001Good afternoon. Welcome to the February 2nd meeting of the Yaka School Board. If you wake up tomorrow and are in the same meeting again, you're in the Groundhog Day movie. We do offer Spanish interpretation services from Jorge with language connection. If you need translation assistance in person, please check with Jorge for a device. And Jorge, please translate that information. Gracias. >> Public comment. If you wish to make a public comment, there are two options available for you. The first option is for commenting on agenda items only. And the sec second option which comes immediately after the first option today is for all other topics. In order to speak, you will need to sign two forms, a sign-in form and a guidelines form. and they're back on the table right behind us here. We do provide
002live streaming for this meeting. The link can be found on our web page under board of directors. If you are interested in watching past meetings, you may find them on our web pages YSD YouTube channel. Barbara, would you call the role, please? >> Director Shelton, >> Director Rice, >> here. Vice President Beckett >> here, >> President Walker here, >> and Director Navaro Jr. is excused. And I'd like to note that Dr. Green and Bob No are also not in attendance tonight. They're both on an approved and excused absence. >> Thank you. And now I'd like to welcome some students from right here at McKinley, which by the way was my elementary school many, many, many years ago, who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Ready? Begin.
003I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Now, before you leave, if you're comfortable doing so, our students that were up here, would you please introduce yourself and tell us your name, what grade you're in, and one thing you like to do. >> Oh, okay. Your name, your grade, and one thing you like to do. >> I am Rory and I am in third grade, and I like to play video games. >> Okay. >> I am Ally. I'm in third grade and I like to read. >> I'm Delaney and I'm in fifth grade and I like to hang out with my cousins. >> I am Lincoln and I'm in
004second grade and I like to draw. >> My name is Elani. I really like to read books and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Neve. I'm in fifth grade and I like to draw. My name is Cherish. I'm in fifth grade and I really like soccer. >> Thank you so much for being here today. >> They are going to um be part of our tour later on. So, if you guys want to just hang out in the back for like five more minutes and then you guys can go get ready. February's character word of the month is persistent. Demonstrating determination and continued effort to achieve goals despite challenges. fores. Today, the schools of the Yakma school district rest on the ancestral lands of the 14 Confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama nation.
005The people of the Yakan nation inhabited more than 12 million acres. Kittasat and Yak counties. >> Today we honor those native peoples who are tied to the land through history, legends, and culture. We acknowledge our descendants who live in the world today. >> We thank the caretakers of this land who have lived here and continue to live here since time immemorial. An acknowledgement is a simple powerful way to show respect. and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase indigenous people's history and culture. As a school district, we will continue to build upon our relations with the Yakama Nation. Thank you. Before we continue with the rest of our agenda, I'd like to request a moment of silence to honor the memory of Maria Guadalupe Laguna Bado. Maria was a student in the
006Yakama School District of a very young age who had a long-term illness. Um, her family deeply misses her. Her obituary is located on our website. So, join me in a moment of silence, please. Thank you. >> And now we'd like to welcome the principal of McKinley Elementary who will provide us with her report. >> Welcome everybody. Um, thank you for being here this evening. um or this afternoon I should say. For those of you that don't know me, my name is uh Amanda Vorhees. I am the very proud principal of McKinley Elementary and this is my 12th year here at McKinley. Um I apologize. I did not know that the heat was such in this room. So, Mr. Shoots, is it always this hot in here? You just have to bear through it. Okay. I
007apologize. Some fans, box fans. All right. So today I would like to um share a little bit about our math journey over the last few years and give you kind of an update about where we are in relationship to our math journey and where we started. On some of the slides you'll see a little uh math book. I really want to draw your attention to those pieces of the slide because they'll they're very um related uh directly to our math journey. And so, um, they're there for to draw your attention, but also to remind me not to forget that part of our story. I promise I'm not going to read the entire slide, but I do want to point out the piece the pieces of our promise, our vision, core values, and our goals that
008directly tie to our math um work here at McKinley. Our promise or what we call at in our school is our mission statement is something that is recited every single day um with all of our students and our staff and we recite it in both in Spanish and English. That's why I had the students stay because they're going to recite it for you. So if you want to draw your attention to the students, they also have hand motions. Ready? Begin. We are all mavericks bringing out the best in each other through love and learning. Somos mavericks. Great job you guys. All right. Yes. Very good. They're going to go get ready for part of the tour later on, but thank you guys for doing that. We have six pieces to our vision and uh but
