001thank you foreign school board meeting for Tuesday June 20th 2023 for the Des Moines Public Schools to order Ms Rios would you please take the role yes Miss Alonso Diaz here is Bradley Miss Carla Johnson Miss Knox here Ms martorano here miss Norris here miss Sawyer here we have Quorum thank you the first item of business is approval of the agenda may I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda Norris motion to approve Alonso second board members please cast your votes motion approve is approved five zero next on the agenda is the public forum followed by the consent and regular agenda we provide speakers at The Forum an opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes regarding items that are not on the board agenda we also allow any person
002the opportunity to speak to the board for up to five minutes following the presentation of an agenda item if anyone wishes to speak during any portion of the business meeting please email rosa.rios dmschools.org the same speaking protocols apply to all individuals who wish to address the board speakers will be called individually and we ask that you state your name and address prior to providing comments students and minors do not have to provide their addresses guests of the board are encouraged to speak to matters relating to programs services and operations of dmps please remember that Iowa law prohibits us from discussing specific employees or their job performance we ask all speakers to avoid references to personalities or character attacks as those types of comments do not contribute to the purpose for which this public forum exists
003the use of inappropriate language will not be tolerated and individuals choosing to do so will be gaveled out of order and ask to excuse themselves from the premises or be escorted out by District security as a reminder to the board in public the board will not engage in a discussion with the public forum speakers as as it is Our obligation to discuss only matters posted in the public agenda for the sake of transparency and opportunity afforded to all Community stakeholders matters requiring attention will receive appropriate staff and or board follow-up at the time after the meeting thank you for your participation we appreciate your feedback and input Ms Rios do we have any speakers for the public forum we do not have any speakers today thank you next item on the agenda interim superintendent Smith
004would you please present District recognitions um there are no recognitions today thank you the next item on our agenda is D1 monitoring report goal one I will go ahead and facilitate the monitoring report and um have more to read to you progress monitoring is an opportunity for the board to ask questions to help us understand whether there's an alignment between the community's vision our goals and the reality current student performance and growth to understand whether progress is being made we will ask does reality match the vision is there growth toward the vision is there a strategy in plan sufficient to cause growth toward the vision it is important to emphasize that as the board our role is to set the direction in which superintendent is expected to lead the district via the goals and to
005constantly monitor the superintendent's progress towards achieving them this means it's the superintendent's role to identify and Implement strategies that will result in progress towards each goal so that as long as they honor the values of the community as described by our guardrail policies you will hear board members asking questions to understand what is working and where there are gaps all right so to help everyone follow along as we ask questions please indicate the page number and the progress measure or the data measure that you are referring to today we will start with Goal one the percent of all fourth grade students proficient on the isasp ELA assessment will increase from 52.7 percent in June 2022 to 67 in June 2026 and then we will proceed to goal two my board colleagues I invite you to
006begin your monitoring questions on goal one this is all of it right now just yeah this is goal one and one um the interim measures for goal one correct yes so uh Matt on page one in terms of the percentage of second and third graders meeting benchmark the data is showing that we did not achieve the target we had hoped who's struggling the most yeah so in all of our data sets um and it's probably a good idea to go ahead and preview that some of the what we discussed actually a lot of what we discussed is going to be similar in the goal 2 report as well just given the nature of the two different reports um but the answer to your question is students with IEPs specifically um our system of supports for
007students with IEPs is not manifesting results for those students at an accelerated rate foreign [Music] t a question in advance so I am talking about goal one I am looking at page three uh in regards to next steps and you discuss a results focused performance review and I'm still can you provide information on how that results focused performance review for teachers will accelerate the learning of these students Jackie can I ask you to wait until the how portion and the future Focus questions for that one thank you so we'll just note how how will um this play out for teachers moving forward just parking lot that one thank you can I just ask then what is the current practice that we are using to provide feedback to teachers I'll ask that first thank you sure
008yeah um the the current practice right now is uh just do coaching and support so we've got instructional coaches embedded at every school um and that coaching and support is provided in addition um by administrators by school administrators the principal and the associate principal and so teachers are given feedback on their instructional practices um you know the the frequency and the Cadence of that feedback or the granularity of that feedback is going to vary there's some variance in that from school to school and that's an opportunity for us to continue to calibrate and remove that variance of that feedback so is it peer-to-peer or in some cases there's peer-to-peer um the the predominant methodology is though is from the instructional coach who is fully released to provide that feedback along with the school administration thank
009you the peer-to-peer oftentimes will manifest itself in those plcs [Applause] or goal one on page two under what's going well uh second and third graders in ell met the spring benchmark what strategies um are being implemented that are giving us those results two specific strategies one is that that access strategy with our elite plan of making sure that our students who are multilingual Learners are given access to that grade level standard-based core classroom instruction within that instruction though there's a number of language acquisition strategies that are utilized by the teachers and so that was part of our professional learning this year was to make sure that we had those language acquisition strategies being universally implemented so we're seeing the results of that do you think that those are the most significant um or maybe the
010most um is that what cost the most significant impact I think the most significant impact is first and foremost a result of access of students being in those grade level standard-based classrooms receiving that grade level instruction through that curriculum I think that's the most significant impact that we're seeing [Music] so on page three under what is going well it notes that all third grade because we we're monitoring fourth graders uh fourth grade proficiency but this says that all third grade student groups had 57.4 of students meeting spring benchmark if we looked at fourth grade that's above what our goal is it like what's what's maybe going well there and is there expectation we could I don't know if that's a future question so if it is let me know and I can table it but
