001Uh, at this time I'll call into session this meeting to organize the board of trustees on May 7, 2026 at 5:07 p.m. Uh, the first item on tonight's agenda is a priority workshop on academic growth and program options. I'll join with Dr. Smith. Trustees, tonight we are excited to talk to you about uh some of our specialized programs from the past and get some input from you uh about specialized programs for the future because as we know we're at a at a really important planning point for Arlington moving forward, not just on what we've been but what we want to become. And so we're excited to have Dr. works here, Barry Fox, Tracy Thomas Bragg, who are all here tonight to do a little bit of presenting, but also some facilitation for some talk and
002input from you all as we move the plan forward for the future. Stephen. >> All right. Thank you. So, thank you for letting us be here tonight. I do want to just take a quick second to introduce some faces in case you haven't seen them before. Um, this is Dr. Candace Macau. She's our new director of CC program. We're very excited to have her. And then we sold her from 260. And then Dr. Karen Zeski, she's our advanced academics director. And then who am I missing? >> Tracy. Well, Tracy is our director of postsecondary partnerships and she'll be helping me today. And then we also have Barry here is the executive director of transformationational learning. And then we invited Dr. Barnell here today cuz he's going to be doing some new things. And this is
003going to be right up his alley. So um >> tonight what we want to do like um like Dr. Smith says get your input and thoughts around where you how what where are the strengths that [clears throat] currently lie in the system as it relates to specialized program where are the opportunities and as we start moving towards the future what are some things that we should be thinking about. So we're hoping to gather some of that feedback from you tonight. Um our purpose when it comes to specialized programs is to try to design u programs that are aligned to students talents and interests but in a rigorous and innovative learning environment. And so tonight, we're going to try to put that in the back of our minds as we start thinking about how we can
004facilitate that in the future. I'm going to start off by kicking it to Barry. He's going to tell you about a story. Well, >> thank you. Um, there's one more guest speaker tonight and that is Gerald. I would like to introduce you to my friend Gerald. Gerald is a giraffe. He lives in Africa and he's very good at a lot of things, but like for example, the the tall leaves, uh, getting to the tall trees, he's good at that. He can look over hills and he can look around corners because of his neck. But he's also not very good at other things. And one of the things that he really stresses out about every year is the jungle annual dance. He's not a good dancer. His knees are too knobbyby. His neck is too lanky.
005Um so he's not good at this. And that's a problem for Gerald. Uh and to the point where he's not able to thrive in this environment. So he secludes himself and he isolates and he winds up kind of retreating to his safe spot which is getting some inspiration from the moon and the night sky. And oh how he wishes that he could dance like the other animals. Um and hearing all this is a little cricket that is going to do a little coaching for Gerald. And this cricket simply tells him, "You've just not found the right music yet. If you found the right music, you would be able to find your dance." And guess [snorts] what happens? He finds his music. He finds his dance. And he can be successful at the jungle dance. And
006he's actually a better dancer than many of the other animals that have been doing it for such a long time. I love this last little quote. We can all dance, he said, when we find the music that we love. And I love this little metaphor for special programs. Because I think that's what special programs are all about. In fact, all our programming in Arlington ISD is helping kids find their music where they can dance. So that's my question to you with your table or your elbow partner, whoever is close. Let them swallow their food and then ask them to answer this question. What types of music, quote unquote, do you currently see Arlington ISD providing so that all students can dance? Take a few minutes discuss. Thank you for chewing on that for a second.
007Literally, but um yeah, I heard some great conversations. A lot of you were talking about the specialized programs that we define as a proper noun here and that's that's absolutely right. Fatal programs, right? World languagemies IB in leadership. So, thank you for starting this conversation with that. We do have that body of work as part of our post-secondary partnerships work but also our campuses that are designing the instructional experience around those programs. We have a lot of people working on specialized programs not just at the central office but also at the campus. This is a really dense mission statement but when I process it I'll give you the cliffnote version here. Here's the big ideas that come out of that mission statement. We want to encourage unique talents. Whatever music those kids thrive to, right?
