District 96 Board of Education Special Meeting 03-04-26

001My gamble will get your attention. All right. Okay. This is uh Wednesday, March 4th at 7 p.m. This is the Riverside School District 96 committee, the whole meeting. Kathy, would you please call the role? >> Okay. M >> here. >> Mr. Oler >> here. >> Mr. Bari, >> present. >> Mr. Hun >> here. >> And Mr. your head >> here. >> A forum is present. >> Okay, Stephan's not here. That's what I'm missing. Okay. Um All right. Is there Let's see. I'm going to start with a welcome by our soon to be principal of Ames School, Nikki Maza. >> Hello. Good evening everyone. How are you? Welcome to Ames. Mr. Gearman wasn't unable to be here tonight. So, I am going to fill you in on all the great things that are happening here. Um,

002one of our very favorite initiatives at Ames is called Making a Splash. It's our schoolwide um system for reinforcing expected dolphin way behaviors. Um, classes demonstrate these behaviors. They earn a splash ticket that gets proudly displayed outside their classroom door. And, um, there's a monthly contest between grade levels which is celebrated at a monthly assembly. And um when schools um during that assembly, Mr. Gearman sets the goal for the following month and students know they have to beat collectively this number. Um and when the school beats that goal, they earn a special celebration. Uh every month brings a new goal and a new celebration. We've had a glow stick dance party. Um lots of fun, very engaging for the students. Um but always keeping positivity at the forefront of this initiative. As we head into

003March, Ames kicks off Women's History Month with a March um madness, women's history book month. It's a lot to say, sorry. It is an optional schoolwide literacy experience um that invites students to engage in inspiring stories of women of the past and the present. Classes can participate by either reading together or independently and voting on the um their favorite titles and the brackets progress. Um it's a really fun and meaningful way to celebrate Women's History Month while building excitement around reading um across our school community. We also just recently wrapped up one book, One School. Um students and families read uh Stuart Little. Uh they had a culminating activity at the end with a an assembly called The Wheel of Stuart. Uh it was a game show where uh teachers versus students. Um it was

004really joyful and fun to watch. um having students and staff together around reading and shared experiences inside and outside of school. Our second grade students uh families and teach teachers participate in a monthly STEM um activity. This month in February, they designed and built catapults um tested them with candy hearts and measured the distance that the candy hearts flew. It was really exciting to be here, but really just um watching the students problem solve and cheer each other on um was really great to see. Looking ahead to spring, Mr. Dustphano is working with our fourth and fifth grade students as they prepare for their spring musical on May 7th. Uh he always puts on a fantastic show and students are excited to share their talents. Mr. Romano is going to offer an afterchool sports club

005for first and second graders where students focus not only on academics but teamwork and sportsmanship and working together. And then we begin IR testing next week um with ISA testing taking place after break. And that's that's a wrap. Um, these are the highlights that represent the things that are going on at AS and make Ames such a special place to be. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, do we have any public comment tonight? >> Nope. Okay. Uh, I'm going to say this anyway just because we're in our new habits. Uh, the board welcomes and encourages community engagement at all board meetings. Therefore, time is allocated at the beginning and end of each meeting for audience members to address the board. We kindly ask that you limit your comments to five minutes. Please

006note this is a board meeting in public and not a public forum or town hall. The board does not directly respond to questions or comments during the meeting but may ask the superintendent to follow up with you as necessary. Since we do not have any public comment tonight, we will move into committee reports with the first one being education committee. Mr. Hunt. >> All right. Yes. Uh the education committee met uh a couple times uh last week. I guess the first time was probably Friday and then uh then again on uh Tuesday or was it maybe it was Monday? I forgot >> it was Monday. >> Monday. Okay. I'm a day off in both counts. So, yes. So, we uh went over uh the SEAL uh updates for up SEAL, social emotional learning, as well

007as uh advanced learning and uh mathematics. So, do we have Angela here this evening? >> We do have me here, but we're going to start with the student engagement and SEAL overview, and I'm going to turn it over to Norah Gity. >> Okay. >> Good evening. and I brought um a pack of supporters. Um we really just felt like their days were not long enough and so wanted to give them a chance to extend it a little bit. But truly the reason that there's so many of us here is because um the work of is such a building leader um essential initiative. So, these are uh four of our amazing building leaders and administrators from the district. Um and together we're going to talk through in response to some questions that the board had just

008an overview of what are the social emotional supports that are in place at both elementary and junior high. What do the um what are the components of it and how are we working across a lot of different facets um to support that realm of our um of the students day. So, just as an overview of what we're going to go through tonight, we're going to do an overview of what are the tiered services. You've heard um probably a lot about MTSS, tier one, tier 2, tier three. We're going to break that down, define some of that um and show you kind of what it looks like. Um an explanation of the castle framework, which will also define the collaboration of academic and social emotional learning and understanding how that kind of frames all of the

009work that we do around um supporting in schools. We'll do an overview of student curricula, sports, and resources at both elementary and junior high. Walk through the um the process of incident and identification and response um when there is a more challenging situation that arises in one of our buildings. Um and then have an opportunity for questions. So um nope, that's not it. There we go. Um is gonna start us off with um overview of the tiered services. >> Thank you Nora. Good evening board. Um so as Nora had mentioned she said MTSS. So that stands for multi-tiered systems of support and you may have heard that through reading and mathematics. Um but we also offer that through social emotional learning. Um and so for our tiered one services, those are um the types of

010curricula or resources that we provide all of our students. And so that happens um throughout elementary um and secondary. We have um or middle school. We have a variety of different supports um direct curriculum and also direct uh resources or teaching approaches that we provide to the students. when we um tier 2 services happen with about 10 to 15% of the population and these are um instances where we have noticed that there are some students in need of reteing or some skill building. They might get put into a four to six week intervention. Um things like friendly language on the playground um or organizational strategies um things that we're noticing that they might just need a little bit more instruction. Uh tier three services um are individualized uh targeted services. Uh they can last like

011at an intervention cycle four to six weeks. Um but they can go longer. Um usually uh the situation might be complex in nature in terms of uh something that uh a specific challenge that the student is facing or maybe multiple challenges and so we need to provide a very specified plan for that child. So the um sorry the castle framework that um we kind of use as our starting point when we're thinking about within schools um it's a nationally known researchbased initiative. Castle stands for the collaborative of academic social and emotional learning. It's a uh research institute all around how are we building um this skill set in our school in our students. So and when you look at this um this model which has you know has appeared in previous board presentations but is

012worth re-examining um the centers that social emotional learning and then those five um kind of uh I'll date myself but trivial pursuit five pieces around that circle uh are self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision- making, relationship skills and social awareness. So those are you can think of as like the five biggest um components of what does social emotional learning look like for students? What kind of skills are we trying to build? You know, in addition to all the academic skills and everything else, uh what are we trying to help students learn and kind of take on as their own? Um these also link and and are tied to the Illinois State Standards for uh forCAL. It's all using the same the same model. So, it really is a roadmap for us to be able to integrate these

