001and the chair Dr. Carmen Sultan and I am present. When I call your name, please indicate that you are present. Vice Chairs present. Board member Anderson present. Board member Harden present. Board member Johnson Davis present. Thank you. The first item on the agenda is the role of the school board in accreditation. Mrs. Lynch, please provide context and introduce our speaker. Good morning everyone. Um I am delighted to welcome you. Um as you are aware, we will be going through our Cogna accreditation engagement review next year. It really is focused on continuous improvement and you're going to hear all about that today. Um our review is scheduled for the third quarter or the official part which is the January. Um, but it's kind of ongoing like throughout. Right now, we've already had inclusive of myself, four
002cabinet members, and our project manager go through the training online to prepare us to lead all of this. Um, so you're going to learn a lot more about it with the whole board training today. I'm delighted to um introduce Dr. Emily Klene. She has in her presentation some more information about herself. So, I will just say that she is with Cognia and she is also a Decar resident. So, we are very excited to have her here um and as our contact today. So, Dr. Klein, thank you. I appreciate that very much. So, this is probably the shortest commute for you. It is. It is. And that's like the one fun fact I never get to have on my um bio slide, but I got to have it today. So, yeah, I am a Decator resident,
003so I'm thrilled to be here. So, um we are going to talk a little bit about uh continuous improvement and accreditation. actually a lot about it. But the first thing I want to do is just kind of get to know everyone so that I know who I'm talking to. We can start having conversations because there is going to be time in this presentation when we're just talking where we're just thinking and reflecting and we're not coming to conclusions. But this is part of the continuous improvement process. So it works better when I know who's in the room. So Madame Chair, may I start with you please? If you could just tell me who you are, your role and then how long you've been on the board. I'm consult. Um, I live over in W Park.
004I've got four kids now, two that have graduated out, two that are still in the system. Um, I work over at Healthcare of Atlanta. Um, and I've been on the board since 2014. Perfect. Thank you for your service. Right. Vice Chair, please. Uh, yeah, Hanzo. Um, I've been on the board same as Carmen, so we're coming up on our fourth year. Um, I'm a inventor and u, yeah, that's probably a pretty good introduction. An inventor. So, we're gonna maybe need to unpack that a little bit as we get through this presentation because that sounds like a path. And I'm not sure that I chose it. It chose me, but yeah, sometimes that happens, right? Hi, I'm Jana Johnson Davis. Um, I've been on the board six years. Um, I was a teacher here in the
005city of Decator. I taught at um school formerly known as Renfro and um I guess that's it. Yeah, perfect. James [Music] Harden Jana was but she served for an extra month more than me and uh let's say I have two two girls here city of Decatur a rising high schooler which feels big. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. And then I know that we have a student representative who will hopefully be able to join us a little bit later. But um I know that city school educator is doing a lot of exams and things this last week of school to help prepare our kids. So I'm Emily Klein. Um like I said the fact that's not on there is that I am a Decator resident. So I am thrilled to be able to be here.
006I have two children who are in the system. Um my oldest is a junior and a rising senior. Super excited about that. He cannot wait. Right. That's the whole point. you wait forever so that you can get to do that. And then I have a seventh grader who will be a rising eighth grader. Um, and I love the system, but I'm also a Georgia educator. And so I have been working in Georgia, oh my goodness, for almost 20 years. So, um, I started my career in Texas. I was a special education teacher. Um, but then I took a little pathway to go get my PhD. And through that, I was going to be an academic. And so I came to Georgia and worked at Georgia State because I was going to be an academic. But
007sometimes you just can't leave. You can't leave K12. It calls you. I've never had the calling, but I had the calling. So when I was getting ready to move across the country and take an academic job, I couldn't sleep. Um, and it was because I wasn't done. And I love K12 education. So I ended up working as a special education coordinator with Gwinnet County Public Schools. Um, and I did that for about a decade. And then I worked um in Henry County schools as a director and then eventually an assistant superintendent. So I joined Cognia this June. So I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary. And I made that switch because my favorite thing about education is the spirit of continuous improvement and the way that we are constantly getting out of bed every day
008to make things better for children. And so working for Cogna was my way of being able to do that, not just in a district or a school, but across the state. So I love it. So thank you for having me here. So I'm going to reintroduce you to Cogna because it um when I work with Cogna on the school side, I really was just focused in on accreditation and it is what we're going to focus on today, but it's actually a lot more. And there were things about the organization that I didn't know that I think are important to share. So, Cognia is a nonprofit. It's a global nonprofit and we accredit schools um and systems across the globe. Our vision and our mission are really important to us. I start every presentation with them
009and I always want to share it. So our vision is to impact and inspire education providers to advance and enable pathways for success for all learners really resonates with me and it's something that is you know the spirit of all of the districts that I've worked with has something like this and I love that Cognia is aligned to that and that our mission because we're not there we're not the boots on the ground is to really serve as a trusted partner uh with our schools and with our districts so that we can make that better uh future for our kids in advanced learning. So you cogn you might be like what is that? I promise you've heard of EP and we've been around for a really long time. We're celebrating our 130th anniversary. We uh
010because we've evolved and we have changed. Our name has also changed with it. That happens when you bring on new services and products and merge with different companies. But if you are still calling us Sachs, that is us, right? So, we've been doing accreditation in Georgia uh and in the United States for a really long time. We then had a name change to advanced ed and now we are Cognia. Uh we've been partnering with City Schools of Decar since 1932 when we accredited the high school. So, it's been a long-standing partnership and we appreciate that and it helps us know the story of the districts that we work with. Like I said, we are the world's largest accredititation improvement network, 130 years of experience. We are in 40,000 schools and districts across the globe, over
011100 countries. So, the benefit of Cogni accreditation because it it's it's a choice, right? There are other accredititors. The benefit of that is that it really is uh globally recognized and known. And so, that's a benefit to any student um or teacher leaving the system that has the accreditation from So we also we do offer the accredititation and certification but then this was just one of the other pieces that I wanted to talk about because continuous improvement isn't just accredititation process. It's also understanding that you need to develop your staff and so we offer professional learning. We have additional improvement services like strategic planning. We also then can do some customized assessments so that you have data and information to make instructional decisions for kids. Today we'll focus in on accreditation. Um, but I just
012wanted to share that because I wanted you to know that we see the whole piece of the you have some documents in front of you and I will talk you through them quickly, but I just wanted to let you know in case you're not a notetaker or you feel like, oh my goodness, I need to take pictures of the slides. We will be sharing those with you. So, you'll have access to those as a resource for you. Um, in your folder, there's a couple of things that I'll just call your attention to. If anybody is a notetaker, there's a little thought catcher. You don't have to. Again, optional. You're adult learners. You do what you works for you, but I always if people need it, I always want them to have that so that you
013can follow along. And then they're going to be um this characteristic two, standard eight will be something we'll do an activity on. And then you have all of our performance standards there. Those are also publicly available if you need to see them. All right. Are there any questions before I start? All right. Make sure you guys are oriented. So our learning targets today. Um we're going to describe the purpose and expectations of accreditation and the engagement review. We're going to understand the essential roles and responsibilities of the school board as they relate to Cogna's accredititation performance standards. Role of the school board is different from the role of the employees of the school system. We're going to connect the Cogna accredititation performance standards through the lens of governance, right? Because those are the seats that
014you're sitting in and then reflect on that role of governance in advancing continuous improvement in the district. We also aligned this to um the Georgia state schoolboard governance standards for local boards. Um our CEO was involved in the development of these and so there is nice alignment. We are separate from the Georgia School Board Association. This training is completely separate, but I did want you to know that it does align in with um your requirements and standards. All right. So, we're going to just do a little bit of talking and peer sharing because continuous improvement, you have to do a lot of introspection and thinking about things where you want to improve. But I think there's also benefit in taking some time to pause and celebrate some successes and think about the things that are
015going really well. So, what are you guys most proud of as a school board member and or you have choices here. What do you believe is having the most positive impact on students in your district? and I'll give you a minute to just think and then we're not going to do this formally. You can just pop out with an answer and share. Um I'm really proud that we got a student board of I mean we're the first in the state to do that. So I think that voice is critical to hear and I think elevating in that way has been proud to be participant. In terms of the biggest impact, I think um I think Decater has been great over the years at touting its most successful kids. I think it has been a little
016less transparent about serving its less successful children. And it's it's not the children's fault. It's our inability or our previous unwillingness to focus there. And I think uh this board has been extremely focused up to like ensuring that we have superintendent in place that that is also focused on making sure that we're looking at the ability to educate all children and how are we serving all children in the district and and previously we're not doing. So I think that impact making that switch is one of the most uh one of the largest positive impacts I can I think um I'm sorry what do you believe is having the most positive impact on students in your district and this may sound kind of cheesy but I really think um Dr. would have to cabinet our central
017office staff. Um I feel like and I stop saying cheesy because they're right here. I'm not all as a teacher I've not always felt as confident um about our central staff as I do now. Yeah. And I feel like they are really are experts in their field in their areas. Um and so often In board meetings, we hear about central office being so topheavy and you know all you know and I just I have always disagree with that because I have felt also that our folks have been stretched and um you know we didn't have enough folks to really focus on they were f they were assigned so much responsibility and so um I think that you know our students are reaping the benefits um their expertise. That's excellent. That's a really good insight. [Music]
018He's up for election. I could combine these two together in that um I think we have started to make some actual tangible gains with a population of students that had um some clear educational deficits. Um so namely some of our students of color um in some very pointed areas. So, eighth grade math and reading, third and fourth grade reading, um, US history, but we kind of figure out with some kind of laser focus where some of those students were having trouble. And I think in previous years, we figured out that there was a problem, but identifying the problem and coming up with a way to solve it are two different things. Um, and it takes time to kind of see some of those benefits, but in some areas we've seen some rapid gain. And then
