State Board of Education, May 8, 2025

001You're still exactly How do you like Maybe Lord, it might bring us So that is falling down. We didn't have You that Is it something like that? Great. Let's get started. Good morning. Welcome to the May State Board of Education meeting. We have a lot of amazing faces in the crowd today and I know we have a lot of you who are very busy. May is a very busy time of year. Um and the schools are starting to get out next week and we're wishing the very best for all teachers and leadership across the state. We will start our meeting with a moment of silence. Thank you. It is always a pleasure to be able to start our board meeting with celebrations. We have a list of both teachers and students here that have been

002awarded in in many different facets. and I'm excited to see you all today and learn more about the work you've done. So with that, I will introduce Dr. Pride to share us the first awards. Thank you, Dr. Morin. Good morning. Kiffany Pride, assistant commissioner of learning services. You're right, we get to celebrate this morning. This is the exciting part and we're going to start with the presidential awards for excellence in mathematics and science teaching, finally called Pst. Uh we're g we have awardes here and we're full today for 2021, 2022 and 2023. So uh lots of people to celebrate on today. The paints are the top honors bestowed by the US government to K12 STEM science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers. Each year up to 110 outstanding educators from across the country may be recognized

003by the White House for their passion, dedicated dedication, and impact in the classroom. Each presidential award awardee receives a certificate signed by the president of the United States, a $10,000 award from NSF and an all expense paid trip for an award ceremony. In addition, awardes join a national cohort of award-winning teachers providing opportunities to impact teaching on a state and national scale. The recognition events may include professional development discussions with policy makers on how to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. So, this is the time we've been waiting for. All right. So, I'm going to call their names. They're going to come forward, get their award, take a picture, and then we'll have the state board to come down. So, as I call your name, you can just step forward. All right. So 2021

004paints mathematics and science awardees grades 7 through 12. Math category we have Wesley Davis from Cabbat High School. Give him a round of applause. All right. All right. Thank you. Yeah, he can just step there. That's fine. All right, the science category for 2021, we have Patricia Kraovia Valdivia, Arkansas School for Math, Science, and Arts. All right, in 2022 math category, Jamie Ramsey, GMD Rollins School of Innovation. [Applause] For the science category, we have Courtney Self, Isert County Elementary School. A special note about Isert County. Um they're the first district to have all schools designated for our STEM designation from preK to elementary, middle school, and high school. So yeah. Awesome. All right. So 2023 math category, we have Blake Tinsley, Conway High [Applause] School. The science category, we have Dr. Mary Maris, Little Rock

005Central High School. All right, another round of applause for all of our paints winners here. All right, and we'll do pictures. We'll do pictures. I think before pictures we wanted to open up that if any of this superintendents or principles um are here today and wanted to share anything about these amazing teachers. Yeah, you're welcome to. This is your chance. This is your chance. Don't be shy. Come on, Miss Russo. Good morning. Um is great pride for Dr. who I don't I it would take me 30 minutes to go through all the things that she does on a daily weekly basis, but one of the main things she does is is facilitate the largest science fair in the state of Arkansas. And we're so proud of our kids and our teachers who prepare these students

006for these local uh regional, national, and international awards that come out of our science fair. And also she has been heading up not the architect here but the uh the worker bee for our new science building which is going to be absolutely fabulous and you all are invited to come see it when it's all finished. So she's been uh taking care of all supplies and everything. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you for having us here today. But I'm Michael Fosinelli and I am the principal at Cab High School and Wes Davis is is one of our higher level math teachers at our at our school. He teaches pre-cal and calculus, the math classes I was never able to be a part of. But but it but when I first got into administration, it was

007automatically just assumed that Wes's kids were going to do good and they were going to do great because of because of you know they're the higher level math kids. But but what you forget about those are the kids that are the most challenging sometimes because they're the ones that want to see the most improvement and it's hard to get that needle to move a lot of times. But Wes is able to get that needle to move in the right direction with those kids and not just teaching them math but but developing the relationships where they it means something in the long run and and he's got a a wall full of life impact diplomas. So it's not just about math and calculus for Wes, but it's about developing those relationships. And so I congratulate him

008and and and thankful that we have him at Cabinet High School. [Applause] Good morning, Lords. Good night. I'm here from Conway High School with Miss Blake. Um what I really feel people need to understand about Miss Blake is that yes, she does teach my higher level classes, but when I asked her to go ahead and step out to algebra 3, which are her struggling students, she said yes. I asked her could put together a curriculum that would fit their needs. She said yes. We always get a yes. She's more than just a teacher in the team. She's a team member. She's the foundation of our math department. And this year, we've asked her to take the lead as a department chair and she said yes. So, thanks again. Good morning. Corey Alderise, executive director at

009ASMSA. We are so humbled to have Dr. KOak as uh one of the exceptional educators in ASMSA's community of learning. Uh she inspires students in the classroom, but more so she engages them in authentic real world research. Her students have been recognized in a variety of national and international competitions. But the thing that I think stands out the most about Dr. Kakoak's work is her commitment to partnerships from placing our students in research experiences at US and other programs. But more than that, she leads uh the advanced biology plus initiative within our STEM pathways program, which is done through support from the department of education. Hundreds of educators and students across the state each year are improving their work in AP biology achieving successful outcomes on those exams because of the preparation that she and

010other colleagues at ASMSA are providing. So, it's not just our students on campus benefit from her expertise, but students and educators across the [Applause] state. Fred Walker, superintendent county, Courtney Self, she's the driving force behind our STEM designation, the preK through 12. We did that in four years, which I think is was quite an achievement. and she's our STEM coordinator besides she started out when she got this award she was a science teacher but she is we wouldn't be where we are on the STEM without her and uh she's you couldn't have a better person you could award her [Applause] our pictures no what a great teacher appreciation week to be able to hear some more of the work that you all Um, so yeah, we will come down and get a picture with you

011all if that's okay. Scoot down a little bit in the middle. We'll slide that over. We're friends here. two and [Applause] [Music] Reverse. Sorry. Yeah, I don't know exactly. You didn't even notice. My wife. Yeah. We got one more. We got students. We got the Congratulations. Congratulations. That's nasty. That was cool. Yeah. It's a national program. Well, we can at least introduce it and then if it comes up later, we can share it later. Yeah. I don't want to I think that was Where's Tiffany? Tiffany, I think she's Okay, next next up on our agenda, we're going to hear from Dr. Pride about the National Youth Science Camp. It sounds like there's a video that's not working right now to play. So, we might see that later on, but you can let us know a

012little bit about it. All right. Thank you, Dr. Moore. All right. So, the next celebration and awards are for our 2025 National Youth Science Camp delegates. And our students aren't here today because they are dedicated students and they have their IB assessments today which they wanted to make sure they got to do today. So we're going to honor them while they're being studious. All right. So hosted in Monongia National Forest in West Virginia since 1963, the NYS camp is a residential science, technology, engineering, and mathematics program designed to honor and challenge some of the nation's rising STEM leaders and to provide them with the opportunities to engage with STEM professionals and participate participate in exciting outdoor activities. The camp is offered to each selected participant at no cost so that talented students may attend regardless

013of their financial ability. The camp also provides significant opportunities for delegates to interact and engage with STEM professionals. Camp staff and other delegates in exciting, fun, and meaningful ways. Two graduating seniors from Arkansas high schools have been selected as the state delegates for the 2025 National Youth Science Camp. We have Joseph Chin of Bentonville High School and Cindia Michael of AR for the from the Arkansas School for Math, Science, and the Arts. And let's just give them a hand. Although they're not here, we're proud of them and all that they've done. And so the video will come later whenever it's it's available. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for highlighting that today and look forward to hearing from the students on the video. Next, we have some Milicanin award winners from this year. Miss Sarasini,

014thank you for bringing us. Carly Sarasini, assistant commissioner, educator effectiveness and lure. And this week is national teacher appreciation week. So this is just with great honor and pleasure that we get to celebrate uh our newest two inductions for Arkansas into the Milin family foundation educators, Bonnie Pollock and Derek Thorp. So today before we start I do want to recognize we have a couple of past Milin Award winners in our midst today and we have Amy Brazwell and she is the class of 2002 and we have Andrew Harrison from the class of 2023. [Applause] Now, on to this year's winners to celebrate. So, Bonnie, would you like to come up here first? Um, Bonnie Pollock is an ELA English teacher at Old High Middle School in the Bittenville School District. She creates an engaging sixth

015grade classroom with in interactive lessons, themed experience, and hands-on projects integrating core curriculum. a member of her school's leadership team, she mentors aspiring and current teachers, which is so dear to my heart, uh through various programs, and actively participates in professional learning. Miss Pollock leads a successful student writing club, a geographic uh B, a civics B, and the girl empowerment club. She is in her 12th year as a teacher and holds degrees in elementary education, Spanish, and teaching and learning from Illinois State University. She recently just completed a curriculum and instruction administration endorsement through Harding University here in Arkansas. Let's congratulate Miss Bonnie Pollock Milin, educator class of 2024. [Applause] Good morning. Um, thank you so much for having us today and I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to appreciate this

016and recognize this award. Um, as well as just recognizing and appreciating all teachers across the state. Um, and thank you for working really really hard to make sure our students are educated and so that they are prepared for their futures. So, thank you so much. [Applause] that right there. We'll do pictures because we have one more. You know, Arkansas's been really blessed. Uh usually we only have one Milkin Award winner, but the past two years we've been beyond blessed because we had three and this past year we've had two. So celebrating this many across our state and we have and recognizing for their great uh accomplishments within educating our youth in Arkansas is just so important. So Derek, come on up. Derek Tharp is currently a middle school math teacher at Southside Middle School in

017Independence County, but also has experience as a facilitator and an administrator. He is an exemplary educator who consistently surpasses expectations and demonstrates profound dedication to student growth. He extends support beyond scheduled class hours. administrators uh administers dyslexia screenings and employs datadriven instructional methodologies with diverse pedagogical strategies resulting in significant improvement in assessment outcomes. So he's making a huge impact on our students at the district level. Mr. Sharp is a testing coordinator, mentor, policy committee member, and professional development facilitator within his in his school. He leads PLC, mentors, teachers, and contributes to inclusion model lessons. He will also be serving in a new role next year as assistant principal at Southside Elementary. He has presented at a state reading conference, serves as a guide for the Atlas classroom tool, and is an adjunct instructor at Lime

018College in Batesville. Mr. Tharp has nine years of experience in education and holds a bachelor's degree from Harding University and a master's degree from Arkansas State. Let's congratulate Mr. Derek Tharp Milin, educator, class of 2024. [Applause] Is it okay if I move this up? Thank you. Um to echo Bonnie, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this morning. Um I'm overwhelmed every time I reflect upon this. Um, I don't feel worthy of this because this morning I feel like I'm sitting in the presence of excellence hearing about all those incredible math and science teachers. Um, hearing about Bonnie and meeting Bonnie and interacting with her at the uh, Milkin Conference this year and all the other amazing educators across the nation. Um, I don't feel as though I belong in that group.

019Um, even hearing things read about me, I'm like, "No, that's not that. I'm just doing what I'm called to do." And I feel like it is a calling and I'm truly grateful to my uh Lord and Savior for number one my salvation but also for calling me into a profession where I get to impact so many lives. And um I love being here but in my heart of hearts I have a classroom full of students this morning who um I'm thinking about what they're doing and how they're finishing this school year strong. So once again I appreciate this and thank you so much. [Applause] Before we go down and take pictures, I I just want to congratulate Bonnie and Derek once again and thank the Milkin Family Foundation for recognizing the talent that's in front

020of our students each and every single day in the state of Arkansas. What what people don't know is teachers don't apply for this award. In fact, the Milin Foundation finds these teachers. And the fact that we're able to not even just have a Milkin award winner, but to have multiple award winners for a few years in a row is a testament to the quality of talent that is impacting the generation of students right here in the halls and the classrooms of our wonderful schools. So, we're very grateful that um the Milkin Family Foundation recognizes that. I think they call this like the Oscars of education or or something like this is like the biggest award the Emmys of education like this is a big deal and and the fact that we are able to to

021grace our presence with not even just the best educators in the state truly the top talent in the nation don't have imposttor syndrome like there there's a reason you're here and and I've been blessed to be able to visit their classrooms it's very evident why you've received this recognition and you both have very bright future teachers and we can't thank you enough for what you do for our students. Congratulations. [Laughter] I really am near that bright spot. for us. Yeah, things change. [Music] Everybody One, two, and three. [Applause] Can we can I also get Congratulations. How are you? Looking up. So, uh, just real quick, Dr. Moore, before we get into the agenda, since it's teacher appreciation week and we've been doing a lot to celebrate some of the fine educators here in our state

022already this morning and everybody in educational family, that makes a great difference. And I think about May being that wonderful time of the school year where everybody's uh getting to start those culminating activities, the celebrations, the banquetss, the graduations. that that to me May is probably the most exciting time in schools. Um, if I could, I'd like to just Carly ask Carly to come on talk about some of the things that we've done to celebrate and and raise the teaching profession and and maybe some upcoming events that we're going to participate in this week as well. Well, you know, this is near and dear to my heart. Uh, Bo has been out and about. He has visited several classrooms this week. We have also um I know Secretary Leva and our chief of staff has

023visited schools this week and we're really trying to get out around the state and really just try to get in as many schools as we can and celebrate teachers. We also I have mentoring specialists in every co-op and on some of the co-ops they have been documenting it which I love but we encourage them to drop off things at different schools that they have within their co-op and so on Facebook you can see some of it they have started and they have been anywhere from donuts in the morning to just treats for the different teachers across the state in the different buildings, their schools and school districts at every co-op. And so we really tried to layer all that. Uh Caprice Salam, of course, and her team have been out and about and we're so

024lucky to have her. Uh but tomorrow is kind of like the culminating activity. And tomorrow we're going to have educator signing day. It's kind of like um when athletes sign to go to school. I know I'm getting a lot of feedback. Uh tomorrow they will sign that they're going to be educators. Also tomorrow um not only is Secretary Aliva and the governor going to speak, tomorrow we're going to have our first six graduates for our apprenticeship in Arkansas and we're going to recognize those six tomorrow. So we have a lot of exciting things coming up and I hope you can join us tomorrow in the retunda at 10 uh because it's celebrating being teachers. We have several universities attending and bringing their educator rising organizations which is your educator organization. Um Ross White and his

