001of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now a moment of silence. Amen. All right, Mr. Martin. All right. Up first, we have consent agenda. Are there any questions about this agenda? Okay. With that, I'd like to make the recommendation that the consent agenda financing held on July 15, 2024 special board meeting held on August 1, 2024 be approved as All right, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll motion. Motion by Mindy. Do a second. I'll second. Second by Ryan. All in favor? None opposed. All right. up next is probably the most um important part of our of our meeting. That's student achievement and success. We got Miss Robin here in this in this
002meeting. I believe Miss Stewart's back here too. Um the camera can't see her, but um to talk about our an overview of our advanced place from last year. All right. All right. M. Yeah. So, excited to celebrate some of our AP teachers. They they put in a lot of work over the last few years. Um we we have grown the number of students taking AP exams and I I think that's a a tribute to Miss Taber and our AP teachers. Um with the addition of we had an addition of AP human geography at the junior high campus and AP precal the high school. We had some of the highest pass rates that we've had since 2010. Uh with six out of our six out of 10 students passing with a three or higher. Overall, we
003grew the number of students taking a AP exam by four and a half%. Um, the teachers of those two courses are Mark Bullard from the junior high campus and Melinda Stewart from the high school campus. Um, our other AP teachers that we should also recognize uh are Noel Webb, Allison Johnson, Jonathan Hash, Tiffany Hash, uh the Miss Mike Garrett, uh Tony Carrera, Megan McWills, and Cody Swo. Um, we had multiple teachers attend APSI this summer uh to get reertification. Um, we had higher pass rates in AP Art Studio, AP European History, and AP US History. Um, I want to give another special thank you to Miss Stewart back there in the back for helping dedicate time to organize um, assisting with AP strategies, implementation, all the mock exams, all the things you see go on,
004but you don't see go on behind the scenes. Um, on top of that, she gives up some of her Saturdays to come up here and help our kids with ACT. Um, that I also would like to go ahead and and plug while I'm up here is um, our ACT scores uh, went up a full point, a composite point, which is pretty big. Um, so that's again a tribute to Miss Stewart, but on top of all of our junior teachers that are are teaching these kids in the classroom. So, um, so props to them. Um, another thank you to our teachers that took time out of their summer this summer to go and celebrate our students that received qualifying scores on AP exams uh by putting signs in their yard. Um, you can see an example
005up there. That's that's probably what some of you guys have seen around town uh in student yards. I thought it was a cool way to celebrate students. Um, and again, some of this was was came from Miss Stewart back there in the back. So again, big props to Miss Stewart. Um, I would also like to give one more shout out to Miss Paper um for putting some of this this uh information together for us and again all the work that she does behind the scenes that you guys want to see. So that's it. Great. Watch two Listen, all I ever have to say is Camry Dye was president of the math club and that is astounding. If you knew my daughter, you would know that is amazing. So, thank you, Mr. Yes. Thank you very
006much. [Music] Absolutely. [Music] I hope you guys very good. Um, up next we have we're going to talk a little bit about what we shared at our back to school uh meeting. Um, we had with everyone our convocation on Thursday. You know, we our theme for this year is elevate P Ridge last year. We were connecting. This is about raising up what we're doing. And I shared a little bit of this data with our staff. It's um it just shows the the work that we've put in um as a as a whole faculty and staff over the past two and three years to really elevate our kids. Um the data we're going to share is from the Northwest Arkansas Education Report Card. It's from the Office of Educational Progress, UFA and everything. It highlights how
007students in in area public schools are performing. It covers in Washington County. That's 15 schools. Um, you know, Lincoln is the is the smallest district in our in our county in our area and Springdale is the largest. Um, it covers nine data points. I think we're going to cover four at the on Thursday I just covered two. Um, and it's today we're going to focus on traditional overall rankings of traditional schools and gross score, achievement score, essence score. We're also going to talk about per people's temperature as well. Got that for you, Mr. um you know to see how we elevated you need to go back a little bit and in 2019 we were in 14th place in growth in our out of our two county area and 10th place in Northwest Arkansas which isn't
008where we want to be. Um, but we've done some things. We put in guaranteed viable curriculum, focus on the PLC process, um, high quality instructional materials and just hard work from our faculty and staff and administrators. And so in 2020, you know, no scores. 2021, we moved up a little bit. We went from 13th place in growth and ninth in achievement. So, made a little bit of progress. Then we went to the 2122 school year. We moved up to middle of the pack which the top now there's 15 we're in the top 50% that's better than being in the lower 50%. And then for the 22 23 school year we move to third place in growth and fourth place in achievement. Those remarkable gains from our for our kids. And when you look at it
