001City School Board of Education. Glad all of you could make it this evening. Hopefully, no one got snowed in. So, it was good to have you with us. This time, if you would join in us in prayer and pledge by Mrs. Brown. Kathy Brown, if you would please lead us. >> Yes. Heavenly Father, we're just so thankful for another day, a day we can come and serve you. Thankful for our beautiful city, our schools, our staff, and most especially our students. We ask your guidance for our thoughts, our words, and our deeds that we may do your will and serve you in all that we do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> Attention. Salute. Pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
002which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> Miss Walker, if you would call the role. >> Yes, sir. >> Steve Ward, >> here. >> Sherry Tolbert, >> present. Jason Daniel, >> here. >> Kim Dezo, here. Kathy Brown here. >> Thank you. I want to welcome all the visitors. Jamie Anderson, our liaison from the city council. Good to have you with us at this time. If you we've had an opportunity to look at the agenda to have an a motion to adopt the agenda. >> Second. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Hearing? None. We adopt that. This time, Dr. Martin, I think we have some recognitions. Yes. All right. Good afternoon everyone. We uh are are going to
003recognize some very talented musicians here both at the high school and the middle school. Um it it it gives me great pleasure because we talk a lot about AAA excellence that we want to see excellence in the academics, athletics, and the arts. And so we have a lot of students have who have been performing at a high level that we have a chance to recognize here this afternoon. Uh want to go ahead and start by congratulating our Huitt Trustful Middle School all state band honores and that's under uh let's see come on in guys. All right good. Um, January 31st, 2026, more than 30 Huitt Trustful Middle School talented students audition for the Allstate Band, taking on one of the most challenging and rewarding opportunities available to middle school musicians. We are incredibly proud of
004every student who stepped up to the audition. I was going to ask Mr. Peters, if you would just sort of take us what a student has to go through in order to make this list. Sure. Well, >> thank you so much for recognizing our students this evening. Um, this starts back in the fall when they start preparing this audition music. And although we give them guidance along the way, a lot of this work happens independently. And so, a lot of of dedication and hard work and perseverance through all of this. And we had um quite a few students that were named. Not everybody could be here with us tonight. Um, but we're just super proud of the hard work of these students and for the leadership that they provide because not only did they make
005themselves a really a better musician, but in turn they made our program better and so they were leaders in in the classroom as well. >> Okay. So, is this this is all state band? >> This is as well as all district band. >> This is just everybody from the middle school that but I can I can tell you who they are if you like for me. Okay. So, uh, recognized for the all district band, which this recognizes the top middle school band musicians in Jefferson and Shelby County, uh, which is a lot of strong schools. Um, Grace Aldridge, Anna Bailey, Ben Blackman, Lucas Carlton, Sam Chambers, Grant Chappelle, Christian Cooper, Hayden Kmers, Judah Galot, Anna Marie Mcomes, Joey Wyn, Ava Patel, Coral Williamson, and James Warl. [applause] >> [applause] >> And then on top of
006that, the students who made it to the all state level recognizing the top middle school band students in the state of Alabama, Grant Chappelle, Christian Cooper, Judah Galot, Coral Williamson, and James Warell. [applause] >> I was going to ask real quick, who has aspirations to be in the high school band when they are in high school going forward? Pretty much everybody. All right. Is there anyone that would like to play in college? Okay, everybody. Well done, Mr. Peter. Thank you. [applause] Get a picture. >> Congratulations everyone. Thank you for being here. All right. Our next group that we have the uh the opportunity to honor here this evening is the Huitt Trustful Middle School Allstate Choir under the direction of Nicole Hill. So, Miss Hill, if you'd bring in your And Miss Hill, I'm going
007to ask you if you would tell us what it takes to be a member of this distinguished group and then if you'd introduce them as well. >> I would. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hello. Um, a lot like band, we start in the fall and they have to learn the music on their own. This is very much a them showing the initiative to go further than other students. Um, and so they all learn seven songs and they don't know which three songs they're going to pick except for Alabama. We always do Alabama, which is our state song. And we, this is not everybody. We're missing about seven. Um, we had 14 make it and 13 were able to attend. So um, first we have Emma Shockley. It's her first year in All State. She's
008a seventh grader. Then we have Madison Anthony. It's her first year in All State as a seventh grader. Um then we have who's next? I can't see. Lucy Prince, she's also a seventh grader. It's her first year. Cecilia Talton Talton. Did I say it right? T that. Yeah. [snorts] Um she's a seventh grader. It's her first year. Then we have Emma Kate Cook. She's an eighth grader. This is her second year. And we have Jenny Kate Osborne. It's also her second year and she's an eighth grader. Um we are missing today uh Kaylee Kaufman, Ellie Kaufman, Walker Jones, Presley Pillot, Sophia Moore, uh Cadence Matthews, and Amy U. So in the last two years, last year we had 26 try out and 19 made it. This year we had 20 try out and 14 made
009it. and they are really working hard and soaring above. So, y'all did a great job. [applause] >> Now, I I don't know if Miss Hill told you, but we were going to ask you to sing several of those songs for the group. Are you ready to go on the count of three? One. Okay. Their faces were priceless. >> Congratulations. >> Okay. Our our recognitions continue as we move into the high school ranks. And I know that Dr. Mark Canals is here. We have our high school allstate band as well as all district band honores. So Dr. Canals, if you'd come forward and if I get to talking too long, just remember there's Yeah. Yep. Tap out. Tap out. So would you tell us a little bit at the high school level what it takes in
010order to receive one of these recognitions and then introduce us to the the group you have here? >> Absolutely. So it's very similar to the other process. Uh these students on their own will have to go through um all 12 major scales plus the minor scales. They have two etudes that very much collegiate level etudes and then have to do a site reading as well. So it's kind of the process that goes through it. Blind auditions and we are in a very competitive district. So these are the the best of the best when it comes to students in our state and performing um and whatnot. Uh they recently had district district was in February uh and had a wonderful performance and then all state will be in April in Mobile Alabama. Well, they'll perform there.