025team is going to be there because we are also bringing in high schools that have educator rising and have um one of those 18 high need high wage pathways which is being an educator. And again that's a CTE pathway that we have at our high schools. So, we're celebrating not only future teachers in the university level, but at our high school. So, please come out and join us. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sarasini. Um, yeah, what a great way to have teacher appreciation week this week. It was great to hear from the teachers and their principles and superintendent. So, good morning. With that, we're good to go. Okay, we've had some audio issues this morning. Um, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, we had Facebook. Yeah. So, it sounds like we're going to be able to

026watch the a quick video from the National Youth Science Camp delegates once we have everything going. Great. We'll do that and then we'll start our action agenda after that. I'm just super grateful to have this opportunity um because it combines nature with science which are two of my favorite things. So after high school um I will be attending Purdue the honors college of Purdue University. Um, I'll be majoring in nutrition sciences on the predental track. And after Purdue, I plan to apply to and attend dental school. Um, and later specialize in either pediatric dentistry or endodontics. Being chosen as the Arkansas delegate for the National Youth Science Camp is an incredible honor. at NYC camp. I I look forward to learning with other um students from across the nation and across the world and to

027live in a learning and living community and to embrace new experiences. After high school, I plan to pursue public health um a focus on public health. I'm u maybe pursuing a pre-med route as well. I want to pursue higher education and u maybe get a MD PhD degree. I know Cindia and Joseph wish they could be here in person, but the young scholars they are, they're they're back in their districts taking uh some needed assessments, but I think it's a testament um just in that little snippet, you can see why they're chosen and they're going to make Arkansas proud. So, it's really nice to be able to celebrate them. Thank you. That's awesome. and awesome to to see and and hear what they do and I hope they come back to Arkansas to do those

028big things. So, thank you. Thank you all to the team for getting that video together for us. With that, we will move on to our action agenda. I don't believe there are any changes to the agenda. Great. Then we will start with item number one, a request for public comment for some rules. Thank you. Good morning, Deputy Commissioner Stacy Smith. I'm back. legislation is over and we have rules. So so excited. All right. So wanted to remind you um how the rule process works. Um first the rules come to the board to be released for public comment. The rules go out for a minimum of 30 days and those are noticed. um comment is received here at the department and reviewed by legal legal and responded to. If there is a substantive change, it goes

029back out again for public comment and the process starts again. All right. If there are no substantive changes, then um it comes back to this board um for approval and then it goes over to the Arkansas Legislative Council for final review. All right. So today we have two new rules before you. One is the rules governing the public school accountability rating system and this is the rules that directly reflect the accountability system that was shared with you guys recently. All right. Previously the in the appendix of the old rules they had the business rules in there and we have removed the business rules from this the set of these set of rules. All right, these set of rules really uplift that the accountability formula is focused on achievement growth and the success ready graduate. It

030also adds an automatic grading scale increase which we talked about in our work session when we see that schools are on the rise, right? That we automatically start increasing um the letter grade system and that that all comes before the state board to approve where we set those cuts. Um and it also revises the school recognition program. Um previously it was done by specific grade. This now puts it into the elementary, middle, and high school bands. And it also makes sure that schools are are getting awarded not just for their achievement but also for their growth. And schools that are getting awarded for their achievement must have positive growth scores. So those are the rules that we'll be putting out for their first review of public comment. Okay. Do you have any questions? Can I

031just also add um one we did a pretty extensive workshop on this and this is what I like to say is kind of the culminating um point of a very long progression that we spent the last two years with building systems alignments where everything was clear and concise and that was easy to understand from assessments to standards to an accountability system. We took the the recommended formula and ran a simulation of what the grades would be like and shared that with schools um and told them these are simulated grades. They're not finalized that the state board may have feedback. We're still got to put it out for another round of public feedback. But I can tell you overall the feedback we received even when we ran these grades um we've heard from superintendents from all

032over the spectrum and they were like they feel that this methodology of how we're calculating growth and focusing on those cortile and achievement level is really more reflective of the learning that's happening in their schools. And even superintendents were like, "Yeah, our our schools went down a little bit, but we can see why." Or the schools that stayed flat, they were saying, "Yeah, we we we know what we need to work on." And the ones that improved are like, "This validates the hard work that we're seeing in our students and classrooms every day." So, um, just know we're we're we're ready to put this out to continue to get more feedback because this is this is a a big piece of the puzzle for building that systems alignment. And um I'm just really proud of

033the team and and everybody that's come together. And as we've I keep going back to as we've engaged in this process from day one. We we wanted to create standards, test items, and an assessment system that reflected the input of Arkansas educators and experts along the journey in the way. And we've done that. And I I want to say from start to finish, it was over 3,000 um Arkansas educators participated at some point in this process. So, um, I think this is something that we want to celebrate, too. Everybody be able to get this out and moving it one step closer to get across the finish line. One of the things that timing wise we want to achieve now is we're actually in the closing part of the window of our assessment season for Atlas,

034and I want to say uh the latest update that I've seen, we have successfully administered statewide over 800,000 exams and had less than 100,000 to go. So, we're almost completely done. We're going to get those results back. We've already set the standards, we're going to be able to get the real- time data and information. And if we get this back from public comment and don't have a lot of substantive changes, we'll be able to bring this back to the board next month for approval and then be able to run the scores that the students are taking now through this system so that by August, this is where I make Hope nervous, early August, maybe late July, we'll be able to have the system in place to start moving forward with uh notifying schools um where

035where uh where their status is. So yeah, this is a big deal. Schools will be looking forward to that in August and September. No, wait till I any any questions. There's questions to my left. Questions? Just real briefly in the conversations we had about this new system. One thing that I don't think sat with me was this implementation of an automatic grading scale increase once 65% of schools reach a rating of A or B. Can you briefly explain that? What happens there? So, what would happen is we would reset our cuts and we would have to bring those cuts back to this board to determine is this the appropriate placement for a school to get an A, a B, a C or a D. So, that's a statewide 65%. If if 65% of the schools

036statewide get an A or a B, we'll re-evaluate cut scores. Yeah. What what I want to call that is an automatic escalator because we're we're never going to rest on our laurels and and ideally we'd get to the point where you would have a scale that mirrors what we have in classrooms where 90 to 100 is an A, 80 to 89 is a B. But we did a standard setting based on achievement levels now. And that's that floor has been set with the goal that we're going to have an automatic escalator and keep raising expectations. Yeah. Okay, good. Any other questions? Mr. Rollins, questions. Does this the system um also set kind of the rules for when we recognize teachers individually, monetarily? So, you're you're thinking about the merit pay program. So, so that that

037is measured by our BAM data. Okay. This does overall um growth scores which we have a VAM model for individual student scores and the same model and formula is used over on the side for individual teachers but it's a different formula and it's a different set of rule not a different formula but it's applied individually to each teacher based on the students that she is teaching. Okay. But for the whole school all teacher scores are accumulating into their growth score. Okay. So another set of rules for the and and and the way we are reporting growth scores with our accountability formula is the percentage of students in the school who met their expected growth. Teacher um merit pay is based on overall growth um of their students in in the VA formula. And so who

038grew their students the most not just did you meet it or not meet it. Go ahead. So the expected growth then is one year. Is that correct? Yes ma'am. Regardless of where they start. Yes ma'am. Okay. Board members to my right questions. Can I add a comment? So, while I say this is feels like the final piece of the puzzle, as I was listening to Stacia remind me, there will be one more piece of this puzzle coming to you later because uh with Arkansas access, one of the great pieces of that legislation gave us the authority to do is assign district grades as well as co-op grades. So, we want to get this process done for calculating district grades and then we're going to probably have to go through another standard setting process um on

039how we aggregate all of student performance. It's not going to just be like, well, this district had three A's and three C's, the grades of B. No, if we put all of your students in a denominator and looked at the performance in a numerator, what is your impact on a district is is kind of the what the work group is working towards. So, we we will get this finalized, but then soon after we're going to come back and um ask the board to possibly look at a different set of cut scores because when you when you aggregate the buckets um K12, we want to make sure we get that right as well. So, that that piece is coming. I have a question within that though. So these rules do not state they state in general

040how the letter grades are created but I know at the last meeting we talked about you know what percent does that letter grade is composed of proficiency versus what percent is growth where is that decided so that is indicated in the business rules okay and that's where you get into the very transparent individual calculation on every scenario that we would possibly apply to a school and so those business rules um are and they're referred to in here and they will be p published on our website. Do those come in front of the state board? Um as far as the approval for the percentages that that's not no because they're not written specifically in these rules, right? I I think the my concern would be that over time then those percentages would change without anyone knowing.

041Is there going to be a process that that would be you know that we know that this letter grade is composed of 50% growth or 60 whatever it is. Um well I think I think part of the the work through this was that we did have these stakeholder groups and we did have input statewide and that is indicated in the rules that it's there are statewide process for going through that. Um you know as far as it being specific in the in these rules the percentages it's it's not if that was something that was to be added that would be considered a substantive change. Okay. And so, but that that will be public. I'm trying to go back because y'all did a great job at the work session telling us those things. I think the

042concern my concern would just be that, you know, all of the sudden growth is now only 10% instead of the I think it should be more and where is that decision made and how are districts notified of that if there were a change? Right. Well, this board and and I I I want to acknowledge that. You're right. Secretary Olivia may always be sitting that seat. I may not always be the one standing here in front of this board. The accountability system in the past and historically has always been something that this board has heard public comment about, has participated in work sessions for, believe that that is the authority in which you call districts before you and getting information. um you know evidenced by the work sessions that we had and hearing from the state

043that growth was a primary factor that they wanted to see in the accountability system as far as naming the percentages in these rules. Some of that has to do with formulas and and weeding out how things actually flush out, right? And so anytime that there's an when we look at doing an automatic escalator, if we were to set the cuts in these rules, then that means every time this board wanted to try to adjust something on the formula, we'd have to come back and do an entire 30-day process. um in the accountability formula setting the percentages that is something that I feel pretty confident to say will always go through this board in terms of a work session allowing you guys to ask for public transparency to make sure that school districts understand the formula.

044The previous formula, what we heard over and over and over again was that it was not transparent and we saw schools chasing small SQSs factors of attendance. Um, small points for, you know, a kid in a computer science credit and not focusing on overall achievement in math, science, and literacy and overall growth of their students. The formula has been simplified to take out the noise and get people focused on growth and get focus focused on achievement. And the exact percentages for high school, middle school, and elementary on growth and achievement, they differ. They're not all the same. But it does carry um more weight. Growth does at this time. I understand that. I think I would I I wish in a perfect world we could also have the business rules with this so that we

045know exactly what we're approving and what those scores look like because I would hate for there to be a change without us or districts knowing. I I will make sure the business rules are sent to all of you. Okay. Um and then um that is something we can have further discussion about maybe like with the public comment attached because I think there is there should be you know people should be able to continue to put in feedback about what the percentage of each of the categories is. I think that's a great suggestion. We'll we will make sure that the business rules are attached when they go out for public comment and we'll make sure you all get a copy. So I'll just add to that. What is the process for a business rule change? If

046it doesn't come before us, who's the decider? So that is internal department of education document. Okay, that is our guidance document on every formula that is calculated and it's posted um and it's published and these rules require us to do that. Right? So it was put in here that we would publish the rules so that it's very transparent on how the formula is being applied to everyone. So when you get into the business rules, you get into everything from the configuration of a school. If you're a K1, if you're a first, if you're or if you're, you know, a standalone nth grade academy, how do things get applied to you? If you don't have all the indicators, if you're missing some of the components, the business rules spell out each individual calculation and step and

047it is published then for folks to be able to see. And when we get questions about how did you do that, we refer everyone back to the business rules. And if we can't point to how we did it in the business rules, then we've got it. We that that's a problem. But though I mean and are those consistent for a certain time period? Um they are so so the business rules that we have put out right now show exactly what we did for calculations with the simulated grades. So as we're going through this process at some point if we see that there's an like as schools are looking at their grades and applying the formulas and running the numbers there's a chance that there is a anomaly out there that we're not aware of. And

048so when we get asked questions about that, it gives us the opportunity to say, "Okay, we miss that population or we miss that type of student or what do you do when legislation passes a new rule about students with their EL language or whatever how that that applies." It gives us the flexibility in those business rules to say exactly how it's going to be calculated. It it it is a granular um step compared to the overall rules. the overall rules are guaranteeing that the state is using achievement, growth, and success ready paths in the accountability system. I understand that. I think I would prefer that it's stated, taking a rule of privilege as a board chair, that it's stated specifically what percentages of each category there is so that we have consistency over the years

049and there's no backdoor changing in a year or two that completely change the letter grades. Um, I have another question around the reward schools. Yeah. So, there's some word smithing here that's changing how the schools are rewarded based on grades span. And I know as you've alluded to, we have tons of different types of schools, K2, 712, that kind of thing. Is this going to be giving rewards based on one particular grade or so schools are assigned? So, when in when we did the workshop, we saw where schools were assigned in in group one, group two or group three based on their grade spans. So, we had those three spans. are either going to be considered in elementary, middle or high school. And so awards will be based on those three categories instead of combining

050everybody together. The formula comes up and you have, you know, so this allows us to give equal awards in each of those bands. Okay. Do you take K2 assessments into this? The K2 is not a part of the accountability formula. Okay. It does um go grow into growth. but we're not using K2 in the formula. K2 is paired normally with their third, fourth, and fifth grade building. Okay. And that's with there's some mortgage around if you don't have it, you're connected to your feeder school. Yes. Yes. So, you're combined that. So when you're given your A, if you're a K2 school and you didn't have all the data elements, you're paired and it indicates that in there with your feeder school and you've received that same grade. And so in our simulated grades, that's what

051you saw. And that was done previously as well. The K2 data goes into growth for math and um ELA that that goes into the third grade score. Okay. And just to clarify, I my personal preference is that we only award for growth. Is does legislation specifically state we have to award for achievement and growth? I believe so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um board members question. And and we actually strengthened the rules based on the preference of growth that if you are being awarded for achievement, you had to show positive growth. I appreciate that. And I think that needs to be signaled out more um so that we schools understand this is not who's coming in your door, it's what you're doing with who's coming in your door. And and I'm a growth fan. I mean, I