008We want to encourage that. We also want to give our kids college and career advantage through our specialized programming. We want them to be headshoulders above the rest, prepared for their future. We also want to promote Arlington ISD as the destination district that it is. We want to get that message out. We want to recruit and retain our students in these programs. And finally, we want all of that aligns exactly with all the work that's been happening lately with the board priorities, new values and beliefs, the new vision statement. Love it. so aligned with our desires for specialized programs as well. So, thank you for your work for that. >> So, when you think about um the way you design a program, there are some steps that we take when we think about the programs
009we're going to put in the system and also where in the system they lie. So, we just want to give you a brief orientation to the five phases that we think about. And the first one is really a needs assessment trying to understand what does the market say? Uh where do students interests actually lie? Are there what we call specialized program deserts in our system? Like are where are they specifically within Arlington ISD? And where does the workforce where's it headed in terms of high wage, high demand jobs? And once we do a needs assessment, we start to think about okay, what is sustainability look like? Um do we have capacity? What are the facility needs that are there? Do you have to think about a specialized teacher pipeline that would require specialized certification? Is
010there a way to fiscally manage it or sustain it over a 5year period? for example. And once we kind of answered those questions, we start to move into phase three and four, which is really about the design of the model. Thinking about what is it that what is it that you want to start to integrate into their core learning experience? How do you make sure that kids have equitable access across the system that there's a feasible way to allow them to gain admission? And then finally, determine on the front side what the outcomes and success criteria look like so that you can modify things along the way when you're not meeting the mark. And then finally once the program is designed then you start the process of launching. Now the thing that's important is this
011is the phase five and you're going to see us today talking about how we're sitting at in one of these phases in lots of places today. Um tonight specifically we're going to talk about the study portion of the plan do study act. You might be asking yourself well why are we talking about the study part when we're talking about designing. We're going to begin our talk today by thinking about what have we already planned and implemented and what do we feel about the things that have already been implemented. What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? What are the opportunities and what are the threats? But before we dive into the activity, I want to just give a quick runway so you can see where have we been in terms of our journey in Arlington.
012So we started this process of designing specialized programs in Arlington back in 2014 and that was initiated with Arlington Collegiate High School which was the first early college high school that we had back in the south side of town in um in TCC. In 2015 we launched the two fine arts dual languagemies at the elementary level and then we opened up Scott STEM Academy in Martin. In 2019, we added the Crow Leadership Academy and integrated IV primary years. And then we also opened simultaneously PIY Wimish and also the second early college high school um on I would say like the middle of heart attack. And then finally um over the next several years those kids in the primary grade, elementary grades and at the fine arts school language metriculative to middle school and then we
013started opening PEX. And the original vision was we wanted to have PEX as many of our high schools as possible. But we landed on four and so we started with Lamar and we started with Buoie and then in one year we opened the last two which were at Sam Houston and Sigini and then finally our students are metriculated into the high school and we this year have tried to refine the way the IB program works and one of the questions that came up is why is it sitting here as a specialized program? What we're asking kids to do when they now enter the IB program in one of these two schools, you can take your courses, but if you're going to enter the IB program, we're asking you to commit towards the diploma. We're trying
014to get kids to actually get diploma. So, that's our journey where we've been. Now, we want to spend some time reflecting on what your thoughts are about those places. So, I'm going to kick it over to um Tracy. She's going to orient you to some of the data so you can work on the activity. >> Yes. So each of you should have a blue folder um on your table and I just want to orient you to the data that's in that folder. The first two documents that are stapled together will provide you some information just like Dr. Work said. We're really looking at our job and workforce demand. So both of these two documents are from Interly. You'll see some labor and workforce trend data and it's specific to North Central Texas. So, this is
