November 9, 2021, Board of Education Meeting

001hey good evening everybody it's so nice to see this room so full we are going to call to order our school board meeting for november 9th it is 6 p.m um thank you so much for joining us via zoom and also in the building so nice to see everyone all board members are in attendance as well as dr berman so we will get started first can we just all have a moment of silence please thank you and for those who are able we could stand and do the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right and then we just need to approve any revisions or um in the to the agenda so do we have any revisions

002at this time okay all in favor to approve the agenda all right and then the minute did we have any changes to the minute china and so all in favor to approve the minutes with no changes bye all right awesome so tonight is hands down my favorite board meeting of the year and the only thing that i wish is i could see all the smiles that i'm gonna i'm just going to look at your eyes and see that you're squinting really tight and we're all excited and happy um so for those who don't know it is our teacher of the year recognition um and honestly we should probably do this more than once a year just because especially in this last two years you all have shown such a resilience um that i i just

003don't know how you do it um and so you were like awesome before and now you've just you know gone up on my on my chart for sure so i'm i'm especially excited to to be able to present to you all today so with that dr fernandez all right well welcome everyone and it's so nice to see so many familiar faces even with your math i recognize these amazing teachers um and my principals in the back as well so thank you all for being here and with that i am going to pass it off to miss burnett and she's going to get us started good evening good evening i have the honor of introducing an amazing group of teachers tonight before i introduce them i want to take a minute to tell you how our

004teachers of the year were selected school-level teachers of the year were nominated by their peers and all nominees must be in at least their third year of unemployment for city schools of fair nominations for school level teacher of the year are required to include how the teacher demonstrates leadership within the school or system works as a team member of the school and works well with staff parents and administrators and provide evidence of student achievement and engagement by providing a stimulating classroom environment nominations for school level teacher of the year are considered by a committee and selected by the principals a little bit about this group coming for you tonight you will hear about these amazing individuals you will hear their words and the words of their colleagues they come from all kinds of backgrounds some

005are second career educators that follow their passion to the classroom and some begin teaching right out of college they teach preschool kindergarten first grade second grade kindergarten through second grade eip third grade special education middle school math and high school health and physical education they have combined over 165 years of experience but most importantly these people are amazing educators that bring their best to our schools every day and now to introduce the teachers the teachers when i finish reading your introduction please come forward to my right to receive your awards and flowers and take a picture with dr fuhrman and his wife as you know let's go forward after your picture please head back to your seat to wait for the entire group to be introduced and wait for the announcement for the csu teacher

006of the year let's get started first up we have raffia carrion pre-school teacher at college heights ralphia has lived in and around decatur for 12 years she started working at college heights eight years ago as an assistant teacher and is currently a preschool teacher her colleagues say mr both as a class and individually she works with each child where they are and moves them forward and understands the way a very calm friendly and nurturing disposition which allows her children to feel secure grounded and ready to learn her class she understands and values that children have a desire to have fun learning and exploring new ideas because each year i attempt to provide a learning environment that encourages the whole class and each child to explore their independence creativity and ways to show empathy to others

007raphael says her favorite thing about teaching is tied to social emotional learning a key developmental skill for early learners so my favorite thing about teaching is when i see a child help a friend out of the kindness of their hearts i love seeing a big white smile on my little friend's face when they accomplish a task not only loves college heights but she likes many places in decatur she enjoys going little type of stories squash blossom the wild center the swimming pools and legacy park but most importantly to the proud mother of a dhs senior congratulations drop yesterday all right next up we have stacy foster kindergarten through second grade eip secretary she has been an educator for 14 years and she's in her third year as a kindergarten second grade uh teacher at claremont

008prior to teaching at claremont stacy was a third grade teacher at westchester she also worked for several years in newton county as a district level instructional specialist coach math reading interventionist for grades attendant arthur and an interrelated special educator stacy says that she holds a strong belief that lessons should be considered learning adventures where a deep connection with an array of content areas is fostered through experiences with art music and getting your hands dirty her colleagues say she helps students with whatever skill they are working on and encourages them she helps bring out the best in them so they believe they can do it she uses fun hands-on activities to motivate students to apply themselves through play stacey is not only a dedicated teacher but she is a dedicated teacher leader she serves as a

009math teacher leader and is a leader in the district rollout of the georgia numeracy project has also been recognized for her efforts by being selected as a finalist by the georgia state selection committee for the presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching her colleagues say stacy helps students feel accepted and supported by creating a safe environment for them to push students to work together which leads to rewarding experiences for the students one of stacy's favorite things about teaching is knowing that those beautiful moments that she gets to share with so many children can be the foundation for so many more spectacular noticing outside the classroom safety holds adult literacy sessions these kindergarten through fifth parents support groups love sewing creating natural soaps candles lip balms and going on food adventures [Music] stacy and

010her husband are proud parents of a dhs senior congratulations [Applause] thank you the flower general awards [Music] all right next up we have missy rose kindergarten teacher at glenwood elementary missy and her husband has been proud residents of decatur since 2001. she's been teaching in csb for 11 years where she has top second grade and third grade at oakhurst in kindergarten at glenwood teaching is a second career for her she has a master's in physical therapy from emory and worked as an outpatient physical therapist until she decided to change these colleagues pulled her in high regard they say missy holds all students to the highest standard possible academically and socially she believes that students can achieve and they do in her classroom she always encourages students to try to produce quality work on their own

011she lets them know how proud they'll be of themselves once they complete the task rather than have an adult do it for them she also loves to keep writing journals together students at the end of the year so they can see how far they've come cindy's favorite thing about teaching is watching the students transform before her eyes she says this is especially relevant in kindergarten where students often come in not knowing their letters or sounds and leave knowing how to both read and write i love teaching how to love teaching children how to problem-solve on their own and watching them become confident enough to take a risk and try something outside their comfort zone i love the exact moment when a student realizes that they did something independently without giving up and lastly i love

012how elementary students will love you unconditionally and will always tell you the truth because even this is not what you were expecting glenwood teachers and students are not the only ones that love ms rose parents speak highly of her too another glenwood teacher says missy communicates with her parents consistently she says she shares student success stories and how parents can best support their children at home i'm aware of this because of all the wonderful things that parents in our community say about her the community adores her because she is such a strong teacher to so many students missy says it was a pleasure watching their children progress to this school system and that her and her husband are officially infinitesters now that their daughters both dhs graduates are at auburn university and dartmouth college congratulations

013next we have stacy kenner kindergarten teacher at oakhurst elementary stacy began teaching 21 years ago in charleston south carolina after graduating from the college of charleston she moved to cass county where she taught for eight years before making her home at bookhurst the best little school in the world where she had been for 11 years her and her husband had been on their toes at all times stacy is dedicated to her students and is constantly inspiring them to learn she makes school fun and motivating and is always willing to put 100 energy and effort into her lessons stacey's classroom consistently feels safe supportive and inviting she is responsive to her family and treats children with respect and dignity she is a lovely staff member to work alongside and is always willing to support and encourage

014others that is a statement from one of her colleagues that perfectly describes stacy as a teacher and a colleague stacy believes as a teacher that one science does not fit all she says when serving children and students of all abilities from racially linguistically diverse backgrounds i strive to plan lessons with all in mind asking students what they know or if they have questions about a topic helps me scaffold instruction and makes lessons more relevant to students when i offer choices in the classroom it allows them to relate to the content in a way that sparks their interests stacy's colleagues say she's one of the most positive and calm teachers i have ever worked with she really takes the time to get to know her students to find out what motivates them to do well she

015has a seamless way of incorporating individual motivators into whole class instruction so that each kid has something to work towards and feels seen stacy says being a teacher is so much more than a career there's a passion the cycle of a plant in real time one that is strategically planting acorns and safe nurturing spaces i am adding consistent equitable sprinkles of kindness encouragement and creativity as time goes on my children grow i see a harvest of strong rooted gargantuan oak trees oak trees that produce fruit for the community as i witness this process it brings me unimaginable joy congratulations stacy [Applause] next we have julie parker first grade teacher at westchester elementary philly has been teaching for 21 years she began teaching in gwinnett county after earning her degree in elementary education at indiana university

016in pennsylvania she has spent her last five years of teaching at westchester where she says that it felt right she felt right at home immediately and knew it was a place she'd never want to leave julie and her family live in decatur and her sons are at dhs and wrestle julie is known as the go-to person for reading and phonics instruction at westchester her colleagues say julie is a phenomenal teacher she has found her niche in teaching with a passion and love for phonics and reading instruction julie delivers phonics in a personalized way for each of our students she knows each child's strengths and at the same time she puts emphasis on challenging each child to grow in their own ways her equitable practices are apparent as she makes sure each child gets the instruction

017they need in the way they need it no child leaves her room having received anything less than her best and this happens year after year she says i fell in love with my job while teaching children to read being a first grade teacher i have opportunities to take children from reading picture books to reading chapter books is a remarkable process an amazing witness i get to sit with small groups of children each day and watch their faces light up when they realize what they can accomplish when they persevere to try their best is the most rewarding job not only does julie give her best to her students but she's always there for her colleagues as well one says julia is such a strong positive force in westchester and i credit her with helping me get

018through the massive amount of changes that took place during cobus stayed up for hours on end to learn google classroom and help me help walk my team through how to do it she was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel when all i saw was darkness i know i could not have made it through those hard times without her we all know our strengths and weaknesses as teachers and her strengths rose to the top during some of the top toughest times i've ever had in teaching she's a rock-solid colleague and i know i can count her for anything congratulations julie [Applause] hey next we have kelly scott second grade teacher at winona park elementary kelly has been teaching for 20 years she started her career in michigan after receiving her bachelors

019and bachelor's degrees from the ohio state university he moved to georgia in 2003 and began teaching at winona park in 2012. his work is a literacy specialist and has helped first and second grade in 2010 she received the milken national educator award one of kelly's colleagues said the first pops into my head is seeing kelly interact with students on the playground students from every class will flock to her just to talk even in this time when kids are playing and need to be taking a little break she challenges them to be critical thinkers she responds with questions that prompt them to think about things more deeply she encourages kids to take place to the next level even though i don't get to see kelly teaching in the classroom i know that this is the environment

020she creates and confident to ask questions try new things and engage in meaningful tasks so this is one of my favorite things about teaching is seeing students develop independence and not meet me anymore i love building strong relationships and being silly with my students or our classrooms can be a safe haven for risk-taking my students teach me new handshakes we build a family and pet photo wall i'm a spectator of games and recitals on weekends and love spending recess time on the swings chatting examples that essential human interactions help us grow empathy and practice compassion we also know how to have a good time you'll often find our crew having bubble gum dance parties while we practice classroom stewardship creating goofy movement to help remember concepts and using funny voices faces and sounds in order

021to feel relaxed and ready to learn kelly not only loves to bring play and adventure into the factory but her time outside the classroom is an adventurous way she has bonfires with her husband and cats yoga gardening volunteering and traveling the globe she's been to five continents and has summited mount kilimanjaro another winona park staff member said kelly is simply put an inspiration to all at winona park she's worked tirelessly during her tenure here and still always has a smile and a kind word to offer to anyone who crosses her path former students and parents alike seeing her phrases and often talk about the feeling of being part of the stock crew feeling of belonging she's one of the most exceptional teachers i've ever had the honor of working with congratulations kelly [Laughter] next we

