Board of Education Meeting 07/07/2025

001All right. It is 7:02 and I am reconvening to open session and calling to order the regular board of education meeting for Indian Prairie School 204 on Monday, July 7th, 2025. Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Kurubis, here. Mr. Rising here, Miss Deming present, Miss Donahghue here, Miss Jane here, Miss Fazdik here, and Miss Gint here. We have a quorum. Miss Fazic, will you lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, August 4th. We have two board salutes today. Miss Gent. City of Neighborville Teen Art Selection Program. The board salutes the following Nqua Valley art students. Avani Agurwal, Jumanna Januuala, Soha

002Javeed, Olivia Manchcha, and Annie Ole, whose artwork was chosen to decorate several of the city of Neapville's streetlight controller boxes. These students responded to a call for teen artists earlier this spring. Their creative designs will transform ordinary utility boxes into beautiful public art that brightens the community and leaves a lasting impression. Congratulations to these talented art students. Mr. Rising, 2025 E Cyber Mission National Finalist. The board salutes Scullan Middle School 7th graders Sophia Hackford and Trisha Hammer Waya along with their science teacher and team adviser Aaron Miller for being selected as national finalists in the EC cyber mission competition. Ranking among the top 20 teams in the nation, competing as the Allergen Avengers, the team developed Safe Strips, an innovative testing strip designed to detect common food allergens and help individuals with food allergies safely

003identify what they can eat. I'm still blown away at top 20 teams in the nation. Uh, congratulations to the students and their adviser on this amazing achievement. So, let's have an applause for both of those great accomplishments. All right, we have no public comment tonight. So, we're going to move to the consent agenda and superintendent report. Dr. Tally, Miss Donghue, members of the board, and the Indian Prairie community, summer is is high season for us as we prepare for the start of the new school year. School administration is in the middle of hiring new teachers and ensuring that all posit all positions are filled. Our new administrators have already started and have hit the ground running. As you traverse across our district, you will see a lot of construction. We are spending $40 million this

004summer on a myriad of construction work thanks to the passage of our safer, stronger 204 bond referendum. I have tried to document some of the work through my Twitter X account and send pictures out as often as I can. From the secured vestibules to the new flooring to work at Wanzi and Nika Valley and other schools, we have a lot about which we can be happy as all parts of the district are seeing some work done this summer. I want to thank Mr. John Robinson, director of building and grounds, and his team of Ken Swallwell and Richard Seir for all of their work in overseeing this work and making sure it is done on time. I want to remind parents about the importance of registering your students for school sooner rather than later. Staffing at

005our schools is based upon registration. We do not give teacher allocations to a school until the numbers in the schools reflect the need. Those numbers are tied directly to registrations. Finally, before I turn the meeting back to the board, I would ask that the board of education approve the appointment of Miss Michelle Shawaker as director of student services. She is filling a position that was vacated. Miss Shawaker is coming to us from Ridge Family Center for Learning in Elkrove Village where she was the principal. She has also served as an assistant principal and a director of early childhood. Most importantly, she is a parent in our district with two um um young men who graduated from Nika Valley. We are very pleased to welcome her as an Indian Prairie School District employee and she's here

006with her family tonight. And I'll now turn the meeting back to Miss Donahghue. So I need a motion to approve Michelle Shabbecker at Shaw Baker as director for student services as presented. I make a motion that the board of education approve Michelle Shaaker as director of student services as presented. Second. Any discussion? Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Rising. Yes, Miss Deming. I Miss Fostic. Yes, Mr. Kurubus. Yes, Miss Gint. Yes, Miss Donahghue. Yes, and Miss Jane. Yes, the motion is approved. Welcome to the district. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm I'm very excited about this. Yes. So, I have my partner Scott and my two boys, as Dr. Telly said, um, Nicholas and Jack, who graduated from Niqua. They are Graham and Cone and Niqua Products. And so, um, we

007moved here in 2007, and um, couldn't have been more pleased with the education that both boys received. and I am super excited to be on the other side now helping to serve um in the capacity for other families within the community. So, thank you very much for this opportunity. Thank you. Welcome. Shorter commute, too, I'm sure. Yes. All right. And now I need a motion for approving consent to agenda items E through T. I would like to interrupt because I want to pull a few of these items. Um, and I'm a little disorganized. I think it's J and I. Yeah. So, uh, or I'd like to pull, uh, J, L, and Q. So, So, let's I'll I'll ask for a motion to approve the agenda items A through I. Move that the board approve agenda

008items A through I as presented. I second. Any discussion? Okay. Michelle, will you please? [Music] Uh, Miss Fazik, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Gint, yes. Mr. Rising, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. Miss Deming, I motion passes. So now I need an approval for a a motion for K M N O P. R ST I move that the board of education approve uh item consent agend consent agenda item K through G also M through P also R through T second any discussion okay Michelle will you please call the role Mr. Mr. Kurubus, yes. Miss Deming, I. Miss Kent, yes. Miss Rising, yes. Miss Fostic, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. And Miss Jane, yes. Motion passes. All right. I move that the board of education approve consent agenda item J. Have a second. Second. Okay. Discussion.

009So, I pulled this item because I want to just make a point and make sure that it's clear. We are asking for a school improvement plan for two schools, Brookdale and Longwood. And this is kind of standard practice. It is required by federal law, state law, and our policy. I think it's important to know that we aren't singling out these schools among the other schools. We are supplementing some of our ser services that our services are substantially comparable across all the diff the schools in the district. um the services that we provide across the district are um there's equivalent ac um is that we're providing an equal opportunity for all of our students across all of our schools. So, Mr. Superintendent, are we providing an equal opportunity for all of our students across all of

010our schools, including Brookdale and Longwood? [Music] The reason we are approving Brookdale and Longwood is because they are targeted schools. That is why they're being brought separately to as opposed to all the other schools. So I just want that to be explained. We did this last year. We will have to do this next year as well with the these two schools. Um both schools do receive additional funding from the state for projects that we do at those schools because they are targeted. So are we providing an equal educational opportunity for our students at all of our schools? The answer is yes. Thank you. I also would clarify that that performance why why we have to have these improvement programs for those two schools. It's a three-year um um requirement. Yes. And so this would be

011the second year. So it's three years is by law or by a policy or whatever. So So all right. Any other discussion? Okay, Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Kurubas, yes. Mr. Rising, yes. Miss Fostic, yes. Miss Gint, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Miss Deming, I. And Miss Donahghue, I. The motion passes. Now I need a motion to approve item L, consent agenda item L. I move that the board agend uh that the board approve consent agenda item L. Second discussion. So, I pulled this item because I'm struggling with um kind of the language and what we've been uh are proposing to do with this uh transfer. Um, this wasn't a change that uh was recommended by press. Um, we're deviating from Press. For those that don't know, PRES is a sub subscription service

012that's provided by the Illinois Association of School Boards that tries to keep our um policies in lines with current law. Um, so this is more of a discretionary um item. So, I I I didn't get enough uh information where I felt like this warranted um deviating from press, but I'm obviously not aware of um our current uh practices across all the districts. So, I'd like to hear more from administration on this one. I think we should describe what item L is. Uh item L is regarding student assignment and interd district transfers where parents are seeking a transfer to move their student from school A to school B. Our current policy is not the practices that we actually use and hence the reason why we needed to make a change. We worked with our general counsel

013on this in order to uh find something that's more um uh accurate to what we're what we actually do here. So, for example, in our current policy, it tells for parents to contact the superintendent about a transfer when in reality they should never contact the superintendent. It has to go to the um committee that we have and apply for it from that standpoint. The another thing is in our current policy, we we talk about grades K8 and then we talk about high school. and our in the revised policy, we're actually just combining everything together as one because there's no reason to have two separate practices that we're doing. And so, um, this new policy is more in line with what we are actually doing in our district as opposed to what we are not doing.