011expectation we could see continued growth for those third graders into fourth grade so perhaps it would be what strategy do you attribute um this success to and can it be can be maintained maintained and mirrored and other grade levels thank you yeah um there there's no different strategy deployed in third grade right now than fourth grade or second grade or first grade so to speak um and so some of our our opportunities and our next steps are to dig in those grade level bands um so that particular goal data point that you're referencing is an Iowa assessment uh uh data point it's the actual goal measure itself and so what we have are on-demand reports right now the full report is not completely released yet and so as that full report gets released we can
012dig into those very granular specific grade level bands along with disaggregated data within the grade level band to learn more about that information and what might be different or unique in those grade levels but from a district standpoint and from a systemic implementation plan there's nothing different and so I just don't know the answer to your question um yet there's a there's an answer but it I just don't know it yet can you just provide some examples of lack of appropriate scaffolding um for us when you're when you're referring to that would be on page two around what's not going well you say lack of appropriate scaffolding taking the instruction and tasks off-grade level and limiting access as evidenced by glean gleam inventory walk with 10 elementary schools so what what does that look like
013yeah so what we're seeing it happen or it looks predominantly in in two different ways one is within our El curriculum there are interventions in scaffolding scaffolds built into it and one of the misappropriations or applications of those scaffolds is to provide the scaffold to all students and so if we look to add for example Senate stems to a particular reading prompt on and help students actually answer the prompt through these sentence deals we're providing that sometimes across many times across the entire classroom for all students whether or not they actually need that scalp to meet that learning Target in that standard that's a that's one example of a misapplied scaffold the other Mis application of a scaffold is to provide um too many scaffolds and so we we over scaffold so that students they
014lose the opportunity to productively struggle with the actual grade level or standard base task that's in front of them we see a lot like an example four would be like when comparing um two characters perceptions of what's happening in a in a literary novel when we're trying to compare and contrast how two characters actually interact in the novel we might actually take one character in a classroom and really pick that apart or what that character is doing and then do the same thing with another character analysis but not actually compare the two and so we've scaffold it to um to give more students success with great intentions but we've lowered the rigor of the actual task itself and so therefore we've actually now gone below grade level and it's really it's difficult It's tricky because
015we're teachers are implementing a curriculum and they're and they're doing what we're what we're asking and what we're teaching what we got to do a better job at a systems level is teach more about the appropriate application of these scaffolds when to use them why to use them and again where this gets tricky and complex is it's not the same at every building um where students are in their learning progressions are different and classrooms are different in schools and so that sort of agency around making those instructional decisions is really based at the classroom level and so having great you know strong plc's and teachers and instructional coaches and administrators that are super knowledgeable about what a scaffold is what its intended use is and what you might get from that scaffold and when to
016pull it back when to add it that is you know that's the art of teaching um of knowing that information about your students and being able to apply that appropriately um that's honestly that's teaching at its best um on a really really good day that's a really complex thing to be able to do and that's why teaching is difficult um and that's why we need amazing teachers and they're doing it they're we just haven't done a good job at this at the central office level yet of teaching that we've we've rolled out the curriculum now it's time to get into those scaffolds in the appropriate application of it and help our teachers to know when to use them when to not use them what you might be looking for being data literate in terms of
017what you're seeing in terms of student learning progressions within the lesson that that's our job to help them to know that what would you say are the biggest barriers that you in in reaching that we've um time mostly um and it and it's in its time in in two different ways um time in terms of being in front of teachers at the district level so you you bring in all third grade or all fourth grade teachers into this conversation around the appropriate utilization of um scaffolds within the El curriculum we don't have a lot of time at the district level to be able to do that with our curriculum coordinators to be able to teach that who know this this curriculum inside and out um and so we'll I say we have limited time to
018be able to do that so we're having a chunk that out and then also tear that out and teach that to instructional coaches teach that to principals so that they can turn and about face and do that with their staff so there's just so that at Cascade of time and training with folks it's just taking longer than what any of us would like the other aspect of time is when teachers are in those plc's uh when those plcs are interrupted through staff absences and and covering classes you know it that might only happen let's say for example you know 10 times a year but that's 10 40 minute sessions of learning around scaffolding and applications that they that they didn't get involved in that they didn't have the opportunity to be engaged with with their
019peers so it does have a multiplier effect but time is is an area that we have to continue to wrap our head around around how we're going to problem solve that a lot of times the answers are with teachers you know like asking teachers um how might we actually use this time better at the district office level that would be a better support for you how can we actually get in front of you summer learning of course there's some challenges with that right now as well but what responses have you received to date when you ask teachers about what they need to better do their time that yeah it's there's a responsible for time for learning um for Learning and time to um deliver the lesson and then come back and say all right what
020just happened like how did that work for me just the reflection time um you know we provide that a lot within our coaching cycle so our instructional coaches um that's you know 99 of their job is to bring teachers through those learning Cycles to reflect on their instructional practices their decision making look at the outcomes and the outputs of those instructional decisions and just having more time to do that in a space where you can process what just happened and go back and apply something different the next day thanks thanks can I go uh page three I think it's page three goal one under what um we are going to do or the next steps um um you mentioned the design and the implementation of a coherent system of instruction or instructional accountability and I
021know that it seems like time is the maybe the biggest issue this designing and implementing this system is this like a one-time event or is that is this something that will be done regularly during a semester or the whole year what does that look like for teachers yeah that's actually um uninteresting questions because I all my answer is in sort of two parts um the first aspect of that is our current system of instructional accountability is mostly through that coaching model that we just talked about um what's and and it's a good model we've got some some tweaks that we need to make to it we've got more things that we need to do with our current instructional model what's missing from that particular model are the quantifiable metrics that go with um that accountability
