environment so I don't know if some of that those are some ideas that I would like to see brought in the future to this community thank you thank you and answer as they come or to listen to all the questions and then maybe just summarize yeah maybe listen and make sure um yeah yeah thank you Sylvia did you thank you sure I seem to be
066shrinking all the time because I can't reach I think it's me um anyways um thank you for the presentation and as a long time Community member and part of the group that was very excited about the academies when they were first presented I don't know what 2008 2009 um it's been a long time that we've been waiting for this in this community uh I guess my question would be more so as to how you finally came up with the um the career themed academies because I know in the beginning there was still a lot of conversation as to which ones they could be considering that we've had some um you know lots of suggestions as to what they would be so I'm just curious as to how we've landed or ended up with these ones
067versus some of the others that were presented or the ideas that were given and and are they set in stone or is there an opportunity later on for them to uh you know to or for them to be adjusted to something different depending on what the community feels is the need at that point in time so like Dr Lauria says the foundation will be created it'll be continuous but then you know the board's not going to remain the same and neither is the leadership will that be something that you know future folks may want to change to something different so that's one of them the other one I just am interested in finding out how if there's going to be like placements um or a placement test of some kind for some of our for
068all our especially our linguistically gifted students because I've said this before they already have skills like critical thinking skills they are already creative and Innovative they already are good communicators as I said before if you're interpreting for a parent and you're in an elementary school-aged child you have these skills down what can we do to help them grow them and help them be excited about it and not feel like once again you know they're just following the Motions but that was the whole point of having Hands-On project-based learning is for them to be excited about it and then noticing also that um and and this is more of a general observation I would love to see how uh the board goals and the six priorities or goals that pnpp have um and as well as
069um what these projects have how they all intersect because we want to make sure that everything is weaved together and that people don't see them as separate because um once you start visually them as separate people will start questioning so why are you doing this if it's not really connected to XYZ so if if that makes sense it would be nice to have that and then um the the big picture piece for Lester Arnold uh I just um am interested because of the fact that Lester Arnold is such a small space school there's just not enough space in there um for the kids we have now to have lunch to begin with so um how realistic is it going to be for us to be able to provide some of these um wonderful things in
070such a small space and with that the question is still out there as to whether the parent group that we had talked about last year is meeting to really come up with a plan on how we would be able to someday hopefully be able to have Lester Arnold have a bigger space and do that switch over and so I know that that was on a on a to-do list for this year to have those conversations between hence and Monaco and Lester Arnold parents and because the reality is we need the space for these students and if we want equitable opportunities for Western Arnold students we need to provide them with the space to be able to do that so that's where I'm at and then teacher Cadet program I know if penica I think it
071was mentioned but it was very minimal so I just want to make sure that that is still on as that was something that we had talked about growing our own and how we can really incentivize and motivate our kids to become teachers and hopefully we'll not have this crisis of teachers or the lack of teachers in this community so that is part of what I had on there as and my last one is my last one is the PD for staff because you know once again it's great to have these academies but they come with certain skill sets and right now we're having a hard time filling positions as we've heard before so how are we going to work with community members to actually help us create an Avenue for some of our businesses that
072have been doing this for a long time how can they help in a way that's different you know like having some of their top employees come and you know help us get some of these things off the ground I think that that is important and it's a good way to include community and build those relationships again especially if these are the businesses that will be waiting to hire some of our students so I want to make sure that there's a a way for a community to help support and more than just giving us feedback and filling out surveys if only the last one for you thank you for all the work that's gone into this I think one of the I guess um one of the things that I noticed was or that I would
073like to see I guess um in The Graduate profile is more um of a social justice lens and ensuring that our students see their identities within this I see the culturally competent has one bullet point that says act as a change agents with that within their Community um I don't know that all of our students understand our history in the American education system and so having this bullet point in there acting as change agents without telling them what they're trying to change kind of seems um unintentional and so I would like to see something woven into this graduate profile expanding on that bullet point and ensuring that our students know their identities are proud of who they are where they come from and I don't know if that falls into the culturally competent um indicator
