State Board Meeting July 15, 2016 - Part 2

001formatting online looks a little different sorry so action item A9 consideration of the adoption of English language arts and dis iary literacy standards goodno who will be speaking good afternoon thank you Stacy Smith assistant commissioner and um in no way could I stand up here without this lady next to me this is Sher Thorne she is our English language arts specialist within curriculum instruction and she has been the lead on the revision of the um Arkansas literacy standards so um we have uploaded for you the new Ela standards that we're asking for you to adopt but I just wanted to make sure that tell you um all the work that went into this um the same with math that you previously adopted we did pre- surveys we did post surveys we had very large teacher

002represented committees across the state higher ed preschool were involved we had close to 100 people on the ELA involved at different times when we worked on the disciplinary literacy standards we brought in science social studies Arts Teachers Health teachers um to specifically work on the disciplinary literacy standards and break it down to what does that look like in an art classroom what does that look like in a social Stace classroom and make sure that those people are at the tables giving um specific examples um within this document that we are proposing we also added in the teacher notes same thing that we had within the math standards um throughout the process one thing we heard over and over again is we wanted our resources right there we wanted explanations right there we didn't necessarily want

003to have to go search for another document so they built in through teacher notes not um clarification resources um additional information throughout the standards documents those teacher notes that's the part about this ongoing um kind of flexible document where we can go in and add support to teachers as they need it so when we see that there's an area of clarification um we can go in with those teacher notes and and support teachers all across the state um but a lot of work went into this document we're very proud of the document um and we request today that you guys approve the new English language arts and literacy Frameworks thank you so much Miss Smith um any questions or comments from my colleagues on the board yes Dr bar apologies so um thank you and

004I agree it's it's it's really good work uh the have we have disciplinary standards ever been approved before or is this brand new the disciplinary standards before were a part of the Common Core were standards tied together got it okay thank you thank you Miss Dean I just wanted to thank Miss Smith and Miss Thorne for all of the work that they put in um the the the work and the time and effort was just um awesome so I just want to thank you for the standards that you've you've given to us and and I will be ready with emotion whenever the time comes so just thank you all to all the teachers and everyone that put the time and effort into it so and and and just noting that missan kind of had a

005front row seat at different times when she came back and got to hear when we were trying to have a very transparent process um all of our meetings were live streamed all of our meetings were open to the public we tried to make an effort to sit down and talk with those who um were unsure about our standards and the directions we were going um all throughout the process so you answered questions that we had when we were there so you were very helpful so thank you I appreciate those comments you're welcome thank you Miss Dean any other yes Miss Newton I have just a couple of questions just so that I guess the people who are watching live stream will understand uh tell me about uh the alignment with the acts Spire okay I'm

006going to let Mrs Thorne who's our expert Ela person and again I'm hugging her because this would not be here today without her and when we talk about quality people at the Arkansas Department of Ed and people that we should promote and support and celebrate this is one of those ladies to kind um as far as the ACT Aspire we use the ACT benchmarks as we were developing the anchor standards in particular and so as far as their connection with the ACT Aspire that that was really what we looked at for the com of the College and Career Readiness standards we really looked at those benchmarks and we found that there was already quite a bit of alignment there as we began that work okay one more question um the writing this year on the

007ACT espire was very low how will these standards address that well the standards address it in the same way that they have in the past I think we you know it takes a while to get implementation where you want it to be so we still support um argumentation informational writing and narrative writing all three and those three types of writing are tested in ACT Aspire so we are still targeting the types of writing that will be assessed so if a teacher teaches these standards their students will be will be prepared I would like to think so yes I think I think that the standards are rigorous and I think that um that as far as how that test is set forth I think you teach the standards and you don't concentrate so much on test

008prep till the end of time just so they're familiar with formatting and that sort of thing but the stress is on the actual standards and preparing them to be good writers in those three types of writing I want to congratulate you and your department on excellent work you've done a good job thank you thank you Miss Newton additional questions or comments oh yes oh commissioner I defer to Muk okay M oh okay uh I was just thinking uh along with the things that you have done which I'm thrilled with and the things that I heard Springdale talking about a couple of months ago where they have uh lessons and curriculums developed for people to use all over the state you know a a new teacher especially will have have so much uh opportunity to benefit

009from experienced teachers and and I was thinking uh how I wish I had had that at the time so I'm thrilled that we have that now uh another thing on the writing one of the things that I've seen used that I find effective and a a teacher that thinks her writing scores when she gets them back will be really good is is having students uh write like a paragraph to tell something in a paragraph and then having the other students read it and say what they thought that paragraph actually said and then the student uh who wrote it going well no or why did you think that or you know and then they learn about their commas and their punctuation and their phrasing and their syntax so um as I see good things out in

010the schools I like to share them because you never know if some one person who influences 10 kids might actually uh try something that that they hadn't thought of before and you better be careful cuz we might pull you on our professional [Laughter] development wonderful yes commissioner I just want to say how much I appreciate all the team of course uh Sherry's done a great job but but all of the team and even throw Dr Debbie Jones in there U because this all started when she was still with us um just I just want to say you know in the last several years uh in your lifetime do you remember a time when educational standards was such uh a centerpiece of discussion um probably not and you know for the negative that really brought the

011discussion up I mean I think we have now uh created a product that is much more positive and it it has Buy in from Arkansas uh Educators because they were at the table they they did it they did the work um so I just I as commissioner I want to express my thanks to to our team at ad for uh leading this effort uh to all those Educators that were a part of this for our highered partners that were a part of this and for those um folks outside uh stakeholders that uh came you know they they monitored they they were there um they they had opportunity to to give feedback a number of ways of feedback surveys and U live feedback emails you name it and we have now I think Stacy we had

01260 something per of the standards were modified or or revised or or clarified is that right 62% of the standards had some type of clarification modification or change okay and that was clarification or modification based on Arkansas classroom teachers that saw what needed to be done so uh I just I think this is a great job and you know as I said I told miss zuk a year ago I would have expected that this would have been the issue that brought a room full of people uh today uh to have their you know say of whether they were for it or against it and you look and you know we don't have that uh so I don't think that means it's less important I think that means we did a good job of getting everyone's

013input uh along the way so uh just anyway want to express my thanks again for to everyone involved in this process and another step from adequacy to Excellence well put Miss hook thank you one thing I want to clarify when we're asking you to make this motion today is that the standards would go into for school districts who want to begin early implementation of these standards this would begin for this for them in August um those but all school districts will be required to follow these standards by the following school year okay and that's a practice we've put in place with the last three standards I believe we've brought to you time is important so much yes Dr bar this a question um you know u i I agree this this process has been different

014than the previous standards um and uh but I don't I think when I wasn't on on the board when when those were voted on but I don't think anybody would have expected the backlash That Grew uh on those standards and I think we all know that community Communications the communication strategy around those standards had real problems the lack of communication are we thinking about communication around these standards both these and the math standards so that we can kind of um you know be smarter about um staying in touch with folks um in the years ahead um absolutely and really our communication plan for these stand that we started with communication when we talked about how are we going to take on this process and it started with those pre- surveys um and that is also

015something that you'll see health and wellness standards are a next big thing that we're doing we're starting with the pre- survey on the existing standards we're starting with external review um so on the existing ones that we have right now one thing that we did differently through this process is we involved all the different educational cooperatives um on the math we used also brought in the stem centers so their specialist that work directly with teachers were involved in the process they were facilitators at tables leading discussions that was huge in as far as communication um so as we're rolling out these changes they understand that we have these teacher notes that can be ongoing and flexible um and the idea that as we look at our own data for example in writing when we start

016seeing what the trends are in our writing data then we need to go back to our Ela standards and we need to look to make sure our we hypothesize what we think may be going on in Arkansas education in that area is there an area that we need to clarify our support within our writing standards and bringing in our teachers and relooking at those standards if it's something that can be simply um enhanced through the teacher notes then we would do that if it's something that we feel like would need to change then we would bring that back to the board and say hey this is something that we feel like we need to add to our standards so it's that constant process of looking at our data seeing where we are um looking for

017Trends not just one year but looking for Trends and making changes where necessary also it needs to be pushing our professional development and what we're providing to teachers and we need to be strategic and specific about that because teachers are the best advocates for communicating uh the importance of Standards they're the ones in those classrooms every day and making sure that they have a clear understanding of what the expectation is standards are what we expect all teachers to teach in their classrooms it is not the ceiling it is it is the base that's wonderful um any additional questions or comments from my colleagues otherwise um I think Miss Dean we may be ready for a motion yeah I moved to adopt the new K12 Ela and disciplinary literacy standards uh to be effective for those

018schools who want to begin this year August of uh 2016 and for all schools schools by the following school year do I have a second second second so um motion made by Miss Dean second by Miss Chambers all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries congratulations both Miss Smith and Miss Thorne thank you all um so Miss Smith if you can stay up there for our next item as well uh now moving on to action item A10 consideration of embedded courses um we've also submitted our embedded courses for your approval um this is in um I guess um law that you have to um you have to vote and have an action as far as embedded classes go so we have actually put forth to you um all the embedded courses because we

019bring them back to you every single year but you also have the list of new embedded courses um kind of been standard practice that traditionally you've seen oral Communications and English in this last um proposal this last year you've had some others as far as science and CTE horses go um some more interesting embedded courses um put together but very pleased we also worked closely with CTE in the approval of these embedded courses so we asked for an action item to approve the embedded courses for these schools thank you so much Miss Smith any questions yes I I saw Miss Newton first I just have a question because of my ignorance I guess how long were these good for it do they have to come back every year or we're we bring them back every

020year so you can see on the sheet that we uploaded there's an Exel sheet of the different years and so we're asking for the past ones to be um approved and we've contacted districts to ask are you still going to do this course this next year and if so we've left them on the list so so the approval would be for you know even like the 20145 and all the way back yes okay when there is a standards change okay for example with our math standards our Ela standards they have to show that they're meeting the new standards okay okay perfect Dr bar yeah a couple questions first off I I use my cheat sheet and and figured out what Keystone was um very good um but my my ke cheat sheet to my left

021um and uh and my question is um is that being that uh embedded of course being developed by virtual but or or has that been developed at the school level because I think Keystone is a keystone is is a written course already but the the embedded course they took the two courses and had to show to us how they were going to do both courses within one period and that they had the right teachers um or teacher who was appropriately licensed to teach both those courses and so a course that was with CTE and our course it was a joint effort at that point to work together okay um so Keystone is not a virtual course it's a it's a it's a traditional yes through CT M okay okay Mr oh sorry no and and

022so okay um and I guess with that one and then with the uh agricultural leadership and oral communication we've we've approved a lot of English uh English and oral communication over the years but this is the first time I think we've seen agricultural leadership and and World communication and then also the Keystone which Al does not have an obvious Communications link can you talk through the Comfort level of folks in the in the oral communication world with those embedded courses okay um when we're looking at combining an oral Communications course we're still looking for that course to have a teacher that is licensed to do oral Communications okay or that they have a mentor of someone with oral Communications built into that so when you're looking at the agite leadership course okay there are points

023in there where those students are actually going out and making presentations on when they're competing competing and so it's naturally kind of built in for that course work for those students to practice their their old or or delivery um within that that course um so I actually that was probably one of the more exciting courses as far as a betting that I saw instead of it being through the traditional English language arts course um but in all courses when you see oral commom we're still making sure that there is a licensed teacher that is working with that course A lot of times you see it in a mentorship or the teacher going in two days a week or 3 days a week or they have split periods where they're working so um it's not just