013concepts not just into 30 minutes of tier one instruction during a day, but throughout the whole day, there are opportunities for working on relationship skills at recess or in music when we both want the same mallet or working on responsible decision- making when we're working in the hallway with a friend. um or working on self-management or self-awareness uh when we're experiencing bigger emotions. How do we how do we manage that? It's something that we have to learn. I think we can take it for granted as adults sometimes. Sometimes we me I you know still need to learn some of that and practice like oh yeah, how do I kind of take it down a notch? Um but those are all the pieces that we're looking at across the day. And then once we get out

014of that um center circle, we're looking at all the kind of spheres of influence that our students have. So we're looking yes at the individual students but also at classrooms schools families and caregivers and communities. And so in for purposes of this evening we're going to focus mostly on that classroom and schools piece of what is happening to support these um these areas. So this slide just outlines the curricula and the resources we are that are used across the elementary um and middle school. Um it also highlights how we gather feedback um from students, from teachers, and from our community um regarding the social emotional supports that we provide at school. So while we'll dive deeper into these specific approaches in the following slides, this overview helps to demonstrate that district 96 96'scl framework isn't

015just a standalone program, but it's a robust system that's integrated into every aspect of our students school experience. So starting in um preK and kindergarten and grades uh one through five, we have two curricula that we use which are paths and second step. Both provide consistent language strategies and expectations across classrooms not just within the school but across all four elementary schools. Um through these programs, students learn to recognize emotions, pause and regulate, communicate effectively, problem solve, and make thoughtful choices. These skills are directly supported. These skills directly support both learning and behavior. Together, these programs help create proactive, emotionally supportive classrooms and strengthen that positive school culture. Um so what you have up here you have um the principles of the tenants of uh SEAL uh framework called responsive classroom. Um it's really a

016very comprehensive approach um to how we work with students um through the social emotional learning realm. Um out of all the principles probably the most important one that stands out is recognizing that the social emotional curriculum is just as important as the academic curriculum. Um currently, uh this this program there's two levels of training for um elementary and for middle school. Uh each training is four days. So there's an 8-day training total and it goes through every part of a children's academic day. Currently we have 44 teachers right now who have had level one training in responsive classroom and we have nine teachers that have had the advanced training. Um and administrators as well. Um so there's the principles are are here and but it's this idea that for every child they you want a

017child to participate in uh school and and be engaged academically and socially but you also want a child to have a sense of significance and a sense of true belonging like that they're part of something bigger. That's that's really what the whole um framework and the approach is about. Um we do that through engaging academics. Um and so making sure that the academics are purposeful and um are targeting students needs. Uh we look at effective classroom management. So when we say that we mean things that are proactive like looking ahead and anticipating children's behaviors so that we can create a calm environment in the classroom and throughout the school. Um, we also look at positive community building and um, just the developmental awareness, just being um, conscious of ourselves and our own needs, but also

018the needs of those around us and how do we help each other um, reach our goals and and meet our needs. So as we talk about tier one and that's that instruction that all students receive. One thing that Hower does is we partner with a few different organizations. The first of which is the National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI that's delivered during PE classes and health classes. Hower students receive instruction from NAMI and this program is designed to build from one year to the next as they make their way through the three years at Hower. So in sixth grade it starts with ending the silence which helps middle schoolers to understand how mental illness impacts the lives of individuals. This includes lessons on warning signs for self and peers and helps to change the

019stigmas around mental illness. Then when we get to seventh grade, it's stress less, resilience for success that teaches students to identify causes of stress, develop strategies to cope with stress, and practice mindfulness. And then in eighth grade, we culminate with mental illness and stress less 2011, which builds on those skills from seventh grade, teaches stress, stress management techniques such as failure and growth mindset, gratitude, changing negative thought patterns, and progressive muscle relaxation. uh facing history in ourselves uh provides a lesson based approach to SEAL with academic integration into our social studies curriculum. It uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to racism, anti-semitism, and other forms of bigotry and hate. FH AO facing history on ourselves um offers strategies for understanding historical context and working with bias while studying

020historical time periods and events. Teachers are also trained to create a student- centered classroom with established norms that promote an equitable learning environment. Students also work to establish an identity and belonging that are central to their un academic learning and understanding of historical events. Additionally, FHAO also offers a professional workshop series that focuses on unpacking bias, equity, and social justice, which is free to all of our teachers. Another partnership that we have is with Sarah's in. Again, this instruction is delivered during PE and health classes. The focus of this programming is on relationship skills and establish establishing balance in relationships. So we start in sixth grade with together connect which helps students to navigate peer relationships and identify the emotional choices for actions both in person as well as online. This highlights healthy friendships, methods

021for addressing differences with peers, positive decision-making skills, and responsible online interactions. Then in seventh grade, we move on to together discover that helps students to understand adolescent dating relationships and emotional consequences for the choices that they make. It also highlights personal values, developing empathy, mastering positive coping skills, and building healthy relationships. And then that all comes together in eighth grade with together prepare, building on that seventh grade programming again, highlighting healthy dating relationships, conflict management, positive coping skills, and responsible online interactions. Our Hower teachers and teams are intentional with the literature that is selected to share with students, being cognizant to select readings that represent diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Novels and short stories explore themes like resilience, cultural identity, and conflict resolution. Our ELA classrooms provide an opportunity for structured discussions, journaling, role-playing for students,

022and helping to make connections to characters feelings. Um, how characters emotions can impact their decisions and how actions and stereotypes can impact others. So some additional supports that we have for students at Hower, we do an annual social emotional screener. This helps us to identify individual student needs. So we're able to utilize that data to look at global issues, but also to look at individual students and determine if they need more than tier one support. With that, we have access to our grade level social workers. We are so very fortunate that we have three social workers, one for each grade level. They are on site daily and those social workers loop with the kids. So the group of kids that have that sixth grade social worker, they'll have that same social worker in seventh grade

023and eighth grade. So it's a familiar face for them. Those social workers not only work with IEP case loads, but they also work with general education students. They help then with general gened students to support with peer conflicts and other school related struggles. >> Um so those are all the wonderful things we do in the district as a whole, but we always know it's continuing improvement, right? And our work is never done. So, um, a couple of the things that we're exploring, a couple extra resources that we're exploring, um, we're looking to revamp our middle school management encore elective for next year. Um, that's one that almost all of our sixth graders will take. Um, it's going to include executive functioning, which it has in the past, but as well as lessons on digital citizenship

024and social emotional learning. Um, we've reached out to local districts to see what other resources that they're using that they're finding success with at their middle schools with their instruction. Um, we're exploring working with um, a lady named Corey Wallace out of Northwestern University about potentially adding in services for this spring or maybe next fall focused on, you know, gaining insight into what our student perspective is like. Uh, utilizing her for some possible teacher training for parent education. uh primarily focusing on race, ethnic sensitivity, microaggression, and a couple other uh taboo topics. Um, and I think the big picture of this is we want to be very intentional with how we add these. You can kind of see they're all puzzle pieces that fit together to create something that that we feel really works for

025our kids. Uh, but we want to make sure that when we add something that's done in an intentional way that is that can be that we feel will resonate with our houser community. So in addition to this too, we all know kids make mistakes, right? It's going to happen. So uh this incident response kind of uh flowchart lets you kind of know what happens when kids make a mistake, right? Um so there's a a couple different ways that incidents can be reported. Um incidents can be reported from students, from parents, teachers, community members. Um they can email the school, call this really we try to make it as convenient as possible for them to do this, right? Um, so we have an a bullying form online that kids can fill out that's anonymous. Um, kids

