South Summit School Board Meeting

001This year has been crazy for you. We're going to go live here. We're live now. So. Yeah. That's right. I'm just trying to bring it up. Okay. Did you download the PowerPoint? Huh? Did you download the PowerPoint? So I hope I did. Yeah, we're going to go. Did you already do your language? No. No more of that. Going to Canada. Yeah. For. I'm going to go to bed. No. Just a bit. You can lock me out this time. It's like you got the vision and mission statement again. Good. Did you do that last time? I think so. That's all right. We practice that. It seems I have to try this when we get away with it. Yeah. I don't know. Just change that. Where? Where do you? The board can change. Just a day. One

002day. One second. Because I forgot about it and I'm not going to be here. You have to have a room here. I'll be here. Okay. You'll be here. And that will be. What's it worth to you? A lot. Yeah, I'll be here. Okay. I'll leave the name. Okay. Twenty-second on a Monday. Uh-huh. Yeah. Times that could be. It's the same six. Is the budget hearing at six? Yes. Yes, six. Okay. They'll all be here. So I'm covered. I'm just playing hooky. Where are you going to be? That's when we're going to be in Florida. Look for seashells. Naples. Glass. Well, they don't have glass there. So it's not a seashell. Ocean, water. Warmer than your trip. Yeah. Yeah. He just went to Oregon last week and it was cold. East coast is always, the water's

003always warmer than west coast. Because of Alaska. That's what I always talk about. Well, it is. It's because of the. Ice break. The current in the northern hemisphere runs in a clockwise motion. Oh. Coming down the coast on the west coast. On the east coast. It's going up. It's going up the coast from the weather. I never knew that. Said. We're going to be killing it. There we go. I was looking at tissue. That comes in many degrees. How's a little piglets doing. I need to see a picture of him. I'll update something. Okay. Anybody going to kiss him this year? No, I wish. I would have. It would become my pet. It would. Like I would house break it. If I had a little piglet. One last year. Oh, they are so cute. Let

004me show Ty. Didn't Lisa kiss one of the students? Look at how cute those are. They are. Oh my gosh. I didn't want to kiss them. You can if you're going to the elementary school. That's where you kiss the pigs. They're so cute. I'm like excited to play teacher. I'm like, Mark, can I help set up your room? Can I go in and write on your chalkboard? Yeah, I'm excited. They're so cute. So they're kind of like dogs where you keep them for eight weeks before you sell them? Yeah. I'm going to come visit. Yeah, they're a week and a half old now. Yeah. I gave them their iron shots on like day two. That helps. One more minute. And you didn't have any losses? They all survived? No, they all survived. I figure since

005I'm the only board member that went to Silver Summon's graduation, it's okay that I'm not going to. I'm going to go to the next one. Yeah. It's a good tradeoff. Somebody fix the clock, too. Wow. All right. Fantastic. We want to welcome everybody to the South Summit School Board of Education regular meeting on Monday, June 8th at 6 p.m. We want to welcome everybody that's here. And just want to acknowledge those that have come. We want to start with roll call. Just want to note that everybody is here. And move on to our Pledge of Allegiance. Business Administrator Robinson will give us that. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Board

006Member Wolfson, will give us the, provides the vision and mission statement. Okay. Vision statement. South Summit School District valuing individuals and preparing them for success. Mission statement. We support, empower, empower and inspire individuals to promote and achieve academic and character excellence. All right. Thank you. All right. We are now to public input. Jerry, if you want to come forward. We have five minutes allocated for this, which is typical of what we do. And then of course you acknowledged all the requirements and all that good stuff. So we'll let you go ahead. Do you want me to use this thing? Yes, please. It has to be public record on the It's alive. It's alive. I just want to start out saying that the past, the previous five decades, I was a part of this district in

007one way or any other. From a student to a student teacher to a coach to a teacher to a coach for five decades. I've seen a lot. I know a lot. And I've been through a lot. And I've sat back and watched and I'm here. There's things going on in the district that I totally don't understand. And there's lists, but I'm only going to talk about two. I put on the thing when I put in there about ethics. And to me, ethics, honor and all that stuff means a lot to me. Integrity. Number one. And with that being said, I have a question. Two questions. I would like you guys to explain to me why it's proper for the district to give district equipment to individuals around the valley without it going to an auction.

008Why is that taking place? And the big one, why are there private vehicles parked in a district building? So do you have examples of that you can provide so that way we can do our research? Yeah, I can. Of course, we're not going to comment because we're going to have to go do fact-finding, of course. I know. I just want to get my end of it out. Yeah. A Volkswagen, a trailer, a Can-Am, a boat. Is this parked in or? Parked in a South Summit School District building on 2nd West. Okay. And I know it's been there for over three years. Okay. That's the second one. The first one was? The first one is there's equipment being handed out to individuals in the valley by employees of the district. Okay. And on that one, it's

009Is that like surplus, like Jerry? Or just, we got a piece of equipment, somebody's borrowing it to use it? They're not borrowing it, it's given to them. Oh, so it's not? And my point is, I mean, as a foot, when I was a football coach, I had stuff that come up and I gave it to Oakley City. I gave a sled to them for football and stuff like that so everybody could use it. But this was given to an individual for their own Is it, um, just, you mean, they do some research or? It's baseball equipment. Okay. But I think it needs to be looked into because it's just not, how does it, how does the whole community have access to it when it's given to an individual? I mean, the Little Leagues are a

010feeder school to the high school and I just really, we don't, the district doesn't give much help to them. You know, with fields and gyms and, but this is equipment that's flat out given that should have went up for auction because there's more than one Little League team in the valley. But I don't want to dwell on that because that one's more hearsay. The other stuff, it's there. No, I, no, this is very helpful. I mean, stuff that I'd Well, on that note though, I'd, I hope, I'd like to see, I would like to see, you know, do what you want, but I'd like to see the board go down there and look at it. I'd hate to send the Fox down there to check the chickens out, in a sense, if you get my

011drift. No, probably. It needs to be addressed. Yeah. Because if that's the case, as a taxpayer, I want to park my RV down there. Yeah. No, we have policies in place and we definitely appreciate you bringing it to our attention. And then we can validate it and take action. Well, I just don't want it swept under the rug. Park City School District had the same thing come up a year ago. Similar. Not the same, but similar. That employee's no longer at Park City. Because I, it's wrong. It needs to be addressed. And I hope as a board you address that. No, I definitely, we definitely want to follow policy, so we appreciate you bringing that up. You know, it takes a lot for me to be here. I mean, how many times have you seen

012me here in ten years? Never. But, no. But something has to take place. The district has to pick a new direction. You know, I was fired twice from this district in various incidents for reasons I didn't believe in. But the district always says we want to go in a different direction. And it stuck with me. Because I think this district needs to go in a different direction. We're not, when we're the worst school district in Summit County, something has to give. And we're the worst district, we're on the bottom almost in the state. The turnover of employees is atrocious for whatever reason. And I just feel like something has to happen and somebody needs to, instead of the community always talking about it, somebody needs to step up and put it in front of you

013guys to get with it. We appreciate it. Your time is up and we appreciate you coming in. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Jared. Alright. Next item on our agenda. We have a presentation with, by Rebecca and Superintendent. Yup. Regarding UPAC and just, I know there's been some questions there and so we appreciate you coming in and presenting that. So Rebecca presented to the elementary a week or two ago. And I asked if she'd be willing to come and present to the board, the two of us. And I think we've talked about going to each of the buildings at the beginning of the school year to provide the same type of information to staff. Just because the UPAC stuff is so much different now today than it was just a couple years ago or a few years

014ago. So she's going to present and then I'll chime in as needed or answer questions. Sounds good. Thank you. I'm Rebecca Jensen. I'm the President of the South Summit Education Association. And as Superintendent said, we have talked about this and I've talked about it with other UEA representatives in our district. So it is something that is on the minds of many educators. The information in the slideshow was taken from, was mainly taken from the UPAC website. And if you see the link on that slide, that is directly quoted from that web page. So when I first started to present this, there is a lot of information for educators every year with new legislation. And sometimes it's exhausting to get informed on all the new things. So I wanted to acknowledge that there's a lot that

015educators need to be informed of. And occasionally our desire to be well informed is currently at odds with our desire to remain sane. That being said, I thought this, I wanted to highlight the most important parts of the updates. Educators may not know what UPAC is. So UPAC is the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission. It's a group of educators and community members who advise the Utah State Board of Education in matters relating to the professional practices of educators. And those community members are the PTA from the PTA, organized PTA. UPAC's primary function is to receive information regarding alleged misconduct by licensed educators and make recommendations to the board regarding what licensing action, if any, is appropriate. Who reports misconduct? So if it is an arrest, it is the responsibility of the licensed educator to report

016that to their principal within 48 hours. If criminal charges are brought forth, it is the responsibility of a licensed educator and there's a form for that. If there is alleged educator misconduct, and this is the part that has changed, anyone can report that. I also wanted to note that administrators have specific reporting requirements, new and different, as opposed to a few years ago. It is also important to note that there is no statute of limitations for something that happened many, many years ago. And which is appropriate in the case of sexual misconduct or things of very serious nature. So here are the updates to educator standards that educators need to be aware of. An educator may not, and this is from code, an educator may not use the educator's position through language, instruction, materials or