011>> All right. With the high school students, I'm going to make them introduce themselves. Tell us name. I want to know grade and then future plans. Okay. And and if you're a freshman or sophomore, just please tell us you're going back next year. All right. >> Right on the spot. Hi, I'm and I'm a junior and my plans are to probably get to offer and major in engineering at >> My name is Hudson. I'm a sophomore. I I will be back next year. >> I'm Jonah. I'm a senior and I'll be going to UAB major materials. I'm ath I'm Riley. I'm also a junior. My plans are to study engineering at >> I'm John. I'm also a junior and my plans are to go to Alabama and major finance. >> My name's Hudson. I'm also
012a junior and I plan on going to Alabama and trying to continue. >> My name is I'm a freshman and [laughter] [applause] You sto. [laughter] >> All right. Our final group is Dr. Ben Cook and this is our high school allstate choir members. All right. Dr. Cook, do you mind telling us a little bit about what it takes to be an allstate choir member? And then I'll have them introduce themselves. >> Sounds good. >> Good evening, everyone. Each year in November or late October, the Alabama Vocal Association holds auditions for students to try out for the All State Choir. Students receive a packet of music. It's usually uh eight songs. Yes, eight songs that they have to learn. um to to perform in front of judges comprised by uh comprised of um I can't think
013uh members of the executive council of the Alabama Vocal Association. So in other words, not me. I don't get to choose these people. They uh they are chosen by people who don't know them or care about them, which uh they care about them in the sense they care. They're good singers, but you know, I don't put them in there just cuz I like them. Uh they have to actually earn it. So we have a number of students here. Uh each year about there there are five allstate choirs and about 200 in each choir maybe 300 on the upper end. Uh so not a uh not a lot of students selected for this from the state. If you're selected for all state choir you are among the best coral students in the state and there is
014no uh there is no district uh all district choir. So if you don't make all state you just don't make it. So, I'm going to have uh these ladies and gentlemen introduce uh themselves. Why don't you tell us what your name is, what grade you're in, and how many years you've been in all state choir. [snorts] >> My name is Murphy Peterson. I'm a senior and I've been in all state choir for five years. >> My name is Riley Lamck. I'm senior and this is my fifth year. >> My name is Kennedy Sang. I'm a senior and this is also my fifth year in >> My name is Riley. I'm a senior and this is my name is Elizabeth. I'm a junior and this is my second year. >> I'm Carson Franklin. I'm a sophomore
015and this is my first year so far. My name is a freshman and this is my third year. My name is a sophomore and this is also my third year. >> My name is a nth grader and this is my third year. My name is a sophomore and this is my first year. >> My name is I'm a freshman is my second year. >> So that's pretty impressive. Especially uh it's worth noting that the first year you're able to audition is your seventh grade year. So some of these have have done it just about every year. It it's really really special for them to to reach that level. We also have one additional uh honore here. Murphy Peterson, the first one who introduced herself was our district three outstanding coral student. um which is a
016huge honor and is one of the highest honors a kid can get in uh coral music in the state of Alabama. She had to audition with uh vocal performance, prepare a resume, letters of reference, she had to do an interview. It's a lot of hoops to jump through and she did a uh tremendous job. So, we're very proud of Murphy. It's the second year in a row that our district's winner has been from HTHS. So, we're really really proud of her and of our winners last year and of all these kids. So, that's uh them. [applause] ABSOLUTELY. [applause] Thank you for being here. At this time have report financial report Mr. Kirkland. >> Thank you Dr. Ward. Um board members uh Dr. Martin, we are pleased to present the monthly financial report for February 2026.