019in some areas haven't seen quite as fast a game, but we've started to see the wheels turn. Um, and I think that that not only is a goal of the board um, and the superintendent of teaching and learning, but it's also directly impacted students. I think if we can figure out where our students are most educationally vulnerable and put some metrics in place to catch them and turn them, then that's much easier than remediating. So things like some of our reading initiatives that we turn that we sort of turn that back all the way back as far as like first grade, um, kindergarten even Thank you for that. I keep thinking of budget related things. Um whether that's um you know we had a slide so don't quote me the exact numbers but like a
020starting teacher in 2019 and ending almost $15,000 more indicator six years later but the majority of that happening in a in a fiscally responsible way. So I feel like to teach indicator you don't have to sacrifice financially we're getting there and then um giving those raises through the pandemic the budget book itself but you know just lots of stuff to be proud of and um I mean doc I mean let's just join Jana's cheesy train I mean Dr. room is awesome. Um, you know, doesn't give enough credit and the S like refinancing the bond and like what I think it was like her first year on the job and she's like, "Hey, I'm gonna refinance this multi-million dollar debt and save taxpayers money." And I think like I'm the only person who ever talks about
021it. Um, so there's a lot of stuff along that. I remember running for lecture that we need to get teachers competitive and you know, we're close to $60,000 in total comp for a first year teacher with a certificate now. And that's long way to go, but it's probably the only job indicator that's kept up with inflation since the pandemic. And I love that and thank you for sharing that. And I think that this is a really good experience and just hearing the different lenses, right, of what what you're focusing on, where your continuous improvement efforts are, right? But then the theme of taking care of people, taking care of the kids are all there. And a lot of that, the reason we do this is a lot of this is what the accredititation review is
022about is really pulling together a team of experts um and saying here is our data, here's our information, here are here are the things that we're trying to achieve. Where are we in the process? And then not just where are we having problems, but what might be right our next actions for improvement. um and maybe not getting it 100% right right away but continuously trying and continuously trying to be better. So thank you for sharing that. All right. So, the essential roles and responsibilities of the school board. Um, the primary responsibilities for school boards, and some of this is repetition, but this is just I don't think it ever hurts to continue to repeat things that are important. Really, is to help establish the vision and goals for the school district. Be aware of policies,
023laws, and regulations that impact the work of the district. And then adopt those local policies to help improve the work. You need to hire and evaluate your superintendent. Agree. And that'll be something we talk about. Adopt and maintain an annual budget that is aligned with the vision and needs of the local school district. And then you guys serve as leaders and representatives of the community in advocating the interest of students in the school district. Right? That is one of the the interesting quirky things about being an elected school board members. You are not actually speaking right for your voters. You are representatives but you are really acting and speaking on behalf of the students and all students not just the ones that are in your election zone. How common is that across the country? Um,
024that I think is a good question. I can only speak about Georgia. Uh, but in Georgia, it's for sure codified, right? That is clear and the way that it is. As someone who had worked as an educator, I love that, right? Because I don't want to be just a representative for my own students in my own classroom. I love that we're doing work for all kids. I'm a special educator. All kids hits my heart. Um, and so I love that they're elective representatives that are speaking on behalf of all children. Um, so the bucket list for effective governing boards, right? You start with your vision and then you need to fill your buckets with these things. You need to have that good communication and teamwork. You stay learner focused and learner centered. Um, and learners
025are not just the kids. That's something that we have really sort of adopted and thought about now is remembering that the adults that work for the system are also part of that learner community and we need to pay attention to that um system focus. Right? So we're not trying to necessarily solve a problem in one classroom. We're thinking about what's the system that may have contributed to that and how do we make changes there for improvement. Strategic thinking and planning. So, not just reactive, but also being very proactive, trying to forecast as much as possible, plan um and and respond to that, having clear goals. Um, I was having a little sidebar conversation with Amanda, right, about having a student representative on the school board listening and what a good experience that is in trying
026to figure out what are your priorities and how do you stay focused? because it's very easy to listen to a school board meeting and say, "Oh, that's something I want to talk about. That's something I want to chase, right? But you can lose focus on your big goals." And so, I mean, it's just a great experience to be able to practice that. Um, and then having that sound budget and your effective policy. That's your big lever as school board members. That's truly how you impact change in the district. And then of course, you know, some things that are not so great, right, that we just try and avoid. And I always believe it's important to have the non-examples, not because anyone's doing it, but sometimes it helps you just see where's the line, right? When
027have I maybe crossed over and I need a friend to pull me back. And so things that are not effective, things that really slow down the process or the aimless talking. Um, and that's and that's where maybe we have something that we feel like we have to bring up and talk about over and over again, but it never goes anywhere. And and and and maybe it's important to bring up, but then maybe it's also just a place of reflection, right? Is there a different way that I should be approaching this? Because the time when we're together as a board is really valuable. Um for conduct being unprepared, that is one of the things. Um so we have these experts who are in the district office and I know that they work really hard to make
028sure that board members are prepared and have the information that they need. And so when that happens, there is the expectation that board members are reading and processing and digesting that information so that when a district leader standing in front of you, the questions that they're getting are truly things that are new and not stuff that was necessarily you could have known ahead of time. Um, again, we're not perfect and these things happen, but it's just something to keep in mind. Rubber stamping. So GIMA, you know, as much as they love and trust you, they shouldn't just rubber stamp everything. Um, nope. That's not something they do. Yeah, those questions that you ask of your superintendent are important because you are acting as a board and you do need to feel confident and comfortable um
029with what you are are doing in the district. But on the other hand, we're not going to micromanage either. I think you said that beautifully. We've hired experts who know what they're doing. there are the right people in the right job and we need to let them do that work because we're going to govern. Um we're not going to be the experts on all things. You can't your brain will melt out of your head. That's why you hired these amazing people. You guys are the governing team. Um and so you need to let them do that work. And then we're not going to have political or personal agendas. And and again, that's just it's a tricky thing to be an elected official but who's serving in this unique role. and that you just have to
030wrestle with as a school board member. Um, but just making sure that what you're doing is acting on behalf of the kids and not something that is political or personal. We're trying to get, you know, trying not to get derailed. We live in political times right now. All right. Any questions or thoughts? All right. So, now we're going to move to a little bit of questioning. If you um need to think or jot down something, it is in your um guide if you're just one of those people that needs to take notes first. But I'm going to ask you guys to kind of look at and to think about first by yourself and then we're going to have a conversation. How does your board ensure it's an effective governance team? And how are you holding
031yourselves accountable as a school board? How are you holding each other accountable? And then this question is really kind of to help lead into those. You don't necessarily have to answer, but just to kind of think about where I'm going is like what does it look like, right? To respectfully agree to disagree, but continue to be effective, right? Because you can say, "Oh, let's agree to disagree," but then you stop being effective, right? So, I want you to think about this. I'm going to give you about two minutes. Some of you might be faster processors than others. Um, and then we're just gonna have a little conversation, but if you need to take down notes. Yes. Give you like 30 seconds and then we're going to open the floor up. If you're one of those
032people that needs to continue writing, write for a little bit more. Um, yeah. So, I I think I think we it's impossible to overlook the personalities on the board because that plays into this so much. But, I mean, we've done a ton of training together. And one of the things that that really stuck out was when we did the ordinal north south north south deep west thing where we we talked about uh communication styles and and sort of the mental states of each of us and sorted us as to where where we fit and you know we tease each other a little bit about it when our you know various personality traits come to the four but what was so fantastic about some of that training was I don't I don't speak to Jane the
033way I would communicate to myself, like I I know now more where she's coming from and I can tailor the approach. I would talk to Carmen differently than I talk to James. And that sort of awareness of each other allows us to be very direct but sensitive to what the other person will hear rather than um just trying to be blunt for blunts. James, I know James has commented on my tactfulness at times. I appreciate that. Um, and so that that gets to the third point where where you know we're able to tell each other that we disagree, but because we have done the work and because at least speaking for myself, my level of trust and just profound respect for each of the other board members that that when we run into areas where
034we disagree, it's it's always like if Jana and I disagree, I am not having a conversation with Jana to try to convince her of my point of view. I'm having a conversation with Jana because I respect her so much. What did I miss that we have a difference of opinion here? Let me see if I can understand. And we may still disagree, but that pivot is, I think, so critical when we're communicating as a body. You want to add on to that? I was going to add our uh book studies and discussions have I think helped us to uh work on becoming an effective governance team. Sometimes it's been affirming like, oh, you know, we're we're already doing this. And then there have been things that topics in our uh studies that have come up
035and you know, at least I've been like, I'm not sure where we're doing this. And so um we've done two really almost two and a half because we started one book and then switched to another one. Um so in addition to the trainings that we get um from GSDA and trainings like this um we're not just here thinking that we know it all um already and just moving like that you know I think we've been there has been some intention around learning learning about each other learning about how to work as a team about yeah about governance okay the book studies. I like that too. Just listening and trying to talk to understand. What else are you thinking there, James? I was in my pediatrician's office late last week and there was a sticker said,
036"Please don't let your kids climb into the drawers." And I laughed. My daughter's laugh. I was like, "Well, that's because there are some kids climbing into the drawers." as like when you're on a school board member, there are people telling you not to climb into the drawers constantly. Like we get governance training, we get conversations, we get GSBA telling us what to do, we get reminders that is I think I've probably been told, you know, it's not your job to be the superintendent or the day-to-day operations, but to have oversight of the superintendent for more than I was told to get my elbows off the table at dinner. like it is just there and in it's it's helpful. It's a good reminder because otherwise I'd probably crawl into the drawer at the pediatrician's office a
037couple times. Um and as a board we do that and we attend and and you know we're we're good at that and even almost self-p policing too. I don't you know um not almost I think actually yeah very much so. Yeah. Um, I think the longer you sit on the board, you get more and more like like oh there's certain things that I should be doing and certain things that man I don't well I personally don't have the bandwidth to get into but even if I did I feel okay with that because I'm like I don't have that capacity or that's not my job anyway. So I think the answer the first and second is good is like as a governance team there's lots of training books and and one-on-one stuff or just the stickers.