026can message teachers in schooly on there when things are going wrong, especially at the middle school level. Um, parents can call, parents can email. Um, and when we when we get those, we kind of talk with parents about what's exactly been going on. So that kind of triggers this thorough investigation part. Tell me about what's been happening. You know, whether talking with students, parents, staff members, what's the issue that's been going on? And kind of help parents to process through this, right? like is this something that a student can navigate on their own? Do we want to coach them? Do we need some support to coach them through this or do we need this specific adult uh intervention? Um so, and with that investigation, like I said, it can involve interviewing students, parents, um teachers,

027everybody to just kind of gain that insight to what's going on during the school day. Um once we've got a firm understanding of what's happening, you know, we try to make sure we take our time with that. Um, we're going to communicate with all families and offer ongoing support. So, whatever's been happening, we're going to let you know what's happening with your kids at school so that you can support what we're teaching them to do here uh at home as well. Um, so we make phone calls to families, we send emails, we try to be on the same page and always follow up with them. Um, during those phone calls, we talk about our restorative practices and consequences, right? What mistake was made? What harm was done? How do we repair this? um and and

028share that information with families as well. Um so part of restorative consequences can be you know we do try to protect confidentiality when that's happening right so we sometimes there's certain things that we can't share with everybody and we know that that can be a little unsettling at times um but it's important right because the last thing we want to have is a students one-time mistake getting broadcasted out into the community and kind of ruining their reputation. So we want to make sure that we protect that while also holding them accountable and helping them learn their lessons as well. Um so and that can that can look very different depending on what what the incident that we're talking about is um what those restorative practices are aimed for, right? Um as well as as the

029consequences to make sure that it matches so that the student learns the lesson that needs to be learned. um and also repairs any damages that were done to relationships with other students, other families, staff members, whatever it may be. Um and then a as we wrap things up, uh we document everything that's been talked about, everything that's been done, every phone call that's been made. Um and then we're going to continue to monitor that incident, right? So, if something was happening in the third floor hallway, we're going to add extra supervision letting people know like, hey, this is what's going there's, you know, there's a potential conflict brewing at a student locker. keep close eye on this, report anything that comes back. We're working on it as well as monitoring with the students and their

030family to just see how the experience is continuing to go afterwards, right? Um so yeah, that's kind of what we have for our instant response and that's what we got tonight. So, thank you for the overview. Um, just to tie this together, we just had press one something that we approved that had a whole slew of like student behavior type stuff in it. So, it's kind of somewhat coincidental that that happened. But, um, this was nice. I think we've get a lot of community members that throw questions at us and we kind of try to talk through these things, right? But, like even just in the last few uh maybe a couple months now um chatting with Dr. Ryan Toy about it. Like the list of stuff is much longer. Like I would never have

031been able to rattle all that stuff off top of my head. And honestly, I I kind of had the same question about Hower. It's a little clearer in the elementaryaries. Like I think I kind of heard that like here's the program we use where it's more embedded. And so I don't know that parents see that called out quite as clearly where some of those supports are. Um, so just to kind of tie that together, part of the reason that we had asked for this presentation, which I think Nora you had kind of noted, we've done pieces of this in parts over time, but as board members, I think, you know, we're here all the time, and we can sometimes forget about these things. And so, just kind of having these regular updates with the community

032is good. So, thank you for for the time putting this together, but also just kind of wanted to tie that back for some questions I've gotten. I know some of the other board members have gotten around just things that you're hearing, right? Because it's a small town. we've got small town uh I'll call them rumor problems like stuff gets out fast and you don't always have all the information and so just being able to understand the process within the school and the different supports we have I think was kind of critical just to broadcast that out to the community as well. Um, I did, you kind of answered it, Chris, but I I was kind of curious how we tackle like no matter what we do, a child's going to make a decision in the

033moment, whether it's impulsive or whatever. >> And I was kind of curious like it happens once, that's one thing. It happens twice. Okay, now you got like when we start to get into patterns either way, and I don't want to get into individual student issues, but like if you do see those patterns, I was kind of curious what that looked like. So it sounds like there's internal communications on different issues and and trying to keep a pulse on it and extra supervision, but I don't know, could you maybe expand on that a little bit? >> Yeah. Yeah. So absolutely. So that's something that we're monitoring, right? Like the student that's the ultimate measure. That's kind of how I wrap up a conversation about student, you know, whenever a mistake has happened, right? Is what's the

034ultimate measure that we're successful is that this doesn't happen again, right? And that's what we want to hear about and know about. We always encourage kids to keep coming and reporting back. Um, so and those extra supports can look different too. It could be time with a social worker for that student where you're going to meet in once a Sometimes I meet with kids or with a principal, you know, once a week we're going to check in on Tuesdays. What else? Okay, you had trouble getting along in PE class. What what preceded that event, right? Like were you guys you were oh, you're ultra competitive. Okay, let how do we help guide you to kind of be okay with like losing or maybe not doing your you know getting along with your teammates when you're

035in PE. So we do a deep dive on all of that, right? So, it can look very different depending on the situation. Um, but that's the part that I was mentioning. I think it's really hard for community members to understand. I feel the same way when my kid goes to school, right? I hear their story and like just the stuff like, "Oh, that kid just went and had lunch with Mr. Harvest and that's all that happened to us." I promise you there's a lot more work going on between the scenes to behind the scenes to make sure that that growth is happening, right? And we monitor it incredibly closely and along with that student's family as well. And then Casmir of course. Right. Of course. >> Um so there was on that one of the

036slides where it showed all the resources. Um it had educator's handbook. Um an educator's handbook is a way where we um keep track of minor incidences and also larger infractions. Um what people might like associated at first like you know oh is it like you know like when you got the pink slip sent home when you were younger and you were in trouble you know and that's not what it is. It's not a gotcha. Um, but what we do is we take time to record um the place that it happened. Um, who was involved in the situation, what time of day happened, was it a structured or an unstructured setting. And the whole point is that if it's just a one-off, it goes into the system and the child made that one mistake and it's

037just done. But if we are a few months into the school year and we've noticed, oh this student has uh you know 8 n 10 incidences small incidences but incidences no nonetheless we look and we try to find the patterns. So if something happened at 9:45 and either child's goofing around in class or is making a visit to the nurse, we might be like, "Oh, well at 9:45 is writing every day." And we know that's really hard for that student. So maybe there's something with anxiety or um there's some avoidance strategies. So maybe we have to work and teach them some strategies for how to alleviate some anxiety or we have to do we have to put them into some type of intervention talking about fight or flight, right? I mean those pieces. And so

038we use it diagnostically to help understand our students better so that we can give them the supports that they need. other questions or things that we can clarify. >> Could I ask about uh I think there was a page on Sarah's in the Sarah's in curriculum on uh what was it? Dating and relationships. Just wondering if we could shed a little further light on on that topic. >> That's one of those organizations that we bring in to work with students. Sorry for that. >> That's one of the organizations that we bring in. And so that's it's a program that is addressed in a very age appropriate way that we do see that progression from sixth to seventh to eighth grade as they continue to mature and as they're engaging in different types of relationships with