009the two that I really want to draw your attention to are um as a result of our daily commitment to love and learning here at McKinley, we would like our students to leave here, leave McKinley possessing exceptional social uh emotional and problemolving skills. And a lot of times when we talk about problem solving skills in in an elementary setting, it's problem solving on the playground, but we also talk about it in problem solving within the context of math or problem solving within the context of reading. And so we really thought felt um called to have that outlined in our vision that not only do we want to build students who have great SEAL skills and are able to problem solve that way, but we also want them to draw connections to um in the content
010and in math and reading. There's going to be problems that you're going to struggle with and we want them to have skills to tackle those problems. Another piece um that really uh aligns well with our math journey is um we want students um when we come here every day with the love and learning vision or the love and learning mission, we want students to uh surpass the standardsbased goals that are set before them and we want them to achieve at high levels of growth. So, we're going to talk a little bit about that later on. Today we're going to show you where we are with looking at data, looking at student growth and monitoring that we have uh five core values um here at McKinley and two of them are very much aligned to math
011curiosity. We really want students mavericks. We want them to be thinkers and wonder and try and learn every day. And we talk with students on the SEAL side. And this is kind of where SEAL and and um academics come together and merge together is we talk sometimes about you just don't feel like being here today, right? But that's not an excuse. We still want to show up. We want to be curious. We want to be learning. We want to be trying. And for those of you that are taking the tour, students will be um showing you their data binders and how they track first thing in the morning when they get here, how they're feeling, how they're showing up to work or how they're showing up to school, and how they're setting themselves up for
012being curious learners ready to try and dig into their day. The other um piece of our core value is perseverance, which aligns very well to our uh character word of the month this month. But we want perseverance. We want students to be able to have that determination and that effort to not give up. And I should have kept the kids a little bit longer because if I said we've got grit, they would answer, "We don't quit." And so it's just something here at McKinley that most all students at this point know that and and we really try um to really instill that in them, that perseverance piece, which ties directly to productive struggle within math. You'll also see listed here our three school improvement goals. Not going to spend a lot of time on them,
013but our second goal is math focused and it's what our teachers and our students are tracking and keeping um keeping data on in their classrooms and monitoring. But I really want to draw your attention to the principal growth goal that I've added here in the in the schoolboard slides. There's a hidden slide that gives you more details about the principal growth goal. But I really feel as the leader, instructional leader of the building, I need to put myself out there as well. And we're looking at data and teachers are looking at data and teachers are setting goals and it's very public just within our school. And people have to be really transparent and open about that. And I feel like as the leader, I need to be able to do that as well. So my
014te the team knows, the teachers know like this is my goal. I'm right in it with you. It's directly aligned to the district's math goal. So very specifically for our goal this year, third through fifth grade students who passed the SBA last year. We had 26 of them. We want to maintain those 26, but we also want to add 20 more for a total of 46 students in third through fifth grade passing the SBA. And then the second piece of that is decreasing the number of students scoring at a level one. So last year we had 112 students score at a level one. This year we'd like to see that decrease by 20 and have 92 students or less score at a level one. I'll talk a little bit later about the work we're doing
015with Buddy Smith and it's very very connected to that making sure that we're actively monitoring so that we are setting ourselves up for success to meet that goal. All right. On this slide, I'd like to show you where we are in our student growth in relation to mathematics in our building. What you're going to see here is all around student growth, which is different than proficiency. So proficiency says a student passed or did not pass the assessment at that one point in time. So for example, on the SBA, we'll say a student is proficient if they score a level three or four. We're looking at this in relation to growth and how students are growing in relation to peers similar to them um throughout the state. And so what you'll see here are called scoo
016student growth percentiles and and we're going to talk about the median growth percentile for some of our um groups of students at McKenley. Student growth percentiles range in number from 1 to 99. 50 is typical growth. That's right in the middle. It's typical growth. So that's that's the goal. You want to be right around that typical growth, showing that your students are growing right alongside at the same pace as the other students within the state that are similar to your students. So you'll see our white student group, they're at 46, which means that their median growth percentile is showing typical growth. We're performing very near the state average for similar students. Our Hispanic students and low-income students are at a 44. I should also I'm going to stop really quick and say that typical growth
