001[Music] Act ofice. Just say your name Yes. Oh, I said that. Um, okay. So, we are electing officers and as I am um not newly elected, so I'm going to start this with a nomination for board chair. Any discussion? All those in favor? I Shel, you oppose. No, I said I slowly delay. Uh, I'm not sure what you just said. All I heard was tons of static, but my vote was I. Okay, motion carries. Okay, nominations for vice chair, please. Nominate Shelley Lacy. Any discussion? All those in favor? I oppose or abstain. Motion carries. Congratulations. Shal. Thank you. Nominations for secretary. Nominate second. Thank you. All those in favor? I Okay, so the electors are staying status quo. Thank you everyone. Okay, so we do not need to do any authorized signatures since that is
002not changing. And um next on our agenda is committee membership. So um my question is I'm pretty sure that this last time I'm going to name all of the committees and chairs and ask for one acceptance. Um so for curriculum we have Deb Sherman for chairs and for policy we have chair and Shelley Law of policy finance Mike as chair De Sherman and Stephanie Miller and for facilities Joe Matovich as chair Mike in big time for us. Second, any discussion on this? Sure. Um, any discussion, Shelly? No. All those in favor? Hi. Okay. So, Silia, who are you? Yeah. I don't know your mask, but there's something back here. So, Oh yeah. If I'm sitting here or the microphone, can you hear me? Okay, great. So the So you all have the report, so I'm
003not going to read it to you. This I want to talk about a couple things from the report. And one of the first things I want to talk about in terms of student learning is our hero schoolwide expectations. So students, it's no, it's really no surprise that students came back to school in the fall a bit disregulated as they haven't been in social situations for a little while. And so our behavior referrals, you know, the first day that I started, uh, they they were there. And so we've been dealing with some some behaviors. And one thing that we noticed was we needed to revive our schoolwide expectations which is the ex which is the acronym hero stands for helpful, enthusiastic, responsible and open-minded. Um we did some work around those in W classes and in
004all of their classes. So we talked about expectations in the hallway, in the bathroom, in the cafeteria, um in the classroom and the hero way when it comes to technology. And honestly, students in middle school benefit from concrete and explicit expectations. When they know what you expect of them, they, you know, they work towards that. And it's been going well. And one thing that we've also established is we now have a weekly um hometown hero. So, every week one team is responsible for uh submitting a nomination for the hometown hero and they submit a write up and then that write up is is read over the announcements on Friday. The student is announced, they come down, they get a certificate, we have some prizes in a box that they can choose from and then we
005have um this hero display that was created in our main hallway. Karen Gian Moore, our art teacher, created this mural for us. And she had some help from students in art. And um what it is, it depicts this city that's supposed to be our our community of learners. And then there's all these little superheroes and then we put the students face in the superhero costume. They get to pick their superhero costume and then it goes up on this mural. So each week we will build our hero mural. And the the idea behind that is that we're trying to to really have students understand that we have a set of expectations that in order for everyone to access their learning in class that we have to have these expectations adhere to so that teaching and learning
006can take place. So that's one one area. Another area is that um we've been doing a lot of work with Patrick Flynn in revision about how we evaluate teachers. So, we had our first non-instructional walkthrough and then they came back and they did a targeted non-instructional walkthrough at Oxford Middle School and they taught us a lot about when we go into a classroom what we should be looking for, how we should diagram the room, how we should quote, how we should script, how we should do all of this. And so, it was a lot of great learning for both Ellen and myself. And since we had the second um non-instructional walkthrough, both Ellen and myself, the assistant principal, have been going into classrooms as we've been doing this technique. It's called the win strategy. So
007you go in, you observe and then when you walk away, you take some time to reflect and you use, you know, like a sticky note. I tend to use a bigger sticky note and it's the win is wow. like something that you saw that was a wow. Then it's I wonder like you know I wonder if you were to do or you ask questions and then the last part is next you know next I'm hoping I can see or next time I come in and so we've been giving feedback to staff in this way to get them ready as we keep coming in for more um evaluations what it'll look like. So Patrick Flynn had us really hone in on you want evaluations to be timely, you want them to be specific, and you want
008them to be more of coaching and frequent so that when you walk in, it's not a surprise. Like a teacher will know what you're going to be doing as you walk in. And all of this helps student learning because if we're really talking to teachers about what teaching and learning and and effective practices look like that will elevate student learning in the classroom. So that's one other area. And the last is obviously we did our I Ready diagnostic in the beginning of October tested all 402 of our students in the school. if there was a little red flag or a yellow flag that meant our students maybe didn't take their time and we retested them which gave a much more accurate diagnostic. From there we did a few things. We had teachers look at their
009classrooms of learners to see where the groups of students fell. We had our SRBI teachers we're we're down an SRBI teacher right now um in math. So, we're working to fill that position, but we are right now working with the substitute for that. But we had those teachers categorize the findings for my ready and place students in intervention for both reading and for math. Um, we had teachers dive into the data to look at are is what I already saying what they're seeing in their classroom and they were, you know, they did sort of a cross analysis. If they had a question and they said no, classroom performance is not matching. We talked to the student and in most cases the student retook Ire to and and they did they went up. So now, you
010know, the word on the street about I Ready is as much as we tried to prep kids to say this matters, this is important, this will reflect, you know, if if we think it'll be a piece of the puzzle, if we might need um intervention. Now, word on the street is, oh, we better actually really try on this because it'll it'll reflect what happens in our schedule. So, that um is what we're doing. And one other thing we're doing with I Ready that I'm really happy to report is we have the whatever it takes period. And as a starting point, every student that's in whatever it takes two days a week are working on their personalized pathway for reading and two days a week are working on their personalized pathway for math in it. So
011give students time to work on their individual pathway in Ire. Can I say that? So when you say you the personalized pathway that's within Ire so that I ready sets them up to this is okay. Yeah. So every student has their score in I ready and then it takes what their set of um areas of need are and it starts to develop a pathway of those skill sets that they can work on um at their own pace. So they do everything in I Ready. So if it's reading they'll read it right on the computer. Yep. and then and the teacher can track the progress of the students in their class. So I don't know if you have any other questions about the report. I have two. Sure. Um on your strategic priority number one the
012comment that is below is quantitative data from MS and OS. Why is it together? Why is it? So revision learning who we were working with Patrick Flynn that's how they gave us the data. on the mistake on the form, right? It was all the data got put into the same spreadsheet. So, I'm working with revision learning to split out the data set so that we can create middle school ready, right? So, we indicated we'd love to see like our school, you know, precisely how we did. Um, but right now it's it's um plumped in with OS. And my second question is on your um the remaining priorities. Any surprises? Were you were you surprised? I mean there's so many kids that are two grade low and three. Were you surprised that so many were in
013that category? So to be honest with you, I'm not entirely surprised. I think with the post pandemic and the acceleration of learning, I think kids are I think they're accelerating though well and I'm and I'm really anticipating that our second diagnostic in I Ready is going to go well based on what teachers are saying like kids are back into school mode. Um we're you know the routines are down. the the one year below was totally expected given where students were and coming back. And then the two and the three years, did I hope that they were lower? Yes. But um we're we're really honing in on those to get kids the the um acceleration help that they need. And when next diagnostic, January. So, we want to do it before quarter two ends so that
014we can make plans for quarter three for SRVI services. We don't want to wait until quarter three and have to move kids schedules all around. We want to do it in quarter two. And Hallelujah. We have a new school counselor coming. So, that's going to be great. Silia, Shelly. Oh, sorry. Someone else is talking. Go ahead. Go ahead, Shel. Go ahead. Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah, I think I interrupted somebody, but I just wanted to make sure I understood this. So, when you say one below, that's one grade level below. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Um All right. Thank you. I just didn't know if it was reported any other way um in I Ready, you know, with other scores, but thank you for that. I appreciate it. Is that the only question you have, Chef?