022have don stevens third grade teacher at fifth avenue elementary sean has been in education for 21 years she has a wealth of experience inside and outside the classroom she started teaching at a state fund and mental health facility at illinois she then taught self-contained special education in illinois and then in southwestern county she took a break from teaching to attend grad school for non-profit management and then worked at the state office for special olympics georgia dawn went back to the classroom in 2004 at drew charter school before moving to westchester and then bay she and her husband have a daughter in sixth grade at principal dawn is a leader and a teacher that others looked to for creativity and fresh ideas one of don's colleagues shared sean embodies what it means to be an iv

023educator her lessons push children to use iv traits especially inquiry don is a model of interdisciplinary teaching she integrates arts science math social studies and language art seamlessly into her instruction john's room is an inspirational place to visit every time i step foot inside i see a new exciting idea i want to implement in my own classroom john goes above and beyond bringing in exciting engaging and rigorous materials that challenge and expand our curriculum she always shares willingly and contributes selflessly without ever asking or expecting accolades in her application john shared an about an elec expedition from her time at westchester that she is particularly proud of she shared i worked at westchester with stacy foster another teacher of the year on the third grade team and our el expedition was shelter in america during

024our expedition students read books about houselessness learned from experts and we built a mad house or shelter all of the kids participated in reading writing and building the thing i loved so much about this project was how many people helped and participated in building the shelter it was a great opportunity for the kids to see that they can find a solution to a huge problem in their immediate world the shelter was eventually moved to the backyard of a shelter for people who are homeless in southwest atlanta and a man lived there i think my goal for this project was for the kids to see that they can make a difference and that all people deserve to have a home i just want kids to know that they are the person that can fix things dawn

025not only teaches students if they can fix things and change the world but also challenges her colleagues to think critically and went deeper her colleagues shared don is always pushing our team for equity and diversity diversity in our teaching practices she challenges the team to elevate their understanding of equity and bias in our work she asks us to be critical and push for broader representation in all that we do to teach our children congratulations dawn [Music] [Applause] now we have shannon bruton special education teacher at tally street elementary shannon began teaching in 2002 in brooklyn new york in 2005 she moved to georgia and worked for clayton county schools for 10 years before moving to csb to teach up phase and then tally street where she is currently a special education resource language arts and

026math teacher for grades three through five one of her colleagues shared in her nomination miss brewton spends so much time building relationships with her students and their families she sets the highest expectations for work ethic and holds her students accountable she is empathetic and understanding providing a safe place for students to land her students love and respect her and she does everything she can to help them grow both academically and personally gages with her colleagues i encourage them to be the best version of the development dan says that relationship building is her favorite part of teaching she says although i am a small group teacher with a small roster i think it's so important to build relationships not just with a group of students i teach but with every child i come in contact with

027in my school i make it a point to try to get to know as many teachers as many students as possible i do this because you never know how what you say may impact a child for the rest of their lives i think it is so important for adults to build relationships in the school because ultimately these relationships impact how students feel about themselves and the place they come every day to learn and while this alone can't totally be responsible for student achievement this pertinent that students feel that they belong are being seen and matter in order to do well shannon is a leader in her school her colleagues say ms rooten is a voice for equity and inclusion in our school community she speaks up and out for our students of color and students

028with disabilities she works to ensure that scheduling is conducive to her students needs and her has her iep criteria goals and success in mind with every decision she makes she voices her concerns and questions during our planning meetings and helps us break down topics to best serve our own students as well outside the classroom shannon has a 23 year old son and enjoys spending holidays and traveling with her family that mostly live in new york another side note miss brewton is also the very first teacher of the year for tally street and now we have larica fraser sixth grade math teacher at rent row middle school rica is a graduate of the university of georgia where she was also a member of the track and field team after uta she was an underwriter in the

029medical health insurance field after six years she made the decision to go back to what she originally majored in education she was taught in clayton butts and henry county and joined the renfrew staff in 2013. she also serves as one of renfro cross country and track and field coaches lorica says her favorite thing about teaching is seeing her students get excited about learning she says i like talking to them about how sixth grade math made them build their confidence in math that they felt they did not have it is a privilege to guide them in their observation and build connections to help them with their future learning plus my students are always so fun and entertaining on the middle school level one of our sixth grade colleagues chair sprayer is a teacher that touches all

030students that enter her classroom no matter what your ability level is comfort level is with the subject matter she teaches past success or failure with the content she reaches you right where you are and elevates you beyond with a lot of knowledge love and accountability the ingredients add up to students achieving far beyond what they thought they may have been capable capable of and endears ms frazier to her students eureka is seen as a leader in the school at college shared as teachers we do not get to see our fellow colleagues in action much but ms frazier is one of the few that i have had the privilege of watching teach an entire lesson and she balances pushing students forward and supporting holding them accountable and nurturing effortlessly whenever i pass her room i'm always

031listening hoping that i can pick up something that i can use in my own classroom in her in her application larica shared all of my 17 years of teaching have been at the middle school level when people ask what i do and i tell them i'm a middle school educator the response is generally something along the lines of how do you do it just as i cannot fathom how difficult it would be to pursue a career as a soldier a nurse or a kindergarten teacher they cannot understand why i would willingly subject myself to a room full of hormonal adolescence on a daily basis what i do know is is that there is no other grade i'd rather teach this is where i'm meant to be the other place she is meant to be is

032cheering on her own two renfro students as she has a proud mom of an eighth grader and a 6th grader congratulations [Applause] now we have allison flortpal health and physical education teacher at decatur high school i also have been teaching for 12 years all of which have been at decatur high school she is very active at dhs serving as the department chair and she serves on as she says pretty much any committee or team i've been asked to be part of she has coached softball and basketball and she started the flag football team which was in her second season at dhs she loves spending time with her family especially her wife and son she calls family allison says my favorite part of teaching is building relationships with our students advocating for them and teaching them

033how to advocate for themselves currently i'm a mentor to a former dhs student i actually never taught her or coached her but she was someone who as a senior i was encouraged to take under my wing academically she was struggling and the graduation coach sent her my way not only did she make it to graduation but today i'm still her mentor and she's in college thriving now i support her as she navigates college rigor and life's challenges this is a student who did not see college as an option for herself and now she's doing an amazing job and even has achieved being on the presidential honors list twice it is one example of how and why investing in our students has been so fulfilling in addition to mentoring and supporting our students allison does a

034lot to support and inspire her colleagues and they think very highly of her her colleagues say she makes students feel safe and secure where they are able to be more productive which in turn helps them reach their full potential coach paul is the glue that holds our whole department together any problem that goes arise she always finds a remedy for it she inspires students to believe that they can do anything to help students realize their potential to inspire students through open communication and the willingness to put in the extra time with them with them it has been very instrumental in my success at decatur high school coach is constantly supporting her students and colleagues in a caring and thoughtful manner she also has everyone's best interest in mind when making decisions and creating learning opportunities

035allison is passionate about and proud that she has been able to create and build a mental health and of course educator high school he says there's a lot of stigma of innovation in our society people are so frequently placed in boxes whether it's because of the color of their skin disability gender or sexuality i mean really the list goes on and on i think i was put into the education world to help students destigmatize their own thoughts and judgments send young people into the world being proud of who they are no matter their journey valerie valuing their relationships and taking pride in being able to make a positive impact in the way that they choose is my greatest host congratulations allison let's give all of our teachers [Applause] i'll agree we have some amazing teachers

036of the year each one cares deeply about their students and they truly live up to our vision of building a foundation for all children to do their best so they can achieve their dreams and make the world a better place now dr berman board members audience members before i announce the 2021-22 district teacher of the year i'd like to say thank you to a couple of people first to deaf for sponsoring an award tonight and for always supporting our teachers gail would you please come forward hi everyone it is lovely to be here and also very strange to be here because while i used to be a regular it has been a very long time since i've seen many of you in person but um there's not much in this dark cold weather that would

037get me out of the house but honoring teachers is certainly something that motivates me to drive over to say on behalf of the community a huge congratulations to all of you on this well-deserved honor what a year this has been um i sort of feel and maybe you do too that you represent not only the great work that you each have done but really all of your colleagues that i know you feel um bonded to from this really really challenging time period that we've been through so uh while you certainly if your marriage you are here for tonight i do also feel like you're being here being honored really is honoring the whole um decatur teacher and employee and staff effort over these months to keep our kids um as doing as best they can

038in a really really hard situation so on behalf of donors and supporters of the ef across the community um we just want to say this party party congratulations and thank you we do have a small token for um gifts for you of for teachers and 500 for the teacher of the year it is my utmost wish that you each go out and spend this 100 on something that brings you joy whatever that is whatever you know we'll do that for you you deserve that and so much more so thank you thank you well thank you deanna for always being such a great supporter of our school district and our teachers i would also like to thank the district teacher of the year selection committee they had a hard job and they took it very seriously

039so now as you've heard from their own words and the words of their nominations from colleagues our teachers of the year are an outstanding and dedicated group of educators but now it's time to announce the district teacher of the year as the cfc teacher of the year our representative will go on to compete in the state teacher of the year selection process the teachers selected will also receive a thousand dollars quarter professional learning of their choice and now everyone can find a screen to look at we will find out who our 2001 2002 district teacher of the year is like when you drum roll all right very good assignment on him hey [Music] all right congratulations and that complete teacher of the year for tonight i just want to say thank you teachers i so

040uh an employee level and a parent level you're all amazing thank you for letting me get a little blessed into your world by reading your applications and love it i love hearing about you and learning thank you [Applause] i want to thank um courtney for all of her hard work um arranging teacher of the years a lot of work on her and her team so thank you for arranging that and gail thank you for your generous contributions in supporting our teachers as well and i just want to extend another congratulations to our teachers of the year as you're coming up and i'm hearing all the words that you've written and that your staff have written about you and students and parents i see that when i visit your classrooms and it's just amazing to see

041you in person a little bit outside of the classroom and get to celebrate the amazing teaching that you bring to our school system so thank you all so much and you do not do any of the board members want to say anything before we let them i'll join enjoy their evening sign what um girl rossman says that you know this is such an honor and i know you all are so deserving but you also represent your colleagues so well um you know during this difficult time as we have been coming out the pandemic but knowing how hard you all um have been working during this time and so just thank you for all that you've done for our students thank you hey well good evening you are welcome to stay if you want to hi

042but if you want to get home go right ahead thank you all so much have a good evening don't all leave it once you could have trickled out you know she started this evening either in person or on zoom we are opening up to zoom yep questions correct okay just want to make sure so no public comment today so we'll move on to the superintendent's comments that's it whenever you're ready i'm ready good evening everyone i hope you enjoyed that recognition of our teachers as much as i did that's such an amazing honor for these teachers and as i say they represent all of the teachers i can tell you as i visit our classrooms i truly see that type of dedication to our students in every building and in every classroom for our comments

043tonight i wanted to first do a quick welcome we have our two board member elect joining us this evening carmen sultan and hans taste of first board meeting we made a nice long one for you so hope you enjoy it so welcome and congratulations to both of you i'm really looking forward to working with the both of you and i want to thank you i've said this before but i'll say it again service on on the school board is one of the most important ways that our community can give back to the citizens and to the students and i really appreciate you stepping up and volunt really volunteering your time to help support the students in our community much appreciated so congratulations and thank you give some general updates uh it's been a busy month

044as typically for me um i did participate in the anti-racism racism series um with the city of decatur this month that was a great conversation that i participated in also through def completed the um seeing whiteness for anti-racism series and that was an eight-session series that was led by some members in the decatur education foundation and really learned a lot and unpacked a lot about how as a person a white person with privilege how we approach and how we work on ensuring equity for all and that was a really great series i hope they offer it again and if they do i'll be sharing that information because it was just an amazing experience to connect with other individuals in our community and help discuss issues of racism and how um white people can help um