074or maybe critical thinker but really thinking about um their place in society and how they can impact Global change um so that's one of the things I wanted to talk about the other thing I wanted to bring up was just um you know there's not an easy answer and I'm and I sure don't have the answer to this but I think our excellent superintendent might be able to to pull this off but just looking at the um the academies and then seeing Lester Arnold on the graph on you know one of its own columns I'm just thinking about if I was a parent and one of my students made one mistake maybe two we're all human right but then they're being placed at Lester Arnold and then I'm thinking you know if I'm a parent
075my student might not have the same opportunities to attend some of these universities however we want to paint the picture um same thing and also if I'm a student at Lester Arnold I might see it as I don't belong in these spaces I'm I mean our students that go to Alternative High Schools already are othered and so um again it's not an easy answer I don't know what the answer is but I would like to see some kind of change where if Lester Arnold is in Adams city um or you know I I don't know what the answer is but um you know I taught at a pathway school I I it's just very challenging and seeing them othered all the time and not given the same opportunities we can say that they're the same
076opportunities we can do busing we can do this and we can do that but if it's not um I mean there are subtle differences that our kids pick up on and so I I don't know what the answer is here but I would just like to see somehow this kind of Shifting or morphing into every single student at Lester Arnold is in one of these academies yeah and then the other only thing that I was looking at was the timeline you're getting considerate feedback right now in October once you analyze the feedback and I'm not sure if you're going to have more think tanks of parents or staff members or things like that but before you start building the academies I think it would be ideal for the board to get another glimpse of okay
077what was adjusted um before the building of the academy start because again if we're going to be held accountable as elected officials to make these types of decisions we would like to see like what shifts were made um and what else let me see um I think that's it for now um the only um word and I hate to be picky about it but it's it's the cultural competency piece that has driven me insane for a while because there is no way that I could be competent in somebody else's culture so whenever it's put in that format it makes it very I don't know difficult to to say and and to set it as an expectation it's even worse so um I don't know if there's just it's wordsmithing a little bit um but I
078just I have a hard time with that and Latin X by the way just so you guys James did you I'll let you go last um so I like the coding and everything you have and I think when we talked in May the reason that we only have four of these um is because of the space and the student capacity for each one so I think like like I understand you know if you want to change them but some of the stuff that you're proud of about agriculture and stuff would be in engineering you could see him in here and I think sitting through some of the stuff that I sat through this weekend for one of the meetings um with the The Graduate profile we could word some stuff different I think I like
079to put it find something that fits our community right like Adam City graduate profile like come up with something that fits the community like we we know what our kids are like come up with something that will fit them and make them feel needed like I think we looked at uh I I think she was sitting with me with one for Durango and they made it about Durango like what the Durango culture is there and kind of made it and looking at those and not having to have so many bullet points but picking some key things in here and making it you know putting the bullet points under it but making like a key component of saying you know you want them to do this and then have a couple bullet points like you know
080critical thinker yeah we have bullet points but like let's make it more detailed for them especially for our kids and you know I that would be for more for me like I understand the the concept of the four because of the amount of kids that we have from what we talked about before and how many we need there and I think getting it the information from the kids the kids are telling you what they want you know this is what they're seeing you know and so I think that part of it listening to some of us we may want something different but also the kids are the ones that are going to be taking these classes and I know doing like our our teams and being at the middle schools and talking to them these
081fit what those kids want and you know being at all the Parent-Teacher conferences and talking to parents and their kids this is the feedback we're getting which is kind of interesting like you said to be out there and kind of in the public I think you know sitting in some of those conferences and talking to those parents and those kids and seeing them and listening to them you'll see where some of these are coming from because this is what we're getting and that like I said I think it's a great presentation I think there's some stuff we can work on with a graduate profile and a couple of the other things if you want to add like a bullet point under there that would fit maybe a little bit different but that that's what I