038They don't do that. So, I like what you said about um sort of trying to pull each other in. So, what does that look like if you're trying to pull each other in or if you feel like somebody's stepping over? How are you how are you holding each other account? That's a tough one. I like it better when we self police alive. Okay. Like I I uh I can almost physically hear Jana sometimes like things like I got a question about that. Okay, I'll just I'll do it later. You know, but when people don't do it, which has happened and continues to happen, it's like an aside or we've discussed it with lawyers for legal stuff. I mean, that's because we're talking about kids. We're talking about equity. We're talking about grades. I mean, we're
039talking about stuff that gets us out of bed as as human beings ran a school board every day. Um, we we've gently corrected but but like so I when when Tracy first came onto the board, she didn't have any real training on this and we would be in a public conversation and she'd ask a question that was clearly going into operational level stuff and just very politely like actually at a governance level we don't we don't have to worry about that detail that's on the superintendent but but I think what you're trying to get to is that you I mean just like a a polite redirect rather than you don't need to know about that stop asking. You know what I mean? Like that's you know. Yeah. So maintaining the collegiality making sure that you
040can trust each other. Yeah. Where do you think I'm I think we've all um I think all of us Tracy exactly where you put them yourself but I think we've all kind of brought a lot a time or two into operations and um I you know I think part of it was human. I think um some part of it is um just uh I think when I've done it, it's completely out of it's a lot of it's out of ignorance, not knowing what I don't know. And um I think when you know some part of the discomfort is when maybe I guess to James's point when we don't realize that we've crossed that that margin into into the superintendent or another cabinet member's kind of area of expertise. Um and then um I feel like
041sometimes that does fall on the board chair to to sometimes well this is probably a little more operational. Um um I agree with James. It is nice when people realize or collectively as a group in an open conversation you're like this is not where we belong and this is all kind of as a collective step back. But sometimes it's not always that way. Um I think maybe the accountability piece of that is from my perspective is making sure everybody has access to the same information um and has by virtue of that has the same understanding. Now everybody may not get to the same level of understanding at the same pace um or with the same tools um but making sure that everybody has the same understanding. Some topics are way bigger than others um but
042I do think that um everybody has kind of unfortunately gotten into some level of getting into operations and has had to be redirected. Um whether or not we agree that we're where we don't belong um yeah I don't know but um we've all been there. Yeah. And I I mean I think it's it is something that boards continuously wrestle with like you are human be right human beings who care about kids who care about your role right and so of course you're trying to do what's class right and I think it's just that place of of having that self-awareness right and then being able to trust each other in those conversations of hey maybe we need to take that one a step back because we're not right now we're not acting in our capacity or
043our function as a board member we we've shifted somewhere else right and it's just having that trust because you need to have conversations. Um, so I think it's good and and and to not not be so hard on yourself when you mess up because human beings we're going to do it. It's just being willing to say, "Oh yeah, okay. I'm so sorry. Let me step back." There's one I forgot to add. I had written down our annual self evaluation that we do is another place for us to reflect because I I was thinking about um so that's a place for us to reflect as a governance team but then also how do I hold myself accountable you know my own personal reflection on meetings conversations things like that um so I think that's a way
044that we hold ourselves accountable as a on this team and individually. Well, I think I mean I think it's a really interesting I like the word accountability. I was um in charge of accountability in the school district and Henry and people thought it was this bad word and I never thought of it as a bad word. It never supposed to be a gotcha. I always saw accountability as much more about selfmonitoring, right, and self goal setting and and and looking at my own results and then changing practices and getting feedback on it. And so I think that that that can be a way that this board is holding themselves accountable, right? Is that personal and individual accountability, but then that trust, right? That somebody's got you. Nobody's going to let you walk off a cliff,
045right? I always say that to my team. Please don't let me walk off a cliff. It doesn't matter. Like do not let me do that. That is you've got to stop holding me back even if you think it might hurt me a little. I I don't know that we mentioned this specifically, but I do think there's a big part of of the the trust that I think we have for each other. If James corrects me or provides feedback or pulls me back from the cliff, I I know that he's coming at it from a good faith focus on the kids. And and so I'm not feeling personally attacked. I'm feeling helped, not not attacked. And I think that holds true for for each of us, I think. And then so there is that. Um James
046is particularly tactful, so he's good at it. Wow. That's the last compliment. Love it. I know. Should we be taking a little tally mark compliments? Good. All right. Well, you said it and so I'm not going to belabor it. There's so much training and things available for you, but I do feel like I have a responsibility to point you towards the original source here. So, uh, Georgia Department of Ed is always there to help you, as is GSBA. Our friends over there, we partner with them. Um, and so just to let you know that they're there. All right, let's get here for what we actually came for y'all. Uh, Cognney's accredititation process. What do school boards need to know? So, the important thing about accreditation, right, is it's actually not just some sort of checklist,
047get a certificate, you're done. It really is when you are with Cognia a continuous improvement process. And there is a cycle. And these things are not unknown or unusual or new to school districts especially high performing school districts. Um basically what we do is we take our standards and we have 31 of them and using those performance standards the institution is then examining itself looking at its current effectiveness capacity and capability to achieve and meet its vision and goals based on those standards. Um, we're also then bringing in a third party to validate for that for you. Uh, it's a very formative approach. So, this is not state accountability. We're not coming in and saying, you know, we don't do the grade here in Georgia anymore, but right, it used to be like you're a
048C district, you're an A district. We're not doing that. This is about here's your current landscape, here's how you pulled it together, here's the picture of where you are, and here's where you want to go, right? and here's next steps to get there. It's really working and validating that. It is very very data driven. Very data driven. And this is one place where people can be a little surprised about what happens with their accredititation report versus what they think because we really do Cognia says it is wonderful to have the mindset. It is wonderful to be able to say the things that you want to say and to to to do all of that, but if you don't have evidence or data to back it up, then you're not in a position of strength, right?
049You are just at the beginning of the journey where you're talking. Um, and so it is very much based on what's your data and what is your evidence. We bring in expert evaluators. Uh so we have Georgia educators who have um experience across the state who have done a m many many many evaluations who come in to support the team and to give that final report and evaluation. It is a continuous improvement cycle. So accredititation review is due every six years. That's a change. It used to be every five years but what we were finding is that because it takes a year or more truly this team's really in the thick of working. it takes a year or more to truly go through the process that you need to go through to prepare your accredititation
050portfolio. Five years was just not appropriate. We needed to expand that so that people in the district could do the work they needed to do to continuously improve. Um and so we spread it out to six years. And then there's ongoing touch points throughout that six-year cycle. Cogn doesn't just come in, do your accredititation review, and leave. Um we check in at least annually and we're always available. Um, and so Amanda should at some point put me on speed dial because I'm there to be her thought partner and to just really help her if she ever feels stuck. Um, and so I've been saying continuous improvement a lot. If anybody's a data taker in this room, then you can start doing your little tallies on me for this one because it'll be the word. So,
051but I want to make sure that we uh have an agreement on our definition. And so continuous improvement for me uh and for Cognia, it's a behavior, right? It's not a, oh, I wish I were doing this. Continuous improvement is the behavior that is embedded in an institution's culture that constantly focuses on the conditions, processes, and practices to improve teaching and learning. Right? That kind of narrows it down a little bit. So when we're talking about continuous improvement, it's not just wanting to improve it. is that you are actually taking action. Um, and so this cycle continues in a six-year flow. The purpose of accreditation, and I think this is important for schoolboard members again because one of your jobs, right, is you are acting on behalf of the students, but you are often called
052upon to speak to people and to explain things. So, I want you to know like why why is it important for the school district to go through the accredititation process? So there's several of them here. Um one of them is that it's really ensuring that your institution is moving through a rigorous and effective self-evaluation process. This district moves through cycles of self-evaluation constantly and I know that you know I live here and then I've had conversations. But then this is the place where you bring in a third party to validate that for you, right? And so someone who can say absolutely here are the things that they are doing and here are the places where they're still growing right and so it's not just the school district saying yes we're doing it trust us it
053is someone else who has the expertise coming in and saying here you go here's what we found and this is what we saw too. Um it determines what degree the institution's meeting those universal standards. Um and they are evidence-based best practices for high performing institutions. And I think that that's important because our state accountability system is it has kids interest in mind, right? But it is also part of politics and politics change based on elections. And so our standards are there not to be representative of what is happening in Georgia right now, but to be universal global standards of excellence. And so that also can give you a place to focus on knowing that as a school system you're navigating all the rest of it. And I get it, but to be able to look
054at those standards and say based on evidence and literature and research and best practices, here are some key things that we're going to focus on uh to do what's right for kids. It provides feedback obviously. Um at the end of this there your district is going to get a report that talks about what we saw, what we observed, some strengths and then some areas for improvement. So it gives a very nice report that can be used to build your continuous improvement initiatives for the next six years. And then finally, partnering and having that accredititation really does show your commitment to your stakeholders. Um, that you're committed to that transparency, that you are consistently pursuing excellence in education and that you really are a district that's not just talking about continuous improvement, right, but doing it
055every six years. Every six years. Yeah. I was going to um so [Music] regarding politics involvement in government and education and so there you all have not had to adjust or cons with executive orders. Are there things that we have, you know, been engaged in as, you know, governance teams across the country recently because of executive orders that you all have, you know, is there anything here that could uh conflict? So, well, that I mean that's a really So, so our goal is no. Um, and I will tell you that we've looked through it and but the politics are changing really really rapidly. Y'all have experienced this. And so you have a printed copy of standards in front of you. I actually encourage people to always go to our web page for the most current
056and updated standards. We would not be changing the spirit, but there may be an occasion where we need to change a word, right, for clarity or to maintain focus on what we're supposed to be maintaining focus on, right? which is what is going to work for kids, the schools and the district. Uh so there were some language tweets that did happen this year. Um and so those are in front of you. But again, the spirit and the purpose of those standards did not change. Uh we do go through a review process, a thorough review process every six years where we go and we pull all the literature and do a literature review and compare our standards and then make updates. Um but annually we will make little tweaks to language if we need to just
057because school districts need to focus on the work they need to do and not worrying about whether the wording in this right is is matching the word. So if you see something in there questions about it first talk to GMAT and then if there's a question then we'll we'll come talk to you about it. Um I I know that that James and Jana were just on the board I guess in the last accreditation process. the report was released. Were you guys on the board when it was done or when the report was released? Where where I'm going is I'm curious what was in that report. Um because I think we all have a pretty strong perspective that fairly substantive changes were required to be made in the system due to us probably not performing well.