015the first document that's in that folder. It also will go into which industries are hiring our graduates into the workforce and our top growing occupations. There's a second document and this second document really talks about what are the target occupations within the next five years. So that's broken down by industry, by chain, what licenses will a student need to be successful in those occupations. There's an infographic right after that that again targets our 5-year growth. It'll look at the fastest growing occupations in North Central Texas and which ones have a high earning career path. [music] Following that, we kind of drill down more specifically. There's a pie chart and this pie chart represents the current classes that Arlington ISD ISD students are currently engaged in. These are the CTE courses. There's a pie chart that
016goes into the details and that one is very um district specific and it'll give you a little bit of a sense of where their interest lies around the programs we're currently offering. Yeah. >> Are the numbers the number of students accessing courses? What what are the numbers next to it? The numbers represent the students. >> Following that, we get to celebrate. So the next infographic, these are accolades that we've collected from our specialized programs campuses. And these are celebrations of all of our programs through STEM, PEK, fine arts, global languages. So these are some of the highlights that are um we've collected from our program leads. The next document is a chart and it's stable. This one's pretty dense with information. So you'll see a list of each specialized program. These are divided by columns
017so you can see which grade levels are served. The enrollment inro approach is important because um like mentioned before many of these are by application. Um some of our schools also have neighborhood students who attend and so that enrollment approach really kind of displays that. Next, you'll see the capacity, how many students can be taken these programs, followed by the actual student enrollment. And that very last column, I wanted to give you a really good picture of which students are in district transfers slashout of district transfers. And so sometimes you may see that that number doesn't add up to 100 because we have some of the neighborhood theater students who would automatically go to that campus. So that one is two pages. A color-coded chart is next that talks about our star and EOC data.
018So you can see the students there. And I wanted to highlight at the bottom of that chart, our PEK programs operate as a school within a school. And so we were able to pull data out for PEK specific so that you can compare the two. >> So in other words, I'm going to jump in real quick. So in other words, if you're looking at the gold on the bottom and it says Buoie High School and there's a Buoie High School up here, this is the general population. These are the kids that are in PE Tech program at the same school. Their outcome differences. And then our last two documents are both um historical charter enrollment and private school enrollment. So the first one has a front and back. Next to that, you can see the
019enrollment numbers at private schools. And then there's a map that shows charter and private schools within the Arlington and ISTD boundaries. And the very last one is historic historical charter enrollment. >> Now one thing I would like to suggest before we run into the activity is we recognize college like this a lot of information and you may not decide at the table you want to go through all the pieces but we wanted to show you the different perspectives you could think about at where your interest lies in terms of as a board member. So, if you're really interested in looking at, let me see where the program deserts are, where our charters existing in Arlington ISD and um which kids are going to which ones, there's a data chart there and there's also a map
020if you're interested in really looking at what the strengths are, which how the programs are doing. There's information there. So, what I want you to do as a table is you could either look at it all together, you could divide it up, or you can even pick and choose which ones you are are most important to you. Um, as Barry introduces the next activity, we want to make sure you have the different types of data points. All right. Go ahead. All right. So, after you take seven or eight hours to process all this data, I'm just kidding. You get seven minutes. Um, we are going to do a SWAT analysis at each table. Okay. And the great news is if some of you pick up on certain pieces of data and this table doesn't, well,
021that's okay because we're going to share out at the end things that kind of resonated. We'll cross off things if you already have it on your list, too. You're not going to repeat things. And I bet between the three tables, we'll have a pretty good idea of what our SWAT looks like. That's the goal. So, this first part, and if you not familiar with SWAT analysis, the the the top two areas that we're going to start first are strengths and weaknesses. You might be saying that sounds a little similar to opportunities and threats. It is kind of similar but think of it this way. These are the internal strengths and the internal weaknesses that exist currently in our system. Opportunities and threats are more about the external forces acting on our system. So they could