017symbols, to actively endorse, promote, or disparage another individual's race, color, religious belief, sex, national origin, marital status, political belief or creed, physical or mental condition, family, social or cultural background, sexual orientation, or gender identification. Keeping in mind that anyone who is a educator can report these alleged ethical violations. Many educators who have been accused of ethical misconduct are unfamiliar with UPAC and find themselves frustrated with the process. Furthermore, some educators don't have the financial means to hire an attorney to represent them and help them understand what is happening. As UPAC staff, we hope this guide will help educators, especially those without attorneys, navigate the UPAC process and understand what to expect during each step. If you have more questions after reading this guide, please contact us. This guide is written in non-legal language. So the

018UPAC website is very informative for educators. Now this is my perspective as far as legal representation. So Utah State Risk Management is provided by our district. It is the primary legal representation if it is needed. It may or may not they, Risk Management, may or may not represent an educator in a UPAC hearing. It is free to educators through the district paid membership. In contrast, a professional association such as UEA, and there are others, but I am most familiar with UEA, will provide legal representation at a first hearing or civil suit if Risk Management does not. The UEA may not continue representation if the educator wants to appeal. UEA will not in the case of sexual misconduct. And voluntary membership, this is a voluntary membership with dues required. So on the Risk Management that says

019may or may not represent, what determines whether they will or will not? It's done on an individual case by case basis through UPAC and with Risk Management. So it depends on the nature of the allegations. Right. And does UEA for example, or any other association, do they, do you have to pay dues to get that? Yes. To get that service? Okay. Go ahead. One other question on that prior one. So the Risk Management, you have to be part of SEA, the other one you have to be part of UEA? No. Every teacher, para, administrator, so we're, our employees are covered through State Risk Management. Okay. Sorry. So say a teacher gets accused of something that they didn't do, Risk Management will jump in to help them. Depends on the nature. It's not, that wouldn't be

020up to us, that would be up to Risk Management. But yes, they get involved. As an educator, obviously I'm a member of UEA, and that is peace of mind. I don't want someone else to decide if I will be represented or not. I have enough to do and I appreciate having legal representation. So that's something I'm willing to do. Go ahead. Other UPAC resources for educators are on their website. And they are so lengthy, I didn't want to get into it with our staff that day, but the resources are very helpful and they're designed for educators. So, what I want educators to remember from this presentation is to seek informed sources. If they have questions about Risk Management, ask Lucinda, not me. If they have questions about UEA, ask a UEA representative, not someone from

021the district, per se. And don't get your information from social media. The other thing I wanted educators to remember is to not talk about any student outside of school or to others not on their education plan team. It's especially sensitive in a small community where students or other employees may see or hear things. It's important that educators do not talk about the situations that they should not. And the third thing is to document their experiences and be informed of school, district, and state requirements. Finally, I want our educators to remember that yes, we have considerable stress in our occupation. And May, that's one of my favorite memes, how are the last few weeks of school going? I wish you could hear the video, but this is a little kid crying and saying, it's good. And

022he's laughing and crying all at the same time. But I encourage educators in our building to speak up in our community about, in positive ways, about our profession and our students and our school. Because the stressful moments are real. And I wouldn't want to tell any teacher, you can't talk about it, but remember that overall, the good and why we got in education in the first place are for those moments when it clicks with a student or we connect with a student in a social-emotional way or in academic ways. It's incomparable. And so that's what I want each of us to remember in the face of difficulty, is that we're not going to be able to support the students in the classroom. And so I think that's a good way to support the students. I

023think that's a good way to support the students. Thank you. Okay. So you talked about the impact and the impact and or the nature of it, if it warrants a hearing or not. If, generally speaking, if it does not warrant an investigation, it's over. It's a non-issue, and it stays that, you know, with however the outcome was at the local district level. If they feel like it warrants a hearing, then they notify the employee and the district of the need for a hearing, and then they go through that process of having a hearing, and then they'll base their decision off of all of that on whether or not additional action needs to take place on someone's license. Okay. Is there a similar process at the local level before determining that it needs to be reported?

024So the way the law is now, it does not leave that up for discretion. Any community complaint needs to be reported? Yeah, and it refers to ethical violations, and it spells out quite a few different examples. The one where I think... That one slide that you showed that said political beliefs, gender identity. Yeah. So I think one where teachers have to be really careful is in particular with this one, because you have to make sure you remain politically neutral, that you're not promoting or disparaging one view, especially... You look at social media, you look at everything is so politically charged and divided right now, and has been for several years, that that's one of the areas that we worry about this coming up with greater frequency. We also, like Rebecca mentioned, there's also always a

025concern of sharing of information, you know, just... In passing, accidentally giving information that is private and shouldn't be given up. Not that people are out there trying to rumor monger. There certainly is some of that, but some of it also just can happen inadvertently and accidentally. But yeah, so those have to be addressed. If it's outside of this... Sorry, Ray, real quick. If it's outside of this, just to follow up, these things that are displaying, it can be handled at a local level? Like if it's... It has to be, but it still has to be reported. It still has to be reported. Yes. And then they decide, you practice that, if they're going to investigate or not. That's the biggest change in the law. Don't we as administrators have the responsibility to verify that whatever

026was said, there's some kind of truth to it? Because people will say anything to get somebody in trouble. And I'm going to tell you, as a teacher, as an employee, why the hell would you want to do this job if anybody, because they got mad because you didn't pass, want to test or something, can come out and say... We have had one in particular comes to mind. I actually had a parent admit that they were complaining because of a disciplinary action that was happening to their student. That certainly made it into the investigation. And so when it was reported, it was reported as such. Oh, yeah. And we... We ought to do our due diligence. And we do. That teacher don't feel threatened about their job if there's nothing there. Why do we even report

027it if there's nothing there? Just because somebody said something? That's horseshit. The law says you have to. The law says you have to, though, no. It's not if it's not there. No, it does. If they complain about it. Yeah. The law is screwed then. It is. So when this bill was going through, and Rebecca can speak to this also. Well, Rebecca... It's challenging. Here's the thing is... It is challenging. Well, I didn't tell you what, though. Too many times administrators are gullies, and they don't fight for those people. Yeah. And we need to stick our necks out and fight for them. So I think... That's why we have turnover. I think we're all on the same page. I mean, we certainly... As this was going through the legislative process, those were some of our arguments

028was this is going to be a culture killer. And we had lots of arguments against it. I think at the time, I think a lot of what was being heard on the radio and on talk radio and things were things that were leaning more one direction than the other. And this just... I mean, it was something that none of us were advocating for. And another thing that it's done is it certainly bogs down. The system, it bogs the UPAC system down. I can't imagine how bad that office would have to be to see every single community. But the hard part... Teachers, the culture won't be as bad, even if you have to report it. If they see how hard you fight for them. Right. Yeah. But I will also say when a teacher knows that

029something has to be reported, there's, in my experience, there's always a fear and a worry and a concern. And there's usually... There's usually frustration and anger along with that. Whether it's because of that fear or not, it does... It's... There's no way to guarantee that nothing will come about of it. I have seen it where... I've seen examples where I've thought and I've said, you know, I can't imagine that this will go anywhere. And then it does. And the same is true the opposite. So it's... I know it's something that's still being brought up legislatively as bogging the system down, as hurting the culture of education. No. We need to revise it. But do we investigate it before we report it? Generally speaking, it also depends on the nature of it. If there's an accusation

030that someone's having an inappropriate relationship with a student, let's say, for example, we put that person out on administrative leave, and we would report it, and we would be investigating it. So they have a responsibility to share their investigation. More often than not, we finish the investigation so that you can show what you did, what evidence you gathered, what conclusion you came up with, you know, that you came to, and if there was or wasn't any disciplinary action and why. And that's reported to UPAC. And then they take... They look at whatever evidence you submitted, and if they feel like it... This is generally speaking. If they feel like it was complete and the outcome is where it should have landed, then generally it's done there. If they feel like it's more egregious than what

031the investigation showed or found, then they would have a hearing. And they would have a hearing on that. And it doesn't necessarily have to be more egregious than what was determined by the administrator. They have the flexibility to take any one of those cases and look deeper into them and have a hearing. So every district is experiencing an increase in this and has since this law changed. And UPAC is... We're currently undergoing some audit processes, I think because of the increase of reporting that's happened over the last couple years. So prior to a couple years ago, we were able to do our due diligence, investigate, address things as we saw appropriate at the local level. If it was criminal in nature, it had to be reported to UPAC. And I think that there were allegations

032of things being swept under the rug. And I think that's why they changed this to be the way it is now. And one of our trainings, they stated that a parent can also go right to UPAC's site. They can. And report. But it's not just... They can bypass the school district altogether. So just so I'm aligned. Oh, no. Okay. So if somebody reports it to... To leadership, leadership does an investigation and submits all the information into UPAC. Yeah. So we have had a parent who reported to the state. We had reported prior to that. The parent didn't know that we had... So they let that parent know that we had already reported it. But, yes, so parents are able to do that. Right. Yeah. And when that happens, the state then contacts us. They notify