015I'm sorry Steph I couldn't understand what you said. Is that the only question you have? Yes. So quick question. So when you rerun this in January, would you be able to give us like okay at that point in time now we can look the period over period? Yes. Side by side. Yes. So meaning you want to see diagnostic one and then diagnostic two side by side. Yeah. So we can see if there's growth happening obviously we're picking up pace and getting to from one below to early on. Yes. Right. It was falling out. It was falling in. The other question I have is what is you know because all the scores are challenging across a lot of the grades. Right. So in the English area um what is the phonic awareness? I know they are
016phonics but everyone's like across the board. Is it just not appropriate? they how do they all be or above? Because you would hope by this point that most students chronologically the way that um I already test it that they do test out pretty easily. Right? So we do have if you notice 5% that's one or two students in um sixth grade reading there. But the way that the way that they test it is different than obviously the way because we know we have students that still need decoding help and they're getting very specific services. So the way that I ready attacks those questions does it it's in such a way that their grade level should be able to to get it pretty quickly. Do you know what I'm saying? It's not it's not the way
017that say their funological um decoding would be with Wilson or with OG and the work that we're doing with students. That's specialized instruction. The grade level material that it's on is pretty accessible for our middle school students to test out fairly easily. So this excludes anybody with four? No, they take it. they take it. But what I'm saying is the way the questions are worded, it is accessible to our to pretty much our whole population to test out. So I just keep getting stuck on how we have 504 biggest challenges awareness. How do we have 100%. Yeah. So I can it dumbs it down. I can give you I can't do it right now, but I can give you sample questions so you could see how they're able to still test out, but still get
018the specialized learning that we have because it's you'll see it's it's two different pathways. It's not what you're probably thinking when it comes to funological awareness. Yeah. But what was telling and what what the ELA teachers really noticed across the board was vocabulary and how our students really need to pick up their tier 2 and tier three vocabulary use and that comes um a lot of times with the grade level content that they're reading. In order to get domain specific words that are in tier two and tier three, which are higher frequency words that are multi- salamic, those kinds, you need to be reading, you know, a more challenging breath of of literature andformational text. So, we get those um questions for the Yeah, I'll I'll make a note here and I'll go through and
019I'll tell you what the phonics and the same question. Yeah, it doesn't seem I mean we have kids that are we have 100% 95% 100% kids with high frequency as well. information either in one of the Friday or I just it just isn't very sure thank you I have the next question um so the question I have is for for the kids who are are a grade behind or two grades behind or more have parents been notified that their students are so they've been notified through SRVI services. If their student qualifies for SRBI services, we call the parent and we um tell them and we get their permission to change the student schedule, take them out of say a WIC special or a WIT um and put them in SRVI. Yes. To back up. Um
020like I mean this one assessment would not automatically put a kid in SRF. No. No. I mean it would have to be a compilation of like struggling. This is just one piece of of the puzzle. And then you'd also I have to you know this was given you said first marking period beginning of October, right? So the kids are just in school for four weeks. So again, you know, you have to give the teacher, you know, bottom line, the teacher time to work with the job, too. So, so just so that it's not, you know, new school or, you know, boom, like the the button that opens the door. And one thing to keep in mind is at the high school and middle school level, this was our largest set of students that were remote
021last year that goes through the school was shut down for large time and we had the largest self selected group of students staying home during virtual learning and their access to the access to read on an everyday basis was significantly much lower than they were in school. So having just been in school for one month, I think we're seeing some evidence of that in data here that they're far below where we expect them to be at this time. Um so I have a couple questions. Um one is um how has attendance been? I I just hear from from other districts that and it might be more I'm gonna ask the high school level the same thing, but I just hear that other districts are really struggling in in their attendance. I mean I know we
022follow the state um guidelines for attendance, but do you is that an issue at all? You know, we all stuff getting not really. We have a small group and we're you know we have an attendance team that's looking on th at those students. But we implemented attendance tracker which is really great. So at five absences because you know we're following the state guidelines at five absences it autogenerates a letter home to parents. And so parents have gotten that letter and then if a parent has a question they're emailing and they're calling and they're saying you know I didn't know like what does this mean? And so we send we send the followup and so no um we have bells, you know, we institute bells again and they don't like the sound of our bell. Well,
023they're going Wait, what do you mean you institute like Yeah, with the new school the bell system hadn't been set up yet and so it got set up finally. So now they hear it in the morning, right? So that first bell when it rings, it's it's actually programmed our students that arrive by car, you know, when the parents hear it in the car, they know, oops, that's the first bell and my kid is just rolling up. So we've curved that. Um, and that's just taken a little bit of time and adjustment, but no, I wouldn't say we're having a ton of absent. We're having pockets of it with selected students and we're working with our attendance team on it. So attendance track is that through power school? Yes. Yeah. Um and then just a kind
024of a general so market period one or quarter one ended in November November 5th and quarter two started November 8th. So how did you did you have any concerns just in general with with kids that were um you know failing or really struggling or Yeah. So parent teacher conferences took place the week after. So a lot of those conversations took place with parents with students work habits and maybe their executive functioning and motivation and so we're working through that avenue and with grades report cards just you know came out. So we're looking at that data um about students from quarter one too and then quarter two is that about February? Yes. Okay. So, it'd be very interesting to see, you know, I mean, I'm hoping to see that, you know, because usually kids bounce back,
025you know, from the from their deficits and they, you know, if it's truly not for other reasons than the fact that they just work in front of a teacher and, you know, I would I would think that we see a nice group that have kind of caught up. It's going to always be kids that struggling. and and there's ones that are going to struggle even more because of being out of school. But I think that that I'm hoping to see next that's what we're hoping and you know every case is different and every case we're understanding and trying to get to the root cause of of what's happening and it's every situation is unique and the root cause ends up being very unique. Um, and our students present in in different ways with different root
026causes. And so once we can identify the root cause, then we can help to plan what that looks like. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. Okay. Thank you so much. Yes. My daughter's home from college. I'm so excited. have a lot of lunch to do. Good evening everyone. [Music] So for the high school um I think three big things that are impacting our instruction obviously the the work that Sylvia mentioned with Patrick Glenn has has um really helped set us on a path at the high school in terms of uh outlining learning expectations for students in classrooms and also helping them to define what the success criteria is in a in a given lesson. So what is it that you're going to learn? Um and how do you know if you're successful? So uh as
027a school community based on the data that you're looking at, you can see that again it's combined data. That's the way it was presented to us from both the middle school and the high school data is is melded. I'd like to see that broken out too and be able to come back to with some more um information just baseline from the high school. But um certainly it's it's kicked off some different conversations in different departments about what that looks like on a daily basis or unit basis um and what seems to be appropriate and uh what best assists our students. So in history it may look a little bit different right now than it would in math for example. um some of the instructors are um really incorporating those targets not only in terms of
028Google classroom or on the board um they're actually implementing and and putting them into all the documents and online resources that the kids are using as well. So it's being reinforced in in multiple places and kids at least know what's uh expected of them um you know and how they'll know if they're successful. So that's one big piece for us. Uh we also did the work with uh our department chairs who do a fair number of evaluations at the high school of their own departments. We broke into two two teams on two days and did the same work that Sylvia outlined at the middle school. Um getting into different classrooms. We had some teachers volunteer. Um it's interesting with about eight of us going in at one time and observing for a half an hour.
