001We are now September 11, 2025 community schools for reading to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I 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 all. >> Welcome everyone. My name is D Henderson and I am the school board president. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that the agenda and meeting packet are made available on our district website at least 24 hours prior to start meeting. Please note that while we strive to provide all relevant materials in advance, modifications to the agenda are permissible. And I would also like to note that um JC has been excused this right superintendent comments. All right, I'll be uh pretty brief. Just want to give an update on
002uh bargaining. Um as I mentioned last board meeting, we're bargaining with uh two of our groups. Uh the YOP group, that's our office professionals, and then uh public school employee group, PSD group. So um coming up, you'll again, these are all on our website. We're posting all our progress there. Um our next negotiation with our opies is September 16th. Um and then we are confirmed for that. Um and then they decline for the 18th and then we are confirmed for the 30th. So we've got a couple upcoming. Um hoping to uh move through that as quickly as we can. And then an update on PSE. uh had two meetings this week, very productive and uh got quite a bit done in both of those meetings. Um our uh HR department DD and um our team
003and then also their team worked from I think it was 3:30 to 7 um both nights. So uh very pleased with progress there. And then we've got u some dates coming up again. So, we're feeling good about um that collaborative process and it's I think it's very positive. It's going well. I'll continue to give you guys updates um at the board meeting, but again under the uh human resources department on our web page, we have all of our bargaining updates for all of our groups um including salary schedules, including everything that you would want around um employee compensation for all of us, for all of our marketing groups and then progress that we're making. So u this is in response last year we put this in place u just as people were asking for transparency
004in the process and so we'll continue to keep that updated. >> Okay thank you. Are there any community comments? >> Yes we have one this evening. Jessica Kelso uh we'll have her while she's speaking on an agenda item. I think it is um down there B. So, we may want to wait till that one because it's specific to a donation. >> All right. So, we'll wait until then. All right. Um individual contracts. I move we approve. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Acceptance of gifts. >> The motion. >> I move we approve. >> I second. >> Okay. Any discussion? And this is passed. >> Yes. >> Community comments. >> Hi there. U my name is Jessica. I'm the YHX booster club. Um I'm here today because
005of the check donation. Um which was a um really collected effort from the community, the board, the district, um everybody to make that happen. Uh I just wanted to say thank you to the board, the district office, and Chris Woods for your support and encouragement. We're a new group at the school. Sorry, I have no question of today. Facing many challenges, a growing round of your openness and quick responses to our questions have been essential to the success that we've seen so far. >> Thank you. >> I will just add um how great it has been meeting with them. Um they're trying to put some systems in place, try to build uh that group up. Uh because uh once you have a strong booster your high school, then you can start pulling in the individual
006booster groups, you know, for choir, for football, for band. And um once you have the main booster club in place, then it makes it a whole lot easier. and they're doing a lot of work um to put those systems and bylaws in place. And uh as I've shared with you, I was surprised when I came to that we didn't have a u a booster club that was thriving and u and not not necessarily talking about the people part of it, but just the inner workings of a booster club to help support the programs and services. And so, um, it's been pretty neat to watch and nobody has extra time, but yet we have people pouring in a lot of time and I understand there were over 30 people at their meeting, um, which is great.
007So, um, and with this donation, um, they really wanted to help restore some of the cuts and particularly wanted to, um, make sure that our kids can have a homecoming and, um, and all the things that go along with that. So, this donation will help restore programs. And um if approved by you um tomorrow we would be posting a position um to help uh put on homecoming. And so our uh department is ready to move forward with that tomorrow. If uh approved by you then our students can have homecoming and uh I think they would be pretty excited about that. And when exactly is phone coming? >> September 27th. >> Okay. >> They they need to put bones rush on us. >> Yes. We got to get going. >> Okay. So, is there any other
008discussion? Okay. All those in favor? >> I oppose. Okay. Motion carries going. Thank you very much. All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is elementary. Before I turn it over to Charlotte, I want to take just a couple minutes to explain uh what you're going to see this year at each of our buildings that we we go to. It's going to look a little bit different. And everything you're going to see flows from our strategic plan and all the work that went into our strategic plan to develop our three goal areas of learning, belonging, and community. Um, what you're going to see, and I sent this to you last Friday, so a week before every presentation at a school, you're going to get the data set that you're looking at um, in front of
009you. You're going to get the same data set for every school. Obviously, the data itself will look different depending upon the school, but all of these areas tie directly to the strategic plan. So all of our goals in our strategic plan um point to this data. So in every building that we go to, it's going to look very similar as far as the data set. In addition, Kurt uh provided you um this companion document that I also sent to you last Friday. basically explains what is the metric we're using to measure what's a description of that and then to put it in context with the state and so what does this actually mean um with this particular measurement so a big thanks to um Kurt for putting that together so that packet that I sent