052want schools to grow and that's one of the first things we look at. Um one of the things I think that we can't lose sight of is we still want kids to achieve and meet the proficiency level, right? And that's what we're when we're pushing for growth, we're pushing for growth to get to that achievement level. And um I think recognizing those schools that are getting there to the achievement level, especially when they've had tremendous growth on top of that, I think that matters. Board members, any additional questions? Do we want to take both these rules together or this one separately? Um I would go ahead and ask for a motion to release these for public comment. So, this will be a motion to approve the rules for public comment. So, move. There's a motion

053by Miss Rollins. Is there a second? Second. A second by Miss Hunter. Any questions? Okay. Move forward with a vote. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. Second set of rules that are coming to you today are a is actually um kind of a rollover from um previous legislation of learns and human trafficking and safeguarding our students at school. And so this requires school districts to implement sexual abuse and human trafficking prevention programs. Um our learning services curriculum team has been working hard on adding those standards into the health and health standards um and physical education standards. They've also been reviewing curriculum that they will be able to um embed into this the standards so that districts will have access to curriculum that is aligned to those standards. It requires

054school districts to provide training to teachers concerning awareness, reporting requirements, and prevention. The department has put together training in that area as well. And it also prevents school districts from providing instruction on certain topics that are inappropriate for students um before the grade five. And that is on page two. board members to my left questions to my right questions. Okay. Yes. When um it talks about in I think it was provision four, but basically it says that the school has to allow parents to preview the curriculum. So that is in legislation. It is. Um and so there's a notice there's a notice that schools need to um make parents aware that they are providing this type of curriculum and school districts parents can opt out or parents can opt to come and review the review

055the materials along those lines. It does not state what specific grades it just said schools is there a requirement talking about standards. So the so the Arkansas standards for health and safety are K12 standards and the department has embedded human trafficking within K through 12. Okay. So appropriate levels. So what's what's appropriate for a kindergartener to know what's appropriate for first and second all the way. So every grade will have something. Yes. Okay. Okay. Board members. And that looks very different from kindergarten to eighth grade. Right. Board members, any questions or comments? Parents can also opt out as well. Yes. At their school districts, yes, they may. This to me is so important when you hear about human trafficking and how students or children can be, what is the word? Groomed for a situation and

056not be aware that they're being groomed at all. And also parents. So, I really appreciate this very much. Yeah, I think it was it's very sensitive. I know and I'm sure we will be careful with what we present to children, but this is vital. Thank you. Yeah, I Well, it's it's not me. I think this is where you look at the governor of her taking a stand on bold actions on protecting kids. So, so I would request an action for release to public comment. Okay. The floor is open for a motion. I'll make the motion to approve. Mr. Rollins made a motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Miss Woods made a second. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. Any oppose? Motion passes. The next set of rules actually have

057already come before this board um and were released for public comment back in be prior to the legislative session starting. And so now that the legislative session has over, it has finished this public comment period. And so now we're bringing it back for you for final approval for it to go to ALC. These were final rules that really are only changes that were made in previous legislative session. So there was nothing in here that was not specifically named in legislation that got changed. And so the overall actions as as requirements that must be met to pay for educational and related costs for disabled juveniles who are in who are going into an outofstate residential impatient facility. And it also added some requirements for juvenile detention facilities regarding notifying a resident district of the student that

058has enrolled in their school or facility. So I would ask for um final approval of these rules. Board members to my left questions. Yeah. So I have really no opposition to this except my question I think whenever this came before us before was the definition of juvenile and you know it's 18 years and younger rather than under 18 years. Um is that I mean I would have I think that's a little diff and and I asked about this before that's a little different than like I think what most of us consider to be a juvenile. Yeah, I think that's probably something that's specific in legislation. I'd have to defer to Courtney on the residential if you want to comment on that. Good morning, Courtney Solace Ford. that specific um that definition is specific to the

059juvenile detention centers and the age limits that they set for u being able to be court ordered into those programs. Okay, thank you. She told me she'd be a great pitcher for me if I needed her. Board members to my right, questions. Okay, with that the floor will be open for a motion. This is f final approval for these rules. I move to approve final approval. We have a motion for approval by Mr. Brag. Is there a second? Second. A second by Mr. Henderson. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. Any oppose. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have a request for a waiver from the Highland School District. I believe Superintendent Jeremy Lewis is on Zoom. Mr. Lewis, can you hear us? Yes, ma'am. Great. We'll start

060with Miss Horschman and then we will get to you. Thank you. Good morning. Hope, assistant commissioner, public school accountability. Um, I bring to you a waiver request from the Highland School District for standard 1841, which requires a district to attend um either 168 hours or 168 school days. 178 school days, excuse me. Um, Highland is on the alternate calendar which requires them to attend full 1,68 hours. Um, due to inclement weather and um, a boil order that was put in in place um, on April uh, April the 7th at their district that caused them to um, miss one additional day they were not planning for. So, they are requesting to not have to make up the 6 and 1/3 hour um, that would have been done on that day. Superintendent Lewis, do you want to

061make any comments at this point? Uh, yes, ma'am. U, of course, we had experienced some winter winter weather, inclement weather throughout the year, had our five days built into our calendar. Uh, we attended those days. We actually added four days to the end uh to the end date of the school year. And then we our area was hit particularly hard with flooding uh at the end of March, the 1st of April. Um, we had some roads that were bad. We were still planning on running alternate bus routes and getting to school on that Monday, but our water system unfortunately was affected by a bull order. Uh, we worked hard on the Sunday be April the 6th getting water and everything ready to go because so we could have school on Monday and just couldn't get

062it done. We spent the rest of the day that Monday uh preparing for school on Tuesday. So, we are requesting a waiver, a standards waiver from the 1,68 hours um for that Monday, April the 7th. Okay, board members questions to my left. Question. So, what before all the bad weather, what day was were Highland schools supposed to get out for summer? So, we were scheduled, our last day was scheduled uh when we got our calendar approved for May the 15th. Really? That that strikes me as surprisingly early. Uh I'm I'm I'm Yeah. When did When did you When did you start school? So, we started on August the 12th. They have 169 days in their calendar this year. 169. you have a special number of hours every day. I I'm I'm really surprised at the

063I guess the the short calendar for the year just just having having been a local schoolboard member and struggling with building a school calendar. The fact that you could have scheduled to be out of school May 15th, it just surprises me. So, how how did y'all how did y'all do that? Yes sir. So we're we take advantage of uh one of the calendar options which is the al called the alternative calendar. Okay. Uh and that calendar require requires 1,068 hours of instructional time throughout the year and we actually built our calendar with just right at 1,070 hours. Uh we utilize a couple hours. Uh we had a accident with one of our students. So we use those hours there. Of course, we've got the five days built in for inclement weather um throughout the year

064and then we also miss four days beyond that and added to the end of the year. So um you know we get our hours in during the day. We go to school 6.33 hours. We have 6.33 hours of instructional time every day. That adds up to a thousand and right at 1,070 hours. So that's how we get our days in. Okay. So my my next question is beyond the surprise of the schedule, but you missed a lot of days for snow days, nine before the the the flooding of early April. Yes, sir. Um and and anyone who's watched a board meeting where we've talked about school calendars knows that I don't like May days. I don't think much learning takes place in May in schools. So my question is how how what did you do

065between January 10th and the end of April to make sure that the time that well I don't know h how are you how are you helping kids make up for the nine days they've missed in a meaningful substantive way rather than just another day to clean a classroom in May. Well, I mean, so I mean, I hope I can answer your question and you asked about our start date. We we always like to start as early as possible here because we do have a large rural district and we usually do experience some um weather days in January and February. Uh but we also have uh days scheduled off in January and February, and we were able to utilize those. We went to school on MLK. We went to school on President's Day. Uh and we

066also used uh the Friday and Monday around Easter that we had scheduled off uh to help make up some of that instruction time. Okay. So, those were changes you made after bad weather occurred. You Yes, sir. Those are the those were the five days that were built into our calendar for inclement weather days. Okay. Well, fair enough. I'll actually tell you I'm slightly impressed by that. A lot of a lot of school districts wouldn't take calendared holidays and turn them into educational days. So, I'll I'll give you a pat on the back for that actually. Thank you. Yep. Other board members to my left questions? Board members to my right questions. I guess my one question is why not just go one extra day and get out on May 22nd? That's I mean that's what

067we have scheduled right now. Uh but with the with the unusual circumstance of the flooding and the water system being down, I just I felt like I owed it to uh my district to ask ask for a waiver at that point. I mean, it's we would appreciate a a positive vote on this, but if we don't get it, we'll just add a day to the to the end of our school year. Yes, ma'am. I I it is notable that the 21st is a Wednesday. It's not the end of the week. And so I understand maybe arguing coming back after Memorial Day, but when you still have time before this. Um, so I I actually if if you like Mr. Wood said, if you've been listening to our board, myself particularly, have honed in on this

068idea that we are providing less opportunities for students to learn. I have a first grader and he needs to be in reading group five days a week. doing adding 30 minutes to your day every day to do six and a half hours of instructional time does not give him two reading groups. How do you feel that you a day unless you tell me otherwise? How do you feel that your district is really making up for those nine days that five years ago when alternative calendars weren't allowed, your district would have already gone to school for nine more days than you did this year, not even talking about snow days. How do you feel like you're making up for those lost days of instruction with that extra 30 minutes? I hope I can answer your question.

069I mean, I of course we work really hard. I think we work really hard with our interventions and things that we have going here. Uh we we do have a little bit of time added to our day that was not the case when we were going 178 days throughout the year. Um and so I mean I did some digging into it. Your elementary goes to school from 8:00 to 3:15. What time do your What time does your bus What time do your buses arrive? Our buses get to school, we start dropping off over at the elementary like at 7:35. Okay. And then what time do the buses pick up students at the elementary school? Uh it's around 3:15. Okay. When our buses finally get to the elementary school. I certainly recognize it is not our

070job to understand when buses come and go. We are a, you know, that that's a local decision, but what we have seen and heard from districts is that they are not protecting that time and sometimes we will have districts that, you know, buses have to run earlier and so students aren't truly getting that full amount of time. Um, when you're looking at the six and a half hours of instructional time, are you making sure that those six and a and I know at the elementary level recess is included in that? So, you have 45 minutes of your day for lunch and bathroom breaks. Do you feel confident that your students are fully receiving the six and a half hours of instructional time? I do. I I think I think that uh I absolutely think that

071that they are. Yes, ma'am. Okay. I, you know, I'm ending my time on the board to point a chair. I am disappointed in our legislature that we did not bump back up to 178 days at the minimum this year. I'm also disappointed that our law does not more clearly define instructional time. And I am urging the Department of Ed to make sure we are looking at districts to make sure that students are getting that full instructional time that these alternative calendar days are doing. I would love to see some sort of audits to make sure that students are actually learning as we go to fewer and fewer days. We have a lot of districts getting out this week and next week um you know and then that's their purview. We also have districts who are

072just now doing Atlas this week and they are really trying to you know do the most instruction possible. When was Atlas in your district? Uh, we finished up last week. So, over the past two weeks, we didn't test this week, but the previous two weeks. Okay. We we finished up. And are your teachers still in instruction mode this week? And I would like to add that next year with our calendar, we actually have days added above and beyond above the,68 hours just to accommodate for situations like this if they come up. How many days will y'all be going next year? got 100 instead of 169 I think we have 170 days so I have an extra day. Okay with that board members any questions or comments? I just I appreciate the detail of the questions

073you just asked and I recognize that you'll be leaving our board starting in July and I hope that we carry on that level of questioning because it's very important and um I hope that there's a growing sentiment around the state that quality instruction time occurring in my opinion five days a week is more important than these check a box. We got our hours in attitudes towards it. Exactly. When we look at um our collegegoing rates and our college graduation rates, we are not where we want to be. We don't want to provide less opportunities for our students. We need to provide more. We also have so many students who are struggling. We want to provide lunches. If you get an extra day of lunches and an extra day to be at school, that's a net

074positive to me. So, I don't understand our slippage in that way, particular in that you're still having to pay teachers for 190 days. So, we are now paying teachers the most we've ever paid them and they're having the least amount of student contact they've ever had in most districts in our state. With that, the point of the chair um any additional questions or comments, Miss Rollins? Dr. more. I also appreciate your your questioning and it's really helped me think through this. Uh I want to deny the waiver that that is in a form of a motion. There's a motion by Mr. Rollins to deny the waiver. Is there a second? Okay. Questions or comments before a vote is taken? I'd like to make a quick comment. I I'm going to vote for the motion to

075deny the waiver and mostly it's based on the fact that I don't see much of a logical reason. not go to school Thursday, May 22nd. Um, if there was a more compelling calendar reason, I would consider voting to grant the waiver. Um, but I want to also just reiterate my compliments despite the conversation that we have had, the compliments that they took scheduled holidays and turned them into education days. I I do think that that's commendable. With that, any additional questions or comments? Okay, there's a motion on the floor to deny the waiver. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Okay, motion passes to deny the waiver. Thank you, Superintendent Lewis. Yes. So, just before we move to next item, um to to Dr. Moore and Miss Mr. would and to the other boards

076about future conversations with the legislature. We have lost our way on what we value in education in this state. When we say not setting a minimal calendar of 178 days, of which we fund schools for should be the minimum expectation. We have schools that range from 143 days to 178 days. And when you build your own calendar with the very minimum threshold, ignoring the fact that weather's going to happen, emergencies are going to happen, you put yourself in these circumstances. If if school districts would have a 6 and a half hour day and 178 day calendar, they would have over a thousand instructional hours, they'd be well over that threshold and wouldn't be having to come to this board and asking waiverss. I don't know why it's a it's it's it's it's an argument to

077just say to school districts, set a calendar that has 178 days of school. Exceed the minimum expectation. Don't meet the minimum expectation. And already at a national level, 178 days is below the national average. There's only like six or seven other states that have lower expectations of that calendar. And the fact that we have school districts that will argue and say that going 143 days is just as good as going 178 days. I struggle. That's literally giving the access of a COVID shutdown to students each and every single year. And if if if we know anything in education, I keep going all these conferences and hearing all these people talk about we've got to mitigate COVID learning loss. Kids didn't learn have losses of learning. We took away their access to learn. And when we