024that the agite teacher now is responsible for oral communication they are they're still a licensed teacher who's making sure that the Frameworks for the course of oral Comm are being taught so are some of these actually team talk courses with two faculty working together yes absolutely fact you see that frequently Mr Williamson I mean you may not know this I'm recovering Banker so I'm going to bite You' got financial literacy highlighted there or in bold um with math right math which I think is great you know um there's a lot of kids that don't understand checking accounts well let's be frank there's a lot of adults that don't understand checking accounts also but I think this is this is critical to um so when they were looking at this course for approval that was going

025to be considered a fourth Math course so therefore it had to show math skills that were post Algebra 2 okay so within the proposal for that course they had to submit course standards that were post algebra algebra 2 or or passed and then they took the financial literacy course from the business CTE and combin those two courses okay any additional questions or comments from the board yes Dr Hill when when we and I'm just trying to wrap when when we um started to do this and just for future references just from my coaching background with the NCAA in a number of core classes so oil communication was a I know we was a core class but now you've combined it to one class it they are still receiving their half credit for oil Communications and

026then they'll receive their credit for um English also so when we were saying it's an embedded course they were receiving a half credit for orcom and a full credit for English okay from math and business for financial literacy they'll get those two credits okay and additional questions from the board otherwise I'll entertain a motion I move to approve this uh list of uh new and new and returning uh embedded corses do I have a second motion made by DR bar seconded by miss nton all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries thank you so much Miss Smith thank you moving on now to action item a11 consideration of final approval the ad rules govering how to meet the needs needs of children with dyslexia Miss freno you're recognized thank you madam chair Lori

027freno General Council Arkansas Department of Education as you said I am here for Action agenda item A1 the majority of the changes made to this rule from the last version are the result of our bringing these rules into compliance with act 1268 of 2015 the uh we we drafted these rules the governor's office approved them this board of course put them out for public comment we took them out put them out for public comment there there's quite a robust public comment both in hearing and otherwise the governor's office approved them but after public comment we made some non-substantive changes in response to those public comments the governor's office at this point has not finally approved all the subsequent changes but requested that we just go ahead and present these to the board um and you

028know if something should come up where the the governor's office had a problem with them later we could just bring them back but I don't anticipate that but in any event um at this point we ask that the board give final approval to these rules pending legislative review and approval by the governor's office thank you m Freo to my colleagues any questions oh yes Miss I'll have several since this is my field uh first of all I think uh part of the issue and why it's taken so long to get all this through is a a part of learning theory called negative transfer when something is in your head or you've learned it and it applied in one area and then you make a shift you're using some of the same terms but applying them

029to different things then you get what we call negative transfer your o learning is not helping your new learning it's getting in the way so since dyslexia initially was under special education it was a specific learning disability and in the minds of many it still is but over time a lot of parents and some Educators um chose not to have it under the categories of special education they wanted to pull dyslexia out uh part of that was because when you say special ed a lot of people think developmentally dislay uh delayed blind de whatever one of the others and um uh many people I was not one of them feel like this is u a a negative for the children I think that children are pretty resilient and they hold up regardless but um uh

030anyway our state along with several other states chose to pass a law to deal with dyslexia um it was due in part to the fact that a lot of districts U had not were not adequately or excellently serving the the needs of the dyslexic children and so therefore there was a need to put another bite into that uh unfortunately the the law as passed did not give uh ad enforcement power so they can have this rule they can have these laws they can have be passed by the legislature and uh ad can do everything that they can to inform and educate and I commend Kevin Bowmont and his crew and Vicky King they've done everything within their human power to get this done they're still districts who are dragging their feet and there is no

031penalty under the law and there's no enforcement by ad to get it done so here we are you know you just have to hope at some point that people who are in our schools will take and do the spirit of the law not just the letter of the law because this benefits all children just as the impassioned pleas yesterday for the Marshal EES community and we have others uh all of that said my questions to you Lai are under 4.03 it says Dibbles alone may be insufficient to determine the existence of Dyslexia I still believe that it should say dibles alone is insufficient to determine the existence because your following sentence pretty much emphasizes that but uh maybe means it could be and it couldn't be and in fact it isn't are you with me

032on that where I am I I I'm with you and I don't know if that would be considered a substantive change or not because your sentence underneath it pretty well goes on to say that additional screening assessments will need to be administered to measure components that are not measured by dibles yes and M I don't see an inconsistency excuse me in those two sections because all the first sentence is saying is dibles alone may indicate car characteristics of a reading deficiency and that's correct additional screening assessments will be needed to administer to measure the components that are not measured by Dibbles cor so that is recognizing based upon public comment that's why made that change actually I believe it was your public comment yeah that Dibbles alone is not enough there's got to be more

033to measure all components that's why I think it said say disables loans is insufficient as opposed to may be insufficient because it is never sufficient but you know you're the lawyer and you knew all you got to do to either change it or not the explanation below it is good now all the way down to 12 so this gives you great hope because I'm almost finished no no everything you have I'm I'm we're very happy to respond we we're ready yeah it has is this being done it refers to the Department of Education shall collaborate with the Department of Fire Ed to ensure all that all teachers education programs offered to State supported institution of higher education provide dyslexia professional awareness yes it has been done terrific and number 13 uh this committee I have

034all due respect for all of these organizations but I I guess I should have called like Tony proo and Richard abery I have no clue if there's anybody that are a member of either of those organizations that would have the knowledge and expertise needed in order to Be an Effective member of this committee or is it just going to be be one more thing they send one more person to that they sit there and sometimes they show up and sometimes they don't and but they really don't contribute and sorry for being so plain spoken no I always appreciate you being plain spoken really when I first saw the law with those commit I I thought the same thing but what happened is we asked those different organizations to have a representative and they chose from

035their body so um for example for aaea you have the superintendent Del query of Flippin oh well who represented so they chose people within now retired he's now retired um but actually he's he's now over the rural Educators um Association so he's still very much active so he um so they each selected someone that they felt had knowledge to be able to give input to that they took it seriously yes and also within the dyslexia resource guide we tried to break down the components of Dibbles and give other suggestions of other assessment ments that could also be used um in helping them determine indicators of Dyslexia okay thank you very much thank you madam chairman thank you any additional questions I just want to reinforce Miss's um statement about the inequities in terms of implementation

036of this around the state and it's a it's a law that's supposed to to to close the gap on inequities because some we know some kids um have access to um being um identified and others don't and um because of the lack of the teeth that I think would ensure more uh Equity ultimately um I think uh that's that's a challenge but it is it's the law that is and um and you know with time hopefully it will be the start to um really U taking a big step forward and we will have more District in fact all the districts will be more like flipping in terms of uh places that have really uh been assertive and aggressive on this and just as an emphasis this law originally to serve dislexic children while under special

037ed was passed in 78 with full implementation supposed to be done in 1980 now that's from the federal level the state followed very closely behind that so we're not talking about gosh people are just a couple of years behind here I mean this is this is embarrassing for those districts to continue to fail to serve the needs of these children or any child but uh obviously as you can see I'm very passionate about these children well and we're very passionate about children reading we know that if students not reading by the end of third grade their chances of reading diminish basically and so um what we are seeing is we have seen an increase of students that have been reported or identified by districts who are being served directly with a dyslexia program um last

038year I think we had like 900 in the state that were identified as being served with a dyslexia Intervention Program this year we had over 6,000 now I'm going to say that I still think 6,000 is too low um but we are digging into the data and looking for school districts and areas in which maybe we need to reach out to support and to help we also believe that not all school districts are identifying their students correctly still um because there was a change in the way in the manner in which they reported last year in his e school and because of a change in the law we changed how they identified this year so we still believe that there is a disconnect there um also within our own agency at ad and our literacy

039specialist they are all working closely with Vicki King and have set through multiple days of training about I know you're a literacy specialist but let's talk about dyslexia let's talk about the things that maybe you're unaware of and starting that education there so that that is trickling out into all of our cooperatives who are leading our professional development in early reading so it is something that um we take very serious and and like you we want to see the needle move for kids especially in K12 in this area and then even for our older students who have fallen through the crack um we have got to make sure we've got the right people there who can support and assist so that they also can be successful so thank you for your comments about this and

040please know that we do take this serious um and we have built in assurance statements that superintendent sign that their district is complying with the law we also have the the mechanism in which they report within their districts their students that they are that they are serving um we've reached out to our dyslexia Specialists who are at the cooperatives um and we have encouraged them please know who's in your District what programs your districts have chosen and if they don't have a program you need to get in there so we we are trying to be um we're not trying to drag our feet on this but we're really trying to make sure that it's being talked about and I think to emphasize your point on literacy just because you know how to teach reading does

041not know mean you know how to reach a child with dyslexia because they they're they're wired slightly differently and they can learn to read but they have to be taught a special way um one of the ways I earned extra money when I worked at the med center was reading I had two uh uh students who were in med school and I read to them because they were so dyslexic that by the time read the material they were losing the comprehension but if I read it to them they would comprehend it and they could go in and take the test well obviously I didn't get out of med school but they did so we're not we're not dealing with slow people here you know you're dealing with people that if you'll just help them unlock

042that or or figure out some way to compensate for the fact it hadn't been unlocked you know these are our doctors and lawyers and and professionals and uh Ms and teachers well I appreciate the fact that you recognized Vicki King earlier and her work with dyslexia I also want to introduce to you Robin strippling she is within our special education unit and she is the contact for dyslexia concerns in our special ed unit so for those parents who have a child who is disabled and has also has dyslexia she's making sure that they that school districts understand how to serve them good great thank you board for your Indulgence no thank you Miss for bringing that expertise um to this board we appreciate it um so with that any additional questions or comments then I

043would entertain a motion board I will proudly recommend approval do I have a second second okay motion made by Miss zuk seconded by Dr bar all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you miss freno moving on now to action item a 12 consideration for final approval of the ad rules governing the creation of school districts by Detachment Miss Davis yes good afternoon um these rules are the rules governing the creation of school districts by Detachment you previously approved these for public comment we did have a public comment hearing we had not received any public comments there were a few non-substantive technical grammatical kind of changes to the rule you know making sure that dashes were inconsistent and things like that but no other changes have been made and they have

044been approved by the governor and we do ask that you will Grant final approval for these thank you Miss Davis any questions from the board move final approval okay do I have a second second motion made by DR bar and second and by Dr Hill um all in favor say I I any opposed then motion carries thank you great thank you moving on now to action item a13 consideration for final approval of the proposed ad rules governing Arkansas highly qualified teacher requirements um Miss Davis yes all right be rules for the Arkansas highly qualified teacher requirements like we've talked several times today um with the um doing away with the federal guidelines these are in place to ensure that you know our teachers are highly qualified you have previously approved these for emergency approval and

045so that is an effect we had a public comment hearing there were public comments received but we did not make any substantive changes they have been approved by the governor so if you have any questions I'll be glad to ask answer them but we do ask that you give final approval to these rules as well thank you Miss Davis any questions from the board yes Miss Newton I don't have a question I just have a comment in the last Cooperative uh waiver that we had Woodline was not able to apply for the for the waiver because they did not have a student in the charter schools that is correct and so I I'm sure that woodlon probably has just as much trouble getting teachers as all the other 13 schools in that Cooperative so what