058uh and I'm I'm just curious how able the institution is to get at some of those needs through this process. So I think as I go through I think that's a really good question. I think it's something that um you can talk to GIMA about and just see how you want to approach it. But we did change our standards in 2022 significantly. So the pandemic just changed the landscape of education in a way that we there was no way to maintain with what we had in the preandemic times and still be able to meet the needs of what schools needed. Yeah. Uh so you can't just take the old report and then compare it. We do, you know, we've got tools and crosswalks, but they are a little bit different. And I would say that
059the standards now are the ones that are really going to be the ones that need to be the focus for improvement. I think it's worthwhile to look back sometimes just to see your progress and celebrate success, but they've changed. I would say that the evidence-based nature of the standards aligns to our strategic initiatives that we put forth in the strategic plan. Um we didn't even have a strategic plan when it what so I didn't look back at the old information. What I will say is I have taken all indicator like these performance standards and said crosswalk this where are the gaps how might we fill them if you see any question which is why when Amanda shared earlier that so many members of cabinet have already gone through the modules and the things have to
060help me understand this because in understanding this you will be able to understand its alignment to the strategic plan which will make our third quarter a lot easier. Yeah, having the work already aligned does make the review process so much easier because all of your evidence and things you're monitoring all align and that's ideally how it works, right? It shouldn't be an extra step. This should be just how the work is is being done. I love hearing that. Right. So, accreditation really works best. Um, and you just already heard that reference this self assessment and improvement are already just part of the culture. It's part of what we're already doing. It's not just because Cognney is coming by. We've already been doing it. Um, and then that review event is really seen as that opportunity
061for reflection and feedback. Not a gotcha. Well, look what you didn't do. It is much more of a here's where we are, where do we want to go, where are the gaps, let's figure it out. The district really focuses on the impact of their programs, their systems, and their practices, not just compliance. And that's again another shift from the state accountability system and a little bit of a shift from our former standards where I when I look at them, there's pieces of them where I'm like, I could have just checked boxed that, right? Do you have this check? Which those aren't that does not exist right now in the in the standards. Um, and that it's a true peer review process. So, it shouldn't be one person from the district doing this. It truly is
062a team because you need all of those experts on board to bring their perspective and their lenses and their expertise to inform what that report looks like. And then we also say that the findings need to be used qualitatively. This is your launchpad for the continuous improvement initiatives in the district. It is certainly not a gotcha. It's not something where people should be comparing across districts that they should be comparing to previous reports. It should be here's this here here's report that tells us where we are and where we need to go next. So there are different types of accredititation reviews and I'm not going to belabor this. The only reason I mention it is just because I never want school boards to feel surprised. Um, if something comes up, candidacy review does not apply.
063That's for the very first time someone's going through it. Accreditation engagement review or we call them AER because, you know, it's education and if we don't have letters to stand for a process, it doesn't count, I guess. Um, but accreditation review is what we're going through here in Decator. But then we also have special reviews um that happen. So if a there's a complaint or investigation or something like that, Cognia does do special reviews um as needed. And then monitoring reviews, which if your accredititation review says that, yeah, we can accredit you, but we saw some problems that will require monitoring, we would do follow monitoring uh reviews. Our accredititation engagement reviews are typically remote. There is an option to be on site. However, we do not ask that that happen. We got feedback from
064school districts that when an accredititation team would come in and spend two to three days in a school district rumaging through classrooms and pulling principles and talking to people is very disruptive to learning as you can imagine. Therefore, that is not where we start. We start with a remote process where we basically are having the school teams collect the information, analyze the information, and then we meet and debrief and review and do all of that. Typically, it works just fine, right? And and and that's great. So, then we didn't need to disrupt anything, but that's why we have a monitoring review as a second step if needed. Um, I just wanted you to to see those. Again, feeling like you need to know any of that. And then the road to accreditation engagement review. I
065want you guys to have this again taking that high uh high level view but just so that you know that it is a journey that this team's been on and that they are still on. It starts with planning, logistics and training. We started talking about this in the fall. Um so and then there's a self assessment piece which we'll get into a little bit but that's the biggest component. They have to create and compile an entire portfolio of evidence um and information and submit that to Cognia. They then there's culminates in a leadership presentation um and then all of that information is taken back to Cognia where we do the internal review and it goes through multiple levels before we then deliver the final. Uh so it's a multi-step process, but there is a lot
066of work on the district side. And so at the end of an accredititation review, we do always say that there should be time to pause and celebrate because I promise you this district team is going to have done a lot of reflecting, thinking, and collecting. And here's what they'll be doing during the self assessment. And again, you guys don't need to be in the weeds of it, but just so that you know the types of information that we're going to be looking at and the things that will form the basis of the review. So, there's an executive summary that basically is telling the story of your district. Um, explaining who you are, what you're doing, why you're, you know, why you're there. There's prompts that they answer. We have three required analyses which sounds so
067simple when you say three required analyses but anybody who's done data analysis knows it's not simple like that you have to collect the data then you have to analyze it and synthesize it but what we're asking them to look at is your student performance um which I've already heard references to you guys talking about I know you already have a system and a process for looking at all of that student performance stakeholder feedback stakeholders right are going to be your families your students, your staff, and then the learning environment analysis. And this is the one where Cogni is a little bit different because um a lot of learning environments you go in and you're looking at teacher behavior. Cogni is actually asking you to look at what's the impact on the learner. And so we
068have a tool that we provide that can be used. Some districts use their own tool. But the important thing is we're not asking you to tell us about teacher behavior. we asking you to talk to us about what's happening to the learners because that's the point, right? The teacher could be doing the right thing all day long, but if it's not impacting the kids in the way you wanted to see, then that actually wasn't the right behavior, right? Um, and then they do a standard self- assessment where they take all 31 standards, evaluate where they are in a scale of one to four, they provide some asurances, and then you have to compile everything into an accredititation portfolio for us. So, it is a lot of work. It's not something that somebody does over a
069long weekend. It has been an ongoing process. I have a question for the stakeholder feedback. Is that something that the district leaders pick? Um is it like team leaders? How do they decide who goes to that? So every district can do that in a different way. What all we ask, right, is we have some prompts and we have the standards. You need to be able to use the data that you've collected, right, to respond and provide evidence based on these standards and these prompts. So, as a public school system, you guys do the Georgia Student Health Survey, right? And so, some districts find that that is adequate and sufficient for them. There are also tools and resources that are provided as Cognito members. And so, if a school district feels for whatever reason that they
070need to administer additional surveys, they can, but it's definitely not a requirement. We're trying to fit into the natural cadence of data collection within a school district rather than telling the school districts what they need to do. We just want to give them tools and resources and options so that they could get them that feedback. So, one of the things we've been doing is looking at all of our different data sources and aligning them to each of the pieces to say here's the data source that would fit this stand or here's the data source that would fit this piece. So, um we're collecting a lot of data and we're doing all that alignment to conduct a synthesis. But that's a good question. Um and you know and part of it is that we so we
071don't just accredit public schools, we accredit private schools too. And so a lot of those school systems don't have the same tools and resources that a public school does. So we always want to make sure everyone there's some equity in what's available. So everybody gets access to the same tools. You just don't have to necessarily use them. Um and that was a really nice segue into the tools and resources. So just so that you know that Cognia membership, right, comes with these tools and resources that can supplement and support your continuous improvement journey. Again, no one is required to use them. Um, but there's infocus guide to strategies which can help with strategic planning. Um, surveys where you can collect your stakeholder feedback. Some of them are developed. There's also the opportunity to customize those.
072We have our observation tools. We do have a teacher observation tool, but the Elliot tool is what I was talking about that really looks at student uh the impact of the learning environment on students. We also have one for an early learning uh environment that's included. And then we have communities of practice and professional learning modules that can be used in an formative assessment library for schools. And this is my favorite part because it is my seemingly random slide, but I promise you it's not. It will come into the conversation later, but it's just talking about some generation gaps and key characteristics, right? And yeah, this is sort of this is a hot topic. So, it shouldn't be completely new or strange. And I don't have our Gen Alphas on there. You know, they exist.