039peers. Um but it's it's certainly something that's done at an eighth grade, middle school, four level >> and and we I was involved with bringing Sarah's in back a number of years ago. Like it's interesting that they I mean they are a shelter for uh domestic violence primarily but they also um do a lot of outreach to to kids with this idea of the power balance of relationships. Uh it doesn't it doesn't mean dating relationships necessarily that um really that is the source of conflict is sort of the the power balance the power imbalance potentially. So it's it's pretty general speaking about really getting along um and also maybe realizing when you're not getting along. So, so it is interesting. I agree that like how did they get to working in a middle school, but

040that is that is a community outreach project of theirs that has been going on for a good number of years now. >> Yeah. Kind of Martha said it pretty well, but like just if it's really focused on my kids friendships, right? Like what's something that's not like a healthy boundary that like if a if a seventh gra I don't want you to talk to anybody else. You're my best friend. You're going to sit right here. Like to keep it like very simple like that. um or like here's an unhealthy boundary that someone is setting with you, right? Like unsafe secrets, like that sort of thing too. So, friendship issues as well. >> And we went out seeking them, I would say like eight, nine, 10 years ago. Um when there were there were also conversations

041similar to maybe what we like around just pure peer conflict like peer conflict is a natural part of bringing kids together in the school setting as they learn to get along with each other. as you all said, it's one of the most important things we do is to help them through those always and ongoing. It is it is from preschool through 8th grade and then beyond. So, um so I think it's it's an interesting program and I I think we've been really happy with it >> with the sixth, seventh, eighth grade stuff. I did like as you're talking I'm try I have a seventh grader too so I'm like seeing some of these in conversations that have come home and they're it seems like they're like I don't know if units are the right way

042to place it but it's like we're going to go over this thing and then like together connect is done but then we have uh well that's Sarah in there's the ending the silence like that's a unit and then they might do some other things and then Sarah comes in and then so it's not like a all year it it's like pieces I don't know if I'm stating this correctly but >> correct that's like I said those are organizations that we partner with they come in for briefs of time as that health those health units are scattered throughout the year so those are the very explicit seal teachings and then what we see is our teachers take some of those things that's where we talked about the literature that's used in classrooms and incorporating those into

043the day-to-day that way >> so so the national alliance of mental health in illness actually comes in to do this >> correct >> oh okay >> yeah so these These are organizations that come in and deliver the lessons to students. >> Okay. >> I just wanted to echo what Wesley said. At first seeing it all here, it's impressive because there's a lot a lot of pieces where being a parent, you see here and there, you see a permission slip for an assembly, but it's so much more than a pamphlet or an assembly. It's all-encompassing where, like you said, one incident, teacher, staff, principal, everybody's involved in different ways. And it's um it's impressive. I remember in like first and second grade there's a lesson on kindness or not leaving somebody out. It's very these are

044things that kids should know little kids. And then I didn't even realize the FHAO the history lessons teaching them about bigger world conflicts and global issues that you're not saying this is don't do this. You're teaching why why it's a bad thing or why this is a good thing. And maybe I'm assuming at junior high, well, I guess I know like you tell them don't do this, they're gonna do that. But if you learn more about the lesson and the history behind it, it's more impactful. How how are the history lessons determined? >> Like where do where do they come from? Different conflicts or >> Yeah. So just just kind like all of our curriculum's like a resource and then our teachers are the expert kind of aligning it to and they do, you know,

045double duty of making sure they're hitting SEAL standards and eighth grade social study standards. So they take those resources from facing history and pick pick and choose units that that fit those those two needs. It's like that combination of it. >> Yeah. >> There are also mandated standards. So they've got their uh like their core standards from the state, but there's also mandated topics that we have to cover um between K through 8th grade. And so there's a vertical alignment of those as well that make sure we encompass. >> Thanks. um when so on the educator's handbook thing because this this is bigger than just like social conflicts between people. So I appreciate you calling out like the anxiety or other trends or something that you can't see otherwise. So having having that information might

046uncover things that we we aren't otherwise paying attention to if we if like kind of getting into some of the conflict stuff. That's just a few conversations that have popped up for me recently when we if we have students that are either I'll just say engaging in conflict whether they're the one creating it or they're the one receiving it. How do we um I guess for the students that are maybe having a pattern of receiving things because we just we don't seem to have problems with like ongoing direct onetoone relation. seems to be kind of a myriad of events that kind of come together which makes it significantly challenging. I'm just kind of curious what kind of supports do we give for those kids in particular? And I know we've talked about like social workers

047and things like that. How do is that just like these resources are here for you? Do those people do like a regular check-in? How often do students just self- select and go down and say, "I'd like to talk to the social work today?" I'm just I'm kind of curious like in the kids' heads, how does some of these resources play out? Like do we do we see them being concerned going in or intimidated going in >> to see a social worker >> and just say like hey I >> say you ask our social workers they would say the answer is no. No one is feeling nervous about coming to see the social worker. Yeah, >> that's not that's not a blanket statement, but I do that we have enough data to know like it is

048not um not a massive barrier that we do have students who are um maybe even asking their teacher at the younger age of like oh can I see you know the social worker or just stopping by and you know some a lot of our social workers have like a little pad where the kids can leave a note like you know if the um social worker is not available. Um at the junior high I think they get they just email um it might be an email to the social worker versus going down because that might feel less threatening to just like hey is there a time that we can check in. Um so we do have students who will opt you know to seek that out. We certainly also have students who we might, you know,

049because we see a pattern of, oh, they're experiencing, you know, or have had a couple of different incidents, whether they're um initiating them or receiving them as you kind of described, like let's have someone check in. Um, and it could be a social worker, could also be, you know, a trusted adult in the building of just, you know, the research shows like that. um at that level um you know where it's not something necessarily where there's a clinical diagnosis or a identified disability but there's just kind of an ongoing need uh relationship with a trusted adult can be as powerful as you know a research based intervention that knowing like oh yeah this is someone I can talk to in the building whether it's the um you know pair professional in the you know who's

050in my home room class or the um you know the music teacher or the um some of some for many of our um buildings the building secretary is just the most reliable person and the most you know welcoming. I mean that's who I like to check in and the of course but um you know I always feel better. Um so it really is looking to see it's not that every um conflict or problem requires social work intervention but we might need a oh maybe we need to um you know have a lunch with Mr. Havales or you know some kind of connection with an adult in the building just as a touch point touch point to be like you know how are things going and um get another piece of data about is there more

051that we should be doing or something we should be doing differently. I'm glad to hear there's comfort there because I'm just thinking through like fifth, sixth, and into seventh grade like you're out at a restaurant, order your own food and like a lot of those basic like adult interaction type things that you're trying to teach kids at this moment. So clearly there's a comfort level with and it having the same one I think is is uh probably good too carrying through from the beginning to the end of of your three years here as I think that definitely makes a difference and having just that knowledge of the um the role of the social worker from kindergarten on you know that that that role in that whatever building you're in is seen as um you know

052a helper and someone who's who's there for all students. >> Yeah. And I led with that question because I just feedback that I think is probably obvious to all of you, but like some parents are incredibly nervous to engage in these processes and then you know when you get to the end here and you're talking about this very procedural thing like I totally understand why we have the procedure. It's absolutely necessary but if you're not really familiar with it or you're not familiar with maybe the leaders in the building, you've never gone through this process, you're concerned about whatever kind of social impact there might be, kids and adults, right? with that stuff going on, there's I've talked to a number of people that are just there's a lot of anxiety around going through the