009in graph form it shows how much we are growing our kids. Um and to where the red we're the red bar. Um the state's blue and northwest Arkansas is the black bar, the black line. And on growth 80 is considered a year's worth of growth. The number 80 is I mean you're not going to have schools that have 90 and somebody that has 70. Moving a little bit is really hard to do. So for us to go from basically a 78.5 to an 82 or 82.3 in a matter of four testing cycles is remarkable growth in that in achievement that our kids are doing. And when you look at our current scores you're seeing the same thing that we are continuing to accelerate and improve our scores. Now that little red line does not look
010higher than the black one but it is. It's a it's a 0.1. I couldn't get it to look any better than that. Could you zoom in for me? But um we are um it's a testament to the work that we're doing. And when you look at our ES score, that's the every student succeed tech, you can still see that we are continuing to improve the quality of education out basis with our kids. And when you look at one of the other data points, our per pupil expenditure is not trending that way. And we have several reasons for that. one is our pre- reduced lunch population is a little bit lower than the rest. That funding is not there and also what um assessed value per child and what one meal generates here locally. So we
011are doing an outstanding job of maximizing our resources utilizing everything that we can and to provide the very best quality education we can for our kids. And you know how did we do this? That slide was from Thursday. I took some of them out. There's no Travis, Kelsey, and Taylor Swift on there, but um you know, how do we do it? It it's together. It's the work of our professional learning teams that they're doing. It's you know, the work of our guaranteed Bible curriculums, you know, wood wisdom and illustrative math amplify. You know, we put in our math and literacy um curriculums when everybody thought we were crazy to do so during the pandemic. To be honest with you, it's probably one of the better decisions we've made. it was the perfect time to introduce
012that um comment for the assessments that we're doing um just the database decision making and the and the hard work and it all comes down to in the world of education Dr. had. He is a tremendous force and he talks about effect size. Effect size, the higher the effect size, the more likelihood it's going to have positive impact on your students. Collective efficacy, that belief that a group of people working toward a common cause can do great things has the highest effects. I think it's right around 1.5 to 1.6 and I think point4 means it's effective to use in the classroom and everything. And so it's just it's just the work that we've been doing together. I know sometimes you don't see it on a day in day out basis, but when you look at
013it over it over years, you truly see the impact that we're doing. And you know, the great thing is we're not finished. Our journey is continuing with that. You're going to hear the words um proficiency scales, data dashboards, instructional model this year. And we're we're not afraid of that process anymore. we're ready to go in there and make sure that our students are having everything that they need and the tools and our teachers have that as well that they have what they need. So, can't tell you how proud I am of our staff, our faculty staff over the past few years. This doesn't happen by accident. One year of Luke, four years of continuous growth is not. And that's there's only one answer to that. It's the dedicated work of everyone, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
014It's pretty great. So, and any questions? No. Again, Miss, thank you for to all the teachers and you're here, so I'm calling you out, but thank you very much for all of your efforts and continuing to to improve the students academically. This is fabulous news. Yes, Mr. Stew back there. Like, you know, we've also some of the work that our staff does. You know, we have back to school badge. Mr. students have been there I'd say since year one. So yeah, they and you know this was the first year Joe and I did not hand backpacks out together. I was some it kind of bothered me a little bit but um no thank was a steward did a phenomenal job of serving our community and serving our students. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Are those numbers
015in our packet or are they available to us? Yes, sir. Okay, good sir. Cuz when I brag on Pidge, I don't want I don't want to get it wrong. I sent you a link with all the Oh, good. Okay. More than you want. No, that's good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. That's pretty impressive. You bet. Oh, there you go. Okay. Up next, we had um at the beginning of this well kind of around the 4th of July um we had some information come out from the governor's office on phone free school prompt taking home phones inside classrooms and Mfeld is going to share the process we're going to go through to determine the best for so um like Mr. Martin said, and we'll share this with you digitally and we'll post this out on our
016website, too, just so everybody can see the needs. Um, the governor sent me some superintendent talking about the um connection between cell phone use, mental health, and the impact it's having on students and offering an opportunity for school districts to participate into a pilot program with um cell phone security is the best way to um talk about that. and some options for school districts to opt in across the state. So, and they were to be applied for throughout our cooperatives. So, with our educational cooperative is the one that um spearheading that dissemination amongst other school districts. Um and so with that memo is um talks about um that they reemphasize the focus that this is one of the top five educational initiatives in the state. We've been to three big state conferences um this year.