078start allowing districts to build calendars that deny access to learning, I struggle. And I'm sorry, just going 10 minutes more a day doesn't equate to a full day of learning experience. So, I think I can tell you as your time on this board may become limited, I assure you this is a conversation that I intend to keep happening because we're not number one in education in a lot of things, but we will be number one in the least amount of schools school days for students when they start establishing calendars of 143. And that is not a category I want to win in. And so my conversation is how do we encourage these districts to go above and beyond minimum expectations minimum and when you sit sit and build this calendar of 169 that's like you're

079right at that threshold. So um I applaud the district for adding another day. I still think they strategically should add those days in the calendar and then if they don't need them it it no harm no foul. So, I I know I I've been consistent all through this last legislative session working with legislators to try to raise that that expectation. I don't know why we can't establish calendars of 178 days of school, but that is something that I'm committed to keep that conversation going. We need more learning days in August, less learning days in May. Agree. Thank you. And I do echo what you said. I do appreciate they added those holidays. We're seeing some tech on May where they're not doing that true learning particularly before the assessment. So, thank you for pointing that

080out with them. Okay. Next, Miss Waram, we have a cited recommendation from Maynard School District and I see Superintendent Amy Jackson on Zoom here. Correct. So, um again, Hope Worsham, Assistant Commissioner of Public School Accountability. So annually um my department brings to you the um list of schools to be cited um for the school year or um to be accredited. And so Maynard School District um was notified um as early as November of a issue with a teacher that was um did not have the appropriate lure requirements. um from the of course from November through um April, we worked and notified the district of uh this need to have the proper paperwork submitted for this particular individual to um get on an alternative learning plan. The district failed to do that. Um the district is

081not appealing the citation request and we are um requesting that the board place the Maynard school district on cited status for um the failure to comply with providing the appropriate documentation and paperwork in the required time frame. Superintendent Jackson, did you want to make comments at this point? Oh, I think you're unmuted if you don't mind starting over. There you go. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I just wanted to point out that we hired um Michelle Sarah Buyers as our curriculum coordinator. And with that, she was under the impression that all she needed to do was take the school leadership lensure exam. Later found out that that was no longer required. And then um she applied to add her masters in curriculum and instruction but was denied by Arkansas State Arkansas

082State University. And they said the reason being was she her degree was more than 10 years old and that they had added additional requirements and that she needed to take two additional classes and an internship. And so this communication um spanned over two semesters and kind of went back and forth with Arkansas State University. Um and so finally she worked with Arkansas Tech University and she was able to complete her enrollment and receive her ALCP documentation, signed documentation from that university. Um, so I just wanted the board to know it wasn't for a lack of trying um to obtain these documents and submit them in a timely manner um because you know I certainly you know don't want um our school to be to look at like you know in a negative way. So I

083just wanted you to know the circumstances behind this. Board members to my left questions to my right questions. Superintendent Hope, can you just reaffirm or reexlain what this means when they take this consideration of a citation? What what is that task of the agency and what is the task of the district? Right. So um the task of the agency, we watch across the year all the standards for accreditation, ensure that that districts are complying with the standards. Um and in the event that we um notice a district has not been doing what is asked of them or is not staying in compliance, that's when a citation would be recommended to the board. Um that citation is for a one-year period of time. Should the district um not remedy the issue next year, then there are

084further actions that the board could take um towards that district. Should the district remedy the the the citation and um for example in this particular situation the um teacher remain on the ALCP complete that then that no harm no foul there the citation would be removed um in the following year. So this is the same citations that we give or not give for like incomplete testing. That is accurate. So there's really no ramifications for this right other than it takes us to the next level next year. Yes. other than if they do not remedy it next year. If they get cited for the same standard next year, then that's when additional action could be taken, right? And I guess my question is like why even have this step if nothing actually changes other than we've

085put them on notice. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, from our side, we will work more closely with the district. So, for example, with Maynard in the fall, I'll have my team look more closely at um their um lure requirements to make sure that we're helping earlier if there is a need to do that um and be a more regular contact. So, it does from our side trigger a level of support um that's not general to everyone, a little closer touch to ensure they have what they need. I had a question. Um, Superintendent Tran of Marvel Lane School District um, did not have what was required. I think got a waiver, but there was some path, some alternative path, something that he was the very first of I think Miss Arcini may be able to

086help. Um, if you'll explain that and is that an was that an option here? Is it something that we could have offered? Um, if you'll give a little more detail on that. Thank you. Carly Sarasini, assistant commissioner. Yes, we do have alternate pathways now that Mr. TR, Dr. TR, yes, went through because he already had leadership degrees all the way up to, you know, a doctorate. But again, this particular, it was easier for this individual to go through go back to the university. We just look at the easiest pathways and uh Dr. Sutherland and his team worked with them and reached out and uh most universities if it's past 10 years old will not accept. It's kind of their policies. Each university is different. Some are five, some are 10. If Arkansas Tech had not

087worked with them, then we would have looked at what could we do past that. There are lots of options now that we didn't have when this first started. Okay. Thank you. Just just real quick, our our the standards unit works with districts to get them accredited. All right. Um there's been a lot of back and forth between about this specific situation for this citation. The district has accepted the citation. They've acknowledged that they didn't get done what they needed to get done. It is pretty much what you said. It's a notice, right? Got to get our ducks in order. We got to get our paperwork in. If you see the same school district getting cited for testing, lure, you know, and there are some um standards for accreditation that get you into probation, right? And

088so multiple citations can lead to that. Um, yes, we want this person to get on the right path and our folks are committed to helping this school district make sure they get the paperwork in um and get that taken care of. Um, today we're not asking and they're not asking for a waiver. They they have they there is a process. We notify them that we're bringing them to the board for this citation. They have the opportunity to say, "I want to appeal that." And come to you with an appeal. This item today could have easily been on the consent agenda where they where they have accepted it. I appreciate the superintendent with the knowledge and the background and that she's paying attention to this and I'm confident that this will be resolved on is it

089not already or does she still have to submit the paperwork? It is resolved. So is it completely resolved? So she submitted the ALC paperwork after the deadline. Yes. Yes. So we're rubbing we're rubber stamping a citation. The citation is for the failure to to to provide the documentation to provide the documentation for it, but we've already got the documentation now. So now it's just we received it after. Yes. So we know for this they won't be on it next year because they've remedied. That is correct. And that might have been a reason for them to appeal to you. Fair, but they did not appeal and there are guidelines and rules to follow an appeal process. and they they did they said they did not want to appeal and that they accepted the citation. And so

090that's that's a kind of a distinction piece here. Okay. How long after the deadline did she submit the paperwork? I was unclear on that. Several months. Several months. Okay. Okay. Miss Jackson, did you have anything to add? Um, I just want to say, you know, that it it was just an unfortunate and it was something that was really out of her control because she was trying to work with the university. The university wouldn't grant it. We she had to rely on the university to sign this paperwork um in order for us to get the paperwork to you to Desi. Um, the reason I didn't ask for an appeal is because I didn't want it to look negative on our district. And I asked um, Miss Worsham, I said, you know, um, what are the consequences?

091What are the pros and the cons versus me appealing this and not appealing it? because I certainly wanted our district, you know, to to basically be in a positive um light with the with the board. And I'm new to Arkansas. This is my second year as superintendent, so I'm, you know, really not wasn't familiar with all of these requirements, but you know, that's on me. Um, so that's the reason that I didn't appeal the decision because I had asked for a second um, for consideration after they had indicated that we were going to be cited. I emailed them back and explained the situation. Um, and again I was told no, you know, that you will still be cited and this will go to the board for consideration. And so that was another reason why I

092didn't appeal the decision. Board members, any questions or additional comments? Okay, with that then there floor will be open for a motion regarding this side of the recommendation for citation. There's a motion by Mr. Bragg to approve the citation. Is there a second? Second. There's a second by Dr. Arnold. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. All against say I. Motion passes. Thank you. Next we have a PLSB case, Miss James to come to prison. Good morning, Whitney James with the department. Uh the next item is the consideration of the recommendation of the PLSB uh recommendation for case number 2550, Joanna Walker. This is a case that went to an evidentiary hearing. Uh the recommendation from the ethics subcommittee was upheld and the educator has requested a review hearing. Just a reminder of

093the procedures, anyone who is not an attorney who will be speaking today needs to be sworn in and each party will have 10 minutes to make oral arguments starting with the educator. Uh the educator is not present today. However, her attorney Caitlyn Cable is present to speak on her behalf. Thank you, Miss James. So, at this point, no one needs to be sworn in. Is that correct? There is. I don't believe there's anyone here today that needs to be sworn in. Uh since the educator is not present. Okay. So, we'll start with the educators speaking. You have 10 minutes and introduce yourself, please. Thank you, board. Uh thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. Um, as you heard, my name is Caitlyn Cable and I represent Miss Blocker, a dedic a dedicated educator

094with 25 years of experience whose career is now at issue. Um, we're here today because the evidentiary hearing led to the recommendation that this board uh revoke Miss Blocker's teaching license uh based on the allegations of the of a violation of ethics. Um, however, we respectfully urge this board to deny that request. Let me be clear. It is not Miss Blocker's position to condone any misconduct. Uh nor does she take these concerns lightly. However, revocation is the most extreme sanction um available to this board and it is meant to be reserved for cases that where the educator poses an extreme risk of to children's safety um to students safety um where they would be considered an ongoing threat to them. But that is not what we have here. Now, the core allegation here is that

095Miss Blocker misrepresented holding a PhD. The only evidence of this alleged misrepresentation is a single email sent in 2019 in which she casually referenced and then the PhD. No diploma was submitted, no false documentation was produced, and importantly, no evidence shows that she represented herself as Dr. Blocker in any official capacity. In fact, Miss Blocker followed the protocol each year by submitting sealed official transcripts to human resources at her school as required by the Arch Ford handbook. These transcripts were used to verify contracts and they were used to be reviewed regularly by HR and those were used regularly without issue for over 16 years. The subcommittee also asserted that there was a salary increase based on the PhD credential. Yet no salary schedule exists for her position linked to that degree. Rather, her compensation reflected

096the additional responsibility she had serving in a dual role and she was also serving as a brain injury specialist. There was no evidence presented to establish any undue financial gain resulting from credential misrepresentation. As to claims of professional harm or district impact, again, no evidence was submitted. No students, administrators, or districts testified to any negative consequences. This alone calls into question whether any ethical violation, assuming one occurred, had a widespread impact that the ethics committee suggested that it had. Finally, let's address the other allegations such as appearing as doctor in external documents or seminars based on other materials that were created by third parties. There's no evidence Miss Blocker directed or encouraged doctor to be used or that title to be used. Essentially, this case was built on inference, not evidence. Uh to revoke a

097license on the basis of one ambiguous email without proof of intent, harm, or deception does nothing but deprive children of a dedicated teacher. And I'd like to address proportionality. Even if the alleged misconduct occurred, the appropriate response should match the gravity in the context of the offense. In this case, Miss Blocker is facing permanent revocation, a career-ending punishment, which would not be proportionate to this conduct. According to the board's own sanctioning guidelines, there are only two other examples that are punishable by revocation, and those offenses are particularly egregious, including um sexual abuse towards children. And that's not what we're talking about here. This isn't predatory action. This was just an error in judgment, if any. The misconduct alleged is not one that would be repeated. is not one that can't be deterred by other sanctions.

098There's no pattern of misconduct. There's no reoccurrence and there's no indicica indication that the students were ever endangered. In conclusion, we would ask this board to exercise its discretion, consider what sanction would be appropriate given this alleged misconduct. Revocation should be the last resort and only when it's necessary and just. We urge the court to deny the commission's recommendation based on the evidentiary hearing to deny revoking Miss Blocker's license and allow her the opportunity to continue serving her students as she's done for 25 years. Thank you. Thank you, Whitney James with the department. Again, um just to respond to a couple of the educators attorney's comments, uh Miss Blocker admitted, uh to our investigator and at the evidentiary hearing that she was dishonest about her, uh credentials and said she had a PhD. This wasn't

099merely a casual mention in an email. Um there was also testimony from the co-op dire or from a co-op employee that the salary was only increased because she was then on the PhD schedule, pay schedule. There was also no evidence at the hearing that each year Miss Walker submitted her transcripts to the co-op. As far as I know, she only submitted them one time. Don't know how that got missed, but they got filed away. Um, the educator in this case worked at Arch Ford Co-op for 16 years. She's been in education for 25 years. She has a bachelor's degree and a master's. It's undisputed that she does not hold a doctorate degree. However, because of a reduction in force that happened many years ago, in order to keep her job, she was dishonest with the

100co-op and conveyed to the co-op in writing that she did have a doctorate, thus increasing the number of points that she had so that she could survive the reduction in force. This meant she was able to remain employed. She never came to them at any point and said that was, you know, I was dishonest about that. She continued to accept the salary year after year after year. Another employee at the time at that initial riff who did legitimately have the qualifications was laid off. Uh Miss Blocker's salary was increased, like I said, to the PhD pay scale. She accepted approximately $60,000 from the co-op over the years following her dishonest statement. Um at the evidentiary hearing when she was specifically asked, "Do you think you need to repay that?" She said no. Um, and this

101all came about, and this was all discovered at the co-op when she was actually asking to receive more money from a stipend. Um, like I said, she admitted the evidentiary hearing that she was dishonest. Uh, she said she didn't need to reimburse the co-op. The hearing subcommittee heard Miss Blocker's testimony in person. She's not here today, but the hearing subcommittee heard her testimony and unanimously upheld the recommendation of the ethics hearing subcommittee that her license should be revoked and that she should pay a $500 fine. Uh, regarding standard 2, she was clearly unethical and unprofessional. She was dishonest. She also signed documents that stated Joanna Blocker, PhD. So, this again was not a one-time thing. at the hearing, she took me by surprise when she said that someone had forged her signature on those documents.