082would do you're not it feels weird going last um a couple of things stuck out for me um I I would really like to see um not really equal but um integration of career and college readiness because I think we're we're missing that component where it was mentioned a few times but it seems like this is more career focused and I just want to make sure as director Zubia said we're honoring the board goals where we want to open up every possibility every opportunity for our students um the other thing that really resonated with me is the aggressive timeline my my head automatically goes to the operational side of things so even just the mention of project-based learning we're changing the way things are taught what is being taught how the students are going to
083be evaluated um and so while the timeline is aggressive I would like to give the board that opportunity to dig in and see almost like a proforma which I know you know will come along the way as we dig into this but um like okay we're we're starting a Health Sciences and Human Services Academy so we're gonna need somebody that's knowledgeable to um work on the professional development for that and I don't know that we have the capacity in our current status um the same with like if we're talking about how things are going to be taught on top of the teacher PD there's going to be curriculum implications and then just the way we're assessing students um throughout that it it drastically changes with um project-based learning and I think we need to dial
084in on those things to make it specific as we're developing them because while the academies have different themes I think we need to be very strategic in the way things are handled um especially um you had mentioned um College and Career counseling that's an area that's been heavily asked for by our students and and I think we need to bulk it up in addition to the academy so to me that's like a whole other operational unit and how do we get there and what are the resources that the Board needs to ensure are in place um the other wondering and and maybe we'll get into it more but with the development of the Academies um and you guys have done this many times before is it better to start with with such a narrow Focus
085versus um saying like Health and Human Services and then building it building the individual areas of focus in each School versus like focusing on just these two strands or is that the way this program is typically developed like do we start small and then change it if that makes sense um and yeah I think um for me The Graduate profile was great but I would like to see us integrate that into not only career Readiness but college readiness so when we're talking about critical thinking and um culturally competent I put Global competency because it's not really culture it's how the world Works um and just how we we ensure that we're equally integrating that with College and Career Preparatory stuff that we do because again like to me when we see this it's going to
086have future implication that's going to have curriculum and potent implementation and all along we're going to have to ensure that not only does it align to the standards for the kids or our students currently in school it's going to have to prepare them for any college program that they're wishing to enter or any career that they're wishing to enter so Props to you all because I can't even imagine how you're wrapping your head around this but those are just a few things that jumped out at me sorry and I know it's fantastic thank you so we're taking notes and I already shared a document with them so we can be compiling all um the questions so we do have um some answers because some of the questions are easy to be answered some others will
087require uh more uh more time or or I guess where I'm taking this as feedback so that in our next presentation we are making sure that we're including um the things that you did not hear sometimes we already have them but if you didn't hear it's because we have not you know share them um or or we fail to to share them today so um I'm gonna pass it on to um to Sheila I know as we're looking at the list there are some already that we think and I think will be appropriate to answer right now um I know Mr mccanna will be sharing a little bit of the academy the teacher Cadet program because we have been talking about these things how did we land here basically the first questions that we talked
088about I think that will answer some of the questions also from director Molina around uh you know bringing other themes in here how basically what I heard is how did we land here how did we get here um and we we've had this conversation so I will pass it on to Miss Sheila we can start um addressing some of these questions some of them are for a longer um not for today I guess uh like um including uh some of the things or changing the profile to make a little bit more Commerce City friendly um in in that it's aligned to our students so that's feedback that we will take um in just as in anticipation uh what I would propose is the the comments or the questions that we are not able to respond
089today I would like to bring the team back on the December board meeting uh so during my updates I can I can bring an attempt responding desk because not all of them I can tell you we're not going to be able to respond to all of them and not because we have not thought about them it's because we have to go back and tweak some of the documents to bring back so to get additional feedback so does that make sense would that work with you yeah so please Burke Madam president Lovato distinguished members of the board we appreciate your feedback and inputs and the opportunity to be able to share this evening some of the work we're doing I want to share a little bit around how we got here and then I'm going to