017It's in your packet for review. Uh, all bank accounts have been reconciled to the general ledger. Uh, the financial extract has been uploaded to the state department with any necessary edits uh, corrected for the month. Uh, total expenditures and transfers out in the general fund for the month end uh, are uh, 36.6% of our budget. uh compared to 38.9% of our budget this time last year. Uh Avalor revenues are at uh 72.7% of our budget as compared to 79% of our budget this time last year. Um Avalor receipts to date are about 6% less than this time last year. Uh and that's purely a timing difference. Um there is a check that we received from the city that last year we received it in February. This year we received it in March. Uh actually we
018received it Friday. So it'll be it'll show up uh in our next month's uh revenue report. Uh so uh other than that we're tracking along budget wise um uh pretty good. Uh all transactions appear to be of a usual and routine manner. uh and when within the legal authorization of the board um and uh upon approval as always the monthly financial report will be made available to the public for review. >> Very good. >> Thank you Dr. Mark. >> Thank you. This time if you had a chance to look at the consent agenda if I could have a motion. >> I make the motion. >> Take a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I motion carries. This time we will now look at the personnel report. >> Can I Can I speak
019to a couple items under consent agenda? Nope. Just real quick for discussion. Um under consent agenda, board of education members had a chance to review both the 26 27 as well as 28728 school calendars. There was some discussion at our last board meeting when we put this on the table for a first reading about the Columbus date in October and the committees that we vetted the calendars through over the course of the last month confirmed what the board had asked about that could we look at that Friday Monday date as opposed to going with that Monday Tuesday. So those two calendars take into account a Friday um eay for students and then a Monday off for Columbus Day. So that was confirmed for both. Um let's see the fee sheets for the high school paying
020elementary and Kahaba uh were adopted and approved under consent agenda. I do want to bring up that um item number eight under consent agenda which is the high school curriculum guide and course descriptions for 2627 uh there was one question associated with that and the question revolved around quality points. So as we all know students who are a lot smarter than I am in high school who actually have a 4.0 0 average. Correct. If they take an AP course, the quality point is one for an AP course, which allows them to get a five out of four on a scale of 4.0. Uh, under this curriculum guide, a recommendation has been made that for a dual credit course, which Mr. King traditionally has also been one quality point would be reduced to a 0.5 quality
021point for the class of 29 and going forward. And I think there was some question as to rationale and if if you wouldn't mind stepping to the podium and sharing that with us that would be great. [snorts] All right. So AP and dual enrollment both serve an important role within our school and certainly don't want to diminish uh the importance of either. Uh but they're certainly not at par with regard to rigor. Uh AP is very akin to uh a course you would take at a major college or university. Uh students can walk from our AP classes rooms and directly into Auburn and they're not going to feel that difference. uh with regard to our dual enrollment, as good as uh many of them are, uh they're just not at that rigor parody, uh students
022uh can move through those pretty easily and and make that a uh and what ends up happening is it creates a little bit of a an incentive to hunt and cherrypick and pull in additional courses to to just artificially boost a GPA essentially uh can have a a deterring effect on other activities. So students may choose to do this rather than uh some other things they that would be more enriching or you know the things that they love. Uh they do this to set aside to hunt for a GPA in order to uh to chase a class rank. It's it's kind of an unhealthy um setup that and we're not limiting the number of of courses students can take. They can still take those courses. We just want to make sure we're not incentivizing students
023to uh hunt for these classes and chase away from the rigor that we have to offer. >> Okay. Wonderful. Any questions for the board of education? >> They've answered college credit though, right? I mean, you get the dual enrollment, you make an A in it, you get college credit. You make a certain score for on the AP, you get the college credit. >> Correct. >> College credit transfers to Auburn or Alabama >> potentially. Yeah, it depends on the course and depends on the track and what they're trying to go for. Our dual enrollment uh partner Jeff State does provide some u some courses out of our catalog that help us. Some of those will be taken, picked up and some of them will not be. >> Mr. King, if you look at other school systems,
024is this a common way to treat AP and dual enrollment or is it uh this sort of unique for >> We've seen the gamut. Uh, some offer no additional quality points all the way up until one quality point and some do the same and split the difference as a five. >> I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that cuz you get the same college credit. >> Yeah. I have a hard time with not giving the kid the same quality points for it. Still a college credit level double class. I mean, >> should it the recorder be the same? Am I all loaning? I mean, like I mean, I I have the same same question. It's a legitimate [snorts] question. >> We own the AP courses. Uh we can control the rigor pretty