102Um, and the ethics the ethics subcommittee did not ethics hearing subcommittee did not find that statement to be credible. They were able to look at other documents she had signed and they did not believe that to be true. Uh, they stated in their rationale that she falsified reports. Uh, regarding standard three, she failed to honestly report her credentials. regarding standard 4. She accepted public funds for a doctorate that she knew she did not have. Now, while this by itself may not um may not show on the sanctioning matrix that revocation is proper, there are so many aggravating factors in this case and in the past you all have revoked licenses when people have been dishonest about their credentials. Um so this this would be consistent. She has also said via her attorney in writing twice

103that she has never held herself out to have a doctorate to the Arch Ford co-op. And this is blatantly untrue. So, it's our position she's also lied to the PLSB. Um the appropriate sanction or the only appropriate sanction is the permanent revocation of license and the $500 fine. Thank you, Miss James. And now we open the floor up for questions both of Miss James or of the usually the educator or the attorney. Yes, ma'am. Um, so I'm going to start to my left. Um, questions. Um, I was wondering in the time that she worked at Arch Ford, how many um I guess what's the correct term, the um evaluations that were given? Let me get the correct term here just a second. Flipped my mind. Um, how many psychological specialized evaluation reports was she responsible

104for? She was there 16 years. Is that correct? I I do not have the exact number on that. In the exhibits that were in the file that we gave to you, I think we have maybe three or four. And she was also listed on uh PD schedules as Dr. Joanna Blocker. So presumably the parents of students who were being evaluated believe that she had a doctorate degree based on her signature on those documents. So without a doctorate would she have been qualified to complete as an examiner these reports? Yes ma'am. I believe I believe that she was but the PhD was still listed on there. And so with the PhD on I think um every single one of those would be an incident of fraud to me every time she signed her name. Um and

105just to respond to um Miss Cable's um assertion that she was not a risk or a threat. I think that amount of lack of integrity is a risk and a threat to the colleague that lost his job to every family that believed that this evaluation was done by someone with credentials that they didn't have. um the risk and the threat there is apparent in my opinion. As the newest member of the board, I just want to uh restate what I regard to be my inputs for this case to make sure that they're correct. It's the determination of the ethics subcommittee and the hearing transcript of that of those proceedings which I've read and then the recommendation of the PLSB and then the attorney's statements this morning and Whitney James's uh rebuttal of those statements before

106us. So those are my five inputs that I've used to make make my decision uh which I'll voice in in when at the appropriate time. But am I correct that those are that's a complete set of inputs? Thank you. You're right. We don't always have the evidentiary subcommittee and and if that and in that case it's harder to make a decision. So it's you have more complete information than we it seems. So thank you. More questions. Mr. Wood, has she has she repaid any money to Arch Ford? No. Um, if if the board were to uphold the recommendation and a fine, um, can the fine be increased beyond $500? I believe it's up to $500, but if the co-op chooses to do something else to uh, recoup that money, that's Yeah, that's their decision. Okay,

107board members, Mr. Bra questions. Since Miss Blocker is not here, can can you answer why she was repeatedly asked for the doctorate certificate? Why she never produced that? Let me make sure that I'm I'm following. Are you asking if she was requested that if they requested that? They requested the document, the actual diploma. My understanding is that they never requested it. is that she provided her official sealed transcripts at the appropriate times when requested directly to HR. And whether those were reviewed or not, I think that's on on the school district at that point on HR, the person who was reviewing it. But she was never requested of that document and she provided her sealed transcripts. From what I read, especially with concern of the salary, that they they were going to uh try to

108confirm that she had a an actual certificate, a doctorate to justify that salary. More questions. Since Miss Locker isn't here, does she understand that her silence is deemed by probably most of us as not caring about her license? I I can't speak as to what she understands or her thoughts. Can you speak to where she is or her thoughts on not excuse me, I guess not her thoughts, but um or were you surprised that she was not here today? No, I was not surprised. She had asked that we attend. She had a conflict as well. Um, but it was also, as far as this goes, this has been a very emotional um, situation and and her testimony was not required. So therefore, she's sent me here to speak on her behalf. Mr. Henderson, I think

109Lee pretty much asked the question I was going to ask. Uh, I guess for me, do she really understand the nature of this offense? The seriousness of this? Are you asking if she understands the seriousness of this? Yes, she understands the seriousness of this. Um, I can't speak as to again her thoughts. I'm only her counsel. Um, but what I I can say is that she is very aware of this and she would not be um she would not have have fought this situation had she not believed that she was a contribution to the teaching um society. If I had a comment to pass along to her, I would as you go back, depending on what this board decides, we've had people here for a lot less come and and try and argue for their

110licenses. So, M. Did I understand she's working in Little Rock School District currently? I'm not sure of her current employment situation. Yes. Um that might be the last that I heard she was working in the Little Rock School District. Okay. Can you clarify was she qualified without a doctorate to make evaluations of students? Yes, ma'am. I believe that she was qualified without a doctorate. You will see on the reports that you have, some also list ED specialist. That's another degree she did not have. But as far as I know, she was qualified to do that work with the certification that she did have. Okay. Because it concerned me that she had said she was not harming children, but in my mind that is harming children if you're misrepresenting yourself. And I'm glad you brought up

111the ED specialist. you know, we should really take a snapshot of that in our minds of of a signature PhD and a signature Ed S. you know, there's a big difference and uh the inconsistency on top of the lack of verity is pretty telling. As a parent of a child um who's gone through evaluations who struggled with uh sort of coming to realization and understanding that um had this been the situation with my child, I would have zero trust in what was written in that report. The damage and the emotional toll that I cannot imagine that this has taking on taken on 16 years worth of families going through a very difficult time is astronomical. And it it's not even the difference between the degree or not the degree. It's it's the honesty of the

112person that's evaluating your child. You know, there there's a very good chance that all if if almost all if not all of the families that trusted her, they probably would have also trusted her had she just not misrepresented her level of degree. But it is it is a real gut punch uh when you find out that the the people that you're trusting with your children's path towards improvement is uh is being dishonest with you about their credentials. What's the proper motion to to approve? Yes, there's recommendation. There's three motions if you recall Miss James. Um, we do this every time. Yeah. Well, if we accept it, is it one? Do we just It's still will if you can be three motions. The first is the violation of the code of ethics and the standards. The

113second is up uphold or modify and the third is the rationale. And if I may ask if you will please address the fine in the recommendation for sanction. Okay. So the first motion is in regard to the violation of the code of ethics and the specific standards to be listed. The second motion is the sanction and the third one is the rationale. Can you remind us what were the standards? Yes ma'am. They were violated found by the evidentiary subcommittee. Yes ma'am. Those standards were two, three and four. Board members, any questions or comments? Further any questions or comments on how we proceed with voting? Okay. Then the floor will be open for the first motion regarding the violation of the code of ethics. I'll make a motion that we accept the violation as determined by

114the PLSB, including standards 2, three, and four. Okay, there's a motion by Miss Keenir. Is there a second? Second. A second by Dr. Arnold. Questions or comments? All in favor? Any oppose? Motion passes. The second motion is regard in regard to the sanction. Move to uphold the recommendation of the PLSB for a revocation of the license and a $500 fine. Second. There's a motion by Mr. Wood and a second by Miss Ger. Questions or comments? All in favor? All oppose? Motion passes. Third is a motion in regard to the rationale for the decision. Is it possible to move to adopt the rationale of PLSB? Yes, sir. Okay. For simplicity's sake, I move to adopt the rationale of the PLSB for the sanctions. Okay, there's a motion by Mr. Wood. Is there a second? Second. A

115second by Mr. Henderson. Any questions or comments? Well, Woodney has suggested that we address the fine in that rationale. He addressed the fine and the the sanction. Yes, sir. That is included. Yeah. May I clarify that it is the ethics hearing subcommittee rationale that you wish? Okay. Thank you. Yes. Any other questions or comments? Okay, we'll take a vote. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, with that is the end of our action agenda. We will Let's do the consent agenda and then we'll take a break. Yes, but I skipped new business. No new business first before the kinson agenda. Secretary, I just want to let the board know that when we get to the commissioner's updates, I've asked our school improvement team to do an

116in-depth update on the status of the Bllyville school district. So, it's notice it. It's not an action item. you're not going to be asked to take um any action on that, but I want the board to be fully informed of the lack of progress that school districts been making and I may be making some considerations to have a future board meeting. So, I just want to make sure you know that that's on that's going to be in my update as well as a brief uh legislative overview. So, we will do the consent agenda and then take a break and get to reports. consent agenda. Are there any items that board members want to pull for questioning? Unfortunately, we do have a number of PLSB cases. We also have a number of charter school decisions. Can

117Can we ask questions now before pulling them? Certainly. Dr. Smith, I was going to talk about founders. What was up with their name change? Yes, I'm Daryl Smith, uh, assistant commissioner, office of school choice and parental and empowerment. Uh, founders basically they they had classical in their name and they felt like that was misleading. They were kind of kind of changing their educational model a little bit. So it wasn't as much as a classical. They still want to do it but not as much. And so they felt like it was a little bit maybe misleading in their title if they had classical in the title. So they took it out. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Actually, while you're here, I did have a question on item number 19, the Exalt Academy. Yes, ma'am. Um, have

118you all been in communication with them over the transfer of the schools over the past? Yes, ma'am. Daily. Yes. Uh the transition at this point is I'm not going to say it's smooth, but it is going probably as well as it can be at this point given some of the craziness of the moment and again some of the the egregious things that were happening from an AMRA standpoint and at that point that we didn't necessarily put out out in public all at once. Uh it has come out. We had the they have we shared that with the parents and with the faculty or we haven't but the exalt has because they felt like that was some necessary information that people needed the families needed to know. Uh the uh exalt team has met with all

119the individual uh teachers. Most of them are on board with and understand fully what's been happening. They they're meeting with each individual student and with their families. And of the 130 right now, they've are they've contact they've contacted 90 families individually had individual meetings. 75 of those uh families are going to return after they've had one-on-one meetings. So, they're doing a really good job, I think, of handling a really tough situation in the middle of a year and having to uh deal with some, you know, obviously some hostility and maybe it's a little bit of grief and a little I mean, you know, kind of a knee-jerk that all happened so quickly. Uh, but they they have handled it well. They've had they been in a lot of communication with parents, a lot of communication

120with their staff, and so I think given the circumstances, it's going probably as well as it can be. Thank you, Mr. Smith. One lingering question I had when we spoke with them was about their ROC program. I know we talked about nursing, some other things. Do you know if Exalt intends to keep that for this? They do. In fact, they have they've already uh spoken to every branch of the military and trying to find which branch would be a best fit for their JRTC program going forward. So, they intend to have a fully staffed and a full uh full RJTC program as one of their pathways uh for next year. Okay. Thank you. You bet. Board members, additional questions on consent agenda items. I have a general question. This is one of the PLSB items.

121Um, and in our materials, it it said that um there were multiple instances of past inappropriate actions between the educator and students. And so, and dating back to 2014. And so, my question is like is there not additional accountability to be had here? Like how is that handled? I don't like it's one thing to do a a bad deed, but it's another one to just allow it to continue to go on unressed for a period of time. Yes, ma'am. I can't talk about I can't talk about specifics about any just a general question. Um if there have ever been PLSB cases with someone that were reported to us then our practice has been if it continues the sanction kind of goes higher and higher but if they're not reported to us that might be what

122you're seeing. Okay. All right. So then it would just be an individual district issue perhaps or something like that. If they haven't reported it to us and it's been going back to 2014, if they're not at a revocation level by now, that's likely the what what happened. Okay. M, can you remind me what was the sanction for that one? Uh, the sanction was Oh, it was revocation, which is which was appropriate. Yes. But um, but you know, bottom it kind of took that long to get to that point. Yes. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Board members, any questions to my right on the consent agenda or items to pull. Okay, with that, the floor will be open for a motion regarding the consent agenda. Move we approve the consent agenda. There's a motion by Mr. Brag

123to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. Any questions? Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Consent agenda passes. It has come to my attention that we have um someone signed up for public comments. I think in light of the secretary having a longer board presentation, I think it makes sense to do that now and then we'll take a break and let Marina back up and then get to reports if that's okay. So, the way we handle public comments is that you have three minutes at the microphone to speak and I have Jesse and Rachel Castleberry. I didn't do you both want to speak together or are you speaking one? I'll I'll primarily speak but you know if we don't mind her comments that nature. Okay. Thank you. So, good

124morning to the state board of education. Uh my name as mentioned is Jesse Castleberry. This is my wife, Rachel Castleberry. Um, and we are here today to speak about the legal transfer process. Um, the appeal that I've submitted. Now, although although we originally scheduled on the agenda, we were removed earlier this week when Cand School District um submitted a motion to dismiss um and we were not given the opportunity to respond um and the state went ahead and responded and pulled me from the agenda. So, I've been in communication with lead um council Schultz about this matter, but my wife and I felt that it was extremely important to personally appear before you today as originally scheduled um to express how critical this issue is for our daughter's future. We're simply just wanting to advocate

125to what is in the best interest of our daughter. She deserves the opportunity to learn in the same nurturing, academically strong and familyrooted environment that has supported four generations of our family. And also this is where two of her grandmothers are currently employed within the district. So we believe Camden Harmony Grove is the environment where our daughter can thrive academically and emotionally. So again, we are hopeful that the board will consider to hear our case at a future time um and give our daughter the opportunity she deserves. So again, thank you for those three minutes. And again, we just want to express that this is near and dear to our heart and that we're still here wanting to advocate for our daughter. Thank you. Thank you for coming in today. We appreciate it. I have

126no idea what's going on. But I agree that Camden Harmony Grove is the best place for their daughter as a 1998 graduate of Camden Harmony Grove. Yes. Just just a a clarifying question or maybe context. I believe the item on there was originally issued because they were trying to transfer into the district and they weren't meeting much success with the district. But I I think there are some conversations and we'll be apprised of the situation because if they can't get parent choice resolved at the local level, which is where it needs to be resolved, sometimes those situations come to us to see if we need to intercede in the situation. So I believe that's some of the background knowledge. Okay. No, sorry. Um, and yeah, we can provide additional information according to Salesfor um as

127to what Secretary Leva said. Yes, there are often cases in which when there is no um resolution at the local level or there's a denial at the local level that they can appeal to you all as the state board. In this case, however, Camden Fairview's denial was based on they are subject to a federal court desegregation order. And if you all were to overturn the decision, the denial of the district, that would put us in legal jeopardy um for violating that federal order. So obviously we all are very very sympathetic to to the the parents and and their choice and wanting the best option for their child, but this is just one of those situations where you all don't have the legal authority to overturn that decision. I know this is a public comment and