090rely on some of my team members with the details of some of the questions that you had on slide three of your your PowerPoint presentation we started to talk briefly around that as as Gary was mentioning some of the data in labor market interest that we were looking at right in addition to the student survey so we surveyed the landscape of what we currently have within the pathways and academies at Adam City High School we started with going back to the community to see around the bond that helped to build that building to say is this something that the community still desires or are you looking for us to be able to move into another Direction what they confirmed in those surveys and through those focus groups is that they wanted us to be able
091to continue with the Academy's work then we went out to study the labor market so that we are helping our students to be able to move into career fields that are going to be of desire and that they're going to have advancements into we still want to be able to provide opportunities where there may not necessarily be a gap such as Healthcare as a desired profession such as mental health right is the desired profession cyber security I.T those are all desired professions that we don't necessarily have enough graduates at the college level going into those career Fields so we study the labor market to be able to determine what are some of the pathways that we have in addition to what are our students interests not only from our current high school students but also
092from those in the middle school that are going to be moving up into the academies because remember this work is going to be built out over several years so we studied all of those pieces to be able to land at where we're at right now and collectively that body of evidence helped us to determine where the pathways are from there we started to go through what are the highest leverage opportunities what are the certifications what do the industry Partners have locally that we have access to and what are the higher ed agencies that we have access to what are some of the opportunities we have and that's where director CTE comes in to be able to help with those in addition to other components when we were doing this work I was a music art
093guy myself right so it bothered me a little bit like how are we going to do everything everybody wants and you know in reality that's not possible so we do have some things in place though so we can still meet the needs of our students and their desires so there are going to still be electives that live outside the academies and one of the things that helped me um wrap my brain around it I guess is a good way to say it is I I instead of thinking of if I'm in the Academy of business and Hospitality that means that my career in life is going to be in business that may not be true that may be my interest now as a 14 year old or going through high school but the reality is
094that when I get to college or after high school I may choose to do something in Health Sciences does it hinder me because I was in the business no because what happens is that the students still can make choices After High School that lead them to the career path they best want this does not mean this is their career as well it's a way of learning is how I'm looking at it all of the things we're going to learn in the Academy of Health Sciences is going to be tied to Global issues that we can bring back to home because Global issues are problems right here in Commerce City as well so if we can look at those global issues and solve them through a lens of Health Sciences that will help students their learning
095is going to be much greater than the way we're separating all the content now the other thing that um is close to my heart is that we prepare students for doing something outside of high school that can lead them to better their lives not just them but their families as well so I go through the Health Science Academy and I get my credential in phlebotomy when I go to college I can use that to have a part-time job where I'm making money uh much more accelerated than I would if I worked at Jack In The Box like our it was in the video so regardless of the academy they're in it's helping prepare students just for better opportunities the one thing I did want to share was um we fought uh debated that's a good
096word a lot about the um graduate profile and there's still a lot of work that has to be done there we we agree with that that's why we're seeking input and language does matter so the part about College and Career we toss this around quite a bit and what we decided in the end is college leads to a career right so it may or may not depending on the path you want to take so if the end goal is career colleges what we're going to work to get you there if that's what it needs to be or it might be a credential or it might be a different pathway so that is just why we didn't put College there because there's students that don't want to go to college and we didn't want to leave
097them out in that as well so maybe there's something we can still do with language to make it more inclusive so we appreciate all that feedback so I hope those things answered a lot of those questions because we're not leaving them out we're just not at that point yet is that thank you a couple other items that popped up were around the board goals so I'm going to circle back to that one but we also talked about some of the logistical pieces so I'm going to turn it over to Gary to really talk about are these Pathways set in stone in the process to be able to adjust those as the labor markets change as student interests change right what is the process in there because it becomes fluid and the approach is still problem