033board leadership. They notify the superintendent. And then we have a finite time to respond, at least with what we're doing, as far as an investigation and due diligence goes. So we can align... Our leadership can support the teachers in the process of the submittal if they find it in the best interest of the... So at what point are we notified? If... If it goes directly to the state, Matt and I get emails. Right. If it goes directly to the state... Like the leadership gets emails saying, we've had a complaint against... Wouldn't that be good to get out to the rest of us? Yeah, wouldn't it be good to get out to the rest of us? We get questions. I'll stop at public, too. If we... I can certainly let... I can email the whole board

034if and when someone has to be reported. So... Some of us get blindsided out there in the public. Yeah. And it looks pretty stupid. I know. On our part, when we... Numerate calls and complaints. I have heard a word about it. Yeah. Okay. But I think we're only notified, Matt and I, if they go directly to them. Right. It's not... We don't get... Like the most recent one, we weren't notified. Right. Yeah. Do we currently have any teachers under UPAC investigation? There are two. I don't know where they're at in the process as far as... They've been... They've been investigated on our end and reported to UPAC. And UPAC has had a hearing on one, and I don't know if they'll have a hearing on the other. I don't anticipate that they will, but I

035didn't think that they would on the first one. But wouldn't that be good if we knew, so I don't get blindsided out on the street like I have been? I'm wondering if it... Because I've seen it both ways. Like, there's... While it's being investigated... There are some personal things. We probably don't need to know all the details. No, we don't need to know the details, but we do need to know there's something going on. And when I get... I've had one of these, at least five different people, ask me about it. And I have no comment about it. That's what I'm wondering. And... If knowing would help, because I would guess most of the time all we can say is there's an investigation... Take a comment on that. And I'm surprised our public input guy

036didn't mention this, because I thought that's what he was going to talk about. Yeah. Was this what we're talking about right now. But the thing is, is don't we have to, as a board, also... About that next one. ...the appeal process? So there is also that as far as from a disciplinary action standpoint. The board is a final line of appeal on those things. And that's an additional thing. How would you keep our arm length until the appeal, right? If they were to go through an appeal process, yeah. That... They'll be nice, though. Even if you had to say, like you said. Yeah, I know I've heard, I've been told that there's an investigation. Yeah. I have not been filled in on the details. Yeah. And it's still accurate. I just know that it's happening.

037Yeah. Okay. At least you can acknowledge that, yeah. Sure. We've been notified that it's happening. Sure. And then I had one other thought that's kind of related. Okay, bring it up now. Sure. Sorry, Rebecca, we're taking up your time. Yeah. I was thinking, Rebecca, when you were talking about how the association provides this, I was wondering if we should look at next time we do an open or put our benefits out for bid, or maybe we don't even have to wait that long, to see what if we offered a prepaid legal benefit so that if our employees didn't want to, if they're just joining the association for this benefit, what if we could provide a prepaid legal benefit that's cheaper than the association dues so they can get that legal coverage and indemnification? It's not

038a huge price tag for employees either. It's like $5 to $15 a paycheck. At least most of the legals that I see people buy. Just so they have the option so that they can look at it and say, well, there's prepaid legal benefits, less money than the association dues. How much does UEA do? I don't even know. I don't even know. How much do UEA do? About $450, something like that, isn't it? They are at $84 for 10 months, so about $840 a year. $840 a year? I think we could probably do prepaid legal benefits for like $50 a month. That covers more than just legal representation, but yes. Oh, true, true, true. She probably wants to recruit people to join the association. To the association, okay. And you're trying to bust the email. But

039I also understand that, yeah, it's complicated for sure. No, I did not prepare this as a means to sell people, though I would like the membership. I just want educators to be informed of this process. I agree. And it's a great presentation. And the change. Thank you. And we wanted to bring it to the board to make sure you were aware of the requirements. While there's no statute of limitations, like Rebecca mentioned, there is a 30-day maximum window that you have to report to UPAC. There's also that timeline. The statute of limitations means that there is no... You can go back 20 years. Yeah, you can go back 20 years. Even though you only have 30 days to report it? You have 30 days to report it from the time you find out. From the

040time you find out, yeah. I know. I wouldn't be, but you might be. All right. Any more questions for Rebecca? No, thank you very much. Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks. That's all you do. Thank you. Thanks. It was very good. I'm assuming this is Shelly. Yeah. On the next one, this is our results from our testing. We've got some data to share. And we have some data. Fantastic. 10,000-foot view. Everything's 100%. I do think, in case it's not clear to people, that people need to know administrators can also be reported to UPAC. It's not just teachers. Right. Yeah. Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education... Anybody with an education license. All right. I am here,

041thanks for having me, to report out how we did at the end of the year on our end-of-year testing. And I'm calling it the ultimate South Summit School District Group project because the end of the year kind of is a time where you're looking back and thinking about the impact that the work you've done has had. And I know I've been thinking about that the last couple of weeks. And I know we talk a lot about teachers when we talk about student data, but really anybody that works in the school district is in charge of student growth. And so regardless of our role in the district, whether it's school board, custodian, paraprofessional, teacher, administrator, secretary, the results that we're about to share belong to all of us. And it is our ultimate group project. I

042also, I love this quote. It's from Data Wise, which is a project between Boston Public Schools and the Harvard School of Education. And I love it because continuous improvement is compelling once you're able to work with a group of people that you care about on something that you're really passionate about. In this case, student learning and see your results. It's almost contagious. And there's no turning back. And I hope we've all learned something. Thank you. We've all had an experience like that behind something with a common purpose. This is the reason why we want to have a culture of feedback and continuous improvement in South Summit School District. Because working with data in response to student learning, that's the work of teaching and learning right there. It's not data. We don't just have it just

043to have it. It's part of a bigger process and a bigger work that we're all a part of. So to, oh. I got excited. Okay. So what you're going to see today, you've heard all of these terms before. We're going to be looking at Acadians, RISE. Acadians has math and reading. It's our basic skills screener. We are going to be talking about RISE and ASPIRE, which is our ELA math and science tests that you see at the end of every year and also. I decided to add up there which each test is designed to measure. Because they're not all the same. And so that's important when we're looking at it. It doesn't all mean the same thing. So RISE is proficiency on Utah Core Mastery. ASPIRE and ACT are tests of application of college skills

044in the context of those content areas. But it's more about skills than it is content knowledge. Next year, ASPIRE goes away and high school students will be taking RISE instead. So then we will have three through ten. RISE information on Utah Core Mastery. Some people have talked about if that is a concern, but I think it's a good thing. If a student can demonstrate mastery on their core standards in ELA math and science, they're going to do just fine applying that knowledge on the ACT. So that's not a major concern. So I also decided to present it a little bit different to you. So what you're going to see is a slide that's K-12. It's a little bit different for each area, just so you kind of can take a look at that all as

045one. So our first slide is for English Language Arts. And you can see there, it's a little out of focus. I apologize for that. On the left, we start with our Acadience Reading end of level. So those percentages represent students that are at or above benchmark on the Acadience Reading measure, which is a screener of basic skills. So it is not the full. Full bandwidth of the core in any of those grade levels. It's just the screener for those lacking skills. The next slide graph over is Rise and Aspire across all of those grade levels. Our students are the blue bar and the gray bar is the state average. You will notice that we do really well on Acadience and when it comes time to apply those school those skills in more rigorous. Settings. English

046Language Arts also includes writing not just reading and lots of reading comprehension strategies. We we struggle a little bit more and we're continuing to work in that area. This is a heavy area of focus for us moving forward is making sure that our instruction is addressing all of it. The basic skills and the rigorous needs in outlined in the core and application of skills, not just content. I do want to point out our eighth grade rise and 10th grade aspire are bright spots for us and we are seeing growth in language arts, even though we're not quite there yet. No Acadience still exists. That's aspire. What is the thing we just approved for new ways to teach the language arts? Like remember that's Houghton Mifflin. That's our curriculum. Okay, right. Are we hoping that will

047have an impact? Yes, we are hoping that will have an impact. So and Lori's already working hard on looking at HMH and the most important parts because you can't just implement a full broad curriculum all at once. It's too many pieces. So she's being really strategic as she plans the different pieces of Houghton Mifflin that make the most sense that are going to get our kids into the rigor of reading and writing in the way that we need them to to see that even more growth. And then you can see on the far right. That is our ELA average score on a CT that's both silver Summit and South Summit together and the ELA average score in the a CT combines a reading score a writing score and an English AKA grammar score that make

048up that ELA average score. So just so you know, what is in the parts of that is the sorry if you said this already, but it's okay the chart on the left. The Cadence. Yeah. We have state benchmark data for those to see didn't have it like for each grade that the the benchmark has been you want 70% or more which we meet fairly easily. We're off by what is it 5% in first grade next year starting July 1 with the addition of Senate bill 241 that becomes 80% so we will have to reach a little higher. It's and it's 80% by 2030. That's the state. That's the goal. Yeah, but it's been 70 and we've done quite well. And if you're that's the bill that was like green written. Yes about retention. Yes, that's

