001Next up we have the high school project and I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. So at this time we're going to ask for our chief academic officer and our executive director of secondary instruction to join us To give an update tonight on our research panel last night if you all know there were a couple of board members who were there Last night and they're going to provide an update to the board as well as the community about the high school project So dr. Mozingo Yes, good evening everyone So we are certainly delighted tonight to provide you an overview of the fact that we've reached another milestone in terms of the high school project. As you will recall, you charged us with, as a part of the educational design team, to review the
002academic literature that really espouses ways in which you can redesign, reimagine, and recreate a high school that would meet the needs of all students. So as a part of that charge, we have spent, wow, the last few months working with a team of individuals, and we'll identify some of those individuals later, but we have spent an enormous amount of time. amount of time really trying to identify some researchers. And someone said last night this was like an all-star team, but a group of researchers that could actually provide some expertise and guidance in terms of how you meet the academic needs of students, how you develop a more personalized educational setting, how you ensure appropriate scheduling. I mean, just all kinds of ways in which we meet the needs of our Hispanic students. males so they
003gave us and provided us a tremendous amount of information. Our next step working with the educational design team as well as the principal and the teachers in the larger community obviously Dr. Mann will talk more about that but our next step would be to summarize all of the things that were shared yesterday and share that back out with the educational design team. There were some items that were probably considered as low-hanging fruits, some things that the school could actually begin to implement now, but there were some other areas that... were just significant in terms of where we actually need to go as a school division in terms of really meeting the needs of students, all of our students, particularly at the high school level. And lastly, I think what was most important about what they
004shared is that some of the... what we are experiencing in Alexandria is not atypical, but at the same time we have the ability, we have the experience, we have a dedicated team that where we can actually eventually with this educational design team and others go out and benchmark some other settings and come back and design something that is unique for Alexandria. So what we'd like Dr. Mann to do at this time is just kind of take you through how we spent the day when we started with the tour of the community. and they thought that was absolutely fascinating but we'll share a little bit about what the day was like and also with an expectation I think the plan is for us to come back in February and do an actual presentation not only on
005yesterday but some other areas that are occurring such as more levels of engagement so we will have a larger presentation in February this is just kind of a snapshot of a wonderful day yesterday in the evening Happy New Year And good evening I Dr. Mazingo gave us a great introduction the researchers were with us from 1230 until about 9 o'clock yesterday. We began with lunch. Mr. Ballas is conference room and thank you to all this TC staff Mr. Trice and Miss Moran and others who helped us put all this together at TC Williams and we did a bus tour We started at TC Williams and went all around the city We also that was led by mr. Ballas and all of us on the bus were able to chime in and add some Interesting tidbits
006as many of us have worked here for a while and then we went back to TC We had an educational design team meeting where I think back in December. I told you we were using modified Kagan structure It's called circle the sage and the sages were our six experts and so each member of the EDT was able to visit with three of the experts for about 20 to 25 minutes and have Just a discussion answer questions and talk to them and then we did a debrief and then we served them pizza and then they went downstairs for the actual panel presentation that lasted roughly an hour and 45 minutes or so and we are excited as we continue this work and moving it forward some of the information we received from the EDT members were
007it was exciting to hear from people and their thoughts and gain some added insights and so we'll be synthesizing their written notes that they gave us and then coming back to the ADT to try to make some Bigger decisions as we prepare for draft ed specs and then as dr Mzingo said coming back to the board with a broader presentation sometime in February and then also I'd like to thank It was an army of people who put all this together as I said to the researchers in the EDT constantly I just get to come to you all and present But there are a lot of people who did a lot of work behind the scenes and so Tiffany Pasch from communications Helen Lloyd Susan Hale the entire communications team Nathan Goldstein with the videography our
008bus driver whose name just escaped me who gave us our tour from facilities and operations Erica Gulick and helping making sure we got everything through with financing and also miss many on Anthony with the tour mr. Ballas and his team Sarah Wayland and also Pat Williamson for all of their help and dr. Mazingo and also my admin assistant Yamari Gutierrez Ortiz for all of their help and I apologize if I got it forgot anyone but thank you for everyone that helped in all this because it was a lot of work and a long day but a fun day of learning. Now open up for questions at this time. Questions Dr. Reeve. Well, thank you for organizing that and sharing how your day went, and I enjoyed the panel last evening. And I understand that there
009might be continued, you might continually be in touch with these researchers. Can you kind of talk about, like, how you envision that maybe happening? Yes. We've been invited to come and see the New Tech High. Mr. Rosenstock gave us personal invitations numerous times yesterday, but also as we Go down the path of actually coming back with a broader recommendation and getting feedback All of them said please be in touch if you have further questions. We're also Working with dr. Mazingo and the curriculum specialist and bringing back. Dr. Belfance and also dr Heidi Hayes Jacobs to work with us and then Listening to Dr. Castellano Jaime from Florida some of the work that he's doing with Latino students and we know that that is a majority of our population and how we can come back and