010to you um we just give to you once so that is what you'll use to help you read um the data for each and every building. The other thing that we gave you is um we've given our principles the test and the answers ahead of time. So essentially what we have here is a list of questions that as board members um you might want to ask you might want to ask something that's not on you. But what we're asking our principles to do is to be able to speak to um specific goals and strategies that are putting place in their school improvement plan that directly tied to the strategic plan. So you're going to see a flow through here from the strategic plan to the school improvement plan also to our principal evaluation tool. So,
011it's going to be a through line going all the way from that strategic plan. Uh, I also want to say a big thanks to uh Lisa Po Smith and her team. Um, they have put in a ton of work once we kind of gathered the information in our sessions as a committee of 30 plus people working on our strategic plan. They then took the information and would crunch it down. we would meet um kind of talk about is this close we present it back to the committee and then when we were done okay now we've got to put this into a format that is understandable and we've got to be able to tell the story of how we're doing and so a big thank you to Lisa and I saw Kurt here's right here both
012of them and Kendall uh and Lori and Gary they've been phenomenal in putting this together and so I want to make sure that uh they get a lot of credit for this work and then before I turn it over to Star I want to see if Lisa has anything you want to add about the process. Okay, so this is our first one. No pressure and it's going to be excellent. Um, but the last thing I'll say is obviously tonight, um, you're seeing data from last year in, let's say, April and we're at a school building, they're going to be talking about the data probably from this year, um, from the beginning of the year and the middle of the year. So, depending upon when we're meeting at the building is going to determine kind of
013the vantage point of the the data that you're looking at. Um, so what you're getting here tonight is about um kind of the hopes and dreams and what is working towards this year. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Starbucks. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for setting up me and then being the first one here. All right. Good evening everyone. Thank you board and school community for the opportunity to share last Mrs. 2526 school improvement plan and district alignment. And I want to pause. This is where I'm going to get emotional, but I want to pause for a second and just say thank you to my staff. Um they didn't have to be here tonight. They're here because the work that we're doing is really important and um and so I know
014that each one of them represent three or four more that wanted to be here. And so thank you to my staff. Tonight I am going to walk you through how our plan is designed to help advance the district's three core commitments of learning, belonging, and community and my leadership efforts and how they are aligned to these commitments as well. Before I begin, I want to call your attention to the screen because it's important that you know that I learned back in June that I would be the very first person presenting, very first school presenting this school year. And I panicked a little and I knew that it was really important for you all to get a sense of what my community says about my our school and what my staff and my students say about
015our school. And so I surveyed them and I just asked one question. What do you love about Latin? And what you'll notice at the bottom of the slides is their comments. No spelling corrections, no punctuation corrections. It's just their word. And so I took their comments straight from the survey and I just captured what they have to say. my voice is just a small part of what they have to say about blackness and not everyone can be here and speak to that. So, please also pay attention to those little comments down at the bottom because they're really fun to hear and see. And also, I am reading really small print and I do not want to miss the points. So, I may not make eye contact with you, but it's because I didn't want to
016miss the important things that I need to say. Learning and belonging have been the core of our work here at Lakmus since I've been leading leading collaboratively working alongside of staff to identify our priorities supporting instructional growth and creating an inclusive school environment where every student, staff member, and community person that steps onto our campus feels seen and supported. This includes our community. It's important to give you the best picture of the work that we are doing this year in a meaningful way. So I need to go back just a little bit. When I first got here in 22 23, I knew that we needed to resurface strong instructional practices that focused on guaranteeing students received their core instruction. And we put data at the center of our conversations. This work continued in 2324 with
017making connections to their core during intervention, build independence, and place restorative practices within our team meetings that strengthened our students problem solving skills with each other. We knew this was an important step through our student focused empathy interviews where students voice that they desired that they want to learn how to speak up for themselves. In the last year, we continued to build on that work with embedded learning walks. We did one round of learning walks focused on instruction and the other two learning blocks focused on our dignity work. And it's a clear alignment when we started our strategic plan with the district that with the document that you have in front of you that looks like this, that our goals are directly aligned with the district's community strategic plan. You will see that our commitments
