001Board of Education of the Cleveland Municipal School District will come to order. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the- Mr. Stockdale, your microphone is not working. Call the mic, Ms. Ellicott. Here, but I want everyone to be able to hear you. Here. Ms. Ellicott. Here. Mr. Stockdale, can you do a test? Ms. Ellicott. Okay, I think it's working now, although my mic is quite loud. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the roll and start again? Ms. Ellicott? Here. Mr. Billups? Here. Mr. Briggs? Here. Ms. Jones? Pastor Jones? Here. Mrs. LeBron? Mrs. Peek? Here. Dr. Sridhar? Here. Ms. Welch-Hall? Here. There are eight members present. Thank you. I ask everyone who wishes to rise and participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Just prior to this board meeting, the district hosted our annual Volunteers and
002Partnerships Thank You event. I want to acknowledge any of our volunteers and partners who are now present in the meeting and thank you for all that you do in contributing your time and talents to supporting our students throughout the year. Dr. Morgan. Thank you so much chair al-akad So we have some of our members who are at the volunteer appreciation Which we're going to come have them come up in a moment for a brief picture with the board But I want to share a couple of slides about our volunteers This is an annual event that we do every year a huge shout out to our family and community Engagement department as well as our external affairs department that work to put this together and we thank all of our volunteers So a few statistics for
003you guys to realize next week is a national violence Week and so we this is just a small token of appreciation for the volunteers that work in our system every day. We truly say it takes a village to do the work that we do so in a room full of educators tonight which is so great to see all of the educators that we have here today we know that we can't do this work also with some of our volunteers, some of our community partners, educators who also serve as volunteers, and then also some of our other family partners, parents as well. So we are grateful for that work. We have almost 1,400 volunteers in our district and 81 community partner organizations that account for 75% of our adult volunteer base. 27% of our volunteers represent
004our higher ed organizations. And so we know with the work we do, not only through Building Brighter Futures, but more important, through our goals that our board has charged us with, that college readiness and career readiness is a big part of the work that we do. And so we couldn't do this work without our higher ed partners, and we're grateful that they're here as well. Many of our parents are also volunteers. Our parents represent 22% of our volunteers. Of course, we have the work of our parent ambassadors in our buildings and the district parent advisory council. We're grateful for that work. Many of our community partners that do this work. And we have other organizations that specialize in other areas. So we could not do this work without the village of partners and volunteers that
005do this work. So our annual presentation or luncheon that we do will. banquet that we do. It's just a small token of appreciation. So huge shout out to Tracy Hill, who's our executive director of family and community engagement, and your team for putting this on. And I would ask for any of our volunteers who are still here, if you guys will come up and just come on the stairs. The board and I, we're going to come around to the front of the stage and we'll take a brief picture for those volunteers that are still here. Thank you again. Thank you again. I'm trying to get the... volume right here. This evening's consent agenda includes the minutes of the last two board meetings and seven legal resolutions, two operations resolution and one finance resolution. The chair
006will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda consisting of agenda items 3.02 through 6.01 as set forth in the board meeting agenda. Second. Thank you. Mr. Stockdale, please call the roll on this motion. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
007This evening's board agenda also includes an additional 13 resolutions in the areas of Board of Education finance operations academics legal and excellence and culture Which the board will vote on as part of its consent agenda at our April 28th board business meeting we also have some standalone resolutions that we will discuss after our Monitoring of goals and guardrails and speaking of monitoring of goals and guardrails. Dr. Morgan. I'll turn it over to you for that Thank you chair Ellicott. So for this work session we are sharing an update on where we are for our goals and guardrails particularly CEO measure 3.1 Which is looking at the percentage of our first and second year high school students. They are predicted to be college ready the charge of board goal 3 is around college readiness and we're
008excited to share an update in terms of where we are from the hard work of our that our educators and our school leaders have been doing and our high schools to ensure readiness. So just as a reminder, goal three that we've been charged with is that the percentage of four-year graduation, that the percentage of the four-year graduation cohort who meet at least one college ready indicator will increase from 8.2 percent, that's where we currently were last year, to 25 percent by August 2030. So 8.2 was where we were as of at the end of last year's OST test. What we do to look at this from a CEO measure standpoint benchmarks throughout the year because we only do OST one time of the year, which we are in the midst of testing season right now.