053process and engaging with the process and um just kind of understanding it's it's very intimidating for a lot of parents not knowing the pro like the legality behind it, what to expect, what what's normal, you know, all those things. And and I think coming into an environment with a bunch of educators that know their stuff very very well can add a layer to it. So just with um not all parents uh but many of them you know I've they've they've brought stuff up and I've encouraged them to go through the different processes and you can just tell there's like nerves there and so I've walked people through it tried to you know com comfort them. I don't know if that's the right way to say it but just here's what it looks like and here's

054the people you'll work with and things like that but there is a level of um concern stress whatever just of initiating some of these things sometimes. So, just as we're talking with parents, whatever we can do to kind of help, you kind of mentioned the the power struggle thing, I that might be the easiest way to kind of look at it and with the principal and the educators that do this day in and day out and am I advocating the right way? Am I saying the right things? Do I have the right knowledge? That's the parent side of it just to kind of throw back at you for some additional context. >> For sure. Yeah. And I would say that just even though we have the procedures, like I can speak for all the principles.

055If someone has a concern, come come talk to us, call us, stop in, email us, right? Like we're here to help. Um, and sometimes parents just call me and they just say, I just want to talk about this. This is what's going on with my kid. What do you think? Right? And like, I don't need you to do anything. I'm like, yeah, I just I want you to feel heard. I want to give you some advice cuz not that we're the best parents in the world. Uh, but we do have a unique perspective that we get a lot of repetitions. Yeah. Right. So, we can offer some some pretty good advice and some help and and sometimes just calm those fears, right? We all want what's best for our kids, right? So, just a 10-minute

056conversation with your kids principal, I think, can really put your mind at ease. Um help can help a ton with that. Yeah. >> So, that would be the biggest advice I can give is like >> give them a call. It's I always tell parents like it's our job >> and we're we're all very aware of that like the anxiety inducing. I know like when I make a phone call the first words out of my mouth like hey it's Chris Harve over how everything is okay there's a lot of anxiety going you want to take care of them so we totally get that feeling so but we're that's that's true that's why I always tell parents when we hang up the phone I know my colleagues say same thing this is my job that's a part

057of our job that we love we love helping kids and taking care of them so it means the world to us and if I can help someone else and we all a lot of us are parents we know how difficult that job is so if I can do that makes somebody else's nights at home easier and better. Believe me, we would we love to do it. That's what we live for. So, >> I know three of you have answered questions for me. I'm like, "So, this is normal?" You're like, "That's absolutely normal." I'm like, "Okay, all right. I'll back off for sure." >> But it's a great I mean, you said it incredibly well. Thank you, Chris. But, um, it is a great board member response also because we know sometimes people reach out to

058you as board members and I think that like call the principal. I know I'll also say like call the special ed director, right? It's um that is what we are all you know here here to do and I think sometimes parents do absolutely hesitate like I don't want to bother the principal. No bother the principal like there's that too. >> That's okay. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> We'd rather understand something that's going on so we can interact be proactive than have to be reactive which we sometimes also do. We know that's also a reality. >> Yep. I think that's a definitely a good idea because sometimes parents hear from kids >> and it sounds like it's a bigger problem where there is conflict in school and that is normal part of life but to the

059child it might seem huge and you're like yeah no they're not getting along >> it kind of >> level set that >> yeah a couple and I I know as a parent like and we all know we get our kids side of the story right I watched Mrs. Kas's daughter, give her her side of a story today. And I watch her thoughtfully navigate it and help her through it, right? Like um so we know we're getting our kids side of the story, right? So letting them know like that's a great personal contact like hey, what is actually happening? Like help me out here, help me understand it. Like that's a it's a great perspective to have and encourage people to do. >> It's not really starting any formal process. It's just like what's going on.

060>> Yeah. Yeah. Like we're here, right? >> Yeah. >> I know my first question is usually where'd you hear that from? Yeah. And then when it's like four people removed, I'm like, we need to just remove this from our minds right now cuz >> it's not accurate. >> Any other questions, comments? >> No, it's really helpful. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you. >> We appreciate it. >> All right. So, next up, >> but wait, there's more. >> But wait. >> Yes. So, I think we covered the SEAL portion. And now we're going to talk about advanced learning and >> standards >> middle school mathematics. >> Math. Yep. >> Standard based grading and reporting as well. >> It's just me, so I'll go ahead and say it. >> Yeah. Um,

061>> all right. Thank you for having me tonight to talk a little bit about advanced learning, standardsbased grading and reporting and then also just bring everybody up to speed on middle school math and um where we're at and what we're doing with that as well. So I'm going to start with advanced learning um and explain a little bit about where we've been, what we've accomplished so far, and then where we're going. So, in the fall, we had a couple of meetings where we established um what our three priorities were going to be. And that was based off of the audit that was done by the Northwestern Center for Talent and Development um last year. And so, we took that report that we received in the spring and we talked about it as a team and

062identified these priorities um which was to define what advanced learning means in district 96, improve program transparency and communication with families and refine the identification process for services. There was also um kind of a fourth priority in there in that we know that the advanced learning um structure for fourth and fifth grade ELA was not working. It was putting a strain on our teachers and on our students because it's a pullout program right now. It's um 180 minutes that students are pulled out either two 90 minute blocks or three 60-minute blocks depending on what school they're in. And so that was 90 minutes or 60 minutes um two or three times a week that students were missing core instruction. And with the CKLA um curricular resource now that was causing some problems because kids were

063missing important pieces of the curricular resource. And so trying to figure out how to balance the work they were doing in advanced learning with the work they were missing from their core class. It's been a challenge this year. And so that was a fourth um goal that arose that wasn't from the um the audit necessarily, but something we knew as committee members needed to be addressed. When we started the year, we started out with uh monthly 1-hour after school sessions. And the problem with that is that a 1-hour session from 3 to 4, 3:30 to 4:30 really limits discussion and the ability to dig deep and figure out what those next steps are. And it was slowing our progress. And so um in consulting with the the two people that we're working with from Northwestern

064Center and Talent for Development, we talked about the benefits of a full day or half day session. And there are challenges with that as well because um we have very wonderful staff members who do not want to be out of their buildings. And so when you start having full day meetings or half-day meetings, it is pulling these staff members out of their buildings buildings. And so we had to balance where we would get the best bang for our buck. And um when we moved to the full day, we had two full day sessions in February. And when we moved to that, we did see a lot of progress. We had capacity for substance for just really deep discussions and datadriven discussions. And we were able to make datadriven decisions as well. So we met um

065February 5th and we talked we have there were key outcomes that came up our February 5th meeting and this was an all day meeting that we had um and so the team met from 8 to 3 and where we started was we looked at the data we had I think I've talked about it um before previously at the board table we have the data we have this large data sheet of um all of our students kindergarten through fifth grade or eighth grade and it's uh Kodak scores, MAP scores, um I scores, growth percentiles, there's a whole bunch of pieces of data that we looked at um and was analyzed deeply by the two consultants from the Northwestern Center for Talent Development. And some of the things that the data told us is that we have