073They're just so little. We don't We think we know what they're going to be, but they we we we don't really know what they're going to be yet. But we've got boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, Gen Z's. All of us are existing in time and space together here. All of us are existing within the school district together. And we won't y'all have this slide if you want to read it, right? But it's just important to think about some of these things that are right. Like my mom, I don't call her on the telephone. It's like we are not communicating, right? But I'm a texter. And so I'm texting her all the time. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'll call her. I'm like, "Mom, you're not responding to my text." She's like, "What?" She just needed to
074hear my voice. Um, right. And then I've got my Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids where, you know, I'll text them and I text them in sentences because that's just how I was raised. You write texting sentences and then I get okay or thumb up, right? Like so there's these different generation communication. That's just communication, right? But then think about leadership differences, thinking about work expectations, right? And the reason I bring this up is just think about the school system. Think about the leaders in the school system. Think about the parents. But who are we actually representing and supporting and trying to build for our little Jenzers and our Gen Alphas and it's just a place where we've got to because look, I'm Jonette and we like we're right. I already know we're right. Like
075that's just how it is. But I can't build a Gen X something and have my Gen Alpha love it. That's just not going to work for them, right? I got to take that hat off. So, I just bring that up there because as you guys are looking through these standards, we will interpret them with our own lens, right? Well, of course, somebody's going to be compliant and want to follow directions because I do. No, you know, if you talk to my little Gen Alpha, they need to understand exactly why or whatever. maybe just even arbitrary or if you didn't put on social media. It's not a tic tac chic challenge. It's not worth it. Anyway, so I just want you to think about those generational differences. I want you to translate them and think about
076them. um not just for the standards but then also as you implement policy right as you're creating budgets and things and and sitting in that governance seat remembering that our people that we're really really building for which is why I love that you have a student representative so that you can remember and translate because this is a place where we go wrong right because sometimes we build for ourselves and then we wonder why it didn't work all right so cognus performance standards we have 31 standards they are aligned to those universal best practices. We did that revision in 2022. Um they're focused in very much on how the institution is impacting the journey of the learner. Like I said, that is different from what it was before where there were some things about like you
077have a balanced budget and you have, you know, a supply list or just things that were more compliance-based. This is much more on how do you know those things are working? Um and then it should be your launchpad for your aligned focused district and school improvement. You guys have the standards so you can read them at your leisure. Uh the best way to summarize them and this is important because this is how school systems are evaluating themselves. They do look at each individual standard but you really need to be thinking about it holistically as a theme. And so there's four key characteristics. Um so there's culture of learning right which really is standards 1 through six leadership for learning which are standards 7 through 15 engagement of learning which is 16 through 23 and then
078growth and learning which is standards 24 through 31. These kind of build on each other too if you read through it. Um it's almost like a hierarchy of needs. think you really need to start having some of these things like if you don't have your culture in place or a vision for that, it's really hard, right, to start showing that growth and learning. And so these build on each other in a way that's very nice and you can kind of find your prerequisites if you need to by working backwards. So, we're going to do a little activity then because there is an entire standard that is based on the governing board standard 8. Um, and so we're going to do a little activity to kind of take you through the process that this team is
079going through so that you understand what does it mean to really think through, dissect the standard, reflect, and kind of take some steps for self-improvement. So, if you look in your packet, if you you can look at sort of the summary that's up there, or you can look at standard 8. Um, what you have here, we call this our performance standard cards. It gives you the key elements, some potential s sample evidence. Remember, you can't just say what you want. You have to be able to show us how you know, and then the rubric that will be used to rate you. So, I'm going to give you a minute to kind of read those. Then we'll do an activity. So, what you guys what I want you to do is I want you to break
080it into pairs and you guys are just you're already seated together. So, I'll have you guys work in pairs and I want you to look through the rubric and I want you to just kind of talk about if you have it and it's nonbinding. We can all have access to evidence, but it's just sort of where do you think you land on the rubric? What is some possible evidence that you would use to support that? All right. All right. So, you guys will also work in look at the rubric, determine where the govern body, what evidence be I would not say that does that. [Music] That's right. you know, I mean, I mean, survey I think after we individual group but I don't think there's not self assessment self assessment that I feel like but
081it's Right. [Music] how you would ask that's where you know parents before I was on this board I really didn't care about I don't my kid right obviously like cabinet also, right? There are some people that you can consider stay homes that are actually knowledgeable enough to answer the question. But I don't think we're using all But I think I think that's [Music] particular the state and national award. So Georgia. Can we even say they want to have to have that? You got you got to get to talk about that. It's all of course. All right. So, hopefully you've been able to come to some consensus. Remember, not binding and you don't have evidence in front of you. So this is really just your initial impression. What are you thinking over here, Carmen? So what
082So were you wanting us to say we gave ourselves between a three and a four? Okay. Somewhere between a three and a four. And some of where we what we were discussing is that some evidence that we um we regularly review policies. So you could some evidence in that regard might be to go back and look at um pre-work and work minutes um where we each policy goes through the policy revision process. We use a GSBA codes. You can see which one is discussed. Uh we have the policy calendar. So policies come at a different uh whether they're new or whether they're up for revision. Um so that might be some sample evidence. Um, only thing we talked about was uncompromised. So, some policies have a little bit more weight than others. So, some just
083sail through and then some and it's just probably the weight of the topic and then some get a little bit more attention than others. The other thing we talked about when we were talking about this now was in looking at sample evidence was um surveys. So for some policies we do ask for um survey feedback. Um it's usually community feedback but we don't ask for feedback from cabinet members or maybe even the um staff members who were charged with regulation of set policy. Um so is that something we should be doing? Should we be asking for feedback consistently before we policies come up with a final vote? um that was just something we handle survey um surveys a little differently each time. Not that it's good or bad, but it is worth noting that it's
084not consistent. Yeah. Okay. What about over here? What were you thinking? So, initially we like, oh, we're form, you know, we're doing all of these things. But then you know I asked about the stakeholder survey results regarding the governing um authorities collaboration and I began questioning when do we get that type of feedback from our stakeholders and I think we agreed that we're not doing that consistently. We recently did that. Um but you know outside of posting policies that we are reviewing and allowing for community feedback that way uh we don't you know I don't know that we solicited uh feedback from our stakeholders about how we collaborate. Yeah. And having said that though, I mean, I still think we're the four. Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but of all
085of the forms of evidence, surveys are the weakest, right? I mean, survey data is just not great data. It's important input, but it it is easily biased. And and so I do think that we can do a better a better job of it without without question, but I think we can do a better job of soliciting it and selectively ignoring it. I think that's important. Um and I I I still think we actually probably cut it's when you say that survey results are not good qualitative or quantitative uh so I don't want to say that they're they are generally weaker than other forms of data just given the ability to bias what comes in both in the way a question is asked and in the knowledge of the indiv individual responded. You know, you the
086reason why, you know, if you get 50 answers to a survey question, you may not have legitimate statistical significance over whether or not that's answering the question in a way that could drive a decision, right? There's just a surveys are sloppy and and desopifying them requires a a much much higher amount of work than I think I I would argue most school systems are capable of doing. Um, and it's not I'm not saying that they aren't worthwhile. I am saying that the survey is not the number one thing that I would look to in terms of is it being successful or not. Right? That student performance output information is much more important data source in my mind than what a parental survey says. So I think that that's it's a really interesting and so there
087this is all possible evidence, right? None of that is the required evidence. But we also ask you guys to triangulate um because we understand perception data is absolutely imperfect because it's based on the perception of the person who's giving it to you. But people's perceptions are their reality regardless of whether it matches my reality or not. So there is a benefit to knowing at least sure what people are thinking because then I can respond, right? Am I having a communication problem here or am I having you know what's going on right and so then I can resolve it. So yep Jim I'm sorry. What I was going to say is that possible evidence would be stakeholder survey results, but we also have two-way community dialogue feedback and two-way community meetings where that information there's always
088a reporter, typically a Francis or an Eston taking notes so that we have record uh questions asked, things that we need to follow up on as far as administration is concerned. So where it's not a survey, we know that solicited feedback is authentic when we receive it in the community meeting. And some are definitely more um lengthy than others as far as the amount of feedback we receive. But um over the past two years, I know that we have kept kept that. I mean, the two-way conversation was birthed out of a need to address an absence of a grading policy. And so that is where receiving that type of feedback from the community around the governing board's collaboration to create one I think was very authentic and it wasn't a survey result necessarily. Now we
089subsequently have one on the grading but it's not once again of the grade their authority but it's what helped to produce it. So it's just there's an additional additional bullet I think for us as a school system with the community that could be listed here for the governing authority collaboration. Yeah. And I and I think that that's great. Right. And then you have something that you can say either and here's something that we've then used to create a new system or process or here's what we learned from it and here's what we're taking forward. Right? It's it's a place to start. So yeah, that is all just possible evidence and of course there's other pieces. So I appreciate that you brought that up. So you know I don't know where you guys are going to
090stand. We won't be able to know until we get the portfolio. Hopefully Amanda was listening and able to take some notes on types of evidence that could potentially be used. Um, but this is what this team is going to do with every single one of the standards. They go through and do this type of self-reflection and they need to come to consensus based on the evidence, based on what they've seen in order to do their evaluation. All right. Did you guys have any questions about that or even about the standard 8 governing board? Okay. just know you're going to be part of the people will be talking about you. All right, so this is I'm a data person. Look, it's not even survey data on um and so I always like to share a little
091bit of data because I think that you can look and reflect on things within yourself, but if you don't have a point of comparison or you don't see a big picture, sometimes it's a little bit harder to understand it. And so obviously you guys don't know what all of those standards are. You have it in front of you. you'll get the slide. Should you be one of those people who needs to go through and process this whole thing, you can, but I've kind of blocked it out for you that we just looking at our network averages. This is really only the United States. This isn't the global, it's just United States. Looking at where the highest rated standards were, we find that they were in culture and leadership. Right? So, standard 2, 1, 8, 11,
092and four were consistently rated the highest. And then the places where uh we're get seeing the lowest ratings are standard 25, 29, 17, 26, and 22, which are in engagement and growth. I just point that out because should you guys get your report back and you see something similar, know that that's a national trend. That's not just necessarily Decator. If you see something different, great. But I just wanted you to put it there. And I just wanted to maybe put it there like like why why might that be such a strong trend? What do you think? So looking at like for example standard 26 which says teachers regularly evaluate instructional programs and organizational conditions to improve instruction and advance learning. If if there's any experience that I have on the board is that teachers hate
093it when stuff is changing. when things are kind of constantly evolving and changing that is not beloved at a teacher level and so that's hard to do like committing the system to constantly make those changes when you have a lowgrade sometimes I imagine probably not even low grade resistance from the people who are actually boots on the ground implementing those changes in the classroom I can imagine it's a nightmare it's just it's very difficult to to you're not you're not because that standard isn't talking about making changes to the instruction, not standard is talking about continuously making changes. And yeah, I I would just say that my experience in the schools would be that that's very difficult to drive down at a teacher level. Um, but I mean, I could push my back on you
094as a practitioner and like say, you know, honestly, that kind of is my job as a teacher, right? Should I not be continuously assessing what I'm doing and not not not not Amanda not GMA coming in and telling me what to do? Me myself having my own accountability and responding to my students. I don't disagree at all. I don't think any of us would disagree. I think that what you hear from a collection of No, I know. I hear you. Abs. Absolutely. like there there's a reality, right, that you're dealing with and then there's an ideal state and somewhere between is where we're continuously trying to get to. Um but I think that there's ways to interpret the standards and it's important to really look at what is it asking behaviorally to have happen, right?