009is looking at our first and second year students who are designated as college ready on the NWEA assessment, both for ELA and math. And math is through Algebra 1, which is also aligned to one of our board goals and our CEO measures, and then also ELA 2 in NWEA when students take that in 10th grade. So just some background on the NWEA college readiness predictor. And we talked about this when we looked at this in the fall, but just want to remind our board of where we are on this measure and some of the things that we look at. So the NWEA is the map assessment that we take. We use that to predict where students will be. So it is a pretty statistically significant measure that we use to see where students will be
010based on where they test on their benchmark. And we use NWEA particularly in our high school. space we used to use it in our elementary space but now we use I ready and it is a pretty good predictor to let us know where students will be on the OST NWEA defines college ready as being prepared to enroll in and successfully complete entry-level credit bearing courses at a post-secondary institution So they look at this measure and it is looking at will students be successful in entry-level courses in college. The NWEA measure, they measure this readiness looking, correlating the student performance on their MAP growth assessment with their projected scores on standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT being one of those, but that's also what they look at. To be considered college ready, students must be
011indicated as college ready in both ELA and math. And so one of the things we look at, we look at this measure together. At first we were going to look at ELA in one week, and math in another week, but it's really important to look at these together because you can see the amount of students that are either both ready in ELA and math, and also we'll share some data in terms of where students are in ELA as well as just in math. Some other things to note. The readiness for college, the college ready indicator on the NWEA benchmark is not the same as proficiency. So it's a higher measure. And we've talked about this in the fall. Of course, we want our students to be proficient. Proficiency allows us to predict where students will
012be proficient on the OST. But proficiency is just showing that students are meeting their state standards. So it's almost a baseline. And so we want to ensure that our students are exceeding that. And so this college ready indicator. that even our board has charged us with to ensure that our scholars are prepared for college and all careers, even post high school. This measure is helping us predict that. And so the RIT score is higher. The cut score on the NWEA is higher when students are college ready than when they are just proficient. And we'll share a little bit more about that data as well. So this is where we are I know we always share this journey of where we've been over the course of several years and I know this chart is small for
013those that are in the audience so we see data from the 22-23 school year those are the first two data points that was prior that was the year prior to me coming here my first school year was a 23-24 school year and so those are the the third and fourth data points and so you can see kind of the up and down journey last year we started doing some intentional work really around the goals and and the board really saying it's important that we don't just offer college readiness, and we know through Building Brighter Futures, we will ensure that 100% of our high schools will have college credit courses. Right now, only 78%. And so we want to ensure that all students have access to college readiness, but it's not just about taking the class.
014We have some schools that offer a lot of AP courses, but if students aren't successful in those courses, they're not going to be successful in college. So it's really important with this measure. And actually as I'm looking out in the audience, I see that our academics team is already in the front. So I want to acknowledge that they're here as well for when we get to the question portion. So the two data points that you see towards the end is where we were this school year. So when we looked at this in the fall, which was our baseline, we were really concerned because we had taken a dip. Of course, this represents a cohort each year. There is some overlap because we look at 9th and 10th grade. So 10th grade students, they were our
0159th graders last year, but this is a new group of 9th graders that we're looking at. So when we looked at it in the fall, we had taken a dip and we were concerned about that, but some of the strategies our academic teams were putting in place had emerged. Also, when students take the NWEA assessment, that's usually within the first few weeks of school. I'm happy to report that as of the winter NWEA, based on all the hard work our educators do in our classrooms every day, as well as the school leaders, and then the hard work I know our academics team is doing to support this work, we've had the largest growth we've had over time. We've had a 6.3 percentage growth in the amount of students who are college ready. And when we're
016looking at this indicator, that means that they are college ready in both ELA and math. So we are 7.9%. of students that are meeting that measure in ELA or math. This is the highest we've been on this journey over the past four years. Now, the percentage of first and second year students that are college-ready, as I mentioned, have increased by 6.3 percentage points. Now, in a moment, you're going to see where we are on ELA, which is higher than where we are in math. Math continues to be an area where students are struggling in. But the amount of students that are both in ELA or math, it represents 7.9%. Now, we are still saying we are off track for this goal because we have some ground to cover. We're trying to get to 25%. And