098problem-based Project based in there but the concepts that we're studying around that may evolve so I'm going to turn over to Gary to talk about that and the placement for students as well as some of the PD and their from his experiences of doing this with other districts thank you let me preface this with the College and Career issue for just a moment the reason we think it's so important to design an academy comprehensively to include the academic core as well as the Career and Technical education integrated work based learning student supports is this is about preparing students for both College and Career no longer one or the other the word College gets me into trouble I'll be the first to admit it um I mean four-year College I mean two-year College I mean apprenticeship
099where that's appropriate I mean formal employment training I mean the full range of post-secondary options uh and making that possible and accessible for all students this is about all students there are no entrance exams and I I can't speak for my colleagues but if if we go there uh I'm gonna fight hard to avoid that this this has to work for every student um and you're absolutely right I mean students are going to bring all kinds of different assets to this work and if we do this right each Academy is a place for them to really exhibit the assets and the competencies that they bring to this work so I that you can be sure that I'm gonna and I and I actually I know my colleagues are in the same place so not to
100worry um so when I was in graduate school one of my advisors one day said to me you know um Mr hoaglander the problem with you is that our parameters are your variables so nothing is set in stone now that doesn't mean that anything goes um and part of this process over the next three four five this is going to be a five year process um is adapting as we learn what's working and what's not working we may find despite all of the the work that we've tried to do to get student input you know some of these strands may not turn out to be the ones that they want and we'll have to figure that out what and and again even the pathway themes at this point I think are still open to to
101modification my caution would be keep them broad enough so that they can uh adapt so for example um agriculture um there's hospitality and tourism uh you couldn't pay you you could begin to think about how agriculture could get integrated into the hospitality and tourism strand um the uh the Visual and Performing Arts there are opportunities to expand the digital media Strand and the information technology so what as long as you can sort of keep the academy theme broad enough to allow you to make adjustments as we learn more about how well this is working for students how well it's working for teachers um then yes you can make modifications along the way I would you know I guess the last thing I would say on that is um so people I'll put it this way
102so people often ask well can students change academies we get that question all the time and the answer is yes but usually not for at least a year give it a year and then if you really want to change you can change what we find is that most don't but some do um and I would suggest the same sort of approach to the academy framework let's give it a year and at the end of the year let's assess okay what's working what's not what do we need to change but give it time uh to develop and for us to learn how to make it better Madam president distinguished members of the board is around the PD for his staff and then I'll come back to the six major goals so this week Dr Lydia and
103I are going to be meeting with um senior staff from tntp to start to look at the work that we've accomplished in first quarter what does that look like in second quarter what do we need in second semester and then moving into next school year this conversation is going to tie into professional learning both for the Academy's work that we're building because tntp has been supporting and leading our RPD and so we want to be able to help incorporate our work here from our partners with connect Ed and our teams that we have leading the Academy's work and so we're going to start to draw the plan around that looks like as we're in a place to be able to have more of a complete structure to start to build those out so that our
104staff is prepared to be able to implement this model as you notice our timeline is aggressive right so we're going to be working on that in there and so when we come back both in November under Dr Ria's superintendent's update we will have that in November's meeting and again in December uh in that as we start to build out our strategic plan work and that also happens this coming Thursday and Friday uh part of that is to be able to align all of the work across the district that we have in any Department area specifically in academics to the board's goals that we have the four major goals that you've established and the six major goals that we have with our partnership between Adams 14 and tntp so every piece of our work should be
105able to be drawn back to those and if it's not then we have to come back to say is this something we should be focusing our time and energy into thank you Miss Burke and I just want to clarify your four major goals are our goals are aligned to your major goals your major goals as far as the vision is not that you have year four we have our six and then we're gonna add six more in there and it's going to be a million goals uh and when you focus on 12 things all of the sudden nothing is important anymore so um our main goal is to um to ensure that our students receive a high quality education they their experience is different they're um they leave uh prepared for the challenges they're gonna