095And what's the evidence um for that? So yeah, so part of it can be that sometimes we just it's hard to change, right? And so if there's a standard calling for change, we just know we have a natural challenge there. What else? I I was thinking about kind of maybe the interconnectivity between some of the standards because earlier when you mentioned um opportunities for learning. Yeah. And the importance of that. And so if we're providing opportunities for teach like I was saying leaders promote action research I don't know how how we're we're doing that unless a teacher is within it's in a program but you know I was just thinking as I've been you know going through different programs and always learning something new about teaching and and the practice and everything. And I'm like,
096man, for folks who haven't been in school for long, like Decater has a lot of teachers who've been here for many years. I think there's a a huge benefit to that, but a lot of them haven't done any outside of maybe short training that are offered. There's so much research that they're missing out on about, you know, new practices. Um, and so that I think that could influence that. But I we hold some responsibility for that also in terms of you know how we share you know these this what what's coming out of this new research. Yeah. I think the these standards over here look more like cultural practice to me. So you could probably look at um kind of the uh the strategic plan. could kind of look at um maybe standard based practice,
097that sort of thing, and be able to include that. But these look like kind of where classroom rubber meets the road here. And even like looking at standard 26 to get to a core, leaders consistently implement a documented process to determine effective the effectiveness of an institution's curriculum. So if you don't have that and you don't have the data to prove it, you're probably not getting to the floor. So, I could see where some of these standards just may be or may be harder for some um superintendents of teaching and learning to have that data to not only prove that those standards exist um but they're effective um so how it impacts budget. If boards don't have the budgets to have those curricula in place and in practice and in practice long enough to see
098some substantive change are probably not going to get to a Yes. No. And that's really insightful because that's that is so true, right? Some of this evidence that's asked for some of these other standards are big documents that are publicly available. You can just say here's our policies and procedures manual. Here's a schedule, right? But when you're talking about student growth for all learners, right? Like that level or a systematic process that's being implemented in every classroom. Yeah, you're getting at something that's a little bit more challenging and probably takes more time, right? Because you're changing behaviors and practices across an entire district. Uh, and so it just takes more time. Um, and so I think that that's really good. And I think that some of these also when I think about engagement and growth,
099the pandemic truly did impact the the learners. We know this. They impacted the teachers. And so there are some some kids, right, that are still unfortunately trying to catch up from what they missed. Um and and so I think that it's just it's it's a lot easier to say, "Let's change our leadership behaviors because the leaders are immediately under control in the school district." but to actually have the impact on the kids just takes a little bit longer and it's trying to figure out what they need to see those results. Um, so I love that. All right, any more questions or thoughts on policy and budget as it relates to the standards? All right, so I'm going to move through really quickly just so that you know there's an asurances that needs to be checked.
100The school district team will do that. The only thing that would really apply to you guys, just so you know, is that um making sure that the budget has been audited by an external source, which is not a problem for public school systems. And then so you know that what comes next? Um your engagement review report arrives n 60 to 90 days after the engagement review has been completed. It has narratives, ratings, and then next steps for improvement that goes to Amanda and to GMA. Um and then she will share with you. And then I have to say this because obviously I can't predetermine what would happen here. It would be possible recognition as an accredited institution. Just know that Decar has been accredited since 1931. Okay. Um this is what the report looks like
101just so that you can see it right. It gives you each of the standards. It tells you what your reading is. It will tell you the network average so that you can compare that. Um it gives you the standards again clustered into themes so that you don't have to take action on individual standards. You can see a theme that has emerged based on your evidence and ratings for improvement and also areas of um noteworthy practices. And then you get a final score. The score in itself is not necessarily important other than um if you are above 200 then you are scoring in the accredited range. All right. Any questions on that? All right. Um, policies and procedures. We always ask our teams to review that. If you need to see it, let us know and
102we'll make sure that you get a copy. Skip. This is really just our um cycle of improvement. Just so that you know, City Schools of Decar will do a midcycle progress report in year four of their continuous improvement cycle, which for them is going to be the 2829 school year, which feels just so far in the future, but it's really not. Um, and really that's it. The promise of continuous improvement, right, is that we are able to embed that change um and really impact our kids. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning, the kids. And this profound belief that no matter how high performing and amazing a school district is, we always have those opportunities to improve. And I love the educators that are committed to that every day and thank
103them for their service. Um, just remembering some key things about what continuous improvement is. And the key words here are sustained and systematic and systemic. Um, and then to just make sure that I have brought it home to you, remember y'all are advocating for all kids. I want you to remember that you need to collaborate with the superintendent. We're not micromanaging, respecting the difference between setting the conditions and expectations, right? And implementing the solution. Let's let the practitioners implement and identify the solutions. You can talk to the superintendent about the results that you're seeing and ask your questions. Monitoring outcomes. So, make sure you're asking those questions. Please advise the stakeholders um of the continuous improvement efforts and actions. It's one thing for school district staff to speak up, but when the board speaks and
104is speaking on behalf of the school district and saying yes, the things that are happening here are the right things that matters. Um, and then hold yourselves accountable. These results don't just lie with the school district staff. You guys are setting the conditions. So, the policies and the budget um and making sure that the right leaders are in place. So, these are some self-reflection and discussion questions. This is a little bit abbreviated and I know that I am standing between you and lunch. So, we're going to take this. You know how sometimes we have to flip the classroom. Y'all have these questions. I'm going to let you take them home, but I would ask you in the spirit of your own continuous improvement to really think about them. Um, and just see if there's some
105things here, right, some behaviors that might want to change or some pieces of evidence um, that you could change or key takeaways, right? Thank you. And then this is really important too. I believe in feedback and um, cabinet, if you want to join in, you may, but I'm going to ask the board, it is going to be anonymous, so I won't know who you are. I will ask for you to please give me some feedback. It is a very short survey, but that is one of the strangest things about working with Cognia and being outside of a school system is normally I had a bunch of peers who could give me feedback immediately and I don't anymore. So without you, I never get feedback and I can never change or improve. So please do that
106for me. Thank you guys so so much. I appreciate your service. I appreciate the work you do for City Schools of Decar. Um, and did everybody get that QR code? Yes. Okay. Because if not, you're going to get the slides so you can do it later, but nobody ever does it later. So, you should do it now. And then my uh contact information is on here as well if you need it. All right. Are there any questions? Everybody's really ready for lunch. Hans desperately needs caffeine or coffee of some sort. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you guys so much. Appreciate you. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right. Right out there. So, we're going to go ahead and do our survey and also grab our lunch and then of course it'll be some
107but I'll let you take care. Yeah, he does. I mean, people still say and then this is Emily from Sachs. I'm like, sure. Buy up Sachs because y'all do. So we so sax joined in I can't remember what they're in a couple different names but really they um what happened is advanced ed and measured progress [Music] incent then decided together their board said we make brand new name I guess pretty much the name yeah You know, lawyers, negotiations, whatever that is. How can you sound like will be here? Let me add the binder from high school. Someone from Sax and jump back in and move to the next part of the agenda um which is really around strategic plan updates. So, um, if you remember back at the last retreat, um, this was the agenda
108item we didn't quite get to. Um, so here it is today and it really works out perfectly because as we're talking with that Cognia kind of background that we just got around continuous improvement, we know that our strategic plan is leading our work and today's an opportunity for us to talk about kind of where we are um, with our progress on the strategic plan so far. So, that's the goal. We're going to be giving updates on where we are. Um really nothing should be terribly surprising. We did ask you to take a look for pre-work um at those executive summary, we call them the executive summary one pagers um that has each of the 16 objectives outlined and provides you some um information on each of them. So, we'll be doing an activity with those
109in just a little bit, but hopefully you got a chance to look over them and begin to think a little bit about um what you noticed or any questions that you had around them so that when you engage with cabinet, you can ask those questions today. Um but those executive summaries all kind of summarize the highle highlights for each of those strategic plan objectives for you and they help us in monitoring. They identify what the KPI or any progress indicators are and they help us know what the major milestones are for each of the objectives so that we're aware so that of course we can make sure that we're on track and then manage expectations and risks and celebrate achievements as we mark off those milestones as well. So that's what we're going to be
110working on today and we're going to have an opportunity to gain input from you all through some rotations um so that we can take it to the next level or make any revisions or additions um through discussion at the end as well. All right. So just want to this should be familiar again but just kind of frame us where we are today. So you all um created all indicator the strategic plan back in the 22 23 school year. We know that there was a lot of community input surveys that it was a process that was done. Um so that's helped inform all of our objectives last year flies in the 23 24 school year. Um we did some work in board retreats as well around refining some of those objectives. So those four strategic accelerators
111have been in place. We did a little bit of tweaking around um the objectives that were underneath each of them. So that there are four we called it the 4x4 for a little bit. That's how we got to the 16 objectives that we have now. Um, and we also worked through the key performance indicators. So, if you remember, we did some work around that and those got published. They're visible in assembly. All of that took place last year as well as last year. We um rolled out the board management oversight, right? That helps align each of our strategic accelerators and when they're covered at each of the board meetings through the various presentations. So in teacher language, the scope and sequence of when we're presenting different things and how those align to each of the
112objectives. So then really every board meetings a little bit of an update on one part of the strategic plan or more. So here we are this year. This year we have developed that executive summary that has been shared with you um and it helps us plan those key milestones for success. So we know that the strategic plan takes us through 2028. So what are the key milestones that we would expect to see this year or in future years so that we're achieving the the objective by in the life of the strategic plan and then so next year we're going to continue to execute these priorities and continue to manage the risks and celebrate achievements as we go on through this as well. So just kind of framing where we've been, where we are, and where