017even when we set this goal, the board charged us with... You know, if we're a district where we're saying in five years 25% of our students will be college ready, the huge amount of growth, I think all of us would agree that's not nearly enough. We want more of our students to be college ready. As a matter of fact, all of our students, by the time they graduate from us, should be college ready, even if they don't choose to go to college. We want to make sure that they're prepared for college and for life. So we have some work to do. Even though we've had this incredible growth, we're still off track from where we need to be. So I want to also share a little bit of this breakdown. I know this chart is
018really small here, but this is the breakdown when looking at the percentage of students and where they fall. So if you're really looking at that blue category, that is college-ready in ELA and math. The orange represents college-ready in ELA. The green represents college-ready in math, which is a small percentage of our students. And that big yellow-orange color That is the amount of students who are not college ready. So the majority of our students are not college ready. When we looked at in the winter, 18% of our students are college ready in English, language arts. So this is an increase. It's a three percentage point increase from where we were last year. So it's great to see the growth. We're excited to see the growth and seeing that those strategies that we've been doing are working.
019We still have a lot of ground to cover. As you can see, the proficiency cut score for ELA is at 219. That's the RIT score to be proficient. And to be college ready, it's a little higher. It's 221. And so we want to make sure that we can get more students college ready. It is higher. Math, as we mentioned, is a challenging area. Only 3% of our students are college ready in math. And so the cut score for proficiency in that Algebra I is 231. to be college ready, that cut score is 242. So once again, a more rigorous measure and more work that we have to do. We are seeing that the second year cohort has a slightly on track rate, a higher on track rate. So 9% of our sophomores are on track
020to be college ready versus 7% of our ninth graders. And so we have some work to do there to ensure that we are preparing our ninth grade students to be college ready. Okay, so let's talk about some of the strategies our academics team has been doing. So both for ELA and math, there's been a heavy focus on high-quality instructional materials implementation by implementing the scope and sequence, by following the curriculum that we are using in our high schools, and then also the unit assessments, which I know has been a really big emphasis in... from our academics team and also in all of our schools, as well as those DDI protocols that teachers and school leaders are using in their teacher-based teams. So the first strategy, some of the things that we've been seeing and things
021we want to continue to work on, we want to focus... continue focusing on the teacher feedback via the walkthroughs that are taking place. That is work that our school leaders are doing, our academics team are doing, some of our partners that support us with instruction actually do walkthroughs as well just to get a baseline of where we are in our schools. And so we want to increase that feedback. Those walkthroughs, as we've mentioned before, are non-evaluative, but they allow us to really go in and see a baseline, and they actually allow us to see, are we seeing the measures that can be... lead to success for our scholars. And then also increasing the use of the unit assessments. I'm a huge fan of the work of the unit assessments because not only are they aligned
022where you can actually get some data on where our students are in terms of proficiency if they are both proficient as well as college ready, but it's real time. So just thinking about the from an instructor lens if you taught something, if you taught a unit The unit assessments, unlike the NWEA, they actually cover material that you've taught. And so it is a great feedback loop for our educators to know, are my scholars getting the instruction that I'm actually teaching? Versus NWEA and some of these other tests that we use that are more of a survey of all the standards that are in that year, but they're not a survey of, did I teach it and did my students get it? The next strategy is really engaging students for ELA, engaging students in that daily
023practice focused on reading, writing, and speaking using text-based evidence, both for literacy and informational text. So we talked about this when looking at our ELA data, and even though that was for grades K through 3, the same is true when looking at high schools and really making sure the student discourse is increasing. that students are using that critical thinking and that it's less, you know, building more of the scaffold where the teacher isn't doing all the hard work in the classroom, but some of the students are doing that cognitive lift as well. And then also utilizing the teacher cohorts, which has been a new strategy our teaching and learning team has been doing so that we can get to a point where teachers are training other teachers to really do this work within their classrooms.