049the retention bill. And if if you recall because you when we were at I think it was when we were at USB a you were asking the facilitator. He was kind of going between aspire and rise. rise and this and that and if you recall the way proficiency has been reported prior to this new bill going into effect is you only got to count your kids who were blue do you remember talking about the colors yeah the blues were the only ones that were counted rather than the blues and the greens so green was considered on level but the way our state was reporting it out only the kids that were well above grade level were counted as being at grade level and so we were reporting our state standards are higher than everybody else

050than everyone else it kind of because we were falsely but falsely makes us look lower than it compares an apple to an orange an apple to an orange yeah and and so now the so now these these indicators are blue and green because that's how the state now is looking at that it's 80 but it's blues and greens which is still different than other states just so you know okay what are other states they it's been 70 it's always been blue green and blue indicators and it's still 70 but now our goal is 80 for our state it'll be 80 oh yeah our state now we count blues and greens but we raise the right right so we may have less showing that we're right right , that's correct nationally we're higher right but if

051we focus only on the Acadians we won't get the growth on rise that we want okay because the Cadence does not get to the depth and complexity that their core standards do there's no it doesn't measure core standards so we want our focus to be on rise and the depth and complexity needed for rise that's going to get our kids farther and they will be better readers and be able to get to the next level. Okay. be better readers and be able to read to learn when they're older better than just being able to score high on a measure of discrete skills. No that bill uses a cadence which is one of its laws which I will go on public records saying. I thought it was only right. No it's on a cadence which is

052a screener. It's a little concerning. Yeah rises rigor Acadians is not it's just a screener. What do you mean by screener? It's a little concerning. Yeah rises rigor Acadians is not it's just a screener. It's a little concerning. Yeah rises rigor Acadians is not it's just a screener. Like I picture someone sitting there listening to you. Well so what is you read for a minute and they're marking your errors does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you read and that gets fluency and you also like depending on what grade you are there are different subtests you have to take. So they're just checking like did you miss anything? Right and how many words per minute and what was your accuracy. They're also looking at like I wish Melissa was here right now. They're

053also looking at things like nonsense. They have a thing where you read nonsense words because they're checking to see if you can do the phonics right even if you it's not a real word. So that's a subtest that's in there. What else comprehension things like that. There's so depending on what grade you are like in kindergarten. We're doing letters and sounds also does that make sense? So it changes over time. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the RISE I'm here to see how you apply it. Right. You're reading like a passage and you're answering more in-depth questions and you're doing you're applying all of those skills to grade level content reading material. So what are you when you said that then we're trying to get K through 2 to answer those type of RISE questions?

054Yeah, because that's what. They have curriculum for that? Yes, and that's what their performance matters assessment is designed for. assessment is designed to do. Because we can't show up in third grade and be like, OK, now answer these really hard questions if the kids haven't had any practice. If we don't know sooner that they're not getting their core standards, waiting until third grade is problematic. And then you make it to the .. If you're talking about this in a minute, just say that. It's OK. OK. Is all the testing work that you've all been doing with teachers? Will that impact this? Hopefully, yeah. Yeah. And we can talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk about that a little later. But yeah, that's the idea. OK, any other language arts questions? Well, we

055can do to support the English. Because it looks like we're struggling a little bit on, I don't know what the other ones are. Especially like seventh grade. Well, seventh grade. Seventh. Seventh. Seventh. Seventh. Seventh. Sixth. Fifth grade. Well, and a couple of things. Remember that this is just this year's results. So more important, and we can do this, is to look at it over time. And what's our trajectory? Does that make sense? That's going to tell us more than just one. It's easy to see something and be like, you know what I mean? But at the same time, we have to look at what's happening longitudinally to see if this is a pattern or is that just a dip. Because those are two different things. Well, and the other thing is where we're focusing on

056improvement. It's kind of like if you think about a student who is reading in the red, and they're a low red, and then you assess them halfway through the year, and they're a high red, they're still a red, but they've grown. And so in using this data, looking at cohort data, how is this group of students performing year after year, not just looking at how did it, what was it this year? Steel straw or something. Just a graph over time. I don't have one tonight, but I can make one. Oh, right, because you have a single point of, yeah. Right. I can get that for you, though. We've actually been. I think we talked about maybe August, right? And we've been creating that for principals, so that principals have the ability to start looking at

057it. That way. And have it shift the way that they're approaching their student data. The other thing is, too, to what the superintendent is saying is this is just representing who's proficient. Yeah. So it doesn't tell you who grew. We can have kids grow a whole bunch and still not be proficient. And so it's just one way of looking at it. Does that make sense? Well, that's what our report card is based on. And ultimately, our job is to create proficient students. So yeah, we should be held to that standard. But there's all these intermediate, like if a kid is growing and they're making a lot of growth, that should be celebrated because we're that means we're moving in the right direction. So that's part of what we need to look at also. So say

058we got a teacher that's continually showing lots of growth. Right. No matter what level of kids they have. Right. I mean, they're knocking it out of park. Yes. How are we going to reward that teacher? That is a good question and above my pay grade. Right? Because I used to get tired of losing great teachers. Oh, yeah. I think we should do that. I'm not in. OK. I'm not entirely in charge of figuring out how that works. Didn't you present a plan like a couple of years ago, a potentially performance pay? So what we're doing, first of all, we want to make sure that any of the data that we're looking at, we're looking at it from multiple angles. So if we just look at proficiency, for example. We can't do that. Right. But historically,

059that's how those models are done. Mm-hmm. And so we're looking, hence the focus is on growth. We're looking at growth. When you get to the point of proficiency where you're 80% or something, at that point, growth is a lot harder to show when you have such a high proficiency. And at that point, maybe you look at, OK. Maintenance. Maintenance. That's right. It's a maintenance. Did they continue? You know, I've mentioned before about a shift in mission. Right. So this is a little bit of a combination, potentially, to at least one year's growth per student, for each student, right? That kind of gets at how we're measuring, looking for that exceptionally high growth. We have some really bright examples of that from this year. You know, we have, for example, we have one teacher who, looking

060at the cohort, the group, came in at, I think it was 31% proficient at the beginning of the year. And at the end of the year, we have a teacher who is a senior and a senior. Right. YEAR I THINK THEY WERE 62 PERCENT PROFICIENT RIGHT SO AND THEN TAKING THAT KIND OF DATA AND THEN AND THEN LOOKING AT IT FROM EVERY ANGLE BUT BUT YOU'RE CERTAINLY RIGHT ABOUT HOW DO WE HOW DO WE HELP REWARD THAT BECAUSE THAT'S SOME THAT'S SOME SERIOUS CLOSING OF THE GAP YES IT IS SO THEY ALWAYS SAY THE SWEAT AND HORSE GETS ALL THE WORK AND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS IN EDUCATION RIGHT WELL AND THE THE OTHER POINT ABOUT WHY WE WANT TO REWARD THAT ONE YEAR'S GROWTH WHICH WILL LOOK DIFFERENT FOR EVERY STUDENT IS IF WE FOCUS

061ON THAT GROWTH AND WE CAN GET THEM GROWING MORE THAN ONE YEAR AT A TIME PROFICIENCY WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF SO WE DON'T WE'RE REPORTING PROFICIENCY TODAY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE NEED TO DO BUT OUR FOCUS NEEDS TO BE THAT TRAJECTORY LINE OF GROWTH HOW STEEP CAN WE MAKE IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO DRIVE HIGHER PROFICIENCY SCORES IN THE END THESE ARE DATA THESE ARE TYPES OF DATA THAT HISTORICALLY I DON'T KNOW THAT THEY WERE LOOKED AT AS CLOSELY IN THE PAST BECAUSE FOR THE MOST PART PEOPLE WOULD LOOK AT THEIR END OF LEVEL RESULTS AND THEN THEY WOULD MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON THAT WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE TRUSTLANDS PLANS THEY'RE BASED ON LAGGING DATA RATHER THAN LEADING DATA AND THAT'S THAT'S ANOTHER REASON WHY WE'RE DOING THE PERFORMANCE MATTERS YOU KNOW

062THE SUMMIT OF ASSESSMENT IS SO THAT WE DON'T RELY HEAVILY SO HEAVILY ON JUST LAGGING DATA THAT WE THAT WE BRING IN MORE LEADING DATA TO HELP INFORM WHAT WE'RE DOING IN THE CLASSROOMS YEAH BECAUSE THIS DATA IS GREAT BUT IT'S AFTER LEARNING HAS HAPPENED WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT NOW WE CAN PLAN SYSTEMICALLY LOOKING AT ALL THOSE BARS WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS AS A SYSTEM BUT AS FAR AS THIS PARTICULAR GROUP OF KIDS ON THIS PARTICULAR CORE LEARNING THAT SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT WE HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD BECAUSE THE SHIP HAS SAILED SO WE HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD OK MATH SAME CHARTS WE HAVE A CADIANCE IN MATH TWO GRADES K THROUGH FOUR AND YOU CAN SEE ON THE RISE PORTION TO THE RIGHT WE ARE DOING