017range is from 35 to 65. So if it's below 35 they're not showing typical growth. That group of students is not showing typical growth. Or if they're over 65 that group of students is showing accelerated growth. Okay. So um our Hispanic and low-inccome students are at 44 for their median growth percentile. So again, they are approaching typical growth. We're slightly below the midpoint but within the expected range for student growth. Our English language learners are scoring a 41 and that is again approaching typical growth slightly below the midpoint but within that expected range of 35 to 65. I I put a little book here because I want to draw your attention to that. part of our our math story and our math journey and what we are um monitoring very closely is our students with
018disabilities. You'll see the last time this report came out, which this information just came out last week. So, this is very new data. This is based on last spring. Our students with disabilities scored a 34. So, just shy 35 would be typical growth. So, we're just shy of that. And so really making sure that we have identified who our third through fifth grade students are, how they are showing up every day, how they are producing work every day, and really making sure that we know where they are in relationshipship to the grade level standard and also being aware of their goals and um accommodations and needs that are written into their IEP. So throughout this uh presentation, the rest of the presentation, when I'm talking about the groups that we're monitoring, really specifically talking about
019students with disabilities, we're also monitoring our English um language learner, our ELELLL group as well. >> So, how did we get here? Um and what are we doing currently for student growth in math? I'm going to start this this little wheel is all around high quality math instruction and that's really the focus of our current journey like having making sure that when students are coming into the math classroom that they are getting highquality instruction um in the classroom. About five or six years ago we started um what we termed as standardsbased unit planning. We called it SBUP. That was our acronym. And um we started that work with Janine Butler who was our coach that was coming over from OSPI to help us in part of as part of our school improvement grant. and Janine
020really took us through standardsbased unit planning where we were identifying standards, unpacking standards and writing end of unit assessments for math and really creating some very strong um units for for math instruction for teachers to follow, which really was great. When the district moved um into guaranteed standards and units of study, our teachers were ready for it. We had already had a few years of standardsbased unit planning under our belts. And so it made that transition into unit planning and 15-day challenges and things that that the district was training us on. It really helped our teachers be ready for that. Um data meetings is a is a piece I feel very strongly. Um as a building leader, it could be easy to to find something else to do that's more important than this, right? You
021could be in the lunchroom as a building leader. I could be on the playground as a building leader. I could be interviewing students to find out what happened in the bathroom and why somebody's head is wet. Um, there's a lot of things as building principles that we can do with our time. This is sacred to me. Data meetings on Tuesdays is time for myself and my instructional facilitator to sit down with teachers and look at student work and look at student data. And we're usually focused on um our units of study um our exit tickets and just recently this year with this with the um district rolling out our end of unit assessment is really really helped being uh make that conversation a lot more intentional as our teachers have started looking and using those
022end of unit assessments. Um just recently in January as the building leader I decided I think we need to spend more focus on math. we really need to talk more and more about math. So, we moved from four data meetings that could be reading, could be science, could be um writing, could be reading, and we moved to a 3 to1 ratio where three of those Tuesdays are going to be dedicated specifically to math, looking at standards, looking at student progress, and looking at student work. and the other one is going to be for monitoring our um reading fluency early release Mondays and halfday Wednesdays ties right into our data meetings. What we're doing in our data meetings that all of these things tie together. So teachers are looking at data. Where does that data come
023from? It comes from the classroom. Well, how did how did they get there? Well, they used their ear uh their early release Mondays and they used their Wednesdays to do the planning, to do the work. Units of study are very heavy lift and making sure that we have Mondays and Wednesdays dedicated to that work um allows teachers the time so that we can have quality units that are going in front of kids that teachers are using. Additional professional development. I talked a little bit about an earlier slide um about Buddy Smith. We're very excited to have Buddy come into our school. I think we are one of four um who gets to work with Buddy this year. If you don't know who Buddy is, he was a math coach. He actually taught fifth grade here
024years ago at McKinley. And so now he's back and he's coaching our teams. We've already had our first time with him um in January, which I feel like the teachers really responded well to. There was a lot of great conversations and I'll give you a really quick example of what was discussed at that time with him. So it was our very first meeting. It was kind of like what are we going to do? What's this all about? And one thing that he really wants to ensure is that we are maximizing our instructional minutes within our math block. And so talking to teachers about okay are there is there any place where we're wasting some minutes? transition from recess, transition from lunch, are kids coming in and getting right to work. And some teams were said,