024For math, The strategy that we're looking at, once again, also high-quality curriculum implementation following the common scope and sequence. Looking at those walkthroughs as well and really making sure that what we're seeing in through the walkthroughs are aligned with the pacing charts as well. And then also the DDI protocols using the unit assessment data. Once again, that's real-time feedback that teachers can use to say, did I teach it? Did my students get it? The other thing is engaging students in the cognitive lift of demanding tasks in math as well. So where students are doing those math discussions, we talked about those math talks, that can also be done at the high school level as well, where the students are doing the cognitive lift. And those are things we want to see and also seeing those
025demanding tasks in a class so it's not just so much of the teacher doing something and the student repeats it back, but really having the students do that cognitive lift. Those are some of the things we're looking at. Also monitoring APIB and CCP classes. One of the things we talked about in our fall session was the use of AP Classroom and some of the tools that we use through. advanced placement to prepare students and prepare instruction to make sure that there's higher rigor in those classes. We know we offer AP courses in our in our schools as you saw from our BBF presentation we were doing last week. We will offer AP in all of our high schools next year so we're excited about that to have that college ready course but it's not just
026about offering it, our students ready and so there's been a lot of work that the academics team has been doing around making sure that there's more access to the AP classroom, as well as I know the introduction of pre-AP, which has been a huge strategy that we've been working with. They've been working really closely with the College Board. I also had a meeting with the College Board over spring break to really figure out how do we increase that rigor in our classrooms and the high school space. So I want to talk about some things that are working. And I should have had my glasses out here, but luckily I can phone my laptop right here. So, and for those in the audience, I apologize, it's small, but you can also review this on board docs
027as well. So some things that are working, just that second year of implementing the ELA strategies, this is the... really from adopting our curriculum the second year full implementation in our ELA curriculum and we are starting to see that growth with 18% of our students being college ready nowhere near where we need to be as a matter of fact with that goal alone for ELA we are on track you know to where we need to be we need them to be college ready in both ELA and math, but there are some signs that things are working. Also the monitoring of instruction using the college readiness walkthrough tool. There were 100 observations done this semester alone, and 79% of the observed teachers showed overall evidence of implementation. That is strong. I mentioned to you guys before,
028when we went to PELP, which was at Harvard, one of the things we got a lot of feedback on is our teachers are using our curriculum. They're actually implementing the curriculum and this is another piece of evidence where it's showing our teachers are utilizing the curriculum. Now are we doing that cognitive lift? Are students getting to those higher order thinking? That's work that we all have to do to really support our instructors. And then the use of the AP classroom platform. 988 practice exams have been administered in the AP classroom through six weeks of the third quarter. So that's 988 exams in six weeks of the third quarter. and a grade of C or higher was earned on 57% of those exams. So it's over half. We want, of course, more students to be getting
029a grade of C or higher, but it's evidence that our teachers are using it and our scholars are meeting that task. So things that we're seeing that are starting to work. So based on our mid-year NWEA data, we have met this year's goal for ninth grade Algebra I. We shared that. We celebrated that. I know at our principal meeting, we gave a huge shout-out to our... our high school principals, and also our Algebra 1 educators for meeting our goals. So we're starting to see that work and we have some more work to do on focusing on the implementation of the grade level core curriculum in both ELA and math. We also want to ensure some work, a strategy that our academics team has been doing with our principals is that our monthly school leadership institutes,
030really making sure those turnkey decks that are coming up, that principals are actually utilizing those in their teacher-based teams and supporting their teachers because that's where the work takes place. And we really want to make sure that there's support for our educators. Things that are not working. We did not consider the use of... And I promise I heard that question and we will get to that presentation. So we will. So yeah, we'll get to that presentation. So just give us a moment. So one of the things we realized that we have not considered is our PSAT. We're not using the PSAT data to indicate college readiness. And the PSAT, for I know all of our educators that use it, is a very strong indicator for students who will be college ready if we're implementing it.