022be outside of our control with regard to opportunities and threats. Right? So internal forces versus external forces but similar concept with both of these. Okay. We're going to give you independent time now at your tables. But any questions before we jump in? So, we're doing a SWAT analysis for where we are today in regards to special programs, right? >> Spot. Yes. Yep. And you can, by the way, you have a lot of anecdotal personal experience with special programs. I mean, if you have kids or have had kids in these, you can use that too to talk about the strengths and weaknesses. We want all your feedback. >> And maybe just to punctuate your questions. I think it's a really important one. The goal and objective at the end of tonight would be that we would
023be able to gather board members feedback and ideas about where you see the strengths in our system, where are some opportunities we should be paying attention to and what are some cautions that we should be threats for example that we should have in the back of our minds as we start to design. So it's a chance to kind of give your initial feedback as you start thinking. So on your big probably excessively large chart paper that you have on your table, grab a marker and start capturing some strengths and weaknesses using your data, using your experiences and your own just personal awareness of what's going on in your system. We'll give you about and this is fast. This is speed data, right? This is quick. So this will be about 7 minutes. So don't evaluate
024the idea. Just capture it. >> Okay? And we'll get to the opportunities and threats after. >> Okay. If you'll wrap your idea up. >> Yes. >> Turned out. >> All right. What we're going to do now is we're going to take a minute to share out and we'll randomly um pick somebody. So, you'll have someone be your poster holder and someone be your speaker. And what we're going to do is we're going to have you share what your strengths and weaknesses are. And then we're going to move to another table. And if for some reason the other table happen to mention something that you also wrote, just skip over and keep going so that we're only talking about the new things. Does that sound good? >> Yes. >> Okay. And we're going to kind of
025go kind of fast so we can facilitate it in time so you get to close session. So if we if each table can take a [laughter] little more than like a minute or so just sharing what your thoughts are, we're going to record all these for everybody. So, um, why don't we start with your table, Melody? >> Be a poster holder. >> All right. So, some of our strengths we offer, we have a lot of offerings, many offerings at all our schools. Um, one of the strength is some K through 12 pathways, but we still have some missing. Decent geographic coverage programs. Everything runs itself. >> Program success. >> Success. I apologize for my writing everybody. We we're happy to interpret. It's fine. >> Strong enrollment and tech data alignment with workforce. Some weaknesses uh
026college a lot of people when we think parents tell kids, "Oh, you don't need to take those programs because you're going to college." And so we need to kind of break that cycle. Um again, some of the pathways are missing when they get to junior high. Knowledge for families. They don't know what all programs we have. And I'm not sure how we get that information out to them. A lot of families aren't sure of the different programs, you know, and one of the weaknesses our history with our junior high is just the traditional programs, reading, writing, math, history. You need to have some different offerings, especially for the junior high. And yeah, one of our weaknesses, junior high, we need to we need to have more offerings and things at the junior high level. >>
027Yeah, that's a really good point, too. And it's probably one of our most one of our most obvious opportunities, right? We have this we have this boy in the middle of our two programming places where this world stands and do something different. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. Let's jump over to this table here. >> All right. We have our strengths that we say like you guys the students have plenty of opportunities and bring success. Um high student outcomes. But the question was how many actually go through the whole track? Um we say that our partners are invested our community partners are highly invested in our students which provides opportunities and that's unique and special for us and we also felt that we have the tax capacity to build the facilities and so we
028have the community's backing then mirrored with the um vote of confidence that allows us to make those buildings happen. on the weaknesses. We talked about Natal's program grow growth not being completely baked and maybe we forgot about the promises made to parents um so that we didn't go back and evaluate that the table felt there might be opportunity for us to have changed what we originally conceptualized to parents if we had talked to them about it or had some check-in times or opportunities. Um IB junior high was another one. STEM. Uh the demand is huge but not the best location and that doesn't provide access to everybody. [cough] Uh STEM, where do you go after Piery before and before Martin? Um and then Martin obviously needed a location in North and then we also felt
029like we were not marketing them currently well. So I couldn't get because I do know that I've been talking with Stephen about some of the opportunities that we have to tell those stories. >> And it's interesting both tables talked about that point. So that's good. All right. Thank you. All right, this table. >> All right, a lot of ours has has been said, so forgive me. I'll try not to repeat anything. Um, strengths. We were just talking about how each PEK program is different and they're all academic and career ready focused. Um, Arlington College and Career and Arlington [cough and clears throat] Arlington Collegiate High School. If you look at the data, the student outcomes are just through the roof. and in addition to high performance on EOCC's etc. they are coming into the workforce