018and goals are directly aligned, creating a through line with our work that connects students goals to classroom goals to building goals to my goals and the district's goals. So, I'm sh I'm thrilled to share with you how this work will look this year. For learning, we are focusing on tier one instruction, building and maintaining an effective schoolwide MTSS and PLC system, and ensuring that students are engaged and on track by guiding students to set their own goals, owning their learning through building student voice, and having student centered data meetings. Each teacher has even written commitments to these goals and so have I. Those goals are aligned to their evaluation and my goals are aligned to my evaluation. In belonging, we are building a culture of dignity, supporting positive student behavior and creating a space for
019student leadership and creativity. We worked with Summer Snyder, the author of Teaching with Dignity book, in setting schoolwide commitments on how to embed practices in the classrooms where dignity, promise, and language are at the center. Our community is about shared ownership, communication, and an active partnership with families in student learning. So in this learning pillar, we are working to strengthen daily attendance to ensure that all students are accessing rigorous inclusive tier one instruction. to highlight some of the positives in the data that you have in front of you. You'll notice that in ELA and third grade and fourth grade test scores are almost in line with the district and the average students growth percentile being in the 72nd. And in math, both third and fourth grade are above the state average with fourth grade students
020average growth being in the 61st percentile. These show the hard work and foundation that teachers were already doing to close achievement gaps with students. You may also notice on the information provided about attendance that we have a high population of our community that is chronically absent. When working with some of our families, they shared that they didn't fully see the impact of academic performance and their students attendance. We knew that we needed to do a better job communicating how students attendance is impacting academics early. So we have created a system where teachers can communicate through the to the attendance team early showing us a better picture of how attendance is impacting classroom work daily with just in time information so that we can partner with families early on. In addition, we work through our MTSS
021framework with monthly data meetings to match supports with students. Our PLC's play a central role in monitoring progress in refining that instruction to strengthen the learning pillar. We center student voice as the primary engagement strategy. Almost every teacher has set this as their commitment this year. Teachers will be working through our building PLC's to highlight their strategies. I will no longer be leading building PLC's. It will be the teachers. They are using their strengths and the evidence of impact in their class to show that student voice is learning. We have a strong structured data meetings that dig deep into the root cause and will embed student specific conversation into these meetings this year. In the belonging pillar, we have been building a culture of dignity by embedding practices that support respectful relationships and identifying safety
022across campus. One of the things that might stand out to you on the information that Kurt has provided is the number of discipline slips that we faced last year. As a school, we felt every single one of them and worked hard to address student behavior proactively. A positive is that you can see that compared from the fall to the spring, we showed a decline and a decrease in referrals. This showed that the dignity work and building a safe space place for students was working. This partners directly with some of the test scores that you see that were not as we had hoped. We know that belonging directly related to students desire to want to be at school. In fifth grade in particular, we knew that we needed to turn our focus on effects on the
023rigorous instruction because of the relationships that we were building rather than before the relationships. The impact was more in the qualitative data that is not in front of you. We saw less aggressive behaviors and more independent in their problem solving together. This data and restorative practice to guide our work this year is to embed the dignity language into our student of the month assemblies. You can see on the back of the page that I gave you that we have expanded our student of the month assemblies to integrate all of the dignity language that we have learned. We have a more student focused positive office referral and we are making space for students to be nominating each other in these students of the month more often. Our work in the area of the community centers on
024building authentic partnerships. We're creating a more structured opportunity for our community input and shared ownership of our school goals. When you enter our office, you will see these commitments and my commitments on my door. You will see the belonging data in front of you that Kurt shared and the information on the screen from a previous belonging survey that our parents desire more opportunities. So, we have strengthened a two-way communication with the attention to accessibility and inclusiveness by developing a structure for inviting parents to our campus to do classroom walks with me, chats with me, or volunteering in the classroom, even joining PTO. We are working to make sure that our families know that they are true partners in their student success. Not just participants in events, but contributors to academic success. Another way that we
025are doing this is by improving communication during conferences. We recognized during our MTSS assessment last year that our families are not getting just in time assessment data. So, we are working on similar data reports that will show longitudinal data of student progress that we can communicate to families during conferences. Now, I recognize that I've given you a lot of information and I appreciate your time tonight. Do you have any questions? Yeah, sure. It looks a little bit different in every class, but on announcements every morning, we remind students and preview the um characteristics that we're focusing on for the month and then teachers embed that language. So right now it's patience and growth mindset. So when students are waiting in the lunch line, we recognize students during that time, you're being very patient right now.