025easily. Uh with regard to a dual enrollment course, we don't own the course. we can deliver the course, but we're not the owner of that course. Um, getting into some specifics around uh for instance, like a we had a situation where we had a handful of kids uh has some issues with one of our dual room English classes uh digging into uh kind of the use of uh generative AI and the pieces associated with that. very permissive with regard to the policies associated with that course and that institution made it to where kids could get a really high score. Two students, one in AP lit, one in dual enrollment English. Um, one's doing significantly less amount of work uh and getting a higher grade uh for doing that less amount of work. So, we're essentially
026rewarding under the current circumstances, rewarding students who are doing less work with the same benefit. It's an unfair situation. >> Yeah. You also have a kid that doesn't test well, right? right? And they make a three on the on the on that um AP exam and they don't get the credit for they don't get the college credit for it >> even though they taken the class and they've worked harder than their >> correct >> whereas so that kid might choose to take that dual enrollment class because they can make an A in it and have the whole body of their whole semester work. But you hit the nail on the head. Exactly. A student can spend the time during that class uh do the class not achieve that because they're not a good test taker,
027not achieve that college credit. Uh but they do receive the the full quality point for that rigorous course. >> Mr. King, is this a timesensitive action item here under consent agenda that needs to be approved now or could that be something that's tabled one more month to get us to April? We're in under no uh you know concern for the time limit because uh this wouldn't even impact anyone for the next school year. >> Okay. Uh the board of education has already voted on consent agenda, but there could be a measure taken where it's reconsidered with a revote removing this item to be tabled through the month of April to get more information and uh we can just we could go about it that way if the board prefers. >> I I would prefer that
028for sure. >> Yeah. I So, if I'm getting this right, I would like to make a motion that we table this for further consideration. >> What you'll need to do is you'll need a procedural vote to reconsider or to amend a previously a previously adopted action and then you'll need a second. So, y'all take that vote >> and then you'll then you'll make a vote to to take it. >> Okay. >> All right. So, >> word that Jason >> then I will make a motion that we reconsider the previously. That's not the agenda. >> Okay. Correct. That that would be >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I Okay, we'll do that. >> Okay. So, >> now need to make a motion. >> Now, you'll
029I think your motion actually you >> I think you reconsidered the whole consent agenda. So, >> we'll need to we'll need to uh >> vote on the particular item that you want to table and then we'll revote on the consent. >> Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, that >> All right. So, let's go back and then let's go back and then >> Mr. Daniel, I'll make a motion to >> I I'll make the motion. Okay, >> I'll make the motion to item >> I guess eight and eight is the curriculum guide. Okay. So, I would make a motion to pull item eight from the consent agenda and let's table it for a month so we can get some more information about it. >> Okay. Very good. I have a second on that. >> Second. >> All
030right. All in favor? >> I. That's approved. All right. >> And with that, I will then move that we adopt. Well, I guess is there anything else, Dr. Martin, that you want to pull out of that consent? >> The the the only other items, one item for a facility use agreement and then just our normal field trips for the spring. So, that makes up consent agenda. >> Okay. Then then I and with that being said, I will make a motion to adopt the remaining portions of the consent agenda. >> All right, have a second. I'll >> second. >> All right, all in favor? >> I that carries then. All right, we're back to that. Very good. >> All right, and I apologize I didn't sneak discussion in there before the vote, but what a lovely
031opportunity to review Robert's rules of order for all of us here at the board meeting. >> We we get good practice with that. >> All right, let's look at personnel. Dr. Martin. >> All right. Okay. Our personnel report for this evening. We have um resignation of supplement. We have recommendation for employee extra services agreement. We have a recommendation for an effective date change. We have recommendation for five administrative contracts. and I'd like to go through those if the board would allow uh approve a contract a multi-year contract for Magnolia principal Dr. Tiffany Hamilton. Uh approve multi-year contracts for assistant principles uh Katherine Raspberry, Kim Felts, and Brianna Olivera. And then approve a one-year probationary contract for new Kahaba Elementary School principal Jennifer Bruno, who is here in the audience. So that makes up our personnel
032report. Um I also wanted to mention just before we move on from those contracts, I think we have a a special presentation right before your ASIP. Um is that correct here for Miss Bruno from Miss Tiner? >> I have a teaser. >> Okay. >> Yes. All right. Understand. Understand. Well, I'm going to go through what is a five-page um uh personnel report here, and the anticipation will heighten for you, Miss Bruno, as we wait. So, uh, we have, uh, an approval recommendation for leave of absence for employments, long-term substitute, one recommendation for a schedule change, one recommendation for a substitute, recommendation for a child nutrition SNA supplement, and that makes up our personnel report for this evening. >> Do I have a motion to adopt personnel report? >> Make a motion. >> Have a second.