128and and again we've been we've been discussing so I don't want to belabor this meeting whatsoever. However, that's right. reason why I agree that we're not arguing the desegregation federal order. We are ordering we are arguing the justification that that school district has provided because they have already released additional children to the Army Grove School District under the legal transfer process um to the harrow system. So some of this okay so so this something that if it's not settled it could come still time to come back in front of the board. Yeah and I would again I think as the department we are constantly urging every district as we did with all the Garland County school districts to get out from under these federal court orders. Um they most of them are very longstanding and

129most of the school districts have been put into a place where they've been declared unitary. Um, we can't force them into court, but we are certainly doing everything we can to ask them, why haven't you put Goten back into court and asked yourself to be released from that order? And we will be continuing to work with and and oversee and look with Camden Fairview as to making sure they're taking those steps. So, so the burden, if you will, is on the school district to correct prove to request and prove that they can be released from that court. Correct. Again, we're making it similar to the the situation with Garland County. They were all subject to that desegregation order. They had to file a petition in the federal court to go in and say, "We've met

130all of our obligations. There are no um there's no evidence of continued segregation. You need to release us." They did that and they were released. So now it's just a matter of getting Camden Fairview and and a few other districts that are still in that same situation to to do the same. So roughly how many districts are under that? Six. Six. I think we're at six. So is this possible to be settled before the school year starts to for them to get out from under the desegregation order? No. How do we provide any sort of funding for them? I assume the legal fees are high. I mean, yes, there an attorney would be helpful to have in any type of legal proceeding. we do not provide funding. Um I know in other cases um the

131organizations that many school districts are members of like APSRC and school boards association have offered legal assistance in those cases. Okay. Thank you. With that, we will take a break and come back let's say 11:15 to start Okay, he wants to start. Oh my gosh. And tell them what you said. They were like, "Yes, done. Sarah, it was I did look at it. Okay, with that we are going to get back started. on reports. First, open the floor for board reports. Any updates board members want to give at this point in time? I have several. I've had a pretty exciting month. Um, first of all, I joined the East students at Lakeside Junior High in Springdale and they um worked alongside with Josh Worthy with Sonoral Elementary School and they actually connected with an astronaut

132as she was flying over the country. And so, um, to make those connections with the International Space Station and an astronaut, it all has to be aligned. And the University of Arkansas helped make that happen with radio and contact information, but they had the students all lined up to ask her questions. I think they had maybe a minute to talk to her before she was out of range. So, um, it it was really inspirational. and they had said the week before Japan tried to line up with the a same astronaut and it didn't didn't work. So everything has to be aligned just right. So that was really exciting. And then I went to the STEM festival where I was um the Arkansas STEM Festival and it was in Fagetville this year at the university and

133I was recognized for my support of STEM education. So it was really really touching for me. So yeah, it was really special. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you, Mr. Rollins. Board members, any other updates or things going on this month, Mr. Henderson? Yeah, I had the privilege of attending a quarterly uh state workforce board meeting Monday. It was very refreshing to hear the leadership talk about the direction that the state is going in far as the collaboration with workforce education align those efforts. Um we had chief workforce officer Mike Rogers there Cody Weights. Um Dr. Tina War gave some really good updates on behalf of Department of Education. Really good meeting, a lot of collaboration. I'm really excited about the direction that the state is moving into. Awesome. Well, with that, Mr. McAlin, we're excited

134to hear from you this month. All righty. Uh, good to be back. Uh, go back to April. April is the month of um all of our career tech student organizations wrapping up their state conventions. So, uh I'll take you through those here in just a second, but I want to start off with a story that uh we'll just keep going with it. Um but uh went on a visit with uh to Colton u to Lake Hamilton where they had a young man who is basically the walking billboard for being day one ready for enrollment, employment or enlistment. Uh Colton started off uh in school in Akern, Arkansas. Acron is a very small community, small school district outside of Mina. Um in the seventh grade, he was recruited to join FCCLA. I believe it was the

135only student organization they had at the time. But um he thrived gave him an opportunity to lead. He bec um went on to become a state officer and then uh family got transferred to Hot Springs. He joins Lake Hamilton school district. Has a lot of lot more opportunities in the small district. Most kids would stay in their comfort lane. He joined them all. He joined every organization include including JOTC. went on to become a completer in ROC, graduating from Lake Hamilton, and now he's headed to West Point. And uh it's just a great example of the path that a student in Arkansas can take if we're giving them opportunities in rural Arkansas and then just pushing him to go above and beyond. Really, really a cool story. What was his name? Colin Quibido. And it

136has an X on it. All right. At the end. How was that? Then we had the FBLA state convention here in Little Rock. Uh it probably about 1500 kids there. Just a massive crowd of kids. Uh the very next week we had Skills USA's Arkansas state convention. Um I believe several of you been down there before. It's just an awesome site to see all the different pathways and industries involved. Um I just want to point out these two men with me. That is Michael Westbrook on my right and Cortez Akens on my left. Uh Mr. Mr. Westbrook is a teacher at Brian High School. Mr. Akens is the teacher at Arkansas High. That is two men who uh previously had broadcast careers and have made the crossover into teaching. And uh both of their programs

137have just thrived. And it's just a great example of the importance of getting high quality teachers uh in those CTE positions. They don't necessarily have to come from that field, but if you can pull them out of that field, the immediate impact that they can have on students. And then the following next week, Arkansas FFA state convention. Um, this was my first trip to the FFA state convention and I was blown away. Um, so many partners across the state of Arkansas are involved to make that just a great event and I really encourage anyone if they've ever uh doubted our future. All right. uh as far as the generations coming up, they need to slip into uh the FFA state convention and see how much leadership skills we have throughout our youth that are in

138the state of Arkansas because they are on display there in Hot Springs. Just a really cool event. And then finally, uh last week I went to I was in Austin, Texas, Austin, Texas on the univers on the campus of the University of Texas at the LBJ Presidential Library. This was for module four of our presidential scholarship leadership program. Um this module focused on LBJ's use of uh influence and persuasion. Um he was known as a close talker as you can see that in the picture on the left but just a really cool experience for us to learn through the lens of his administration. We got to hear from his daughter as well as uh uh from a couple that were worked in his administration. What was surprising to us and I don't think we all

139realized it was how much legislation was passed in in the 60s in a volatile decade that was immediate impact on education that we still deal with today. But uh just a great learning experience. Next month we head to uh College Station will be module five. We will learn through the lens of the Bush 41 administration. Looking forward to that. And then we'll wrap up in June in DC. That's awesome. That's amazing that you're a part of that. Amazing. I'm jealous. Jealous. National championship. It's been a good year. Well, thank you. Any further questions, comments, board members? Awesome. We'll kick it to secretary. So, got a couple things I want to run through in the commissioner's report. But first, I'm going to ask Stacy Smith to come up. We put together some recent data on the

140kind of state of the state with BLville. If you remember um go back quite a few few months ago, even before this start of the school year, we had some concern about the direction that BLO was headed and we even did a joint board meeting with our board and their board to talk about let's work together to put some pieces in place so that we can make sure we improve learning. They're historically persistently one of our lowest performing school districts in the state and we can't sit idle and watch that happen. So I I think there's some wins, right, that there's some celebrations that we want to update with the board, but then there's still some concerns that I think we're going to need to address as well. So I what what I've asked Sheila

141and Stacy do is do kind of high level overview on what does the data look like for this year of transition? What did we do as an agency? What external supports did we help provide? And why aren't we seeing sustainable leadership happening at the board level? Yep. Thank you. Um again, Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner. Um I I'm not going to belabor every one of these slides, okay? But I did add some slides in here to kind of take us back to why we got involved with BLville to begin with. Um one of the things that we've seen over time is a loss of student enrollment. This school year alone, they continue to lose. They've lost another 102 students. Um, Atlas Sumitive, this was last year's test. This is not the test they just took. But

142you can see that orange for ELA, more than 53% of their students scored in the lowest level, level one. That means they are clearly behind grade level. In math, 76% of their combined students, grades three all the way through geometry, 76% scored in the lowest achievement level. Science, 57% of their students. They are one of the lowest performing school districts in the state. So, that's what brought us there last year. Um, interim assessment data taken throughout the year. Um this has to do with levels two and above. Um everything that you see like on the spring side if it's not over 50 then that means less than 50% that means 50% or more are still in that lowest level. And this was predictions heading into the summit of evaluation. We are seeing some growth and

143that's what you see there in the green from winter to spring. Um but there's been a lot of work happening in the buildings. Bllyville teachers. One of the things we really hit on when we were on campus in Bllyville was the number of unlicensed and partially licensed teachers that were within the district. Um, for this school year, our team has been down there. Those teachers that are unlicensed are all on pathways now. All right. One of the things we talked about when in their special education is they didn't have certified licensed special education folks. we have people that are appropriately licensed. Um we have had some loss in high school for licensed teachers and so it's just kind of like we're flipping. Um I think some of that um has to do with still insta

144stability within the district as a whole and people having confidence in the district's viability going forward. Is there a significant uh enrollment decline from 17 to 25? Yes. And and I was going to I think that's a great observation because So they've dropped a thousand students, more more than a thousand students. So you're seeing the number of teachers required mirror that. But where did all those licensed teachers go, right? Like we're we're getting we're losing students and then high quality educators are leaving with those students. There's a correlation there. Yeah. And one of the things that we've done this this year with again trying to get right sized um the school district actually had five separate school buildings. We've worked with the district to consolidate that down into three next year. All right. Um so

145licensed teachers in the staff in the classrooms are important. Another thing that we saw when that we were there earlier this year was the number of virtual teachers in the primary grades, especially K12. Remember that? Um, we've taken care of that. Um, but it's still not solved. Um, this was a conversation. If you'll remember, we talked about the number of observations that were documented within the system. When you you look over at the blue, we were showing number of observations documented at the elementary school as only being four. Explain explain what that means. That means an um an administrator going in and observing and giving feedback to a teacher. Okay. That has increased from four up to by it's increased to a um to 111 now. So we have staff in there working with folks

146about how to go into classrooms, how to do quick observations, and how to give feedback. So you can see the plus on that is a total net change of 255 classroom visits. Um and that's because of direct support that I'm going to kind of outline for you. No. And I and I think to if you could expand upon that of why it's important for administrators to be in classrooms to to to to know what's happening in classrooms to make sure teachers are able to have the resources they need and the support they need and make sure that learning is happening at the level that we would like to see. but also the coaching of that instructional leader. That's the role of principles and assistant principles now is to be the leader of instruction. They needed

147support and training. Were those principles receptive to that? How was that feedback? Why is this important? Yeah. Um so that has been the primary support that you're going to see laid out here in these next couple of slides. We have spent a lot of time in the buildings with principles doing direct coaching in classrooms, direct coaching with principles, doing classroom walkthroughs. Um, when you get principles in classrooms that gets engagement up, it gets better teaching instruction quality. It's improvement on safety. I mean, there are so many factors. When you get administrators in the rooms, you get specialists in the rooms and you have improved teaching. When you have the number of staff at this school district specifically that are unllicensed, the amount of support they need on basic concepts of classroom management, selecting the appropriate

148standard, um instructional strategies to use, it it just gets amplified. So I think I think when we look overall for updates, this is a celebration, right? This is a celebration that the administration that's leading the schools, the boots on the ground, are receptive to coaching and feedback. Their actions are working towards what we would want to see. And it's also a win for the teachers for being willing to open up and be vulnerable. Right? Sometimes it's it's it's not easy to be vulnerable and have uh adults in your classrooms that you you may work with on a daily basis or may not. But um changing the culture in the school starts with the administration knowing what their expectations are and supporting those teachers in classrooms. And I think the data shows uh something that should

149be applauded for those leaders that are boots on the ground making a difference. I I would most definitely agree. some of the outside direct support that the district has been open to and um and this outside support has been some of it's been directed and some of it's been encouraged that they took ownership of it. The TNTP support that is an outside the new teacher project group that actually provides leadership and coaching. Um they receive that through 103 dollars. So we sent support in there. um very um TNTP is an excellent program, excellent specialist, um highly soughtafter. So, they've had that type of boots on the ground support, really great reading. That was what Dr. Pride's team chose to provide for literacy support. Um it became with state supported literacy coach and a vendor providing

150K3 literacy coaching. Again, this all had to be coordinated because this is a lot of people going into schools to support educational directions. We actually encourage the district um and and this is similar to what we've done in the past with some of our other districts to put out an RFP recognizing that they need direct support um especially in operational management. And so they put out an RFP. They got um several different vendors who came and presented to the board and they selected educational directions. This group has made 64 on-site visits, 51 virtual interactions totaling 115 of documented touch points of support. They have ongoing coaching. They're primarily focused on um district level leadership and building building level leadership. Stacia, just to kind of reiterate, these are national organizations that work with struggling school districts

151all across the United States. that this is some of the work that they specialize in to go above and beyond. So this this would be above and beyond Sheila's team providing support above and beyond the educational cooperative who was also providing support. Building capacity from national experts um around some of those specified topics was something that was important to the district as well. And and again, we were pleased to see that they took the advice to put out an RFP for an outside provider to come in and provide that support and selected a group as educational directions to come in and and get that additional support. So, how is that funded? So, the TNT PT project was federal funds from the department. really great reading again with state funds funding a literacy coach because of

152the percentage of students and and and their letter grades. Educational directions would have been funded by the district probably with federal funds maybe left as their ESA Yeah, ESA funding. So their own district funding um office of coordinated support and service. This is um Sheila's team. Okay. um over a 100 days of direct support on site this school year from people from the department going directly there. We also facilitated two visits to the Academy of Math and Science School in Little Rock. Okay, that is a charter school um that's doing some some really good impressive work. Um so again, it's like trying to put this district in a position for possibly a transformational contract. um letting them get outside of their buildings to go see some see some opportunities of what they'd like their school