026Way to go, being patient, waiting in line, waiting your turn. But then when they get back to their classroom, um each classroom does it a little bit different. They do a nomination system through sticky notes or some kind of secret ballots, but each teacher kind of takes ownership of what that looks like. They choose one of the characteristics and then they allow the students to nominate. And the impact has been during the student of the month assembly, you'll see that teachers highlight that the students nominated this person and it's so the their face just lights up and shows that their their students are being seen by each other as well. So um what strategies so far are being most effective? I know it's just the beginning of school to re-engage students and that aren't attending
027school. I think one of the biggest strategies um and something that we have worked really hard on that has been the most effective is having very clear expectations um within our school from the minute they step on campus. We had a bus here the other day and we did a schoolwide bus expectations um to we do boot camp and that means that every student participates in the expectations that they need to know throughout campus and then those are reviewed frequently in the classroom. Um, but what I think another thing that has been really effective in the classrooms individually is providing safe spaces for students to learn how to regulate. Um, we recognize that when students come to school, they often are disregulated even coming off of the buses. Um, even getting on the buses, they
028are not always ready to be here at school. And so every classroom has a safe space where students are explicitly taught how to regulate and they're given tools if they need to help them regulate. And that's really a practice that we have refined throughout the last couple of years and I think is really showing um strong impact at the beginning of the year this show. Yes. What ways are you actively engaging families as partners learning process? Because I know sometimes they just feel like they're kind of left out. So I know we have to give their >> Yeah. >> So one of the first things I think that we do when especially when a parent reaches out is invite them. um having a conversation and inviting them in to meet with us um helps it
029helps us come together at the table quickly. Um but not all parents want to do that or not all parents really want to um come with a problem. They just want to kind of have time to be able to ask questions. So, something different that I mentioned that we're doing, um, it's coming out in next week's newsletter is a form that parents can fill out where they request time to come to campus and then there's a variety of ideas that they can request to come to campus. They can learn more about how we are supporting the strategic plan. They can do a campus tour with me. They can ask questions about how we keep their students safe on campus. um they can ask about data and I'll go over um individual data with them. Sometimes
030I have more time than a teacher does to be able to do those things and so I can schedule a meeting with parents just to look at student data and to get a help them get a clear picture of where their student is at. Um and so that form will live on our website and will be embedded um into our newsletter next week and um will be the first launch of um inviting parents in in a different way. >> Okay. I have another question. I saw here on the um one of the graphs about um looking at your newsletter. >> Yeah. of whatever that technical response is, right? Could you explain a little bit more why you're looking at who's reading them, who's opening them up, what is it? >> So, it doesn't show those
031numbers that we see don't show the person individually, but it shows the number of people who have opened the news. And so what you can see in our school population is that we actually have compared to we have close to 300 students. And so when you look at that, we have almost double the amount of reads in many of the months. Um and so if not more reads than we have students. Um so what that tells me is that the newsletter is an important place that they get information. Um, going back to Denise's question, it also tells me that that's a great place to launch our new form because parents are accessing the newsletter and >> I saw that the numbers went up. I mean, this happened last year. So, you're doing something, right? At
032least they can't say, "Oh, I didn't see it on." >> Well, one thing that I do, I don't know what other buildings do, but one thing that I do is I write a message to our families every month. And um so I I don't know what they're accessing the newsletter for, but I want them to know in the newsletter what we're working on. I do a highlight every month. And then not only do I do I send the message to them, I include how what how their role is important and what they can do to help support. And I know from me being a parent in the district with my kids, I read newsletters all the time and I think you get double reads a lot of time. The wife might read it, the husband
033might read it and then kind of collaborate at night. Think this is going on at the school. Did you know they need this? >> So I think it's very important they put information in that. Um the question I have, how do you support and monitor tier one instruction? I know you can't be in every classroom at every hour of the day, but how do you do that? >> Yeah. um tier one instruction, strong tier one instruction has been um a focus for many years now as you saw going back to 22 23. So I support that in several different ways. One of the things is strive to be present in the classroom as much as I possibly can. last year was a big challenge to get into the classrooms, but also I think when I'm
034in there to be able to give even just the slightest little note to teachers of what I'm seeing to highlight their tier one instruction. Um, so that could be in a variety of ways. Sometimes I have done just a sticky note and written something that I noticed so that they know that I'm in there seeing them, but also um so that they know I'm not just in there, you know, I I'm actually in there for a purpose. Um a lot of times I'm in there to visit with a student, but it's important that I'm seeing what the teachers are doing. They ask me to give that like, did you notice anything? So, what I'm doing differently this year is I mentioned that um teachers have set commitments. And so, every time I go into the
035classroom, their commitments will tell me what to look for. And so, I have structured my visit forms to to mirror what that individual teacher has committed to working for. and they have all aligned that to a tier one practice and then supporting the MTSS system as well. >> Could you uh go over a little bit more of the attendance? >> Yeah. So I maybe can help explain a little bit but I'll I'll tell you what I know when I had to get schooled on this as well a little bit today. So the number that represents chronically absent is really low. I mean that means it's we have a high percentage of families that have students who are chronically absent. And if I remember correctly, here's my test. Chronically absent is defined by students who miss