014Any other discussion? Yeah, I had a I had the same concern Mr. Kubis did. Um, but to what Dr. Tally said, it was very there was a lot of high school language in there before. And I I like that we made it more broad across all K through 8 and preK as well. Um, I also like that we brought into this um under extraordinary circumstances which wasn't there before because this is not an easy thing to do and we should not be just granting them um at the sole discretion of the designator who decides this. So, I like that we spelled that out a little better um and made it more limiting um and what it's limited to. So, um, but I also understand Mr. Krueis' point that it wasn't something that was necessarily legislative

015or school code driven because that changed, but this is more in line to what we have been doing as a as a district. Any other comments or questions? Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Gent, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. Miss Jane, yes. Miss Deming, I. Miss Fostic, yes. And Mr. Rising, yes. The motion passes. Now I need a motion for consent agenda item Q. I make a motion that the board approve consent agenda item Q. Second. Discussion. Uh this is a grouping of board policies that are being updated because of uh recommendations by our uh subscription service press. I've got concerns, questions about the policy 7 colon 250 that deals with student support services. Um mainly it re it relates to uh notification uh of communication to the parents about some

016of the services that we're providing. Um I'm not sure if we want to if can we take that offline and do that at another meeting. Um, I don't think I had enough time to kind of fully vet this with administration um before kind of voicing some of my um questions and concerns here that the uh July 4th holiday interfered with some of that. Um, is there any urgency to approve this 7 colon 250 at this meeting or can it be delayed till next meeting? It may be delayed. All right. Then I'd like to um make a motion to delay or approve everything in Q exactly right and then maybe I can take my discussion with administration later and uh approve that the next meeting. So do you take back your motion for item Q then

017or you modify it to remove that piece? So I am going to make a motion to amend. Um you going to be able to pull this up? Mhm. I make a motion to approve consent agenda item Q except for board policy 7 colon 250. I'll my original second and second that. Okay. Is there a discussion any concerns about pulling that or All right. Michelle, will you please call the role? Mr. Eising, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Miss Gint, yes. Miss Donahghue, yes. Miss Fostic, yes. Miss Deming, I. And Miss Jane, yes. The motion is approved. That's probably more discussion on consent agenda than I've ever had on this board. I I would like to add too for people that want to go back and look at the consent agenda. There was a couple important things in

018there. and at that it's it's always important, but I'll point out our new board goals were just approved formally um that were worked on in June. And uh second, there is a report on the giving report for the district which um is always an incredible view of generosity of our community and our parents. And I would urge people to take a look at how how much has contributed to our district and how thankful we are for that for that opportunity and for that giving. So thank you. All right. So now we move on to our next agenda item is action item. Our action items. I need a motion and a second to approve board member Mark Rising to submit an application for consideration to serve as state officer in the Illinois Association of School Boards

019and if selected to serve in that capacity with the support of this board. I make a motion to approve Mark Ris to Mark Rising's application to serve as a state officer with the Illinois Association of School Board Association if elected to have the support of IPSD school board 204. I second. Any discussion? Um yeah, so just so background um I talked to you most of you last year that I was considering doing this. Um the application is due August 1st. Um I did not do it last year. I plan on doing it this year. Uh what I found out as part of the application that the board, my local board has to approve me doing this um and vote on it. Um because I need to get your approval because if I do get picked

020as an officer at the state level, that could pull me away from duties or I might miss a board meeting here or there. Obviously, I try to schedule around that, but um they just like my local board to approve that and then so there has to be a formal vote and then I also need the president to sign a piece of paper with that motion that our board approved that. So, thanks. Any other comments or good luck Mark? Yes. So, um All right, Michelle, will you please call the role? You're recusing yourself. Miss Deming I. Miss Fazdik, yes. Mr. Kurubis, yes. Mr. Rising, I'm gonna say yes because I want it to be a 70 vote. Miss Donahghue, yes. Miss Jay, yes. And Miss G. Well, I'm considering Yeah, I'm considering just saying no just

021to be obstinate, but yes. Is there bribery involved? No. Is that it? You're lucky I Okay, the motion passes. All right, Mark. Thank you. All right, we will now have a presentation from Dr. Lewis Lee and Mantrine Johnson regarding formative and summitative assessment grading. All right, President Donahghue, members of the board, uh Dr. Tally. Uh tonight I'm joined by Mantrine Johnson uh current assistant principal for curriculum and instruction at Wanzi Valley High School who is celebrating 50 years their 50th anniversary this year. Yay. Uh so we are also here uh to provide information uh and discussion with the ongoing work of our district's grading committee. Uh and tonight we'll be focusing just on the topic of formative summit of assessment grading. As soon as we talk about grading, uh many educators hairs go up and

022uh battle lines are drawn. Uh but uh what I think you'll find tonight in our discussion is just um uh some great work that's been taking place and really evolving how we can make sure that uh all of our grading practices are consistent, are equitable, and really lead to proficiency uh for all of our students. Um what we'd like to do first is provide an outline of some of the topics that we'll discover that will um uncover tonight uh some of these discussion points that will occur during our presentation. First will be our portrait of a graduate learning framework. About seven years ago, this board approved our portrait of a graduate core competencies, six of them. And along with that portrait of a graduate work um as part of the strategic plan, we were tasked

023with actually creating a portrait of a graduate learning framework. How do we make this come alive uh not just in the daily lives of our students but as educators and also make it systemic in everything that we're going to do. So we're going to have a brief discussion about that. Then we want to talk a lot about our grading steering committee. Who is that made up of? What are they tasked with? We'll go to the seven uh we affectionately call them the seven subcommittees that are tasked with actually carrying out the work from the grading steering committee. From there we'll really jump in uh through our formative and subive subcommittee discussion. Uh and then finally on the tail end of this we do plan on talking about a recommended practice uh that we'll share with

024this board um along with the fall pilot to measure that practice. And finally, uh just talk about a proposed draft timeline of what this may look like going forward. Speaking of timeline, uh next month we'll be in the fourth year of our district strategic five-year plan. It's hard to imagine that it's gone by that quickly. And uh when we look at um this strategic plan, the board in August of approved uh this strategic plan that has four priorities. And why these four? Because this board and we recognize as administration that they align directly with our portrait of a graduate work. And that's now has going to be developed into our portrait of a graduate learning framework. These four priorities really encapsulate who we are. In fact, when you go to our website that's just been

025updated and you click on the about us, uh the first thing that lights up is the district strategic plan. That's really what lights our way and what we're trying to do. Uh we really want to be what this plan calls us to do, which is to inspire all of our students to achieve their greatest potential. So tonight we're just going to focus heavily on priority one which is that focus on student development. Embedded as you are aware within each priority there are different objectives and strategies. The objective uh for this priority that we're also looking at is objective two, which just talks about students providing students with a high quality instruction, curriculum instruction to help meet uh or exceed standards uh that on demonstrated or greater than predicted growth on standardized assessments. Some of the

026key wording in those strategies that we've highlighted really are the things that jump out on what we're going to talk about tonight. In strategy one, again, that portrait of a graduate lens. In strategy two, we continue that lens when we're talking about equity, student achievement, student engagement. And finally, um, making sure that our instructional practices are aligned through that lens of what we're doing on a daily bas basis. Um, also, this board has been very busy. In February of of earlier this year, you adopted a resolution to support vision 2030. And vision 2030 um is what uh enjoin several statewide organizations um across the state of Illinois to help support and and further the purpose of public education. And so tonight, this uh presentation focuses on two tenants of vision 2030. The first one is

027that future focused learning that you see again highlighting that curriculum instructional flexibility. So when we're talking about grades that is uh definitely what we're talking about in trying to create that flexibility that needs to be to take place across our district. And then also shared accountability and that comes from the actual type of assessments that we are giving within the classroom that our educators are providing uh to make sure our students continue to be on that path uh that is laid out towards college and career. So when you look at this graphic uh this really shows um a lot of different things that are happening of our district. Uh some of them uh just with recent where uh recently you received a presentation about our portrait of the educator work. Uh some things have been

028uh standardized within our district for many years. Our our work with castle our culturally relevant instruction. uh we are in the second part of believe belong B204 uh that we'll be talking about later this year and at the center of that purposefully and literally is that portrait of a graduate learning framework. Now when we look at how we're going to be able to support all of these uh we look at our MTSS work a multi-tered system of support and traditional MTSS frameworks what they they might focus just on one domain where for example they might just look at reading um when we talk about that eye that's in front of the MTSS uh that's talking about an integrated uh multi-ter system of support and we're looking at several factors that were within each domain and

029and those factor actors focus heavily on research informed practices, uh, integration of key practices, maybe behavioral skills that might occur within a lesson. And why again do we focus on academic and behavior? Because we know that the needs are definitely interconnected. Behaviors impact access to instruction and we also know that if we don't have quality instruction that that can definitely influence behavior. So the learning framework, the professional portrait of a graduate learning framework that we're talking about, we want to begin building align all these areas of practice that are already occurring across our district. But there are different road mapaps that we're trying to bring along one road so that we can all get there going the same way so that we don't get lost because we all know that there is more than one

030way to get to a destination. Just as our priorities have been identified and aligned within the strategic plan, uh so is our MTSS work seeking to align what our daily practices are both in and out of the classroom. So all of that really leads to what you see as our vision statement. And when you read that, um, again, what jumps out, uh, to me, what should jump out for administration and our students is that commitment that every student can excel academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. And those again are all things that align with what our strategic plan has set out to do, what our portrait of a graduate, those six core competencies uh on a daily basis and making that come alive within um our classrooms by our educators. That was a mouthful. And and