063SO WELL IN MATH RIGHT NOW AND WE SAW SOME HUGE GAINS IN RISE PROFICIENCY IN MATH TWO PLACES AND WE SAW SOME TEACHERS WITH REALLY HIGH PROFICIENCY FROM LAST YEAR STILL MAKE UPWARDS OF FIVE PERCENT GAINS IN PROFICIENCY WHICH IS HARD TO DO TO WHAT THE SUPERINTENDENT MENTIONED ONCE YOU GET TO A CERTAIN LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY CLIMBING STILL IS TRICKIER AND WE SAW THAT IN A COUPLE OF CLASSROOMS AND THAT WAS REALLY EXCITING ASPIRE IS UP ON THE RIGHT YOU CAN SEE IT THERE NINTH IT'S STILL A BIT MORE EXCITING AND WE HAVE A LOT OF STUDENTS THAT ARE GOING TO BE IN THE STATE AND WE DID VERY WELL IN COMPARISON WITH THE STATE ON IN MATH THIS YEAR SO WE WERE VERY PLEASED WITH THAT IN FACT WE'RE TRYING WE'RE LOOKING AT MATH

064AND WE'RE THINKING WHAT ARE WE DOING IN MATH THAT WE NEED TO COPY IN LANGUAGE ARTS WHAT IS WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE MATH IS KIND OF A LITTLE MORE DISJOINTED BECAUSE WE STARTED TALKING ABOUT BUYING MATH CURRICULUM LIKE MAYBE TWO YEARS AGO I THINK I MENTIONED THAT BUT THE STATE HAS BEEN REDOING THE MATH STANDARDS FOR ABOUT 18 MONTHS LONGER THAN THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO AND SO THE IDEA WAS WE DON'T WANT TO BUY CURRICULUM IF THERE'S GOING TO BE NEW STANDARDS WE WANT TO WAIT AND THEY'RE STILL NOT DONE SO SO IT DEPENDS ON THE SCHOOL AND WHAT PEOPLE ARE USING BUT WE'VE GOT DIFFERENT CURRICULUMS IN DIFFERENT BUILDINGS AND PEOPLE LIKE WHAT THEY'RE USING RIGHT NOW SO AS FAR AS THE RIGOR FOR THE TEACHER IF YOU BUY THE CURRICULUM AND THEY USE

065THE INFORMATION THAT'S THERE YOU STILL MAKE THEM WRITE THEIR OWN TESTS UM YEAH EVEN THOUGH YOU JUST PAID MONEY FOR TESTS THAT ARE ALREADY WRITTEN THEY DON'T THOSE AREN'T SUMMATIVE NO THOSE ARE THOSE ARE LIKE CHAPTER TESTS AND UNIT TESTS AND THEY'RE UNIT TESTS AND WHAT IT IS IT IS OF LIKE A FEW CHAPTERS RIGHT THAT GO TOGETHER BUT AS FAR AS THERE ISN'T LIKE AN END OF YEAR SUMMATIVE END OF LEVEL TESTS LIKE THERE IS SO ARE THE TEACHERS WRITING TESTS FOR EVERYTHING OR JUST SUMMATIVE TESTS RIGHT NOW THEY'RE JUST THEY'RE WRITING US RIGHT NOW THEY'RE NOT WRITING ANYTHING NEW RIGHT NOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING IS THEY ARE LOOKING AT THE DATA THEY GOT FROM THEIR TESTS THIS YEAR AND THEY ARE REFINING IT TO MAKE IT STRONGER AND THAT'S THE SAME TEST THAT'S

066TAKEN THREE TIMES YEAH YEAH YEAH YES THE SAME QUESTIONS EXACTLY NOW THEY CAN GO THROUGH AND ADJUST THE QUESTIONS TO SEE HOW THEY CAN GET THE RESULTS RIGHT BECAUSE THEY'VE THEY'VE DONE AND THEY CHANGE AND ONCE THE SCHOOL YEAR STARTS WE DON'T ALLOW CHANGES DURING THE YEAR BECAUSE THEN IT MESSES UP THE DATA YEAH YEAH THAT'S TRUE IN A NUTSHELL BUT THEY'RE NOT HAVING TO REINVENT NO NO NO NO NO BECAUSE THEIR THEIR TEST IS ALIGNED TO THEIR CORE AND THEIR STANDARDS RIGHT SO A CURRICULUM IS NOT PERFECT IN THAT REGARD SO WE SPENT A YEAH YEAH WE SPENT TEN YEARS GOING THROUGH STANDARD BASED YEAH THEY'RE WRITING THEIR OWN TESTS AND WITHOUT ANY CURRICULUM YEAH THEIR JOB THE CURRICULUM IS A TOOL AND IT'S THERE TO HELP AND THE ONE LIKE WE'VE JUST PURCHASED

067FOR READING IS A REALLY GOOD ONE AND SO BY AND LARGE IT'S GOING TO WORK BUT A TEACHER STILL IS RESPONSIBLE TO KNOW THEIR STANDARDS AND WHERE THAT CURRICULUM MIGHT BE WEAK AND WHERE IT MIGHT NEED TO BE SUPPLEMENTED OR ADJUSTED OR WHAT HAVE YOU SO YOU LOOK AT A TEACHER THAT'S BEEN IN HERE FOR 20 30 YEARS THEY REBUILD CURRICULUMS THEY GET A NEW LEADER THEY THROW THAT AWAY AND THEY HAVE TO REBUILD CURRICULUMS WELL AND YEAH WELL YEAH YEAH CURRICULUMS ARE JUST WHAT THAT THEY'RE JUST THAT THEY'RE A CURRICULUM IT'S NOT THE END ALL BE ALL THE TEACHER IS WHAT MAKES THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE FOR SURE OKAY ANY QUESTIONS ON MATH OKAY THIS IS SCIENCE WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING LIKE A CADIENCE FOR SCIENCE SO YOU'LL JUST SEE RIGHT HERE OKAY THIS IS

068SCIENCE WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING LIKE A CADIENCE FOR SCIENCE SO YOU'LL JUST SEE RIGHT HERE SO YOU'LL JUST SEE RIGHT HERE THE I'S ASPIRE IN ACT THE I'S ASPIRE IN ACT THE I'S ASPIRE IN ACT WHERE THE GREEN STATE IS THE GRAY WHERE THE GREEN STATE IS THE GRAY WHERE THE GREEN STATE IS THE GRAY AND WHAT'S PROFICIENCY WE USED TO GIVE AND WHAT'S PROFICIENCY WE USED TO GIVE AND WHAT'S PROFICIENCY WE USED TO GIVE ONE TWO THREES AND FOUR ONE TWO THREES AND FOUR ONE TWO THREES AND FOUR THREE IS PROFICIENT SO THREES AND FOUR THREE IS PROFICIENT SO THREES AND FOUR THREE IS PROFICIENT SO THREES AND FOUR SO THAT 46 OF FOURTH GRADERS GOT A SO THAT 46 OF FOURTH GRADERS GOT A a three or a four on the science rise

069that's what that is saying okay 43 percent of fifth graders so that means so we're still half of them aren't it yeah so you can see there um how we did in science why is science always lowest yeah some of it is that so much of uh uh teacher's time in particular in elementary like when i was an elementary principal you had to have a block a dedicated you know 90 minutes we'll say of literacy dedicated 90 minutes of math and you have to have you had to do specialists and you had this and that and it was one of the things that elementary teachers have complained about over the years is you you tell us we have to teach so much but yet when you do the math behind um all the minutes that

070you have to dedicate to things it's not possible so science science science , um teachers have to find a way to embed science in their literacy block and things like that it's not it's not uh just a it's not like a science class that you're familiar with at a middle or high school and so when you're starting out that way it's hard to to to make ground but when we get to ninth grade then we're talking physical or science right yeah biology yeah yeah more years yeah yeah yeah and what will be interesting when we do rise next year is instead of sort of this general aspire science score there will be a rise for biology and both biology and ag bio have to take that test and then there's a rise for chem like

071you'll see separate subject rises instead of it all lumped together like that which is nice that'll be nice okay you know what would be good addition to this yeah what based on one comment that jerry made was put a park city and a north summit in there so we can compare ourselves to them all the time okay and we do at the school level yeah we do we do that sure we can do that we may be doing better than what people maybe think yeah yeah it's true would you want wasatch in there too yeah i don't care about wasatch just the county no wasatch we're crossing them off okay include wasatch you want me to yes no i'm rewriting it okay i can do that so here's the good news when we're talking about