022system and so an example of that at the central office level is is based on the goals that are established in this year's you know newly sort of generated interim goals the executive cabinet team has a performance and accountability system that has quantifiable metrics associated with that um that sort of model does not Cascade through our system yet and so there's opportunity for us to balance the the support with a focus and a press on quantifiable outcomes our current system does not do that and there's there's complexity with that there's greatness and what I mean by that is is so what this particular goal measure is about the Iowa assessments there's interim goals that have to do with fast both with the Iowa assessment and with our fast if we look at currently student accountability
023there's no student accountability associated with these metrics in in the idea of what someone might think of as a high-stakes testing environment um you know coming from Texas and and that's a high stakes testing environment which I'm not advocating for by any stretch of imagination so we're all on the same page um but that is an environment where if you don't pass you don't graduate and so you see a different sort of mindset and approach to assessment I'm not advocating for that there's lots of negatives and and disadvantages that go with that system however the pendulum of a system of support without any sort of quantifiable metric press is also not yielding results too and so the these these student outcomes as it relates to our assessments are representative um of right now what what
024students no one are able to do based on these standards and so we have to find a mindset and a structure as an organization that balances the two the the support with the Press of having metrics associated with your accountability for what you're doing both at the building and the central office level and we started we did that this year with the executive cabinet team and then there needs to be a Cascade of influence and with that same model across our organization that was a more future focused question are we ready to move to future I have one more question okay thank you okay so I mean we June 20 22 52.7 of our fourth graders were proficient this is on page one the preliminary results for goal one but here we said a year
025later and we're down to 50.1 percent of our fourth grade students that are proficient so in looking at what's not going well because it's the same curriculum right now where teachers about a year with it is your primary you know are you primarily attributing us not seeing growth due to too much scaffolding over this year or are there any other factors that you would say need to be we need to be aware of and considering in that wrong movement sure what we should contribute this two percent loss to beyond the science of reading right the science of teaching around um implement the curriculum at standards-based levels and applying appropriate scaffoldings at the right times beyond that um there are a couple of variables that I would lift up um my challenge in lifting them up
026I'm going to lift them up anyway but my challenge in lifting them up is I don't have any quantifiable metric um to support it um and what I'm going to lift up and I'll give you some data points to maybe support my my theory my wondering because that's more of a wondering right now is um in January we had um a cyber incident in the beginning of a legislative session that absolutely took a toll on public Educators and Des Moines is no different um and so I'm I'm wondering about those variables and what it did to our staff and the reason why I say that is is a year ago this time we actually were meeting this goal in the winter we were on track and meeting this goal and then in the spring all
027of a sudden we've gone backwards a little bit um beyond the science of reading and the science of teaching that we're working to see a dip I don't know of another answer right now that I have evidence to support I've got thoughts and wondering the team and I would talk about this quite a bit um I wonder right now I don't we're digging into it around what would be those variables that may have been attributed to um going backwards when our previous two data points we were not going backwards we were actually on a very positive trend line and so that's frustrating um to not only have it happen it's frustrating to not know a definitive answer to that you know one of the questions is because I'll preview a little bit for you in
028July we're going to talk about goal three and we're meeting that goal um and so all the preliminator data says we're going to meet that goal in those interims so apply that same Theory to that at the high school level and I'm it doesn't exactly work out and so then we begin to ask questions and wonderings around um our our student sort of responses in Panorama at the elementary level around connection and sense of belonging is significantly higher and my basic theory of wondering is is our Elementary staff with their connections to students being that much higher are we carrying our struggles into the classroom and students or feeling it are they feeling that's I don't know um I lift that up not because I'm suggesting one thing or another I'm lifting up is is
029I'm curious about it and so is my team around if we've had these trajectory over the last year going from last spring to the winter of going and meeting all of our goals and then having two major things happen to us as an organization I just don't have a an evidence-based understanding yet of the impact on that yet but we're looking what would you attribute on page three you mentioned that third grade El students that are English Learners in third grade are outperforming the state and the aea um what are your thoughts and and what do you believe is can you can attribute that to yeah I think that is it's still definitely attributable to um our change in our elite plan um and making sure that our students who are multilingual Learners have that
030grade level standard-based access to that core content and we're deepening and we're growing in our capacity to provide language acquisition strategies across the board for those students and so we're seeing the growth in that and just to sort of highlight that um that's definitely um yeah we're seeing that in El our students in our ell program sort of across the board um in terms of outperforming the state and the Heartland area Education Agency um but second grade for example our second grade students who identify as black males and are also a multilingual Learners um Des Moines Public Schools those students had a 48 proficiency rate um as compared to the state of Iowa 42 percent and so six percent higher than the state and you'll see trends like that sort of across the board for
031our students who are multilingual Learners um I think our plan is is working there's more that can be done but it's working um we've actually gotten a call from the state asking what we're doing differently word colleagues would you like to transition to Future Focus questions if so I'll turn it over to Jackie I think Maria asked the question okay uh I actually was going to ask I was actually can you can you hear me now yeah okay I was actually going to ask you we're going to move into the future questions and so going back to this trend of uh surpassing the state and aea um what is the plan how will you keep that trend going um the first answer to that is to stay the course so while there's evidence in terms
032of the data points that we've already lifted up that that plan is working there's also areas that that plan can still be improved um and so working with our teachers and our ell program and asking um their opinion about what else how might we enhance our um you know whether it's language acquisition strategies or enhance the actual programmatic experience for students and for families um so that's the the real step right now is to ask what from their level from their perspective from their classroom experience with students what did they see that we could do more of um specifically but also continuing to work with teachers in a co-teach model of making sure that those Universal professional learning opportunities for teachers to know and understand those language acquisition skills because those benefit all students that's