046I would do is just encourage some sort of legislative intervention that would make an even playing field for those districts right and thank you and just just to answer that I don't believe that Woodline thankfully I think they were in slightly of a better condition than some of the other schools in the district so I mean not that that invalidate your point but just in case anybody else is wondering about that not even just woodlon I know sure they districts all across the state that don't have a a a student in a a charter school but are having difficulty finding teachers absolutely thank you thank you yes Miss Chambers just I was curious what the nature of the comments were did they tend to come in a lot of different flavors or were they of

047one specific interest and Miss Chambers there is a matrix um document on here with comments the um the changes that were made in response to the comments were primarily just the clarification that um for example in Al if lure had been waved these were not requiring lure or things that that um could already be waved so that was that was at least two of the concerns and um I think I think those were the two areas where it was just a clarification in the wording thank you additional questions or comments then I would entertain a motion I move to approve do I have a second second motion made by Miss Newton seconded by Miss Chambers all in favor say I any opposed motion carries thank you Miss Davis thank you uh now moving on to

048action item A14 consideration of the recommendation to adopt the practice fundamental subjects uh Miss Miss feffer thank you madam chair um we're bringing this item before you it really um applies to section 3.02 Point 2.3 of the aqt rules and that is the provision that teachers can meet aqt uh content area qualifications by passing a state approved um content assessment this assessment is a um is a is an assessment we currently don't have for ler it's a fundamentals assessment and what we would like to do is make it an option for um teachers who are licensed K12 special education teachers so they would have to be K12 special ed before it would apply or an Al teacher to be able to take this content assessment which would make them qualified to teach in uh multiple

049core content areas most of the time in the placement of special education teachers or Al teachers if you've got a um if you've got the right person with the right heart to teach students um either with disabilities or students that are not being successful in the traditional classroom um the the the idea that they can be licensed in you know five or six different areas is is not always feasible but in um in these types of um environments they're often required to teach students in multiple areas so we have worked with the um special education unit with our alternative education unit and would like to use this as an option for those two situations to um as as a way for them to be qualified in that area that they're assigned giving School District's flexibility

050to use really good people for multiple ways to really serve the children that um that need them so that um you can see the um score that is being recommended and on the I think in on one of your pages you can actually see how some states are using this assessment some states um actually use this as part of their K12 special education ler um for this very purpose so it's um providing that content area expertise demonstration for special education Educators um who who can teach students through that throughout the um School career so um I know that Miss stri and Dr Gardenhire are here if you want to ask them some specific questions about how this would apply to Al or special ed yes Miss Suk so they're already certified in special ed and

051then they take this they could I mean they they could but this isn't instead of this would be if that special ed teacher was being placed in a core content area for which he or she would not be a Q already okay so it's not going to even apply to all special ed teachers it's in these circumstances where a school needs this special ed teacher to be able to do multiple things so but they're already a special ed licensed okay educate we're on an Al okay thank you additional questions or comments from the board then I would entertain a motion so moved okay and that would be to um approve the recommendation to adopt the practice fundamental subjects is that correct Dr wonderful and a second second so motion made by Mr Black and seconded

052by Miss Chambers all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries thank you so much Miss feffer um now moving on to action item a15 recommendations for school classified in academic distress Dr wild you're recognized Richard wild program manager for school Improvement unit as the board will recall in April schools a set of schools were classified in academic distress as statute requires uh ad appointed uh Team of Educators to do an on-site review uh Miss Barnes and commissioner key uh appointed the teams the reviews were conducted in the month of May and for the most part it consisted of of uh members from educator Effectiveness special education the school Improvement unit in consultation and support from federal programs school performance the curriculum unit standards professional development and assessment during the site reviews uh Mr

053Harvey Endor Miss Barnes were process observ obers so they were there they did not participate but they observed the process each school that was reviewed also there was a District representative so that uh all of the process was transparent for everyone the process included a review of all written reports that were available and then it included interviews with the district leadership team the school leadership team the principal instructional teams instructional facilitators and other support personnel and as appropriate students the report that you have contains the recommendations that are made by the teams for the most part to give you some insight into the thinking behind the recommendations for the most part the schools most of the schools were already uh classified either as a priority school or as uh previously classified in academic distress so

054they already had plans that they were working on the feeling of the teams basically was they're already invested there needs to be refinement but let's keep moving ahead with what they're already working on the next piece was it was uh looking at District level support and it seemed to vary from District to district and in none of the districts was there a written plan of support so the next recommendation in the report was for there to be a written plan of action for how the schools would be supported with eight uh highlighted points that the plan needs to address the next item was in relationship to there were two schools that were newly identified who had not been in priority status or Focus status so for those two schools the first recommendation really is for

055us to meet with them and develop a plan of action prior to the start of the school year the last recommendation was that to engage the school boards more that ultimately they are the first uh line of leadership in the district and also by engaging them more it also becomes more transparent to the community and permits open public comment open public discussion so the next recommendation or the fourth recommendation primarily was that there be a plan of action for every quarter there to be a report to the board for those schools that were in academic distress the school districts have all been contacted and uh re the recommendations have been reviewed with each district for the most part uh I think there is agreement that uh these are reasonable recommendations and fairly good support from

056the field um we are requesting that the State Board approve the recommendations with the knowledge that these will become binding upon the school districts once approved thank you so much Dr wild um questions for my colleagues so um are we going to deal with the reporting schedule separate yes okay thanks additional questions miss you weren't here yesterday to hear us compliment the uh report that you put together uh uh and I do do commend you for that and your team and uh uh only thing I would have to say is for those on the academic distress uh committee which at this point I have Miss Dean Mr Williamson Miss Newton and Miss Ables if she chooses to were there others that wanted to serve that I may not be aware I would like to serve

057Miss Su okay and uh um I mean that's not up to me you're the want to point yes so I think I think technically I'm EX offici but um just if you could put me put me down I would appreciate it what I'd like for you to do is print this off so you'll have it and then we can use it as along with the 45 day reports and then we can stay on target then uh the team reporting to us the schools uh coming before us and we will all be on the same page and it'll save us from you know uh what we call Bird walk Walking uh and and taking off in different directions and not staying focused so uh I would ask and thank you very much for joining and thank

058you for your leadership on that um now Dr W do you need a motion from us in regards to your report or yes we're we're requesting approval of the report and Adoption of the recommendations okay and and then you do want us to hand handle that separately from the proposed reporting schedule yes okay yes that's good to say before you vote can I Dr wild could you briefly describe what's different this year than in previous years in terms of the in terms of of AD the cross functional the the work that we're trying to make sure that we get uh you know everybody on board that needs to be on board um help these districts and if if you're referring to just in the in the process if you notice there were more units involved

059more uh collaboration with all of AD as opposed to it predominantly being a school Improvement unit function and so uh from that standpoint we are trying to be within our own Department as ad trying to break down the silos and we're also crosswalking our different rubrics and our different processes to get one language going to the school districts and we're attempting to help everybody understand how all of the processes are really integrated together as opposed to different functions and uh siloed efforts is that yes thank you and I had even noticed that as your assistant Commissioners came up they said assistant commissioner ad and they didn't pin hold them with the certain division so I I knew something was a foot I just wasn't sure what and now that every unit in ad has hired

060somebody from school Improvement we those could be molds you know you could be the most knowledgeable person in the building you know as as a gardener I thought and Dr Gardenhire who is a fellow Gardener was here earlier but uh you know cross-pollination has very positive benefits so we we think that that works well in organizations too well thank you so much Dr wild um do I have a motion then in regards to the report and recommendations um uh for academic distress move to approve the uh report and the new recommendations for scheduling do I have a second not the schedule right not the schu sorry not the no not the schedule that'll be handled separately sorry excuse me second thir okay uh motion made by Mine seconded by Dr bar all in favor say

061I I any opposed motion carries unanimously um Dr wild yes if you'll please walk us through the reporting schedule proposed reporting schedule and this is a proposed as you're aware uh last year it was uh not set at the beginning of the year we were uh for the most part informing schools the month in advance so what we'd like to do is set a schedule for the entire year and uh make everybody Avail aware of uh the dates that they would be before the state board or before the subcommittee and have that known from the beginning of the year so this is our proposed schedule for the year with the different uh schools coming at different times or different districts and their schools coming at different times uh are you uh is this the proposed

062schedule for them to come before the full board or be before academic distress committee the it's it's for four districts is when they would come before the full board for the remaining of the districts is when they would come before the subcommittee so there's two sections M the top is reference to the state board and the bottom is just to the academic distress committee U is there some reason you didn't want dollarway and Little Rock to come before the academic distress before the full board is it because they're in takeover yes okay U good then I'm assuming correctly thank you Mr yes Dr bar um couple of things um on the full board reports um I know the the elections in plasy county and Helena West Helena will be really that week right and we

063won't we there won't be the training um the opportunity for training of the new uh board members I would I would like something that feels kind of final uh with both of those districts as they kind of leave um leave takeover um so I guess my question is when would uh when can we be pretty confident that the training will have taken place of the new board members is that it it will happen very shortly after the election and and the certification of the votes I'm not sure you know a lot of that happens with timing of the county clerk's office of the certification but we start scheduling that as soon as we know who the okay and and if there's a runoff then that kicks it you know another few weeks down the road

064so oh yeah that would okay so I guess um a question I mean um on those last two on Plasky County and Hela West Hela do we really need one in November since it really will be election week for them I mean would it would it make sense just have a final report that is kind of after the training has occurred so we can just kind of say you know they're the they're on their way or whatever it was just a question do we need or we could wait to get wait till February we could do two quarterly reports we could do um November and February but that feels like a big gap yeah you know that as when they leave takeover status then they revert to the special committee uh and is they're included

065down at the bottom to be determined because um you know they will still have schools in academic distress so really the focus changes from you know the broader uh board to the narrow academic distress because of the few schools they have so we we can we can kind of give a uh provide a wrap up that's um part academic distress part fiscal just kind of a a you know final you here here they go but then we they'll still be subject to the the subcommittee so okay then I don't even know that we I don't even know that we need a quarterly report from them on November 10th I mean they really will be on the verge of being on their own right um there's a runoff they'll already be on in election like the

066eth eth yeah anyway and I would like just something kind of summi of with those uh you know for us to be confident that they've gotten the training that you know the board is kind of ready for action um that would be so I don't know what the magic date is on that um um November 10th actually feels too early because they would have just been maybe just been elected the week two days before so that feels kind of a little little early with the the December meeting I'm wondering I'm wondering if we might just have a a December uh report for plasy County and Helena West Helena and would that be I think it's December 8th is December 8th is the board board board meeting and the academic distress is the ninth Friday meeting

067and that's got Pine BL for City and blel so that'd be a lot if they just did academic but if they came to the full board then it could be handled during the exactly yeah and then it could be handled Thursday yeah and I would expect they would be fairly brief um reports it's fiscal anyway all those right um my other uh question on the um quarterly on the State Board reports um with L Rock and dollarway um I understand that uh we can't take action on an item unless it's placed on the agenda but feels sometimes like a little disconnect so let's say we needed I'm just use the example because it's fresh you know point the community Advisory Board we need to do that as an action item but then we got a

068report later and so I'm wondering if we put if it makes sense to put those on the action agenda so if there is any subsequent action associated with those districts that we need to take that we might just have them together you see what feels in some ways you know we're asked to do action and then I guess we could do it the next month but it's then a that then starts to defeat the one of the goals here which is to free these folks up not to have to come every month so I'm wondering if we could put them on the action agenda for their [Music] reports and then that would leave the space because I think it would be good for us to actually um uh take action that we have we have