031College Board has a lot of resources connected to the ACT and the ACT suite, not the ACT, the SAT, and the SAT suite of assessments. And so that's an area that I know our team is looking at. As a matter of fact, I had a chance to observe the academics team on Friday, and they were really wrestling with this data point. They were wrestling with what data should we be looking at to ensure that our students are college ready. And I know that those are some of the things that they're really wrestling with. Then also the main focus being in ninth grade on Algebra 1 and on ELA 2 in 10th grade. And there really wasn't a strategy. This was an emerging strategy this year. There was some things that we were doing this year
032through AP classroom, but I know that through the goals that academics are setting in preparation for next year and knowing that we will have college readiness in all of our high schools next year, we're moving from that 78% to 100% through Building Brighter Futures. We need a strategy around AP and college credit plus. So some next steps. We will not have any additional data points for this year. These were the benchmark assessments aligned to the CEO measure. The next time we will see data related to this year if our scholars are college ready is through the OST test. And I know our scholars are working really hard and our educators are working really hard in testing right now. Looking ahead to next year, some strategies we really want to ensure that we're working on is
033using the PSAT data in addition to NWEA to determine college readiness. So that's going to be really important that will inform our work, inform our classrooms, as well as those tools. We want to provide high schools with clear guidance on how to effectively implement MTSS. MTSS we talked about before, those are those tiers that we can use to really see where students are and it allows us to better target instruction, also provide better intervention. We've talked about the personalized pathways that students can use through platforms like iExcel that we use and then also SAT also has a personalized pathway as well similar to iReady where it really contextualizes where the student is at and allows the teacher to grow the student from there. We also want to have a clear plan of focus for ninth
034grade, for math and ELA, for ninth and tenth grade, including strategies to accelerate college readiness. So not just meeting that bar, but how can we accelerate the college readiness? So that's going to be really important. We shared some of our KPIs for Building Brighter Futures. And, you know, one of the things that is often missed is through Building Brighter Futures, how we're going to be able to offer scholars more. Right now, we don't have many of our schools that are offering seventh grade accelerated math. Next year, 27% of our elementary schools will offer accelerated math, and we will increase the number of elementary schools offering Algebra 1 in eighth grade from 40% to, from 11% to 40%. I'll say that again, because it seemed like it got a lot of excitement. The schools offering Algebra
0351. Algebra 1 will increase. If we keep getting interrupted, we will recess the meeting and come back and vote on the final resolutions without any presentations. Please allow us to conduct the board business. So we will increase the amount of schools. offering Algebra 1 from 11% to 40% so that's a positive sign and we shared last week we have a long way to go we want more of our students having access hopefully all of our elementary schools at some point having access to Algebra 1 in eighth grade that puts them on the pathway to taking calculus in college and then ensuring that we remain on track which we shared last week in our our last time in our board meeting that all of our high schools offering the college credit and so we're on track
036for AP offering that as well. So that is very important and I promise Can't you know we'll get to the portion where there are some of those questions, but this is you know the work You know talking about the work of our educators as well as our scholars on Where we are at this point, and this is the work that we've all been working really hard for so that is all for this prison portion of the presentation and I'll Start with board discussion dr. Sridhar Thank you, Dr. Morgan. These are sobering numbers. It just shows us that there's lots and lots more work to do. I have one, just a clarification, more technical question, and then I have a substantive question as well. The clarification is on slide nine, where we're talking about strategies that
037are beginning to work. The third bullet, which says principals at SLI presenting turnkey decks to their staff. Can you explain what those terms mean? What's SLI? Dr. Sridhar, I'm so sorry. It's very difficult to hear you. Can I? No. What's SLI and what's a turnkey deck? Thank you. So for those questions, the question was, what is SLI and what is a turnkey deck? SLI is our monthly school leadership institute. It's essentially our meeting that we have with our principals to give principal professional development. And Turkey Decks are presentations where if there's a strategy that we're looking to see across our schools where we can give that professional development to principals and they can actually begin to implement it in their schools. So we want to provide that support. And those were strategies that the academics