025"Yes, they are. They're maximizing." Sometimes we're like, you know, I'm really struggling with that. And uh Buddy challenged one of our teams that when they go and pick up their students from the lunchroom that they take their entry task with them. It's just on a 3x5 card. They hand it to the students in the lunchroom, get them in line, and they are already reading their entry task as they're walking to classroom, starting their math brain thinking already. And so when students get into the classroom, they're right, ready to go. They already have their uh brains thinking about math. So that's just kind of one example of some feedback and coaching that he gave teams that and they've implemented it and they're I think they're really liking it. Buddy will be back here in February um
026on the 10th and the 17th to follow up with teams. Um, all of these pieces are leadership moves that I that I wanted to call out as as the most important um leadership moves for really ensuring that high quality math instruction because the end goal is maximizing instructional time, making sure that um teams are really aware of that optimal math block, what goes into the optimal math block and being able to be flexible with that. understanding and knowing the guaranteed standards and what those standards are asking our students to be able to do. And then again, the productive struggle. Are we rescuing our kids right out of it when they're when they're showing that they don't know something or they're struggling or are we allowing them to sit in that productive struggle a little bit
027longer and teaching them that perseverance that's so important to us? Um, and and letting them do that. And so those are those are all things that Buddy is going to be um coaching us on over the next couple of months. Here's another way that during those data meetings that I was talking about, we look at the data. So what you're going to see here, we're not going to dive into the numbers, but it's just at a glance. You have kindergarten um end of unit assessment information right here for all students and then you have kindergarten into unit assessment specifically just looking at students with disabilities. We have third grade over here all students that was uh into unit assessment and then here are students with disabilities. So looking at the data this way during data
028meetings allows teachers to talk about, hey teacher three, what did you do? Because most of your students are at benchmark. So help me understand what is it that you do? Let's share some ideas. Let's talk about what worked and what didn't work. Also down here, hey teacher three, what what did you do to help this your student that has an IEP be so successful in this unit? and how can we replicate that in some of the other classrooms. So this is how the data is really looked at and being used to guide some conversations within our PLC's to build teacher expertise but also to lean on the expertise that they have built into their teams already. So talking a little bit about just the overall impact that we're currently having whether it's the leadership moves
029in the building or it's the team time on Mondays and Wednesdays what are we seeing come out of that what has the impact been and I would say for leadership practice one of our areas for growth to continue to work on would be deepening math feedback across classrooms as the leader getting into classrooms and really giving that intentional feedback to teachers outside of the observation cycle. That's a that's a normal process. Um, but really making sure to get in and give teachers feedback on a regular basis that's very intentional about are we letting our students productively struggle? Are we maximizing our time? And some of those other areas that we've called out, giving teachers specific feedback on that. I would say a glow for us, I don't know if you've ever seen this grow and
030glow in elementary world. That's kind of normal. Um, a glow for us would be strong systems for culture and learning. So, I feel like in the building, that's something that we have going for us right now is really strong systems and people um willing to think outside the box. How are we going to get math interventions up and going? how and all of that takes systems and structure and that's one of the things that we do well here for instructional practice. A grow would be increasing that rigor, continuing to make sure that those units of study are written so that we're providing rigorous instruction for students in math. And a glow for us would be improved use of formative assessments um and summitive assessments which like I said before has really come through the end
031of unitit assessments that the district those common unit of assessments that we've um implemented this year for student learning. A grow would be maintaining gains. We talked about that as the principal um goal is maintaining those 26 students last year who passed. maintaining them but also adding and accelerating um the growth for other students. Um and a glow for us would be a stronger sense of belonging and safety. It's something that's not tied necessarily to math but super important to us. Our mission is love and learning. That love side of things really is important to us and our students are saying based on the CE data that they are feeling belonging and safety here at our school. And that is the end of the presentation. What questions can I answer for you? >> Any questions
032or comments from the board? >> A comment. That's impressive. And math is so important. I feel like when you look at trends across the country, you're seeing lower >> and our students really need math and I'm confident that when your kids from McKinley get to middle school, those middle school math teachers very appreciative put in. >> Thank you. Yes, >> I want to take a moment. I do have a a comment, but I have a question first. Have you noticed um I know it's early in the in the implementation but you said that you've moved to a 3:1 three develop um early release day discussions for math to one for reading. >> Those are doing the the data meetings, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Thank you. I was gonna I was trying to get there.