069as a uh board receive their reports but that would also if there was some some action related to that District needed to take we would have already gotten a report report that's associated with it am I making myself clear uh or is it yes you are but at the same time I I agree and see what you're saying at the same time uh since Mr key is their board and we take action it would seem to me if they came uh with their reports and then the commissioner and the as a result of his meeting with superintendent come to us and said I'm going to need action take on this that's beyond what a a school board can do I don't know does I I don't know I'm just thinking out loud right that's fine

070I think it's just we just need to realize if there if we are going to take action it's probably going to be the next month which starts to undo I mean one of the thing one of the goals here is not to have them here every month and we may end up having them here more often which is fine but if it's reporting day and then it's Friday typically in the afternoon then the because a lot of these reports or all these reports are done by the principal and one of the things they're wanting done is the principals in the district on the same page and working together and uh we're thinking in terms of which months we bring them in which is the most convenient for all the principles to come and fortunately with

071these two districts they don't have to drive very far but U uh having them here and having it Friday afternoon noon typically it might be Friday morning uh seems to if you're needing help the last thing you need is to be pulled out of your District on a Thursday and so I don't know how we can resolve those two unless can you pull an action item over to no okay let me suggest something to see if it's if this might be workable because if if these are on I mean Little Rock's the only one that by your uh determination has been on the action agenda regularly but in the if we move to quarterly and something happens you know in November uh and discussion leads to you all wanting them on the December action agenda

072right that's right then then that would be no problem because that way since they're going to have a cab and they and their s and their school boards here every month uh it it it seems to make sense that they have their reports and if if something comes up then we put them on the action agenda rather than coming in every month because as we've seen uh we are being updated but then we got the report that we had yesterday that said some of the very things that needed to be done and I appreciate the fact that we also need to celebrate the wins but at the same time uh that wasn't helping us get to the meat of what needed to be done about the feeder patterns and and those kind of things so

073um uh either that or we need to give Mr Po uh or Doc is it Mr do Mr uh uh a specific we want you to report on this this and this and not just have it be extemporaneous other thoughts well go Chambers well I was along the same line of thinking and whether to your point Dr bar so that we don't get caught where we aren't getting answers in any one month and so we're having to ask them back is there anything that we can do to be more if maybe not formulaic but intentional in what it is we're asking them to bring to us so that we're getting the substance so that time doesn't get away from us and then we're frustrated with each other well the the the 45-day reports are really

074specific as you see from the ones we have they really get down to the meat of what is going to have to be done and what is being done and progress they're making along with the the the uh testing the other reports were informative and we got well acquainted with the district which I think was helpful but I don't know that it was helpful to our true goal which is returning control because they have now are no longer in academic distress well and to that point one of the things that seemed to be an opportunity for us in past conversations relative to community making I love this fourth recommendation which is the local board uh their participation but it's making sure they understand where is the district relative to where it needs to be for

075local control to be returned that seemed to be something that was not um always obvious to the community and making sure that's an outcome of this would be very helpful well and I think that'll be a special helpful for the the blal and the Pine Bluffs and those who have not been taken over but that we continue to get reports uh that and in at least one of those districts where part of the problem is maybe some of the board members lack of training or or overstepping or or whatever so if they are encouraged to come to because they are now a part of the report then uh that would help us help them because otherwise they're out there on their own uh looking like they have a lot of ideas but do they really

076have the power so we want to be sure that they understand that we rely heavily on ad and their reports to us and uh as the more objective of the reports that we're getting so I guess I'm convinced that this is fine but with recogn well but with that recognition that we may well end up having to come and it may take a month you know based on conversation here to formulate the actual the action that needs to take place the next month right I'm fine with that I just make sure we didn't wear you down but but no no no no but but to your point it could evolve we'll fine-tune this as we get more experience with it yeah and I and Dr wild is making some changes to the reporting the 4day

077report I mean you know they he's always making it better and we just went through uh a couple weeks ago and I've signed off on some changes that are going to help you I think they're going to help the district they're going to help the building leadership uh for all of our academic distress schools as we move forward um so that you know there's it's right now it we're not trying to be non-transparent but some of the forms some of the systems that we have don't lend themselves to transparency what he's doing is going to be uh more lend itself to transparency to you to the patrons to the community to the folks in the district so uh I think this schedule and other changes that he's made are going to help uh you all

078as we move forward for those districts excuse me for those districts that are coming in and September will we have the ACT Aspire concordance uh applied by the September 9th no we don't think we will have any of that ready until uh October November time frame yeah because that sort of puts them in a bind because we're going to be looking at non at their scores that have no concordance applied to them and it they're they could look different you know I don't know what their three years will look like but it could be if they had a a bad 12 and a really good 15 that you know of course they might be so happy that they came off that they wouldn't care but uh I just don't want them to feel that we're

079putting them at a disadvantage for having to come in when their scores haven't had the concordance applied of what what do everybody commissioner yeah Dr W what do you think I I mean I understand uh what you're saying on that and this is just the a schedule and you see the next dates are to be determined I mean we're not you we're not classifying any new academic distress districts because of the pause but if we do find that they their three-year uh rolling numbers have improved we could all you you can always have them come in the next month and and maybe even up have them come in up in a full board meeting and everybody cheer for them or something you know yeah I mean so so this is just a review uh a

080schedule for review this isn't necessarily a schedule for Action because the action would have to be taken by the full board anyway yes yes Miss n is there a reason Covenant Keepers only has one date down it only has a January 13th dat it seems like Miss bars help me it seems like they're up for like didn't we just give them a year extension or they had to come in you know there since there a charter we had requested by annual reports or something as possible um if I if I remember good afternoon sorry if I remember correctly um what we did with uh Covenant Keepers is they were already going to be coming back up they're on the uh they are on the charter review schedule uh we when when we reviewed them um

081we said that initially it was an option to do two years uh to give them a chance to to demonstrate the growth with new leadership and then because because they did have new leadership um the other part was we moved it to three uh simply because they were a Middle School uh and that was a request that was made it was agreeable but they are always going to be annually looked at anyway based upon whether or not um they are moving in the right direction to be uh removed from academic distress so that's that's probably why it you see it as a one because they're constantly being reviewed all the way through do you know when they're going to be reviewed by the charter panel not in here no ma'am I do not right now

082sorry Dr B well that was actually she asked exact question any any additional questions otherwise I would welcome a motion I move that we accept the proposed uh uh board reporting and uh academic subcommittee reporting dates uh for the 16 17 school year with the understanding that if if at any point anybody needs to do something differently but this will be our general guide and if I could just ask a question there my understanding was that Dr bar was asking for the two bottom dates there that say November 10th right for palaska County and Helena West Helena to be December 8th now would that not be a modification did did I understand that correctly yeah so it would be with the modification of palaski County if not to put words in your mouth Miss but

083if if aligned with that then it would be with the modification that plaska County School District and Helena West Helena school district would come before the full board on December 8th instead of November 11th as put in this draft uh that's so Mo motion made by Miss Z seconded by Mr Williamson um are we good uh Miss Kaufman wonderful um all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you so much Dr wild and yes Dr bar can I ask a question the commissioner so the the training that the folks in uh new Schoolboard members in plasy county and Helen West Hing to get is it is it something beyond the normal training that new school board members would get to uh better understand the history of their districts and how they

084got to where they were Etc that's a very good question I'll give you the example uh from Lee County uh we partnered with the school boards Association uh Mr tobert and I actually went uh to the training when Lee County when they uh regained a board and learning from that experience we continue to refine the training that needs to happen so it is it is the standard training with a little extra flavor added U because of the special situation and U we we have a team working on what we can do to make that better and can they um you know we know that that boards um are limited in terms of team building Retreats and things like that um in in some cases I mean I think often times we see with with those

085districts that are having some Perpetual problems is that you know they never built bonds of trust with each other uh as board members which is something different than would normally happen in a training uh can we I mean feels like these districts they need they need the basics they need another another storm alert no Amber Alert this time um they need a they need the normal training that folks get new board members get they need the history of their districts but then they also need to figure out how they as a group can actually work together as a team and I'm wondering if we might think about incorporating some of that team building into that training the the school boards Association has a component of that I mean and this is being talked about certainly

086U leader the Le Ford's talking about leadership academy uh I mean a number of entities are talking about the importance of that uh so and we're at the table when those conversations are taking place it's you know there there's some discussion of maybe some looking at legislation uh that that might help encourage more of that but uh you're uh your point is well taken and certainly uh our observations reflect the need for that and we're we're going to try to do our best to see that that happens will you or Dr wild make sure that Mr proo knows about uh this added uh piece in academic distress about school boards being yes absolutely thank you sure will thank you does that answer your question Dr thank you so much so now moving on to action

087item a16 our last action item for the day um approval of cut scores for ACT Aspire Miss Allen thank you uh hope Allen director of assessment for the Department of Ed so come before you today presenting you know our ACT espire results were um released last week and we are need seeking approval from the board to establish our cut scores um we are asking that we use the ACT Aspire established cut scores and I'll I'm going to go through a few slides to kind of give you some information about that there was a scaling study done in 2013 that was fully online the reason that's important is because 100% of of our schools tested online this year so when we're looking at the established cut scores those were established based on uh an online assessment

088given to students in 2013 they then then did a vertical scale established from this study of those of those tests that were given and then standard setting was conducted on those scores that's a very standard procedure in large scale assessment of how you establish your cut scores I'm not going to go into great detail here but there is a full 200 and something page document if you'd love to read it um that's linked there the technical bulletin number two goes into all the ins and outs of that scaling study and how that was accomplished so then we have the Readiness benchmarks um they were empirically based on the ACT Readiness benchmarks so basically what act did was they started with their Readiness benchmarks for the ACT saying this is what a student in the 11th

089grade should be able to do to go on and be successful in a um in a college excuse me score a c or better in a the corresponding course in a college and then they back matat from there so based on what an 11th grader is expected to do what would a 10th grader a nth grader and so on be expected to do the way that act establishes their benchmarks is they do surveys of various teachers from across the nation and take input from teachers about what should a fourth grader be doing what should a fifth grader be doing and then that's how they establish their um standards a bit backwards from what we've always done but completely statistically sound students scoring at or above the Readiness Benchmark are on target to meet the corresponding

090act college readiness Benchmark in grade 11 so what we're saying is if a a third grader if they score at the Readiness level we're not saying that they are College and Career ready at that point but what we are saying is that they are ready to move on to the next level of study and that if they continue in this progress that they should meet their Readiness benchmarks on the ACT in grade 11 so there is that progression towards that that final assessment and then that again like I said there the back mapping is used to create the standards that were used to write the assessment so I've given you the the scale scores that are considered the Readiness levels for ACT Aspire so in any reports that you've seen or anything that's been published

091so far anytime that it says ready then a student in that scor responding grade on that test scored at this particular level or above and again those are scale scores so it's not the number of points So based on those Readiness benchmarks in reporting we do have four categories for Acts ire those are exceeding ready close and in need of support and again students in the ready category have met the ACT Readiness benchmarks and are and are are Target on our excuse me are on target for 50% or higher likelihood of college course success by grade 11 so what I provided for you was just some preliminary data we do have an entire report for you on the next um agenda about the the scores where I've got lots of charts for to look at

092and things like that but this is just kind of our preliminary data so when you're looking at this chart when you look at the dark orange bar the dark orange bar indicates the percentage of students that scored at or above the Readiness Benchmark in the state then the light orange bar indicates the students who were close and the the bar that you can barely see the very very light orange bar are those who were in The in need of support category so this just gives you a broad overview of how our our students scored across the state in each of the um the categories also provided for you the ELA and the stem scores as we're moving to an Era of looking um at a broader picture of assessment it's important for us to take