031as you as you kind of take all of that in, um it's really sets the foundation for everything else that we're talking about when we talk about grading. Um as I I I kind of said earlier, a a lot of different emotions come up, a lot of different um concerns come up, a lot of different practices come up. And so it's important that we're grounded in the foundation of what is it that we're trying to do and why are we doing it and all of that needs to be tethered to um our portrait of a graduate learning framework. And so our steering committee um went through everything that we just talked about and the members are really important because these are the people that are going to be guiding these seven subcommittees and the members

032are a cross-section of our our district. there are building administr administrators. There are actual educators uh leadership from our um association and then also cabinet leadership. And they've been meeting for quite some time and and they've actually started in spring of last year. And through all that work, um they've really been dedicated towards reaching the goals that you'll see shortly in our why and vision statement. And speaking of our why, um we know that grading practices have many challenges associated with them. And so it was really important from before we started anything that we really developed what is our why and making sure that that's communicated consistently over and over every time we get off track. Um every time we are questioning why did we even uh start this? Uh it's important that our why

033statement really tethers us to the importance of this work. So what is our why? Um as you read through that um you're going to see again that that commitment to not only inspiring our students but it's that lens of equity standards academic growth achievement and that alignment with our portrait of graduate work. We're not trying to create something new here. We know that many of our teachers are dedicated to this work and they're already doing this. Um, and as we talked about earlier, um, this is something that Dr. Thally and I have had many discussions on in terms of how we can make sure that we're more consistent across our district. Uh, so that a student from um, the original valley has the same type of grading experience at a student in Matia Valley. and

034and so our why is always going to be grounded uh through that lens. So our grading steering committee, if you're a visual person, right, what does this look like? And u I talked about the seven and uh this seven here is exactly what I'm going to turn over to u mantrine to to talk a little bit more about. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Lee. Um we call these um critical components of grading the big seven. Um they're also challenges when it comes to grading when you're trying to move to more equitable grading practices. Um so looking at that student behavior. So we have these seven committees um retakes reassessments and the redoss. I'm also looking at um students with 504s IEPs and the multilingual students as well. um standardsbased grading um especially in our elementary

035schools that's really important but also across the district um just the component of the zero and how the zero is impacted into the grade um and then formative and summitative assessments and that's actually the committee that I co-f facilitated and I'll speak more or dive a little deeper with that work and then also the role of homework and extra credit into the grading practices. Um, so when we were looking at the grading steering committee, we felt like these seven critical components of grading really needed to be addressed if we were going to move to more equitable grading system or practices. So those are the big seven as we call them. Um, and we had seven subcommittees and we really made sure to ground our work um in the research um looking at that local, national

036and state data. So looking within our district, looking in neighboring school districts and looking at the educational research and looking at what other areas are doing to be more equitable when it comes to grading. Um also looking at examples of practice. We looked within our district and we'll speak to that a little bit in a little bit later. Um in some of our schools and then also in our neighboring school districts. So we looked at, you know, district 203, district 308, Planefield school district as well to see those practices that are in place. Um, and then we also engaged in these subcommittees in professional dialogue to discuss possible recommendations that we could bring back to administration. So, we really had these great conversations and our ultimate goal was to remain grounded on our on our

037why that vision um and and to make sure that was grounded in equity and so that we could bring a recommendation back to the the larger grading steering committee. Um so that was really what guided our work and standardized our practice for each of those seven committees. Um, in those seven committees, they were co-f facilitated by an administrator and an educator. Um, so I co-f facilitated the formative summitative subcommittee um with my counterpart and that's Kathy Malone. She's a sixth grade math teacher. She also teaches history. Um, so the two of us, we led that subcommittee and we really approached it from a neutral standpoint. We wanted to have these conversations um and allow staff members to engage in this meaningful dialogue. Um and we looked at some of those practices so that our so

038that our committee could look at the research and start to have some of those conversations. Um we wanted to look at the different school districts in the area, those examples of practice, which was really important to to us. Um and then make sure that people felt safe and what came out of those conversations. and we had representation from elementary, middle, and high school is this desire to have more consistency. As Dr. Lee mentioned, making sure that a student who was, you know, having an experience at Wanzi Valley High School had the exact same experience grading wise at Matia Valley. Um, and those were just some of the examples that we saw across the district. And then we were able to come to consensus and provide a recommendation to the grading stair committee that focused on

039equity and and it also aligned really to that proficiency and mastery um which aligns with our district mission and vision as well. And the first thing that we did coming out of that was we felt like it was really important to define formative assessments and summitive assessments. So we looked at the latest educational research. Um and what we the consensus that we came to is that a formative assessment is is low stakes that is practice that allows a student it could be a range of evaluative processes and we have some examples there. Um and it is used by educator educators to monitor and support student learning but to give that ongoing feedback. It lets students know exactly where they are, what their strengths are, and the areas in which they need to grow. And so

040those are some examples there. I won't necessarily read all of them, but something as simple as an entrance or an exit slip, even in the elementary school um classroom, you see cahoots, um various forms of of low stakes formative assessments, and then that summitive assessment, making sure that the formative was aligned to the summitive. Um, so they're practicing and getting ready for that larger um, exam or that larger assessment and it's a culminating evaluation and it's measuring that knowledge and skills and again looking at the proficiency and the mastery which was really important and that reflects the students overall achievement. So it could be at the end of a unit, at the end of a quarter, at the end of a semester, it could be a project Socratic seminars. So we just felt like as

041a committee it was really important for us to have a consistent working definition that we could share with staff. And so that's some of the work that came out of out of our subcommittee. Um and where we landed is you know based on the research and that collaboration we felt like it was really important um to have that summit of assessment at 80% and then formative assessments representing that 20%. So that practice and feedback weighing less than the actual mastery assessment itself where students could demonstrate what they've learned, what they know, and what they're able to do. And our rationale behind that is it is really grounded in equity when you're looking at um it promotes equity by looking at the students mastery of the content and the skills. So when students know exactly what

042they're responsible for, the standards, the skills, the learning targets, um, and then they have that ongoing feedback, it allows them to understand what that grade actually represents and where they are in relation to that. So we felt like that was really important as opposed to relying on external factors that may disproportionately impact students, things like homework or behavior. So looking at that proficiency and the mastery was really key. Um we also felt like it was really important to look at or examine the summit of assessments that they provide that clear feedback on students proficiency and allowed them to know exactly where they are. Um it also allowed teachers to to determine their targeted instruction so they could differentiate and then there's interventions. um if we're all relying on these summitive assessments, then we can work

043together to make sure that students are receiving the interventions that we need and that helps with determining what those interventions are and it also helps with things like um recommending classes from, you know, the middle school to the high school. We felt like that was really important and then looking at those learning outcomes. Again, it just provides that consistency and transparency as well. Um and it makes it easier for a student to understand and for parents to understand all the stakeholders exactly what that grade represents when they are very aware of the knowledge and the skills. Um and then it prepares them for future learning. Um so when they go into the workforce they know the expected outcomes and they know where they are. So like performance reviews and things like that that we see

044in the world of work are just are really aligned to that. So that was the rationale behind the 80% and the 20% from our committee and even though we were all different levels um we came to consensus and felt like that was really important for us to have that guide our work. Um so it doesn't come without some criticism but we also have quite a bit of testimonials. Um and I just want to acknowledge that this is from the middle school sixth grade. We do have um two schools in our district, middle schools that are already they've already implemented a weighted system of you know 80% summitative or 20% um formative and another middle school is close to that but they have a weighted system as well and an she's a sixth grade teacher she

045just mentions that what's really helpful is that by moving to this 8020 model or actually 7030 in that school that It supports learning growth and accountability. Um, it truly reflects what students have learned as opposed to it just being a grade, a letter if you will, and it really focuses on those formatives to build mastery. So, they are aligning that formative work to the summitive. Um, Tara, a sixth grade ELA teacher and science teacher, um, acknowledges that there's more equitable grading practices now, more equitable within her grading practices. And also, it truly reflects reflects how well students have grasped the concepts, the skills in the curriculum. Um, and then Kathy Malone, again, that was my co-f facilitator, um, sixth grade math and social studies teacher. she she acknowledged that she was no longer a homework

046chaser. Um, and that students truly understood like there was transparency and they knew what their grades represented and where to direct their efforts. And then also their parents were aware of that as well in the conversations that we've had. So those are a lot of the the positives that came out of that weighted system. But again, it doesn't go without. Yeah, I'm tasked with the with the concerns, right? And uh before we get to those uh you know, we've thrown a lot of uh educator terms out here and and I think it's important to unpack those very quickly uh to show some of the linkage here. Uh it's a nice July summer night. And you know, for the I'm optimistic many people online watching this, I think it's really important for them to to understand