033not just a benefit for students who are English language Learners that those language acquisitions that vocabulary word print Rich environment is good for actually all students and so we're continuing to make sure that we provide Universal learning opportunities for all teachers um that match that same sort of professional learning that we provided to our teachers in our ell program foreign you mentioned that time is one of the largest barriers what are you planning or how are you planning to address that barrier moving forward [Music] ask a lot of questions of Staff of teachers about how we might utilize our professional learning scheduled days our full days more efficiently that'll be more impactful that's the first the second is to also continue um to get and glean from some some different perspectives outside of our current
034reality um I mean Dr Roberts is going to bring a wealth of knowledge um around that and so we're excited um to have Dr Roberts look and analyze our professional learning plan and give some feedback to us about what we might be able to do differently moving forward to maximize and optimize the time that we actually do have the other sort of time aspect of it is um the team is continuing to work towards ensuring the health and well-being of our staff so they're not pulled from plc's and so staff absenteeism wow it's it's much better than it was during the pandemic um that should be the only time I use that word during this meeting but it it's much better but when staff are not there that that hurts um and so um we
035we saw some staff absences this year um that that's definitely going to have an impact on children because they're the best ones to provide that learning for those kids um and sometimes we're out for good reasons um but having a plan um in place that supports student learning while their primary teacher is out for whatever on extended leave um we got to continue to have to do a better job about that so there's more work to be done there in terms of making sure that we optimize that time that's missed and just on an intervention after school actually doesn't replace core instruction so you um shared that the students that were struggling the most were students with IEPs correct that's correct and I know we've talked at this table though I think it was the
036last minute in the meeting before about our desire to lower our identified students that have IEPs do you see that as going hand in hand knowing that these are the ones that are struggling the most I mean do you still feel like that's an effective strategy or Chuck me through that because that sounds a little spinning in my head no um yes and I'm going to throw a number out I'm going to look at Shelly when I throw this number out and you give me the head not if I'm even remotely close to this but we we've actually staffed students for um IEPs about 200 students fewer this year than we have in years past um and what we are missing still in what we're implementing what we started training on in December is a
037research-based um uh Intervention Program through 95 percent group and Wilson of intervention that allows us to support students with IEPs and specially designed instruction so our specially designed instruction that happens at the building level in the classroom level when students are not in core instruction um we've been doing the best we can as a as a staff across the district but it's not been a universal curriculum that's been applied to students we've with really good intentions we've pulled the best lessons we can off of social media sites and other areas you know Teachers Pay Teachers which has some really good lessons and things like that but it's not necessarily research-based it's not standards based and it's typically not grade level based and so um that's why we went out and we found the 95 group
038and Wilson to make sure that our specially designed instruction for students with IEPs is getting to that grade level standards-based curriculum access when they're when they're receiving that specially designed instruction by law and you said that happens in the that's happening more and more in the classroom well it hasn't been happening in the classroom and so now that's why we've got out to get this this curriculum to help support that so now we've got to do some training and we had to we had schools pilot it actually this spring um and they got some really good results um they're not the results that um that we want yet but they're better results than their peers got who are not utilizing it right so if you utilize that as the variable it showed some promising results
039for things that we can actually adapt and we can actually move on um Matt I know that when you're talking about scaffolding and and one of the things you had mentioned is that it's not the same across the buildings across the district is there a plan to figure out how do we make that the same I mean it or is there need for variance and what might be a plan B yeah there is the need for variance um but the universal sort of Education around um what a scaffold is and and when it might be appropriate and how we apply it appropriately that sort of universal education has to take place we have to provide training on that um where the variance comes into play is again just depending on the students that you serve
040and the the topic that you're teaching and uh you know what scaffold might be the most appropriate scaffold for that particular lesson or that particular unit and when to apply it and for which students like it now you're starting to get into the the granularity of the day of student by student learn a student-centered learning environments and that's there's going to be some variants in that but in order to actually get to that level of variance you have to have a a foundational understanding of what scaffolds are and how we use them and actually why they're in the curriculum that way they are why they're embedded in the curriculum so it's not enough just for staff to deliver the curriculum they have to know why the curriculum is written the way it is so that
041they can actually teach it the way it's intended to be taught that's when you start getting students into that uh aggressive growth on those assessments whether it's fast or whether it might be a you know I O assessments so knowing that there is a need to educate in more of that professional development with teachers what is the plan to get them there is there a plan uh the team is building a plan with teachers yeah yeah and again that's trying to that's again knowing that we've got we've got a lot that we want to deliver teachers but we have to chunk that and we have to actually optimize that time with them and so we have to tear out what are we going to teach what are we going to teach it and to whom
042so that those individuals can about face and actually support teachers so bringing in all third graders once a week third grade teachers once a week we don't have that time built in but while we do have time built in is time potentially with instructional coaches administrators and so how can we teach them at an accelerated rate so they're thinking about face and provide that in the moment learning for their staffs whether that's through a PLC whether that's through a weekly or a monthly professional development with their own teams we have to be able to leverage our system to support you know the the 1500 to 1700 teachers that we have earlier when you were talking about when I was asking about a lack of appropriate scaffolding and what that looked like you talked about sort