093a look at the ELA and stem also when we're thinking about aips the establishment of using these cut scores will have implications on academic Improvement plans for our schools and we're requesting that we use the ELA score um rather than trying to write three separate AI IPS one for reading one for writing and one for English we're asking that we allow schools to use the ELA score which is the average of those three scores together so speaking of academic Improvement plans we would like to assign those based on Ela Math and Science scores for science we are would like to require those at 5 seven and 10 currently as the new standards are rolled in and implemented in schools then we would have additional requir ments for remediation and science at the additional levels if

094we go this route that would mean that between 40 and 50% of our students would require remediation if you remember last year based on the park scores we were somewhere U between 60 to 70% so that is a reduction in the number of students who would require remediation so in a nutshell what we're asking is that the ready and exceeding students uh no no AIP is assigned but for those that are close in need of support that an academic Improvement plan is assigned so what I'm asking from the board today is the approval to use the Act established Readiness benchmarks as our state Readiness benchmarks which would indicate that a student scoring at the ready or exceeding category has met the the proficiency level for that particular grade and that no remediation will be required

095the subsequent year thank you so much any questions for my colleagues yes Dr bar um thank you m alen um can we go back to the fifth slide sure the the one the Readiness level slide sorry it's fine um yeah exactly no next one one back no one forward sorry right there right there yes sir um so the the final bullet there I I'm just trying to put so um in the ready category um and this is for uh ACT Aspire then they're on track fact to have a 50 uh 50% or higher likelihood of core success and core success is defined as a b a c or higher C or higher so this worries me a bit um in that having a coin flip of whether you're going to be ready for college course

096success doesn't feel ready to me uh I'm just worried about that and I and I this does get back to the of course the the park the the five categories for Park and and the decision that was made to kind of pick a a line that was kind of more in sync with a higher likelihood of college course success right MH um so um obviously fine with the cut scores but I'm a little worried about deeming readiness [Music] this which feels doesn't doesn't make me confident that that students are really going to be ready 50% chance of making a c that's 50% chance of making a c or higher that does not that does not give me great confidence of students Readiness and I will need to check on the c or higher part it

097may be be or higher um that would make me feel better I can check on that for you I certainly agree I that straight from the interpretive guide right um based on what act publishes I know act talks about it relative to act and 11th graders and the C's and the B's I had not read anywhere where the ACT Aspire for a 10th grader predicted that you know I know they said their on track to score a 19 or 22 or 23 whatever the score is for the different subject areas but I didn't know if they leapt all the way to predicting because one of the things that troubled me about the ACT Aspire was it didn't say that this predicts how you'll do on the ACT it just said odds are you know but

098you know they didn't say we're going to be more apt to do well on acts if we use this test and we these measures am I correct correct I mean the ACT is not a predictor well you do get a predictive score of what you potentially could score on the ACT the reason that they say it's not a um predictive predictive is not the right word the reason they say it's not basically the the preest to the ACT is is the construct of the test requires different elements as far as the open response and the writing that is not required on the ACT um and the types of items that are on there so there is a correlation and as far as the standards there's the correlation there um go ahead okay so kind of

099going back and clarifying A little bit um so on the act right now 11th grade act Benchmark Readiness so if a student meets The Benchmark Readiness score act says they have a 50% chance of obtaining a b or higher in a college freshman course so if you scor The Benchmark Readiness score in math then in college algebra you have a 50% chance or higher of scoring a b you have a 75% chance or higher of scoring a c and so then this is back mapped from there okay so as we're saying a the Readiness score for a third grader or a fourth grader if they continue to make the progress that they make in that Trend then when they hit 11th grade you have that 50% chance or higher of making the B 75% chance

100or higher of making the C okay that's more that is more comforting than the 50% chance of C uh still a little worry it feels I you know I I think we were we certainly heard the concerns about the large percentages of aips this last year I know youall heard it more than probably we did uh but uh but but you know and I find moving it back somewhere what but I guess this this we will have we will consider this each year right in terms of what the where the AIP uh what gets AIP or not or is this a pretty much we would ask for the that this would be set as we move forward that we don't have to come we um there's nothing that requires us to bring this every year

101but that's something that we could ask leg okay would it be helpful for just this first year I wonder since it is our first first year first process if in one year's time not that make it an annual process but just because this is our first time with this and the concordance and all of that would would there be concern would that be an impediment to you all in any way I I don't think that there would be an impediment to it I think the main thing here is we're establishing the cut scores that ACT Aspire has set forth to determine whether or not students ready so if we were to come back next year and ask for this we would probably be asking for the same thing as far as maybe not the exact

102number but be ask but we would be asking for the cut scores that act has put forth as these students are ready so as far as if you wanted to do it for a year based on an actual number of a scale score I don't see a problem with that but if we came back next year we would be asking for to accept the the levels that ACT Aspire has set forth I just I think I think it'll be interesting some of this you'll only know as you look at it over time absolutely so being being prepared to maybe look at a couple of years I mean if there's something materially wrong we need to adjust and not stand the say the course but we were talk when we were talking to some of the

103teachers this morning at the celebration when I asked them what what's the one piece of guidance youd give the board right now uh the the consistent answer was consistency and just some things that they could count on well we all know that a a junior who scores 19 or 22 or whatever the score is for their subject may or may not make those when they get there you know and there may be somebody that scored a 14 that knocks it out of the park so uh it is just a predictor it is not an absolute right is one one piece of evidence as far as the students academics and and one note I want to make and hope had had actually made this comment to me before she came up um yes we it did

104show that we would have a little bit less aips for our students but at the same time you know we all recognize the rigor that was in the park test last year and our standards are still at a very high level and the acts fire test We Believe maintained that and we're still seeing a large number in our state who require those aips meaning we still have a lot of work to do in our state and discussions that we've had today about students being ready in reading and dyslexia those are all indicators of of directions that we have to move um so I'm not bothered at the fact that we're still recognizing that we are not where we need to be in Arkansas in education and we have a lot of work to do and

105so I'm comfortable with these cut scores as they are and I'm comfortable with the saying that we have a large group of students who still are going to need individualized academic Improvement plans and if more people use the ACT Aspire those national uh wave that may change too you know the little uh green thing on the top of of each of these bar graphs shows National but we know National is not National thank you yes M that was just one of the comments that I wanted to make is that ready means the student is ready to go to the next set of Standards not necessarily they're ready to to go into college because that act asire only goes 3 through 10 and so that means that they they've taken those standards and uh and are

106ready to take on a new set of standards and and and that's that's information that teacher can use you know if they're not ready to go on to that next grade level then that teacher knows hey there's things that I need to work on and if we've got 40 to 50% of our students that are not ready then I have things in my classroom that I've got to work on and do differently well and it wouldn't make any sense to to okay close right you know we've all heard close only counts in a couple of instances so thank you yes Dr bar quick question I was a little confused on the science AIP so I know obviously science which just been 57 and 10 it's been 57 and 10 traditionally and so what so let's

107say um uh sixth grader or seventh whatever if one of those in between years where there wasn't a test result that was current would they still kind of continue to get AIP or would it only be for one year that's my district choice so um some districts would continue to to have that a I in place until the next Science assessment and some would exit them um the schools can make the determination about the length and when to exit a student from an AIP okay and it seems to me like based on what uh Miss Smith was and I were talking about earlier if we can get that reading scored up then that Math and Science and writing are all going to go up so you know if we focus and get people to read

108then they get through with the math portion on time and with their science and and as my grandson says well you know Graham if you can read a graph you can pass act easily on the Science Park so but the reasoning is what he's not realizing what he's saying so if we get that reading up then all the rest of these will rise right mam chair if I could remind the board too this what we're doing here is setting these uh levels for aips because it's compliance what uh I would just point to you all have heard schools of innovation uh Charter waiver folks uh schools that have come in here with Charter waiver I think we heard from Little Rock prep yesterday where they're talking about every student having a personalized education Plan and

109there's different terms for that out there um but it's an AIP I mean it may not be the form it may not be the the compliance part but it's it's what you know if if I had kids starting if I was to start start over which I'm not planning on starting over but if I was to start over I would hope that my child's school would have a personalized education plan for every student including my child it we we've made it a negative as some kind of a remedial thing and it shouldn't be that way we should strive for every student to have that individualized plan uh so so keep that in mind as we talk about setting these levels we're doing this for compliance but shooting for a day where every student has the

110opportunity to have a plan and a chart uh a course charted for them the way we do aips you you get parents involved I mean I'm telling I'm saying this and Miss Newton sitting there and she has Liv this but uh you know it's what we want parents involved teachers are involved I mean it's an all the students are involved it's all Hands-On deck approach so this you know right now we're doing this because the law says we have to we hope for a day where it's done because it's just the culture best for kids and if you go to Southside school over by bville those kids will show you their uh success plans is what they're called and you know they have a goal and here's I where I am on the way to

111my success plan and they can as their interest and and abilities grow and mature then they can adjust their success plan but uh it's another word for what we call aips thank you any final questions otherwise I'll entertain a motion I I'll move to approve the cut scores and the AIP um what I call that the AIP Rec coordinated recommendations recommendations second okay motion made by DR Bars seconded by Miss hook all in favor say I I any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Miss Allen um with that that concludes our action agenda we we still have our reporting agenda although I I will note for the board it is a short hopefully reporting agenda but um knowing that with the board is it the pleasure of the board to take a slight break right

112now I I see some nods or a Blake would a break would be appreciated or would folks want to just dve right into the reporting okay yes all right I see thank you I was trying to interpret if it was speaking in or yes okay so we we we will take a brief break uh till 3:15 we'll reconvene thank you she can leave oh that's right so that's right she that's right because out of here she has to leave I have yeah I have that was I have I've had might be the first in Arkansa but I've gotone in it before when I've like been in Washington DC or things like this is in Van buan like that it wasn't I guess they must have done Statewide well and that's probably why they probably did

113such a broad Statewide we hated that you did that what e for Rec us please thank you everyone thank you so now we're moving on to the reporting agenda uh beginning with my report as the chair report um and as I was checking with several with you all the Break um two of the things uh under um the jurisdiction of myself as chair is work sessions and committee assignments and so we did want to do a little bit of cleaning on the committee assignments and then um I did uh want to propose to you all as the board addition of a new committee uh just related to the nasby stien that we've received um just to kind of formalize the work there and and offer the opportunity for more of you to be involved in

114the process and then other than that more than anything I wanted to clean up um the committee list um so just as a confirmation the active committees that we currently have open before the State Board uh first and foremost our academic distress committee um I won't repeat again miss zuk was wonderful in um uh reminding us who all is on that committee and just to clarify Miss will be the chair for this year um of that committee and um we're grateful for everyone for their service um we still have open a science committee related to the science standards uh Dr bar has currently been serving on that committee and with our new board members I didn't know it's really more of a liaison uh rather than a full-fledged committee because it was an a different

115nasby Grant and I think it really is kind of in its closing months we hope and so for any of our new board members that might have questions about that Grant or would want to inquire with that process then um I strongly encourage you all to communicate um with Dr bar um and Dr B we look forward to hearing from you and update with that as as the months go on in this reporting section and defer to you when when that might be ready to close um the next committee that's currently open um is the dyslexia committee and as we were speaking with Miss today uh now that we formally have rules and regulations out there um I am firmly proposing to the board that we close that committee and obviously thank Miss zook and