030and or um higher ed with that educational college credits ready. So that's just a huge strength and bragging point for our district. Um, we even though it's not a special program, we talked about how prek is the new kindergarten here in AISD. And we do believe that that that sets the conditions for everything that we're naming as a strength. It really does give our students that head start so that they can get into jumps or Corey or any of these um pathways because they simply start it when they're four years old. if if parents choose to do that for their child. Weaknesses. Um Oh, Brad, can you talk about the architecture and education? >> Yeah, right. It was the um as you look at the demands, the the demands for future jobs, certainly construction manager,
031it's a huge demand and we have a pretty narrow um number of students. We have almost identical number of students in education training and that's something that we need to pay real close attention to in our >> Yeah. And I won't um reiterate the STEM um K through 12 because another group already addressed it. But one thing I do want to add to the STEM conversation as far as a weakness goes. One thing that the data doesn't tell us is soft skills that are needed. [cough] And STEM also helps our students gain soft skills like learning teamwork, learning how to make a prototype without giving up. There are so many soft skills that our students gain through STEM programs. So that's to me another call to action to continue to commit to and expand our
032STEM offerings for [music] kids >> and even consider where those soft skills are naturally embedded to the other programs so that our learners all walk out because that's what the workforce is asking for. I also think it's interesting you pointed out a few things that were in common. We talked a little about marketing, but even I thought this comment is interesting too like there are real opportunities to try to think about programs that we don't currently offer that we know are actually on the market now. like there's there's a lot of demand that's actually up and coming around some of the topics. So on your pie chart you see where interest lies around programs we currently exist. The idea is where's the weakness in our programming that we could actually change so that it's more
033aligned to what the future is for kids. So thank you for that. Okay. Can I share one more? Okay. [clears throat] Trusty Hayes, did you want to say anything? >> I thought she Okay, never mind. Well, what I was going to add to what Sarah said is last night Sarah uh Trusty McMurro and President Chai, we went to Pier STEM Academy for their showcase night. One of my favorite rooms I went in, if not my favorite, was the architectural design and they had five different projects that they were junior architects for, but they walked us through it at the end of it and you had to vote to fulfill their would be pay for their status or or whatever. But but what they did was phenomenal. But then talking about architectural and construction design and
034seeing the need that we're going to have. I would love to see what those kids do at every campus. It's that type of thing that we can say PICY's doing great. So now can we apply it to all >> and I think you one element that you highlighted there which I think is really important especially I think it should be in general pops. We want this in general classrooms as well, but especially in specialized programming is access to authentic audiences where kids are actually engaging people who do that in real life and so that their work actually has meaning and it's relevant. So, all right. Thank you so much for that. So, the next step we're going to move to are opportunities and threats. So, there's another poster that's sitting right in front of you.
035We're going to put it on on your table. And what we want you to spend some time on this one is thinking outside of Arlington ICD. where are there opportunities that we could take advantage of if we were paying a little more closely attention? And then also, what are some things that we should be careful about that might be threatening our our our um our ability to meet our students needs or that might um be things that we need to pay attention to so that we can overcome them when we're trying to u design programs specifically for them. So, we're going to give you about six to seven minutes on this and then we're going to share out before we go to our last activity. All >> righty. >> We're going to go through one
036more round of sharing now. And we're going to start with the orange table. Okay. >> And we're going to we're going to spend some time just kind of thinking about like what are the opportunities we could be taking advantage of and things we should be paying attention to that potentially could threat our threaten our success if we're not um cognizant of it. So go ahead. >> Yeah. So the bond um that just passed AB is an opportunity. the pathways that we do have and being able to expand that is an opportunity for us. Then we talked a long time about educating families about choices [cough and clears throat] and this data like families have no idea what the jobs of tomorrow are and we it has to be built in um from K12. It can't