072rise and aspire in particular with the number of kids we have taking that test we have 28 teachers that give those tests and since we have 28 opportunities to increase the proficiency of students in those areas and we were successful 70% of the time the time. So 70% of our rise in Aspire opportunities resulted in an increase in proficiency. So that's excellent. That's really good. It hasn't always been that high. So we're excited about that. There's certainly plenty of room to grow, but when 70% of our indicators, we haven't been at 70% in the past. And so there's growth and improvement this year from last year. Yeah, we compared last year's end of level to this year's and anybody whose proficiency rate stayed the same or increased is included in that 70%. So what's the

07328 opportunities? Just because we have 28 different classrooms that take a rise or Aspire test. That's how I did it. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. So on to everyone's favorite thing, the assessment project. So this is how I was able to do this for this go round. So I have been crunching all of the numbers for the principals for every single test that was given in their building as far as the assessment project goes. So I called it a set. If you look at the table portion, what you're looking at is it says assessment groups. Now. That can mean an individual teacher or it can mean a grade level because in grade levels at the elementary, they made two or three tests depending. So fourth grade made three because they did math, science

074and language arts and all the other grades made two. So that counts as an assessment group because it was a group of people doing it together. So total, we had 47 assessment groups. And of those 47, 33 of them. Gave. All of their assessments. So the BOI, MOI, EOI, or if it was a semester class, we just did a beginning and end because it's too short to do the middle. So we had 33 complete assessment cycles out of those 47 assessment groups, which is 70% did a complete assessment cycle. Of those groups, of those 33 groups, 32 had kids that showed growth. So that's. 97%. And we. Could that be one kid or. No, what it, what it was multiple kids, usually quite a few. And what it meant was they either had, there were

075two ways of looking at growth. One was the average score on the test went up. Or the percentage of kids that they had move from red and yellow to green and blue. Because we use the same colors, red, yellow, green, and blue. And green. And blue is considered proficient. So we saw a lot of movement. On all the individual graphs you can see from BOI to EOI. This many kids were red and then it got less at MOI. And then it was even less at the end of the year. So that's what we were looking for. Does that make sense? That those numbers should have skewed higher into blue across the year. So we did have 97% of kids make growth. Now we were very generous in. Determining growth. They just had to move. Period.

076We didn't, we didn't stipulate how much. We're going to start experimenting with that. We've got the growth formula from the state, how they determine growth. And we're going to apply it to some of our summative assessments and see how that. Shakes out. Um, we're also doing a study of, it was interesting to look at, compare how kids did on their summative assessment. And how they did on their project assessment and rise, and which ones mirrored each other and which ones didn't. Um, so our two biggest next steps are to increase that 70% so that we have more, um, assessment cycles that are all the way complete, or you can't really compare the data if they left something out. So we need, and we also, and we're currently doing this, working on continuing to calibrate our

077assessments with the core standards. And. And rise proficiency standards. So that's what people are working on right now. One thing I wanted to point out in that little sunburst is in our performing arts areas. And in CTE, we did observational assessments of mastery. Um, of demonstrated skill. Cause that's what CTE and performing arts are about. Like you can take a multiple choice about that, but what we want to know is, can you do it? And we saw high, high rates. Of mastery on those. So that went really well and it helps them prepare for the state skills test also. So the CTE teachers in particular did a lot of work around that, but like Jill, our choir teacher had an extensive, um, measure. And so did Mr. Beal, the band teacher. So they were able

078to demonstrate lots and lots of mastery in those areas. So right now, um, the teachers are refining their assessments. Some people are done in some people. Aren't just depends. We're supporting throughout the summer as we need to. Um, they're looking at how kids did on their test at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year. So they're looking at, oh, wait at the beginning of the year, 95% of my kids knew the answer to this question. It might be a little too easy or it's the end of the year. And only 10% of my kids got this right. Is this question a little too difficult? And we've even had some aha moments. Like. One of our teacher, a couple of our teachers at the middle school discovered that they need to vary

079how they ask their questions. Cause they ask their questions exactly the way they teach it. And for kids to be able to apply it on like arise, they have to pre be presented with different ways of asking the question. So some of them have figured that out. And so they're rewording things. They're adding questions. They're taking questions away. We have one teacher starting completely over. Her choice. Um, and so we're helping people do that so that we, um, we want to get these tests really, really good and solid before we move on to anything else. So that's what we're doing. It'd be really interesting is if you could show between teachers who participate in this program and their students. Course. Yeah. Teachers who don't participate in this program. Yeah. It's really, it's making a difference.

080And everybody's participating, so we have that. Yeah, I thought that the early incentive. We did. Well, not everybody did, did had, it's not like the people that are missing beginning of year and middle of year and only have end of year data did something wrong. They were just like the end, the year long people that took all year and then only gave their tests. So most people had a full cycle because everybody signed up in. the summertime or a lot of people a lot of people did most people did and then our semester some of people finished their test at semester so they may only have m-o-y and e-o-y but and are the test questions i think you said this brother is one of the goals or objectives to write test questions that are like

081yes question because my kids showed me one time some test questions on standardized tests and said see if you can do it dad yeah i was like this question is crazy yeah you gotta know how to do the test before you know how to do the content yeah so hopefully this helps the students prepare for some it should it should questions yeah it should hopefully ours are not we're not trying to trick people right but some of the tests seem like some of some of them do not that they showed me not the teacher's questions they showed me actual yeah um questions from rise yeah and they're like you try to answer this that yeah that's a crazy question well and people have to remember that you know like we've used rise benchmarks or interims

082before but the questions on those tests were rejected for rise so they're not their most stellar questions either does that make that's how they're visible they're visible because they don't use them yeah i was thinking there would probably be help in just knowing how to yeah oh yeah answer their question how to read and answer their questions but if those were the worst questions that the other thing that we're trying to do that speaks to the comment about you know integrating social studies or science into the language arts block or whatever is we're starting to look at skills across content areas um because the skills in the core whether you teach you know geography or language arts a lot of them are the same because you have to be able to make an argument and

083cite your sources you have to be able to make an argument and cite your sources you have to be able to make an evidence-based claim you have to be able to model and analyze and look at data those things happen across content areas and where we're in a district where so many people are the single teacher of what they teach focusing on skills across content is going to bring the proficiency of everybody up and so that is something that we're talking about more because the kids don't need us for knowledge they have their phones for that you know they need to know what to do with the knowledge and the skills and the critical thinking and the problem solving those are the things we need to be most focused on so all right so I

084wanted to just talk briefly about where we're going with using our data because like I said at the beginning data just to have it is not really helpful it needs to be part of a process um and we've heard this a lot this is another quote from the data wise project some have learned to identify patterns and student assessment data but have not figured out what to do next and as we've used data more this year than we have in past years in PLCs and in professional learning and things like that that we get stuck there a lot a lot of people have said well this is great but now what what does this mean what what is the next best step for me to take because just knowing the number isn't enough we have

085to understand what's behind it what's happening for students so one of the things that we're doing as part of our strategic planning process is lots of professional learning with admin and coaches on data the different types of data and what to use when and why so the table up there you can see you know what we've been looking at today is student outcome data but there's lots of other kinds of data we need to triangulate that data with in order to understand the full story and you can see those other kinds of data up there we are going to be spending a lot of time learning how to interrogate our data so that means to just question it and observe it and look at at as many different ways as we can before we jump

086to interpretation we have a special focus on staying off the ladder of inference the ladder of inferences is is a very natural process we do in our brains we look at student data and unconsciously begin assigning causes blames assumptions or narratives to that data before we've even looked at it all the way so you know looking at all that proficiency data you could look at a low grade level and assume is it this is it this is it this without really digging into that data and understanding it fully so it's a really human nature thing to do to climb the ladder of inferences but using multiple data sources is one way to combat that so our focus this year is going to be evidence when people say something our response is going to be well

087how do you know that and so we're using and interpreting data well as a critical component the feedback part of our culture of feedback and continuous improvement and that culture is more important now than it ever was so how do you know that's going to become a mantra um and so to sum up i just want to share this quote the data are just summaries of thousands of student stories and um one time I sat in a faculty meeting of a super highly impacted school that was on the cusp of being a turn around school and um there's um in that school there were a million things stacked against those students and teachers that were completely out of their control and in that faculty they were getting ready to do a long hard look at

088data and it would be very tempting for everyone in that room to talk only about the things they couldn't control and use them to explain away their students achievement data but before they started the principal placed an empty chair in the front of the room facing the faculty and she had each teacher picture a student that they knew that they cared about that they knew was really struggling academically and had them keep that student at front of mind throughout the data conversation the chair stayed there throughout the meeting and anytime they wandered off into things they couldn't control that principal brought them back to the student they had pictured and had them focus on what they could control their classroom and their instruction and making it the best they possibly could in spite of what

089their students were up against you data and how we use it is really important it's critical to the mission of one year's growth for every student and more importantly though it is the impact on the life of the student whose data trajectory changes for the better so thanks for having me come and share that with you today hey shelly yes question for you go maybe for you to say a few months ago it was a really good news where we had a test square that were like some of the highest in the state. That was Acadians reading. But that didn't show up here, did it? It was on the first ones. English language arts Acadians. So when we got above 70, Ty, it put us in the top. Oh, it was the chart on the