106find and that is our main goal we're here to ensure students in um and our our students I was going to say our teachers they also learn but it's our students learning what they need to learn and be ready and for that we're working with our teachers we're working with our neighbors we're working with the businesses I wanted to allow Dr McKenna to share a little bit about the teacher Cadet because that is part of how you know as part of your vision and ensuring that we have adequate teachers and other great staff part of that is building our own and we have been working on on setting up structures to support and systems that will support that we actually talked about where would that go into one of these academies if we have students
107interested because we know we have where would that go and that is actually to um Gary's point on making it making this academies broad enough so that we can actually adapt to the needs and the wants of our students um but you know and not to put the ties in our on our own hands um when we thought about the Health Sciences and Human Services um originally we were talking about or thinking I was thinking about medical Sciences right so doctor nurses and actually I use that as an example before but then we're like I imported myself in a little bucket here it has to do only with the Health Sciences but when we include Human Services so much more is in there even you know so many all the community members basically can be
108in this Academy so that includes fire workers that includes First Responders and includes teachers social workers so many more so uh what we heard from Ron rather than putting them in little buckets were open opening The Horizon so that students see you know health or or um Human Services is so much more than just being a nurse or being a doctor it's so much more than that so um Dr McKenna if you uh may share a little bit of the ideas uh in the thinking because I already it's not only ideas it's actually action steps already that you have taken to support with our grow grow our own um with the teacher Cadets yes Madam president Madam superintendent trustees I did mention this a little bit at our last board meeting how we were starting
109this initiative we actually have had a conversations again about it today we're having a I think our fourth or fifth meeting with CU Denver on November uh the first with Dr Gutierrez Cindy Gutierrez at CU Denver along with Barbara sadell who have been big supporters of Adams 14. and so we're going to actually have although the academies are going to kick off next August and again to scale we're actually going to beat that because we're starting this in January and we talked again with the counselor and schedules today so that we can get a concurrent enrollment teacher at Adams City High School starting in January to build this to to scale and part of the reason to push this is after we took our 13 or 14 students Mr Garcia to um to the teacher
110future teacher Symposium they want this right and they are just a handful of students that will take advantage of this opportunity and the return on the investment for us as a district won't be immediate but it will start and uh once it starts then all of a sudden after they get into college and then start coming back to us then then that Floodgate will open and it will be sustainable and it will be Perpetual but it has to start somewhere and we can't afford to wait until next August for its start like we have to get this started uh in January and that's why we've started the work three months ago because it doesn't happen overnight and so Dr Lauria that's that's where we're at and one last thing if I may that I would
111like to address uh because I heard from um two of you at least if not more um about ensuring that the academies are offered equally to lesser Arnold high school students we we all make mistakes and we make them every day right and we do not want to have a culture that if a student makes a mistake that's it you're doomed for the rest of your academic life with us that is not the case uh the contrary we have been having discussions about how to support our students socially emotionally in how to start you know learning how to you know fix the problem some some of them we can fix some of them we just have to care consequences because it's not that easy but we want to make sure that we're supporting our students
112wherever they are and meeting their needs the students at lesser Arnold we have had a lot of conversations we want to make sure that the any of the academies are also offered to the students at lesser Arnold now we do have a um the distance challenge right because we even talked uh Transportation you know bringing them back and forth what would that look like it's basically I'm not going to say impossible but it will be very difficult to have any student at lesser Arnold or all of them going back and forth every period because they're going to join one group now and then go to the other they're they're going to be missing the the some classes in between right because by the time they get on a bus go and come back it's it's
113time so um we will bring back that conversation about providing opportunities to lesser Arnold to be closer to the high school or at the high school at the high school it's a little difficult because of the space and we have some Alternatives we started discussing those before but we will be bringing um the the you know proposals to to you as a board to consider because at the end of the day based on your direction yes move forward then we will put a team together on how we make it happen not whether we're going to make it happen or not I don't think it's appropriate for Community to say whether we want to or not we we do not ever want to merge a school we do not want to you know uh merge schools