045address racism when we see it uh i also participated at the national superintendent forum and presented a session on principal evaluations um and that was really a great opportunity to share my knowledge with superintendents from around the nation on how to supervise and support principles through the evaluation process lots of stakeholder meetings again this month had a really good meeting with teacher advisory council it was a first for me we finished early i was surprised and very happy to know that our list of things teachers are getting concerned about is getting shorter and shorter so that was really nice to hear from them that they're seeing results and they're seeing improvements in what's happening in our district for them same with our classified staff advisory team meeting that was also just a very short brief

046meeting um the issues again that they're bringing up are few and far between and there's their issues that we're working on so i'm able to get their input able to hear their perspective and use their um direct information as we make decisions i've had my first two student superintendent student advisory team meetings and those were just probably the highlight of my month getting to meet with students one on in the group it was amazing to hear their perspective on how our school system impacts them as students they provided a lot of just really interesting and detailed information that i hadn't heard that perspective from before and lots of good information came out of both of those meetings and we have another an excellent meeting with them monthly so i'll have another round with them next

047week and have lots of great information so what they're doing for the student advisory is we talked about just some get to know you got to know the students a little bit better um and then ask them like okay what are the issues that you want to work on as a student body what are the things that are coming up that you feel are important um to address so we talked through those we're going to flush out to kind of prioritize what issues they really want to focus on because they've brought a lot of things so we're going to go through an activity next month or this in december to really identify some key top priorities one or two things that they really want to work on and then we also i gather started gathering

048information from our students about our grading process we're going through our grading and equity task force and they the students have a lot of perspective on our grades not just content grades but effort grades and how those are given and assigned to students so that i think they raise a very important perspective when we talk about grades so we'll continue to work with those students throughout the year several community meetings had a great lunch with patti garrett and mayor and andrea arnold our city manager just to get some touch base on where how things are going with the city and partnerships that we have going had a great lunch with becky evans she's our district 83 representative and got to give her some direct communication on things that are important for us as a school

049system and how she can support the city of decatur in the um in the house um again at meet monthly with gail rothman we've got some great projects that we're working on and number one is gail has given a grant to our dedicated virtual academy and is helping us transition uh one of our residences that we had purchased and had been sitting vacant for a long time as a kind of a home base for our decatur virtual students so the students have named it the dragon's lair and we're really excited to give them a place that they can go if they need some one-on-one tutoring if they need to do some work um with some teacher guidance that they're struggling in their classes as just an added layer of intervention it'll also be a great

050place for our students when they have to take assessments we know that some of the parents aren't comfortable with sending their students to a school building at this point so it provides that second step opportunity for us to provide so i wanted to thank gail for that and having my first round of covet advisory team meetings i'll give a little more information there and then i also went over to our kentucky street facility and met with our transportation team and they shared with me that i'm the first superintendent to go ever go to kentucky street i was like okay well here i am and it was a great meeting to hear from our bus drivers got a tour of a bus um offered to go for move on to her next next task but it

051was really a great meeting to get to know our drivers to get to know what their needs are and what are their specific things that are important to them and our transportation department and it's a great facility i was very very impressed with how organized and well-run the whole facility is they're doing a great work over there and they do share that facility with our school nutrition team um some more general updates lots of community events this month as well um beth lewis if you don't know she works at the high school and she organizes the uh what she calls the squad and it is teachers and administrators that mentor and support our student athletes so people assign are assigned athletes and mentoring three of our flag football players um and she organizes events before

052games um little social events to get to know the students that you're working with and the tailgate squad was actually just for the adults that are in the squad to thank us for the being supporters of our students so that was really nice i went to the soapbox derby that was amazing and really um appreciate the support for our student student success center and they donated i think over 35 000 so that is was a huge success for this event this year also attended the decatur youth council uh met with the students and this is a council that's run through the city um and they meet monthly and it was an opportunity to hear from not just city schools with decatur students but students that attend even private schools that live in our school district

053so great opportunity to just hear from the students again and list that student voice and then last friday actually um our attorney mr wilson invited me to present at the rotary club just kind of a state of the district and how things are going in city schools of decatur so that was another good interaction with our community leaders again throughout this month i've been working with my staff leaning in a lot to our data culture and building our data culture so i created a staff development that the principals then re-led like i created the template in the video and they led that at each of their schools and we'll be reviewing that as a school district tomorrow in our admin council meeting to get that feedback because what's very important to me is that we

054lift the teacher voice we hear from our chat our staff in the buildings and we use that input as we make decisions so this was a really good opportunity for me even though i can't be in every all of our schools at the same time it was a great opportunity to gather feedback that we can then review as a school district um and then this broom and i are gearing up for budget season so we've been spending a lot of time looking at the numbers starting to create some ideas about what we have on the docket for for the budget and that is our november work session board members and board members elect as we'll be discussing our budget priorities so that lanita and i can really frame a budget that is focused on what

055are the priorities that we have as a school district also wanted to give a shout out to our student vaccination event we are partnering with the cap pediatrics again but layering on some additional supports def and dha and city of decatur have come together to help make sure that we can remove any barriers that there are to prevent families who may need to get vaccinations for their students if they need child care if they need transportation we are working together as a team to provide those um those supports so that everyone who wants to go get a vaccine can go get a vaccine i'm so really excited about that vaccination event is november 16th and we've also been collaborating with dha to help them get their parents to sign up and provide some educational opportunities

056for those families as well i want to give some big shout outs first i want to recognize our school nutrition team and tiffany lawrence is our director of school nutrition every so many years they have to complete an audit um that is run by the state of georgia and they completed their audit last week i think it was last week or the week before and they only had four findings and the huge shout out there's uh the previous time i think it was three or four years ago they had 33 findings in their audit so huge improvements in our school nutrition team that was an amazing um accomplishment for them and when you hear what the findings are it you'd be like really it's there's lots of little teeny rules and processes and policies that

057school nutrition teams have to follow so they're just really small things so when i say they had findings they weren't like terrible things that would make you not want to eat our food they were little teeny like like missteps of giving one extra piece of cheese and a sandwich and i'm not even kidding i also want to give a big shout out to oakhurst for their blue ribbon celebration miss sanders and mr monas went up to washington dc and received the blue ribbon for oprah's elementary and that was a huge accomplishment i want to give a big shout out to decatur debates they um won some awards in their last debate and are moving on to the next level of awards um and they are going i believe to california for this for the national

058event i also want to thank our community for passing east lost and the senior tax exemption those were huge events on the ballot and that was just a a nice way to hear from our community their continued support and continued support for our seniors in our community to help make sure that we can keep our seniors in their homes and as as we continue to provide a high quality education for our students i want to thank our community on the whole for passing i also want to congratulate our cross country team they won state championships on saturday morning and one of the one of our runners in gosh i can't remember his name right now i want to say christopher christian um is the overall state champ so huge shout out for our cross country

059team yeah the big celebration i think that i want to make a really big deal about is our graduation rate we've shared this in the friday follow-up but i think this deserves a lot of congratulations as a school district so our overall four-year graduation rate for 2021 was 96.7 our five-year graduation weight was 96.39 and i put on the bottom there the state average is 83.8 so we are by far achieving a graduation rate that far exceeds the state graduation rate so i'm so proud of our teachers hard work and as you hear from the teachers of the year this work starts in our pre-k program this isn't just our high school teachers teaching to a high level this is all 13 14 years that students are being supported are being challenged or experiencing rigorous

060education in our classrooms to get us to that high level our students would not be graduating at such a high rate if they weren't coming with a strong foundation so that is a huge accomplishment for our school district to have such an amazing achievement of that high graduation rate and i also want to point out that you'll see and i'll show you another slide we are closing the gap between the student groups and their graduation rates so our overall graduation rate being 96.73 but you'll see our student group graduation rates aren't far away from that overall average so we are seeing that we are paying the educational debt to our students that have been historically marginalized and just to give you an overall summary as you can see here we are getting that return on

061the equity work that we have been putting in place for years so this is just a historical summary of where our graduation rates have been over the past four years and you can see that we are rising the tide for every student and creating more equitable outcomes for our students that have been historically marginalized so a huge accomplishment for our school district huge accomplishment for all of our administrators and teachers because they are leaning in and doing the work so that all of our students are finding equitable success some quick covered updates um we i just pulled the final data it's not the final data please we are still teachers i love them but they're like students with turning in their work sometimes but we are still chasing down a handful of teachers to turn

062in their vaccination information but overall right now we have an 88 of our staff are fully vaccinated so i think that is a great number for our school system and then our student vaccination rates are 57 at the high school are fully vaccinated 33.8 at the middle school we will be capturing more data as our students are of the younger ages are getting vaccinated i'll be working with our communications team to to find ways to help our parents submit that vaccine i've gotten information that it's hard to navigate that infinite campus tools we're working on ways to help support those parents who may be having a hard time getting that information uploaded but we're still working on that because my board meeting to have 100 final information for what we have at the time i

063did want to say i met with the advisory team they went very well it was very informative to hear from members of our community and get their advice on what is what they see coming up with coven what their recommendations are we're getting lots of questions from our community about when will we start peeling back mitigation layers and their recommendation and i support that is to be very cautious with pulling back mitigation layers we i don't want to be the first district out there to say hey let's not do this and then we find out two weeks later that now we've spread covet in our schools so we are going to take a cautious approach as it comes to pulling back mitigation layers um the agendas are posted on my web on the webpage for

064um in the superintendent's um on the superintendent's webpage and there are recordings of the conversation so they're held in kind of a round table format um so we just i pose questions ask them what their advice would be what their perspective is and then i take all that and process it and really then use that information to make decisions on what's best for our school system we do have two meetings in december those will be of the open for public not public coming in but we will be zooming those meetings so people want to listen in live they are very much welcome to do that um and then i did want to update we did have to suspend weekly testing and that was very unfortunate however just all the the things that were happening that

065were not positive with the uh the lab and the the company we were assigned just made it impossible for that to be an effective way for us to continue we are looking at another company we're looking at another company that not only can do the weekly testing but can also do point-of-care testing for us if someone's showing symptoms as well as looking at a possibility of test to stay they've been doing that successfully at marietta city schools and that is an opportunity for a student that is not symptomatic it's not a student that tests positive we know anytime a student has positive they go home they don't come back to school until they have met that criteria but if i'm sitting next here to miss white i test positive she's not testing positive she's not

066showing symptoms she can still come to school but she would have to test every day so we're looking at an option for this company to do that as well so and that is something that i will talk through with my advisory team before we make any changes on our exhibit protocol all i have for this evening thank you board any questions or comments thank you so much for putting that together i was serious on the advisory board that meeting that you had with the students oh yeah what were some of your takeaways as far as their concerns yeah good question a couple um concerns have come up at that the high school students the counseling department has come up as an area that they're looking for some more interaction with their guidance counselors so that's

067been one area that they shared the time with counselors and looking at how we can get more support for our counseling team so you know as a school system do we have enough counselors so my question is are we staffed appropriately are our counselors working you know so much but the need in our student body is so great that we need more counselors so that's more digging i have to do than exploring on what the solution could be for that we also talked about mental health for our students that across the middle school and the high school came out as a big need as they're just needing support for mental health for our students within the classroom what they're experiencing in the community was the other huge huge kind of lift that i took out