090left. 10, yeah. We don't have a benchmark. Right. My wheels are just still turning with the public input. Yeah. Where he said we're some of the lowest in the state, lowest on the West. That's back. I'm just wondering, what's the reference point? It's not accurate. Okay. No. But we can, we'll put that together with Wade's comment and we'll add Wasatch in and then, yeah, there's going to be areas where we're below. Yeah. There's areas, always going to be an area where we're, do you know what I mean? Yeah. So. But I just remember celebrating some really good results. It's that one. That's that one on the left. On the left. Mm-hmm. So, okay. So. So. Would it be like, this is really general. Yeah. But just when I was taking my notes, would it be

091fair to say, generally speaking, we're a little below the state average across the board on English language arts? I would say that's our biggest target area for sure. Yeah. And then we're about at state average on science. Yeah. And we're above average on math. Yeah. Mostly. We're above on math if you slide to the science. Science, we're like, we're close. We're close. On most of it. We're pretty close. Yeah. We're close in the gap in lots of areas, but. Okay. I would say ELA is definitely our lever point. The other thing, just to think about, science is very language-based. And so, as language arts scores go up, you should theoretically see science. See science go up because they're able to comprehend and understand more because it is so language-based. And especially when you look at,

092you know, once you, the older they get, the more reading they do to learn. So, as our proficiency in language arts goes up, some of these areas where science is a little bit lower, that should be where we see the bang for our buck on that. Okay. I wonder if, because there seems to be a narrative in parts of the community that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wondering, how do we address that narrative? Like, I remember, like, Wasatch put banners on their buildings. I remember being on the east side of Wasatch. There was an older building, I think, but it's the. Oh, library. The district building. No, the district building, yeah. There was banners about

093their test scores. Yeah. I just wonder how we address the narrative here and celebrate where we're going. where we're doing really well how do we get the word out um i mean we certainly have our like i said we certainly have our bright shining spots and we can we can put things out you know on social media and that we certainly can invest in some banners you know but i don't know if we need to and we have areas we need to work on right so we don't want to like overdo it but we do well in some areas yeah how do we make sure the community understands that one of the things that i heard a lot the first few years um and it came probably more from the high school parents than any

094others but but we did hear it about elementary and middle school also was all we ever did was focus on the positive we talked about this a few years ago from the high school all um all admin or all we ever show is the positive we don't actually own our warts so to speak or say this is where we're low um and so some some of that we so it's finding that balance between we don't want people to not take what if we're putting the positive out how do we not do it so that how do we do it in a way where it's not so much that people say well yeah all you're doing is highlighting the the lipstick but let's talk about the pig yeah you know um because that that did come

095up um from school community councils and things like that and that's the reasons we couldn't do it anyway it was just slowly in one place and it just didn't work all be methods so if it was an issue any changes you can put forward in the um hyperlabeled we still have spots for that to be a little different i know we would you know we have to vaccinate many of these um schools but we have a fair Gudrun over here and see if we can handle some of the indirect burden like breaking down the plantings and meeting with parents and getting the kids развратized after the you know the longitudinal data and with comparative lines with other districts that can help too I think. Because that one that you sent out, I don't know if

096I remember, it was like a bar graph and it had like 50 schools on it. And South Summit we were like number three or number four in the state. So that was that third grade Acadian's? Yeah. Yeah. And we're really trying to focus on the rigor more than we are on the Acadian. Any other questions for Shelly? Thanks. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Do we need a break? We'll turn the time over to the superintendent for his items. All right. So we recently honored our Camas Valley Community Foundation District Employees of the Year. The South Summit Elementary, Kelly Wollstone-Hulme and Cheyenne Hancock. Thank you. And the Classified Employee of the Year. South Summit Middle School, the teacher was Deborah Rydalch and the Classified was Bridget Smith. South Summit High School,

097Jenny Polachek and Classified was Lisa Mitchell. And Silver Summit, the teacher was Quinton Nethercott and the Classified was Crystal Taylor. When we talked originally about separating the foundation, you know, what used to be the South Summit Education Foundation and shifting that over, giving up that control as a board. And then we had to the Camas Valley Community Foundation. A couple of the concerns that consistently came up from board members or from others was, are they, is the Camas Valley Community Foundation going to continue to support some of these things that we had already started? And so Ty and I on the education pillar and Amy and we got together, created the framework for the Employees of the Year. They were recognized. They. They got a check each for $1,500. The Classified, the amount in the

098Classified was the same as the amount for the teacher. And then the other thing, the scholarship report, that was another thing that there was some concern about was, will this be something that continues on? And the foundation continued with the traditional scholarship or scholarships that we had been doing previous to this year. Also, so all in all, we had about $3.7 million of scholarships offered to our senior class and there were 127 scholarships awarded. So it was a good, it was a really good year for our graduating seniors as far as scholarships go. And also, like I said, I wanted to make sure that we just highlighted that what some of the concerns were in that shift in foundational change. That. That. That. That. As an education pillar and as a community foundation, we stayed

099true to the to the nature of what that was intended to do. And and that's the continued the intention in moving forward is to continue with that. I'd say they're really supportive. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Very supportive of it. Yeah, so it was. It was a good experience for being the first time going through it. It was good. And there's some debrief that we'll get together as an education pillar to talk about how things went and see if there's anything we Want to tweak and make better but all in all things seem to go really quite well. Oh I'm sorry, and that's right in transportation. We had Lee Robinson and Adam had nothing to do with it. He wanted he wanted to make sure that when I told him that was his first thing was I

100Had nothing to do with this as it well. I know you didn't But you know, he wanted to avoid any appearance but And Lee Lee does a job that is hard to find people who are willing to do it because of the odd hours and Just the nature of the job. So what's he doing? He transports our most out. Well our most severe needs students between Silver Creek and canvas Valley For the elementary middle in high school. So was there family really? His dad So for the record find anybody to do that job and I said dad you need to come work for us And he's been doing it for a few years and it's Yeah, yeah, so we really appreciate him we really appreciate everyone that was awarded and we appreciate everyone that you

101know They all work their tails off any question about any of the foundation stuff the scholarships and If not, just a coaching update I gave by I passed out a visual There's some copies back at the back table if anyone who's out there in the audience wants to take one as far as How we're using Instructional coaches in our district right now so far Realizing that this will this will shift and morph over time because as you improve you expect to shifts, but But in that top section, I do want to point out it's there with an asterisk or with a star that the percentages do exceed 100%, but that's because so many of those things are happening simultaneously. So there's a lot of overlap between teacher-connected work and data and assessment systems, direct core

102and coaching and PLCs and leadership system alignment. So as the coaches, are they taking a lot off of the teachers? I mean, are they a support to the teachers? So can the teachers feel that support, Rebecca? No. I want to hear from Rebecca. Well, that is the hope, that they feel that, as well as, you know, as far as like pulling data and helping facilitate instructional conversations and PLCs and things. Those are critical parts of a coach. But so is working with teachers. To help them improve their craft. That's also part of the goal is to get them working through coaching cycles of improvement. To get at what Shelly just presented. Are there teachers that refuse to use the coaches? I don't know that I'd say that refuse because it's not been a directive that

103they're required to. There are. They do reach out to teachers. There are times when an administrator can say, to a teacher, here's an area I want you to work on with the coach. And give enough specificity that it's clear to the teacher what that is. And then the coach and the teacher can work on that together without the administrator being part of those conversations. And that's where clarity gets to be really important. So that the teacher and the coach are very aware of what the principal's looking for. You know, so it's kind of like saying, I need you to get here. But how are we going to get here? And that's where the teacher and the coach are very aware of what the principal's looking for. So it's kind of like saying, I need you

104to get here. But however, you get here, it doesn't matter. I just need you to get to this point. And so that's where a coach and a teacher can work together on how to get to there. The second section, that middle section, that came from coaches' time records and from teacher feedback, as far as what they're requesting. And then that bottom section, it's what they liked best about working with a coach. So, and one of the things that people, generally, the feedback is they like the individual nature of it. That it's not a one-size-fits-all. That a coach is actually helping a teacher, meeting them where they're at, and trying to help them improve from where they're at, rather than trying to put them into a canned coaching system, if that makes sense. Have we ever

105hired any coaches that didn't work out? I mean, we fire coaches all the time. So, I mean, do they fire coaches? Um, no. We haven't, but it's also, this is going to come out really bad, and I don't mean it really bad. Thanks, Wade. But it hasn't been that long since we've had them. So, but I will say, yeah, so we had one coach who left to go work for news and kind of expand their scope and build their capacity. And we have another, another coach who, as you know, decided to retire this year. You can't blame her for that. And so, but like, like just like we do with, you know, teachers or anyone that you do have that, if it's not working out, then there's, there's an opportunity while they're still provisional to,