066high achieving students um that their level of achievement is starting to decline as they get older. And what research shows us is that that means there's a recognized need for more challenge so that we're keeping their skills up and keeping them keeping them um challenged and achieving at high levels. So the data is telling us we need to work on how we're enriching our primary students. Um the data also told us our students are showing that they're ready for acceleration, not just enrichment. And that piece comes really at the fourth grade level. When we looked at math um advanced learning, our current math advanced learning structure is that fourth graders pre-EST every trimester. And if they know the concepts for that fourth grade unit for the trimester, then they're in advanced learning where they're enriched

067on those concepts. They don't they don't learn at a faster pace than their um core class. They're just it's just a deeper level of instruction and they can't go faster. They can't go on to different topics because every trimester they're going to get retested and they may or may not be in advanced learning that second or third trimester. So our advanced learning teachers have to stay on pace with the core classes and they go deeper. But what we saw in the data is that's not the challenge that our students need. The data also showed us that it's important not to rely on a single data point and that we really need to look at multiple indicators for our students and I'll talk a little bit about that um in a second when I talk about

068the identification principles. We explored service continuums. So meaning how are we providing services to students at a grade level but also um at a vertical looking at the vertical alignment of the services we're providing. So that horizontal continuum is what are the multiple options we have for enriching our students and providing challenge to our students at their specific grade level. So, in second grade, what are the ways or in third or fourth grade, what are the ways that students can receive enrichment? Whether it's in class through win structures, it's a weekly pull out um for like ELA, how we talked about they're being pulled out for 180 minutes, or if it's a daily pull out like we have for fifth grade advanced math. And then we talked about the vertical continuum. What does it look

069like as you're traveling from grade to grade to grade? So from fourth grade where we have enrichment in math to fifth grade where we accelerate um with a compacted fifth grade curriculum and then jumping into sixth grade and then they go to sixth grade where it's advanced seventh grade that it's seventh grade standards that are taught and in seventh grade advance it's eighth grade standards. So we're looking at what's the alignment from grade level to grade level in both math and language arts. And the other thing when looking at the service continuum we want to make sure we're looking at a comprehensive approach. Every student has um one of the things we talked about is everyone student every student has talents in different areas. Um some students are talented in ELA, some are talented in

070math, some are talented in both, some are talented in science, social studies, whatever the case might be. So how are we looking at this with a comprehensive look at the academic piece, but also the SEAL piece and then making sure we're looking at equity considerations. So in this large data file that we have, it um delineates students. It's all by numbers, so there are no names attached to anything. We're looking at student learning profiles, student learning data based just off the numbers. Now, every kid has a story and you can look at numbers and there's still principles know their kids, teachers know their kids, and so there's still a story behind those numbers. But just starting with if child one has this learning profile and child two has similar test scores, why might child two

071not be in advanced learning, but child one is? Um, and what we were noticing when we look at the equity piece is that we were missing identification of some of our students with IEPs, some of our students who might be EL students, some of our low-income students. And so we wanted to dig deeper into that and we wanted to also make sure we're addressing that as we move forward with any decisions we make in advance with advanced learning. So I mentioned that um you don't want to rely on a single data point and currently what is in place for advanced learning identification is this matrix that some of you might be familiar with. To qualify for advanced learning you have to get so many points in either the high qualification, moderate qualification or emergence emerging

072qualification. And you can see there's four different scenarios that students can qualify. If you have two scores under high qualification, so maybe your KOAT was a 132 and your MAP test, your highest MAP test in the year was a 98th percentile, then you qualify. Or maybe you have a high qualification score and then you have um four points because you can see the points on the other two columns. You have four points from the other two columns, a combination of tests from the other two. Or you have a high qualification and only three points, but then you get a parent recommendation, a parent teacher rating point. Um and then recently we have the if you exceeded on the IR you would qualify. So with the highest MAT percentile 90th percentile. So here may not be

073relying just on a test but was very assessmentbased and it was just these three assessments. The Kogat that's taken in third and fifth grade, the MAP test taken three times a year and then what's called the curriculum based measure which is an assessment classroom teachers give in the spring. um which there's questions about the alignment of that with what's taught in advanced learning. So based off just those three assessments, that's how students were decided whether or not they were in advanced learning. And we knew that we wanted to do something a little bit different than relying on just those three assessments. When we talked about the identification principles on February 5th, we talked about what are some ways that other districts at Northwestern Center for Talent Development have seen other districts successfully identify students. Um,

074and some of those ways are having automatic thresholds for inclusion. So, we looked at our data and we noticed these are all the kids. We grouped all the kids in advanced fourth grade math for instance, and we saw all of them have at least maybe the 97th percentile in math and they're being successful. So, we know if a student gets a 97th percentile in math, they're going to be successful in advanced learning. So, maybe that's an automatic qualifier. you did 97th percentile on two out of the last three or four assessments and you automatically qualify or we notice that um all the students in fifth grade might have a KOAT score in the 97th percentile and they're being successful. So maybe that's going to be an automatic qualifier. So looking at what are some automatic

075thresholds for inclusion, but then if you don't make that automatic threshold, what are other ways to get in? And those are with what's called plus indicators. And I'll show you an example of this in a minute. Um the other thing we talked about with identification is that piece about looking at equity. So we wanted to make sure executive functioning challenges are not a barrier. Sometimes um families would hear or do hear well you know we want to work on your child's organization before they get into advanced learning or they're not completing all their assignments and so that they're not ready for advanced learning. Well, what we've talked about and the research that the Center for Talent, Northwestern Center for Talent Development brought up is that we should be scaffolding skills because they're capable of achieving,

076but how are we supporting that achievement? So, we want to scaffold skills for that right-siz service. And then again, looking at that intentional focus on our underrepresented students. So, students that might be English language learners, IEP students, low-income students, and our minorities. We then met a few weeks later and um had another full day meeting where we started to talk about an identification profile and I'll share that with you and actually I'll share it now. We started to talk about an identification profile and so with this identification profile any numbers you see on here are just examples right now because we are going to meet again to set firm numbers. So these are just examples, nothing set in stone right now. But with an identification profile, it's kind of like a decision process. And we

077would use this decision process then to look at students qualifying for advanced learning. And so you see at the top, the top left and the top right. Um we would look at MAP targets for rising fourth through eighth grade students. And there's that automatic qualifier. So again, it's a sample. Don't take this as the word yet, but maybe if you got 95th percentile or above on MAP, you automatically qualify for advanced learning in that subject. Or on the um right side, KOAT target, maybe for the quantitative non-verbal, if you were in the 97th percentile with your Kogat score, you'd automatically qualify for math based off of that. So, let's say we're looking at MAP scores and we look at the last two of the last we'll look at two of the last three or four

078assessments. And I say three or four, it there will be a determined number, but we're going to talk about that as a team. Um, so we'll say it's the last it's two of the last three assessments and we're sitting at our spring MTSS meeting as a team of the classroom teachers, the grade level teachers, the principal, the advanced learning teachers. And that's one of the things that we're going to change about the process is making sure everybody who's going to be working with that child is involved or working with the students are involved in the decision-m. So we're sitting at the table looking at the data in a particular school at his particular grade and we see that a student has a math percentile in the 90th percentile like they have um a couple of