033>> Second. >> All in favor? I >> any opposed? None opposed. And the motion carries. If we just have new business, Dr. Martin, I believe we have something. >> Yes. Uh under consent agenda, we had approved three of our schools for their fee sheets for a fir uh I'm sorry, for a second reading and adoption. We have Magnolia Elementary and our middle school. A recommendation for a first reading for those fee sheets and contribution forms. And that's our only new business action item for the evening. >> Do we need to make a motion? >> Please. to have a motion to adopt the fee sheets is coming here. >> I'll make a motion. I >> have a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Motion carries. And I believe we now have an administrative
034report. >> Yes. Our administrative report this evening is uh Mrs. Joy Tiner, our principal at Kaba Elementary School and their Alabama continuous improvement plan team. Miss Tiner. [snorts] So we are working on a book of kahaba we give to Bruno and we got to the first part which was how to identify the difference between a ratnake and a water monkey because we both have them and where you can most likely find them >> but we have several more. So this is our ASIP team that I'm super proud of. earlier this back in the summer um we started with Miss Pricket and Miss Macintosh and Miss Smith um and I what where do we start because this process is new to us and we established from just talking among ourselves from looking at surveys we had
035done at the end of the previous school year that we really needed to look at student achievement. um we wanted to address our uh climate and culture in the building and then we also wanted to take a look at developing more teacher leaders and um their growth also. So they are going to present all of this and I'm going to sit back and be so proud that Miss Bruno is getting to see all of this tonight. So um I'll introduce them. Um this is Miss Pricket. She is our media specialist. Um this is Gracie Edmonson. She is a firstear teacher at Kahaba and we really felt that her not her perspective was very important for this group. Um Meredith Macdonald um Beth and Meredith teaches first grade. Um Beth Anne Marshall teaching second. Miss Smith
036is our um our STEM teacher and just extraordinary Star Wars person all around a good guy. Miss Franklin's fifth grade, moved from kindergarten to fifth and um Miss Mintosh our counselor. So they also bring an interesting perspective as some of them are parents. They are parents of children in our in our school and so they do it and a lot of them had kids go through our school. So that gives us a really different perspective too. So y'all take it. I'd like to start by thanking Dr. Martin for scheduling our ASIP our SIP on the night that we meet our new boss lady. So, thank you for that. No pressure. Not at all. Okay. All right. So, um I'm the school librarian and if you know anything about librarians, you know that we love data
037and we love a good story. So, I'm here to share data and I'm here to share to introduce our Kahaba story. So, let's start with the data. Um, our Alabama state report card is composed of three things, three components. Academic achievement, um, academic growth and chronic absenteeism. So, academic achievement really relates to the AAP scores that we have. And academic growth also reflects back on the AAAP, but it looks at individual students from grade level to grade level to show that they are growing. And then chronic absenteeism, kids are absent. So um if you will look at the last three years on our data um you can see we're trending in the right direction. Um back in 2023 u we were at 96.48 and now we're at 99.58. Um our academic growth is standing strong
038at 100 and then our chronic absenteeism has gone down from 9.01 down to 5.59 which gives us a 99 for this year. And today we want to show you what's behind the 99. So we have built our um continuous improvement plan on three pillars. Um student achievement, staff growth and leadership, and school climate. Student achievement will reference that state report card that we just saw and we reviewed. And we will detail how we plan to continue to improve those numbers. But we are so much more than a score. And so we also want to focus on staff growth and leadership. And we're going to show how we're helping our experienced teachers to stay teachable and to be open to new ideas and also to help our new teachers feel confident and comfortable to share fresh
039strategies and practices. And lastly, positive climate. We will share how we are ensuring that our students and teachers feel safe and empowered. School climate reminds me of the parable of the seed and the sewer. The parable speaks about seeds being sown. The first seed was sown among the path and eaten by the birds because the ground did not accept it. The second seed was sown among the rocky ground and lacked roots or stability. The third seed was sewn among the thorns. The seed grows, but it's choked out by the thorns or the worries of life. The fourth seed was sewn among the good soil. It took root and it produced a great harvest. That seed represents both the teachers and the students. Our goal is to create good soil with a positive school climate to
040create a safe and collaborative environment for our teachers and students to grow and bear much fruit in the form of student achievement and staff growth and leadership. So our continuous improvement team uh will take these three pillars and that they are going to expand upon our plan. And we're gonna begin with Donna Franklin and Gracie Edmonson to speak on student achievement. A lot of power. [laughter] [gasps] Okay, here we go. Um, our first goal involves advancing student achievement. At Kahaba, we are focusing on advancing student achievement and how we can continue to elevate academic growth through state assessments and dedicated intervention. Our overall encompassing goal is to advance student achievement by evaluating our state report card which focuses on academic achievement and growth. Um and through we will look at this through state assessments and
041our student attendance. Okay. We've got um our action plan right here and it's broken into four components. Um our first component focuses on our AAP summitive sessions and um our reading and math coaches are and will continue to lead AAP summitive sessions as professional development opportunity um opportunities for us to dissect practice AAP data. And here we compare our data to the grade level standards to help prepare our students for the AAP test. Um our next component right here is A as web and exact path analysis. Um here we continue to use Ames web and exact path benchmark checks to monitor student progress throughout the year. Our um third component of our action plan is we will continue to increase our overall student attendance. We celebrate students who prioritize coming to school. Um, we do