029Um but the feedback that um you get when you have that many people come back to the table and what they see in a given observation is interesting because everybody picks up on different things. We learn the same strategies in terms of mapping um are specific quotes from teachers or students different things that you're taking during an observation but what Dr. Miller might pick up on is different than what I might pick on which is different than our department chairs might see. So very interesting and and uh allows people to kind of hone their skills and also improve uh on the evaluation front. Uh the other thing that I think we're doing that's um we're we're doing our best to engage students and celebrate students which I think is is helping them in the classroom.
030We started a student of the month um recognition this year. So science I'm sorry math went in September. um science went in October and applied technology is going this month and basically the department gets together and they identify two students in every grade level that have excelled in their given area and the department debates it out and basically we have eight students that are acknowledged um through that process we take a photo I think we've included that in a couple of our different correspondences so that's one piece as you know coachmaul is is our athletic director if he's celebrating students in all of our uh different athletic programs on a weekly basis. They're all getting free subs from Mike's or something like that. So, if you know an athlete, make them take you to lunch
031um because they have access to do that. Um and then the other thing through our advisory, we've got a lot of different things going on. Um we did the scarecrow um through advisory, the scarecrow designs. Uh a fair number of our advisories participated in that and that was actually started by uh the town library. So, we jumped on that and and our kids got a really good kick out of that. Um, and we've done another small food drive, smaller than we've done in the past with stuff a bus, which we we've been very successful at. Um, because we've got capstone going on, we have a number of students that are doing different fundraisers and or charity drives. So rather than stepping on that, what we decided was that if students through advisory wanted to go
032ahead and contribute some uh goods for uh the Seymour Oxford Food Bank that we would we would move those forward, but not at the level that we've done historically. So those are the things that we're kind of doing to to celebrate our students and and keep them engaged as best as possible. Um on the faculty front, the other thing that we're doing that's improving student learning um the data that you've been looking at that walkthrough data that comes from both the middle school and the high school. Uh I asked each department to go back and look at that data specifically uh and and tell me what they think they're doing very well in those given categories um and what they think the next steps are in those. So uh in terms of you know um
033instructional environment purpose process gauging understanding I had every single department go ahead and evaluate that um with their colleagues and give me feedback and we're using that putting that all together as a school to figure out exactly where we think we really are and are we on the same page going forward. So the data that you have while it's baseline is composite, we're doing some reflective work which I think is helpful. Um the other thing that we've done departmentally that I think is going to move our students forward the attributes of a graduate uh the work that that we started with Dr. McKinnon and developing that. I I set up interdep departmental teams to go and to look at um all of those different categories. Critical thinking, empowered learner, um productive citizen, [Music] and what's
034the other one? I lost it. critical thinker, collaborative learner, empowered learner, productive citizen, and effective communicator. So, we broke into teams. And what we did was uh we wanted to get a jump on developing rubrics for our school in those different categories. How do we assess that uh at different grade levels? What does it look like? Um, so that when we start to apply this with our seniors as as they get ready to graduate, we want to make sure that they've kind of hit the bar with those rubrics. Um, and it was important that we kind of did that interdep departmentally to get outside of, you know, English and math. We need to look at it holistically. So the feedback again from that is going to be pulled together and then we'll see where we
035are as a group and try to refine those um and then begin to implement those and use those throughout the school. So we've done drafts on those. So those are I think are the the big things that are kind of driving instruction. Obviously I ready has has been helpful for us. Um we're using the data in a similar fashion. uh we have a a team um of counselors and uh we actually are going to have a special ed person on board more regularly to to help us with looking at that data. And then what we've been doing is um targeting kids again that are below grade level one, two, and again we can flag those kids the same way that somebody was talking about. Did the student take it um too quickly? Did they rush
036through? But we can also look at their current grades and previous grades in the same discipline. So if a student scored low in math, uh we're going to look at their previous grades and we're going to look at their current grades. Uh we're going to look at any other relevant data that's in there to make a determination as to whether or not we should place them. We have uh both uh English language art lab and a math lab. And so when we notify those parents of students eligibility, um, we again look to do the same thing and move student schedules around to get them into those lab settings. Sometimes parents are agreeable, sometimes parents want to hold and wait and see where we are. We're going to do the same thing timing wise and try
037to get these done uh in January before our midterm so that again we can make adjustments. Again, uh we're looking at a quarterly placement based on how students are performing. So now we can go back, we can look at I ready, we can also look at quarter one grades and make a determination as to who we need to pop in there for the balance of second degree. So those are the those are uh the things that we're doing to improve instruction challenges. Um I'll be perfectly honest, I think the biggest challenge we're facing is COVID at the high school. Um we've been hit pretty hard. Um number of students out uh since the beginning of November. Um along with that you get people that are contact traced that are out and have historically been out.