047a little bit about about what this looks like. And so, you know, I'm going to start with the targeted instruction, right? We know when we have targeted instruction and assessment um that formative assessments are actually going to provide that data uh for our educators uh to actually understand students current proficiency levels. Where are they at at this moment in time right now? And that actually helps enable all of our educators then to provide for students specific needs. Assumment of assessment uh and proficiency. What how do those relate? uh they're going to provide just this overall comprehensive evaluation of a student's final proficiency levels. What did they learn at the end of that unit, at the end of that semester, at the end of that term? And really demonstrates uh shows that they were they were

048they able to demonstrate mastery of learning over their those intended outcomes. And and all of this underlies the continuous improvement cycle that's constantly occurring with our students. And both the formative and the summit of assessments really uh allow educators to reflect on their current instructional practices uh refine their teaching practices and help to uh and that's going to help improve student outcomes which is what everybody wants to do. So where are the concerns after hearing all that? Well, uh, you you have some here. This is not exhaustive, okay? Uh, these are just some that we wanted to just throw out there and acknowledge. Uh, and as we as we start to go through these, um, I'll just talk to maybe two of them that really relate to uh, the targeted instruction, the continuous improvement. Um,

049you know, the the first one is the that waiting uh, may devalue work uh, and formative assessments. Um, one of the things that we know in working with our educators, some um, who um, Matrine just talked about and some who we haven't heard from, but we know anecdotally this is what they're working through. Uh, we know that the summit of assessments do carry more weight. We know that the form formative assessments still remain crucial for learning. They're going to give those those practice those feedback opportunities. We've all heard those examples from sports. You know what counts uh, the day of the game and how they perform. uh all those practice sessions that they do to lead up to actual performing well. And so we know that this model is just going to encourage students uh

050to continue to engage in that overall learning process. Uh another concern that we have up there, it might be a worry about the impact on student mo motivation if daily work is less important. again uh shifting to seeing formative assessments as a tool for growth which is what we talked about and preparation so that they can actually help demonstrate man uh mastery. Our goal remains focused on uh promoting a growth mindset not a fixed mindset for our students and um this type of formative and summitive work helps to to really promote that. So, um, what are our plans for how to implement this so that we can measure everything that we're talking about? Well, up there again is just a diagram of of kind of where we've already started some of this work. Uh, over

051the summer, at the beginning of the summer, right at the end of the school year, we sent out a a request to every single educator in our district just um asking, you know, who would like to be a part of this? Um, as we've talked about early and as Montre mentioned, we already know we have two schools who are doing this at the middle school level. We know we have huge pockets of educators across the levels that are doing this work and have been doing this successfully. Uh so we did get a response and based on that response and based on what we're looking at, we are looking at some targeted schools to actually measure this. Uh some of them are going to be the the schools that we've already talked about in terms of

052middle schools and potentially also looking at individual educators where we can actually start to gather stakeholder feedback that includes how are parents viewing this? how are students viewing this and what are our educators saying about this? Uh we'd also like to to gather some quantitative data that actually potentially takes a look at the grades in class A uh that's in this 8020 framework as opposed to uh the grades in class B that are not in that framework. Uh is there a difference in terms of total number of of uh you know ABS and C's as a as a growth model for student achievement. what does that look like? We don't know and and there may be we have a you know our theories but it'll be important to take a look at that data to

053see what is actually showing. Uh we want to use that data to actually make informed decisions. We don't want to just uh go through this and and say we're doing this uh because of all the things that we we talked about but also to have the data to back up that student achievement, student levels of proficiency continue to rise and students are learning. they're able to continue to demonstrate that mastery. Um, so those are some of the things that we'll be looking at, uh, in the fall pilot as we begin to develop that. So, uh, what does the future look like for this? Well, as monitoring talked about, we have six other subcommittees and and they continue to work. Um, one of those subcommittees that I just want to highlight right now is our standards

054space subcommittee. Uh, that is at the elementary level only. It will remain at the elementary level. We are not uh looking to expand that outside of elementary. Um we know our elementary teachers have talked about standardsbased grading for quite some time and there is a lot of excitement and interest in this committee and so we've already started some of that leg work um with some of uh the building administration. Uh and so we we look forward to bringing back uh some information and discussion about um what that standard creating could potentially look like. Uh again we haven't started anything but uh that's just um one of the subcommittees. Uh and then finally that leads to um a optimistic uh but also accountable information implementation timeline. Um we're currently in July. Uh so again we've already

055been doing some of this work. Um again we hope to bring back to the board uh a presentation in spring uh on this committee and other committees potentially as well but mostly focusing on data that we've just talked about from the pilot. Um professional development is going to be key here. Um it's important that the teachers who are not doing this that they really understand how and and what that looks like with their grade book and how to really set up formative assignment assessments. Uh, so we want to spend some time in August of 2026 doing that and then potentially August 2027. Um, you know, it may be a change in policy. It may just be a change in practice. Uh, we we we don't know yet. What we do know is that uh we'd

056like to make sure that we have uh some schools, some some teachers, some levels that are ready to go uh so that we are um achieving those levels of consistency that we're talking about right now. uh in July of 2025. With that, um we'll entertain uh questions and further discussion. All right. About Miss Jane. Thank you. Um so I have a few questions here. Um I find this work obviously very interesting and exciting, but also I think we're at a phase and level that's a bit abstract. So, it's hard for me to maybe fully appreciate some of the content that you shared with us today. For example, um it's still not clear to me what the current challenges are that are that um is the why behind this work. I think you guys understand it

057way more than me, but I felt like I had to fill in the blank in my head for it to make sense. Um, I know you have slide 17 that kind of talks a little bit about maybe what some of the challenges may be that if if you could explain it in a way that those who are not in education would understand like do do teachers feel like their daily work is is weighted more than the form the summitive assessment and and therefore there's mixed messaging to the student that that work should be considered or weighted higher than the summit of assessment meaning is there mixed messaging to students or students not fully understanding that framework. Yeah, I'll take the I'll answer the first part maybe on a quantitative data point and then I'll let

058Montrine talk a little bit about it. uh two over 250 uh when when I when we're sitting down with our um with Rod Mech who is our current uh chief technology officer he and and who is working with us on this because he's going to have to be an important part in this work. He mentioned that right now there's over 250 grade books in our system. Okay, different grade books. So if you just let that sit in. Okay. Uh there are over 250 ways that we are measuring student progress valuing uh showing how we're mastering learning from student A in one one um school to student B in another. And so he's excited about this work because he would like more than anything like we would to get that number down. That's way too many.

059Uh so that's that's one measure that um that we've got that many um just different u forms of how we're we're we're valuing work daily work daily assessments that that that is inconsistent sends the wrong message to students. Students know they talk. If I got this uh chemistry teacher Yes. Um, and and I have a passion for chemistry, but I know that this chemistry teacher uh values this as opposed to this other chemistry teacher. Um, well, I I really that's a B and I know I worked hard for that B. I got an A here. Does that A mean the same? Yeah, we know with 200 over 250 grade books that that's happening. That makes a lot of sense. Um, I know there's more. What would you like to share? Um I I could talk

060in looking at the big seven. So if you look at extra credit, right? If I teach, so I'm an English teacher. I taught high school English. If I teach English and I allow extra credit in my class, um when students are wanting to improve their grade, but let's say there's another teacher in the same exact, you know, English, like let's say freshman English, for example, that's what I taught previously, doesn't allow extra credit. Well, that really provides an unfair advantage. So, having those types of conversations. Um, and I and I and I want to preface our teachers work really hard and they want students to be successful. So, I don't think there's any malicious intent whatsoever. Um, they really are trying to provide opportunities, but I just think it's really important for us to step

061together and our PLC's do that. We have professional learning communities and that's a high school perspective, right? And I know our middle schools have teams. Um, but also the power of the zero. Um, or late work. If a student turns in in an assignment late in one area and they deduct a certain percentage points, is that really based on what the student knows and is able to do or is that also connected to behavior? Um, so I I think that's the challenge. Now, I know the criticism. Some teachers would say, well, we have to hold students accountable. So, we have to find that that balance. Um, so that's just some of the examples that we see and our schools have. I don't want to say that we haven't had those conversations and we're not closer

062to consistency because we have. Um, but I just think it's really important when we're looking at uh grades and feedback, making sure it's based on what students know and are able to do. One of the concerns that's not up there, but that is really big at the high schools is retakes. Yep. I know that. I have a high schooler. Yep. And we've got a whole committee dedicated to that and we expect to bring out some uh practice recommendations on that. What we're we're educating uh our our current educators on is is that you know before the default was always to say well I'm preparing them for college. Well guess what you know I've got a son and he's gets retakes in college. So, we know that there is uh value in u making sure that