042this including but not limited to social media posts, school rewards, and incentives. Our third and final component of our action plan is we are providing and will continue to provide e professional development support for teachers and students throughout the school year. Um, a few of our predicted outcomes include seeing a 10% decrease in high-risisk Ames web reading scores. um and seeing a 10% increase in the Ames web reading benchmark scores that include student rankings in the 50th percentile or higher. All right. Um and our second expected outcome is we have and we will continue to reduce the percentage of chronically absent students to 5% or below. We will do this by proactively communicating with our parents, creating a visual attendance tracker, and recognizing students attendance monthly. And now we will hear from Bethanne Marshall and
043April Smith on fostering staff growth and leadership. Um I'm April Smith and this is Bethanne Marshall and we're going to talk to you about our second component and um that is staff growth and leadership. So we chose to address this in our CIP because we believe that in order to elevate our students, we need to elevate our teachers first. So we developed this the way that um we developed our academic um achievement and that was we started with an objective and we created an action plan to meet that objective and then we identified outcomes that would prove that we met that objective. So Bethanne is going to talk to you a little bit about the um objective itself and then I'm going to go into the action plan. >> Oh yeah. >> Okay. So our
044primary objective for staff staff growth and leadership is to empower our teachers as leaders and provide meaningful leadership opportunities and job embedded professional development aligned with our instructional goals. Okay. So um our action plan led us to create two critical initiatives. Um those two initiatives um stemmed from first we needed to create leadership opportunities for our teachers to become teacher leaders. Then we needed to um en encourage teachers to engage in those roles. So to do that we first had to define what what is teacher leadership. So we we looked at it and we said, "Well, teacher leadership is um you know, pouring all of your expertise um and developing your expertise to um to improve student um academics to support our colleagues to um and just improve and strengthen our culture in our school
045and to just make our school better. So with that definition in mind, we said we have got to create these um opportunities for teachers based upon their needs and based upon that definition. So we said the first thing that we want to do is to increase professional development opportunities. That way teachers are growing and they're learning. Then we wanted to make sure that we were initiating um a uh leadership and and the fact that we were having um our and I'm trying to think of the word I was thinking of. Um so the so we're thinking about leadership in the mindset of having a um coach come in and help different teachers learn different skills. So within those skills we we've developed the knowledge, we've developed skills. Now what we want to do is develop
046teachers in their own leadership roles. So we um made small collaborative uh groups and we protected that collaborative time um that teachers have uh to uh talk about different pedigogy to be able to expand their own learning and to develop leadership in a small group setting. So then our second initiative was to increase um teacher involvement. So the way that we decided to increase the teacher involvement was to um to to go ahead and attend district out of district professional development. So after that we said hey how about let's um institute instructional rounds. That is where the teachers get to participate in um observing each other and um promoting uh different attitudes, different ideas about what is best practice, how does that look, how can I expand my own best practice by looking at other
047teachers, we can improve ourselves. So um we went on to involve teachers in more schoolwide decisionmaking as well. And I'll go to that slide right here. So schoolwride decision-making was a big thing. We decided to um start doing surveys, start doing polls, talking about things in faculty meeting and electing leadership representatives. So, our leadership representatives are going to be people that are elected to take um different ideas, different concerns, different questions, and anything that we would like to celebrate to our administration to talk with um our administration about. So, um now Bethiana is going to talk to you about those measurable outcomes that will prove that we met our goal. Um some of the objectives are listed above. We have a few others. Um but we thought we would focus in on these. Um our
048first outcome is we would like for 90% of our teachers to participate in professional learning. Currently right now we have 100% um teachers have present have participated um during this school year. So we've already exceeded that um for this year. Our second um outcome is 25% of teachers will plan, prepare and deliver professional learning. And at this time we are at 25% of our teachers, nine teachers have successfully planned and delivered professional development sessions. um in our e-learning flex days um and at faculty meetings. Our third outcome that we would like to do is 45% of teachers will participate in instructional rounds during the school year. Currently, we have 54% um 19 teachers have participated in the instructional rounds surpassing our target. And again, April has already said instructional rounds involve teams of teachers and
049staff um who go and observe instruction across grade levels um to gather information on teaching practices. Following those observations um we u meet together collaboratively to debrief and discuss key insights um and identify strategies that we could strengthen um across the school. So, um, now we're going to talk about school climate and Meredith and, um, Mandy are going to go into that with you. [laughter] We have the privilege to talk about positive climate. Um, our goal is to go ensure well-being and collaboration are built into our daily environment. And our pillar is divided into two sections. We have our students and then we also have our staff. And we're going to start with our students. And so at Kahaba, we believe that students learn best when they're safe, supported, and understand what's expected of them.