038So you get students that are in now all of a sudden they're remote. Um and remote learning looks different now than it did when we were in the midst of uh the pandemic when everyone was remote. Um, so our instructors now have the choice of whether they're providing remote access to a class live classroom or whether they're providing assignments and or more other materials through Google Classroom that students are are going to work on and submit based on the number of kids that we have kind of coming and going right now. It's uh it's a challenge, right? So the the attendance piece I would say is more linked to CO than it is anything else. We've got a couple of people that that we track through attendance tracker and we have the same uh system
039in power school that you know the absences trigger uh letters and we review them as a group to see if they're appropriate or not and send them or not. Um and you know there are kids that we're definitely monitoring. So that's been a big challenge is is the remote learning aspect of things. Before I move on to uh um the next pieces, I would also say that the screen and stay in the past two days has helped me tremendously. So, I've had a couple of cases that have um developed um students going out, a couple of, you know, perimeter students that might quarantine. Uh but I have a number of students in both cases that are fully vaccinated and they can they can press on. Um, and I have others and and parents that are
040opting for the screen and stay. So, essentially, I send the district's information along with the state dependencies and parents can sign and have those students stay in school. Um, they're not symptomatic. They can remain in place. Um, they can't take a bus, they can't participate in PE or band or chorus or anything where they might spread anything. Athletics are out, extracurriculars are out, but they can still come to school. Um, so that's in the past two days has helped me tremendously. I've probably had an equal number of people that are vaccinated versus going with say screens. Um, so I'm hoping that that's going to give us some consistency and drop the number of remote learners uh back down to something more manageable. So hopefully that that trend continues and and things start to improve when
041we get out of the building a little bit. Um, so that's all tied to attendance and how we're looking at that. The other thing that we're kind of um two other things we're kind of dealing with, hardiness of school is a challenge right now for us. Um I'm wearing a lot of different hats at the moment. Um I do have somebody that kind of monitors that in the morning to assist us with students that are coming in late. I attribute it a lot more to number one, the number of vehicles that are coming onto our campus. Um but I've got a tremendous number of parents that are dropping kids off. So, I get a backlog um with temperature screenings and and all the other things that we do in the morning. Um I've done a
042couple of different things in in Friday highlights to draw attention to that. We're going to continue to ramp that piece up in terms of the expectation. Um but it coming into schools in the morning in particular is is the issue. Um the other thing that I would say the the other big challenge that we're facing at at the high school and I think it's true of of all um when you look at the I Ready data when you look at um any of the baseline diagnostic stuff that we've done kids have been out of school or remote or hybrid or honestly we used 19 different schedules last year bell schedules to get through last year. Um so the business of being in school daytoday at this point there's a stamina piece to it. Um I
043think that kids are coming to school. I think the biggest challenge for many of them is maintaining um the level of focus and the work ethic piece re-establishing that I think at the high school level is is a big challenge. So th those are the big things and can feel any questions that you may have. We talked about block days before like the train is some of those block days really for some of those kids to be in the classroom for that staying per it's something we can certainly discuss though I think the uh we're one of the few districts that does a combination of block and one through eight. Um there are benefits to both. I've worked in districts that are strictly block. I've worked in districts that have one through eight and rotate
044the eight. Um, so making a schedule change of that nature, I think it you need to have a lot of different stakeholders involved if we're going to completely modify and and there are there are benefits and and and not um fortunately for parent conferences and there are a couple of different instances where we've had shortened block days, right? We're out at 11 o'clock. Um the block benefits are teachers in the sense that they can run labs, they can have students do presentations. There's things that can happen in within a period or larger assessments that can't necessarily happen in a one through eight. So there's pros and cons to it. Um it is it is longer for sure. I would just look at it this way. You know, you're introducing kids back to the home model
045or home model. Yeah. And you know, being that they're getting those back introduced into the classroom setting, you know, I I understand the labs the presentations so that I show the percentage during the course of the day that actually affects uh percentage of student population as opposed to the overall population sitting in the classroom. So, you know, it's just to be Yeah. So, that's Yeah, I think if I was going to look at that, I' I'd obviously want to get feedback from from parents, from teachers, from kids, uh, and then explore that. something worth considering certainly down the road. You know, I've worked in districts, like I said, that have a one through eight, but they rotate so you don't have that attendance impact that you do every time you have period one first thing
046in the morning. Yeah. Or they drop two. Like there's so many different configurations that you can get into. Yeah. I want to compliment you on Veterans Day. Thank you. It was fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. I can't take credit for that. So, our our Veterans Day celebration, for those of you that work there, that was organized by uh David Becca, who's our our history share. Um not only did he provide uh get students to volunteer and be active outside and and greeting our veterans as they came through and welcoming them. Band was out there, the chorus was out there, students with signs. Like, it it was it was great. Chef was involved. So when chef's involved, nothing really bad can happen. Um, so it was a wonderful experience. He actually even provided uh
047lessons and all kinds of materials for our teachers in other classrooms to use on Veterans Day. So it was a a school day celebration. So thank you for coming. Last year, yes. So I'd like to get your feedback on it. last year. Everybody was excited. I thought I'm glad you asked that because that was one of the things I wanted to bring up was was big idea math. Um I can tell you that a couple of the observations that I've done in the in recent weeks, um I'm amazed at what our math teachers are doing and how they are bringing math instruction to life. Um, as we were talking about learning targets and success criteria, um, I had a teacher using a Smartboard, you know, with with student support, but the targets are there. They're
048in the the written assignments that the kids are working on. It's in the online resource that kids can measure their understanding of a concept. They're doing that as a support to everything that's going on. Phenomenal. The second lesson that I saw, there were teams of four and Dr. Miller was there. Um, and it was almost um a a game where they were reviewing different geometry principles, new vocabulary, and they had to figure out what a definition was for a given term. They th write it on a whiteboard if they want. They'd hold it up and they get points. And it was a really interesting all the kids were engaged. And because it was new vocabulary, they were all talking and trying to figure out what the illustration was and what it meant. Um, they're doing
049great work to algebra one. Yep. Um, I'll be interested to see where that goes. That's a relatively new change. I'd like to look at that data, but I think that that um I know you're going to ask the question about I Ready versus grade 11 and 12 data. So um part of what we're going to find is some of that PSAT information that we see from um our 11th graders and and what that impact looks like from previous years. Um I think it takes, you know, three to five years to incorporate a curriculum effectively. Um, but I do see that the instructors are really um and and the kids are kind of eating up the new math. So, I'm curious to see where it goes. Um, but we're going to have to look at cohorts
050and and overtime to see what the real impact is. And last but not least is big ideas and free. So, I'm interested in big ideas. Oh, maybe because it's in the memo here. I don't know if we're interested. introducing that or it's in play. Those were those were two sample type of assessments that were discussed in our social studies in social studies data is some examples to provide support. Um it's not necessarily new um but something that free writing that's what it was another example basically these students are given a topic and they write for five 10 15 minutes about that topic question you You can ask your questions. I'm just becoming familiar with these guys. I remember they just turned the keys over to me on these. So I can tell you what some
051of the recent activities are. No, it's just so this has been a discussion that we had for a while about student activity accounts for the classes that have graduated. Yes. Technically, we're not supposed to hold that money in those accounts. So um if we can really work on trying to figure out a method because we have class of 2017, 1920. have significant amount of monies left over. We're really not supposed to have that money left. What I discussed with Dorothy in the spring of last year was at the end of each year the graduation department what they're going to use for the next year, two years and it counted where the students graduate and what the center for. Yeah. So, so sometimes it's a lasting gift or part of it is a lasting gift. Sometimes
052they'll roll it over to the next class, portions of the money to the next class. Um, sometimes I know they've give there's been scholarships for however. Correct. They'll move some money for dollars for scholars as well. So, yep. Absolutely. I just think that moving forward, we just need to make sure that we're following. Absolutely. Um, asking the class officers to give something that says this is the plan for the rest of the money that's left over from education. 17 and 19 are long gone. So, I don't know how we're going to get there. One of these accounts, I can't remember which one it is. We're actually uh one of the classes, uh the adviserss from one of those classes wanted to have the uh our outdoor classroom space redone because that's original to the building
053and kind of coming apart. Um so, one of the classes now that we have uh Mr. Looper Elliott on board and construction's going very well. Um was to use some of those funds to redo that space. So uh many of those lasting gifts are things that that will carry over to the school. Um but point will take it to make sure that they clear out. Yep. Can you put that aside for their and then come back to you for their reunion or that's too long? As long as Yeah. plan of how it's going to be used and that plan should be submitted from the seniors to the administration of record before they walk out the door. Yep. We can do that with the adviserss and make sure that everybody signs off on it. Absolutely. Thank
054you. Yeah, certainly. Well, I have I know this I'm sure this very simple answer, but um on your miscellaneous in and out, so there's 4,200 in and 4,200 out. I assume that was a fundraiser or that was so that's the account that Alana normally uses to when she gets a large number in for a given thing and it goes right back out. So this was a deposit for um the students taking the post university accounting class and then went off to pay for that. So that's a that's a uh college course that some of our our students are are taking and we have an affiliation with them. Is it possible in this accounting to make a notation so that instead of just miscellaneous in that you can put in parentheses or you know I don't
055know accounting but parenthesis you know posters how to to designate yeah absolutely um Alana for example manages the student account that's my little cheat sheet because I thought you guys were going to have questions that I wouldn't know. Um, so I can certainly when we go forward anything that's ha that has activity on it, I can I can just have her outline what that is and include that in my next report. Okay. Just put her put on the bottom saying post. Yep. Absolutely. It's just something explains. Not that it's just Yep. No, it's like I said, it's all right here. I'm happy to include that next time. Right. Right. And um so student council that is um so you have a a high school student council and then there's also a third grade student council.