07990th or 90 90 91 92 percentiles for reading. You can see if you follow that um if you have a map reading or math percentile between the 85th and 94th percentile then we'd review what's called plus indicators. And so that's looking at you didn't hit the automat qualification. And so we're looking at other pieces of your learning profile, other pieces in that data sheet. How are you doing on the I Ready Diagnostic if you're in elementary school? How did you do on the AR assessment? Did you get a level four? If you're in middle school, how are you doing inl? Um, if it's a student who has EL services, how did you do on the access test? Because the access test can tell us if you have that quantitative reasoning skills and we need to

080support you to be able to be successful in advanced learning. Um, and then the thing that's missing from our current matrix is true teacher feedback. And so teacher feedback would be another one of those plus indicators. So, with this profile, and I jumped right in without saying, um, there were some updates after we met with Dan. He had pointed out just some things that need to be clarified a little bit more. And so, there were some updates to the presentation that I made. The updated presentation is in board book, but if you're looking at an old download, you may not have like this chart in front of you. So, I forgot to jump in and say that. Um, so as we're looking at this learning profile, we're looking at all the things that make up

081the students learning. We're not just settling on Kogat, MAP, and a curriculum based measure. We're looking at all the pieces that play a process in uh what the student is showing that they know. >> So you have either or there though. I just want to make sure I'm So is it either the MAP path like a MAP path will qualify you if you don't meet Kogat or a Kogat? That's what we're talking about. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Um, so I talked about the automatic qualifiers. This will be an annual placement review. So it's fluid. So we're looking at, and when I say that, we're not looking at you're in. We're going to review if you stay in. Once you're in, you would be in. If there are problems, just like now, we would be having

082communication with families. And so if you're in, you're in. And if we see any trouble or any difficulty, there's a lot of communication happening on how we can support students there. But if you are not in in fourth grade, if you did not qualify for advanced ELA or advanced math, we're going to look again in fifth grade. We're going to look again at the profile in sixth grade. We're going to keep following students throughout so that we are um annually looking at where students are and giving them the opportunity to be in advanced learning. At the elementary level, that placement review would happen in the spring. We have what's called data meetings in the fall, winter, and spring. And that's where we look at how students are doing on those benchmark assessments your students take.

083So, MAT testing, fast bridge testing that we do in class, and we look at their data and we see what supports they need. One of the things we've talked about is that we don't do that same MTSS structure for our advanced learning students. And so, we're going to implement that. Now, that's what this data profile does. It shows us all their data to show how can we better enrich students now. And that's what we'll talk about the elementary level at our spring data meetings once we have the whole year's worth of data. At the junior high level at Hower, those reviews actually happen after each benchmarking session. So in the fall, winter, and spring, um students who have right now what it looks like is students who have a 90th percentile higher on a MAP

084score, they're put on a data sheet. And then we're looking at their MAP score, their LL score, and talking to teachers currently about how they're doing. And so we will formalize that more with this new identification process at the middle school. And then we're talking about what's called growth to inclusion pathways for students who are near that threshold. So, if we have a student who is in that 85th to 94th percentile range and then we look at their plus indicators and the plus indicators aren't quite there yet, then that's where we have we talk with the parents about what's called a growth to inclusion plan. And so that might be at the middle school. We want your student to continue to work on the EXL lessons that their teacher assigns to them because that's going

085to help them develop the skills that they're missing to be able to be ready for advanced learning. and then we're going to recheck them at the next benchmarking period. So actually defining what families can do if they're interested in my kids really interested in advanced learning, how can they get in? And so actually having a plan that's defined on that growth to inclusion. Um trying to see where I'm at. Sorry. And then um again, I can't stress that enough just that intentional equity lens across all of our populations. So, that's what's come out of the first two full day sessions. Um, we are going to have a half day session in April. And the reason why we're not having a session in March is because testing starts next month. And because we're taking teachers and

086principles out of their buildings, March is just not a good time to start pulling people out of the buildings with the testing with I that's coming up and happening. So, we agreed as a team that we would wait and meet in April. Um we're going to meet in the beginning of April and at that meeting we're going to finalize the placement profile for use at our May um MTSS data meetings. I just spoke about our spring data meetings for placement for the next school year. Um we're going to confirm the service structures at each school. I feel like I missed that. I'm going to back up one second. There we go. I did. Um the other thing we discussed on February 26 were possible service models. And so this is stuff that we're still finalizing

087um in April, but where we're heading is in elementary school, we're going to we're looking at moving from that 180 minute a week service in advanced ELA to 5 days a week. And so having students, if you're an advanced ELA, it's a five day a week pull out for advanced ELA that would utilize what we're we're going to explore the curriculum they're going to use, but will probably utilize the CKLA curriculum with a more enriched um level of digging into the topics. That's something that um the instructional coaches Sarah Hickey, Sam Crowley, and I are going to work with the advanced learning teachers on in this upcoming year. Um with that 5 day a week structure though um there's been conversation about do we need an FTE do we not need an FTE how should

088we how should we work through this and so one of the things that we are going to work to do is um work on implementing new structures without additional FTE but taking data on if there are pain points with that structure what those pain points are and then how those pain points can be addressed if it needs to be addressed with additional FTE the following year. So, with the move to 5 days a week of ELA, um we had to look at if we have three advanced learning teachers at the elementary level, one of them would be full-time at Ames, one would be full-time at Central, but then one would have to share BLE and Hollywood, which means that um Ble and Hollywood would have a halfday uh advanced learning teacher. And so how do

089we ensure fourth and fifth grade get the same advanced learning curriculum that the other two schools are getting if they have a half-day teacher? One of the things that we are looking at for next year then with the service model is that um fourth and fifth grade advanced ELA would be combined. So, fourth and fifth grade advanced ELA students would meet at the same time at BLE and then at the same time when the teacher goes to Hollywood at Hollywood. Um, and that's part of that curricular work we'll be doing to talk about how are we utilizing the topics um from either CKLA or the current resources that our advanced learning teachers use to make sure we're not holding our fifth grade students back and we're not overchallenging our fourth grade students. So, that is

090curricular work. we're going to need to be doing. And um it does present a challenge, but that's where um we'll be working together on that with the three advanced learning teachers and Sarah and Sam. >> I was honestly that's exactly what I was thinking when I was reading this slide. I was like, "O I've known or I've heard of like grades, small schools where grades are combined. I've always wondered how >> it's not it's not easy. >> It doesn't seem easy. >> It's not. Um, and I don't even begin to pretend that this is an easy situation for life and for Hollywood. Um, I will say >> Kazmra Corman I'm very fortunate to have on the committee. So, we do have representation from a principal from one of our quote unquote smaller schools. It's hard

091to think of life as a smaller school with two sections, but yes. And then uh Mr. Harvales, Chris Harvales is also on the committee. So, we have representation from leaders from both elementary and middle school. Um but it is it is going to be a challenge and but it's something we're going to work on and if that's one of the pain points that we have to discuss then next year that we'll have data to show why. >> Um we're also looking at for service models at elementary fourth grade advanced math being full acceleration of the fifth grade curriculum. No more of the test in each trimester. Um the data is showing our kids need more than enrichment at fourth grade and so we want to rise to that. So we'll have acceleration at fourth grade.