038team committed through the work that we were doing over the summer and going to Harvard and looking at some of those best practices as well and we're bringing that back. to our system. Okay, thank you. That actually leads into my substantive question. So what kinds of peer-to-peer professional development are we considering with teachers? So here's the, let me just elaborate on this question. What we're talking about, I mean, first of all, when we look at our numbers, it is clear that incremental strategies are just not going to work. When we think about, when we say 7.6% last year and 7.9% this year, that's within a margin of error. That's not necessarily improvement that we can begin to celebrate. What we need is transformative change and adaptive change. Yeah, couldn't couldn't agree more right agree more
039that's just a statement that we all agree. Yeah, so so as we think about adaptive strategies the the strategies that you're describing our strategies that you know You have tried we have all tried before right so if we you know if you want to think about the pockets of excellence. You have described CMSD as having many pockets of excellence in the district. There are classrooms, there are teachers, there are schools that are producing great outcomes. What are we thinking about learning from those great outcomes and translating those into perhaps pure professional development where teacher leaders can lead professional development for other teachers? Totally. Before, yeah, and you know, couldn't agree more with your question. So a couple of things I want to take note, and I'm going to have the academics share about the professional
040development. The teacher cohorts, and that's what I mentioned. The teacher cohorts are about learning those best practices and actually teachers training teachers. And so that's some of the work around the teacher. from the teaching and learning team, and we need to grow that. Right now it's not nearly enough of our teachers doing this work, and ideally, we talked about this before, where teachers are leading this professional development. The best practices are taking place in the school. I do want to go back to the data, because yeah, you're right, from last year, small growth from where we were. This year and year, though, 6.3% growth, and we didn't have strategies before. And so we need to accelerate the amount of growth. But before with no strategies, we were staying flat in year or just growing a
041little bit. This year, where we started lower than what we ever had been, the work that has been taking place across our schools, by our educators, through the academics department. we grew by 6.3 percentage points. And so this is showing that when we actually have an intentional strategy, these things are accelerating the pace of change. So I did want to make sure that that is a part that we look at in the year. There was a question about specific professional development. And do you guys have a mic down there if there are any things that you would add, Ms. Carlson? Check okay, if you can advance a couple of slides to the strategies right there, so we All of our turnkey decks were really focused and intentional on the strategies that you see on this
042slide So every SLI every month we worked with our principals on implementing these strategies in ELA and math and Provided the turnkey decks for them to bring back to their teachers to deepen that work Mr. Billups Thank you, Chair Ellicott. Dr. Morgan, I've just got a couple, I think, quick questions. Excuse me. On slide seven, I think it's the same slide. I'm always curious about scope and sequence. I think about young people who maybe move to multiple different schools in one school year. So my question is, can you kind of describe how important and how the schools are able to maintain that scope and sequence to ensure that students are learning at the same rate? Yeah, and we've talked about the scope and sequence work. One thing I could say that is powerful in the
043high school space is we do have a single curriculum in math and we do have a single curriculum for ELA. And so it allows the common scope and sequence that we have to be across all schools. So to this point of, I know one of the things you shared is we have bright spots of excellence, but if you happen to go to a school that doesn't have college readiness courses or is not taught at that rigor, we're trying to eliminate that because it should be that kids, no matter which school they go to, no matter their background, no matter how they look like, that they have access to a high quality education. And I know our team, everyone in this room is very passionate about that. I'm personally passionate about that. And so the scope
044and sequence in the common curriculum has allowed, when there's high mobility rates, When they're students that move from school to school, sometimes from educators from school to school, it's not a learning curve of what the actual curriculum is. And generally, students are on pace of where they are. We're a high-mobility district where students are moving from school to school, particularly in our elementary space, but also in our high school space. And so that allows for some continuity and also allows for students to stay on track. We also talked about chronic absenteeism, which continues to be a huge issue. When we have some of these common resources, it really enables us. to provide and make sure students stay on track. And that's the work we've been doing to provide the scope and sequence resources. There is
045a teaching and learning team led through Dr. Turner. There's an insight page that we have on our website where those resources can be accessed and where more information can be given out. I know at some point, PD videos can be shared on. Virtual PD can be shared on that platform as well. And in some cases where teachers are sharing best practices, that's where we want to get. It can be utilized on that insight page as well. Thank you, Dr. Morgan. My next question is pertaining to going back to slide six. It's pretty obvious to see that our math scores is... you know, something that could improve and really push that college readiness number. So my question is around, I know we are intended to have a lot more students being offered algebra in junior high