056Is that true or is it just high school student council? We have a high school student council and then we have class officers. Are they part of student council or is that separate? Separate. So this so student council they did some kind of a fundraiser that raised almost $8,000. So they did uh we charged for homecoming. So that was part of that money because student council ran homecoming. Okay. Um so a lot of that money that came in then went out to not only the DJ but the 10 guys. Um and then we donated uh let's say it was about 20 more $2,700 to Seymour Pink as a school. She did a t-shirt sale uh which is something we historically have done to raise funds for Seymour Pink. And as a school, we had an
057assembly and and made a donation. Oh, no. It was in it wasn't Seven Hospital. That was the chosen location this year. Um, so we had one of that hasn't been dispersed yet, right? We did do a check. Oh, this is October 31st. Okay. This is only October 31st. So, yeah. I'm just saying that this account is only to the facto express. So the next one correct. Okay. Yeah. The next one will show everything else. And again, I'll have her spell everything out so you can see what that is. Yeah. And and I mean not the things that are obvious, just you know, miscellaneous. So if you take a look at the guidance number, for example, there's $6,800 taking it, that um would seem really strange, but that's AP money, right? So students that are paying
058for their AP exams, that's that's their fee that then goes out to the college board, right? And those rates are set by the college board that way. Um, couple other questions. Um, the attributes of the graduate and I find I understand what it is, but is it an actual document or is it something that you're still working on? I mean, do we have as a district saying these this is what our attributes of of a graduate are? So the the attributes of a graduate that were defined um through the process with uh Mr. McKinnon are critical thinker, collaborative learner, an empowered learner, productive citizen, and effective communicator. Oh, so that's considered an attribute of grad. Those are all attributes of a graduate. I thought I provided to you in August or I provided in one
059of my documents retreat of September that that kind of broke all that down. Yes. Okay. And we're just we're now establishing rubrics to measure those at the high school level, right? Yeah. I I think in my head I was thinking okay, you know, it has a little more um you know quantitative stuff and probably and really what it is is not just a traceful document but a frame of reference that this is where we want 12th grade students to be at from kindergarten through 12th grade where scaffolding skills students graduate from high school high school. they have a set of skills and attributes that are prepared to go to college, go to the workforce and prepare to go to society. So I mean I guess I'm just curious like how that will be reported out
060because like you said if it's districtwide then you know by eighth grade you might say oh my gosh you know maybe these kids are missing this attribute. And that's where those rubrics that he's talking about. We're developing those groups first at the high school level. And those rubrics are beginning to have conversations at high school, middle school. What does that look like? And how do we start assessing that? And where would you where do you find that? Is it insistent all third way to do this? You assess it? Is it embedded in that area? Those are the deep conversations that he needs to engage in. So this is something that is being I mean this is kind of new to us is brand new. Okay. Um and the other um ask um are we up
061for evaluation? I think we're about two years out if I think we just did a mid the five year mid fiveyear last year report. That sounds about right. I think we're about halfway. So we'll we'll start the process a couple years out. Okay. which I love. By the way, the ask is one of the best things ever. Yeah. Because it gets you focused. Not only does it get you to really look at your own program and where you are and where you need to go, um, but as an educator, there is no better professional development for any instructor than to go on a DS visit and to look at another school from that same lens. Yep. Um, it's a phenomenal experience. It takes two and a half days for for somebody to go and do
062a visit, but it'd be the kind of thing that I would sign off on for any of our faculty to go do. It's it's there's nothing that compares to it professionally. Right. And well, hopefully some of your um burdens will be eased next week when Stephanie Case comes on. So, we hope her and you. We hope. Yes. Any other questions for Rob from you guys? All right. Oh, just so we just something that is the reading list for that's out there. Is there any way that's on board to come to the curriculum committee and then to board and it's definitely I mean it's going to be soon. All right. Thank you Rob. Thank you folks. Appreciate it. have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am going to go home and uh hang with my son and go
063enjoy not fold his laundry. [Music] Thank you. [Music] So, Robert, oh, I read superintendent and I didn't read the whole thing. So, I didn't I checked it off. Okay. Oh, one last thing. If you get a update from the high school powder puff games at Texas people, it's happening now. Yes. Started at six. It's cold out there. Yeah. The traditions that they want to have. So, um I think with this um we we've submitted our board goals. Dr. Miller submitted his board goals. So you just wanted did you want to speak to it or just kind of acknowledge that we all did this and I acknowledge that we did this basically I took the goals that you put together as a board. I took those and then I created my goal basically off of that.
064I expanded it to some stuff that was four I had as there but I think it's important that the board recognize and acknowledge that these are the goals that work. There should be a formal statement board now that these are the four goals. This is how we're going to be evaluating our work for the rest of the school year. I also want to acknowledge that it's December now since we're voting on these. The ideal time of to do this would be the end of August, beginning of September. We open the school year. We have a retreat with each other and we look forward to what we're going to accomplish with the next 10 months. Now, three months from the start of school year, a lot of the work is ready to be done. So it's
065hard to really do a full assessment of the full year when we're basically beginning in December. This is what our whole year. So time wise, this is the wrong time to do it. We should next year be doing this earlier on, but time off this year for several different reasons. Um so she um I hope everyone got a chance to read Rob's goals. I mean I thought they were great. everything targeted, you know, everything that I think is important to us, which in turn is not really what important to us, what's best for the students and for the district. So, um, you know, if we can if we can reach I don't want to set the bar low, but I mean I I think that, you know, and I I think we we all understand
066as a board that, you know, things didn't didn't work for, you know, no grown. I mean, we wanted to have her between August and, you know, it just got signed. So yes, we'll be much better better next year. So, um, does anybody have any questions? Maybe I'm not understanding a increase rate of passing for 212 at least 10% 2021 standards 2021 [Music] standards. We're going to increase the standard still this is passing courses still even though it was pandemic you still have to pass right well we had seen different number of students at high school last year that struggle a lot students engage many classes doing their work the failure rate was significant high so we're trying to increase This actually was one of the measures that you put in your goals. You had X
067and you did 5%. I thought that was too low and I said to 10% and again our numbers were kind of arbitrary. We didn't you know that's not weren't sure probably next time we'll put 25%. But but this is an area that if you ask Sylvia that question now that the first quarter is done I would expect the high school be sitting down with all the grades for all the students. So okay where are our students F Ds and C's let's pull these out. Let's develop a plan of action. Last year it was mid November before we got to having conversations of how do we start pushing the kids that are struggling. Now we know struggling. Now there should be interventions that we're putting into place whether it be academic support for the student social
068emotional support. We know now who should be on our target radar or parent conferences to get different folks this year. It wasn't just okay parent schedule. We actually specifically and explicitly said to parents like we want to meet with you. after we scheduled with the parents that we knew that needed to be met with then we open up okay now it's your turn to schedule appointment so that was the type of intervention that was needed to be done and we did that middle school high school and I think that worked getting parents with teachers but we need to be actively targeting the students and we waited too long last year to do that work that needs to be done right Any other questions on schools or you know I'd also say that I know we