113we're going from a timeline perspective. All right. So, just to frame it again, you're familiar with the all indicator strategic plan. This is just showing some of the work that's been done that the the accelerators and the four objectives underneath each. Again, reminding that the KPIs, one of the things we've done is we've leveraged Simly to load the KPIs and to monitor them publicly um with our lagging indicators there so that we know kind of what's in place. All that is available and then this is I already spoke about it but the board management oversight plan where of course we can see the strategic accelerators and the updates that help um address the objectives that live in each of those. Um also exciting in the June June board meeting we'll be looking at the 2526
114BOP so we can see what where how it's looking where we might need to add things so that we're getting the updates that we need on each of these objectives. All right. So, you all have for you um an executive summary for each of the strategic plan objectives. All right. Again, hopefully you looked at that. So, this is one of the great things that we've put into place as we're rolling out um in Dr. Whitaker's 90-day plan. Some of the work that we talked about was pro building project management and change management skills. Um so this is one of the um pieces and tools that we are working with and building the capacity around our leaders with as well. Um but it's a concise summary of a project's proposals and the most important information. So
115you'll find the highle information there, some budget information there. Um you find the KPIs and major milestones there as well. So kind of that highlevel overview um which is an important piece. So that's what we'll be using. So it helps us understand a project before you review the full project plan or all the details right as you get into all the things that make that up. It's more that high level. So that is what you have here and some of the different components that I just ran through really fast so that we can have some rich discussion. Um but that is what you have in front of you today. All right. So what we're going to do is all is you have this in front of you. We're going to engage in a little bit
116of um speed dating is not the right word, but rotations, right, to engage with um the owners of each of the different strategic plans. So, for example, Adena and um Lonita will be paired together and they will be covering the strategic plan objectives that kind of they own. You have this cover sheet with you as well and it will give you a chance to engage with them. If you were able to fill out your pre-work, they were grouped together as well, so you could capture thoughts there. So, you'll be able to engage with them to provide feedback, ask questions, um just kind of that that back and forth as you're thinking about about that. So, we have um five different groups. Um my cabinet members, just so you are aware, obviously um Nia reached out
117this morning. She had a sumitive, so she's not able to be here. So you will have one break in the rotation to um catch your breath. So if Are we ready to go? So if my cabinet members, if you'll find your area around the room first, it goes around starting one and then it cycles around. Katic is going to be my timekeeper. We're going to have six minutes in each group. cabinet members when it's time for Dr. Sultan. Uh so of course uh Adena and Lita come to have Dr. Great. All right. And then board members, you can find out your round one. So you're going down to see who you are with first. And it's also in your packets. Did everyone find their home? All right. Start round. Yeah. So, Yes. [Music] children. So
118there's no breaks out. The spikes are district leaders. [Music] Wait for the Let's make sure you're right. I am excited. I'm not sure. What is the Right. Too late. I think the board kind of works. She was transport. Have one more minute. 30 more seconds. They can start. All right, I invite you to thank your presenter and we're ready to rotate. Now we rotate. Thank you, Dr. Teacher voice. It's familiar. Awesome. You know where you come to. Yep. Yep. All right. So, we will start our six minutes if we're ready. Did we rotate? You need one here. This one. You need one. It's me. The four. And I hope you're here just understand, you know, very different and a little bit more a little bit more than probably I've shared that we don't [Music] have
119the narrative around or something like that. They don't even falls under. Yeah. That's my second. my primary I mean that's where that came from noticing change someone% they're all okay And it's the minimum of 4%. So you're right. So that's that's my concern. And then even withern rates are a lot higher than they were. Oh, absolutely. I guess we're interested for that because we all know this auction. Yeah. Right. I'm that I'm in place to keep them know that they're actually good. Good Lord. Yes. All right. I invite you to thank your presenter and we're ready to rotate and you'll come to this. Do you prefer to sit? I invite you. It's one of them. Yeah. I can dress it up or dress it down. Y'all coming? I had questions. They're coming to uh Dr.
120Okay. Yeah. No, you're coming to Dr. That's correct. Yeah, they're just wrapping up their last sentence. Come on. Everybody ready? We'll start our timer. We're on a 4 questions, concerns, suggestions. Well, so I was just uh telling Sarah this I'll tell you this as well. So I think the biggest thing in front of us this next year is that uh the book on how much do you need it and understanding how much of it is going to come out some sort of bondike structure that how much of it is or whatever how much of it is going to come forward blah blah blah. Right? So that that sort of parade of what each of the buckets are and then what authun is telling me about breaking ground on the center. I'm like that's a that's
121a a big piece. Um the other one which I heard I was hitting about is just the point at which he all data systems tighten up because that is when right being able to have that when are you guys anticipating? Right. Exactly. And get position numbers. Um, so the solicitation posted solicitation posted yesterday and so by the end of the year we hope to have a collection to bring to the calendar by the end of this year or by by the end of this year by December. Okay. So, oh I see the calendar. All right. So then I would like to see a KP around y'all's right. have some comfort that's process. Basically what you have number 13 updated toclude all right and then the me through those we were talking about the yeah so
122one of the things um one of the things let me make sure that I'm in the right place Yeah. So, um the point that this is all and I think communication James five years, right? And so I want to get us out of this defensive way of responding to people using this more proactive. So that discussion by itself what we've done with teacher pay you don't have we have some of the highest total comp that needs to be yeah it's not just it's not just a KPI I think proactive communication that you're using uh not just to our community that you're just and obviously communicate to young emerging teachers slightly different community but having that is I think kind of always truly that you know 12 years we got really that's so let's get that
123into a KPI Like like when we say when we say competitive salary what do we mean in terms of we say we mean point you would be like everything that you Um well I mean so my the hobby horse that I climb on every year is about that we know there is always going to be a number but you know you're going to experience Right? Just that's going to be the natural. should not be budgeting the full amount for all the positions if we know that some of those are going to be vacant for a period of time. And so we can go back in the data and say roughly what we experience each year in terms of [Music] I invite you to thank your presentate tighter collaboration. Yes, exactly. instead of increasing the budget.
124Thank you so much. Round four. Who was the first one to get up? Run the planet. Adita. SP. [Music] How are you? [Music] You got We're in the home stretch. Start our six minutes now. I presented enough in front of you. Sarah Sarah. Yep. So, what about the salary? So, so far we've been doing pretty good, but like I was talking to we can't those little right now. I would say no higher than three. Yeah. that you know we take pictures for that. Yeah. lower than I think we're still not going to be number one but I think this is a very like okay we're going to be a president At least we [Music] can. So I think that hit really need driverve Yeah, I mean, you know, community of course outside of class, but
125you definitely need to bring them because they don't understand how important positions are until they're not there. Exactly. Exactly. We'll say obviously minutes remaining. you know, but you do have to take that. Absolutely. You know, more than constant [Music] feedback, that's true. like it has it has to the most with over 100 ft at the motion. All right, we are in the home stretch. Yes. First time. Yeah. Round five. The final round. All right. Wait, we got to put this. It's right here. It's right here. I got no problem. All right. Final round. Yeah. This is your break. Okay. [Music] I mean anything right We're being I think it wasn't. Great question. Is it necessary to participate? Yeah. Technology advances. And so it's enough to technology won't [Music] district that they want to go to
126play school. So there's there's a collaboration that can't be This also gets Each one of these% something like that. 20 more seconds. All right, we made it. I invite you to thank your presenters. I can put here as long as I'm sitting here. She didn't stand up. Very clear. Standing up first. Not fair. All right. You did not You did not have enough time. Am I right? No, I didn't tell you that. Perfect. Well, so what? So, now that we've had about an hour to engage with our strategic plan, what ideas, what questions do you have about the strat plan? All in Yes, you're yes. I'm very um so one good discussion um that came out of teaching and learning was talking about the KPI the concept of the KPI at some point and so
127my feedback there that I think should go to everybody not just teaching and learning is don't allow the KPI to drive what you look at always question the KPI itself right like so so where it came up in the context of that was you know and we're looking at subgroup performance if we're looking at at African-American and uh economically disadvantaged students we don't have anything in that about students with disabilities we don't have anything in that about other subgroups and so the question is should we we should always be looking and allow ow the problem to drive the KPI to allow the KPI to limit the way you look at the problem. Right? And I think that's kind of important. Okay. Other things and walk and I thought about the KPI of retaining teachers and
128maybe we focus a lot on salary and how sustainable that is over time to offer percent 3% more effect the budget and is it really necessary are we really losing teachers because of um salary are we losing them for larger districts in the salary sole drivers at the end we talked about ways to um you know along the ve about salary. Think about how to not only retain teachers but recruit new teachers, right? With salary focus because it may be missing something just keep offering large salaries to retain teachers. that partisan strategies. I think that survey data around um why do you stay that question and using that also it's not only what why why did you leave on an exit survey but why did you stay when you stayed and and really taking that
129data and looking at it. I I like that way of thinking though because what you're what you're basically saying is use the KPI, use the strategic objective to accomplish a concrete goal, but once you have accomplished that concrete like know what that concrete goal is that you're accomplishing so that you also know when to stop doing it, right? And that I think is important. Well, along those lines, um um they shared also shared with me about, you know, we may not be able to sustain given the raises that we have teachers, um this year, but looking at I'm hoping that, you know, we will be able to look at some other folks like our nutrition workers um and trying to kind of bring them up um continue the treatment. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Hey,
130I had some takeaways and thoughts about the SEAL programming that we're doing. I just it's so important and it's so hard to teach and measure, but man, there's probably nothing more important than making sure our kids are are future ready. future ready, emotionally happy and suspend, but like um just looking for more KPIs that measure not just that we're doing something, but that as we continue to grow and use what we're doing has been working. And I would say um Francis's excitement around it was was enough for me. Yeah. Yeah. Like it just it just felt so genuine like that was so um encouraging. Yeah. This has definitely been her baby this year. Yes. And and she's she's ready to give birth to something in the fall. Like everyone has heard about it. Like even