046in the, you know, in the coming years. How much should we... I kind of want to say expect for that math number to improve because we are offering kids these more students these more challenging math opportunities earlier in their education. I'm going to repeat it to hopefully I caught it. I know we get a lot of feedback when we're on the stage, so it's hard to hear the question sometimes back. But I believe the question was with the strategy of offering Algebra 1, more Algebra 1 in eighth grade, one, what evidence are we seeing that that is an area that's going to help? But then two, what's our plan to accelerate more students offering? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay, got it. And if I don't get it, please, you know, always ask again. A
047couple of things. One, as I mentioned before, currently right now only 11%, seven schools currently offer Algebra 1. I think when I did the state of the schools, only 72 of our about 2,800 eighth graders are enrolled in Algebra 1 currently. There was a presentation that I saw, both Chair Ellicott and I got a chance to see when I know our teachers do a presentation every year on best practices, and there was one specifically really around. Algebra 1 in eighth grade that was really powerful. We are also seeing that in our data, too. When students take Algebra 1 in eighth grade, I think the last data we saw, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought it was almost about 80% of those students were proficient when they, of our eighth graders taking Algebra 1. So
048when we get students taking Algebra 1 earlier, they tend to be proficient. And so that's a strategy to get students college ready earlier and also have that strategy. We're at 11% now. Next year in the fall, we'll be at 40%. 18 of our 45 elementary schools will offer Algebra 1. And we still have work to do with scheduling, so there may be more. I was in a teacher meeting today with the remote school teachers, and there's a lot of innovative strategies that they have around, we can be a part of this. We can help increase Algebra 1 practices across our schools and making sure students have that. And so there are strategies out here for us to do that. Above all, what I'm really excited about is the ability to offer accelerated advanced math in
049seventh grade. That is an important strategy because even though, and I've seen districts do this, they say, we're going to offer Algebra 1 in eighth grade and we'll just make Algebra 1 the eighth grade math. Well, we know based on our proficiency rates, not all students are ready. But we have to get them ready. And I know you guys have asked us questions. What are we doing along the way to make sure students are ready for that? One of the strategies that our team is looking at is to make sure 27% of our elementary schools will offer advanced math. And so that is a pipeline for ensuring more Algebra 1 in eighth grade. And then also the work around pre-AP is also a pipeline for that college readiness in the high school space. Dr. Morgan,
050I did want to comment on that final point. With both math and ELA this is where you know we've got the college readiness goal at the high school level and Again just to remind everyone and as you've said it's important for us that our students are college ready So that they can choose what their path is so they're not Pigeonholed into one path without having the opportunity to go to college if that is what they wish And when it comes to the ELA, the goal that we have for reading literacy in third grade, the eighth grade algebra goal, and I appreciate you saying the piece around seventh grade advanced math options, because we really have to build at the lower level, and it's so hard for students to get to the place they need to
051be if they're already behind in ninth grade. It's hard for educators to get them where they need to be as well. I appreciate that focus and also hearing the feedback from the board in past meetings around it. Dr. Sridhar? Thank you, Chair Alucard. One more question. And you can stay on the slide. So from a strategy perspective, the math readiness is directly linked to Algebra 1. What would we see as the sort of equivalent on the ELA side? What kinds of things, what kinds of... both tactical as well as strategic initiatives are we considering for sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth graders so that they can be ready to go past that higher cut score on the ELA for college readiness? Yeah, no, great question. So one I'll share some things that we're looking at and we're
052doing and what I also loved in there is I heard a charge. So I'll tell you what I took away as a charge and some things we can do and be looking at from a team perspective. So one of the things from the in the high school space The pre-AP space that we're really looking at, and one of the reasons why the team is really focusing on pre-AP, there is actually a standardized curriculum aligned to college readiness through college board through pre-AP. We have honors in high schools, but it's not as regulated. It looks different from school to school, the readiness students are doing. So that's some of the work we're trying to do in the high school space. so that students, by the time they take their first AP class, they can be ready.