153to look at. We organized two different visits to the school. Um in government's engagement trying to do more trainings with their school board. We had we organized a training um with the Arkansas School Boards Association. We actually I think Dr. Rice from Pine Bluff from that transitional board came in and actually talked to them and did some training with them. So, we're again trying to make some connections about owning your your kind of your destiny with your school district and this is the time and then operational support from our fiscal services unit providing direct support. Desi support outside of Miss Whitlo's team. You had school safety unit on site three different times. You had learning services, zooming on literacy plans, site visits to the primary and elementary buildings, ensuring that high quality instructional materials are

154present, providing K3 literacy support through really great reading. You had facilities and transportation on site with routine checkups, and you had the officer of educator effectiveness on site three different times working with their unlicensed staff to get them on a pathway. Educational Cooperatives has 185 on-site visits documented this last year. When I say we have given lots of support, we have given lots of support. And this is a district that is in level four. Um, how would it be different? I mean, level four support, right? So, where we're at right now, I want to talk you through the transition of leadership from this this district and kind of what our concerns are. Um, again, you saw that they had a superintendent um back in the early 2000s with some consistency. And then you started seeing

155in 2021, we had our first interim with Jennifer Blankenship, who's interim now, brought in a superintendent for year and a half. Then you had Dr. Perkins who came in for two years. That's when this board we got involved. Okay. She was actually put on leave. She wasn't terminated yet when we first got there. And so this is kind of the timeline of this year. Miss Blankenship was appointed interim. We had a state board meeting there in August. Superintendent Perkins was terminated in August. So at this point, we're here working with them. They did not post the superintendent position until November and they did not hire a search form firm to assist. They just posted it on their own in November, which was fine. Late November, the board reviewed applications and they opted to keep their

156interim because they didn't feel like they had good candidates. And we actually talked about that here. All right. And we felt like we supported the decision that they didn't have a viable candidate. Keep who you got. Let's let's find the right person. February did not hire a search firm until the end of February. And all of this at the same time is with our teams, the co-op teams, everybody there work walking alongside them, prompting them and asking them to get these things posted. You need to get moving. You've got to make some decisions. Hired a search firm in February, April 21st 4th. The search firm presented two of the 13 applicants. the board declined to interview the two applicants and the the um on April 28th the superintendent position again was reposted. So they posted

157didn't have good applicants hired a search firm they were brought 15 applications had two two viable candidates at the search firm put forth they went back and reposted again had a special board meeting on April 29th and no action taken. So Stacy, did they offer any rationale about why they didn't pursue the two applicants that were brought forward in April? Discussed in Yeah, that was discussed in their executive session. Gotcha. Thank you. They they didn't give the public a reason for not moving forward. You were at the meeting. No, they they went into executive session and came out and just said that they were declining and was not going they were not going to interview the two applicants that were bought by the brought by the search firm, but there were there were no reasons

158given. Ju just curious and for clarity, they contracted with the search firm, which means the district had to pay the search firm for the services, right? like go out and solicit a firm that they're going to say we're going to give you money to help us find a quality candidate. Search firm produces quality candidates. The board says we're not going to listen to the search firm. Is that fair? Correct. Yeah. And something else I want to add to that. We're actively recruiting for them as well. All right. We're actively creating multiple paths for them to consider a transformational contract, a an educational operator, partnering them with a possible charter school. We're calling people we know that live in the area that are previous superintendent saying, "Hey, have you thought about this?" Okay, we're doing all

159this and repeatedly um we're hearing concerns about the board um and the dysfunction. Um the transformational contract, they actually put out an RFP for an operational management for a transformational contract. ASMA was one of those. The charter schools was interested. They didn't follow back with the VI. They didn't they didn't follow back up. They just let it die. So, it's kind of like we're going through the actions on some things, but we're never following through. Are they split or are they are there some that are wanting to some board members that are excited about these opportunities? I I I definitely think there there's some split, but I think bigger than that, there is a lack um there's a lack of coherence with the board. For one, there is dysfunction. I think at the last board

160meeting, we had to call the police at the end of it. you still have um board members arguing with people in the audience. If you could remember when we were there before, much of the public public comment in the meeting was about the dysfunction of the board. It wasn't about what was happening in the school. It was about this public image of the board. I will say that Miss Whitly on felt like they were responding well. They were having they they were making progress, but it just seems like we're sliding right back in to where we are. Our biggest concern at this point is we are in May and we have no superintendent and we have walked with this district for an entire year providing lots of support. Um and and Walkside the co-op providing

161lots of support. They they have moments where you're like, "Okay, they're going to do it. Oh, this is great. This was a good visit." I mean, I cannot tell you how many times Miss Whit comes to my office weekly to brag on something happening in Blville, only to come back the two weeks later and say, "Oh, it it it didn't happen. Oh, I got them there. Oh, it didn't." It's like this, it's just this dance of inconsistency. In the buildings where the direct supports being given to principles and to teachers, we're welcomed. People are receptive. The dysfunction occurs between the central office and the board. Um, we don't have the right people in either place. So if I could add to that, this is a region of the state that should be thriving, right? This

162is a school district where there's opportunities for students and families to be very successful. There there is no reason that this school district should continue to be the failure factory that it is. And it's becoming more and more apparent the reason they're in the state of the state they are is because they do lack governance and leadership. And I feel like as we're giving this update, there are a lot of celebrations. There is learning happening in classrooms now that weren't happening before, but having Sheila's team run a school district's unsustainable. Having to rely on outside providers to do all the work is unsustainable. We We need a sustainability plan. in the plan that we've been working with the board, the tasks that we've been given the board to move towards the sustainability plan as we

163pass the baton and make this transition. They have continually let us down. Every time they've been asked to get a simple task across the finish line, they can't do it. I'm at the point where I feel like we're at no other choice. And this is for information. I want to be clear that this meeting is this presentation is for information to this board but that I want to start moving forward working with our team to officially notify them that I will be making a recommendation to do to move to level five um district status or takeover whatever the right vernacular is and would like to even consider see get solicit feedback from this board if they would consider holding a meeting a special meeting in Bllyville so we can listen to the community directly as

164we make that recommendation to see if we're moving in the right direction. Only if our bodyguard can come. She served as our bodyguard last time. Yes. Hey Stacy, I want to make sure that uh just for clarification because I I do know some of the board members and you know we've seen so many times when it's a split vote or it's more favorable 43 or whatever the case may be when it comes to making some of these decisions. Um, when the opportunity came to select two of those candidates for potentially superintendent, uh, do anyone know what that looked like? How did that how did that look? Um, how the vote was split? It was a unanimous decision not to select either one. And again, we're in May. Yeah. I mean, we we we we and

165and if if anything, I felt like we listened very closely when you charged us with don't let us get to this point, right? Um, make sure we're proactive and I think we have been very proactive. Um, I'll tell you this one right here is probably sick to her stomach because this is uncomfortable because she loves this district and she spends times and these are people that she's created relationships with. but we stand here before you for students um with any type of recommendation. So again, I do think it's fair that um we we let the district I mean I'm presenting today and the district is not here, but I felt like it was important on the last update that we received that you guys received an update um sooner than later. Along those lines, so

166Miss Blankenship has served as the interim this year. Did they do any hiring of her for next year or they they've just tabled any sort of Everything has been tabled. Okay. Right. And that that adds to it. We we are in there. They just now um hired um their staff for next year at the last April board meeting and that was because we pointed out that they hadn't done it yet. They have yet to offer contracts. They haven't offered contracts to their as of as of as of the LA the update of this. they had not offered contracts yet. So if you have good staff there like the potential of continuing to lose or community people saying I'm going to take my kid and go elsewhere, right? And this is this there's so much opportunity

167in this school district. Did you all look at the applicants and did you feel there I mean there was it wasn't as such that there was no one qualified that could do the position. Miss Whit was aware of some of the applicants and she felt like they were viable applicants in the pool. said that. Okay. Have many of the board members been through training. Yes. And we actually organized training for them. We brought them here to Little Rock. They've gone to the conferences. We brought in Dr. Rice from Pine Bluff to talk to them specifically about dysfunctions of a board and how that can tear you down. I mean, we actually have tried to provide very specific supports to address the needs and and allow them the opportunity to respond like right they did do

168the RFPs they did do things but as far as following through with actual actions they cannot get in alignment to agree I mean so Stacy whenever you went through the hours and hours of I mean like how much your staff and the co-op and I mean like how would that compare to a level five support situation I mean is it essentially that's what you're doing so when you get to level five support there are sanctions that come with that that's when we get into conversations about, you know, appointment of a superintendent, dissolving the board. The amount of support that we provided them is comparable to what we were providing to like a Little Rock or a Pine Bluff or a Helena West Helena. Right now, we we have been full on. It's the same thing

169we did with Watson Chapel. Yep. Gave them the opportunity to take action and do it on their own versus us coming in. Um, this is just we're just seeing a little bit different outcome here. Understood. Thank you. Stace, I do have one more comment. Well, several. Um, Dr. Pry gave a really good presentation early this morning about NYS and we seen all the math and science uh recognitions and awards being displayed today. You know, when I think about um academy math and science and I think you said it was two visits and did they think they came to also didn't. So, it's action three interactions and um and there was there was not a connection basically. I just want to get clarification on that. The comments when folks were on site were positive. We felt

170like actually at one point that there this was going to organically on their own be something that the district and the school came up with on their own and that we would help facilitate you know but we were trying to create something that they felt like they made the choice in right um so when the board members did those of sites their comments were things like I can see my this is I'd love our school to look like this I'd love our kids to have these experiences but we got those positive feedbacks and that's why we continued to okay let's see if we can um continue to promote this relationship. Well, you know, undoubtedly, you know, I have a technical background and I'm sitting here listening to the secretary. He mentioned that area should be

171thriving and it's hard for me to, you know, just imagine that those opportunities are being not looked at. uh you know I when you think about um inactivity inactivity that's strict to me personally means denying you deny little boys little girls the opportunity for to move forward you deny them the opportunities for possibilities you deny them the opportunities for economical opportunities so I'm very uh disappointed Well, and I I when I reflect on this last year and I reflect back to when we went to BLE, um the number of people from the community that showed up to that meeting, the number of people that gave public comment at that meeting, um and they were hopeful, but most of the comments that night were aimed directly at the board. Um and so I think So I

172think our next steps is that we we will probably um notify the district of a special board meeting and um the request to move to level five if that's okay with the chair and the will of the board that they would be open to doing a special meeting in BL to then look at an action item that would that would be coming forth as a recommendation. Um I'd like to get that scheduled in the next probably two to three weeks. There's a process of we would send them a written notification that that we're going to make the recommendation to move them to level five. They have a certain number of days to appeal and ask for a hearing before you. Um so they can either come and do a hearing or we make that recommendation

173with no hearing. So a level five isn't necessarily taking over. No, you would determine the sanctions that go with that. We we would be making a recommendation to the board for consideration. Okay. I support that completely. Okay. I don't know what you need to know from us, but as soon as you want to have a special meeting up there, I think it'd probably be a good idea. I agree. I don't want to belabor this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And and I I want to say this team works extremely hard. The Desi team has worked extremely hard. The co-op has stepped up and pushed in. Everybody that we we've asked to push into this to to take care of this situation has done so. I appreciate your attendance attentiveness to this. Thank you. I you know I

174would caution that level five intervention rarely has the celebratory results that we're looking for on the back side of level five. It is it is not an answer in itself. It is there is still a long road of work ahead even after a level five consideration and I I would hope for a strong plan and decisive plan quick action plan because one thing I learned in the level five I lived through was just the slow the slow process of it didn't work the whatever you know we learned everybody learned a lot. Yeah. Yeah, we Little Rock taught us a lot of lessons. And I think that as we've moved past Little Rock and some of our other state takeovers um and we don't want to take over. We we we definitely do not. But I

175would think I can point to Pine Bluff right now. Are is Pine Bluff where we want them to perform academically? No. Do they have structures in place? Do I believe that the growth trajectory for them is going to go? I 100% do. Helena, West Helena, we see some some strong improvements there. and and you guys treated each one of those differently. And that's what we'll do here. We'll come with a plan. I appreciate the comment. We're going to move forward with diligence. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. The the next item under uh commissioner's report. Um I don't know if you've been following along, but we just wrapped up the legislative session within the past few weeks. I hope hope you've been paying attention. While I read somewhere over a thousand bills were signed in

176law, a lot of them dealt with education. So, um Courtney is going to come up and just kind of do a high high level overview of a couple of the bills that um we're going to probably prioritize a little bit more. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. Um, in fact, we're still going through the planning phase of now that bills have been signed, which had an emergency clause, when do the other ones go into effect, which requires rules, which requires notices, what are things we want to celebrate, what what is going to come to this board. So, she's just going to do a snapshot of some of the things I think this board may find of interest, and probably every meeting over the next few months, there'll be some kind of legislative

177update on where we are with different laws and different rules in the process. Yep. So, um, as the secretary said, there were actually over 1,600 bills filed. Um, over a thousand of those were signed into law and, um, over 200 of those had to do with education alone. So, it was a very busy session. Um, but I think overall still a successful um, session for us. We got some very big things through, namely the Access Act, which most of you have already heard lots about, know lots about. Um but that was definitely the Governor Sanders um signature education legislation for 25 um that was enacted into two acts that are identical but acts 340 and 341. So you will probably hear us refer to it um either by one of those numbers or as access.