116and applaud her for getting us to this and her role in help getting us to this point um as a board um obviously uh for any of you um could see not just her passion but the expertise she brings to the table um and we greatly benefited for your focus on that um are there any concerns with the board of us officially closing that it's not a formal this is more conversational not an action item but if there's no concerns then we will close that so miss Kaufman for your purposes um can you kindly consider that committee closed um another committee that's was open that I I I am going to propose closing was U with English language Learners um that I was directing myself uh that was during the point uh where there was

117the roll out of our new assessment uh for English as a second language and obviously that has begun and actually with quite a bit of success I don't really see any need for a formal Standalone committee with that and so again to miss Kaufman I just uh respectfully suggest um unless uh any board members wish to opine otherwise just suggest that we close that committee um the next committee that is open is our forward committee or again it's been a lion role but um as everyone uh hopefully is aware here and definitely encouraged for our newest board members to become familiar with uh the Ford um with a capital AR for Arkansas the the Ford initiative um obviously that was spearheaded um in large part by this board has um been a partnership with this

118board and um the uh Winthrop Rockefeller foundation and Walton Family Foundation um as well as um numerous numerous stakeholders across the state uh to really um work and get collaboration around a shared education Vision Dr bar um has been our our lison with there and um I'm going to continue to propose that that role um and encourage um Dr bar if you could especially with our newest board members as opportunities present themselves um for board members to engage in that initiative whether it's um uh meetings or um in in in programs that they may have across the state um if you could kindly connect those opportunities um we would appreciate it and I think we do have a work session on forward in the in the works right and you're anticipating where I'm going yes

119and we and then I just um I do want to propose though for the board um the addition of a new committee and this this will be the one and only committee that at this time I I am proposing that we create and as everyone knows we did receive um a grant from nasby the National Association of state boards of Education uh to work on deeper learning and mo more most importantly coherence amongst all three uh Departments of Education around the idea of deeper learning um and I think as we even saw today um with uh conversations between AD and Ace um that this is um uh an an an a Very ongoing and present effort and um my proposal in creation of a committee around this um one is is um to facilitate the

120work with nasby um but then more importantly um for us to support you commissioner um and know that you are supported by this board and collaboration communication um with with the various departments and so with that I actually asked Susan um during the break if she would be willing uh to serve with me on that committee I I would call it just to be aligned with um the nasby title the deeper learning committee um unless there's uh anyone is better at branding than me I'm sure sure there are folks but if folks have another idea otherwise this would be our deeper learning committee um and for the moment it would be open just for I think the tenure of this year in the grant or at least until time the grant is done and then

121we can make a decision at that time if there's still some need at it and Susan was very gracious and saying yes um and I did want to open it up if there were other board members that wanted to join us in this effort we've started the conversation Deb has joined me in the initial literally it was two conference calls just to get some research going but now we really are at a place where um we'd like to bring more more folks into this process and so for now for the record we'll show Susan um and uh and if any other board members decide that they have an interest please feel free to communicate with me wonderful thank you and then in terms of work sessions as a reminder to everybody um we are uh

122and this has been said numerous times now but um our next work session in August is around act 1240s and as I was um sharing with Susan right now during our break um and and something as well um that that I I referenced at the time of our action agenda um it is my hope with this conversation um that Beyond just 1240s we are looking more macro at 1240s conversion Charters schools of innovation to kind of take that reflection right of all three of these and even um open enrollment Charters and just have sort of a conversation of the system as a whole and are there things that we could lift up to the legislature are there things we can even do right in the application process um and even just identifying some real I

123think yesterday um it was said several times um we would do more if we had more staff and I think we do have to have a conversation around the charter school team and and and um us not trying to create more burden um on any individual or group of individuals um but to do justice to uh what has been sort of a changing landscape there and so um I do want to express that that is my hope um even though we've we've said we're going to address 1240s that we can have a broader conversation in August and I think it'll be excellent timing with our new board members to be able to to contribute to that conversation um in the month of September um we have designated to look at the Ford initiative and I'm

124going to add as well with that the nasby this deeper learning stien as well they are interconnected um and this is um you know how how we relate with the whole state but then also how we're relating with different education agencies um and so our hope is to have speakers for that um September meeting that are both from Ford and then we have a consultant working with us in nasby Francis Eberly um who were trying to facilitate his travel at that time um and then for the months of October and November um I've uh I've I've uh planted the seed already with Miss Co Kaufman my hope that we could talk about Essa in both of those work sessions as our schedule permits obviously this is something that falls largely on the states um interconnects

125with the whole conversations around coherence and deeper learning and um and and our systems and so um it just feels like the timing is Right knowing that um you all as a Department commissioner are working toward a December timeline of trying to put together a plan around Essa and so for ways for us to um understand your conversations but again also see how we can be helpful or help inform um those conversations as well um and so knowing that uh I would say you know tradition is um and I I'd like to maintain tradition here if my colleagues on the board have other issues that they would like um to see and and and uh evolve um some work sessions around I invite uh your feedback I know it probably wouldn't be until 2017 where

126we would line those up um I think we have a pretty full agenda right now that gets us through the fall um just to be realistic and knowing there may be other days like this where we can't fit in a work session because um our action agenda is so full so I think realistically um that would be a a a goal for this fall and then beyond that I I welcome uh that input from uh you all as my colleagues in regards to how we approach 2017 uh January through June qu questions or feedback yes Dr bar oh sorry or commissioner um I I just think that you know the conversation we had earlier today about teacher pipeline issues which obviously in title two I guess of of S as a piece but feels like

127that's just a a monster issue that we have to begin to think strategically about as a board and could we start that as part of these Essa conversations that might be the the point of entry but it may it may it own work session because I think there's some specific Arkansas things that are not federal in nature but we we just got to really think through um and other states obviously are doing work in this area have same similar crises um so we need to maybe do some lessons learned from other other states around the country thank you yes commissioner just on Essa we're looking at a nine to 11 somewhere in that neighborhood member uh Steering group and uh would like to have a member of of this board on that group just as

128a liaison and ongoing involvement other than a work session um and given Miss Newton's uh involvement we we thought we might draft her uh to if she was willing and the board was so inclined to do that but um that's uh a request that we have talked about internally to ask you all if someone could be appointed to uh be on that group thank you commissioner and thank you for that opening and um and if if we could be um made aware of when those meetings are so if some other board members might be able to observe um not limiting Miss Miss Newton's role in any way as liis on but um given the the importance of that conversation there will be public meetings public and um announced in advance and all so absolutely wonderful

129wonderful so well um so Deb I guess I I lied to you you that would be I guess another committee to well it's not so much a committee I guess it's a liazon role but if you could um add add that to the lison roles I guess maybe we want to call it committee lison assignments and if you could kindly add Miss Newton as the lison on Essa we would appreciate and thank you for that offer commissioner and thank you Miss Nan for stepping up to that um any other comments questions otherwise um I I would obviously want to defer to my colleagues this is also the space where you all if you have um things to present and share with the board um I welcome it I know we just had our nasby regional

130meeting I don't know if you wanted to offer an update on that Dr bar yeah uh so the nasby regional meeting which was late in uh June um we had six states represented uh mostly mid middle part of the country um and it was U not a huge group but it was a good uh opportunity for folks from different states to bond um I want to appreciate the commissioner coming and and doing um uh a presentation on on distinctive things happening in Arkansas and and uh I think in in particular um the media coverage focused on Essa because a lot of our uh work the next day was on esssa and I think that was good in terms of letting the the you know the the the Statewide readership know that this thing is real

131and and really important um so I think it ended up having that uh public education uh piece as well but it was very valuable to the folks who who were involved in that um and it was at of course at the Little Rock cal high Visitor Center which was was particularly um um powerful to the folks who came that they recognized the importance of where they were um related to that in uh the national um uh the annual meeting of nasby is coming up October 19th through the 22nd it's in Kansas City so it's a fairly easy trip uh for folks uh in this part of the country and so um I would really urge folks uh to uh consider putting that on on your calendar I think it's a great opportunity for us to

132have a an easy trip to an annual meeting rather than having to go to one of the coasts so um more obviously more details on that on uh the nasby website if you do have travel that you need to arrange uh Doug is is the the the go-to person for for talking about um how to get to Kansas City uh but of course driving is also an option especially in in the Northwest part of the state so uh those are really my my my reports thank you Dr bar uh do any of my other colleagues have reports yes Miss newon one comment um I don't know if the very last teacher that came in today Candace Wilson this morning uh she was the one that uh of our last profiles in leadership video where she

133had mentored a young teacher and I talked to her a little bit this morning and she said their school district had had so much success because of the how they watched her Mentor her uh her novice teacher where they had one period a day where they co-taught that and it made such a difference in that novice teacher's life they were going to implement that for all of their their novice teachers and I hope and I hope that that people are listening that that would become an example for other schools around the state to have one period a day where that novice teacher and that Mentor could co- te and because it really really made a difference in that teacher's life that's wonderful and I think that would help on you know we talk we're talking

134about the pipeline we're we're losing so many of those young teachers this might be a way to to um cut down a little bit on losing some of those those first year teachers oh thank you that's wonderful anything else from my colleagues otherwise um we'll move on to report um item two commissioner I have three items that I uh well one I've already mentioned the Essa Steering group so I really I have two left and the first Katrina craft is here uh yesterday we sent out a press release and the r&t team has been very working very hard and you as you you know data privacy is of huge concern uh in our nation in our world today uh we felt like we already had very strong data privacy SEC uh safeguards in place but

135our team continues to not rest and they keep looking uh to see how we can get better and so miss craft is here to give us a presentation on U their latest initiatives thank you all um so I cannot take responsibility for this work I do work in research and Technology I'm the grants and special projects coordinator but I want to highlight the the great things that have been done by our data privacy office so the the press release that you all oh sorry typically I'm loud enough so um the press release went out yesterday and a commissioner's memo uh to address the new data privacy website that was rolled out as a part of the ad website this is just one um part of the work that's been accomplished there have been some incident

136protocols that have been developed and also an internal training module so um kind of just the the main objectives behind this work has been to be proactive of course we want to get in front of of anything that may occur make sure that the agency is prepared in event of a data breach or an incident also to increase transparency so we want um not only our stakeholders externally but internally to know what data we do collect and why we collect it um and then we want to become a great resource for our districts you know we offer tons of professional development but data privacy is an area where we're wanting to improve that um so this website provides some resources that are available but also we will be offering um our internal training module to

137the school districts if they choose to use it so just a little bit about um the data privacy security protocols that have been developed internally it's an agency wad procedure it's kind of like a chain of custody so if a breach occurs this is who is responsible for each level of validation throughout that process um it is developed in accordance with the guidance that has been pushed out um by the US Department of Education their PTAC or their privacy technical assistance center uh we did vet it through other state agencies to see if there were any Lessons Learned or best practices uh each division has assigned a data breach manager so a point of contact and escalation within those divisions and then the annual training so this will be required for all of our employees

138um throughout the agency where that will be required um is currently available in our internet so the way that they um submit time and leave through that same portal this training module is now available that's the link but of course you'll have to access it uh via an ad account currently um the training will require them to of course go through the module and then there is a quiz so it is only about a 15minute training but it does require um a passing score if they score a certain level on the exam they can then print a certification which will be an annual certification with an expiration date on it so um then this my final slide for you guys um just highlights the different sections that are that are available on the data privacy