037just be in sixth grade we educate everybody and we think that's good enough. Threats state funding is always a challenge. We were stunned whenever we got figured out 14,000 students to choose privates and charters um in from our school district. Um and then it's a threat if we miss the opportunities to communicate and then there's a lot of false narratives about public education out there in that. Yeah, it's interesting too when you look at the map and you see like where there where charters and private schools are concentrated and then you ask yourself, do we have programs that are unique in those spaces that can meet those needs in a different way? it makes you start thinking about where you strategically place place programs. Um, so okay, thank you very much. All right, let's go
038to his table. All right. So on our opportunities, you know, really the new opportunities and careers like we're seeing that aren't emerging yet. Um micro schools as well as an opportunity for us and partnering out our virtual course offerings, building out our virtual ability. um UIL play ability, growing our pilot programs that we have within the district and also taking what we saw at state of the district and doing a community showcase to really show what all is happening with all these programs drive that excitement in the ability to take you know Prop C didn't pass but the way we can leverage that with community partners maybe Rangers or others to say hey how can we really work together um expand our diversity as students so when you think of our our multilingual programs, feeding
039that into the PEX, multilingual and medical fields and all that, doing an expansion to feed the gaps in a lot of those markets. So really marrying our programs together, all that and really just reimagining a lot of the programs and our internships. Our threats very similar political miscommunication, charter schools [cough] as well as mentioned the virtual schools and really there's no borders anymore. So those same same threads move, >> you know, the the concept of figuring out where the crossover is between two programs. >> Um it's a really interesting idea um because I think it it captures more kids but also makes it really relevant. >> Yeah, absolutely. Right. You think about the bilingual data in medical and stuff like that. Really, >> we have both of those. >> All right, thank you. Okay, last
040table. >> I'll jump in real quick. Uh just the things that were not mentioned already. We already have the threats with charter, private, home school, virtual and stuff. Um, and a couple other threats, you know, agility. We've got to be able to move and respond quicker in this world than we do right now. And we have to be an agile organization. The AI evolution is impacting even our job markets right now. So, planning for the AI evolution is is important. And then another threat is the mindset. That's the way we've always done it. And we've got to get out of that. Opportunities. A couple that we didn't mention yet. We have to be thinking about convenience faster for parents and thinking about our district in quadrants. People are not going to drive from the north
041of our district to the south to get to here's just a fact. And we've got to think about those things. We need some more flexibility and programming across our district. The virtual opportunity is an opportunity right now. We need to leverage more business and industry partnerships. We have great foundation, but there's a lot of opportunity that is uh unpacked right now. And then another opportunity, AI programs. Um, we we are lacking in AI programming for our our students right now. And then finally, relaxing the transfer timelines could be a big help for us. >> Yes, >> I heard some consistency across each table. And one of the things that we talked about, you talked about was virtual programming. It's an opportunity right now. It's also a threat when other [laughter] districts are doing something and
042we're not. So let's talk about you got a little bit of preview I think recently around some initial ideas for some virtual programming. I just want to dive into that for just a second. When you think about kids who need some different music right to to dance well virtual could be the answer for some of those kids and we've identified some profiles. I just want to touch on them real quick. These kids that want to be a flexible scheduler. They just have a lot of needs. This [laughter] could be a medically fragile kid that just can't do the main the regular schedule of because of treatments, things of that nature. It may be a high performing athlete who's on an Olympic round track. It could be a a performer that's uh hitting Broadway, right? I
043was on tour and and who knows, our kids are doing amazing things, but they need flexible scheduling. Another kind of kid though is the academic expander. This kid wants to take every opportunity possible. They want to take advanced unique courses that don't make a campus because there's not enough interest but there is in [cough] school. [clears throat] So expanding opportunities for those kids also acceleration. You want to you want to take you were like me in high school. I wanted choir band. I also want a jazz band and I want to be an athlete. So I couldn't do that though because of the way I had to take the four core and I had to do all the things and that didn't work unless I did something in the summer. So that kid wants to