010really start to Put some things in place that they said and one thing he offered up that we'd have to check into is do we offer courses in Spanish in our students' native languages as an opportunity for them to also honor who they are, but also an opportunity to gain some credit and something that they're comfortable in. And so those are some of the easy, low-hanging fruit ways that we're going to. But then once the entire... process is done is also getting feedback from them to make sure that we haven't missed anything if there's new research out there they've also given us advice on schools to visit from whether it was all the way in San Diego but also New York Pennsylvania and some other people that we can be in contact with. Yeah, so
011just a couple brief comments. I wasn't there in person last night, but I had a chance to watch the stream, and I thought it was very interesting, very dynamic presentation, and a lot of useful things. I'm also looking forward to sort of seeing the synthesis of all this because it seemed like over the course of the day there were a lot of reflections and things that were observed and things that are taken into account, so I'd love to just see that synthesis at some point. With regard to the video, I was wondering if maybe that could be posted. on like our YouTube channel or something like that I know there were some issues with the AV last night there but it seemed like a lot of people in the community who were watching it did
012enjoy the presentation and I think it would just be good for people in the community to have access to that yes that seems to be a possibility that we can work that out to get that Okay, so so so just to be sure that those that are at home Couldn't can hear that so you look for it in the insider and also the Express And it will be it will be on Monday. It will be coming out. So great and I have Miss Nolan has a question Thank you, Chair Anderson. Thank you so much for assembling the panel. I was really impressed just by the robust discussion amongst themselves. It was a fascinating conversation to watch and just to hear some experts on the stage and to reflect and give their analysis. In addition to
013what Mr. Suarez said, because that's another thing, I think that was such a good idea on ACPS's end to do that tour because I loved how they wove in their conversation, things like the satellite campus being such a, you know, they modeled that as one of the most. highlights, the biggest highlights that you could say of ACPS. And so they really wove in ACPS specific, you know, our Latino population and things of that nature where I was really appreciative that you guys all took the time to give them that rich context of ACPS so that their advice and thoughts were really tailored, I felt, to ACPS. So in that vein, in addition, I would love, I love the idea of the synthesis because the only challenge I had walking away from the event was This
014is such rich information. What are we going to do next specifically with these experts opinion? I mean, there's a hundred things we could all take away from it. So I'm just curious, like if it would be interesting at some point, if we could during one of these reflections and updates for the board, if you could just mind coming back about, I'm curious about what the EDT thought of it, you know, and what their conversation is going to be next. But for me, what my biggest. Curious question mark was what are what are you all as a staff thinking about and what what light bulbs went on and what next steps and like what five takeaways and things of that nature and I don't expect you to have that answer today because there was so much
015to digest But it was sort of like, you know a 500 page book and like what's your cliff notes version gonna be? It was just my question mark up because you know, I think without focus and without you know, being focused, we're not going to get anything accomplished. And so where is our energy going to be spent? I'd be curious to know at some point. Maybe it's with that synthesis would be appropriate time. It'll be with the synthesis and future presentations. We meet with the EDT back next January 29th. So we have a couple of weeks before then, but we tried to capture right before they left in two different versions of. what their thoughts were because there was a long day of teaching and working. But we are definitely gonna be revisiting and we
016already have, we have an intern with us who's actually transcribed many of those notes and so we're trying to create themes and buckets so how we can then bring that back to the EDT to say, so you all said that you're leaning now more towards based on what you heard. And so we're trying to drive what. from what the EDT says to how we get to decisions. And I've said to you since this high school project started, I don't have a vote. My job is to facilitate. And so we're trying to use their own words and you saw many of those artifacts this past summer. And so we're using that same line of thinking. And so once they come back in January, we'll also have another debrief and then really try to use that as
017a launching pad as we move forward. And I just want to follow up and say it was also impressive by how many staff members took the time to be there yesterday both from central office and throughout many of the schools. And so I just thought that was an impressive feather in the ACPS's cap that people took the time to be there and learn. Miss Alderson. I just have a comment. I'm excited to hear the continuing work with Dr. Jacobs around curriculum because one of the things that was very powerful, I was fortunate enough to be in the smaller groups yesterday, and what was very powerful to me that she brought up, I mean everybody was great, but what she brought up was this notion of specialty things are great, but we've got to have a
018strong core. You know you cannot none of it matters if the core isn't strong and so I really that just really you know stuck with me because I think that you know we want to have this great high school but we want to have a great system that's bringing elementary school kids and middle school kids up to this great high school and so I really that was the highlight for me. Anyone else. OK. Thanks. Oh, Dr. Hutchings. I just wanted to thank Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Mann for helping to get this up and going. I know there was a lot of team members who helped with all of this. I think it's important for us to know that all of those researchers are also advisors to ACPS as well. That's a part of our agreement
019for them to be on that stage. So we get to call them whenever we need them, right? And I reminded them last night as they were getting on their planes. So we will be sure. It wasn't just tonight. you know we're gonna call you again and you need to answer my call and my emails um but but we have been very fortunate to have that kind of powerhouse on one stage at one time uh is is pretty impressive um and even as superintendent i was so frustrated at the fact that i left my phones to take notes somewhere in the auditorium and I couldn't find them until the end of the event. So luckily everything was recorded and I can go back and take my own personal notes. But I even learned a lot that
020evening. So thank you all. I want to thank our team for the work that you've done.