068of that and then the last one was helping students know what to do when they're being when they feel they're not being treated equitably by a staff member so we talked about a student bill of rights and our students responded that they feel like they know what how they should be treated and what the house teacher should be treating them their comment was we don't know what to do when that happens so that was one of the that was one of the topics lots of other little things here to spend the next meeting really fleshing out which ones should be prioritized yeah good question thank you how many students do you probably have told us this before but how many students on the advisory council let's see at the high school i think i have

069three or four per grade level probably about 20 total at the high school and then the middle school i think i'm at like 13. okay okay um i also wanted to ask if um i know you mentioned that you and ms brooms will be gearing up for um budgeting season and um we've had some conversation about a few years back where um staff were able to submit kind of their wish list of um things that they would like to see included in the budget okay and it wasn't a guarantee that they would get those things but we were able to collect uh we will use okay and then we just kind of discuss what our priorities are in relation to those wishes okay and that was sent out they the teacher submitted that to or

070just the principle principles yeah okay yeah yes we will plan on doing that again and the last question um enough for the email from a community member who was asking about unvaccinated staff and how that is being handled yeah so we've put some additional mitigation layers in place for the staff that are unvaccinated we had hoped to give them testing and then we don't have tests and we realized and that was one of the points that came out of the advisory team is that a daily testing is not necessarily the necessary so once someone had submitted like hey if you do testing should it i'm not if they said it's every day that's a lot it is a lot um so we talked with the advisory team about that and that is like best because

071if you test you know that that you know decreased amount of testing would also be appropriate so we did talk about that so we put some additional mitigation layers in place in the interest and while we're gearing up and getting the next testing company online i wanted to comment and say thank you for all of your efforts to engage with the community and with our city leaders and with groups with whom we have an invested relationship with dha and dhs and just how valuable and important that is for our school because we depend on community support and having these strong relationships will really benefit us and our students and i also think it's fantastic to see that you're meeting with our state's representatives because that has long i don't know that that's happened i'm not

072sure if our superintendent or a board have well our board has but um i think having those meetings um between the leaders and being able to directly relate our needs and our experiences to our state representatives and our senator for that matter um is really important so i appreciate your efforts to do that and also your visibility in the community i have heard from from families and community members that they appreciate that you show up that you're at the event and that you are supporting the students and in their activities and i think that really builds relationship with the community as well so thank you for all those efforts i only have two questions uh one you mentioned that the high school students you're still looking at grades and we've talked a lot about the

073difficulty of understanding maybe sport cards card we have a separate question about grades are we still looking at the we've stopped cranking or at least made it optional yep no ranking but there's but we're still for some reason ranking the top five it's still on the agenda i hope to not visit yesterday that we're going to look at not ranking the top five either up with rochelle because i didn't know we were putting any class rank on anything when it was presented to us a couple months ago there was no ranking except for the top five okay i'd like to see how they're all going and i wanted to just endorse their high school student advisory committee that it was a great meeting for more counselors in high school the number one complaint that i

074get from the parents that i speak with it's the number one weakness that we have seen in our own experience it's just we need more counseling advice and the beauty of technology rochelle has texted me and said there is no rank on the transcript unless they ask for it we've talked about this but i kind of think we owe and i'm going to ask you if you can address i can't i'll just say that i shared the anger and embarrassment of the community that we that we canceled school for a baseball celebration and i think that we need to acknowledge how disruptive that is how counterproductive it is trying to actually make up the deficit that we need to make up after the past couple years of closing school and that it's just a completely

075uh warp set of priorities that we're going to cancel school under the surface not being critical of your decision because we are kind of victims of circumstance and it's complicated when you live in a large county and and many of your staff have children in that county and if they cancel schools it's very hard to have school yourself and so i understand that but i didn't think we should never want to acknowledge the frustration and number two think about what we can do not to be in that circumstance again and if we've got systems that are just going to cancel school for no reason what can we do so that we can continue to to do our own thing by having uh you know child care for staff who need child care in those situations

076you know i don't know but it's just an unacceptable situation yeah closing schools is a last resort and my cabinet knows that i was like nope not supposed to like ever be close and i was like no we're not closed we're going to go to school and then it just became apparent that there's no way i mean unless we were putting 200 students in a cafeteria with one or two people monitoring those students that we'd be able to offer school and at that point i have to say we just cannot bring students to school in a safe way at that point so i was also not looking forward to cancelling schools trying to wait to the last minute to see if we could keep our students in the building but unfortunately we were not able

077to um and i will bring this up with tax i'm gonna meet with them regularly so i'll put this on my next agenda to see what ideas they have so they are the people kind of in the at the forefront of this problem and i'll talk with them and see what ideas they may have on that note are there community leaders who made the decision to have a parade on friday with whom we can share our concerns because i was asking myself why isn't this parade on a saturday if we expect children to attend and families to enjoy it and also to be educated and not have to choose either or and so there may be reasons for that but i think there are also many reasons for why it shouldn't happen again and that

078should be taken into consideration because millions of students missed a day of learning and and also that disrupted the workday for millions of parents so i just feel like it was so disruptive and so i'm i'm not sure who to share this with but would be interested to know if that's something that we know the board would like to do is share our opinion and experience with whoever is who makes this decision in the metro atlanta area for you know the next time the falcons win or you know the united wins or who knows what it is but you know maybe the community needs to be thinking about education as a priority and not an afterthought [Music] if you're asking us about budget priorities i thought it was great in the year when we asked

079principals to provide feedback about what makes the school run um in terms of you and luna sitting down in the beginning i think we're sorely lacking in historical tracking as a way to approach the budget it does take a group we've got a lot of community angst in terms of like where the numbers where they come from where do they track it's the best way to make sure that we're getting responsible board members to know where the increases have gone and so i would love to see that as a starting point i know that's asking a lot we actually just talked about that today like starting with a historical perspective and then saying hey if we don't change anything here's what the budget would look like then looking at priorities pulling in the principal wish

080list i think those are all things that we can bring into that discussion okay i mean because otherwise it's just well we've had this x increase yeah yes we have no we haven't and if we have how to justify it and the third thing you the covet advisory council you just said that you would make changes or whatever and stuff like that strategy um what is your understanding of how that process would go uh so it'll be it'll be one of those processes where i'll get the advice from these two teams um they are well um um credentialed individuals right um much more educated than i am lots of expertise in health and mental and epidemiology so it'll be i'll ask them get their advice get their perspective and i purposely chose individuals that had

081varying perspectives so it's not one group always saying the same thing they are and i'm encouraging them to share those multiple perspectives so i can think of things from multiple multiple groups of people students staff and then i will also be looking at what is the guidance from the cdc what is the guidance coming from our city if they're putting mandates in place how would we align ourselves with those so it won't be like hey they advise that we take away mass we're going to just go up and take away masses we're still going to take a very thoughtful process and really lean on what is the guidance that's coming out of our national experts from the cdc and the last thought i have thank you for visiting kentucky street and making a relationship with

082the bus drivers i mean they're such an important part of my educational experience and getting our our kids from point a to point point b yep and um we're also giving our bus drivers a 500 retention bonus and the monitors to let them know that we appreciate them with all that hard work and being the very first front line workers for our district they're the first employees that greet our students in the morning and most of the time the last employee to say have a good night to our to our students as well so they serve a very important role when it comes to setting the stage for the day for a student and then getting them ready to go home awesome well i think we've we've covered a lot so i don't have much

083to say um just wanted to just reiterate what a great uh board meeting this always is every year and a reminder of why i think all of us on this board do what we do and so just honoring the teachers and and again their resilience and their fortitude and you know pushing along when i know it was very tough um so really did um appreciate that and i wanted to give a shout out also to the community for for the votes for getting out and voting for voting for our board elects carmen and hans just really looking forward to working with you it's one of these um bittersweet moments for me because i'm very excited about um what you two bring to the table and how we'll be able to start um meshing together and

084working together and as well as jaina with your you know another four years for you so that part is exciting and then there's the other part of knowing when new people come on is because people are rolling off and so um and so sometimes that's a little bitter for me because i have enjoyed working with uh louis and heather and um and just know that is that they pay many hours to our school board and i've appreciated all that i've learned from both of them so it is a bittersweet moment for me knowing that i'm saying hello to some people as well as goodbye but thank you both for all that you've done and thank you to you two for stepping up and answering the call i really appreciate you so um and thank you

085to the community for the vote for the east boston senior tax exemption that is huge i actually did an event with the board chair vicki turner over at dekalb county last weekend to push out the vote and to talk about the importance of of the east blast and we did kind of this rally around town and all different stops and it was actually um quite invigorating it was nice to just be around um be around people um but also for the reasons that we were together to focus on vaccines and also and also voting so thank you for all who participated in the process i did want to mention the school car the school crossing school crossing guards you know every time i drop my daughter off and i see how engaged they are with

086the children because they don't necessarily have to do that they are out there to keep our kids safe make sure they get into the building safely make sure they get back to their cars or homes safely but they really take such pride um in what they do and every time i'm driving around and it's not just one but you know i might be a one into town or another end of town for whatever reason and i will sometimes just sit there and watch um them work i love the way that they interact with students i love the way they interact with parents um it seems that the kids are excited to see them and that's such a great way to even start their day because they're being greeted by somebody who really who is showing

087them that they're happy to see them and i just see that across the board and so just wanted to take a moment to shout out to them for all of their hard work um and you know sometimes it's really cold out there you know and um and you wouldn't know it um by the way on their face and even with masks on i can tell that they're still enjoying being out there so um just wanted to give them a little shout out as well and lastly um the city schools educator uh night at state farm arena is coming up so that's on december 19th that'll be the hops versus the cavaliers um ask me how i know that somebody wrote it down because i don't do sports ball um but that is the game that

088will be on december 19th 7 30. so um that's just a great way to kick off the holiday with family and friends and then that'll be representing uh our district that night so um put that in your calendars if you are the sports ball fan awesome all right so uh moving on um we will get to the consent items if i make one sure yes go ahead i just wanted to acknowledge and thank our music program directors because the chorus and the and the band and the orchestras at run for a three orchestra that went through performed this past month and um attended these events and it was parents were feet squatting like i could just sense the energy because this is the first time we've had an in-person chorus concert and they sang in

089masks and it was challenging i know for them to do that but it was still so beautiful and i just am inspired and grateful for our music program in our schools i know that the theater also performed and won some competition this past month and so our extracurriculars in general and the extra effort that teachers spend in the outside of school hours to make these enriching things happen for our students are really very much appreciated thank you for that okay moving on to the consent items we have personnel report the school nutrition report and our financial report we have a motion to approve the consent items second all right and all in favor all right terrible eye all right so moving on to our action items um back to you dr simmons yeah so um

090we gave a an overview of the facilities plan at our work session and um after reflecting on that and and thinking about the timing with new board members coming on and it made sense after sergio and i talked that we would go ahead and at this point have the current board just expand extend our current plan until 2023 that will give us some time to review priorities with the new board talk about what our growth looks like we are getting an updated analysis from cooperative strategies um so putting forth to the board approval of an extension of our current five-year plan so we put you wanting us to vote on that tonight i'm just discussing it well discuss and then you're ready to vote and then we'll be ready to go okay so board members