050And we want to continue to support them um their well-being through different proactive behavioral supports. This is a picture from the beginning of the year of our new students that um came to us in August. Mandy had a little smog group with them and um we just taught them the cob way and what to expect and tried to make them a part of the family from the get-go and so we feel like that's very important. >> If you bring food, everybody's [laughter] fine. >> Yes. Okay. Um yeah, we we had fun. We had like a I broke that. That's the older crew. um for our small group and then I had a K through2 small group so we you know they weren't like overwhelmed with big people or little people but it was fun. We
051had a good time. Um and so our student action plan is broken into four parts. Um I'm going to kind of hit on the first one which is our MTSS implementation. Uh we got together, Miss Tiner and a bunch of us over the summer and started um we actually started it last year throughout the school year with with Miss Gian Groso and um working on our LEAD initiative which is what we call it. Um and LEAD stands for well I'm going to go back and then back sorry leadership empowerment awareness and dependability trying to build a school culture with our kids. When we say one of those words they know what it means. um they understand what we're asking from K through five and wanting to push that same common language throughout our school knowing
052that those are the four expectations we have um from top to bottom and it was really really cool the way everybody on our staff came together to do this. We we did a retreat in the summer and we asked what do you want it to look like? We took them kind of what our draft was um that we had worked on all year through our MTSS program and they we put it up there and gave everybody a part and said, "Hey, write all over it. Tell us what you want." And from that, we developed our lead matrix which focuses on every area in our school and what is expected for that area. So like the everything here would be focused around leadership. Everything here is focused around apartment. You know, you know how that kind
053of goes. But every kid would know what is expected in every area. When I'm in the cafeteria, these are the things that I need to do. Um and so our staff, we worked on that every day at the beginning of the year. You see it says data binder page. The kids got a copy to put in their data binders. So parents also knew what would the expectations were um throughout our school for this. Um we had morning meetings with our teachers and every single morning for seven mornings they went over each piece of it and I had sent a slideshow out and they went through the slides. So every classroom in our school was doing the exact same thing with the exact same expectations, the exact same videos, the exact same language. And that way
054the kids knew if even if I saw a first grade teacher and I'm in fifth grade, if they say, "Hey, are you leading today?" They knew what they were talking about even if it wasn't their teacher. Um Oh my goodness, guys. You're supposed to be [laughter] holding What are you doing? >> Miss Pennington, you cannot lay like that. What is happening? Give me the football. Oh my goodness. [screaming] We are not leaving. This is not hallway. Miss, YOU MUST [laughter] >> Oh my gosh. WHAT IS HAPPENING? >> NO, I QUIT. [laughter] SO, I went on a scavenger hunt to find people that would be in my videos, and these wonderful people were walking down the hallway, and I said, "You're in it." Um, but we did a good example and a bad example and a
055medium example on some of these. This was obviously a bad example, but all you know, when you're in the first of school and kids are learning what your expectations are, it gives a little laughter. It makes them laugh and they see their teachers sitting upside down with their leg, you know, doing handstands and running down the hall. So, it was kind of funny. Um, and then we would follow that up with, "Thank you guys so much for putting your back against the wall. Some of you are reading. Some of you are talking quietly. and some Oh, Miss Do you need a book, Miss Ba? I'll be glad to give you one. >> Thank you, Miss Picket. Miss [laughter] Franklin, I'll talk over the sound. You are doing so good. Thank you. Look at this video.
056What are you guys? >> Y'all are being awesome. I really appreciate your behavior. This >> is different from this one to that one. This is our goal. And when they saw each other in the hallway, they would say, "Hey, you're not doing that video and it was like a visual for them." And so the positive culture for the kids really worked with this and everybody was on board. So it was it was awesome. >> And what's great about those is we can revisit them throughout the year. So we introduce them. We revisit them often. They are little babies and so we have to go back and remind them. Um, and it's so it's great to have those videos for all of our common areas that you can, you know, as a as a classroom teacher,
057I can see where my class needs to focus. Um, and we can all take that initiative within our own kids. >> We also introduce it to PTO through Miss Tiner did that at a PTO meeting so that they would understand and know for families. And then every time an office referral is sent, they use that lead matrix so that it's in the data binder to ask the kids, "What did you not do or what do you need to do better?" And so it's it's pretty cool. It's pretty awesome. >> Okay, so I'll talk about our next action item is meaningful recognition. Um this would be through our routine husky paw distribution and also influencer celebrations. Husky paws are little paper husky paws that we give out to the kids for um being a leader, showing
058our lead expectations throughout the school. And so they can be given by any teacher, to any student, anywhere in the building. Um, which is where that common language really is so helpful. Um, because we can all give to each other's kids as well as our own. Um, our influencer celebrations deal with our monthly character celebrations. Uh, we spend every month focusing on one character trait. We just announced our February um, influencers this morning. That was for humility. And so we spend a lot of time in the morning doing similar slides as our lead expectations where it uh explains that character trait to them, gives them examples, a song. It's very kid-friendly so that they actually understand what the character trait is and they can also celebrate their peers that have been chosen as the influencer
059of the month. And so it's not just teacher driven, it's also students that are paying attention to that as well. Um, our next action plan item is public acknowledgement through our quarter celebration awards and our wall of fame. Our quarter celebration awards also might be known as our teacher tunnel. This is where our teachers get in the gym with our entire school. We have pompoms. It's a massive celebration. Um, we celebrate really any improvement academics and um, we recognize our influencers for character. Um, we have husky heroes that could be any kind of growth shown in the classroom. And so we try and really make them feel special there. Um, and they want to run next time. If they didn't run that time, their goal is that hopefully one day they'll be able to run
060through as well. And then our last well, and then we have wall of fame, which if you've been to Kahaba, you've seen the wall of fame. It's outside of our lunchroom, and that recognizes these students academic achievements. and the students love passing by that and um they count down to the day they get on that wall of fame also. So, it's a great incentive for them as well. Um and then our last action plan item is we have one more. >> I'm not going to click anymore because I already [laughter] messed it up once. >> Go back one more time. >> I can't. It doesn't go back. >> It's student your April. >> This one's yours. It's student support. Um, sorry. Our monthly uh targeted counseling lessons by our wonderful counselor. >> He needs counseling.