036two or more days of the of a month. And so and did I say that correctly? >> That and 10% of days possible. their days. >> Okay. >> So, it's the two >> it's twoprong. >> And so, if they meet that criteria, they fall into that category as being chronically absent. And then we have students who attend school regularly is um defined by the number of periods that they could have been at school divided into the number of periods they actually attended school. Is that correct? Yay. I got an A on that one. So what are you doing different this year? You know, you touched on as far as that attendance that parents don't realize. >> Yeah. How do we how do we reach our parents to that's I know that was a a conversation
037a big conversation at strategic plan and I did that to to help parents understand that even I have a kid I have a grandson that just started kindergarten and so it's important that you're at school we miss all this you can't be there when you're sick you don't want them to be there when they're sick when Well, there's so many things going on in school that you miss when you're not there. And so, it's important. And so, how do you how do we get parents how do we get I shouldn't say that. How do we get families to understand that regular attendance when their students are well, >> yeah, >> is so important because classroom things that you learn in the classroom, you miss out there. Um, I'll I I'd like to actually talk about
038both pieces, the healthy and, you know, being sick and being absent because they're sick versus and as well as the academic piece. Um, we had several families last year who students were chronically absent because of illnesses. And um I think catching it early that takes proactivity from our health road assistant and our teachers to um partner with the families early especially if they know that they're sick and then if this is something that's happening on a regular basis reaching out to our school counselor or even our health the family if they need any resources to help their child be well and to be at school. So, that's one of the first things is um that we did last year is we really worked with families who had students who were showing up um sick or
039missing school because they were sick. And so, that was kind of our first um layer. Last year was my first year without um having to address attendance on my own. And so, it took me a while to be able to learn my system of what that looked like. And so I I think that we have a better picture of what that looks like this year. Um and so what I learned through that was that um when we did address chronic absenteeism impacting academics um the parents weren't always informed in previous grade levels of the decline of academics. So what I had access to was um the benchmark data. much of what you see in front of you, that's the the overall data that we do three times a year, right? So, when I would look
040at absences and I would see that a student might look like they're on track, what I was actually learning was that in the classroom they're not, but I don't have access to that data. And so, I needed and our attendance team needed more accurate just in time information. And what that allows us to do is the teacher to give the input and then we can move forward with the conversation early and then going off of how I partner with the community. It's informing the family having a data meeting. Let's look at data together so that you understand especially in third grade. So a student could be on track in second grade and third grade is that grade that takes a huge shift where they start learning new content. They could be a reader and they
041could already be fluent, but they're starting to learn and have to answer questions now about content. They could know addition and subtraction, but now they're learning multiplication and division. And if they don't get that foundation, then it then it is they struggle after that. And so what may look like they have no gaps in kindergarten, first and second grade could drastically start declining in third grade. And so we needed a better system where the teachers informed the attendance team. You need to look at this student. Here's some data. And then we partner with families and maybe rather than have an attendance meeting right away, we have a data meeting with the family and we go over that data and say attendance really matters. We don't want to slam the parent with the attendance law. We
042want to create a picture for them that helps them understand why being at school is really important. >> That answer your question? >> Yes. because they really need to understand. It's so important if you miss if you miss a piece and then the reading too. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. I'll be interested to see how it goes from now on the beginning of school until the end. That was one thing in strategic planning is when Kurt gave us way too much information. people >> sign up for the last board meeting of the year and I'll share how it went to the amount lack of attendance and in elementary I thought my oh yeah middle school I don't want to go to school today high school but I was shocked and I understand the parents
043need to get the kids you first, second, kindergarten, first, second, third, and then you saw where they got themselves ready, though they were wanting to be at school and there was a big, >> you know, not a big jump, but there was definitely a a difference. So what we also find in some in with some students is that learning in kindergarten, first and second grade was really easy and they caught on to sounds, they caught on to numbers and they just flew right through kinderg. And then in third grade it started getting hard and they didn't really know what to do. And so in our primary grades, what we're really trying to focus on when we talk about a year's worth of growth in a year's time is really upping the rigor for the students
044who are scoring benchmark in advanced so that they are experiencing that challenge just as much as students who might not be there yet. Because if they're not used to that challenge when they get to third and fourth grade, they're going to feel like a failure. They're going to feel like they can't learn. And that's not the case. it's just looks different for them in kindergarten, first and second grade. So, our primary teachers are really working on making sure that those students have challenge as well. Are you looking at the um >> the incidents on the second graph below? >> Yeah. So, that one is reporting the number of incidents where students are refusing to work or um or having classroom disruptions. Um, and so that's where one of the previous questions asked what's working and
045I think students wanted to be once we got our systems up and running, they wanted to be in class. They were having less of those disruptions. The most common place that we were seeing conflict and on the above graph was our recess and our playground and the social pieces in our lunchroom where it's less structured. It wasn't in the classrooms. We have very few refusals, very few students that that want to be somewhere else. >> Takes me back recess. Principal calls up said recess after I was having too much fun. One of the things to address that, one of the things that I've changed this year, and my staff can kind of speak to this a little bit, um, is, um, sometimes it takes a push for me to think outside of the box. And