069are late but this is the first time that I remember that board goals and the superintendent's goals have ever been even meshed. So I think we are on the on the right path. Um I don't think we need a motion to accept which is um now report. So um last time we had a long meeting committee because everybody wanted to share. It's not going to go through this hopefully rather quickly. I had my first turn by committee on the first budget in November. We have next one scheduled um for December. We had 15 parents that ranging from elementary school to high school and some parents that were special education. Um I'm going to ask administrators for recommendations and ask parents that were recommended for the recommendations as well. So I think we got a nice
070cross-section of um they focused a lot on really opening questions that they had for me or they felt that positive we're doing really well communication they felt that level we are communicating very effectively they said for the most part most schools are communicating there's one school they describe as a boy that we need to work with so that's an area that we need to Commissioner sure that communication is consistent. They use the word consistent and aligned often with us to make sure that communication is consistent. Expectations of students are consistent and teachers are consistent experiments of students are consistent. For example, on Halloween there was one grade that was told by teachers, you're not allowed to dress up for the Friday before the weekend. every other student A8 had the opportunity to dress up except
071that one grade in that one school and the parents were concerned about that. I was in social media I got my emails and phone calls and that's consistency that me down there should be a consistent approach to the work that we're doing and it should be alignment across the grades in school and across the schools and middle schooling approaches. So we have some good feedback coming down themselves and they didn't the um talk about right this school I'll have each grade um set of team to make a decision on their own how they pro and one grade said we're going to do X the other grade said we're going to do Y and So one of the things that I said to administrators before Thanksgiving was okay your plan to make sure it's consistent across
072the school. Same thing for your December holidays needs to be consistent. So they've gone back their teams. They've now given me their plan of okay this is how we're implementing our school. That's type of consistenc on the parent advisory and I do know that I read your document um but I didn't commit to memory. Is that something so when you meet with these groups is that something that like this you'll tell us at a board meeting or or will you kind of include that in your Friday which I have to tell you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And if there's information you're looking for that's not there, let me know. No, you know, I'm just I mean in the past when there were these kind of team advisory or the superintendent um would meet would
073you know have open office hours and then it would just be it wouldn't go anywhere. So if parents were coming with concerns, obviously you're the conduit to us, right? So they're coming to concerns and we want to know what they were. I I acted concernly writing to you what I'm learning. So, not only is it the chief parent advisory, but I'm also setting the first day for teacher advisory group. I also have scheduled for next week with my first set of school office hours where I'll be spending an hour in each school either before school or after school. Um, and I've already given the supplier out of school teachers in all staff. I plan to do that at least once or twice a month school in order to be available to the staff. just come
074in and talk, you know, what what questions do you have? What feedback you have? Um, information needs to know. Um, just general brainstorming of solutions and talking. I think just opening up that conversation, that level of discourse, it's vital. So, that's scheduled. I'm also meeting the high school student government after the Thanksgiving break for the first set of student advisory and I'm working with Sylvia to set up a state for the middle school as well and maybe out of that see if there are students and we can start in the new year if there are students who are interested and what the protocol for them to be. Um, I know we talked a few minutes ago about Rob getting supporting AP. Um, Stephanie was set to start on the 29th position now not going to
075be releasing a new film until the 10th. I had a conversation with today. Um, I asked if they're not fully we four days or two or three days any way we can get her at least to start processing process school. So they're looking at that. Thank you. Um I hope you are now on the board email system at this point. Um we had our training with dogs if you need if you did not attend the training oneonone support get on the phone with you and I can do a session that office. I'm gonna actually put mic on that. Sophie, I might do it. He does everything. That's how we're going to do our work now. Trying to make sure everybody's on that. We also have a Google doc that has the calendar for the year.
076Um I will add and I'll talk to each of the committee chairs now over the next few days and then we'll start blocking out when the schedule meetings will be. I'll share this Google doc with all of you and take a look at both the schedule times for the committee but as well as the full meeting of the board. So there's topics that you want to see us introduce other presentations or reports to the board start putting into the calendar so we can plan for it. If I can say specification or to technology or facilities in March where we want to do a presentation on this report on this and this have time to do that work it makes the report back to you much more meaningful time and really invest in putting that work
077together rather than just a week's notice. So take a look at that share that with you. I know that project I talk with, but I really want to take a few minutes because the work that the administrative team is doing on improving instructional capacity in our district, we've got rhythm that's vitally important. We need students being engaged with deep content that that furthers their knowledge. But if the teachers are not teaching at the highest level that they can teach at, then all the content in the world is not helpful. And so the work that we're doing team is critical. There's two phases of this work. One are the transentered walkthroughs. That's what we did in each school. What we did is collected between 175 and 200 data points in each building. We walked through with
078teams of three to four each class for 10 to 15 minutes in a classroom. And we collected um all sorts of evidence. that evidence ready to data you saw from the school reports today walk us four times a year. So we've done the first set the next set is scheduled and then there'll be a third and the fourth and um during those transbased teams I'm also going to be asking to pick one additional school that they haven't participated in and participate in that school office. By the end of the year, each individual will have a tour in our building and at least one other in each of the other schools. What's the purpose of that? To gather additional information both you have in the classroom. It's also extremely valuable to see what instruction looks like
079in various levels and you know how about that when you say there's two phases. The other phase is you know getting all of the knowledge of what to look for and celebrating it and all that's really important but then what happens after that is equally important. So are the administrators and the people who are doing these observations giving guidance in how to have the conversation with um teachers who need help. So that the first phase of this is a walk. So that four times a year. The second element that the admin teams have now been trained is how to go into the classroom and how to collect data and as they were describing earlier how to run that account and then analyze the data class to walk in and script everything from the monkey walk.
080Well, we're looking for specific piece of information. We're looking either at the level of questioning the teachers are are asking. So, we're now documenting what's the question teacher asking. What's the response the students are asking? What are the how many times each student um talking at what type of response the teacher making to what the student is asking for their response? Um what's the level of discourse that we're having as we're working in collaborative teams? What's the information that Wallace supports the students might have if they're struggling independently? Um, does the student have a self-hing where am I in my own learning based upon the learning market? We look at all this type of information so that we're gathering them and then we'll provide that quality feedback teacher and quantity feedback is various different levels.