044expand off from a flexible schedule in the future. This kiddo struggles in a in an inerson environment. They have high anxiety and a lot of intensive social emotional needs and it's just coping just to get into an inerson setting, but it's not where that person thrives and their music needs to be something that allows a lot less of those social emotional considerations and a low anxiety environment, a virtual environment to do that for that kid. And then finally, we have we know we've got people out there who want some control over their kids education. They maybe they want to be a homeschool parent, but they also know that that kid's going to reenter and they want to join Arlington ISD at some point, just maybe not right now. And they don't want their kid to
045be so far off on a pacing or coping sequence. They don't want them to be behind. They also they're parents and they might be working and they're not they don't have pedigogy skills on how to teach that kid. They don't know the resources to dive into to do homeschooling well. So they need our resources and we could serve those kids if they're district loyalist. And we can do both. We can give some some ownership and flexibility to the parent while still helping them out. U micro school concepts, right? Where they might come in for a couple days, give some intensive support, and then they're home for a few days doing the virtual setting. Lots of opportunities there. Those are some profiles. You've already seen a little bit of this. We've got three kind of channels
046that we're looking at for next year targeting upperassman courses starting with say senior and junior level courses. Uh these would be hybrid options meaning that they would take some classes some courses at home and then they or virtually might be even at school in a computer lab but they would do some virtual and then they would do some in person. That might be their core virtual and they might want to come up for our awesome welding programs and our performing arts and our athletics in person. Another thing we're looking at is a really exciting pilot at Arlington College and Collegiate High School. Um, Van Bolan's campus. Uh, looking at starting with ninth graders, letting those kids not only pursue a associates degree, but also do it virtually through our courses and the TCC connect courses.
047They TCC already has the virtual campus. So this is one of the very there are very few districts in Texas who are launching a virtual program through their early college high school. So this is a huge exciting opportunity for us. And then of course if we're going to offer some of these courses, why wouldn't we offer them as an acceleration options for kids and we're we already have them in our system. This could help a kid with that, you know, those flexible opportunities down the road for their classes. What would phase two look like? Just pedal to the metal is what phase two looks like. expanding 9th through 12th grade. We receive full virtual as well as continuing the higher for continuing of course at Arlington College of Collegiate and career uh 9th through 10th
048grade. So that cohort moving up, right? And then that cohorts would move up and that cohort would then be seniors and then keeping that in play at junior high full and hybrid options at junior high and even at elementary school. Not sure. These are these are preliminary thoughts. We have exterior committee working through some of these things. So it might go all the way down to kindergarten. Some districts have announced that and we can we're exploring that and then of course just continuing with the acceleration. But taking our last minute here, I just wanted to give you a little bit closer look at phase one. Okay, just a quick dive. What would this look like for these for this upperassman leg of this initiative? Well, they would still be enrolled in a full day at
049high school. They right now we're looking at up to four virtual and four in person. Real quick, can I pause and ask when you say upper class in high school typically we call that junior senior? Yes. Are you saying upper classes in high school as a whole or junior senior? >> Upper class mean junior. >> Okay, >> that's the initial that's a thinking. >> Okay, >> great question. >> Taking some and some and we've not landed officially on that number. We're with preliminarily we're thinking four and four up to four. So you might just want to take one virtual and seven in person but up to four virtual. Uh this would be asynchronous instruction. And what we mean by that, that's a little bit of jargon and that is that is self-paced. Basically, you're not
050logging in at 10:00 to have a live instruction from a teacher. Instead, you're working through some guided resources. You could be working through recordings that the teacher has made. Um, it it would be asynchronous, meaning there's no designated time to log in and get this instruction. That's the most flexible option. Obviously, that would allow for work schedules and other things. And this is also pretty pretty prominent at secondary. seems this tends to be the most common approach especially secondary. And then finally, absolutely students can participate in all the cultural campus events even if you're a virtual kid. So that would be something we target for the uh Arlington College and Career High School again enrolled in the full eight periods, but this one's fully virtual. So they would not be reporting to the brick and