033I just Yeah, kind of bobbled my way through. Um, have you noticed that the growth in math is exceeding the growth in reading and writing because of the extra emphasis? I think it's too early to be able to answer that since we just started the 3:1 ratio here in January where before it was evenly spread out. Our time and focus on student work was spread out through all the content areas. But I'm hopeful that that will be the outcome of it and that moving forward at the end of the year we'll be able to look back in January and say yes when we decided to look specifically on math during that time. Um, I I believe that that's what we will see is is accelerated math growth >> as long as we don't see decelerated
034reading. >> That's less growth in reading. >> That's the tricky balance. And that's why one of them is going to be um dedicated to watching those dibble scores, the progress monitoring that the teacher are doing in the classroom. and and like you point out, if we do see, okay, there's something that's happening here, maybe we need to go to a 2:2 ratio. Um, but that's why we look at the data so frequently so we can make those decisions if needed. >> I appreciate that you're that you're increasing the focus on math because that's one of those areas that historically in this district we've not been terribly successful with. Um, and I appreciate that you're keeping an eye on the dibbles and the the other reading data that you have so that we we know that
035it's important to maintain that balance. Ideally, you know, you would want all of the scores to come up and perhaps with the increased focus on math, you will also see some increase in um the reading as well, but um I appreciate that you're keeping an eye on that. >> I'm very excited about math. And if you'd asked me two years ago if I was excited about math, I couldn't probably say yes. Honestly, reading is more my thing. I I mean, I I love reading. Um, but I'm very excited about math with all of the things that are happening in the district with the end of the unit assessments with moving to the STAR um assessment that we're giving um here in the building. We're making some other moves. I'm just I'm very excited and hopeful
036the coaching with Buddy I think is going to really give us some extra support. I think that we're I think we're going to see really good things at the end of this year. I hope so. I'm looking forward to it. >> Thank you. I think you may discover that by focusing on that one aspect, the math and doing it really really well carry over into some of the other things. Like I noticed several of the students that expressed a love for reading. >> Yeah. >> So right there and you know you're it'll happen. I think >> success breeds success, right? Yeah. >> Any other questions for Amanda? I I do actually on there was a a slide in our deck in um board docs that I don't think was in the abbreviated deck >> titled
037where we started and how it's going um that shows the pre-COVID postcoid math and I'm not sure if these are proficiency or growth scores. >> Those are growth scores. are grow the growth scores >> because in the very beginning you talk about the emphasis on the students with disabilities and I'm looking at this postco and there's a 30% increase here in this building >> over three years so I I would like to say your staff is to be commended that's fabulous growth that's wonderful >> thank you >> one thing that I didn't share that we are doing for students um with our students with disabilities population is making sure that the collaboration between our resource teacher who's here and our classroom teacher so that they have time to get together and say, "What do students
038need to know and be able to do at grade level, but also where are they at in their goals on their IEP and how what are some strategies he can give teachers to then help them um be more successful at teaching students when they're in their classroom during tier one time?" Thank you. >> Well, thank you. Um before we do our tour, which we should limit it maybe to about 15 minutes worth of tour, you do have some staff in the room here. would you mind introducing them? >> I would if you're so we know you stand up >> some of the people that are doing this hard work. >> Here they are. Um Sarah Shaidiger, she is our instructional facilitator and two of her students were also here. Yeah. And one of her students,
039one of her children were was in the um land acknowledgement also from when he was here. Mr. Shoots is our resource room teacher. And then we have Emily Nickens, a fourth grade teacher here. And Haley Volen, also fourth grade. Oh, and Elmo. Miss Elmo is in the back. I didn't see you back there. Um, she is our behavior specialist. Thank you guys for being here. And Miss Ayeladine's not part of McKinley anymore, but she was here for a while. So, we still claim her. >> Okay. So, what you guys are going to see when we go with the students is they have their data binders and they're going to show you how they take ownership of their learning and they track their learning in their data binders and they are going to share all of
040that with you. We have one student who's very excited to do that for you in Spanish today. So, if you speak Spanish and would like to have that little presentation from her in Spanish, she's willing to do that for Spanish speaking members. >> We will break for about 15 minutes. Okay, we all ready. Okay, welcome back everyone. I'd like to introduce uh Dr. Christine Larson and she and Dr. Lucero will report to us on our instructional calendar modifications and suggestions. >> Thank you. Um so I want to let you know that prior to winter break, uh Dr. Lucero. Um, Kim Newell and I began meeting regarding what our proposed calendar would be for the coming year. And a part of that process is to get input from building leaders um to connect with the leaders