043of seeing the teacher or use the example of giving not not comparing appropriately or something was then you'd you'd mentioned um that really we just need to increase the rigor in the classroom instead of having higher I'm I'm putting words in your mouth for expectations but essentially that was sort of increasing the expectation level and rigor how how does that happen how does that happen for our teachers to be able to effectively increase the expectations and rigor I think the first is is an awareness of what the actual standard is um like what is the standard that we're teaching what is the task and is the task actually on grade level uh number one if it's if they're teaching that El curriculum it's on grade level if that's that's why we got it it's been
044vetted that's why it's there knowing that first um and so and then the second part of that is is if you're going to ask students to do something and then it's a mindset if you believe that students are not going to be able to get because the curriculum is difficult it being at grade level is not actually easy it's it's difficult curriculum and then it's a mindset is can we get students there and if I feel like they can't get there and I apply with good intentions various scaffolds to help them get to that but I take away the opportunity for them to actually struggle with their learning we've just lowered the rigor of the actual standard it looks like for all intents and purposes that I'm teaching the curriculum and I am but not
045the way it was intended and so if we apply one of those particular scaffolds for all students but only three students actually needed that scaffold then we just lowered the level of rigor for 25 kids when it was unnecessarily done you know done if that makes sense so the way is just conversations with teachers education professional learning about recognizing um uh and for us too at the central office level recognizing that uh when you're a teacher and you've got 25 30 kids in front of you um sometimes the Top If I have a lack of time of planning then I'm going to provide that scaffolds for everybody and coming back saying it's okay if you don't right and here's why right kids learning to productively struggle in classrooms is actually a good thing um but
046that's that that's the art of teaching that's that's that balance of of toggling between how much am I going to support a student to actually ramp up that level of rigor in the classroom and where am I going to go in and in a quote unquote save students um within the moment like that that takes investment that takes um learning that takes School leaders and instructional coaches being cognizant also of those scaffolds and what when there are purpley or pride and when not and then having feedback and dialogue with teachers in the moment around hey have you thought about like before you actually give that scaffold tell me why you're actually going to give that scaffold um what did you see what did you learn what did you know about before you applied it um
047and how can we actually go back and actually ramp up that level of work in the classroom the only way you can do that is if you're in classrooms as instructional coaches and as administrators providing that feedback with your teachers so I'm not a teacher right um but just listening to that that's a lot I mean that is the lot of expectation you're essentially asking a teacher to individually teach right I mean essentially of an individual education plan for all of their students every single day right and I'm just curious aside from maybe some ex some better use usage of time during our professional development are there other supports that should be considered or are being considered because in in asking our teachers to give more right I mean are there other considerations to help
048I would characterize it as give differently right um because what I just described as what teachers do now um and so um but it's not always done um optimally it's not always done with the greatest efficiency it's not always gone with the effectiveness but that's also I mean that's the that's the beautiful aspect of teaching is that you try something and if it works great you try to replicate it and do it again if it doesn't that's also great because you just learned that it didn't work and we can go back to that and so creating that kind of culture in that kind of space is also incredibly needed in our buildings um and so some of the buildings where we see the most growth the aggressive growth are the ones that we have the
049best culture in they have the culture of safety of trying an instructional strategy and saying that just did not work out well at all I'm going to reel that back in and we say what'd you learn not don't ever do that again but what did you learn from it and how can we help you to support that to do that differently like that's the that's the art of leadership right um the art of teaching the art of leadership these things go hand in hand in service to one another to create an environment where folks are free to fail if you will because you learn from it that's okay now we're going to do a little bit better next time so I love that you brought up leadership because that's another important thing right t-shirts and
050Leadership for professional development 100 right and so leaders set the culture of that building they set the culture of safety of instructional and of safety of how I'm going to feel if I try something new or if I don't try something new 100 percent how are we going to see your next steps on page three um show up or or changes um from the standpoint of budgeting is concerned um all of our um investments in professional learning that that's been accounted for and so again these were things that we started looking at back in December as we were going through the budgeting process so that's accounted for the coherent system of instructional accountability that's not a financial investment it's a structural investment in terms of how we actually apply quantifiable metrics to outcomes um you
051know are we holding folks accountable to outcomes in terms of learning and so that's just a that's a mindset shift um and a a pen to paper shift in terms of what we're monitoring just one quick question you our for goal one um under what we're going to do um we've we've been talking about the universal understanding of access and the plan that you're working on with your team when do you hope this will be implemented when do you think the plan will be ready to be implemented when and what's what doc what page are you referencing Maria um three is it page three under goal one what we're going to do so the system of instructional accountability that first bullet um yes I think that's more of a phased approach and so the the
052quantifiable metrics associated with administrators uh we'll be rolling out next year it was with executive cabinet this year that are directly Titan associated with these interim goals and these um interim guard rules thank you um so you talked about kind of the impact of teacher morale or teacher morale from external for external reasons possibly being a factor into this your your wonderings um can you tell me how you're gonna quantify that and also maybe how yeah can you share a little bit more about how you plan to quantify them yeah I don't have a I don't have or investigate that further I think investigating that further goes through um conversations with staff it's difficult right now with everybody out for the summer and so we'll have to look at some fall of course we have
053the Gallup and we always have the opportunity to add or edit Gallup questions which is just another example you know when we go back to the fall of this school year we had the highest Gallup scores we've ever had and so to see that come down um in January just seems um it deserves more questions um and it deserves further investigation and so the likely scenario I haven't we haven't finalized anything yet would be to actually ask these questions via Gallup because we can get to everybody at that point in time and we've got a great response rate Matt how can the board help I'm going to apply this this answer to both monitoring reports if you will um legislatively it feels like we really took it on the chin um as an organization um