139website of course the homepage is just a Launchpad to connect with these other resources and then uh we have guidance about the state and federal laws that currently um govern data privacy and then resources for our stakeholders so not only our parents you know what data do we have for your students but then uh our districts as well questions thank you all right thank you all okay no questions on that the next item is the the latest video in our Innovation video series and this features Fountain Lake and Miss fredman is queuing that up right now these students at Fountain Lake Charter High School will face Futures filled with opportunities and challenges After High School graduation but the school's emphasis on project-based learning will give them the skills and experiences they will need to be

140successful on a college campus or in the [Music] workforce it's been exciting to see the transition at our school and see our students engaged and and see their excitement about coming to school and focusing on learning and the Project based uh initiative has has been key to that it's not just the Frameworks that they're getting in the in the basic skills but they're getting getting those soft skills and that's going to help them be successful post high school it's uh not so much the uh Sage on the stage with a teacher it's really more and it's very cliche but more the guide on the side where the teacher comes along as a facilitator B Lake Charter High School is a district conversion Charter School utilizing project-based learning the curriculum gives students an academic Foundation while

141challenging them to explore and solve real world problems through Partnerships with the National Park College in Hot Springs and Henderson State University in Arkadelphia Fountain Lake student students can gain college credits and Industry level certifications I see my students change so much when it comes to organization skills meeting deadlines I teach integrated production technology so my kids come in every day they go right to work and then I usually have to run them out of class at at 2:40 when when class is over there's not really you don't really you don't really see the difference but you can feel the difference because you're not just you know going class to class to class to class I mean you're still are physically but mentally you're like okay I get to do this in this class I

142get to you know make a presentation or I get to do something cool and different handson so I went from being having a dream of being a small town mechanic basically to somebody that can create and recreate buildings and engineer structures that are used every day this summer brings to me the opportunities to actually explore the career path and how I'm actually going to use it and implement it in my future now in the fall I plan on attending SAU Magnolia to actually pursue my degree in Bachelor's of engineering most important things I've learned from Project based learning is finding out what I want to learn because your teacher will give you something that you can learn but then once I get into a project I find things I want to know so I'll do

143more research or I'll learn more things that'll help me Brad in my Outlook on something my favorite project I've done through Project based learning is building that hydroponic system it was actually I'm actually still working on it now and I started it in February so it's been a long project but I really enjoyed it Hydroponics is using just water to grow plants so I've built like a whole hydroponic system out of resources we have at school and then I keep it in our local Greenhouse through Project based learning we've done lots of presentations like that's mainly what we've been working on is developing our presentation skills and so the beginning of n9th grade to now has changed a lot for what I can do I've gained social and communication skills through these presentations that I've

144given everything we do is to help our kids achieve we want our kids walking out of here with confidence we want them walking out of here with industry certifications with college credits that's what I've Loved about our our relationship with Fountain Lake High School is that because of their new Charter because of the flexibility that it's allowed we've actually been able to to double the students that are coming to the technical center and so that's that many more students that are now able to come into our programs and get credentials eventually everyone is expected to go to work and so what we want to do is work with the schools and have our College faculty involved with the schools so that students are prepared to make a living and make a life [Music] so great

145work by our team once again uh featuring another one of our fine schools um and just we're going to keep looking for those positive stories to tell about the great things that are happening uh public education in Arkansas thank you commissioner and that concludes your reports yes it does thank you thank you so much commissioner um so moving on to reporting item three learning Services report report uh Miss Smith and Miss Allen you're back almost done guys hey look Dr Hill I'm still thinking about you okay that's our own little joke right there um Hope's going to take this time but um I just could not pass this opportunity up to say that we have an amazing director of assessment um Dr goer today received a text message from a TT TCC that basically said

146hope Allen is the best don't let her leave and um she put together she under the the last 15 days has been under tremendous um pressure um to pull data to put it together um and I want to thank her personally because last month I said would y'all like an act report this month and you guys said that'd be great if you can and I said hope do your magic and so she did her magic the last 15 days and so she's here to give you a big picture of where we are with act and ACT Aspire can't even talk there you go thank you thank hello again so provided you with um our preliminary data just be aware that every piece of day that we show you today is PR preliminary and schools do

147have the appeals process that they will go through before everything is final so in year one just some numbers to um to highlight here we did test over 104 1.4 million tests were given in the state of Arkansas online last year um we did go 100% online as far as districts were 100% online the only students that tested on paper were those who needed accommodations and we did have 2 200 students across the state who required accommodated for not students excuse me 2500 paper tests given if you think that's uh about five tests per student um we had put me on the spot 500 or so students I can do that math hopefully um 500 students that tested on paper in our state so that's a total of 292,000 students that we tested last year

148and that that's a a huge accomplishment for our state to be fully online to have minimal technology issues um and that's attributed to our schools they they really did a lot of work to be prepared for that and um help get their students to that level what we're continuing to push now is that that technology now that it's in place that it's used for educational purposes that um we've reduced testing time to 4 hours per student so that means you have many more hours that you can use the technology for educational purposes in classrooms and we're putting that message out there we did see minimal technology issues across the state where we did see issues they were resolved quick quickly by the efforts of dis mostly is who I can attribute that to and Pearson

149brought a team into the state to help us my office helped some where we could um but those are our experts that that really helped to get into schools and and resolve those issues quickly we did have concerns from districts about the time I showed you last month the increases in times uh the one area where we really have concerns is writing and they did not increase the time in writing so we will continue to ask for that increase in time 30 minutes seems a bit rushed and and our scores do seem a bit low compared to what we think the rigor is going on in classrooms so we will continue to ask for that in the next year so you saw this previous giving you the high level overview of of the state um

150and I have kind of a preliminary breakdown of each subject that we'll get to in just a minute you can initially see writing is low across the state and and there are some reasons that that could be attributed to that and then um the good news here is that math was our second highest subject which is a fabulous news to see that we're making gains in math and I and I'm interested to watch those Trends over the year I've given you several charts I'm not going to go through every single chart but just um to highlight what you're seeing here You've Got Each subject and then each colored bar represents the four performance levels that we just spoke about so the bottom two are your lowest performing that would be your in need needs of

151support at the very bottom then close then ready and exceeding at the top so you can see as you go through those the different colors and how they change um you can see we have a lot of students in ready and exceeding for English and that changes drastically when you get into the other subjects so I'm going to go through those the one thing to point out about the ELA score we are going to use Ela score for aips like we just discussed but one thing that we're going to try to message to schools is to be very careful in that that um there may be some students that need remediation in writing or that need help in reading specifically that's masked in that masked in that Ela score because their English score was so

152high so we will be helping schools to um make sure they do take a look that the Baseline is to look at that Ela score but there may be students who have hit that Ela ready but they still need help in Reading Writing or even English depending on the particular student so I'm going to walk you through some preliminary findings first of all in grades 338 we did score above the national average um in all subjects except for four five and8 in writing and four and eight in English and that that's notable for our state I do want to take just a moment talk to you about the national average um the way that act established the national average is every they had a norming a group of students who took the assessment in 2015

153um students in that in that group were representative from across the states Arkansas did have students represented in that group so when they talk of national average or there's any reference to national average that that's the group that we're talking about is how that group performed that 2015 group they will reestablish that national average I believe it's every two it may be three years but I did provide for you attached to your agenda a a document that walks through that process and that norming group and how it was established and who was a part of that that group if you're interested in looking at that we did see in grades 9 through1 that we had we were scoring below the na the national average everywhere except for writing which is very interesting that that in

1543 through 8 we were below the national average in writing but then in 9 and 10 we jumped significantly higher so if we look at curriculum in 9th and 10th grade how is that differently I think that's a good indication that we are writing at a high level in the high school which is good that's preparing our students to leave high school and be able to write um but we will continue to watch that and see what happens there again we talked about the math scores previously and one good shout out to our girls in the state females did outscore males in every area in our data which is fabulous to see that there there a lot of stereotypical um assumptions made that girls are going to score lower in math and science and Arkansas

155students did not show that so we'll again be interested to watch that over the coming years so in writings a few things to not note about writing there are three different types of writing that are assessed and they're assessed at different grade levels so for example reflective narrative is in grades three and six whereas analytical expository is 7 n and 10 um those types of writings do require different types of responses some of them are at a de deeper level um so we'll be interested to see if those number one if those types of writing stay at the grade levels they're at or if act does some kind of spiraling we have asked them to do spiraling for us um the reason we've asked that is because what we don't want is for our third

156and sixth grade teachers to only teach reflective narrative that's not what their standard saying that's not best practice for the students they need to have every type of writing taught every year so that they will U make gains in in all types of writing we are going to get graded student responses this fall that's one thing that we have worked very hardly with ACT Aspire to agree to release to us and they finally have agreed to release that's huge for our teachers they'll see writing responses they'll see the Student Response and then how that was scored so then get a better idea of what is expected at a level three what is expected at a level four and that should help with listenting that higher level of writing in the classrooms for reading we saw

157that 61% % of our students score below the Readiness Benchmark the design of the SP does require students to read paired passages so what that means is you have to have two passages and pull information from both passages to be able to correctly answer those responses also in the reading uh section of the assessment they do have constructed response items so they have to take those two passages and they have to pull from both in the assessment as well it's a very um something that can be worked on in all classrooms not just the ELA classroom uh very well supported in a history class room or in any other classroom where the students can read and just pull out information from two passages so we're going to continue to to help schools to see that

158that is a very integral part of every classroom not just Ela and math and that by supporting reading in all other classrooms we can support our scores here as well and and other thing to point out on reading it's authentic text in the assessment as well so students have to be reading non-fiction texts in their classrooms um history based text um or whatever classroom that they're in for English we did see our highest scores in English the design of the assessment requires students basically to edit and revise in um in a particular passage maybe they're asked to put a sentence in the correct place so there there's some things there we saw um very high scorers in 3 through eight which indicates that we are working on those skills which are integral skills to being

159able to write um that students are able to edit and to put sentences together um and uh but we did see declines at the high school not sure why but we'll we'll look into that at the high school level science was our third lowest however we did see um for the first time science assessed at all grade levels this year for the state which was huge for our state and I think that's a very good uh direction that we're going in for science that we did test all grade levels and with testing all grade levels for the first time through grade eight we were above the national average which indicates that our students um have been being taught science in those grade levels one thing to note is that the Aspire assessment does do have

160extended text on it so it's critical that in our science classrooms we are reading our authentic text pulling the information out like Miss zook said being able to read charts and graphs being able to pull the information down all the information is there in the test um the students just have to be able to pull it down and analyze it and so that is is is a critical part of the new standards for Science and so I think it's very well supported there and then lastly in math I put math last because I did want to highlight again that that was our highest uh second highest performing um subject area which is is great for our state but again we we are going to watch the trends and see what happens there in math um

161in the math test students do have to respond to not only constructive respon uh selected response which is like your multiple choice but also the constructed response items and we want to maintain those um having our students justify and explain their work so that's our preliminary findings I would be open to take any questions from you about the Aspire assessments or the scores or anything that you have thank you so much Miss Allen um questions or comments for my colleagues Miss Newton I just have one on the writing uh do you think the sixth grade was because of the kind of of writing that they were asked to do is why it was so much higher than the grade surrounding it that could be a potentially why yes anything else for my colleagues Miss Allen

162thank you so much thank you I appreciate your efforts um so to end off our reporting um on priority schools for fourth quarter progress reports I don't know if Dr Wild's still here okay there he is Dr wild thought you gotone away from me okay the 45-day progress reports uh were in your packet um as part of the support and monitoring of priority schools we asked them to submit for review to the State Board uh on a quarterly basis the fourth quarter reports we referred to as a summary or year in summary report a reminder uh priority schools are those schools that on the state assessment uh over a three-year Trend have the lowest percent proficient or in terms of the the new test uh ready so ready and exceeding um for the most part