017um the summit the administrators and um I was had the fortune to go to the career technical educator conference and that is mentioned every time it's about mental health cell phone security and hitting device um mental health services shortage is also portion of the memo and a part of the grant social media and smartphone usage um there's a link to a video there that shows a sample of um that the state gave at a superintendent Zoom meeting. It talks about one method which is a pouch system for cell phone security. And then the in the memo the governor references that she sent this book, The Anxious Generation, which is a research on the digital use and the effect it's having on students and school age children and younger um to every single legislator in the
018state. So just a copy of that book. So I linked that in there too. We shared this with our administrators and um gave them the information. But this highlighted here in blue, this is the part of the grant that our um co-op applied for. And it says each school district accepting a subgrant of the phone free pilot program is agreeing to the larger grant description and code goes. And it talks about how we're going to the fund is intended to support the purchase of pouches or other locking meth mechanisms to store student cell phones securely during school hours. By accepting this grant, we agree to ensure that you know our students if we if we opt in and how we opt in, how they're going to um access this type of security. Uh the initiative
019seeks to foster a phoneree environment enabling an evaluation of its impact on student learning engagement and overall student. So this was a plan and an option out to the state. We did opt in with the co-op because there aren't a lot of everybody can implement it differently and you're seeing co-ops in schools across the state and so that we were afraid to not opt in because then the money might not be there when we predict that there is a high possibility with push to the legislators that this might come out later in legislation. And so we were afraid to not go ahead and jump in with the pilot for the funding because we if this becomes a mandate, we definitely don't want an unfunded mandate, right? So we had this option, but then we were
020like this, you know, everybody needs to tackle this what's best for their school districts. We have school districts around our co-op that have started day one. They doing different systems. Some schools in Bittenville are doing it by certain grade bands. You just all across the co-op, everybody's tackling a little different. So we we kind of got together as a um as a district level team and thought what's going to be our plan for PBridge. We we know what works best as you can see by our growth that sometimes it takes steps takes feedback and all those things before we jump into just okay just because a pilot's out there how you're going to jump into it is very we want to be very careful. So what we're going to do is define our goal. What
021is the goal that we want to accomplish in Peter Ridge by opting into the cell phone um plan? Use and access of smartphones and schools. What what does that really mean for us in Peter Ridge? Establish timelines for the goal achievement. We want to take time and gather information and we want to collect relevant data, reports, guidance, and options. We want to see how some of our colleagues do across our region. What are they having luck with? What's working? What's not working? We want to have um put together some focus groups that are parents, student, teachers, administrators, school board and get people voices and participation heard. Um committee meetings, feedback and research. Um then we want to facilitate discussions, hold meetings to discuss our findings and viewpoints, especially among administrators who are going to be
022the ones leading that charge in that implementation. Determine barriers, successes, create options for implementation. Then we want to this next step would be once we've decided how we want to then how are we going to measure for success you know what does that look like what tools are we going to use what is our implementation plan how are we updating our processes and procedures to fit in with policy and handbook and all of those things then assign responsibilities you know what does this look like who's in charge of what piece of implementation it's not just purchase a product and get you know running with it right away it's going to require some technology. It's going to require some storage. It's going to require, you know, what does it look like on the teacher side? What
023does it look like on student side? You know, just figuring all that out on the parent side. Um then we want to communicate the decision. We've been um excited and using well I think our new coordinator has seen some great things out there on social media and some concentrated efforts. We need to get out of communication plan to our community and our families so they know what to expect um and have that really clear. then get our implementation action p action plan and then review and reflect and so some current considerations we also have to look at we have some cell phone things already in our policy we highlighted those um know and understand where that fits articulate our campus rules processes and the procedures you know through different lenses and be prepared for response