131the students you saw on on Tuesday talked about it. Like we talked about the standards for social emotional learning. Yes, everyone has. Awesome. So we we um we talked about mental health and whether you know there's the perception that we don't have enough coverage for mental health and the conversation was around perception versus reality. Uh it sounds like we do have enough coverage for the kids that are coming into the student center. But we talked a lot about how to forecast what the actual means. Taking a look at the best data, how many of the kids are are registering as as high as high risk? Of those kids that are high risk, how many are what percentage of them are actually receiving mental health support services from us and using that as a forecast of
132demand, right? If 4% of them or 2% of them are receiving services, then we probably have work that we need to do to to reach the other kids. If 90% of them are receiving mental health services, then we actually probably have done the work to to meet them. And so that um think that back to the question about KPIs, how can you frame a measurement methodology that identifies whether or not there's a problem? Awesome. Oh yes. So what are our next steps? one, thank you so much for engaging in today's discussions. I was excited to just see you all interacting with them um as well because they genuinely um have a lot of knowledge and you've talked about that in their subject matter expertise even earlier today. So all of us will incorporate all of
133your feedback into the templates. They say draft because we are going to ultimately post them but we want to incorporate the things that you've said. We will continue to monitor the progress and report on the KPI. So when we talk about uh our BOP in June at pre-work, this is where strategic plan updates embedded in each one of our board retreats. That's where it's going to go. and based upon the release of said data. So, um, say for example, CCRPI, that's one of our KPIs. Well, I can't update the CCPI information right now because I don't have it, but once we do have it, we'll update it on the website, but then talk do the deep dive in the data in the retreat. Um, and then I identify what we need to say. Where are
134the strategies that are working? where what are some risk uh risks that you see risks that you're hearing and build so that it would be sustainable. We are two years into a five-year strategic plan. We know it's not a plan that sits on the shelf as you know we have that four strategic accelerator aside in every presentation and we do it even internally at ASAP because we want everyone to know where their work is tied. Give me one more second and then explore the opportunities to engage our stakeholders. You all know that I talk to the advisory councils. I do the council corner and the points of um in the communication that you get. So you know what's emerging and they also know it's tied to the strategic plan. But the celebrations are key. You
135heard uh Dr. Klein talked about it earlier today around when the accreditation comes. It's not yay great or you know but you celebrate it because it's the work. Yes. Um so I think the first question I was going to ask is if this is the time you want me to make request. Yes. Yes. Please do. But I did want to make a comment about the celebrating achievements. I'm really glad that's up there because I I think there was a speaking for myself but but I do suspect my fellow board members thought this that as you came on there were some really really substantive issues that had to be addressed across the system and and even as you dug into it they were larger than we thought and I think we have actually been successful at
136moving the needle on a number of those and I I would say it's time to start telling them, right? Like look at we've done what we've done for literacy and you can see the change. Look at what we've done for you know this focus on economically disadvantaged children and look at how like I I would love to start having a conversation with Yes. What I would like to ask of my fellow board members so this came up when we were talking about CIS and I know we talked a little bit about return on investment. Those are the metrics that we're tracking. But I I really think in the spirit of being student outcome oriented. I would like to request that we get the performance data precised by CIS. What was their discipline data and performance
137characteristics precises engagement? What is the discipline data and student performance? because if we aren't moving the needle on those two things, then what what really is CIS doing? Yeah. And that's also part of their the contract as well. So, um we will make sure that you have it. So, we'll provide it. Just want to make sure that y'all are okay with requesting directing the administration to provide that. Does that make sense? It does. I don't want to I don't want community members to make the assumption that we are tying things as opposed to discipline. I mean some of these things may not have discipline issues at all should Yeah. Yeah. Understood. Because I because I'm trying to figure out what's the why CIS and why that question. Well, because we're spending money with CIS, right?
138And and so we want if we're going to hold CIS accountable, right? We're paying them for a service. What is it that we expect in return for that service? I would expect that the kids that they're serving are doing better some, right? I mean, and maybe it's not discipline. So, I kind of see your point on discipline. That's probably a good call. But like certainly like like attendance maybe like are the kids are those kids that they're helping able to show up in the schools more often because CIS is is providing this? Are they able to stay focused on their own education and learning because CIA? Because if if they're not, if there's no impact whatsoever in the classroom or in the kids' performance, then the question does have to come up, well, should we
139keep paying CIS for that service because it doesn't seem to be making an impact. So, I guess I I guess I would I would want some clarity on what are the goals of CIS? Exactly. And what because we've only had it for like one year. Well, we've Exactly. So like you know about PBIS like that's you need at least five years to see some results with PBIS. So I'm wondering like what what the expectation is around CIS and doubling. Yeah. Uh Mrs. Holt. Yes. So in the contract that we had and that we have now going forward into next year, the schoolwide indicators for those schoolwide services are to increase graduation rate at the high school, reduce dropout rates, reduce in school and out of school for the students that have those uh concerns and
140improve attendance. For the students that receive the case management support, uh we have 70% will improve behavior as measured by the number of ISS or recess days. 70% will meet academic improvement goals. Um increase the graduation rate for our black students or economically disadvantaged by 3%. And then for um literacy increased by 5% um percentage of black students economic economically disadvantage meaning the literacy and behavior and that happened. So I mean I agree with Jana that's not reasonable for one year like that's not going to happen in one year but what's the length of time that we anticipate that requiring so some of that data we don't have yet. So yeah like as the data becomes available just like I said with the strategic plan as the data becomes available we can give and for
141our communities and schools case load this is what it is I mean when we disagregate data we do it based upon subgroup uh and we can make sure that information is gathered but they but like to meet those goals when when are when are they saying that those goals should be Um well we they do send us an annual report at the end of the year. So we will get that now obviously last year with them starting in we can do that but at the end of this year we'll get one and then that'll be in the report that I do whenever you guys review and approve that uh plan that'll be part of the report. So part of it expected in one year. So you would need to for that data, the CCRPI, those
142sorts of things, grad rate, you're not going to find that out till like October, November. So we can't give you what their version is until then. And we understand that. I think we're asking are we anticipating CIS will have been able to make that 70% improvement within one year? Um or are we expecting it to be a couple of years? I would say the program we are with is on the two and a half year program very similar to the UVA program. Will you get gains? Yes. Will you meet all those targets in one year? No. No. when you're doing any type of input two and a half end of the two-year whatever the contract two and a half year will have had that and so but we can tell you the progress made as
143a result of one year of course and and we're will when do we anticipate that because I think then just that report is called I'm suggesting we get yes but we have to wait till so the state hasn't told us yet when CCPI and grad rate will be calculated we know typically ally is going to come October, November. That's when we will know when it's unimargoed. Like the state has to roll all of that out. Okay. So, it's like the So, Decemberish is when we'll get the update on the prior year's performance of it. Okay. Yep. All right. Okay. I think we did questions. So, now guess what? Amanda has been in front of us a lot today and this is now uh the last piece and it's around policy. So due to House Bill
144268 which is the um safety bill, there are a couple of policies that we need to address and needs to be effective June 1, 2025. So we need to wave what would be considered the two meeting requirement and policy uh for that. So that will be the first recommendation that Mrs. Lynch is going to read and then uh Dr. Sulten will solicit the motion and all the things. I don't know and I'll let everyone know that Jill is here as well um and can speak to this because this really came from legal with the um House bill that was passed as well. So may I read the first recommendation? Yes, please. The recommendation being made is that the board of education wave the two meeting limitation and take immediate action to revise existing policies JBC,
145JR, and JRB as a result of new state legislation, that's HB268, which requires these policies to be in place by June 1st, 2025. Jo motion to weigh the two meeting limitation and take immediate action to revise existing policies JBC, JR, and JRB as a result of a new state legislation which requires these policies to be in place by June 1st, 2025. So move for member makes a motion. Is there a second? For member Johnson Davis seconds a motion. Is there any discussion? I just want to make sure that this is going to be very clearly posted so the community can see like we are waving the review process but just making sure that this is going to be out in front of the public. Yes. So it's in the assembly agenda that and what the
146first item on it is the wave and then the red lines of the three policies will is are also on the agenda with the red lines posted as well. Do we want a this is more of a communications question, but do we want a press release or something that we can put out to the community so that they are aware that this is what we did and why? Uh we can do the we'll do the meeting recap like like we typically do for a board meeting. That's what we did for the special meeting. Okay. Typically, our retreat does not have a press release post. What we do is provide the board meeting recap and that's for any meeting but um I'll make sure for this that we do it. Yeah, I was gonna say that
147just special case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Welcome. No further discussion. Any further discussion? All those in favor. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. All right. The next recommendation is the recommendation being made is that the board of education approve policy JBC, school admissions for action. Do I have a motion to approve the recommendation to approve policy JBC admissions for action? So move. Board member makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. Board member Hut seconds a motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I motion carries unanimously. Right. The next recommendation, the recommendation being made is that the board of education approve policy JR, student records for action. A motion to approve the recommendation to approve approve policy JR, state student records for action. Board member makes the motion. Is there a
148second? Second. Board member Hearnen seconds a motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Right. And finally, the recommendation being made is that the board of education approve policy JRB, parents bill of rights for action. Do I have a motion to approve the recommendation to approve policy JRB, parents bill of rights for action? Board member makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. Board member Johnson Davis seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Do I have a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of discuss discussing personnel and legal matters? Thank you. Board member Herman makes a motion. Was there a second? For member Johnson Davis seconds a motion.
149Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. to executive sessions. No, put up that um where we know muted. Yeah. There's my first