061[laughter] I'm just kidding. Um, I'm I'm the one that just, you know, the comedic relief. Um, so every kid in the school comes through my room once a month and I have them once a month to work on a lot of times the lessons that the teachers have for the morning meeting slides. Um, but also I do listen to the teachers and send out um, usually once every nine weeks a survey saying, "Hey, what do you see your grade level needs work with?" Um, and so I will try to tailor my lesson to fit a need to them as well. Um, and discipline discussions also go with that lead matrix and how that works um, with the ad administration, not me, but they work through that as well. So we try to support the student
062and the whole student all the way around. Now, do I quit? >> Okay. [laughter] >> Okay. So, our goal with all of this is that well, we know that engagement and happiness can actually be measurable targets. And so, we hope that we see 10% increase in our affirmative responses to our student school survey. Question number 11, which is I feel happy at school. This is given to our upper elementary kiddos, and we're hoping that we see an increase in that. And then we also would love to see 80% and right now we have this 80% of student participation rate in our school challenges. We love a good competition at Kahaba. It's a great way to motivate them to want to continue and grow. Um and we have challenges like reading challenges, math challenges. Um but
063it could be like a food drive or a toy drive. Um, we had we just recently did a schoolwide Black History Month bingo board where they could complete a blackout on their bingo board. So, just any and all school challenges. We would love to see 80% um of them participate in that. >> And that last one is just 100% of our staff has been trained in deescalation support for students um to be proactive in our behavior models as well. We are talking a lot, but we got two things. So, we're sorry. Um, our next one is that positive climate for staff. >> Um, so here we have a picture of our second grade teachers, Miss Marshall's in this picture. Um, >> she is Tigger. >> Yes. And they were celebrating the 102nd day of school.
064Um, they did a little 102 days at the zoo. And this is our goal that our teachers feel comfortable enough at work to have fun with the kids and dress up and be silly. Um, and so we're working to just foster that uh environment and have that open communication and just professional trust within our team. And we have four action plan items for this. One of those being collaboration time. This is it was touched on a little earlier, but this is a built-in part of our schedule where a grade level team can meet with admin or one of our coaches or our counselor um just to have that built-in time each week to collaborate with each other and continue to grow. The second item is our is to continue to have protected common planning times.
065As a first grade teacher, this is super important to me and my team, as I know many others, because we have that time um to plan together and and talk about what we're going to do with each other. And so, we don't feel like isolated units. We're a team. Um the next action plan item we have is that we have a leadership team representation. And so these uh leaders are elected within each grade level team and they are our communication between um the grade level team and our admin and they meet monthly to talk about different school events and then they're able to go back and share what they what they um >> questions. >> Yeah. Figured out together. And then our last action plan item is to continue doing some teacher surveys. I'll let
066you touch on this one. >> And this just helps us gather feedback and guide improvements. Um like I said, I do that a lot with our teachers trying to figure out what do the kids need, what do they need from me, how can I partner with them. Um we also our admin sends out surveys. Um one of the big ones that that really helped a lot with our teachers too was um asking what events in our school are important and what do you feel we need to call and so that was a very positive thing for for our for our culture. I can't talk. Oh, sure. Um, and just we have different surveys that go out to help with that as well to figure out what our staff needs and where we're going. So, >>
067uh, oh, thank you. All right. So, this plan is a living document and it's a living commitment and we achieve this vision together every single day. And in conclusion, our continuous improvement plan not only shows what's behind our 99, but uh details our road map to 100. [applause] >> Very good. Good presentation. Thank you. Uh did you enjoy the snow today? >> So much. >> Do the kids enjoy it? Yeah, >> they're building snowmen. Snow people. >> They got some a little bit. >> Try to Thank you. Great presentation. >> Any questions? Me? Great. >> Great. Great job. >> Hey ladies, I was going to see if you could get a picture with Miss Tiner as well as Miss Bruno, would you come up here? Could we do that? April, Miss Tiner, Miss Bruno, would
068you come up and take a picture, please? >> And we'll all duck. >> Yeah. I like how [laughter] >> you guys should be like this. >> It's our fears. [laughter] It's not always my fears. I'm going to be the one like over to >> photo. That's hilarious. I want a picture of this right. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Oh yeah. Yep. >> One statement before we leave. uh for information purposes only the 26 27 trustful school system uh schedule of board meetings will be posted on the school systems website. I'm sure all of you looking forward to that. And with that there's no public participation so I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. >> Have a second. >> All in favor please stand.