053We do have some high schools, I've met some high school students where they are taking AP classes in the ninth grade, but we really want to make sure students are getting ready for that. I know there's work around AP seminar that will be offered next year. So these are some things that we're looking at to accelerate that pace of change. I will also say the college readiness walkthrough and the ELA walkthrough we're doing, the look fors that we're looking for in the classroom, those are nationally. normed when thinking about what rigor looks like in the classroom. And so the more we get a chance to actually see these best practices and the great thing I mentioned before, our teachers are utilizing the curriculum. So they're utilizing it. Students have access to the high quality curriculum.
054The next part is really making sure all phases of it is implemented. Now the charge I heard that I think is really important for us to take into account, I know we have our academics team here, is really in that middle grade space. I know as a student, I did honors. AP both in the middle school space and in high school I had honors literature honors English in the middle school spaces and don't know what that equivalent looks like and how we're doing that consistently across our schools to see if we're ready I know our focus through the board goal is in the early literacy space but I do believe it's a natural way for us to look at if we're starting to look at that pre AP how can more students be ready by
055the time they get to high school so I hear that charge and there's work we can do We're going to continue the meeting. Dr. Morgan, please complete your answer to Dr. Sridhar's question. So, as I was sharing, Dr. Sridhar, it is work that we're doing to ensure. We're going to recess the meeting. In the goals and guardrails presentation, we have four resolutions on our agenda for the evening. Three of them do not have a presentation. The final one is the presentation and resolution on layoffs. If the board does have questions on that presentation, on that resolution, including questions we've been asked by the public, if we're not able to conduct that presentation, then we will not do it and we will simply vote. I would like to have the full presentation by Dr. Morgan with
056an opportunity for board discussion. No, we do not have public comment at this meeting. We do have public comment at the next meeting. That will not change today. We are going to proceed. We are going to proceed with the four resolutions and I intend to have the presentation on layoffs shown. If we can't do that, again, due to disruption, we will simply vote on it. That is not what I want to do or any of my colleagues. Okay, there will not be a presentation. We are simply going to vote. This evening, the board will consider the adoption of four additional resolutions not a part of our consent agenda. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve resolution of intention not to renew limited and extended contracts. Dr. Morgan, any explanation on this resolution? Any
057questions or comments? Mr. Stockdale, please call the roll on this motion. Ms. Ellicott? Yes. Mr. Billups? Yes. Mr. Briggs? Yes. Miss Jones, Pastor Jones? Yes. Ms. Peek? Yes. Dr. Sridhar? Yes. Mrs. Rothschild? Yes. The motion passes with a vote of 8-0. The resolution is adopted. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve Resolution 14.02, authorizing notice of intention to non-renew administrators. So moved. Second. Dr. Morgan, any explanation? Yes. With this resolution, the board will be expressing its intention to not renew the contract of school-based administration as set forth in Exhibit A to the resolution. Mr. Stockdale, please call the roll on this motion. Ms. Ellicott? Yes. Mr. Phillips? Yes. Mr. Briggs? Yes. Ms. Jones? Pastor Jones? Yes. Mrs. Peek? Yes. Dr. Sweetheart? Yes. Mrs. Rothschild? Yes. The motion passes with a vote of 8-0.
058The resolution is adopted. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve resolution 14.03 authorizing the non-reappointment of substitute teachers, substitute paraprofessionals, substitute nurses, and substitute secretary contracts. Mr. Stockdale, please call the roll. Yes. Yes. Mrs. Peek? Yes. Dr. Sridhar? Yes. Mrs. Welchow? Yes. Motion passes with a vote of 8-0. If there will be silence, we'll hold the presentation. Okay. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve Resolution 14.04, authorizing the layoff of district employees. So moved. Mr. Stockdale, please call the roll. Ms. Ellicott? Yes. Yes. Mr. Briggs? Yes. Mrs. Jones? Yes. Pastor Jones? Yes. Mrs. Peek? Yes. Dr. Sweeney? Yes. Mrs. Blanchard? Yes. The motion passes 5-0. The resolution is adopted. The next regular board meeting will be a board business meeting on Tuesday, April 28th at 6.30 p.m. at Garrett Morgan High
059School. The chair will now entertain a motion to adjourn this board work session. Hearing no objection, this meeting is adjourned.