081I started this two Friday updates ago where the first part is just an affirmation which is Anthony I noticed you get X and because you guys saw that I noticed that student learning resulted so linking teacher action to student learning in the past we always focus on just the teacher actions now we're making a direct connection to how we know that students are learning so we're talking to students and saying what is it you're learning say, "How are you learning? Talk to me about that learning objective. Talk to me about that work that we're trying to figure out. Is the student learning and are they learning what the teacher is expecting learning?" So, we're providing that affirmation to the teacher and then we're we're strengthening those by now, but what's the question they're asking? So
082um if you had provided direct feedback to the student would it look different if you asked the student for question or if you ask the student to give feedback each other on that. So you're creating some thought pattern for teachers to reflect on their actions and and those go up to that claim where now you're bringing the the CCT rubric at state level and you're actually making a claim based on the evidence and you're providing explicit um information teacher on how to prove your practice based on research and is that the type of stuff that we go on at um like faculty meetings because you know you you have a you can have veteran teachers who who just be like, I know what I'm doing, you know, and they they probably do, but um you
083know, things change. So, I mean, I I think that's that's obviously part of it as well, that I mean, sometimes a teacher might not know how to change their practice because they've done it the same way for 42,000 years. And, you know, and they feel like it's worked, but they might need to and that's why this this process is designed to the teacher. So it's not just the the the prior system which was I'm going to go to class twice a year and I'm going to evaluate you on November and then May and we're going to industry class on a weekly basis and they should provide continual feedback to teachers. So that teacher that has been teaching for 35 years should be getting continual feedback that's guiding their practicing. Now I'm saying I love how
084you're teaching that. I noticed that the same way and I noticed it. I'd like you to go into that classroom and see how he's connecting that final dot because I think you could take your instructions to that level. So, we are going to begin faculty in that way. We're going to start getting teachers into classrooms. We're going to start looking at lessons as faculty and now let's have the same conversation that teachers are having. Let's have teachers have the same conversation. So all this is is designed to strengthen instructional capacity of our teachers in a number of different ways and it really honed in on making sure that we know what data collecting how we're analyzing and how to make sure that we're running the right level of feedback that focuses there. We still have
085your formal evaluation major evaluation year. All this is data that helps that process and helps teachers grow over time. And a lot of it is we forming the school culture that teachers are more open and accepting to department chairs classroom on a regular basis providing that feedback. So one of the things that I'm doing now is on my calendar the entire month starting that week through the end of December January. I'm now scheduled every week with directly to go to every school with this administrator do an hour and a half of observation walkthroughs and you do school with the administrator. You go in there observe a class for 15 minutes talk about it provide that feedback to the teacher. allows us to collaborate together allows meaningful engineers for students work has come up with this
086spreadsheet the way they kind of like that we do also expect to also go in and do their own evaluations and doc the work that they're doing linking back of feedback they're providing also another way to really hone in and analyze the data that we're collecting not just as an individual but as a And then as administrator at our month council meetings data we're going to be sending in your last week bring in your let's do gallery let's talk about all of our work this year is focused on how to improve future capacity. This is the work. We've got the work, but we need to make sure that every time we're adding individually small groups that we are instruction happens every week, right? like the value once a year it's not help. So regardless of
087what age you go through constant coaching periods before they do new informal we're doing informals but in our schools you want teachers to you want to find a best practice that class we can't build substitutes which have teachers how do we I think that we we can't fill classrooms we have teachers who are out with substitutes so how do you tactically give them the opportunity to go to the classroom we can't solve a couple question. It might be asking them to go in there during their their free period during their um their duty period. It could be administrator covering their class. It could be a par covering class for them. It could be um acknowledging this is an ideal class that we want to observe. Let's go in and videotape that class. Bring that class
088down to a department meeting or faculty meeting and show it that way. There's different ways to to bring content to the teachers. It's it's a good idea to strengthen how things go and how ex you know the other thing is you know once you once you build this this climate that you're hoping to build between the teachers I mean teachers have been doing this for ages it just hasn't been formal. So, you know, if if you're collaborating with another teacher and you say, you know, I know that you're really great at teaching math and then I'm, you know, someone else might, you know, I notice that your kids are really doing well in this type of writing. And so, they just kind of set it up themselves to go see each other. This is a
089little more formal kind of like, you know, not making them, but you know, because it's good practice, but you know, my point is that once they get comfortable with it because, you know, teachers by nature used to like to just shut the door and have anybody come in, you know, so they're getting used to people coming in or getting used to because they realize that it's not a judging. It's it's something that it's to help you because it's a it's a practice and it's a craft, you know. So once they get comfortable with that, I think it'll be easier to do that whole observation, right? One of the models that some schools use is giving every teacher an image. Example of pineapple and teachers that are my class just an example just to always open
090for efficiencies. Um, one of the transitions we made this year is switching over from paper to format that are now digital. So the high school students, middle school students, email to parents and access. So that's an efficiency that I really like. Yes. And you probably get some nice erase it. I don't know what you're calling. Why am I looking at you, Joe? Don't worry, Mike can help you with that. So, that's a nice efficiency to have. This is the type that I think that Joe's going to appreciate. We've been struggling with cleanliness fields. We're finding that bottles being left on the stadium, chairs, on the ground. I've directed on George and spend an hour day and it's a very you go down there and you can clean it later and you have a mess in
091the morning and then you clean but part of our record schedule. So we've asked it for making it happen. Um athletics um we are attending tomorrow's middle class football game. Um so fall sports is coming to a conclusion and which sports will be giving. Um one of the things that I that Joe was speaking which I really like is have a opening meeting to start the season with the parents and students and that opening session for parents scheduled for a week for Monday. It was originally scheduled for it's a great way to inform the parents what to expect. There are new guidelines that CIC is coming out with for winter sports that kicks in after this separate break related to mask wearing. So students should still be required to wear mask and practice but during
092games um schools will be allowed to provide flexibility with the students that are contacted students are vaccinated basketball for most of the sports. There's some that still are higher risk that will require New York, but most of the sports will vaccinate with their mask. Those are unvaccinated will be required to wear their mask at the same time. So that's coming um after the December break starting in January. We had our second meeting of our spending committee. Thanks for attending it. The committee members right now are getting information or got information on their That's now scheduled um related. Um we had our weekly DPH call this morning. Oxford is in Nebraska us. So there is a spike in our area. Um we are also seeing the infection rate for students 5 through 11 getting some spike
093in the state that's the largest numbers we've seen statewide in terms of admission rate students 5 through [Music] getting a I'm not sure you okay we had the same kind of problem worked at big car dealership and as you know car salesman have spots on their shirt like that but generally this visiting world business uses it's everything speaks that something's on the ground. Okay. By picking it up to the general manager. So the message got very you have to throw it away. If I have to do this again, we're gonna keep doing this and eventually nobody really got with everybody. It's almost a theme. It's almost a game. Everything look I did this to the school. I suggest this drop on the ground just walk. So if you can't do it, the kids aren't. So,
094it's a good way that they can test it, make it into a game, but certainly so drops anything here to make sure. It's a test. Okay. Um my report will be very quick I promise. Um just uh now we're we're back to our full board. Welcome Vinnie. We're so glad to have you. Our committees have changed and and so I think you know getting some renewed renewed energy so to keep doing our work. Um the handbook that um I handed out to you is I believe unless we go back decades this is the inaugural first ever Oxford Board of Education handbook. So, um it's not all inclusive, but it does kind of give um you know, just an overview of the work that a board does and um what our mission is and and what
095our goals are. So um you know and and sometimes that is oh and also can you put this somewhere on the website so people can access it at least because I think it's important for the community to know and I'm reading from I don't know if it's page four in here but page four I had while the board has broad authority over the Oxford schools much of this authority is delegated to the superintendent of schools and other district employees the board of education functions not as a management responsible for the administration of the school district, but as a board of directors responsible for establishing a vision for Oxford schools and monitoring his progress and reaching that vision, I think it's just important for people to know that, you know, we are not purviewers of day-to-day