046I had two lovely staff members, um, challenge me at the end of the school year to think outside of the box about recess. We were putting our least skilled individuals in charge of the most unstructured time of the day. And so our paras were in charge of recess. They were hired historically to be supervision. They were hired historically, you know, HR can speak to, you know, we have a pair here for an hour, we have a pair there for an hour to cover recess. And that is the most unstructured time with the highest behaviors with people who are not trained to intervene and restore harm and repair relationships during that time. And so this year we're trying something bold and our teachers are the ones at recess. And so I've extended our lunch time to
04730 minutes and that's our teachers 30 minute time. and our students are outside for their 20 minute recess before lunch and our teachers are the ones that are supervising that time. So, so far in seven days of school, what we've noticed is students are eating more lunch. If they get done eating, we have activities that we provide like Uno, coloring, battleship, Rubik's cubes. They're socializing in a structured way during lunch or after they eat. Not during lunch, but after they eat. And when there's conflict on the playground, their teachers are the ones that help them resolve those conflicts. And then the teachers get more collaborative time in the lunchroom together. So, I look forward to seeing how this goes throughout the school year. But I'm as of eight days, it's going well. Are there anyone
048questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you for your time. I wanted to comment and I felt like he so beautifully described the process, but you know, as he said, I think our work now is really taking all that important work that the strategic planning committee did and operationalizing it. And so what we've done and you really saw this here today is we've just truly baked this into every single part of our system. So the nice thing for our principles and our teachers and all of us is that we're all working on the same goals. Literally, I think for the first time in my career, we are all working on the same goals over the next five years. And so we know where we're headed. Another really neat thing is we have some monthly collaboration sessions that
049are coming up. Um, so the principles will get together every month and they'll have a chance to collaborate around these goals. So just like as you were asking questions about attendance, material instruction, they'll have a chance to talk with one another and ask questions about what are you doing that's working. So it's it's really really an exciting time. I'm really really proud of STAR. It's hard to be the who was first and you did you did a beautiful job and to your whole team thank you for everybody come back in the city who came to support and I'll just add um I am uh so proud of uh our staff and so proud of Star she's doing here when you come here um it feels like family it really does the staff um they know
050each other well. Um they work very well together and you can talk about a collaboration of staff stepping up to say I want to be part of making this an even better place. And I think the other thing that is pretty impressive is you didn't just hear about here are all the great things happening at Blackness tonight. And I want to make sure that we call that out because one of the things we're committed to doing is we're committing committed to looking at all the data and saying where are we doing well but also where are we missing mark and why and you're going to hear just like Scarlet shared with you here are areas where we might be struggling and we want to improve on it and here's what we're doing to address it
051and um that comes uh with that word transparency that we hear so much about and I just want to make sure that um we're really acknowledging the fact that our buildings are looking at everything and saying what can we do better and how can we do it better? um and all this stuff that you heard tonight, which is amazing stuff that's going on in you did an awesome job. And she set the bar high for the rest because Lisa and I were talking about putting this video together and sharing it with the other principles saying, "Here's an example." Uh oh, the upset. Um, but it's unfortunate that this isn't what you're hearing about on social media and we're going to continue to share our story and hopefully at some point in time um people will
052be talking about um did you know that this is happening at this did you know that we're doing this at Yale Middle and so um I'm just really proud of our staff and the work that they're doing and I'll talk one more about that at the end. But last thing I'll say, our friend in this picture, you saw him yesterday in math class and he was smiling and he came and saw me at lunch and he is doing very well and he loves it and so I just wanted to report because I know many of you know our friend. So I just wanted you to know that I have a a request. I don't know about the rest of the board but would you send me the newsletter? >> Yeah. You want to >> Okay.
053Would you put us on the mailing list? >> We used to be on it, but maybe we got chang. >> Okay. Next item. Enrollment update. All right. I'm ask Jennifer come up. Do you have to get off screen being informed for me to get on? >> Okay. I can't show that. You want me >> so far away? >> Where? >> I'll see if I can while Chris is bringing up the slide. I'm going to go over some involvement numbers with you um because now tag team on data. Um I guess I my um but first um before I I do that I really want to express my appreciation for the work that Kurt and his team have done. his new new team member Jay King who started um about four weeks ago um and had
054some cross trainining with Nike before before he left. And um it is amazing the the work that they got through having an account by the fourth day of school that has to be accurate for September and submitted to OCI. I it it's amazing. Um so thank you to you guys for all the work you did. I know T's been working a lot of night time. I was with my mom stay till 8:30 at night. Um, and so it's a huge task to take. Um, so to talk about some of the numbers, um, they're a little disappointing to start the year off with, but um, this slide I just want to show a graph of our enrollment since uh, 1718. They're really small years, but that's where the first bar starts and it goes up to
05525 26 where we ended up in September. Um, as you can see, um, COVID was the 2021 to 2022, those two in the middle, those slow years, and then we started rebounding from that. Um, and we're doing pretty well until the past year, the year we ended within 2425, we ended quite a bit lower. And then for the current year um for a couple hundred down from that um we budgeted 5,410 students and um we are about 229 less than that our actual number. Um and this does not include Running Start and New York skill center because we pass through the funding for those. I'm only looking at the students that we get funding for. Um and TK is a fairly new program. So I wanted to show apples to apples and not include them