051mortar except for maybe like testing days, right? Things where they'd have to come in in a secure environment and get uh get Yes. proctor AP test that's got to be done in person. This is going to be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous. So, Dr. Bolan is is got it he's his pilot is going to look at his teachers [music] doing that instruction live. We're going to get them trained up. We're going to get them highly qualified to do that and they would find space in their schedule to have that section where they can teach those kids in a synchronous environment. That is the preferred model that has more success typically than an asynchronous like synchronous swim. You know that the synchronous model is typically a little more beneficial. But the TCC connect courses they
052can be asynchronous. This involves Arlington ISD teachers of course and TCC professors. And then as I mentioned while ago it's just one of the one of the very emerging you know ideas in Texas. Just a couple we're doing we're looking at it. And then what's true for both of these models, these are non-negotiables. Whether you're in person or virtual, it's going to be rigorous. It's going to be high quality, aligned to TECIS and standards. Unwavering support for a lot of monitoring, a lot of intervention is needed. IEPs will be honored in accommodations. 504 support, emerging bilingual be supported with their learn as they're learning the language. Qualified teachers, Texas certified, prioritizing human connection. That's one of the things that I'm most thinking about is what do schools do best? Adults connecting to kids and and
053helping them find their their where they provide. So we can't lose that if [clears throat] we go virtual. So how do we do that in a virtual setting? And then also there's no barriers here. If they don't have the device that they need, if they don't have the connectivity, that's not going to let that be a barrier for a kid who needs to dance to this music. Now, one component I just want to add uh is this one that he has in the second bullet, which is and I want to specifically lean into asynchronous. Asynchronous doesn't mean you're on your own and we're good luck to you. There's still an adult that's paying attention and watching supporting that student and they're still going to progress through the course and over a semester. It isn't like
054you can finish it in in a month. So I think the point that he's making I [clears throat] think is important is regardless of which choice is available there is a a an active adult paying attention to ensure that that student's being successful in the environment that they're >> absolutely [snorts] there's grading there's feedback there is a teacher it's not a computer driven [music] it's teacher through a virtual set >> so the question for your group and what I'd like for you to do on the back of one of your charts it doesn't matter which one whichever one you got close by from your lens as board of trustees and senior staff. What else do we need to be thinking about with regard to virtual [applause] >> there's a close session apparently that needs to
055happen. So we got [laughter] so I'm going to turn it to Norberto and just share out briefly um what did you talk about? What are we thinking about when it comes to virtual? So, we just talked about the idea that we've got to make sure that we're going deep and not just broad like we can't offer five million things early. We have to do [singing] what we do well. Um, and the idea that we don't want to take seats away from our current students. We're looking to target new audience and to bring in new audience not to defeat the audience that we have already. And how do we make sure real learning and real engagement is happening and not just completion. We want to make sure that these kids are actually engaged and actually connected
056as >> and they're they're actually prepared, right? >> All right, Miss Dr. >> We just said timeline. We we have to accelerate. We feel like we're behind on the virtual part. Micro schools are going to be a part of our future and we need to think about getting that going as soon as possible. Then we talked about some of the desire at the elementary level. Okay. shared just the the concern that some parents have when they're sending their kid to kinder for the first time and what an opportunity. >> Okay, last group over here. >> Um, we just said we need to keep up with the word on the street. Um, to stay aware of what families want, even if it's constantly changing, what kids need and it's constantly evolving and why we're losing enrollment.
057And the data we look at should be anecdotal as well, >> right? Because you if you design something and no one comes, that's not helpful either, right? >> All right. So, I just want to close with this last slide. So, thank you for all of your feedback. We're going to take all this and gather and put it together. Um, I just want to just highlight that we're actually in all the phases right now. We're continuing to try to improve some of our programs. We talked specifically today about Fatal and Arlington High. Um, we're still looking at the virtual model and trying to figure out how to design it specifically and make sure that it's sustainable over time. And then we're in the process of evaluating what do we need to be doing so that we
058can stay current and competitive in this environment where our kids have so many choices. So, thank you for your feedback. We're going to take all this and share with the superintendent. It's going to inform some of our next choices. So, turn it back over. Okay. Thank you. It is now 6:07 and we're going to recess and reconvene the close session in the board chamber section 551. 71 through 551.084 and 551.09 of the Texas government code in accordance with the Texas meetings act. Those are the topics that work on our kitchen. >> All right.