114closed schools dissolved schools that is not the choice of any community I've been in different districts in different states it is never like number one choice yeah let's just cut this one um that's that's not um the purpose of the of a committee if you charge me to put in a committee together it would not be to for them to make a decision whether it's going to happen or not that is your decision we will bring you the information the fiscal information uh the capacity information for the students at lesser Arnold to be participants of any of the academies at the high school whether we stay here whether we stay in another place that will be brought up to you for you to then make a decision and and then based on that decision we're
115charged to putting a team together or not that that's going to be after we get that that charge but um certainly there will there are challenges with the distance we know that there are challenges even with the opportunities the building has to offer at lesser if there's a student with a big picture concept it's really for students to be more individualized in their Pathways they're in different places some of our students at Lester Arnold some of them are our parents themselves so they are in in a different place in life and we want to be able to meet them where they are in in be able like we heard to offer a different opportunity so when they leave College High School whether they choose to go to college to for or apprenticeship whatever that is
116they have a better opportunity to to navigate that um after after high school so um there you know if a student chooses to even do Hospitality we do not have a kitchen at Leicester Arnold right so there are certain things that we know um a reality are a challenge but uh we will follow your your vision your guidance uh in your direction once a decision is made and then we'll um we'll put you know whatever committees needed based based on that decision thank you I think it was really helpful to hear the additional information um and um it might even I wrote a note to myself like it might even um and I know we're not there yet but just write all the occupation and career opportunities within each school I think that will help
117me wrap my mind around um where these could go not necessarily I know this is a starting point and it's awesome um and and I really appreciate the the focus on the equity with Lester Arnold because I know that's yeah thumbs up course so thank you for answering those questions because they're not just my questions they're also questions that other parents have and I just want to say I I think as part of the timeline it would be nice to see more of those benchmarks that you talked about for evaluating how they're how it's going you know because I think that sometimes we we miss that part and you're like like you said it's it's not the perfect science and there's learning opportunities as we go but there has to be certain benchmarks I think
118or certain deadlines to say you know is this working is this part working and when do we go back and and give get that opportunity to to make those changes before it becomes too late so if I'm not making myself clear let's say I you start at an academy and then you don't you end up having the right people come in to do the right training for example when are you going to stop it and say oh my gosh we don't have it as um we can't continue with this part but we'll do this other part like one of the things I find whenever you start a new project is we have to have certain deadlines for those benchmarks put in there ahead of time because then you know what you're evaluating then you know
119what you're going to be keeping an eye on as opposed to doing it after the fact and saying oh darn it it didn't work now now what do we do so I appreciate that you said that there are certain things that you guys do but it would be helpful to see more or less on that timeline what that looks like is that you know like you said a whole year let's do a year so the students will try it for a year after the year what is it that you're going to evaluate what is the Benchmark that you're looking at to see if it worked or not I think that's helpful too okay thank you okay is there any question I'm looking at my team any question that we can answer here rather than bring
120it back in November updates and December updates I do not want to miss this opportunity to leave as many points clear as we can possibly do is that I um I so appreciate your presentation all of you because we know there's so much happening so it's very helpful to get these updates so maybe if we can plan um as the work progresses on this aggressive timeline just more yeah more frequent um updates because this was a lot you guys are doing awesome work yeah yeah which might be difficult because I know we're doing the holidays so I don't know what our meeting schedule looks like the next couple of months but in every every business meeting Madam president members of the board every business meeting during my portion of superintendent updates I can bring even
121if it's a little bit of the work that we're doing so that it's not in three months it's just a workload of updates yeah yeah awesome great thank you all well um I think that concludes our study session thank you all for for joining us um this evening we do have a need for an executive session um I move oh go ahead oh and then move on okay yes thank you all right we'll take a quick five minute break oh yeah to the other area yeah