178I'm not going to go into that a lot because I feel like we've covered a lot of that in past um work sessions. Then um as the secretary also said, we're currently looking at all of the legislation to determine which ones are going to necessitate rules. We're looking at about 61 sets of rules right now that are either going to be need need to be amended or drafted. Um that's prek to higher ed. So you will see many of those and we'll continue to keep you updated on those. Um but in addition to access and all the improvements that we made for acceleration in K12 and um providing access to students towards higher education, we also made some good strides in terms of choice and making sure that students and parents have um the qual

179good quality options. Um there was some legislation act 800 around the charter authorizing process and um Daryl of course could speak very well to this but strengthening that process to make sure that we are getting quality charters and that when they go through the application process um there are certain standards that are set forth and it's really a a resultsdriven contract and so um the charter panel of course has initial oversight of those but in any case in which you they disagree with one of those decisions, it will come to you all as the board. You all still will see those on your agenda come through as consent items typically, unless an appeal is requested. Um, but anytime they're making changes to grade levels, to location, um, anything like that, you you will still see

180those those charter issues come through. One of the big pieces of that legislation though was requires an automatic closure of a charter school that gets a letter grade of F three years in a row. So again, we want choice. We want options, but we want quality options. And so if a school is not performing and they get an F letter grade three years in a row, they do have the right to appeal that decision to you, but it's an automatic revocation um so that we can make sure we are focusing on getting those quality quality options available. Um we also expanded and if you guys have questions about any of this, please feel free to let me know. You got anything? Go ahead. So, is the automatic revocation retro retroactive? I mean, we start It

181would be nice, wouldn't it? But no. Um, the law does not go into effect until I think we're calculating about August 3rd right now. And so, it will be with the the letter grades that are issued for the 25 26 school year. Okay. Um, and going out. So, school districts can't say, well, you know, we didn't have time. They definitely have plenty of runway in the next three years to to address those. And that's part of the new system that that Daryl's team is working on is making sure that they know they know what we're looking at. They know what the um standards are being set for them and the goals that they're expected to meet. And if they can't meet those, then it's not through. The application is we're really making a transition that

182it's a performance contract and the metrics are going to be clear and if you can't meet the terms and conditions of your contract, why should we let you stay in place for years and years and years and hurt students year after year after year. We also expanded the teacher of the year program to make sure that charter schools could um participate in that. We know all of our public schools have great educators, but we also know there's some great educators in the teacher in the charter schools. Um, and all teachers should be eligible for that teacher of the year program. So, we look forward to seeing some additional great candidates in that. Does it not include private school teachers? No, it does not. It's currently just public schools, but charter schools are public schools, so

183they should be in there. Um, in addition for enhancing family choice, there was some legislation passed, act 732, that opens up school choice transfers to intra district. So, most of you know that for public schools, you go to the the school that you're zoned for. And we've had public school choice where you could um request to go to another school district. Well, now this in requires school districts to allow requests to other schools. So, if you are zoned for school A, but you want to go to school B because you think that's better for your student, you can make that request. There still has to be capacity. Um, we know districts can't just take everybody, but they have to at least allow those requests and have processes in place and make sure that parents are

184aware of those options. Um, we truly want public school choice, which means you shouldn't have to go to the school just because of where you live. you should get to pick the school that goes um that fit best fits your students needs. Um also along the lines of school choice, the ex uh timeline for applications was extended from May 1st to June 1st. Um you know, a lot of parents aren't always aware or don't know that they want to make a change until later in that school year. And so they have from January 1 to June 1 to now submit a school choice application. Um the timelines for school districts responding are still the same. And so that way hopefully parents have plenty of time to make those decisions for their students. That doesn't go

185into effect though until this next year. That is correct. Yeah, because this will not go into effect until August. The the May one date date for this year has already passed. Um another big um success for us was the Educational Freedom Account Program Integrity Act 920. Um we have a great EFA program going. I think the success of that program will continue and we're certainly seeing a desire from parents to um use EFAs to make those options for their students. Um but we just needed to make a few little cleanup things in there. Um so we had to um clarify what some of the allowable expenses were. I'm sure some of you saw information about, you know, things like extracurricular activities and um we had questions all the time about art or field trips. And

186so we we want those to be part of every student's academic um success and they should have access to those. Um so those are allowable expenses, but there are are also some limits on there so that we make sure students are using the majority of those funds for curriculum and tuition and things like that. I do have a question on that. Um so in the rules it states that our or the law states that our board had to approve the allowable expenditures and we approved that in rules. Yes. But then after that the department then had a long list of other things that were eligible. Are these rules going to be readressed with this new law? And could you all specific put everything in law I mean in rules such that you know after the

187fact the department is not making other decisions that our board is not aware of. Right. No everything will have to be addressed in rule. So yes now that this legislation is passed where that will be one of our priority rules to look at. Um everything that's approved should fit into a category that is on that is in the rules or in the law. Um I'm not sure you said other things as listed. So if you're going to approve that, you know, extracurricular activities. Darl, do you have any ideas of like other things that maybe wouldn't be included in a specific category? Yeah, I think everything that we try to approve is always in one of those eligible categories. I think you left that because of some of the individuals at times there are some very

188specifically students with disabilities that may not necessarily be an eligible category expense but yet when it comes across we know that gives us the ability to to go ahead and approve that without having to add it to a list for everybody. Yeah. I just think the more specific you get to the rules, then y'all aren't having to, you know, make case by case decisions such as we did not approve the extracurricular stating you can do, you know, two gymnastics a week. You can pay for that. That feels like a very oddly specific decision that you all have to make that maybe should have some public and extracurricular is addressed in the law now. So that will be so those rules will be revisited to put clarifying what's in the new law put that in the

189rules and then we'll compare that against what they have been approving to again make sure that we are addressing everything as much as possible. We do like to have that that catch all in the end just in case other things as approved that just makes me so nervous that we can't think of. Um but yeah, but then that just opens up that you approve it for one person and then you have, you know, I I think the more you can spell out and rule, the more you all can and follow that as opposed to having to have so much gray area, right? No, I absolutely agree on that. We'll try to be as specific as we can, but those rules will go out for public comment and we'll come to the state board and the

190legislature for approval. Thank you. Thanks. All right. So, um transparency and around and accountability. Um I think we've not been quiet about the fact that we want to make sure um parents know what their options are and that we are holding school all schools accountable. So, in addition to letter grades for schools, we will be rolling out letter grades for school districts and charter schools. Um, Secretary talked about this a little bit earlier and how those district grades will be calculated, but that again will also be coming to you in a in rules, excuse me. Um, as well as for education service cooperatives. And so, we want to make sure that parents are aware of the performance not only in their school, but their district, their education service cooperative area, so that they can make

191those choices. We did pause um school letter grades for the 23 24 year. That was about just transitioning to the new Atlas assessment, coming up with the new formulas. It's just that you guys approved today. Um and so that's just kind of our standard practice that we we did as well last time when we switched assessments. Um, and then this was not a an act that was passed, but actually a a bill that was not passed, but we wanted to bring to note um that, you know, we there were some attempts to make it so that school districts couldn't advertise their letter grades, but we want parents to know letter grades and we want them to be able to compare. And so, I thought that was just something important to note was that we um

192were able to make sure that those were not enacted. Two other big priorities um for the legislature and for the governor was to ensure that all students have access to a free school breakfast. And so any student regardless of whether they qualify under federal standards or not um can have free school breakfast every day. And then also the Belltobell No Sell Act. We have talked to you about um the the governor's initial pilot program to prohibit cell phone use in schools to limit students access to cell phones. Well, now it's in in legislation in law that school districts have to prohibit cell phone use during instructional time. Um, it's not that they have to take the phones away from students, but they have to make sure that they are put away in a locker or

193a pouch or whatever the school district feels is the most appropriate. Um, but making sure that students do not have access to their cell phones so that we can protect that instructional time. And that does start this upcoming school year. Yes, it absolutely does. And I believe does it say that they have to submit plans is it to the department or to the board? They have to submit their policy to the department but we can report information like that to you all um and you know just kind of going forward after we review those and make sure um we are actually working on a model policy for school districts. And so ideally if they all just adopt that one then we'll know they're good. But um there may be some variations and things that we

194have to look at. If you all see that the policies aren't strong enough or too strong, will y'all have any feedback loop with the districts on that? Yes, absolutely. Um they have to submit them to us if we feel like they're not addressing um consequences because we didn't want to the legislature didn't want to dictate in the law what the consequences had to be leaving leaving that to the district discretion, but there needs to at least be some explanation in that policy so that students know what the repercussions are if they if they violate the policy. Thank you. All right. And then uh moving on to improving school oversight. Um again this is all about transparency and accountability. Making sure that the public has access to schoolboard agendas, meeting minutes, member information. I think honestly

195um one of the biggest complaints we get and the biggest number of phone calls we get at the department a lot is I can't you know I don't know what my school board is voting on. I don't know what their agenda is. They don't allow public comment. Um, so through acts 120 and act 902, it is now required that all school boards post their agendas, post their minutes, post member contact information, and that they have the opportunity for the public to make comment during schoolboard meetings. Um, you all allow public comment every day, every time you meet. And so I think that's just fitting that um, you should have that opportunity at the local level as well. There was also several bills about um board member terms, board vacancy procedures and how those should be

196filled. I think that goes a long way to create some consistency and uniformity. Um again, we will provide you a lot more detailed information on how all these changes are going to roll out, especially around schoolboard elections. that's something that we've received a lot of questions on and so we are just reviewing all those to make sure we have all the answers before we give out anything too specific. Um and then there was also an an option for schoolboard recalls and so again we'll look at all those legal mechanisms but there is one now so that local schoolboard members um can be recalled if if certain requirements and things are met. So, I know that was a very high level overview and out of over 200 bills, I only talked about, you know, maybe 15

19720 of them. Um, we're going to be bringing those to you. We will bring you the list of all of the rules that are going to be and then once our legislative guide is published, we'll certainly make that available to you all. And if you have any questions, always feel free to reach out to to Mary or myself or Stacy and we can um get you the information you need on those. I do have a question, but Mr. back here. First, I just want to say by the time a bill reaches the floor for a vote, there's a lot of work behind the scenes that has gone into this and I was privileged to watch a lot of it. I want to commend the department for their hard work. And I know she won't want

198me to say this, but those of you that don't know Sarah Kimy with the department on the governor's staff. I watched her navigate a lot of icebergs and dealing with legislators. And it's not always a pleasant experience, but they they did a a yman's job and really really I was real impressed at the way they interacted with the legislators and uh really really did a good job. Thank you. Questions? I did have a lingering question. I didn't follow it. Were there changes in regard to teacher lure and act 1240 waiverss? Yes. Yes. Okay. Um and yes, I don't know if you want to go into them. Yeah. I mean, those are something that our board's talked about a lot. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because that that is something that the board has

199talked a lot about that did get passed and signed into law that districts won't be getting a school or a district waiver that every teacher is on a personal pathway to lensure that follows that teacher. So there's no more waiverss with districts and schools. Um that has definitely got across the finish line. Exactly. Yeah. We actually released a commissioner's memo yesterday um that basically is notifying districts that if they have a current teacher on a waiver, they have to go in and fill out a simple application to say this is the teacher, this is what they're doing. Then our staff will work with that teacher to put them on their teacher lensure plan. Um they have three years to complete it. So that teacher licens your plan and then that's the process. So and just

200a point of clarification there. You said the district is going in. That's the first thing. Okay. So yeah, it's not it's not assigned to the district. It's assigned to the but the district is saying here are my people. Yeah. I have Courtney and she's not licensed but the district is responsible now once once they hired somebody to make and we put Courtney on a lure plan. the district is responsible to make sure that she's receiving the support that's in the plan, that they're keeping up with her status, and that they're reporting back to her us all the documentation needed to make sure that she gets fully licensed. Right. But then ultimately, it's on Courtney to, you know, and at the end of three years, she might be out. She didn't do what was expected, right?

201Yeah. It's on Courtney to get it done. When districts make choices to hire folks that are unlicensed, they need to also be making the choices to support them adequately because they're coming in, you know, with one foot, you know, in a hole, right? They they need support. And so the district making sure that they're supporting those folks. And we do have some kind of mechanism to make sure that at the end of three years for Courtney, she doesn't go re up another three years. They're building that into our lensure system. And so once she does her background check, she'll get a case ID number. it'll document that she was on an alternate lensure plan and we can keep track of that time. There is something in legislation that allows for um circumstances beyond three years

202special circumstances. Let's say someone had a cancer diagnosis or something happened. There is an appeal process and I believe that actually comes to the board. Yeah, it actually comes through my office. Goes through your office to the board for us to say we we're approving this. There are special circumstances. Sure. Okay. Thank you. So proud. Yeah. Thank you all because that has Yeah, there were too many good things to highlight them all, but I'm glad you asked. That was a very important one. I then were there any other laws changed around the act 1240 waiver process? Um trying to remember there there was a few things um around timing but not not anything extensive. Um the majority of the waiverss that we typically see were around lensure. So we do feel like that's going to

203clean up a lot of the the issues. Um, but there are still provisions for some of those out there. Do you feel that the current law allows our board to revoke a waiver that's been granted? That's a legal question that I'd be happy to research and talk to you about later. I think I'd like to talk to you about it. Not that I have one specific in mind, but I did recently ask to get all of the school districts that have waivers around time and whether it be um seat time or school year. I know in the past there have been districts that we granted for them to have less time so that they could have early dismissal. Doesn't look like we have any of those right now. Um but I would like to you

204know ensure that whatever waiverss we've granted we have an understanding currently of what they are. Um the most of them around seat time or clock hours were all charter. Um whether it be district conversion or virtual. Um, and I I would love for someone and maybe the charter panel at some point to have that conversation as well, thinking about are they also allowing those districts to lessen the amount of student instruction time. Yeah. And I think um that's certainly something we're looking at and legal reviews of waiver requests when they come in and our new process I think is going to be a lot better about even making sure does a charter school or a school district need the waiver that they're asking for. We've identified several situations recently where a district wanted to do

205something they didn't even need a waiver for. But in looking at that um there's a lot of flexibility that is allowed in law around school calendars and hours versus days. And so as long as that continues to exist in law, um there's not a lot we can do about it. Um but looking at the waivers, certainly we want to make sure that waivers are only being granted for things that we think are are best for kids and supportive and that those school districts are being held accountable. I also think that in the future, just my personal opinion, there does need to be some cleanup around what is considered instructional time and what that's looks like. not to micromanage districts, but to make sure we have a sort of a minimum threshold of of what instruction

206looks like for students. Yeah, I think those con those conversations will continue to happen. Board me, other board members questions or comments. All right, thank you. didn't my last comment. Um, for your part, just want to thank everybody again for teacher appreciation week and all the educators and the entire educational system that makes our schools a success. And just one more recognition of those amazing science and math educators and milk and award winners. We're just so fortunate to have so many talent people in this state. Thank you. With that, any additional questions or comments by board members? Okay, we will adjourn but we will be in touch with you all about upcoming steps for next meeting. Will it be a special meeting or our regular special interim specific? Thank you. Great. I support them. With

207that we will adjourn. Thank you. Yeah, lunch is on this side. Science for it.