041from central office to make sure that um whatever proposal we put forward um there wouldn't be something that we overlooked. Well, when you go in and you ask a large group of people like do you see any red flags? You get more than red flags. And thankfully so because we had an idea proposed uh to back to us about a possible restructuring of our um early release time so that there would potentially be greater continuity and um more um consistency with um the way that we come back to that work. Um to be very honest, Dr. Lucero and I, we discussed that idea when it was first presented um after it was first presented and um maybe I was shy because you know I don't know the culture and how receptive um people would be
042to making a change like midway through the year and um and so I kind of suggested to Dr. were like, "Yeah, does this sounds like something we could really explore for the following year, but not this coming year that we need to put a calendar together for." And then we met with the central office leaders and one of our executive directors basically said, "We're starting, we're changing our start times anyway. Why wouldn't we look at, you know, making a change this coming year?" So, that was like, "Oh, that's all the encouragement I needed." So basically uh we started discussing what would it look like to do this? What would it look like to um make some changes as they were being proposed? And then uh you know we had to consider could we meet minimum
043instructional minute requirements? And then the dilemma is is we have an agreement with our um you know our education association and we have to make sure that we're meeting our contractual obligations and when you have a CBA it's not just you know the association that agrees to this it's our board that agrees to this and so we it was sort of a chicken and egg type of thing is like how do we find out if our um dire uh board of directors would be interested ed in pursuing this change and how do we find out if our education association would be interested in pursuing this change? I personally believe that the change uh meets the intent of what the language was really supposed to be about, but we all have to be in agreement that
044this is something that we would want to pursue because it would look differently in terms of our early releases. So, at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Lucero to tell you a little bit about how she um approached um the idea and to explain a little bit more about the rationale behind the idea. And what we're seeking tonight is is this something is the idea enticing enough that the board would want to charge us with engaging further in conversations with YA to see if they're equally interested in um pursuing a shift to provide the outcomes that Dr. Lucero will be describing. Thank you. >> Thank you. The goal of this proposal is to create a more predictable schedule for families and students and to leverage the opportunity to strengthen staff collaboration
045and professional learning through expanded focus time on Monday ultimately with the goal being to continue to improve student outcomes. I have had a couple of conversations with Franny about the concept, the the general concept, and I trust that she's communicated with the YA exec board. I am seeking, as Dr. Larson mentioned, to learn if the board is agreeable to us, working with YA to pursue YA's agreement with this proposal calendar change. And so you'll notice that you have um just an outline of what um the proposal looks like and then the implications in terms of the calendar. The biggest change on the calendar would be um no early release Wednesdays. Uh and it would also mean that there's two in order to make our instructional minimum requirements there would be two Mondays that we would
046not be able to have early release. And we selected Mondays um that were on weeks shorter than than um four instructional days. So basically the last week of school because there's three um instructional days on the last week of school. And uh so there would no be no early release on that Monday if we proceed with this and and ya is in agreement with the outcomes that this would generate. And then the 2 days before the Thanksgiving break, that would be another week that there would not be an early release Monday. Just to point out the most significant differences if we were to um proceed >> for the board's for the board's um understanding, the proposed uh concept calendar before you does meet all your BEA requirements for hours, instructional time. So that's either 1080
047at grades 9 through 12 or K12 average of,027 proposed calendar since it only if you look at the handout it only changes 5 and a/4 hours. So you're you're still the current calendar that we're operating now is about,50,48 I believe top of my head this would take you,42,041. So you're still well within compliance for pea switch. So, our our high school schedule under this would release at like 12:35 on a Monday under this. Correct. >> Correct. On Mondays, but no early release on Wednesdays any longer. >> Correct. Yeah. Uh I'm if we you know, if it works for uh if if it works to help increase engagement with that PLC training and all all that goes along with that, if ya is in favor of that, um I'm absolutely in favor of that. I think
048that would, like you're saying, I think it does create stability with family planning for transportation and everything else. So, I I would be very curious to see how they how they would receive the idea and if that's something that would be workable for them as well. >> And the instructional teams being kind of humble, they came to this idea as a way to combat some of the twice weekly disruptions that drives families crazy sometimes and staff. And so, um, that was really the goal, I think. Um, I won't speak to that, but when they brought it to me, I'm like, well, that's great continuity of learning and we're not really losing any instructional time. Not having talked with anybody about this, you know, that's not in this room, um, I would expect that families would
049appreciate the fact that there's more stability in those hours when their kids are in school and they don't have to worry about, well, is this one of those weeks, you you know. Um my question is and you you may have to remind me of this. Um it deals with participation and teacher participation on Mondays. Do we track that? Yes, we do um track who is um in attendance on any um given day whether it's an early release or or a half day or a non-early release day. uh what we um have as part of our agreement with YA in terms of attendance is um you know there's extra diligence around Mondays and Fridays just because um it can be tempting to like you know not be in attendance on a Friday because of a a