091what are your thoughts on i mean i think this makes sense we have an exact session with a lot of questions about enrollment data and coming off of coven and we just got the east lost data confirmed we all suspected that getting it confirmed i think that this is the right move um to give us some okay we have a motion to accept the resolution for extending the current five-year facilities to 2023. move to improve the resolution um for the five-year facilities plan to 2023. all right all in favor all right and then pillar number three right yeah dr huddleston to share her presentation she has brought several team members and they will give an overview of what we are doing in in our schools and in our district to build and sustain a positive

092culture and climate thank you dr huddleston welcome so tonight we will be discussing the third pillar of the district improvement plan building and sustaining a positive culture and by the end of tonight's presentation we hope to have a shared understanding of what it means to have a positive culture in climate and we'll delve into some of the key initiatives that are part of this work discuss the anticipated outcomes and we'll provide an update on how progress support our goals in the field so as you've heard in our previous presentation the work of the three sellers are instructively linked and the first overarching long-term outcome is that by csd will eliminate all disproportionate discipline outcomes based on rates so so our long-term outcomes are contingent upon the work that's outlined in the racial equity pillar and

093builds upon the work that's led by our colleagues in teaching and learning um so all students in addition to eliminating those disproportionate discipline outcomes we want to see all students having a positive and trusting relationship with at least one adult um and we want to see students staff and parents all on sharing that they have positive experiences within the district related to student engagement and related to feelings of belonging we also want to ensure that all of our community identifies the csb environment as a place that fosters mental health and well-being recently our district has been selected to participate in a national collaborative for safe and supportive school this is a two-year project that's sponsored by the national center for school mental health and it provides the districts and schools that are a part of

094this project with the knowledge and tools to implement culturally responsive socially responsive trauma-informed practices and to promote equity and well-being so this project provides a framework that really ties together all of the work of the equity and student services department and our district mental health professionals and other staff members will receive training on evidence-based treatment and they'll learn and collaborate with districts from across the country who are approaching mental health and social emotional learning through an equity lens so we are one of the 15 districts that i took selected across the country to participate in this project and will receive the training and support for the next two years so um i'll talk about the first three initiatives that are part of this pillar and then i'll bring up diane andre who will cover the

095last three and i'll spend the most of the time most of my time talking about positive behavior supports and interventions this is one of the first board member board meetings where we've had an opportunity to really delve in since the pandemic so pbis positive behavior supports an intervention as an evidence-based framework with a proven track record of reducing disciplinary issues improving climate and thereby increasing academic success cbis is designed to improve school environments by making by making things in the classroom predictable making sure that they're consistent positive and safe pbis fits really well within the framework that's been adopted by adopted here in georgia to support the whole child so this is a slide that that illustrates that framework and the key features that are aligned with this framework include progress monitoring database decision making

096and multi-level prevention so we'll dig into a little bit about each of those elements tonight so for example each school has a pbis coach and a team and they meet regularly to analyze behavior data and the school uses that information to make changes in the environment in real time and this information is also used to provide targeted support for students as needed so next i'll talk a little bit about multi-tiered support it's important to know that pbis is designed to support students all across the three tiers that you see in this drawing by providing structure and providing acknowledgement and feedback about their behavior and the primary focus of pbis is preventing behavioral issues so looking there at tier one and so most of the work is is focused on tier one in terms of prevention

097so pbis is a departure from the traditional approach to discipline which is more focused on stuffing undesired behaviors and often includes punitive consequences pbis is focused on creating an environment that reduces the likelihood of behavior problems it also focuses on teaching replacement behaviors and acknowledging appropriate behavior so a traditional problem solving approach moves quickly from identifying a problem to developing a solution whereas the pbis problem solving approach slows down the process to find out why a behavior is occurring in order to be able to address the root cause of that behavior um interventions are more successful when they're designed to address the underlying concerns and are monitored throughout the implementation process so here's an example of one element of tier one practice teaching routine the process includes making sure students understand what's expected so really

098defining those expectations for students then modeling or demonstrating the behaviors that you expect to see making sure that students know what those behaviors look like in all of the relevant settings and providing feedback and reinforcement along the way as well as being flexible and ready to re-teach and adjusting as needed so behavior feedback as outlined by tdis includes noticing and pointing out positive behavior using consistent language employing a five to one ratio of positive comments to any corrections or negative statements which is no small task you know make sure that all students have that experience and this approach really builds those positive relationships and improves behavior for the majority of students when implemented with fidelity so here are some of our friends at winona park and then at glenwood and they're standing near their expectations

099in the school here are some examples from oakhurst and decatur high school and these are expectations that were developed with input from multiple members of the community students have an opportunity to talk about what it looks like to you know to be a positive role model in the school and here we have a picture on the left of our district pbis coach and our and behavior interventionist who may not have had an opportunity to meet dr koger but she's done a lot of work with jumping in and really getting our pbis rebooted throughout the district and she's there with um she's there with claremont and then we have another picture of winona park and this is a time when they were acknowledging students for some of their positive behaviors in the classroom so the success

100of pbis hinges on using data to inform practice including the continuous progress monitoring and that is conducted through walkthroughs through examining work products through examining and self-assessment it's also important on the right as we look at outcome data we're looking at attendance we're looking at behavior referrals we're looking at achievement and we also get data from the georgia student health survey and that's coming back online this year so here's some more information about how we check pbis implementation so all staff members are asked to complete a self-assessment so we want to know what staff members really think about cbis where they are with cbis and what they're seeing in their buildings and this helps us to identify any professional development needs and it helps us to examine the policies and procedures related to ppis next

101step is walk through so we have members of the pbis team from the district level and from the school level who are walking through the schools to say hey can we see it can we hear it can we feel it do we feel an energy in this building that is positive and that's promoting student learning and relationship throughout the building and then the third step is looking at the tiered fidelity inventory so this is an assessment um that really helps us to get a sense of how we're doing how we're doing with implementation and where we are in the process of implementing pbr i guess so um in terms of evaluation we have a few tools and i've mentioned a couple of them but i'll just mention that we have the school-wide information system and

102so you may hear us talk about swiss and there we're talking about an information system that allows us to record behaviors that are occurring in the classroom and these are behaviors that are not necessarily those who are that are reported to the state but behaviors that we want to track to be able to prevent larger issues and to be able to address what's going on in the environment so we may notice that we're having a lot of incidents that are happening you know around lunchtime or near the cafeteria and then we're able to take that information and look at what we need to do with the environment to prevent that and to address what's coming up and so already this year we've had our staff members go through and complete the self-assessment survey so we

103are starting to get some data from them and we will be looking at the tiered fidelity inventory this year and as you know this is a little bit of a reset here and we keep saying that but you can hear that in in pretty much everything we discussed so uh we are finding that we needed to go back and do some training on tier one and so we have started that process that happened right at the end of last year um we had a training for new staff and new cbis coaches on the school-wide information system and so that took place in august and we're also working very closely with with our supporters from the state to make sure that we have access to training modules and these training modules are really going to help

104us to be able to target the professional writing to where each school is in the process and individuals will be able to take the modules that that they need to be ready to move forward with cbis so it's a little bit of a different approach instead of having a two-day training where we pull everybody out and everybody's getting the same training by taking the self-assessment we're able to see exactly those pieces that staff members need to be able to move forward in tbis and that's the approach that we're taking with that so the outcomes that we know to expect based on pbis would be reduction in problem behavior increased academic performance increased attendance improved perception of safety and more organizational efficiency so we're able to move through and accomplish our goals at schools and districts

105we expect to see less staff turnover because one of the things that's very challenging for teachers is if you are constantly working through behavior management um so if we're able to alleviate that hopefully we will have um less staff terms increased so those are some of the main things that you see in the literature with regard to science and with this approach we're looking at really fostering that environment so this saying is when a flower doesn't bloom you fix the environment which it grows and not the flowers and the same is for our students we want to create an environment where the students can blossom and grow and we do that by working on the environment and pulling together all of the different aspects of the district improvement plan to make an environment where students

106can learn and do their best so in terms of the district improvement plan um our first goal is that all k12 launched a full implementation of ppis with their their matrix their matrices their acknowledgement systems and use of twist and i say we're off to a great start with this all of our school tests move forward with this work and then the second one at least six out of nine schools will meet operational status with tier one with the remaining at emerging status and so these levels are really determined by the number of office discipline referrals and it's also determined by how students are performing on the tfi that i mentioned earlier the tiered fidelity influence inventory so how well they're implementing all of the various aspects of pbis and so those are the things

107we'll be looking for this year so next i'll talk for just a few minutes about restorative practices we've had an opportunity to talk about restorative practices over the last year or so since we started implementing restorative practices throughout the district so sort of practices really is a systematic approach um to peif it is a positive approach that really focuses on enhancing social and emotional skills by building the relationship and working to resolve conflict and repair harm it's an app it's an approach that's really inclusive again that focuses on building relationships uses a problem-solving approach like many of the other um aspects of the work that you'll hear about tonight and really has an accountability component so that's an issue that's a component that we don't often talk about but it's about taking responsibility for your

108actions and so it's not as if we put in place restorative practices and there are no consequences but students are asked to really take responsibility for their actions but then they are given the tools that they need to bring about healing and to be able to be restored to the school community and this approach is really um it fits well with our equity work because it's really developed to prevent bias and to make sure that all students have had global equitable access to to the learning environment so let you look see a little bit of a video clip about restorative practices [Music] nobody does well without a sense of safety and security and relationships nobody and that is how a wire if we don't have that we're not going to learn the importance of human

109relationships that is the basis of everything that we do and the focus of restorative practices i see i believe is based on relationships and how we cultivate those relationships we want our students to be able to connect with their teachers you know they're going to spend 180 days with their teacher and that line of communication has to be strong between student and teacher further for any kind of learning your teaching studies take place the research is very clear that children learn well when they feel secure and they don't learn well in fact they really don't learn at all if they're insecure you know until they um know each other like each other trust each other and me um it's just really hard to get them to focus the way that they need to teaching and

110education is a human endeavor and the power of relationships and trust i think is the most important any time we try to do school where we forget that or move away from them i think we're at risk so to me restorative practices has given us the opportunity and kind of released us in administration and conflicts and classrooms to do what we wanted to do from the beginning and really love kids get to know them and help them grow as humans and academically as well i didn't really have any problems until fourth grade i had extremely long hair so i a lot of people would end up calling me a girl and whatnot and i was taught by my family the way that you can stop that is by stopping those people every single time i

111had gotten a fight i would get suspended these suspensions made me feel like the normal thing to do in school is to go there and get in trouble after years and years of trauma and going through not only bullying about what was going on at home i think we were living in motels and whatnot i sort of gave up with school all together i i think it took about a year or two before i finally ended up getting back into high school it went from being traumatized me feeling like ever today i'm gonna have to get in a fight just to learn but now i'm feeling like i can go to school and learn something just to get better my future just to try to get back on that path of courage and that's why

112i'm trying to go to on track academy because i have good courage you know i still am going to make it so in terms of restorative practices we have a little bit of a reset in terms of getting a baseline and starting from where we are because it was definitely different having that virtual environment versus having more students coming together we were able to use some of the data from our assessment of qbis to see where we are with restorative practices um we are also focused on making sure that we provide training for our administrators and key instructional staff and so we've had a few new people come on and we've already had a training this year and some of our administrators attended putting theory into practice which is sort of a next step so

113we've had them go through many trainings about restorative practices but taking information like what's in the code of conduct of being able to then put that into practice that's that next translational piece that we're still working we're also really fortunate to have to train the trainers and restorative practices in our district now so we can provide those trainings on demand for teachers and staff or anybody who needs a little refresher and also to be able to provide restorative conferences and that support for staff members and students as needed so in the classroom you'll see restorative practices in circles and crew meetings morning meetings and things happen on a daily basis in our elementary school and quite often in our middle and high schools as well and then as i mentioned um the restorative practices are