063students can demonstrate the mastery. Uh you can take a driver's ed test as many times as you want. My daughter had to take it twice and so she's good. Uh the first time was not was not very exciting. Um that being said, we know that even with standardized tests, um some of our high stakes ACTs and SATs, you can take them more than once. uh there are very few if any things where you cannot retake uh over and over and over the bar the list goes on and so um that PD that professional development is going to be really important. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Um those examples were helpful to me. Do you foresee then at the end of this it being something that's required or strongly recommended? are these going to be

064guidelines or how do you balance that with academic freedom? I know in higher education that's what I struggle with doing this type of work. So how do you see that? Um I think the first point the your first question is yeah it will be something that we will be requiring and the way to do that is partnering with uh Rod Mack and our chief technology officer to reduce that 250 gradebooks to where this is the great book and and there's accountability in that piece. uh while also uh we value teacher autonomy in that classroom. They are the experts and so some of that flexibility will come in the ca in which um assignments and how they're categorized formative and summitative and making sure that they still have that autonomy to designate what those assignments look

065like. Thank you. And my last question is I noticed the word equitable or equity come up a lot and in my mind I was also thinking parody, right? And so I just wanted to ask you what what are you thinking about when you're using the term equity in terms of equitable measures of formative and summitative assessments? Like what's what's going on in your mind when you're using that word? particular first and then well I I think it's making sure um that all students that they have access to and that they have the resources that they need so that they can be successful. Um, and so that's where we're and we're already having those conversations at the high, again, I have a high school perspective, but I know across K through 12, we're having those conversations

066um to make sure that students have the resources that they need so that they can be successful. So if it's t takes a student longer and I think this is the struggle is we do have these timelines in high school or in education where we have to move to the next unit and so time is a factor and I'm I'm going to acknowledge that right our teachers our educators who are watching um but just making sure that if it takes a student longer that they get the interventions that they need the resources that they need the support so that they can demonstrate that they've learned that even if it takes longer. Um, so I think that's the piece and just making sure that if you know if we're going to offer an extra credit opportunity,

067students may not take advantage of it, but at least we've agreed upon it and it's related to the content and the skills at hand as opposed to bringing in a tissue box or, you know, something to that nature, which I think we've all addressed um in education, which I'm glad to see. Yeah. The only thing I would just add to that is students, current students proficiency levels. uh it's important that instruction needs to be targeted as we talked about and in making sure that we understand current proficiency levels of that child uh then the teacher can target their instruction to help student A in terms of what they actually need and to help student B um and what they actually need and all of that is falls under that lens of equity uh because every

068single child uh is achieving at certain rates and and so the more we can provide that targeted instruction is going to be very important. Okay, thank you so much, Mr. Kubis. No questions, Miss Bazdc. Hi. This is a very a very interesting topic. Um, particularly as an educator, I think it's really interesting. Um, and I can't really wrap my head around the enormity of it when we're talking about prek through secondary education. Um, so I there's a lot here. Um, I'm wondering if for the benefit of any community members who might be watching and might say, even if we're going to implement an 8020 system, if my student gets 100% on all of their tests but doesn't do any homework, how could they possibly end up with a B in that class? So, I'm wondering

069if you could maybe explain how and why um this recommendation to go with this waiting is beneficial for students actually demonstrating the mastery of the skills in addition the listed skills and the soft skills. Um I I think that's the challenge when you talk about the soft skills because that is our ongoing challenge in schools where you have um you know formative work right the daily work and we have students for whatever reason um may or may not choose to do it but then when it comes to a larger assessment they're able to be successful um and I'm not I'm not going to mince words like that is the struggle but if I look at what do I want students to know, learn, and be able to do the learning outcomes, right? Then if they're

070able to demonstrate that they've reached proficiency, then that should be acceptable. But I will be completely transparent. That is a struggle for educators because we do feel like we have to teach and hold students accountable. Um, but sometimes students come in, they have different levels of background knowledge, they have different lived experiences, and that really contributes to the overall learning. Um, and so I I think that's the challenge. But I I just think it's really important for us. And if I could also add, if we look at our students and if we look at their home lives, there are some of our students who do not have the resources they don't have their families don't have the ability to pay for tutoring, right? We're a district where a lot of where a lot of families

071pay for tutoring and get those outside supports and a lot of our students don't have that. And so I I think we have to take all of that into consideration as well. It gets to the topic of what do grades mean and how do we want to communicate learning? Uh which like you said, we could be here all night. Mhm. Um, you know, I've uh I've sat in conferences uh as the administrator in the room where the parent said, "So, wait a second. Um, if Johnny had just done his homework, he would have received an A." One, that the parent recognized that and then was getting all over Johnny. But what was the the the challenging piece was the educator just nodding their head saying, "Yeah, that's that's if Johnny had just done that, he

072would have been fine." And so, how do you communicate making sure that that that does not work? Johnny demonstrated mastery, knew exactly what was going on, what what is important. And so, um, I think, um, you know, for the hundreds of people that are listening right now, right, um, it's it's it's important to make sure that we know at the end of the day, um, we want our teachers, uh, I had a teacher tell me this, they didn't get into education to be a bean counter, to actually count these points, right? Uh, they got into education because we want to see students be able to to learn that continuous improvement cycle. what and and being able to showcase that. And so, uh, this the shift, unfortunately, has really been on so much on what grades

073mean. We've seen it at the higher ed level where the the the entire topic nationwide of of grades uh inflation of grades and what that's mean. We've just seen this heavy reliance on that. And so, it's really going to be important that we we stress and this will take us, you know, back to our why. Why are we doing this? Uh and we want to make sure our students are are more uh have those consistent grading practices so that when they leave here um they had a just like the the the um the parents earlier talked about um the new new administrator hire they they were proud of of their their their children being in this district and and that's not easy. I really appreciate the explanation and I think that for anyone listening now

074or in the future will also appreciate some of that thoughtful discussion and explanation because it is a struggle. Um, and I I kept thinking in my head reading through these students earn grades. Students aren't gifted grades. Students aren't given grades. Ideally, at least from my perspective, students earn grades. And this is a way that maybe could reflect that better going forward. So thank you miss dumming a lot. Uh it is a lot. uh slide 14 the 8 basically the 8020 did is can you just share how did we is that a national or are you seeing that from a national perspective as people I mean as uh districts and educators have grappled with this where did we come with from the research with the 8020 talk about it sure um we that subcommittee looked at

075existing practices within our own district and then educational research um recommendations and we just felt and I we felt like it couldn't be more than 80% if if that makes sense. Um and so looking at neighboring neighboring school districts playing field 203 which they've since revised a little bit as well. um those were really the the common um percentages that we saw. And so, but we also felt like it was really important like there's an existing school that's like 7030. So, having those conversations, but that being the guard rails um for staff to look at that because we want students, we're always asking in like our professional learning communities, what do we want students to know and learn and be able to do and then what are we going to do if they don't know

076it? And so that really does allow us to determine what it drives our instruction. So what's that targeted instruction? What are those targeted interventions and supports that we want to provide? Um so that's really why we landed there based on educational research of you know Joe Feldman um Thomas Gusky Rick Rick Warelli um just educational research in the field. There's many others who um have recommended those percentages. We also have a middle school that's been doing this for five years schoolwide at 8020 and so we're really excited to tap into them uh and just to see how how did they roll that out? What did that look like? Um I know mine you shared there were members of your community that wanted to go 9010. Yes. Um that that wanted to go even higher. Uh

077so we've got you know it's pretty interesting. Again grading puts people in in their corners. So for for me because um it's very conceptual sometimes I need sort of the you know what what does it look like as the you know with the the meat. So can you share with me does this for for the um summitative uh are we expecting that uh whatever the the course uh uh um timeline is whatever the the quarter or whatever the actual area of um study is that regardless of where I am which school I'm at that exact exact same summitative assessment would be given. Yes. So I took us back to slide 13 uh to just give us a visual. So if you could, you know, sort of envision on the right there in the green, all

078of those things um set up through our electronic gradebook. Once they're entered, they're automatically going to go into that 80%. Uh currently at the high schools, we have final exams that are weighted at 20%. um they would be part of that 80%. We would not carve out something separately for a final sumitative. It would be included in that 80%. And we would expect that they're going to they would be exactly the same. Is that Yeah. Not only expect it, but making sure that it's set up that it it's again going back to that that one grade book in the uh in our um in our electronic. Uh and I've we've talked with with our CTO Rodney Mack. He's very confident uh that this this would not be a challenge for us. Slide 18. Um we

079talked about um stakeholder feedback. I think it was on slide 18. Let's see. Yeah. When we um as far as the um the pilot is concerned, are we going to can you remind me what who who who encompasses the stakeholders? I may have missed something, but are we are students going to be part? Yeah, there's going to be three ma three um major groups here. Uh our students are are definitely going to be important. Um I think it's uh taking the time to um you know, survey them, ask them specifically, you know, what were some of the challenges with this um and making sure that we understand exactly some of their thoughts processes um in terms of, you know, how they're ranking something maybe on a liyker scale type of question. Um our parents are