050long weekend coming up where there's maybe a Monday off or something like that and and you know life happens and we don't want to interfere with life but we do have some agreements in terms of if it becomes um chronic uh what our expectations are when you're gone on a Monday or a Friday. So, I don't anticipate an increase in absences on Mondays because of extending it to a 2-hour early release. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments from the board? Makes sense to me. I think I've already expressed that because we discussed that earlier. So, I'm reading some body language. I've heard a couple of more are um and so I guess President Walker, would you say that it's safe for us to engage in a conversation with >> I'm getting the
051we don't need to vote on this not an approval, but I think I'm getting the sense from comments that the board would appreciate you're going forward with YA and >> okay >> verifying and pursuing the change. So our goal would be just so that you understand the timeline that we're hoping to work on is that we would um um collaborate with YA if they're also in agreement. Um we would bring forth a proposal that more finalizes the the new model um at the next board meeting. Uh any kind of an agreement that we would have with YA would be contingent upon board approval. So, um it would only move forward um after the 17th if um you also approved um our final um joint proposal to the board. Does that work for you in terms
052of timeline? >> Sure. >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. I appreciate the um feedback and the willingness to let's think outside of the box to see if this works for our family and our staff and our students. >> Um I'm just going to put this out there. I know that there's nothing that can be done about it um because of other commitments, but I I look forward to the time when we look at an instructional calendar that takes our 180 days and spreads it out more than we do now. where we've got set periods throughout the year where staff can and staff and families can look forward to more than a two-day weekend to break up their work time. And um we have a more balanced approach toward student learning and make sure that
053that student improve student learning improvements happen on a more regular consistent basis throughout the year. I'm just putting that out there. I appreciate the sentiment and um definitely if that's something that uh we should explore. It is a longer process to explore something like that, but uh we could pursue like how receptive the community is to an idea like that and um you know weave that into some other things that um I won't share now, but we're wondering about in the future in terms of just making sure we provide the greatest amount of um instructional time in the classroom for our our students and our families in a way that will be productive for them. So we'll I will keep that in mind. I can only make the promise for me. So I won't use
054the pronoun we. I will say I will keep that in mind as we move forward with those discussions. >> Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments for Dr. Larson? Okay, moving on. We do have um members of the board updates and I I just have one comment in there in updates from the board. we had to cancel our um our uh retreat because we had several folks that were not able to attend the retreat. And rather than attend have a board retreat with just two or three of us, we'll uh we'll work with uh Trevor and Dr. Larson and see if we can come up with some other dates and then we will run them by you and have you match them up with your calendar so we can commit to having the entire
055board at a retreat. So, we'll work on that. >> Any other updates from other board members at this time? Okay, moving on. Dr. Larson, the superintendent update. >> Thank you. Um, so I am very uh excited to share that the planning for summer school is progressing. Um it's extensive and thorough and I um he's not here that I can see any longer but executive director Mendes is um really doing a wonderful job being thorough in all aspects of the planning and that includes um the information I have to share with you tonight. there was a challenge by um at least one of the board members about what are we doing to make sure students are showing up for summer school. And so given that we have the blessing of a grant to support our initiative
056this summer, there are some um unique opportunities that have been planned for this coming year. So these are a few of the things that we will be putting into place. uh additional funds because we have funding that's um we haven't had before will be used to promote summer school including banners um at school sites. So, we want to make sure that all of our families are well informed, have multiple ways of knowing that um this opportunity is coming up. And, you know, given the number of times that we have families that come to the schools, that's a great way to um help make sure that they're not being overlooked because there's somebody that doesn't necessarily check their email like I often don't check my email at home, you know, type of thing. So, we want
057to make sure that there's multiple ways that people are getting this information. There'll be a bilingual English and Spanish Fvo registration form, and it's being developed so that it makes it very easy for parent access so that we don't have a a barrier for uh parents to be able to express their interest in having their students um registered for summer school. Summer school is going to be a full day. Uh the morning's going to focus on reading and math for three hours and the afternoon will be focused on enrichment, field trips, and community partners. Now, that doesn't mean that a parent must enroll their student for the full day experience. Um the morning is the part that they would be committing to at least. And if a family wants their uh student to come home