024to current practices versus the appearance of change so whatever you see at the launch launch of the school year at different campuses. That's implementing our current policy. It's not necessary in reaction to this governor's memo. So, what you're what's enclosed in your packet and what we're sharing out is our phone pre like what how we're going to tackle that challenge and what we're going to what it's going to look like. So you'll see I would say right at the 1 of September, we're going to start asking for participation into some of those focus groups and getting feedback, probably doing some student feedback and things like that. We're going to concentrate our efforts grades five and up and just look at what it looks like differently. Start with I don't see us um rushing to um
025do things different. We have a policy that allows for teachers and campuses administration to implement our policy reads very summarized is that basically cell phones to be put away during classroom instruction and whatever that looks like it's different and left up to the autonomy of the buildings at this point. So this would definitely also be a change you know in that. So we're just going to take our time and not rush into something that we're not prepared to launch without getting feedback from our greater stakeholders. You say pilot, are you talking about certain classrooms, certain teachers? Well, there's a lot of um options for us. There's a pilot program right now that's funded. That's what we opted into the state's pilot to get that funding for mechanisms such as couches or lockers or whatever the
026group decides maybe is the best way to tackle that. And the word pilot on there, it started out with 17 school districts in the state. Yeah. And it quickly overnight it turned into all 243 of us. Got it. That's what But we want to make sure you very quickly before we launch anything. Any other questions at this time? No, I appreciate the fact that we're slowing down and pausing and saying versus kind of knee-jerking and trying to implement something in August and September and trying to gather some feedback. if I'm a parent, how do I how do I get in a focus group? Is there going to be communication? Like, so my best message to that, sorry if I don't have to do um was to watch our social media and our website for the
027launch. Like we'll be asking for participants in focus groups. We'll probably do some Zoom sessions and face toface sessions for some feedback opportunities, surveys. We'll do a variety of research taking methods. So, be watching our social media and our website is always the best place. We all have new Facebook pages except the district. So, make sure you not following your old Facebook groups on the campuses. Make sure you're launching the new public facing. There's QR codes at every campus. Make sure you're following the new Facebook PSA. PSA. Free plug. It occurs to me, but I don't think anybody would challenge the why behind this. Sure. Right. we, you know, we actually have our our students, you know, best interest in mind and and there's there's science and data to show the linkage and and I
028think that's that's pretty troubling. So, the fact that we're involved at all in this movement, I think is really encouraging. Um, yeah, I'm all for all for collecting data and and being careful. Um, to the extent that it deviates from our current policy, I think it's really important to go slow. To the extent that it is aligned to our current policy, I wouldn't say be reckless and go fast. But I think there are two types of slow. We could probably go the faster kind of slow if we are just acting in accordance with our policy. And if we have data, whether it's hard data or anecdotal data that if our current policy is put your phone in your backpack while you're in class and it just isn't happening, I think that alongside of the the
029point about mental health is a really relevant data point as we launch. I think um what's interesting is I spent a lot of time in the last couple years looking explicitly at the junior high school discipline data for another project and um what I found is there is a lot I don't mean to point out the junior high but they are very they have a very tight um classroom referral system and so there are a lot of data points and if you were to look at discipline historically it's going to go probably anecdotal I know the high school would say the middle school especially a lot of it can stem from social media and things that happen on the sofa honestly more times on often away from school that Yeah. than actually on the school
030campus like things that carry over. Sure. Sure. And so I think that that's some data that we have and I think you will see teachers um we did a several interviews this summer Mr. Martin and I did and a lot of teachers asked if they could implement a cell phone. So you may see things like I'm going to call it the old over the-do shoe holder that we used to put our shoes in. Teachers implementing things like that in their classroom. So it could mirror what you're thinking is that but it's really the way to your point they're handling the policy. Yeah. So and I think that the high school did a great job last year and year before tightening up that but I think we can also look at our data and like how