114very closely tied to our code of conduct and we've been working very hard to make sure that we are using some of those restorative opportunities that are outlined in the code of conduct to educate our students when a from this behavior occurs to allow them to have an opportunity to make restitution for what's happened to repair harm and have alternatives to suspension and sometimes that looks like seeking support through the care student center counselors and therapists and many other opportunities to have a restorative opportunity for our students so both of the areas that we've touched on so far are very much multi-tiered systems of approaching behavior and this shows um how some of the services and supports that are available through equity and student services fit within the tiers so we talked a little bit

115about how pbis behavior expectations and acknowledgement system very much fit in that first tier um 80 percent of the students we would expect to respond to the things that are presented and outlined in tier one and then in tier two we're looking at specialized interventions for learners that are having some challenges and there on the behavior side you'd be looking at small groups counseling you'd be looking at restorative circles and conflict resolution and interventions like check in and check out and then at tier 3 for those who really need a specialized and intensive form of support we will be looking at individual therapy or counseling that may be provided through the student center or partnering with outside agencies i'm looking at a functional behavior assessment to really find out what the root cause the functions

116of in a behavior that's occurring in the classroom and then using that information to develop a behavior intervention plan we also want to look at wrap-around services and support when we get to that top tier often it's necessary to really connect with the family help the family connect with outside agencies because often there are things that are going on that are outside of the scope of just what's happening in the school and tier three would also be some of our crisis or sponsors which you'll hear a lot more about in just a few minutes so in terms of mtss or multi-tiered systems of support um in our plan we are looking at making sure that we find out what the needs are this year resource mapping which is seeing what we have already in place

117and making sure that everybody in our school community knows what those resources are and how to access them and so we had focus groups to see what the needs are we are having interdepartmental meetings where we come together across different areas to talk about how we can support students so federal state federal programs teaching and learning equity and student services meeting regularly to make sure that we are forming our own problem-solving teams to address the needs of our students and then we have been working to flesh out and develop a comprehensive behavior support plan and doing that across the different departments as well so those are some of those things that we have been doing that are multi-tiered approaches to behavior now i'm going to turn the presentation over to danny and andre our student

118success director well thank you and good evening um i will do my best to keep it short because i can talk about these topics forever um these are some of my favorite things um and so uh you know with with social emotional learning we are actually using c learning which i'll talk a little bit more in a moment but one of the really important things that we are to teach our students how to self-regulate the program actively teaches students how to do this and so we do some brief activities with them so i thought i would walk you guys through one of our brief resourcing activities i thought a nice picture of the ocean at least that's one of my happy places um would help us with that so and so these are um scripted

119so that anybody can do them and i do meet my readers okay so i'd like to invite you to participate in a practice called resources this practice calms one's nerve system and increases well-being please come to a comfortable position in your seat this may include having your feet flat on the floor if you like relax your hands and relax you can either close your eyes or soften your gaze to a 45 degree angle whichever is most comfortable for you feel the weight and support of your body in your chair i invite you to think of an internal external or imagined resource that you will engage in when you are no longer on and you're no longer in this space this resource should make you feel better safer or greater in your well-being it could be

120an activity a place or a person as you think of this resource bring it to your mind vividly bring to mind any sensations sounds or smells that accompany this resource as you stay focused on this resource notice what you feel on the inside if you notice a pleasant or neutral sensation in your body pay attention to that part of your body or sensation if you notice an unpleasant sensation bring your attention back to the resource and the pleasant sensations associated with it if your mind wanders or you're distracted by sounds that's okay you're only let's bring your focus back to your resource i invite you to come back to the room and notice how you feel so you can see that we embed these types of activities into our day that it's going to help

121our students to have those brain breaks that they need and to have a moment to recenter and you know if i had i really wish i had had this back in all my years of math math and i weren't friends and so sometimes i would leave math feeling so anxious that the bible has ability to do this because you know we chose to either close or soften our gaze but you could actually do this and you know for me um there are times that i will get into my car and the beach is my happy place and if i really sit and focus and this could be i mean that was less than a minute or about a minute this could be as short as 30 seconds but i can bring to mind the sounds

122of the ocean or the water hitting the rock my feet crunching the sand feelings the sand between my toes the smell of salt water when i first kissed my nose and that will just bring me back and bring me down and help me to go on with my day so these are some of the types of practices that we're engaging in in order to help our students to be ready to learn so i want to take a look at a moment to look at this comic um when we consider social emotional learning it's really not enough to just be able to label and know what others are thinking and feeling and in a lot of social emotional programs that is what they focus on but social emotional learning really needs to be a systemic process

123that encompasses that encompasses process instructional practices and an instructional philosophy see normally spl is defined for children as they are taught and acquired knowledge skills and attitudes necessary to a map to manage their own emotions behaviors and social interactions and problems in an effective and sustainable way now this has been traditionally identified through the competencies that we all know of self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making but honestly research has shown that students acquire and utilize these skills not only better at will not only have better academic performance and outcomes but also the long-term benefits in terms of pro-social behavior managing stress and negative emotions and a better attitude towards themselves and the world around them so it's really imperative that we teach and educate both the heart and the mind so we

124are taking uh through seed learning which is social emotional and ethical learning we're truly taking the systemic approach that i talked about and some of the many um components of it which you know we all would want is detention training compassion and ethical discernment there is and what these the last three things these are really the three things that make this program different from others bless you compassion and ethical discernment resilience and trauma-informed practice and helping students to realize um where they fit into the systems in which they live um this trauma informed piece is also really informed but the trauma informed within a strength based resiliency lens which means that it's good for all people we're not just people who have had extreme trauma and honestly you know when we started this none of

125us knew none of us could have anticipated this pandemic that we went through so and i have said this since the beginning that no one is coming out of this a pandemic unscathed whether it's just feeling isolated um you know kind of forgetting how to do school like it's been you know feeling you know uncomfortable um we all have had some level of trauma and so this this particular program i'm just so thankful that we have done we have chosen this as the way that we're going to do this um it really um it really has been a focus prior to the pandemic we just have really accelerated our timeline um see learning is developmentally based and the main areas of focus are awareness compassion and engagement and they do that from a personal a

126social and a systems approach so first um it's their um their self-awareness and then their social awareness and then how again their their awareness of how systems are working and so um and also their engagement with these different systems so compassion for self compassion and sorry personal engagement and then going it just builds and this how the whole curriculum is designed it is a k through 12 true curriculum now um and we are really blessed um that we have been engaged with this work with emory university and our center for contemplative science and compassion-based ethics and i really have to um one thing i wanted to say is because of this unique approach of looking at awareness compassion and engagement and systems it ties really beautifully into the equity work that we're doing here in

127city schools of decatur um i do want to give a shout out to ben knavel who's our coordinator of 504 in school psychology we're really blessed because i mean not only is has been always been a chance but he was part of the team that helped to develop sea learning and he has also gone through a program as a train the trainer so he is able to deliver the training here in csc um he's even working with them to uh emory university to collect and analyze data to see how our implementation impacts our students particularly as it relates to school climate compassion and teachers perception on classroom climate um and being as big from being exposed to the curriculum so um we have this is our goal in the dip was to adopt an ideal

128curriculum k-12 and really to focus on implementation we decided to um slower would be faster and so we really wanted to focus on our k-5 we did start some of this work during the pandemic with wellness wednesday i'll talk about that more in a little bit so everybody has been exposed but we're really focusing on embedding it into our k5 because it fits so beautifully with our crew work and our el and our ib learner profile so um and then we're going to collect our data as i mentioned so we started again we had already had this work in planning but we went ahead and we trained our school counselors nurses our school psychologists and social workers some of our csu power codes and community volunteers and we started to deliver this curriculum focusing on

129chapters one and two um specifically um and we wanted we got those done in our wellness wednesday lessons that was the focus and i have to tell you it was it was a highlight of the pandemic for me i taught a k-1-2 class and i taught a 10th grade class and that's that's a really different kind of day so i met a lot of people's pets and their lovies i got some of them um and they in fact i actually had to make some appointments with one student at one of my schools she said where did ms andre go why isn't she coming to see me every week and so you can see even in the short while over zoom i would say or google made i was able to make a difference with these

130students and connect um and she and she was fantastic so we uh we did meet a few times even afterwards um but that was where we started last year and then this school year we have already trained then that week ben has trained 150 plus teachers in our k-5 he's been working on that since august he has done that by going into our schools and doing some lessons during their faculty meetings as well as doing intensive training on our november first last week to make sure that they were ready and again this focuses was on one and two and what's nice about this is we took time with emory to align this sea learning with ib and the el framework so it's not another thing they're doing it's just how we're doing this how we

131are developing these particular skills that are already required within these frameworks that we work um this is some pictures from our trainings in the summer we actually train some of our administrators um and uh some district office personnel um but with that uh we are going to continue to roll this out in the spring they're going to be working on um embedding those lessons one and two and the teachers have been working really hard in planning as they've been gun training they've been working to plan it and integrate it and just so you know um the six through twelve um through advisement you know again we taught it last year we're doing some review lessons just to keep you know the students in touch with it specifically talking with them about the resiliency zone and

132managing behaviors um and again building on what we've done previously and then working towards embedding that into probably heavily our advisement programs in the middle and high school and now we're going to talk about comprehensive school mental health or wrap around supports and this is really my very very favorite um so um i always have to put maxwell's hierarchy in there because um we are really i mean the work that we are doing in teaching and learning and then assessment and then patient guys is amazing and we need to make sure that our students feel safe secure um and well cared for and can be present to access this information so good old maslow always shows up he was the first triangle of a a system that loves trying so um these are all of

133the folks that we have in our district and in our department who are engaged in this work uh related to school mental health and of course with educators adding the decatur student center this actually puts csd in a very unique uh situation um because we have other layers of support some other school systems don't um and i will tell you that we are being recognized for this work in fact last week ben and i presented at the georgia school counselor association about sea learning and i also presented about the work in the decatur student center and i'm not sure if dr hillsborough saw but we have actually been accepted by the american school counselor association to present seed learning there so we are really getting some recognition for this incredible work that we're doing yeah

134we're really excited to spread the word and bring more friends so there there are two main areas where we're working on our comprehensive school mental health and school counseling which of course you guys were talking about earlier and always happy for conversations around that um we are this year um working the american school counselor association to really shore up our making sure that we are providing school counseling for all students and we're going about it in a very very different way so we are making sure that it's comprehensive comprehensive meaning that we are in classrooms doing lessons for all sort of a tier one intervention that we're doing small groups that are usually skill based by school counselors and that we are also you know doing individual counseling for students and we actually have a

135system in place where we elevate it to the dictator student center if it's needed but i mean our school counselors are very skilled they're very well trained um but what is really different about comprehensive counseling is that instead of saying you know i really this is what i see or i think or i feel like we need school counselors are also engaging in the review of data to make decisions and to really find those students that might be missed otherwise because sometimes there are students that buy all outward measures they're attending um they're not getting in trouble but they're disengaging from school and we can identify that through data and make sure that we're putting things in place to make sure that all students are successful the counselor keys that is the evaluation that we