080going to be extremely important to hear uh everything from their understanding of it to stress levels at home. Yes. You know what what did you see at home? Uh that's we want to because we don't want this to you know be out of the bounds of of what we would call normal stress. That's good for student growth to to help them uh progress to help them make good decisions. And then finally is our educators. um the ones that have been doing this a while and also some that are just starting this, what are some of the challenges they're seeing? We know that uh this is not going to be something that we're trying to get perfect on, but we know that we have inconsistency. So, can we move toward being more consistent in a manner

081that's reflective throughout the district? And just two last more comments. Um, board member Fostic, I definitely understood as she mentioned, you know, students who get, you know, 100% on all of the summitive, but, you know, some of those formative areas didn't. And I was actually thinking along the lines of those students who were really strong on the formative side but have struggled from a test taking viewpoint but you know have consistently been whatever the class looks like but have somehow indicated to that educator that they have an understanding and they you know master as far as during the formative session the the topic of discussion and but have strong concerns regarding that that summitive just because of tension and stress and things like that. So, um, so I'm certain some of those conversations have been

082had. So, I I appreciate hearing more on both sides as you guys grapple because I know those will come up. Yeah, some of we've started having them already because um also because our educators did not get into this BB being counters, they also did not get into this become assessment writers and um There are many times that sometimes we have to take a stronger look at the type of assessments that we're giving. Uh uh we just uh starting with um a new license with pair that is going to be utilizing um opportunities for our educators where they can take and write good assessment questions um that are um non-biased that are seeking to look at what you're actually trying to measure and all of those so that we can take some of that stress off

083our educators, take some of that work off their plate uh so we can have better outcomes as well. And then I guess just f the final comment that I have, you know, certainly uh as you said, you know, we're trying to prepare our students. So regardless of what that next level of education, and it does not necessarily need to be a four-year college, it may not be two-year college, but students, as we all move into whatever profession we are, there is some type of educational enhancement that you have to do. and you're going to have to do it. So, whatever that expectation is, so uh you know whether I had just if I had just done the homework, who whatever that next level is, there's going to be an expectation that you have to do

084and accomplish whatever they're asking you to accomplish. And so, we're beginning to set them set that stage. And if part of it is the you know formative then that's you may see that at whatever next level you're moving to as well. So thank you um look forward to continued conversation on this. Miss Gunce. Yeah. Thank you both honestly for this wonderful um very informative presentation. This is such a huge enormous scope. So, I really do appreciate all the work that everyone is putting into it. And as the parent of a child who saw her grade get lowered by a couple because she didn't do the homework, it is a lesson learned. Speaking to Miss Deming's point, so you know, sometimes it can be a positive where moving forward they realize, you know what, this is

085absolutely vital, too. Um, and I appreciate honestly the points you made, Dr. ly because I think sometimes when we, you know, parents hear, the community hears we're doing this, we're looking to go to this set structure, you worry that it becomes this cookie cutter education. So, I'm so glad you spoke to how this actually helps you even more deal with a child as an individual and see where their strong suits are and where, you know, they may need more help to help every student excel, which I know you said on several slides. So, I just wanted to say how much I appreciated that. And if you do not have a huge answer for me right now with what I'm about to ask, I understand because I know we're on the summitative formative talk, but um

086the IEP504 multilingual, are you able to speak at all to what you're you're kind of looking at working towards with that? Yeah, I don't want to say too much because I want to keep keep people coming back. Absolutely. you know, uh but in what we're what we're really looking at is how to make sure that going back to think about um those plans and the supports that are offered through a 504. Are they being are they purposeful and actually helping meet their needs in a consistent consistent basis? So many times um we you know we sometimes um treat uh you know unintentionally uh that well they've got the supports, they know what they're doing without actually looking at those across the board. Uh so our new um uh assistant superintendent uh for student services, Dr.

087Iggo, uh she's excited about this work. She I'm not going to take her thunder, but she has she she has talked many times about how do we raise levels of achievement for for for all students. And so that is something that that again when when seeing this that's exactly the mindset that we're looking for. How do we raise levels of achievement for all students? Yes. Uh including our our most you know many would would agree our most significant learners that that need need that support. Yes. No, thank you so much, honestly. I love hearing that. And I hope for all the parents that are watching or not or community members and may watch this. I know there's been a lot of concern with 504 parents, IEP parents, you know, so thank you for addressing that

088a little bit and everyone can stay tuned then for more information on that. Uh, but no, that was it. Thank you so much, Mr. Rising. So just for clarification, did did I hear you say this was just for as far as the formative submitive grading just for elementary or is it across K12? We are we are primarily looking at uh middle and high school. Um the elementary uh they're going to be looking at standardsbased grading. So that'll be uh having this potentially right having potentially those those standards coming out. And I don't want to speak to that too much uh because that'll be a totally separate uh but uh it naturally will lead into some of these formative and summitive assessments that are occurring already at both middle and high. And then did you say

089we've already been doing it at the elementary for a couple years? Uh standards there are some formative and summitive assessments that's that's happening at all three levels. Absolutely. Could I get the names of those schools and how it is impacted how long we've been doing it? I want to see how it's impacted our growth at those schools. Can I hold off for a second here? I think we need clarity on your question. Yeah. Because you were asking about formative you were asking about um I think how it's being heard is um standardsbased grading at the elementary level. Can you please ask your question again? So, are we doing standardsbased grading at any elementary schools currently? No. Okay. You see why I wanted to ask Dr. Um, yeah, because I'm I'm really struggling with this a

090lot. Um, primarily for all the reasons you mentioned on slide 17. Um, but if you go to slide 10, We have very different learners across our district. And when we're setting an 8020 formative summitive, we are automatically setting up kids for failure. In my opinion, there are kids that their homework, their extra credit sustains their grade. There are some kids that have test anxiety. Uh I fear we are creating not a more equitable system. My I fear we're creating a more inequitable system. As a parent of two graduates, I say the best thing I can teach my kids is accountability and responsibility. It's the best thing I can teach them. Not what grades they get. Accountability, responsibility, because eventually if they go off to college or if they go into the workforce, I'm not going

091to be there for them. And they have to be accountable and responsible. standardsbased grading is really I'm sorry it it is kind of saying yes you are building up to summitive I get that point we want to help them build that growth totally understand that but when you are placing less weight on the formative less weight on certain things we're losing that accountability and responsibility in my in my opinion um you know when We look at grading, you know, how does grading or waiting of grading align to proficiency or I AR or I ready or SAT? Really doesn't, right? It's what they retain. It's what they learn. So then I get into how does grading impact or affect learning? It really doesn't. If a kid gets an A in a class, the kid that got

092a C might have learned more in that class, right? But we're we're setting things up that certain things aren't as important and I feel we're putting too much pressure and too much weight on the summitive. Um, and because learning is constant. Learning is not just what you build up to. It's constant. So to me, it's not mastering of the standards. We're we're we're trying to build the growth, but we're forgetting everything that comes before or in the middle. Um I I'm really going to have to see some more research on this because there have been a lot of great ideas in education that have been wonderful and some not so wonderful. And I very concerned about this because I think we're losing the accountability, the responsibility piece. Um, and uh because to me as a

093parent of a student that's getting taught in our school, everything matters all the time and it should matter all the time. Doesn't matter how much money I have a parent to put them in tutoring or anything else like that. Everything matters all the time. And I I just I'm not a fan of this standardsbased grading because I think it is doing a disservice to a lot of our kids. So So let let me just We are not talking about standardsbased grading tonight. Well, formative summitive is still the same. Two different things. Well, two very different things. And I want to be very on uh be very clear about this. Currently across our district teachers are already doing formative sumitative. The issue is that they're doing it in different ways. You may have in one classroom

094teacher A is doing formative 10% and sumitative 90%. Teacher B 50% formative 50% sumitative. teacher C 20% 80%. I guess what I'm saying is I need to understand the rationale of why formative is weighted so much less than summitive. That that's what I need to understand. But currently we have a situation where we are across the board in the school district. And so therefore you have a student who can be at school A taking chemistry and their formatives are only are are 30%. Chemistry in teacher B and in school B it's 20%. We have to get the an equilibrium with regards to our formative and summitative and across our district. I'll I'll end by saying this. The work of grading and reporting is not easy. The reason I asked this work to be done over

095a time period of three to five years is because of the questions that people are asking tonight. Many subcommittees will be coming forward back to bring us information, but this is the beginning of the process, formative and sumitative. And understand across our district, we're already doing this. If you were to talk to your children, they would tell you if you go to back to school nights, teachers are going to talk about their grades and what summitive and form and and formatives are like and how much they count. And then you um Miss Johnson was talking about the fact that you have some teachers who give um extra credit and some who don't. We have to bring all of this into alignment so that we have more similarity across our district than dissimilarity. I think you're