031can we improve accountability across all our Thank you. Thank you J. No you're good. I appreciate the uh social media uh plug people are running out of get involved. Yes. We're good. We're good. All right. Next, we have our action items. We have board of board transfers. August within this month, this um I believe we have 11 or 12 requesting transfer in. We have five requesting transfer out. I anticipate this slowing down once school gets started. Once the kids get settled, it will. We're continuing to grow. Um to be honest with you, I don't know where our exact count is right now. Um we've had a lot of partial enrollments and we'll get that washed out over the couple of weeks, but um these great fans adding a kid or two per grade level is
032not going to affect any decision on whether we hire another teacher or not. Got it. Cuz if you're that close, you probably don't need to hire anybody. Sure. So with that, I'd like to make the recommendation that we have approved the board to board transfers as presented. All right. We have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? A motion. Motion by Eric. I'll second. Second by Jessica. All in favor? None opposed. All right. Up next, we have outstate travel. Our cross country team is requesting permission to travel and this happened out of state just 2 miles that way and they're wanting to go to Cica on September 12th and Hollister on October 8th to compete. Um it's we we do this you'll be doing it this year. Yeah. So with that I'd like to make
033the recommendation that we approve the abstract housing travel on September 12th and October 8th 2024 as presented. All right we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I have a motion. Motion by Mindy. Second. A second. Second by Ryan. All in favor? None opposed. Next we have substitute pay rates. Um, Mr. Reell was kind enough to bring this to me. Um, right now we are currently paying, I believe, $100 a day for our certified um, sub rate and 90 for our classified. We would like to make the recommendation to increase our certified daily rate to 120, our long-term to classified daily rate of 90, and when it goes to longterm to 110. Okay. That will put us comparable to districts our size in in Northwest Arkansas. Gotcha. Okay. Any other questions? No. All right.
034With that, I'd like to make a recommendation that we approve the substitute pay rates as presented. All right. We have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mindy. All in favor? None opposed. Next, we have our athletic pay rates. These are people who are working gates and four blocks and calls that make also increase theirs to make it more what's going on. Um we did bus drivers last year I believe to help make it more. Nope. With that I'd like to make recommendation that we approve athletic pay rates as presented. All right we have recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Motion by Ryan. I'll second. Second by Jessica. All in favor? None opposed. Okay. Up next, we have our memorandum
035of that. If you've ever seen that before, it's a lot of our take our special needs to um I call for farm, but it's not. It's terrible therapy and everything. And they do an amazing job with our kids. They're here locally. They are a tremendous partner with our district. Um, and this is something that we do annually. It's a great opportunity for our kids and it's very beneficial for them. Are there any questions? And with that, I'd like to make a recommendation that we approve the unravel 2425 school year. All right. We have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll motion. Motion by Mindy. Second. Second. Second by Eric. All in favor? None opposed? Next we have our with the health. Um this is to provide school based health services for kids. Something that
036we we have worked very hard to improve the the amount the quality of school health services that we provide is continuing that that partnership with Orisa. And any questions say we we previously did business with this is a this is just reiterating is OGC. OGC. That's what I thought. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. With that, I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve the NYU with Orisa Health for school-based mental health services for the upcoming school year. All right. We have recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Motion by Ryan. Second. I'll second. All in favor? None opposed. Mr. Um, what I have left is we're good to do it. Okay. Um, I'd like to make a recommendation that we hire offer employment to Nathan Henis, Maria Gimenez, Sylvie
037Bowererman, Gary Tarter, Fanny, and Ellen Dudy. All right, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll motion. Motion by Mindy. Second. Second. Second by Eric. All in favor? None opposed. Do I have a a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Thank you. [Music]