054and you guys do an amazing job of supporting us through helping us to stay the course of asking great questions of challenging us to do better be better and be better leaders and in executing our plan um where we need as an organization continued sort of path clearing is legislatively um to have to pull administrators out of buildings to have conversations on how to actually execute on a bathroom bill um it took time and it took quite a bit of planning um and everybody's doing it um you know um that that does not go without emotional tolls on folks as Leaders um and so continuing to be an advocate for our kids for our staff for our families um regardless um of how they identify to make sure that they have safe spaces in our
055schools that's important um and you guys are always involved and you've you've reached across counties and districts and so what I would offer up is that we we still need more support I feel like that's an area that I did not get a lot done in in my role this year as interim superintendent um in terms of advocacy at the state capitol um that feels like a real opportunity um that I could use some help on I just didn't I just didn't get anything done at the capital level so I could do some help in that any additional questions right may I have a motion and a second to approve item D1 second [Laughter] any additional discussion board members please cast your votes the vote is approved five to zero now we will transition into
056item D2 monitoring report goal two um I will continue to facilitate unless anybody else wants to take the reins I don't know about that I'm working on it uh all right goal two uh the percent of black male fourth grade students proficient on the isas ELA assessment will increase from 29.5 percent in June 2022 to 67 in June 2026 we will begin with the um past Focus questions to gain understanding of of how we got to where we are today and then transitioned into future Focus questions to understand what our next steps are moving forward so board members I'm going to go ahead and number my pages um they're not on here so on page one two a can you just I apologize provide data Clarity what is the number of grade four black males
057roughly [Applause] roughly we're gonna I'm looking at I don't think I have grade four right in front of me um we're you talking about the insides right um it's going to be small um where's Josie thank you um so okay so we'll have it in a second and thirty thirty four percent I just want to make sure I'm reading this accurately 34 percent of that number is who we're talking about the actual population that is either um that were that we're looking at I just want to make sure I understand the population that we're that's correct for that goal measure yeah you're correct so we've talked a lot about students sorry we talked a lot about teachers and some of the reasons that teachers are having difficulty in in accomplishing some of these goals what
058are student-centered reasons so maybe answer this from the perspective of a student why is it not working for black males yeah in fourth grade you're talking about for that particular module I don't have an answer I can get an answer for that I'll have to come back to you we haven't asked specifically our black male students in fourth grade what is or is not working for them specifically based on this data this year and so that would be something that we would um that we're planning for in the fall as there you know students are transitioning both from third to Fourth but our fourth graders out of transition the fifth grade as cohorts we are making a plan to ask that very question great thank you what strategy was most effective for our black males
059in the on page three under what's going well it's still going to be our access of of making sure that students are receiving access to that standard base grade level core instruction you know at a systems level that that that's going to be a a common theme and a common answer um just because it when you're looking at um you know the number of fourth grade classrooms across the district um that's going to be what's Universal is a high quality curriculum that's implemented um across every classroom what if any correlation to the new curriculum which is now in its second year yeah depending on the implementation which I believe one of the reasons it was selected was because of the cultural relevance correct what if any correlation are you seeing to implementation of that curriculum
060and the small gains well I mean in terms of previous the reason why we selected it was to your point there's a there's a cultural relevance our cultural proficiency um and a social justice theme that's embedded in this curriculum um it's also um one of the high has comes with one of the highest ratings from um uh where's Kelly I forgot the name of that National Department Ed reports sorry thank you from Ed reports um given it's um its relevancy to students particularly students of color as well as it's high standard of Ricker so um I think your specific question is is how does that actually attribute to our black males in fourth grade like what do they think of it um and what we've heard from students anecdotally through conversations in classrooms is that
061um it's difficult and it's got some some good topics but not every topic is always fun to learn about right so learning about you know Birds um you know regardless of of a student's experiences sometimes it's not all the most most intriguing but um we get deep into birds and um and that there's some opportunities there for us thanks so maybe I'm not just reading it correctly and help me if I'm not but so while not achieving our Target on goal two we did make gains over 2022 however we didn't meet Target or mate gains an interim gold 2A or 2B what do you attribute that to are those is this the conversation we had maybe it was the last board meeting where you said those are not the right interims or is is it
062just help me understand how you rationalize that yeah no you're you're reading it correctly um we made growth with um our students who identify as blackmail in fourth grade so we just didn't make the accelerated growth on Iowa assessments um to close the gap and so um in terms of the other the interims in terms of goal 2A and 2B um those those student groups on those particular fast measures went backwards um and that the team and I are still trying to figure that out we're trying to understand why that would be um again going back to the conversation about goal one is this actually was not the case when it in winter um we were moving actually in the right direction in these goal metrics this winter and so every indication that we had
063was that all right now we're on track now we're mixing we're making the games that we need to make um both typical and aggressive growth wise and then it fell off um and so that's just goes back to that similar conversation of of trying to understand where beyond the scaffolding and the science of teaching what other variables are we not accounting for can I ask what what uh grades takes ice bath when does that start the third third grade do you see any I mean this is I know this is not on here but do you see third graders like do you see it not being correlated between what your what you saw in the fast Bridge versus uh the Iowa assessment scores in that third grade bucket or so I'm just trying to figure
064out if these are not the right indicators no I'm with you sure yeah um I they are actually like so when we show that we're actually we didn't meet our interims and we didn't meet our goal so right now that is um at least at a service level that says well if you don't meet your interims you're probably not going to meet your goal and that's actually what played out right here um so I think they are I think where uh Dr Roberts um uh and and the team will need to have some conversations is that sample size again you know when you have a really small sample size the smallest changes in that can fluctuate the data and the percentages really really dramatically and so we need to continue to look at our sample