096also in a good place, Mr. Rising. Uh if Kathy Malone was here tonight, um she would talk about she was at that exact same place four years ago. Exactly what you just said. Uh and so it's a process and um she is an educator and our current educators, we we this is uh that cycle of continuous learning and improvement. So and and I'm not saying that I I'm against it. I I'm just saying I need to learn more. Yep. because I'm having a hard time making sense of it. So, I appreciate you explaining it. I I appreciate you going through the subcommittees and all the work that you're doing towards it. Um I just need to understand it better as we move forward. Yep. We want to provide a long runway for this. Um and

097that's what we're trying to do. Did you say that Kathy Malone now is doing the 8020? She's 7030. Okay. Uh and she's on this she's uh partnering with with M train. Yeah. Well, I thank uh the board members for all of their thoughtful questions and comments. I mean, we all studied this presentation ahead of time and we're all scratching our head like I really don't know. I mean it just highlights how complex um this topic is and for those of us who are not educators um you a really thoughtful discussion about how to help our students be successful and what does success mean is on the forefront of all of our brains. So the second you bring up grading, it brings up, you know, fire alarms and parents and teachers and it's like, you know,

098it's not broke, don't fix it. Well, we're on a path of always continuous improvement. We have we are a high achieving district, but there is always room for improvement and the inconsistency across the schools and things is very troubling and and you hear it, you know, a lot. Um, and that's not right. like we need to look at how to fix that. So, I applaud the effort. I I do recognize and listening to these questions and this discussion just reinforced how much I don't know about this subject and you know how um how many different perspectives there could be on what is the right answer. And I really think it was very helpful to have that vision in front of everyone. this is what we're seeking. But also to look at um industry information and

099not go so much from a gut feeling or um a previous practice kind of perspective, but also look at what research says. And um so I I just am thankful for the journey that we're on and I don't know what the right answer is, but I think that it is definitely something that we need to continue to pursue. Um, one of the questions I had is for the trials in the fall, you said that you have classes or grades or classes that are currently already doing AD20 and some that aren't, right? So, you're going to have a mix of Correct. Yeah. We want to tap into the ones that have done it well um in the sense that they've been doing it a while and they're they're achieving well and then we also want to

100take a look at some who are interested in doing this uh and those who aren't that we can just still pull their data. Yeah. Did you get enough um volunteers to do this? Um I would always say we we always want more than enough. So um I would say we we have enough interest where we know that going at some of the middle schools is is going to be really helpful for us. I think um at the high school level and Montrine can can help me with this. I think um that piece about retakes is going to be really important uh to have a a really good understanding of what's a strong retake policy. uh you know so because right away for some of our educators uh that concern about the the waiting on that

101summitive um how does that retake then factor into this? Yeah. Well, I also appreciate the teachers and staff that are like I don't want to be a cookie cutter like you know this is the formula and this is how you have to do it. It's like but there is freedom in delivery and in unique helping each student that needs different things in different areas and that's where the teaching skill and strength I think comes from personally but yeah so thank you very very much I really appreciate it. Our next um topic is a presentation from Lisa Barry and Jeannie Dina regarding communications. Good evening, President Donahghue, board members, and Dr. Tally. Thank you for the opportunity to present our communications update tonight. Joining me this evening is assistant director of community relations Jeannie Dina. Tonight's

102agenda includes a review of our work related to strategic plan priority 3, which includes significant progress on our volunteer program. We'll discuss our involvement in the safer, stronger 204 referendum and communication of the projects that followed its successful passing. We are excited to share upgrades to our websites and communications platforms and we'll look at some of our anticipated work for the 2526 school year. Our work in the communications department primarily focuses on strategic plan priority three. In the school year, we continued several of our ongoing initiatives including parent university, coffee and conversation and school spotlight videos. We supported the superintendent's engagement in the community through connections with the Rotary Club of Neapville, the Neapville area chamber of commerce, and other community groups. We continue to support and promote PTA events and activities through our weekly

103email updates and social media. We have also invited the Indian Prairie Parents Council and PTAs to host anformational table at our parent university events. Additionally, we've expanded our sponsorship revenue and increased our partnerships this year. During this annual update, we'd like to share our partners and sponsors and again express our gratitude for their generous contributions. Typically, we have a slide filled with all the partner and sponsors logos, but due to the extraordinary work of Genie Dina, we reach nearly 100 partners and sponsors this year. We weren't able to add all their logos, but instead have listed them here. We appreciate the generosity and collaboration with all our partners and sponsors and their continued support of our schools and the district. Now, I'd like to turn it over to Jeie to highlight a few of our

104sponsors and the impact their contributions have had on our work. First, the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation was the presenting sponsor for the mental health and wellness symposium. We also partnered with five neighboring districts to expand the reach of the symposium. Those districts included East Aurora, West Aurora, Neighborville 203, Esiggo, and Wheaten Warrenville. The collaboration of all our sponsors and partners allowed us to bring mental health and wellness resources to over 600 attendees. We are looking forward to continuing these partnerships with the 2026 Mental Health and Wellness Symposium on Saturday, March 7th at Matia Valley High School. Next, we'd like to thank Rival 5 for sponsoring our first annual safety contest. Their support allowed us to offer prizes at all three levels and helped to increase participation in the program while engaging our community in the

105understanding in understanding the importance of everyone being an active part of helping keep our schools safe. Finally, our new partner, Green State Credit Union, generously sponsored our district-wide volunteer program, which allowed us to expand the program this year. With the support, we've continued to grow opportunities for families and community members to be actively involved in our schools. Across our schools, parents, guardians, family members, and community members volunteered their time to support a wide range of activities, including PTA, IPC, boosters, fine arts, LMC programs, and more. To become a volunteer in our schools, individuals complete an application and consent form available on our volunteer page of our website in both English and Spanish. The application process is managed through the district office and once the volunteer is approved, all forms are securely stored in the Raptor

106system. We love recognizing our volunteers throughout the year. Each month, we feature the schools and volunteers with the highest volunteer hours in our district's weekly e newsletter. In December, we hosted an open house with hot chocolate and cider to thank and celebrate our volunteers. And in May, we honored volunteers during the superintendent brunch where we presented three awards. The volunteer of the year, the most involved volunteer, and the most involved school. Each recipient received $1,000 award from Green State Credit Union to be used in their school. Last year's honores included Sarah Stevens from Nqua Valley as volunteer of the year, Katherine Isel from Springbrook with 355 hours, and Springbrook Elementary as the most involved school with an impressive 8,884 hours logged. We continue to track volunteer engagement through Raptor. This helps us measure impact, celebrate

107success, and plan for continued growth of the program. We are looking forward to expanding the program with additional promotional opportunities. One way we're able to highlight the district's volunteer community engagement is by looking at the types of volunteer affiliations across our schools. This chart shows the wide range of individuals who volunteer in our buildings from mothers, fathers, grandparents to aunts, uncles, siblings, and even business partner and community members. It's a powerful reminder that support comes from all corners of our community in the 202425 school year. Um, the 202425 school year began during our safer, stronger 204 referendum campaign. Leading up to the vote in November, we hosted nearly 100 community informational meetings, ran a targeted digital and robust social media campaign, mailed multiple pieces directly to households, and produced a series of engaging informational videos.

108These coordinated efforts not only helped secure the referendum's passage with nearly 74% voter approval, they also earned national recognition with a 2025 Golden Achievement Award from the National School Public Relations Association. Thanks to the support of our community, referendum funded construction projects are well underway, including new secure vestibials at 11 elementary schools, renovations to the Wabansi Valley Auditorium, and updated flooring at multiple sites, just to name a few. Over the past month, we've been document documenting this work, and we're excited to share a short video showcasing the progress made so far. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I want to acknowledge Emily Bulier, our media communications producer, for her excellent work in compiling this video. We'll be sharing this video on social media and adding it to our website tomorrow. Our new websites offer even greater engagement

109for our families and community. We now have enhanced capabilities to share more dynamic content, including photo galleries and videos on any page of the site. Additional features such as page popups, templated news items, and more detailed tagging of schools help to support crisis communications, allowing us to share timely, critical updates more effectively. In addition to Google Translate, the new website platform includes AI powered translations in our top 10 languages, helping us better serve our multilingual families. And of course, we're meeting all of our accessibility requirements to ensure every user, regardless of ability, can navigate and access important information. This is this is supported through an embedded website accessibility checker that doesn't allow website editors to post content if it doesn't meet accessibility requirements. In August, we will launch the new IPSD app. In addition to