058and spend the afternoon doing family kinds of things, uh that often take place in the summer, um that's still an option. But for families who want their students to have that afternoon enrichment opportunity, that's also available. They don't it's not a dilemma for a family who needs to have a full day um plan for their child um in order to participate. there is a full day plan. And then uh this is probably the most unique thing I've um ever seen, but there will be an attendance um incentivization with weekly rewards and a raffle for students with at least 90% attendance across all 23 days. So, uh the plan is bikes for grades 1 through five, AirPods for grades six through nine. And again, this is only um an opportunity for us to provide because of
059the outside grant. This is not something that we're using our um categorical funding that we get from the state or from the federal government. It's not our BEA money. It's it's totally built into the grant application that was submitted. And so those are a few of the things that um we are working on to make sure that we get um enrollment that people understand that there's opportunities that will help family needs not be a barrier to enrollment and participation and then some incentives to uh make it enticing for students to continue coming throughout the full 23 days. So I Hector is no longer here. So I hope that any questions you have I am able to answer. So the other thing that um on a personal professional um opportunity that I had recently that I'd
060like to share with you is I attended the WAB winter conference in Tquila on Friday and Saturday morning. I was there with five of our educators, uh, one from Franklin, four from Washington Middle Schools, and, uh, to be really transparent, I was at this, um, conference because I asked Dr. Lucero, what do you want me to learn more about? I'm coming in. These are my experiences that I had as a teacher and as a principal and then working in um human resources for eight years. I was really more removed from the teaching and learning side and um the initiatives I shared with her the initiatives that I had at the buildings that I worked at um both as a teacher and as a principal. So, it's like, "What would you want me to learn?" And
061she's like, "I want you to learn more about this because this is not an opportunity that I had formal training in, even though I did have MLS in my buildings and and we had programming for our MLS." Um, and I I would like to share that one of the things that I walked away with and that the team that was also there walked away with is we had a presentation um around traumainformed practices and um just the need to make sure that we understand how those things can really influence the behaviors that we see with our students. And that's not just like overt behaviors, but it's also like um um I don't know what the other word for overt right now is, but you know the subtle behaviors where it's like it looks like I'm
062checking out and that there's reasons behind those things that we see. And when we take time to understand what could be the impetus for those behaviors that we're seeing, um, then we're better able to respond in a way that can engage students in a way that they feel seen and heard and valued. Doesn't mean we always get immediate transformation in what um those expressions look like, but at least they start recognizing our value in them as a part of our community. And it really ties in a lot um with the inclusion work that we're doing with students with IEPs, but it's for all students. Students need to be seen and heard and valued in the learning spaces. And when we as a teaching team, a leadership team, we recognize that there are things that we
063can intentionally do and cultures we can intentionally build um to make this happen for all of our sites, all of our students. Uh then um we'll experience more success both um socially, emotionally, and academically. And so I'm really excited and the team was really excited about how could this look being more intentional about this uh throughout our buildings and throughout our entire system. So looking forward to seeing where we can go with this work. So thank you. >> No, thank you. Just a comment on that on that topic. I had some training in in that field but also uh Miss Mrs. Vorhees in this building and part of her team did some work in that area a few years ago and one of the things that you saw in the in the room the the
064coding of the mood in the morning and that's one of the trauma-informed practices that that is good to implement is it just a check-in for every kid so you kind of know where they are when they come in the door what baggage they're bringing. I'm excited that we're continuing to look at that as as a piece of the the big puzzle. Anything else from superintendent? >> That concludes my uh superintendent update for tonight. >> Thank you so much. >> And then we have next we have highlights of community engagement. And looking at the document, there's it's kind of just the normal stuff coming up coming up. So, just check your um board documents and you can see what's going on there unless there's something Kirsten would like to highlight. Okay, we'll look forward to that.
065Okay, then we have arrived at our first opportunity. Well, actually our first and second opportunities for comments from the public. Do we have anyone signed up? Not at this time. >> So, seeing that there are none, next up is our policy governance. Um, we have a ratings for policy 1000.3.8 and 1.3.9. And a reading of the feedback we got is that we were 100% in compliance with both policies. There were no suggestions to rewrite or change or amend those policies. So that I would entertain a motion to approve um the policy or the policy ratings for those two policies. I move that the board approve um the the rating for 1000.3.8 and 1.3.9 as presented. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded to approve those policies. Any other questions or discussion? >> All in favor say
066I. I. I. >> All oppose say nay. >> Motion passes. Policies are approved. Uh we will not have executive session today unless there's anything else for the good of the order. Oh, we are adjourned.