065sizes and where we're actually assessing the other aspect of this that we also need to talk about too as a as a management team in an organization is um sometimes and it's actually happening right now in this particular conversation is um we have metrics that are associated uh with two different goals but they're they're also on both dated both both goal reports and so um that's something for um the team and I to go back and rethink about and get Dr Robert's opinion on that around how we actually might make that clearer um for you but also for us as an organization around how we actually organize our data sets and are we getting the right no answers of our of our systems work across the organization or are we too focused in a few
066different areas um there's you know things that we just need to consider as an organization um that again this is these are conversations that we'll have with Dr Robertson and certainly um ask him to give us his thoughts on that are any of the dmps existing Partners community-based organizations currently playing a role in supporting enhancing helping to accomplish this goal for black males or any and then if not the I'll save the other question for the future sure which is what role could formally register dmps community-based organizations play so you can decide to answer it later if you want yeah some do play a role but it's it's it's not necessarily been a role that we've been overtly directive about um you know it's it's not specific or unique to supporting blackmail achievement it might
067serve all students right um there are some for sure um the future Orient or you know sort of orientation of that question is I have an answer to that but we can talk to that that when we get through it preview is the answer is yes there's opportunity there but we can do a better job of that on page three what is going well that last bullet point talks about black males in third grade I have a higher percentage of typical or aggressive growth in comparison to the second and first grade students is their anything to note about that that any learning to come from that right now the the hypothesis is is that's one more year in this access and to grade level standard-based curriculum right and so um that's the working hypothesis but
068there's again there's more questions to be asked of students of specifically of teachers in that regard [Music] um so we have working theories can you have Kelly take your question back because that was my question [Laughter] um do you have another one um yes um page three um under what's going well for black males in ell programming um they they had higher typical or aggressive growth compared to all the students what marks the difference what are you attributed to um well that there's nothing unique in terms of what we're offering programmatically in terms of language acquisition you know implementation or just access you know to to Core Curriculum in that sanders-based um teaching and learning the and it's not a huge difference in terms of percentages but but it is higher and we're seeing that
069that Trend that tick up for all students that are multilingual learners but um that tick seems to be a little bit more aggressive of that trend line going up for black males who identify as English language learners and the caveat to that is sample size again right so when just um now we're talking about small small numbers um in comparison to the entire District um you know 30 000 students and so that that percentage can fluctuate um fairly dramatically but the the overall trend of that is consistent and the idea that our students who are multilingual learners um are seen accelerated growth um from that change in that model and that programming for Access who's also benefiting from that or are black males who are also multilingual learners and that's that leap plan that's correct
070all right future Focus questions you want to go back to the community and gate Partners Jackie yeah I just think um we've talked a lot about community-based organizations and maybe the role they can play especially with targeted demographics and yet I also recall that if they're teaching things like literacy they have to be taught the right way or else it's counterproductive so because dmps has formal Partners in a system that are providing out of school time programming in schools what role could they play and could they be an ally or maybe not because of the the the pedagogy behind the sure teaching yeah I think the there's absolutely could there is a space and there is a need for Community Partners to help support um Us in this endeavor um and one of the you
071know the first opportunity is to ask um in terms of here's our need what can you offer our young students to identify as blackmail what can you do to help us to serve these children and these students and these families um better because a lot of our systems are failing to do so and so the first question is to ask and then get that that response from our Community Partners and then build that um that co-generated plan of what's going to happen what's the accountability of that in terms of like what are the outcomes that we want to see right and this goes back to that accountability structure of making sure that we've got some quantifiable metrics that we're looking at and holding ourselves to as an organization um ubiquitously across our across our system
072can you um tell me what the child study teams are and how they will be playing a role or how they're planned to be utilized yeah our child study teams are made up of Staff members that support students who are being staffed for an IEP and so um similar to kind of what we've talked about maybe it might even the last conversation around um looking to staff fewer students um with an IP unless there's the data is absolutely um uh showing that that you know standard deviation discrepancy that warrants it um but that child study team is important because we know that our data says that our students with IEPs who identify as black male our system of support is not serving those students well and so providing both training and monitoring protocols for that
073child study team to not only know when where and how we are Staffing those students but also monitoring that Staffing implementation and what what's happening with the student beyond the Staffing how are they getting Services how are we implementing that Wilson written intervention for students with their specially designed instruction making sure that they're a part of that team as opposed to just being about Staffing making sure that they're a part of the intervention-based approach um the standards-based intervention-based approach that we're deploying for next year did I capture that right jelly if those things yeah that's the phrase I was looking for that I was that was escaping was this um uh the individual education plan of the IEP is just that that's child study team is actually supports to make sure that there is an
074individual plan for that student and that our systems approach to engaging and deploying a Wilson or a you know 95 group standards-based Intervention Program is actually being executed on in that building for that child's individual plan it's one thing to say it we're going to do it systematically across the district it's another thing to say how's it going to be executed for this particular student as it's written into their IEP and making sure that that's going to happen in a daily basis with the minutes that they deserve that they are that's written into their plan it occurs now um what what's not occurring now as part of that is what is the is utilizing the Wilson and the 95 group intervention that's Enterprise intervention um curriculum that needs to be actually applied and associated with
075those IEPs so that students that are receiving that specially designed instruction are still getting standard-based curriculum and instruction delivered to them that's actually that part is not happening now not universally sorry this is more of a clarifying question under what we are going to do in next steps under there's only one bullet and there's some bullets it looks like I don't know if that first bullet has the sentence ending just says programming with a specific um I'm reading through it right now oh you're okay you're asking me what the rest of that sentence is I can't recreate the magic right on the spot Kelly so I'm gonna have to go back and look at my notes for that I think that's strategies okay it's like a Mad Lib we could just put a word it