106to address those things. And who do they, who do they answer to? Who's their supervisor? You? So, no, they, they report, they report directly to Shelly because she's over teaching and learning, but they're, they're not housed here at the district. So we, we consider them district coaches because we actually have found that we can use them in all of the buildings. So for example, Paula, she's retiring, but while she's been, um, focused more on the middle school, when the elementary school or the high school has needs in math, Paula, can actually go help with that. So really the coaches, part of the model is that they're helping build each other's capacity as well. Um, and, uh, so like with, um, Jennifer King, um, one of her areas of strength is with multi-language learners. And so

107we've been able to utilize her, um, in more than just the high school and silver summit, which is where she was. She was the bridge for those schools. But if the elementary or middle school needed support, um, in that area, then Jennifer would be part of that as well as the other coach that is kind of assigned to that. And, and really we did district coaches because, um, uh, not that it'll always be this way, but there can be a perception sometimes that a coach becomes a pseudo administrator. And that really puts into jeopardy the relationship between a teacher and a coach. And so at least starting out and for right now, we, I think it's the best thing to keep them as a quote unquote district coach and utilizing them where we need them

108most from time to time. So any questions about this? I know the question has come up at times, you know, what are the coaches doing? And hopefully this helps answer some of that. And then lastly, uh, just want to point out. So we've been using diligent for our operating system. I don't know that operating system is the right word, but for the system we use for, um, our policies, procedures for board agendas and minutes and things. And, um, we put that out to bid and, um, diligent did not win the bid. It, uh, is a company called board book premier. Um, it's what usba uses. Um, and we're, we'll be transitioning to that, um, throughout June and starting with them in July. So we'll, we'll get, um, Donald work on getting some, the login information

109and the, the, any trainings that, uh, will help you to be able to navigate that. We can do something here in house as far as provide some training in person, uh, you know, or whatever, whatever's needed to help, uh, along that front. Another benefit, it's quite a bit cheaper. And one of the best things is you've heard us over the last, I don't know, six months talking about how things seem to disappear at times. And, and one thing that we've come up, uh, with that we've learned is if two people are in the, in at the same time, uh, he or she who saves last wins and the person who saved first lost out and their stuff's not there. So, uh, that's not, that's not something that is a possibility here with board book. So

110it does still allow where my highlights went all the time. And it does still, it does still support, it supports word and Google docs. And one of the reasons we, we originally went with diligent was because it was the only platform that, that worked with word, uh, at the time. And so, uh, we'll see how that goes. It's about a third of the cost too. So yeah, that's even better. Right. Any other questions for superintendent? And then we'll turn it over to Adam. Okay. I'll go fast since all the words have been taken, but, uh, I just wanted to provide a preliminary update again on the budget. It's not much has changed from what you saw last time with notes as to, um, some of the things that we're doing, um, I in the budget

111and then hopefully you've had a chance to review that. And if you had any questions, I'd be willing to entertain any of those, but I'm not going to go into detail cause you're going to get that in a couple of weeks. So it's question. Yeah. Is the, um, I couldn't reference in the budget or later where we talk about the, um, salary and benefits. We'll do that later. Yeah. It's later. Yeah. That is incorporated in here. Because that's part of the budget, you know, people's salary drive budget. So that's all in here, but we'll talk more specifically about that here in a minute. Yeah. Once we complete that, then he can filter in what's approved into the budget. One of the things to be aware of, you know, right now we're going on an estimate

112basically of, of property tax revenue because I don't have it yet and I won't have until about the 11th of June. So once the 11th hits, I'll have a better idea of what's coming in property tax wise. And that may just a few things. From a revenue perspective and, and give us some more options. So we'll talk about that here in a minute. Any other questions about that? Okay. I wanted to give a update on the pool. A pool is that that's a good news story. Um, we actually got with a different company. It's actually the company that put the original liner in and they came significantly down in, in their price because their price was way unreasonable before. And, uh, so, um, but they were able to, to start a lot sooner than the

113other company. And so right now they have started and you should have seen the pictures in the, in the, in the file. But, um, we expect that to be done in two to three, probably three weeks now. So that's a good news story and it didn't cost us near as much as we thought it was going to. So that's a positive. Uh, one of the things I wanted to update too is on the rec center boilers, though we have one boiler that's installed and being tested right now. And that, and once that's going smooth, the, they'll update the second boiler. Those are really redundant boilers that one goes down, the other one takes over. So, um, that's a good new story. That's going really smooth and you can see the pictures. You see the new

114ones are about half the size or even a, maybe a third of the size of the old ones. Uh, but they're a lot more efficient and we should be seeing some, some good benefits from, uh, uh, from a cost perspective as the new ones come online. That's all I have for my update. All right. Thank you. Any, any questions for Adam? Um, all right. Any questions on the procedural update? Do you want me to explain that a little bit more? Yeah, I had a question on there. What's the recovery account? So, so what used to happen is there was really no budget given for any of the extracurricular activities and field trips. And so what, what I would do at the end of the year, I'd just do an adjusting entry. It would go against

115an account and, uh, and basically what it would do is bring down the, the cost of transportation, um, because it became a negative expense. And so that's really not the right way to do that. And so what I, what I did is I looked over the last three or four years of what we were spending in trips. And I put that budget actually where it should be, which is in all those extracurricular sports and band, you know, and all the field trips and gave budget to those organizations so that when they expend those, when they expend those budgets, it's expended against the right budget. And then the cost recovery, actually what it does is it reduces the amount of expenses in transportation because, uh, transportation doesn't only to, to, and from is reimbursed by the

116state. And so if you do it wrong, your, your formula gets off and you don't get as much money for transportation. So basically what it's doing is putting the expense where it's supposed to be and it's taking the expense out of transportation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's putting the expense out of transportation where the costs are incurred and putting it where it's supposed to be. But it's not affecting like our clubs and sports. No, no, basically. Well, cause sometimes. So here's, here's one thing that it might do though, cause I've given them a budget now and they can't exceed that budget. What, what if they don't have a choice? Well, then we'll have a choice. I've given, I've given, we're a state tournament, but they do have a choice in how many, you

117know, extracurricular things they do. Let's say they, they want to do two out of state, um, transportation things. Well, maybe they can only do one this year. So it makes them have some skin in the game. It's not a blank check anymore, but I did do it off of data for the last three years. So I've, I've given them plenty of budget. They just might have to start thinking about what they're doing and what they're not doing and prioritizing. So it's not a blank check anymore. Well, and one benefit to how Adam's worked this out is some districts that, that do a budget similar, it's one pot. It's not, it's not disseminated to each group. So your fall sports and your fall field trips get what they want. And then you get to spring and

118they don't. And so he's, he's gone a couple of steps further and broken it down by individual group and looked at what they've been spending over the last three years and built a budget around that. So that, so that your spring activities, your spring, whether that's field trips or athletics or clubs, they, they have their budget. And I've given some flexibility with, with the athletic director too. So he has a little bit of room to maneuver where he needs, where he finds the needs of the priority too. So now this is a beginning year. We might have to make some adjustments as we always do. For example, say football team doesn't make the playoffs. Yeah. Then there's that money that can go somewhere else. Right there. Yep. You budgeted it to get them to the

119state championship. Anything less than that. If I have a team that excels in the spring, I can borrow that money and move it over there. Yeah. So it's looking at it. So it's looking at individual programs and lines as well as the bottom line. I know a few years ago we had a spring sport that made three different trips to St. George. Mm-hmm and, and I'm saying that's, it's kind of getting out of control and because they haven't had to budget because I just do it at the end of the year. And so this way they have to make some decisions. I can't wait to hear that conversation. I know me too. Cause we'll probably fill the, fill the boardroom, but, but again, I think I've been generous enough so that they can be successful

120with some flexibility. So. All right. One question on that. So I know some of the teams do fundraisers. Right. That would be so like if they wanted a second trip to St. George, they can do a fundraiser or how does that work? Well, let me explain fundraisers and how it's supposed to work. Okay. Fundraisers are supposed to be, to be used to reduce the fees. Oh, okay. But that's not always, always how it works. And they do do some fundraisers say to go to, to California to, to perform and some of that kind of stuff. Summer camps, stuff like that. But the point is those have to be on the fee schedule. Right. So that when you fundraise, that's how you're reducing fees. If it's not on the fund, if it's not on the fee

121schedule as a plan spend, then you can't do it. So if I have it, if I, if my kid has $250, $250, $250 fee for say wrestling to go to wrestling camp, the fundraiser comes in and wipes that slight. Or at least brings it down. Right. That's what it's supposed to happen. If you plan ahead and put it as part of the fees. Yes. Right. So fundraisers can't be used for something that's not on their plan spend. Okay. And about, about probably eight years ago or so, the state did a big audit and found that, I don't want to say it was like 90% of the schools across the state were violating. The court injunction that dealt with that. And so there was a really strong push. I'll call it a little bit of a

122hammer that came down from the state because it was going to be addressed legislatively if it didn't get taken care of from the state board, because it stems from a court injunction from decades ago. Any other questions? All right. I would like a recess. Yes. I already took one. That'd be okay. We'll, we'll do, we'll do, we'll do, we'll do, we'll do, we'll do 10 minutes enough. 10 minute recess. We'd come back, we'd go right into . I took one, yeah. Good thing I did. All right.