136are now we are using in csd the georgia doe does support this um this was based on the american school counselor their national framework for comprehensive counseling so every piece of what our counselors are being required to do including looking at use of time um what are counselors have what are other things that are pulling them away um we are we're looking at all of that and we're counting that and they're also being evaluated in that way our school social workers are working on a needs assessment and we're working very cooperatively this fits really well into the s3 to safe and supportive schools collaborative that we're doing at 3lc and we are really focusing on resource mapping like what do we already have in place because we really need to have um we have so

137much we are so rich in that way and we want to make sure that we clearly define it and we put it into those tiers as dr hubbelson was talking about and then where where are areas that we can shore up so we are actually going to be doing that for needs assessment and the resource mapping um and so and of course i jumped right over this so this is what our gif are i just told you what our div outcomes are going to be implementing the comprehensive program district-wide and i have to say our counselors were amazing they jumped in even starting last spring and it was a big ask becoming a comprehensive school system becoming a comprehensive school counseling program is uh and in this way it's a big list but i told

138them it's a lot of work up front for the benefit on the back end and our students are the ones who are really going to win and we'll be working smarter and not harder and we've already been get started to engage in our needs assessment and our resource mapping our asca training is actually a two-year initiative um we sort of started um we started the spring but we'll actually this time next year i hope to be able to report to you that all of our schools are applying to become a recognized ask a model program or ramp and that's not really the goal of what we're doing our goal is to really be delivering comprehensive counseling but this would be a recognition which is a very stringent um that will show that we are the

139best of the best that are our counselors are continually assessing their their program they're checking the delivery they're defining what they're doing and why and they're mad how they're managing that program what makes it also different and the key elements is it is comprehensive services um it is based on standards standards that we want all of our students to have they called our mindsets and behaviors and that we wanted to walk out of csd it doesn't mean that they do the same standards every year we make them developmentally appropriate appropriate and we build on what was done for so scaffolding just like they do in the teaching world this requires us to have um discussions and as we should be with our stakeholders through advisory councils and also we write an annual agreement with our

140principals to say hey this is what we want to get done this is how it supports the school goals this is how we're going to accomplish it and this is how and we'll show you the results at the end in fact at some point you may be asked as board members to attend an advisory council because in order for us to apply to be a recognized hospital model program we have to have a board member signature so um and you may even be invited to advisory council so um our needs assessment we started this work again in the lines with s3lc last monday we spent a lot of time um there was a big group of us and so our plan is to um like we started with a small group and then we're going

141to bring in more stakeholders and say hey this is what we see what else do you see and we're going to build it out to make sure that we don't miss anything and we talked a lot about attendance planning and looking at the units proactively for next year we're making some very serious plans about that uh crisis prevention intervention okay well these are all of these things that we talked about our crisis prevention every single one of the things that we have covered today um an applied suicide intervention skills training or assist that is another big focus for us and also district crisis planning and debriefing teams so with crisis prevention intervention i'll talk about assist if you're not familiar with it we are really lucky that def supported us in hosting a national train

142the trainer this past summer and with that we have four four people in csd three of them are employees one is a community member who became trainers of assist so that we can build capacity within our own school system for this and what's great about assist applied suicide intervention skills training is that although it was this it was developed for that it is actually applicable to lots of other things um it really helps you to work with somebody and help them to identify where they're stuck and then how and how we can walk them through that so it can be anything it can be i you know i'm not i'm not progressing in the sport that i want to how are you stuck what are you doing now and looking at that and helping them

143to get over that hurdle um and it could also be an academic so it's a it's applicable to many things we are also that what's great about this training is it's for anybody so we are hosting several and i'll talk about that in a minute but we are we're trying to create a suicide safer community by utilizing this program so um in july i told you we did to train the trainer we have already conducted one of our trainings which was october 7th and 8th we had 17 people trained that was mostly um emss personnel that were new and hadn't been through it before we had several administrators teachers this week actually thursday and friday we're taking over this building and we're doing it again and then we have two more and i would invite

144any and all of you to join us in that training i will tell you it is two of the most intense days of training you will ever do but you will walk away ready to use it right then and there um and i've never been to a training that where i didn't have to go back and feel like i needed to review you walk out ready to go um and so we're really blessed to be able to do this in fact a lot of the money that the money that was raised by the sofox survey is going to help us to pay for this training and to provide it because one of the things we think is really important is that we make sure that our community has this information so we have um i've

145invited local therapists we've invited some local doctors we're now trying to reach out to our fire and police um to get them involved or we want our sros trained and again we have more teachers and administrators who we see um a student's like behavior has nothing to do with actually what happened there's some underlying issue and this will help them to identify it now this doesn't mean we expect people to do the intervention we also talk about warm handoffs to the mental health professionals in the building but you will feel equipped to intervene anytime crisis response so we actually started this process in 2018 um because i believe the best uh defense is a good offense like be ready um and so what we did was we started um training um folks so that no

146matter what type of crisis we have it will be the same and a consistent response to any school that we would go out to what we are adding that most people miss in crisis intervention is that we are adding a debriefing piece of it um and that means that we are going to take care of the people in the aftermath who have been managing the crisis um you know having worked in local schools like the administrators they jump in they go into i need to handle this and they still are feeling the impact of that loss of a teacher or student or whoever it is and you know we actually need to make sure that we're caring for the caretakers as well um and crisis intervention of course has several purposes you know it's to

147try to lessen the impact of the crisis um and it's also um to uh try to bring it back to whatever that normal afterward is going to be um we did training back in the spring it was virtual and so we feel like we need to do a shore up so ben and i are going to we've been trained previously and so we are going to in early 22 make sure that we um shore up those skills so our folks are ready to go and we hope that they don't leave us first of all thank you both for this presentation i think it gave us very nice in-depth look at what the work that is happening in our schools and on the district level to build a positive culture and climate i also want to

148say i really appreciate the resourcing activity i find my i've used them in the past and never knew what was called a resourcing activity but um keep getting my breath and kind of focusing um i always think of my dog snuggling with me i was wondering has the um self-assessment survey going out yet this year and i was wondering if it would be possible for us to like see the results of that um and then who completes the tier fidelity inventory so that's a team process with members of the district i first want to start with saying thank you very much appreciate this as a positive behavior and intervention and support as a part of our code of conduct and the sort of practices handbook and that it's not just a punitive processing system um

149and i'm in the future and i'm wondering how we will try to collect evidence to in csd to see how pbis possibly impacts you know reduces the number of discipline incidents and also how it improves academic performance i'm curious how we plan to track that and try to connect those a lot of the information will come from quiz so when i talked about that system that we're able to collect information even before it would be entered and be a part of what's reported to the state so we won't have that gap of not knowing so you know what information was collected what actions were put in place after that so that will be one touch point for us and we'll also be able to look at look at the discipline outcomes and to see when

150restorative practices were offered when they were presented as an alternative to suspension and be able to attract that way as well i'm excited about that i know that as a board we've talked about that and wished for that for a long time and so great job implementing this during a pandemic you know that was probably next year's challenge and also so grateful for our student center and now that our students are back in person that they're able to utilize that and i'm curious what kind of outreach you do to students to make sure that they know that you exist and under what circumstances they're welcome to go there and just kind of lower that barrier of entry for students to actually go in right now so um so we're constantly advertising where we are um

151we did of course in this first we do at the high school um for example first days of school where we talk about all expectations and things and we actually had one whole video segment that kim evans the high school center counselor was wonderful she made that video and really the the center is for everybody um because as you know we do offer mental health services and that's a large part of what we do and we do um we also do offer an opportunity for students to come and self-regulate and we even teach those kinds of skills but we also have the lost and found we have the the green closet um and a lot of students do that of course we um have um uh menstrual products in there and uh we even have

152you know water and snacks so that makes us super popular um but and i will tell you what's really great is every year even our school newspaper comes and the students actually just did an interview another interview today and we're engaging our students in a lot of ways too because we have students that are in arts i'm going to get it wrong and they're going to be upset if they hear the fashion and design club they actually took on designing the the closets because they're all about fashion marketing and upscaling and stuff so i have two student interns who are working in there we just reached out to the graphics design kids and they are actually doing flyers for us we're putting flyers up around the school with a qr code so that they'll know

153the form that they need to fill out and we're going to put them in inconspicuous places and very obvious places but we want them you want to have our logo out there for them to see it but also to be able to quickly know how they can refer um to be honest referrals have not been a problem um we have a couple hundred uh at both schools uh rms then and uh dhs which have physical centers but of course we're serving pre-k through 12. um we have uh jd dreiling who is our full-time play therapist um who works with other schools and we have fonte high who's our past time therapist um yeah i would love more therapists thanks for asking so um the middle and the high school and they're they're filled and we

154actually have you know um our gsu interns try to also make themselves visible and they've been offering small groups which um everything from mindfulness we've been offering executive functioning skills at the high school fact that wraps up next week for this semester and then we'll do another round next next semester that's been really popular and we also have some advocacy groups that are going on that our interns are involved with so we're out advertising those and we email the students and we put announcements out um and i've been starting to ask students all right how do i how do we make sure that you guys so there's always students that didn't even know this existed and you know we have some high profile things like the the you know the fox derby brands and stuff

155like that so always always open to ideas and always asking the students i have a question um and i'm i'm excited about the student's success tonight i think this is one of the most important things that we've got going and i think that if we want to really you know meet our goal we're going to make everybody be their best give them the support they need achieve their potential i think this is key because people need that emotional support and counseling and i hope that we can increase resources to it i think we need more counselors i don't think we have enough and one question that i've got is how you measure success and how you measure whether your programs are working one of the great risks and that i perceive actually with the success

156center we've got all these great programs we've got all this great energy going into it there's a giant unmet need and there's a big risk that we've had ourselves on the shoulder and say we've done so much but we haven't actually met the need we haven't actually helped the kids remember we're helping some i also know that there's a whole lot of kids who are still falling through the crap and even kids who try to go to the support center and are just not finding what they need my question is how are we how are we measuring that to make sure that we've got the right programs being effective and i guess i'd like to hear your answer in the second related that i don't remember even as a board member being asked how are

157we doing do we need your needs right and i think that when we evaluate these programs we need to ask not only the kids but the parents and say what more could we have done and right now that's not happening i think if we did we might find uh different ways to target some of these programs and we might find some gaps to see we've been talking about doing these kind of outreach surveys for a long time there's a very large need for that on this particular project and i know what we're feeling about we're trying to figure out what works and what nothing i just think that we need to be very deliberate about measuring what we do so that we can improve it and i am interested here to talk these things on

158but uh what what kind of metrics or measures do we have in place now um and of course you know i mean there's i mean for me um we look at um our students really i tease my therapist i'm like i really would like us to be out of business and they're like we don't we don't share that with you right um but you know you know we kind of say it jokingly but the truth is like our goal is that students need us less and less um that we actually teach them skills that they can use just like these resourcing type things we teach other kinds of actual skills and when they can come in and we'll check in with them they're like i'm good and we have students that went from like fairly

159being able to sit in class that will come in they're like i need five and they'll go and they'll do their thing they're like i got it and they'll still leave um we do want to do some surveys with students to get feedback um you know this is our first full year of truly having a center um yes we you know we've been doing programming since the past several years but to really have this this space so um we do want to do surveys with students to get some feedback um about the services in particular and yes i guess you know i think uh we need to reach out to parents and we're trying to get parent input we'll be doing that getting parent input on programming one of the things too i want you