096operations. Um, you know, it's just that's just not what the purpose of the board of education. So, you know, we've said it before, but I think sometimes it's important to know exactly what our charge is and um and that's quite a lot. We don't need any more than that. Um so, that is our board handbook. Um I think you already said this, Robert, that the um the chairs will be in touch with you, the subcommittee chairs on when they're going to set the meetings. And from this uh meeting forward, our meetings will be considered regular meetings. So, they're not special meetings and all that means. So, we're starting at 6:30 and all that means is from now on we can have amendments to the agenda um in the meeting if there's something that we need
097to to talk about um after that. And other than that um enjoy your families. Happy Thanksgiving. It's a pleasure to work with you guys and um just congratulations. Oh yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Something that's for sure. [Music] So now we have our so we'll just stick with our our um chairs that were the committees before today. Obviously that'll change our next meeting, but Joe, anything just at the uh George system that we talk about so much. Thanks, George. Question from 13y old. Do we do we have a problem in those schools like one side was really warm the other side like really cold you know and what's coming up I can get specific heating has two different systems for those buildings so there are independent temperatures as far as building still trying
098to get these Going back to Did you say we have leaks? Yeah, she just like the other side. A lot of it is so low. Yeah. Because if we keep the building balanced and one side is all full of windows and And besides the shade, you don't realize until you walk the building, but there are different temperatures. Can we go back to these leaks? I I didn't hear anything about these leaks. I mean I mean are they damaging? Is it roof? Are are they contractors? Are we still under contract or this last time? It was something with the flashing or they I mean was that all that done? That was window. That was window from the high school that was years and years later. No, I know. But I mean it just I mean I
099don't know when people build houses they don't have leaks, you know, like with a brand new house. So why is building a school? Why do you have leaks? We've had a series of issues with those. We got it. But it was Quaker Farms we had, you know, 20 years ago was what I'm saying is what what is it with building schools that causes them to just seem to have these consistent problems after you have a brand new multi multi-million dollar building? Anybody have any answers for that? Yeah, we have good building very very complex buildings trying to integrate a lot of different systems into that school and we did it during probably during some harsh weather at different times. I mean they said they didn't do it, you know. So anytime you do that, you
100run into problems, you know. So I'm not making excuses. No, they're serious. But that's what I remember when they were doing the floors or something at once once because you always want to get everything done outside before winter. So in the winter, but there was a rainstorm and other stuff. You're shifting things around. You got metal, steel, and all kind of concrete. You got seems [Music] remember something. So once you do that, it doesn't make it less when you got in school or whatever. But that's what happens. Hopefully we got contracts with these guys. They keep responding unfortunately in the building. They are responding but it's just is it weather and it's going to take time to work because we haven't accepted the building. So second technically still building project building still meets that accepted
101but they still meet once every month and they're aware of all the issues. So now that we've done the work on FO have we turned so we waiting for the FO to turn the building back usually I mean It's punching stuff. So, you know, there's warranties saying not very confident that there's warranties on certain things that accept, right? No, I'm saying that we we did that. We put those thousands of dollars into fixing that field in order to turn that over to So, that's perfect. We're not talking about the building. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, Shelley, anything on [Music] curriculum? Is she still there? Sorry, I couldn't quite unmute time. I I was not able to be present at the last curriculum meeting. So, I would defer to Deb and Rob if um Deb if
102you feel comfortable reporting. I know it's out of left field and or Rob if you want to report on that meeting. I can do it. That's fine. Um, we did have a curriculum meeting, I think. I'm sure. Hold on. Was it last week? Last month. Last Monday. So, we went through um some of the plans, the um calendar. We talked about um we're going to have a program study update at the December meeting, which will be December 14th. We talked about um you want to do this proposal. Okay. We talked about a couple of different ways of where we need to work on curriculum and um we actually um have um I think Atlas now has instruction or being modified or some some designation. So if anybody goes there, they know that we're working on
103that program. Um, and will probably be no longer sunset. That's a good word. Um, and our next meeting is December 13th at 4. We addressed looked at the high school capital went through that overview. One of the things that they were going to check on because one of the biggest issues that we have today is obviously transportation and logistics and so there's going to be a look at our courses in that see how we improve that exciting part of our curriculum because it's alive it's here every day you know you can't miss it you know so we have in the catalog I think narrow down to later so we're going to address that make that cognitive debt robust. Basically, we just addressed a lot of the things in the catalog at the high school. How
104to make high school exciting and build career paths. And I think one of the key things that came from a couple different departments was let's start at the end. What is the end project of what we're trying to do? What is the end product high school? Okay, that's go into business, go into college, go into the trade and start from there and try to work the curriculum back and make sure that we have true pathways. So that was successful. We have um a policy demo. So this is the first read or that I take a little sorry. Um so it's the updates that were provided by shipment equipment. So you'll see there's a list that did also attached is a copy of the updates and a brief description of what's changed in the policy. So
105this all this is a first read. So I think we get time to go through those policies. anything that anybody has questions on board bylaws are our board bylaws. There's no changes adopt by um one of the things we did talk about at the last um policy meeting was to come up with some curriculum policies and um to revise the or look at revising the subcommittee um bylaw for curriculum. We talked about couple ideas of funds that would give us some push back on some materials and things like that. So um I think moving forward to work on that with the committee and come forward and I think the curriculum look at the bylaws that we have some of the suggestions that maybe make a recommendation to policy of what they would like to see.
106So this is first a nice smooth path. Um Steve anything in finance? Uh no updates. Okay. Thank you. Um, liaison reports. Anybody that is a leazison have anything to report is doing a costume fundraiser? Anybody has clothing that they don't want to fit outside which is their year collection. Um, they're desperate for volunteers. Yeah, they even doing remotely. They do it hybrid. So they're really looking on Saturday. No, you know what? But that's a good point because it was on social media. So people who don't have social media, I mean Adam was included in any of those Friday things. So you got to read about newsletters and you have to click on all the links under that type of community. [Music] But other than that, there's no way for us to I don't think we
107should do that. I think people are going to get I don't think that's No, no, no. I think I think that that's fine then. I mean, what else do people do? Maybe we will get some carrier pigeons and put the notice of carrier pigeons. So, this might be something that we can have some of the 18 and 21 year old kids do. We have the sign of the range. Nobody ever but nobody nobody wants to do. Yeah. So used to have an employee that used to do it and then they had somebody from the parking garage. You know that's a bigger discussion because I I drive by high school and even high school entrances they have some sort of flashing colored sign. We've tried you support to do that but it's like so we tried
108we get it maybe I'll front here we talked about it even that one that we had problem is still there it's still there it's just a matter of that town wall usually had somebody that could do what about like want to sign up for us. How about is there any newsletter at Oxford? I can check with I have a friend who lives there. So if there's an Oxford Greens kind of like newsletter that goes around then maybe you can submit because those are the people you want to target you know that would volunteer or help with things. I'm also exploring what other communication tools there are outside media. So for example um the local churches in the area they have newspapers in the area basis to provide information to them. Yeah and they didn't even
109get in that we won a award. Yeah. So that's part of the communication that you look back and I'm trying to get a very good point of social media what happened. Do you want me to check that actually help we're presenting our budget? I think we even leverage the valley council of governments. I mean they have social media websites however we can get the information that's trying to figure out at the high school you go to the exact I mean that's another thing yeah I mean maybe we need to have some kind of you know um golden board put over here where we could yeah put stuff up there. I found it was easier for me to donate jackets to try to find jacket jackets. There you go. Okay. So, uh next on our agenda
110is going into executive session. So I hereby move to enter into executive session to discuss for the purpose of review and consideration of attorney client privileged communication regarding authority to enter into memoranda of understanding and invite Dr. Miller and Mr. Second. So we are going into um all those in favor I going into executive session at 8:18. So Jackie thank you have a good night. Shelly will stay on. Shelly will stay on.