163as you take a look at those reports 201516 was the first year that we asked schools to report on similar data points so prior to that they had been reporting on uh a variety of things so it was difficult to compare across schools it um the schools I think one of the the things that reporting on common data points helped point out was that the the priority schools are struggling with teacher attendance that they are struggling with the number of referrals that are being written and it's overwhelming a number of the administrators there uh are so many it consumes basically U an inordinate amount of time from the assistant principles and I think that um a large it also identified that a large number of students are failing as they go through the school year

164and for the most part we we in the priority schools seem to have an unsophisticated response to the data we can see that kids are failing but then we have a very U surface level response to try to address it and as we go into next school year what uh the report becomes is our Baseline data so this was our first year of implementation so we will use this information or this year's information to differentiate our support to the schools and we will also then assist them in trying to come with more sophisticated responses to their own data and that also permits us to individualize for each of the schools so if there are no questions then we could be done I I don't think you're going to get off that lucky I see a

165lot of my colleagues grabbing per mic sorry Dr wild um and I saw Miss Chambers first so said that beautifully um can I and this is just a reference Stacy could you please tell hope how much we appreciated her update I think we were all just sitting here absorbing and then she ran out and that was such a good update so I just felt like we we missed her on some level your your term sophisticated I think is is interesting if you were to break that down in terms of a the degree of sophistication you'd like to see either in the Insight gained from the data and or the reaction or response to it could you elaborate on on that just a little bit to give you an example in the sense that we collect

166data on the students that failed or got a D in a particular quarter in a math subject area and so what did you do the next quarter and what they will say is well we have after school program okay but they're not tracking to see if the students are going to the after school program and they're not checking to see if math is the emphasis of the after school program so in truth what you would be doing is you would say here are the students that uh are failing or get received a d and here is the supplemental tutoring we're providing specific to those students thank you thank you so much Miss uh this morning as I was talking to the group that gathered the newly uh national board of certified teachers uh one of

167the things because I guess some of them must watch live stream they know that this teacher absenteeism is of great concern to me because often there's a direct correlation between that and the D's and Fs you see for each quarter and uh they were concerned because they said it reflects badly on them and their profession if they're in a district where this is an issue I've been sort of brainstorming about that I wonder have we thought about about one uh having um a teacher with good attendance and like Mentor a teacher who isn't attending uh frequently or regularly and two have we thought about encouraging the districts where this is an issue of uh over the summertime uh assigning those staff to different teachers maybe with different principles and if there's a a group of

168cvy a cauldron whatever of teachers that well it's okay because you know these other five are doing it too and so I don't know but I know um Mr guess has made a proposal uh which is encouraging and punitive over in plasy County which I'm sure he'll present to his new board when they uh come on board but does your committee and your now non-s Silo groups do y'all brainstorm about the different things that we can do as of uh agency and that we can encourage as a board along those lines uh things that maybe they're already being done and they didn't work I don't know I'm asking let's also keep in mind that teacher absenteeism in many cases could be directly related to the amount of support the teacher is feeling and so one

169of the differences in our reporting for next year is we're actually going to be asking the schools to survey the teachers related to the level of support that they feel and then reporting out on that each quarter and then trying to include that in the sense of what are we doing for those teachers that don't feel supported because if you don't feel support then for the most part you're you're not vested because you don't feel like people are vested in you and so we're also studying from the national level because it's not just an Arkansas and not just a priority School issue this is a national issue and to some degree um the responses are just beginning to come out in the sense of incentivizing as well as in the sense of are uh if

170we give 10 sick days are they annual leave days days are they really for days that you need to take off and so we've got to rethink some of the uh language that we've used with uh Missing days and it's just beginning so nationally this is just beginning to be a research topic I guess if we could get them to look at sick days like I look at my car insurance I'm going to have it but I'm hoping I don't have to use it and if we could get them to think in terms of that as a supposed to oh here's so many days I can miss the other piece that came out of this was also looking at the number of days that a teacher is out of the classroom but for professional development

171or for other school activities and I'm sort of wish there was a different way we could report when they miss versus when we pull them out right and that again is one of the modifications we're making to our reporting forms okay well thank you for that thank you any final questions or comments from the board then thank you Dr WS now before we adjourn today um we do have uh individuals signed up for public comment who have been here uh the entirety of the day uh since uh 8:00 a.m. this morning um and traditionally um we have given them this space um I appreciate profusely the commissioner and Miss fro from verifying our procedures on this um because we have done this differently in different years but according to our own um rules and regulations

172um anyone wishing the address the board who's not on the agenda can be and can be allowed to do so upon a majority vote of the board members present um the individuals would be limited to three minutes each but it would uh give them an opportunity to present so um I would appreciate a motion from uh the board to hear public comments Ive to here a second okay motion made by Miss Chambers second and by Miss zook all in favor say I I okay um any against all right then hearing that motion um the first individual signed up for public comment Mr Lucas seagull oh unfortunately he had to leave okay yeah thank you um so the second person we have signed up Violet Graham or Gresham unfortunately Violet Gresham had to leave as well

173but she gave me the transcript of what she wanted to say and so with your permission I'd like to read it of course thank you my name is Reverend Marie Maynard o Connell I'm a minister in the Presbyterian Church here in the presbyter of Arkansas and I know Violet as a fellow board member for the center of artistic Revolution uh which is an lgbtq civil rights organization uh dedicated to equal rights for all AR canans but particularly lesbian gay and transgender individuals and so this is what Violet wanted to say Greetings my name is violet I'm a former student of palaski County Central High and now a colle College local I've lived in Arkansas all 20 years of my life I call this beautiful state my home just like all of you however something sets

174me apart from y'all I'm transgender a transwoman to be specific meaning I was assigned male at Birth but I've always known I wasn't a boy and I have become a girl legally and medically I transitioned in high school it wasn't easy it was hell in fact I grew up loving school but by the time I was was in high school I was sick of it it became a place I dreaded students would call me names threaten me and harass me in the boy's restroom because I looked like a girl to make matters worse The Faculty wouldn't allow me in the girls restroom because I was transgender my only option was a bathroom located in the nurse's office that was out of my way so I stopped using the school's restroom all together this isn't the

175only Horror Story I've heard trans students all around AR have faced oppression and I find it ironic in kindergarten we're taught to grow up and be what we want to be but we trans people face persecution in school when we are our authentic self to add insult to injury we have bullying on an Institutional level by Governor ASA Hutchinson the governor has told Arkansas schools to ignore the federal government statement on allowing trans students to use the restroom they prefer but I advise against this we we cannot allow our leaders to persuade us in legalizing institutional oppression ASA says there is no recognizable problem in Arkansas on this issue but as a transwoman I can tell you he is wrong and not listening to the trans community so I ask the board to take action

176and Implement safety measures for Trans students and their basic human rights to use the bathroom the bathroom they choose I also ask the board to facilitate a conversation between trans youth the people who are actually affected by this decision and ASA so that he can understand who he is hurting as a clergy member on the car board the reason why I'm there because a lot of people find it very strange that a minister would be this committed to the transgender Community is because I feel that we have to protect our children especially the most vulnerable children among us I wanted to share with you the statistics that made me realize I had to do something LGB lesbian gay and bisexual youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers and it's

177worse if they're transgender nearly half of transgender people consider suicide and a quarter of transgender people report an uncompleted attempt at suicide and then for each episode of LGBT victimization such as physical harassment or verbal harassment or abuse for each instance it increases the likelihood of self harm by 2.5 times that's each episode and what we have here whether you believe it's for politics or not is our government suggesting that we ignore the plight of trans students in our schools when the statistics show us that they are among the most unheard and the ones most in danger and in fact I think it's a terrible irony that procedure and time has once again silenced their voices and the only way for Violet to be heard today was through mine I would ask you two to

178please think about encouraging the governor to put together a task force to hear the actual students because they have names and faces and we know who they are to speak to him about the impact of his disregarding the suggestions from the Department of Justice and the Department of Education thank you thank you thank you rever oconnell and um and then I've I've counted that testimony as both for yours um as well as for for Miss gram so they they stayed under their their six minutes total between the two um the next person I have signed up is uh Kendra Johnson good afternoon and thank you for um allowing me to testify here today I'm glad uh I know that you've had a long day and I appreciate um you making room in the agenda my

179name is Kendra Johnson and I represent the Human Rights Campaign here in Arkansas we're the A's largest civil rights organization for lesbians gaze bisexual and transgender people and we work for equality in institutions like schools and universities I want to talk a little bit about the same issue um that violent presented on and and Reverend Maria okono which is the coordinated legal attack on transgender students in Arkansas and around the country um since the Department of Justice issued Ed its guidance on May 13th 2016 21 States including Arkansas have joined in various federal law sense uh lawsuits challenging the Obama administration's directive if these lawsuits were to succeed they would directly and indirectly make the lives of transgender students more difficult in schools where they should be learning and growing to be citizens of Arkansas

180Title Nine prohibits sex discrimination as a matter of Law and it clearly protects students on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation as evidenced by recent case law Department of Education guidance and School District settlements which all support this meaning this guidance from the Obama Administration therefore is not executive overreach to advance a social agenda but rather a legal uh obligation that has always been um on those charged with educating The Leaders of Tomorrow moreover the action from attorney general Rutledge would appear to be in direct conflict with Arkansas's enumerated anti-bullying policy and would certainly contribute to more bullying um than the students these transgender students always already face for these reasons we I'm here today actually to ask that the State Board of Education take an official stand on this issue in favor

181of equality and dignity for all students no matter who they are we are also sending um the HRC is also sending a formal request to the governor uh Hutchinson for meeting so he can sit down with transgender students and understand the issues that they face every day when they're merely attempting to get an education and to thrive in life um we must ensure that every student including transgender students has the opportunity to receive a safe quality education and we must continue to lead and teach by example I thank you for your time today I have a much longer statement but given that I know you've had a very long day I'm just going to um deliver it for you to have personally and to read separately if that's okay thank you and you kept exactly

182to three minutes thank you thank you Miss Johnson uh and finally I have uh Jose Gutierrez signed up you had to leave as well all right right so um that's our public comment uh period um and uh that's not an action agenda item but at the same time if if any individuals on the board wanted to ask questions or speak amongst each other um then then we have the ability to do so I just wanted to thank you I I didn't know we had people waiting all day to make a public comment and I'm sorry that not everyone was able to be here but so appreciate apprciate you representing their voice and appreciate the material that you would have for us to consider and to think about in our responsibility and role on the board

183yes and i' I'd want to Echo that as well and and just uh to say to the commissioner I guess of if if there is any way that could be lifted up obviously it's not um a position of the entire board I guess this would be my own personally um if there is an opportunity for the governor to meet um and with these individuals um with with individual students um then uh that would be uh just something uh again at a personal level individual board member do not speak on behalf of the whole board but um would appreciate um if the governor could hear this this other others perspective to um obviously a very difficult um and yet important conversation I'll make the governor aware of the the comments and the request thank you appreciate

184commissioner and and with that then I would entertain a motion to adjourn so move okay so motion made by DR bar seconded by Dr Hill all in favor um thank you all so much I know this was a challenging two days thank you everybody and thank you to the entire ad staff who's devoted two full business days I hope uh today's travel home is easier thank you