056string in the numbers. So there's about 33 kids that are in the TA program. So going on to the slide. That's a lot of numbers I know. Um but I wanted to show a visual of the numbers that we just looked at on the previous slide. So this first chart up here is showing from 17 in. It's the same data across the board from the average annual FTEE and the change from the prior year. So you could see again in 2021 we lost 365 students during COVID from the prior year. Then we started rebounding from that and then um have gone down in the past couple years projected for this past year. So the bottom chart um is showing you the budget versus the actual for September and it shows all the dividends by grade
057and program at the bottom. So that 221 229 um is you can see it's across the board, but there are some things that um will resonate I'm sure kindergarten. um were significantly down in kindergarten from what was budgeted. We budgeted a pretty flatline from last year. Um so kindergarten is way down. Um and then you see some pockets across the board. Um and then what I really want to mention at the end there is our open doors program. um our students had previously attended GRA it's called gravity the gravity program with the PST and um we would report the students and then they would get the money for that well we took over that program and her group um had worked hard on implementing um us to start the program inhouse and so those students
058haven't started yet so that 25 isn't really um a number to compare because the kids haven't started yet. Um we're slowly um working on enrolling. I know LA at the high school has been working really hard to reach out to families and students that were in the program last year that aren't attending school. Um and so that number will grow. And another thing to mention on the AL program, this is why um that number always goes after September. That number goes up. So we know that number will be going up. So um so those numbers will the negative will if not being over what we measure. Um so you want to add to that >> I have a question. Yes. >> When's our next count? >> Our next count will be in October. So >>
059first part of October. >> Yes. Yes. We have to submit it usually midmon but um we have to have our counts done on the first day. Um and then we can make adjustments if we find years as of that week. So um that will be October's count. Um the count's been easier because a lot of the the things at the beginning of school we have kids that are moving between Running Start and high school and changing their schedules. We have New Market skill center kids that might have wanted to go decided not to. They're trying to get all the new kids schedules on. Um, so there's just a lot of movement at the high school and they have to be there in body in order to come. Yes, they do. That's why we couldn't count
060the open. We have some open doors kids, but we just couldn't count. They have to receive instructional services. Do you expect to see some kindergarteners? Because I know last night uh at a meeting that Chris and I were at, there was a dad there that he this kindergarter at home for whatever reason was contacted. >> Chris is getting been getting feedback from the buildings that they're still registering. >> Yeah. But so you so you do expect >> Yeah, >> we expect to see that type of change. >> Yeah, I think uh a lot of things about this. Number one, um since count, we're registering kids every day. Um, and we will continue to register kids and and like Jennifer said, those two at the end far right. Um, I fully expect we will probably exceed
061those numbers. Um, especially um with the open doors program um over the course of the year and our uh extension school. Uh, another thing that has changed is um we have denied the majority of our transits and uh we'll talk more about that as as we move forward, but um we've seen a significant change. We are having very manageable class sizes across the district now. Um which is a big difference and I've heard about that at every building that I've been to. Yes, we have some pockets that are big. We have um you know a grade level at a particular school or a particular class at the uh uh middle and high school, but for the most part across the district. Um we have really nice class sizes because of the work that was done
062um in projecting and also with the transfers. Then what we've been doing is going back um to transfer requests that were initially denied. Um some have come back and said now that you have your counts can I reapply? And then they reapply and if we have space we're then able to take them. We are not taking them if it is a a class or grade level that is right at the threshold. But if we have space have a cushion we are accepting them. And like the work we did last year, attendance, discipline, and grades, they have to be in good standing in order to continue. So that also impacted. And then the other thing I'm just going to um be very open about it is the negative negativity that we've had the last two years
063has impacted enrollment. um the negative social media, the negative comments, the negative um things that have been put out there. Um people will go other places when you don't pass the levy. People will go other places because they're fearful that we will not be able to offer programs and services um that they they want their students to have. So you will see enrollment continue to decline if levies continue to fail. And then ultimately what happens is we end up losing staff because we don't have the enrollment to maintain that staff. So um I just want to be very clear and not say that it's only because you know we're seeing kindergarten enrollment low across thirst county. That is true. Um, but there are a lot of factors that go into this and I think a
064big one that contributes is um certain people in our community being negative about the things that are going on and you saw firsthand tonight what's actually going on in our classrooms in our schools. So once people start talking about what is actually happening I think you will also see a difference in this. We'll keep you updated um each month, but um our numbers have already gone up since the first challenge and uh some of our buildings are still registered and we're uh trying to register as quickly as they can. Some of them we we couldn't get them registered by that four day count, so we couldn't count. But our offices across the district, our office professionals, registers, we're working like crazy to um get kids registered. And then we also have the nele bargaining agreement
06548 hour uh window. Um we have to wait before the student can start. So the teacher is notified, can prepare, and then start the student. So there were many students that didn't get to start by day four but are going now. >> Well, I was surprised. I had a couple uh friends in high school. one was a sat and one was a junior and they were out of course to school. So, oh, I mean they're going to school. They just Okay. Approval of the minimum basic education compliance report for 2025 2026. >> I move we approve. >> Second. Any discussion? >> Uh this is something that you have to do uh every year. Big thanks to Kurt again. Um this project got bigger last year and um it seems to be growing every year. It's