110providing helpful information to families, it also enhances two-way communication across the district. By encouraging families and staff to download the district app, we're making it easier than ever to stay connected. The app supports communication with all stakeholder groups, from teachers and coaches to club sponsors, activity leaders, and internal teams. Messages sent through the app are automatically translated into each user's preferred language, removing barriers and ensuring everyone receives timely, understandable communication. Looking ahead to next year, our focus remains on keeping the community informed and engaged. We'll continue providing regular updates on construction progress as referendum projects move forward. You'll also see further updates to our website and continued promotion of our communications app to expand its use. In addition, we'll support communication efforts around the superintendent search. Finally, our 2025 communication survey revealed a mismatch between

111the social media platforms our stakeholders say they use and our actual follower counts. While many respondents reported using Facebook and Instagram, our follower numbers on those platforms remain low. In contrast, we have a high number of followers on X despite fewer respondents indicating they use it. We will explore this discrepancy and review our social media strategy to ensure we're effectively reaching and engaging our audiences across all platforms. It's an exciting time for our district and we're committed to transparent, accessible, and effective communications every step of the way. Thank you. Right. I'll start with Mr. Rising. You're awesome. That's it. All right. Miss Kent, I agree. Uh, but I'm just going to add more to that. Um, you know, as we all know, I come from a very strong PTA background before I became a school

112board member. So, I love seeing how you guys are bringing school PTAs in more to like the parent universities, inviting them to to be able to have a table there. I loved on slide six seeing the breakdown of all the different volunteers. It it's fun to see and I actually didn't even I'm amazed with some of these schools especially where like community members were huge volunteers. My question with that though is when you're you you've signed your volunteer form, you've been accepted, can you volunteer then at any school? Yes, any school in the district you could volunteer. Excellent. So hopefully everyone listening to will will think of that as well. So, I I love how you guys have really made this robust volunteer program because I think the question has always been how do we

113get more volunteers? How do we get more not just parents but community members involved, grandparents, you know, other family members? So, thank you for all of that work and I just want to reiterate the absolutely phenomenal job you did communicating the referendum and you absolutely deserve that award and the fact that we had such a high yes vote is 100% because of your efforts. So, thank you so much. Thank Thank you, Katie. I also want to acknowledge what you said about the volunteer program. Um, I don't know if you're aware, but every volunteer application that comes in through the district, um, Genie reviews it. So, there's an a tremendous amount of work on the back that goes into the volunteer program. So, I just really wanted to acknowledge the hard work that goes in behind

114the scenes. I'm glad you mentioned all the public um, you know, everything that you see. No, I'm so glad you mentioned that because I think sometimes we all just assume, you know, it was just reviewed. Yeah, sure. like almost went through a copier and it's like yeah it's fine. So no that does not surprise me that Jeanie reviews them meticulously. So thank you. Could I ask a question? I'm I apologize regarding the volunteer stuff. Do I was surprised some schools had way more volunteer hours than I would have thought they would have and I was surprised some schools had a lot less volunteer hours than I thought they would have. Do you know or Dr. Tally or and or Dr. Are these numbers shared? I mean, do they discuss this like with their PTA or

115I mean do the principal see these numbers? I mean obviously I would think they would know them, right? But yes, and it all depends if we have a new secretary come in or different training, different ways that they're being logged in when they come in. They may just be logged in as a visitor. So, um, instead of a volunteer, so we're working, um, with training again this summer of all of our new staff members. It could be just that simple is hitting the v visitor to the volunteer because we did have over 33,000 visitors to our schools this year. That's not including all the volunteers we had. Miss Bosdick, sorry. Oh, were you worries? No worries. I wasn't paying attention. Thank you for continuing to be the dynamic duo, leading the charge for getting all

116of our communic. Um, I am super excited to see the volunteer data because um I firmly believe we do have a community that wants to do all that we can to help in our schools. So, thank you for logging that and sharing that. and Genie reviewing all of those um so that we can get community members into our schools um in a safe and secure way with the beautiful secure vestibules that we have going on in the Raptor system. Um but and they are screened through Raptor. Yes, we don't do a complete background check, but they are first sex offender. Yes, absolutely important to note. But thank you for all of your work. It is much appreciated. Um, and all of the kudos that are being shared are welld deserved. Thank you, Miss Dumming. That

117volunteer chart is phenomenal and it's such a demonstrative visual way that um just really speaks volumes. Sometimes, you know, you can't see things in words, but that pictorial graphic really really makes such a huge difference. So, um, kudos not only to seeing that volunteer, but coming up with the idea to show it that way because I think it just tells so much and, uh, the, uh, partners and sponsorship that really speaks to me being involved in the foundation side at higher education, your partnership and and working in duality with our foundation and helping to drive so much of that phenomenal uh, financial as well as time insert into our schools and our district means so so much. So just a fantastic job. Keep up the great work and like board member again said uh you

118know thank you for all you did with the referendum. It was fantastic and we're able to showcase all this because of all the work that you did at the end of last summer well last summer fall and winter. So thanks. Thank you Mr. Kubis [Music] on the uh 2024 referendum stuff. Uh you know, kudos to you. You far exceeded my expectations on on the website, on the video, on on what you're um what you're doing. I love the summary. I think it's very easy to access. Um on the website, you kind of condense it. This is what we plan on spending. this is where we're at and these are the projects. I mean, that's that's as simple as uh but as informative as we can be. And we went from having the uh very high

119praise and work on passing the referendum and uh community members are seeing the work being done and you know now they can easily see what's being done, what's going to be done, um kind of how far we're we are in the process. So, um, I know that I've had in the past kind of wanted to speed things up a little bit on the communication front, but you just blew right past what I wanted to get done. So, awesome job. Thank you. It was um, one of those challenging situations where like hurry up and wait, like we had to wait until the work started before we could show the work. So now we're very excited to be communicating that to the public and letting them see all the outcome of the referendum. Perfect. Thanks, Miss Jane.

120I like the phrase of the dynamic duo because you guys are and you know we can do a lot of great things but people will not know about them unless it's communicated um effectively and in a timely fashion and I think everything you showed today and really reflects uh our district so well in terms of the work being done and the partnerships being made. I was looking at slide number four and I was reflecting on maybe four years ago when it was my first presentation as a board member hearing our about our community partnerships and that list and we were we only had logos on that on that slide and I remember that and so to see over a hundred um organizations that we are now um partnering with this extraordinary work and with block

12159 I think we recruited some more partnerships. Um, so this is uh just it seems like just the beginning. We may have multiple slides with names very soon. So very exciting, very exciting about very excited about that. Um, I also echo um board members uh appreciation of the of slide number uh six uh kind of delineating for us. Well, who are these volunteers and why are they in our buildings? And it's so lovely to see aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and stepparents. I mean, we don't necessarily think about them as being our profile of a volunteer, but it sure is nice to see um that affiliation. Um and I and I hope the community can look at this and be proud be proud of the work that's being done. Uh again, I just

122want to also compliment on number seven. Um the communication around the referendum. I I don't if I'm out in the community, people still talk about the way we communicated information about the referendum, it being fact driven, data driven, um our intent being clear, and to see that move forward with the referendum work. Um, and it just again it builds trust and and and that's exactly the work we're doing. It's reflecting the work we're doing. So, I really appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Really amazing work. I appreciate that very much. I also want to reiterate something Matt Shipley said back during the referendum. And this this work doesn't happen by one person or one department. It's the work that's being done in our schools every day. and our community sees that and the value

123of the education that we're bringing to the community. So, um I think it's really a, you know, an an effort among many that that passed this referendum. Well, what can I say after hearing all those compliments? Honestly, um you know, the referendum was phenomenal. And I agree, you know, it was a team effort, but communications really did knock it out of the park with all of the I mean, I also get um community members saying, you know, maybe we need to borrow them for my XYZ or whatever because it was so impressive um and comprehensive. Um the community partners also that is like phenomenal growth and thank you for doing that. I know that that's not easy and you know having those discussions with all these different groups or whatever and um even in the

124the giving uh report that we approved tonight I mean what was it um Shake Shack or whatever gave out all those car I mean it was just incredible what we have seen recently and it was something that we did want to see improved but this was like an explosive improvement so thank you so much for for working on that and um just all of the partnership that I've seen. I also love the slide with the volunteer hours because I also think our schools are pretty competitive. They're going to look at that and go, "Oh, I'm going to like make sure everybody's registered when they come in my school." Because I also saw you gave out awards at the end of the year. That was a nice um chunk of money for the school to use

125in their, you know, improvements and things. So, um you know, it's uh very thankful for the work that you're doing and um also for this video was great to see that update because I know um we've been all posting different things on different social media to try and like promote. Yeah, they are working in a lot of our buildings with all sorts of improvements. So, so thank you so much and look forward to a continued successful year this coming year. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Do we have any legislative items? No. All right. I need a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, we are ajourned.