076fits and it works free throws three point shots we're getting specifically tracking data that's what it was yeah so that was going to be my question how are we going to accelerate the removal of barriers for our black males specifically so okay can you just resay that for the public yeah so that child study team and um uh our ell teachers are tracking blackmail data specifically um during progress month yeah during the progress monitoring have we found out the general number of students that we're talking about Josie do you have that that overall number that we're talking about a fourth grade fourth grade black males 225 students [Music] okay so for fourth grade blackmails I'll repeat that for everybody again it's 225 students interim goal 2A for student black males who identify as multilingual Learners
077on an ell program is 165 and um firstly third grade blackmails students who with an IEP are 95. and you said that that data or data is or will be monitored every time they meet yeah through their progress monitoring yes ma'am thank you can can you share a little bit about implementation of results focused performance review and accountability and I remember several meetings ago Terry bringing up like what had happened at other districts when there's too much pressure on hitting numbers and how are you gonna increase results but do make sure that we're doing it well the first thing is really sure um and I think it's through very transparent and and empathetic conversations around um it's great to do the right things right the the resource-based strategies do the right things but we also
078have to measure outputs and outcomes um and so um our leaders are in a place where they they know what the goals are they know what the interim goals are interim guard rails and they are working towards that the next iteration of that conversation is to put that into a performance review and evaluation system so that we know that similarly what we did at the board table that our budget and our time and energy is going into making sure that we have to have those goals met and so our the art of leadership is around how do you coach that um and support that through a culture of safety of learning even as a leader right I learned I think I'm going to do this with my building and having that safe space to say
079that didn't work I'm going to try that differently next time and so developing that culture of care while having a a Relentless sort of focus on achieving outcomes based in student outcomes that's we've got to move in that direction I think our leaders are actually asking for that um and they're asking for that level of clarity in that level of focus from us as an organization that's not something that I'm hearing push back on I think what they want to know also is is How are district leaders accountable to that too and so that's where we started off with the executive cabinet team is experiencing that with a quantifiable metrics and their performance review and evaluation and that Cascade is being rolled out any other questions all right may I have a motion in a
080second to approve item D2 Sawyer sumu knock second is there any additional discussion or questions I was just gonna ask I know as part of student outcomes Focus governance that I believe we're supposed to publicly state if we're on track or not on track so if we could move forward do that so it's publicly stated I would appreciate that certainly Matt for goal two what is your evaluation we are not on track thank you any other additional questions okay board members please cast your votes vote is approved five to zero we will now move to the consent agenda as a reminder to the board in public the board will not engage in discussion or deliberation with a speaker regarding comments made to the agenda items discussion and deliberation will remain remain among board members at
081the board table with speakers comments informing the board's discussion deliberation and determinations as deemed necessary Ms Rios do we have any speakers no speakers okay Ms Sawyer I believe you have the consent agenda or motion yes I move that the board approved the consent items in accordance with the recommended action for each item on the consent agenda including bills previously authorized certified and approved for payment by the board secretary in the amount of 12 million two hundred forty thousand seven hundred thirty three dollars and 33 cents and procurement transactions in the amount of 932 610.99 Nora's motion to approve SEC nor a second thank you is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions board members please cast your votes the motion or the consent items are approved five to zero next on the
082agenda we have one public hearing item F1 public hearing for b9015 central campus culinary and Welding Renovations the public hearing will come to order is there anyone wishing to speak to item F1 hearing no one I will close the public hearing I interim superintendent Smith would you please introduce the matter I recommend the Board review the proposed plans and specifications prepared by RDG planning and designs for culinary and Welding Renovations at central campus hold a public hearing and approve the plans may I have a motion and a second to approve item F1 Nora's motion to approve I have a motion by Ms Norris and a second by Ms Sawyer is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions hearing non-board members please cast your votes the vote is approved five to zero next on
083the agenda we have items of privilege board members do you have anything to share okay I just want to shout out the finance team as I was looking at the financials there they were pretty spot on in terms of budget to actuals and that's not easy so um thank you to all of them I'm not sure if it's basically just me Jackie anyways I mean it was really close and so that's um that did a great job that's amazing so thank you very much thank you Matt thank you um thank you to Matt this is his last official board meeting as interim superintendent Smith we will formally um uh what's it called Grill no not grill a roast we will formally roast him in our July meeting but it's truly been an honor to sit
084next to you at this table over the course of the last year so thank you for all you've done on behalf of students here at Des Moines Public Schools and please join us at the next meeting for the formal roast [Laughter] perfect I will turn it over to you for the superintendent's report um yeah this is my last official meeting so I just want to thank each of you um it has been a blast um I have learned a ton I mean that sincerely I have had lots of Joyful moments and you guys have just been amazing um your mentorship your guidance and your support and your challenges it has been I've learned um so much I'm looking forward to taking a little bit of a break and reflecting on all of that and I
085I just words can't express how grateful I am for each of you and the leadership that you provide this district and this organization and what you've done for me personally and professionally so um thank you for everything and I am super excited to welcome Dr Roberts here July 1st he's going to be amazing and I am looking forward again to just working under him and serving under him and learning everything that I can so um I want to thank the team you guys have been amazing uh you put up with me for quite a bit and so you're going to continue to do so just in a different capacity so thanks for all of that and we've got a great staff good students an amazing family so I'm I'm proud to be here thank you
086um we will transition into upon adjourning this meeting transition into a closed session which is not open to the public so we kindly ask attendees uh to clear the room after the closed session we will reopen the meeting for our public to resume again for our work session um on the superintendent evaluation as well as the transition committee's recommendations so thank you for joining us this evening we greatly appreciate you all this meeting is adjourned at 6 51 pm okay