066basically all the data that we have to provide saying that we're doing everything that is required of us by the state. We then have to check the boxes, submit numbers, data. Uh, and like I said, that that document seems to be growing every year, but uh, Kurt and then student learning department um, they did all that work to get that submitted for us. Uh, it's something we have to do every year. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> I both motion carries. All right. Or comments. That's a cute uh I just want to say I love the top um students always told their taught young success and relationship later in life also that like tell them like this class is not what you want to do. It's like it's not I'll do the best like
067the best t-shirt. Also, the little quotes on slides and everything. I love that it never ran out. It shows like how much you're doing right also that was hard. So, good job. Then also the donations that um for me when I was a stressed me out a little bit. So I really >> No, this was great. Thank you staff. And also I wanted to welcome Wyatt. This is the first time that Wyatt's been too lac and I think he needs a tour of the history because we didn't have time ahead of time and I could get things. So it would be worth your while because he's very interested and it's a great place and we witnessed that here tonight. So, come on. >> Anytime. >> Thank you. >> And uh I just want to thank
068Jessica. I know she had to go, but um the work that she's doing, you could tell her heart's in it. I mean, you could tell a lot of people when they come up here and talk, you know, they start pouring out tears because they're investing so much of their time. Like Chris said, none of us have any time, you know. So you just see the dedication with that, the dedication of all the staff members here this million other things I know you guys will be doing tonight. So I thank you guys for being here. I think Kurt needs his own little section on a great job on the presentation. Like said you set the bar really high. I feel bad for all the other principles that are gonna have to go next. Um you did
069great. So thank you for going first. Um, shout out to the Southwork Booster Club. Um, they did a Boohoo kindergarten breakfast. It was one of the first ones. First time I've got to see a kindergartener off in the Y school district. So, that was really cool to do that. You know, multiple parents in tears. I think Mr. Cook was in tears because he had my kid. So, I was, you know, I was into tears. I was high five with him, you know. So, it's really good to just see the booster clubs step up, you know, provide breakfast and coffee and to meet other kindergarten parents and stuff like that. So, the district's doing a great job. >> Okay. Um, thanks. This is great. Uh, great first evening and I'm looking forward to um the best
070of our schools. I know there's um there's great things going on. um it gets overshadowed by the negativity. And um I'm just going to say there's negativity in this community. There's negativity in this state and in this country, but there's a way more positivity. We just been quiet and we just have to just not let the negativity be louder than the positivity. It's there's a lot of good hearts out there. So, um we're just going to we're just going to step up and be positive out there. It's great things going on and um you know, um our football team didn't do such a great job last week, but they showed up and they're playing tonight. I don't know what the score is. We'll just they just started. Um I I don't actually have much to
071say. Um other than um I'm just very very proud of our staff across the district. I made it to every building on day one. So did Lisa. Um have been back to every building again. And um there's something different this year. Lisa and I were just talking about it today. People are excited. Um they want to move forward. Um I think that has been the universal message that I've gotten from the administrators and from staff. um they're ready to move forward and focus on what we do best and that is um educating our students and preparing them for um their future and um our staff do that so well and I am very very proud of them and it has been so much fun to get in schools get into classrooms and see people um
072excited and already doing great And I think the other thing that I I need to mention again is just how excited we are about the work that went into this strategic plan and how it is it just makes so much sense and we now have a common language. um we've got a common purpose and we've got um conversations and training that we can have across the district that point to one common theme and that's our strategic plan. And so I'm excited about that work. But most importantly, I just want to say thank you for our staff um and all the work that they did to prepare for the first day of school and the busyiness um but the work that they put in every day. Um, I just wish people could see um our staff
073in action and I wish they could see um the heart that they have for the work that they do. Uh it is truly amazing to me and if people were talking about that on social media, um we would not have room for all of our students. And so we're going to continue to share the good news and try to drown out the negative news um that is baseless and is not accurate. And uh hopefully at some point those people will take an invitation that we've given. Um thanks to Deb who put out an invitation recently with my email and phone number and said please come in. I'll contact the or call and I will delete you anywhere and have any conversation with you, any questions you may have. I'll listen to your criticism. Um, whatever
074it is, uh, we've had zero responses. Zero. >> So, we will continue to put that invitation out there and I will continue to offer to meet with anybody at any time, anywhere, and to listen and be open-minded about what the is saying. And I'll continue Uh did I just send that invitation out? >> Madam President, can I say one more thing? So this is all new to us having this kind of presentation which we usually do one day in August where all the principles come in and we start at 7 in the morning and you know at 79 they just roll them in. They all get appointing units and because we're broke um we had to do it differently. And we were all questioning how's this going to work? And personally, I just have to
075say kudos. It was better than sitting all day listening to the same thing and did a great job. But because of something challenging, we thought out of outside the box and it is way better way. No, that's >> okay. I have a kindergarten grandson going and I didn't go to the but I made his mother gone. I wouldn't go with >> and he's lost his teeth. Um, next board meeting September 25th, 6 pm. It's a regular board meeting, but we're gonna be at the high school at the >> Pery. Oh yeah, >> maybe