160to know though is that the student center has also been working with the advisement team to do mental health lessons um and i want to remind you that even and we had planned to do another round of these but even in our first year of full function we actually sat with teachers and planned an embedded mental health mental health topic into the curriculum they were already using so some of them were easy like ap statistics use mental health statistics and then we went back two years later and made sure they have the most up-to-date ones um in 2020 we were planning to do another round of those so that every student would have access to at least two the funny thing is when we talk to students they're going to realize it's happening um but

161we're having these and part of that is going to the destigmatizing right that's one of our big goals is to destigmatize the idea around mental health we all i mean it's just another form of health and every single person in here and every single person listening any one of us can have a mental health crisis at any moment and it could be something as simple as i got a flat tire on the way to work that's a mental health crisis it's just a matter of whether it's a short term and how i bounce back and versus the long term one and so we're trying to really make sure that we're embedding those topics to make it regular conversation and to me that is that the win might not be one i can quantify but it's

162definitely a win so we're looking at doing some surveys um i do think on the georgia student health survey in terms of their feelings of safety and there's a lot of questions around depression and anxiety and things like that and also drug and alcohol use i think all of those things will give us a picture on our mental health i dr wilson i really liked by the beginning presentations and maybe it speaks to this that every student will have a positive and trusting relationship with an adult in the building i think that's really tough to measure and i'd love to hear us wrap our brains about how we're going to measure that because as we have this like teacher of the year presentation like the the pe teacher talking about being a mentor for a

163student that she didn't even coach made me tear up a little bit and the teacher here who taught my kindergartner how to read over a computer uh and she asked that she would come over for her birthday on saturday like no i can't invite miss rose over to your birthday party i'm sorry you know but just develop that relationship if we could measure that i think that speaks to it because we all have i mean you all are in education you all have that jane and i like we have that teacher that we have that relationship with and if you do that i think that's there because that's a measurement of mental health and the connection in the school because you have someone you can go to but are we measuring is there a way

164to measure are we measuring that yeah definitely ways to measure it so we are planning to bring back some of the assessments that we sort of put on hold during the pandemics of bringing back tripod assessments and their components that look at belonging and you know other aspects that will help us to get but we have so many different touch points with our students right now the student advisory groups you know it's a wonderful opportunity not only are those students meeting with the superintendent but they go back and they talk to their classmates and they bring information so that's a touch point yeah um when we first started this work we did focus groups and i really like mixed methods you know i can't go from the university setting so i'm always about how we

165collect data and how we can connect that data to our actions and so um we'll be doing more focus groups there are a lot of focus groups that are associated with educator student center so those are maybe the end is really small on that but i think it helps us to understand what some of the sermon data is telling us yeah so we'll be able to collect the information those are just a couple of the ways that we'll be able to do that and then taking that because those the kids in the survey group who step up and participate are often the ones who will find that and then taking that and comparing to the roster like has this has this student reached out and said you said everyone maybe i should i would highlight

166every student that's the hard work and i think really looking at all of the different efforts that we've been talking about when you look at attendance you know we have a major focus on attendance social work is in in our department we're looking at i pull the data you know every month you know schools are turning that in and i want to know with each name on here this student has been out this many days what's going on with this child so the kids are not just the number you know we are checking um on every child to see you know why that student not engaged what's going on so they're just many touch points and we're fortunate to have data um and we have to make sure that we're using that um to inform

167the work that we're doing come forward a second with the train and trainer stuff and i'll call it free code with dr banks and i had a conversation about if you look at the chicago data for pbis and it's rolled out one of the toolkits was that parents were involved in a conversation about pbis and how it works and how to do it at home and that sort of stuff i wonder if we've kind of gone back and maybe pta is paying for ben's time or whatever like i would love to just sit down and hear what that training was all that just to throw that on your plate is something else to think about um this is definitely on my list um i i spoke with my staff a little bit about doing a

168parent academy for pbis and before i came here at georgia state we did that for very young children even preschool children to look at how to use positive behavior at home and so i think it's really important for us to get to that partner with parents in almost every aspect of the work that we do yeah because i remember going through the pbi status that that was one of those tool kits if i remember correctly for getting the kids to not buying into school educating their parents on what was happening and bringing that positivity was a big correlation as well just one follow-up to the suggestion and discussion about getting good feedback from students and parents and i second that i think that's very important and i also just want to say that i think

169it's also equally important to get feedback from the teachers to ensure that we have their buy-in because i can see that there could be a sense of frustration for teachers if a student is leaving their class to go to the student center and just want to make sure that that message is clearly communicated to teachers that students that this is available and encouraged for students to go but also some sort of mechanism that teachers are um feel comfortable that the students leaving for legitimate reasons that it's not being abused like well you know where are the kind of catches and balances there for that feedback and and relationship with the teachers who i believe need to be included in supporting this effort um absolutely and so uh you know principal lost shrine has been wonderful

170in allowing kim some time in the beginning of the year to actually address their faculty at the high school i know sabrina you know she has really great relationships with her co-workers at the middle school um and so we actually um it's been great because the teachers are very open and honest and just so you know like we really try to be very intentional about um like if we make appointments with students we never unless it's something that um like we have some students that there's like i think one example that she actually does work based learning but she doesn't start until four so she actually doesn't have her last period of class and so that's when she makes her appointments so she won't miss anything academically if they have to miss something we'll make

171sure it's first period one week second period the next third so because teachers don't and not weekly but we're also trying to spread them out but um you know it's one thing for a student to miss one class a semester or two and it's another thing for them to be gone all the time and so we'll even look um when uh miss jones um our aaa she when she's checking people into the center because we have a kiosk just like the attendance office she actually looks to see um and she'll give us a heads up hey this is the third time in three weeks the kids come during third period and we'll have a talk with this student to say you know if there's something going on in third period is there someone you're struggling

172with and um sometimes there's a conflict with a student in there and then we'll talk about having a restorative conference with that person or maybe we all need to sit and talk or maybe we need to have can we help you to facilitate a conversation with a teacher so that you're not in the same small group and you know those kinds of things so um we try to be extremely intentional about that and we're also um you know we're our team we've actually uh we take our teachers feedback um and so we've quite frankly we've changed the past system because it was um um not being utilized in the manner in which it was intended so put it nicely and politically correct and so we actually have passes with teachers names and we require that

173they have passes we've supplied them with passes for like we need using your subfolders we're not going to take sticky notes because it's too easy to you know do that but that's also caused some problems so we're like okay so we're brainstorming actually tomorrow like okay how can we make it so easy for them to be printed their name on it and those kinds of things so um and just so you know we're also we also recognize we need to take care of our teachers and so we are um we've partnered with def and we are doing we're doing a pilot program at the high school um where we're offering up a health coach where teachers can make and administrators and and you can make appointments um with um this coach and get some feedback

174because we know we have to take care of them as well thank you thank you so that was actually my question heather so thanks that looks like i don't have anything to say um but now that was a great presentation um thank you for it just being so thorough and thoughtful and intentional um learned a lot and just looking forward to like you said now that we are having to kind of start it over definitely looking forward to some of your data coming in over the next few months and next year to see how um pbis is working and how this the student success center is working um and what we could do better and how us as a board can actually contribute to making that better as well so thank you so much for

175your presentation thank you okay all right we have the enrollment report uh actually there's um one more thing so on the agenda before the enrollment report was it's informational um but i did do a second round of interpretation on the ends policy for academics and foundation so if you look at page 120 of your packet here is the superintendent's interpretation and we were we were you know one two three and four of those tick marks in that box we were those you didn't have any input on but five six seven eight and nine i created some alternatives and some more input on there so looking for your feedback on the changes to those last five on page 120 in the second box superintendent's interpretation and if you count one two three four those ones we

176were good on so then it's five six seven eight and nine the dashes and what i did is i teased out so i did attain their highest blank blank potential to kind of define what that phrase means and then teased out and specifically looked at academic potential intellectual potential personal potential and then the last piece about being prepared to thrive in life beyond high school um i have a reaction i don't know if i have a suggestion okay and some of this comes from some of the discussion first establishing verbiage um just a phrase that the students that every student has attained their highest potential when we were developing that that caused some friction people said well how do you know what their highest potential was it sounds like you're pegging the kid and saying

177well this is what you get yep and the intention is otherwise of course everybody's going to get as many resources as they can as long as they can continue to grow they will um somehow or another the interpretation is they've reached their top level of achievement possible for the student's ability level that discordance sounds like we've decided what that top level of potential is i completely understand the intention and i share the same understanding of which part of it are you have reached the top level of achievement possible do you have a recommendation for different verbiage okay any other board members have a suggestion does that have to do with resources like have the resources they need to to reach the level of people might need to maximize their level of achievement i thought it

178was more about students not really that they will they will max out at the highest ability but i don't know that it they will have been given every opportunity to [Music] achieve to to have a sense of efficacy um or i don't know what efficacy is maybe not i think maybe to read that in concert with the academic potential interpretation intellectual potential so that does to me frame it in we're not going to max you out we're going to continue to push you in power i agree that i like the way that the intellectual potential sprays i thought it avoided that problem the other thing just for what it's worth is that when we were doing this exercise originally i was on the opposite side of this debate and i was saying well come on

179you know what we're trying to say you know someone else i don't remember who okay and that's the thing is too if this is close enough um you know we can move forward on progress monitoring yeah okay anyone else have comments or suggestions okay sorry thank you for working on them and tweaking them and that's a lot of work yeah it was yeah i wanted to get this one because it's so big and i think it's so important to have a really good understanding and common language when we talk about particularly the academic end so um that one was really important for me so okay so i will um add that to our calendar and we can start monitoring that report and then you have the last two pieces are informational for the monthly data

180reports and then the enrollment reports any questions on those and dana you had a question on the last page of the enrollment report which is page 140 of the packet page 14 of the report about the two different projection models and i did touch base with heidi and she confirmed that yes the way cooperative strategies was modeling our projections they created their version of what they felt hey these are the appropriate projections and then when it was interpreted by the administration there was a desire to look at holding our kindergarten and first grade projections steady they were the recommended projections from cooperative strategies was decreasing our enrollment in k2 over the several years because of lower birth rates um and there was a feeling that those should fizz would would probably stay stable so that's

181why there were two different ones you touch base with cooperative strategies and they are saying their recommended one is the one that they would put forward as the most appropriate modeling for enrollment projections for a decrease in pay through because there's decrease in live birth not just within our um in our nation is there is there a decrease in our community it was yeah okay i think that the debate came up because so many people were moving in right right like and moving from out of state yeah so like having traced it to our community and first right here didn't necessarily seem to coordinate so there was some discussions between yeah okay these are questions on the enrollment report so um and lenina and i are going to our final budget planning session next week

182and we will be plugging in all of our fde data that budget um revenues for the upcoming school year so that will be part of the presentation that we share at the end of at the end of the month okay any questions on the monthly report no thank you for them you're well thank the principals for them um and then i think that was it without any upcoming data anything we needed to point out specifically we have the gsba that's yeah in december everyone registered and going i'm assuming you two probably are taking this one and it is virtual or in person i'm going to attend in person um just because i learned better that way but it is virtual if that's more um better for you you know if you can do both of

183those options depending on the day i'm not sure but we can i know one of them is a as a board chair one that i would like to attend this person but um i don't know if i'll be able to do the other ones in person i don't okay awesome so we uh are going to um adjourn our public uh sessions and go into executive session um so there will be um no action taken after executive session but we will be going back into executive sessions for personnel um oh sorry um so do we have a motion to go into exact session we have to go into sector obsession second all right all in favor aye okay going into exact session thank you so much meeting is adjourned