092you'd qualify based off that profile I talked about. Um, and you'd learn the fifth grade curriculum. Again, this is where the challenge of the uh shared advanced learning teacher comes in because um there's just not enough time in a half day to be able to do two sections of advanced ELA and two sections of advanced math. And so what we are looking at for Hollywood is um that the fourth grade advanced students, identified students who are in advance, will go to Mr. Trimmer's room for uh fifth grade math because they'll be learning the fifth grade curriculum like everybody else in the district. And then at BLE there's too many kids to funnel to the fifth grade classes. So we would have a teacher who is knowledgeable um in fifth grade standards, fifth grade curriculum, teach

093that math class to the fifth the advanced fifth graders. And then the advanced learning teachers at all schools would teach the advanced fifth graders the sixth grade curriculum. And then um so that's that's the elementary model we are looking at. And then at middle school we're looking at widening the identification net with support structures. So that means looking at um taking that profile, making the work that we're already starting to do more concrete and permanent and transparent. And then for students who may not have been in advanced math or advanced ELA previously, what support are we providing them so that they are able to be successful then in advanced ELA or math? Because we know at the middle school if you jump into advanced, you're skipping a grade of instruction. And so we want to

094make sure we're building in support for that. We're also looking at aligning our MAP assessment to the course content students are actually learning. So, one of the things that we've all learned through this work with Northwestern Senate Center for Talent and Development is that um when we give the MAT test, we give at the elementary level what's called the 25 assessment and at the middle school we give the six plus assessment. And we've talked about how in math especially, the standards change from the 25 to the 6 plus. Well, one of the things we learned is there's an algebra assessment in math and that's what we're teaching our advanced math students at Hower, but we're not testing them in that in math. So looking at realigning our math assessment so that we're actually assessing them

095in what we're teaching on the algebraic strands. Um and then I can't say it enough that equity focus. We want to support our students into advanced learning, not lock them out of advanced learning. Um so that brings me back to the next steps that number two. We want to confirm in April we're going to confirm the service structures. So finalize what that curriculum work's going to look like for the fourth fifth math class and just for fourth grade advanced ELA in general because right now all the work our advanced learning teachers have been doing has been built for 180 minutes a week. Now we're asking them to teach 60 minutes 5 days a week so for 300 minutes. So we need to rework the curricular resources that they are utilizing right now in advanced learning.

096So we'll be spending some time in the spring maybe summer to get that done. Um, we want to also confirm staffing and scheduling logistics. Who's that teacher that would teach it at Ble Park? How will that impact their other schedule, their other responsibilities? Um, also working with uh the teacher who will travel between Ble and Hollywood. Um, which right now looks like it might be Miss Fleti who's actually here tonight. um and looking at some of the challenges that we've already seen um just in some of the initial conversations other things that have been brought out are that when you have a traveling teacher that means that at Hollywood for fifth grade fourth grade math and ELA right now it looks like they'd have to all be in either the morning or the afternoon in

097the flip for ble park and so there are some inherent challenges in that also so we'll need to work through that and talk about those staffing challenges and scheduling logistics we're going to select and align our curricular resources. As I said, for advanced ELA, determine communication plan for families, and then we've got to talk about the professional learning for staff members. Um, when we talk about teacher feedback, we want to make sure staff members are um knowledgeable about what that teacher feedback looks like and how you're giving feedback on advanced learning qualities, right? um so that it's not subjective on well I think they might be able to do it or they can't because they're not able to finish their homework that type of thing. So professional learning there and then also professional learning in

098um how to in the classroom through win structures so that that small group instruction um how are we challenging our students in the classroom especially given that we're seeing the data say we're not challenging our students quite enough in the primary grade levels. So looking at what professional learning will be needed for our staff and then as a committee determining what are our next priorities. we've we'll have developed a new identification plan. We'll see how that works and we'll come back and reflect on that. Um but then determining what are the priorities for the 2728 year based off of that audit that was conducted. And what will be ongoing past April is just implementation check-ins after each benchmark assessment to see are we identifying the right kids? Are we missing any kids? And how are

099services working with the new service model? Angela, I had a few questions about the fourth and fifth. It sounded a little messy. Um like jumping between or kind of sharing classes. So the one said fourth grade will go for math would go to the fifth grade math or to the fifth grade. >> Fifth grade would go to the advanced learning teacher to learn sixth grade math. >> Okay. And then does that follow through fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth through Hower? Yes. >> You're one grade ahead each time. >> Yep. >> Okay. Is that what I guess advanced math is just one? what it is currently. Is that what you're asking me? >> Like in general, like is there a a harder math or is it just the next grade level? Is that typically what

100advanced math is? >> That's what our structure has been. Um in other districts, including neighboring districts, that's what it is. Also, there are some districts and um some of the exemplar districts that Northwestern Center for Talent and Development has shared um also have like multiple paths that you can go on. Um but then that gets close to tracking. And so we also what we've talked about as a team is that we want to be very careful about tracking and we don't want to end up locking students out essentially that once you get in you're going so far ahead that others can't catch up and get in to it also. So most districts will do an acceleration type thing lately. Um there might be some districts that dig deeper, but our data is showing that our

101kids are I just I think about one of the charts. Our data is showing our kids are ready for um upper grade level work. When we look at their RIT scores on their MAP assessments, some of our advanced learning students are at the same level as our as like students in the grade above. So our data is showing they're ready for acceleration, which is part of why we kept the acceleration plan. And for the fourth and fifth ELA, if they're learning the same thing. So if you're in fourth grade and you're in there, when you're in fifth grade, >> what are you going to learn? >> Still at the same level as the year before, >> that's part of the curricular work that we have to do and work on. Um, and that was one

102of the things that was brought up as a potential challenge. So >> when we do the curricular work and we talk about that curricular plan and we're working with Sarah and Sam as well, that's what we'll address. >> Right. Yeah, I could see that initial boost and then you kind of like okay now it's not as advanced >> and again work in progress but one of the things that we did talk about is um if utilizing the CLA curriculum one year you talk about the topics at one grade level and dig deeper into those and then the next year you do the next grade level's topic and that way you're on a rotating. So if I'm a fourth grader and one year we talked about fourth grade topics and I go to fifth grade now

103I'm learning the fifth grade topics and those fourth graders are learning fifth grade topics. So then when they get to fifth grade then they'll learn the fourth grade topics with the incoming fourth graders. So that's one structure that we might look at but there are other ways and I'm just one person of the group of five. So >> yeah I guess the last question. So like if you go through these in like an eighth grade then when you go to high school are you full grade ahead in math or what advanced math like RB what? >> Right. So right now students who are in advanced eighth grade math are learning algebra with Miss Banhozer. Um, and she's worked really hard with RB to make sure that it aligns with the algebra standards that RB is

104teaching so that when students take the placement test, then they're able to place into what would be the next level at RB, which would be uh, geometry. >> Okay. >> Um, students who are in eighth grade core math go into algebra and they go into any level. There's a few levels of algebra that you can go into. Um, so you're either as a ninth grader coming out of district 96 in algebra as a ninth grader or in geometry as a ninth grader if you test into geometry coming out of our advanced math. >> I've seen all the high school options now. So trying to see how that all carries forward. >> Yeah. Um, and this has been a conversation at um the table also of our committee meetings. It's just uh that RB then if

105you're in geometry as a ninth grader, then the next level is um I can't remember what the next class is, but it's another math class. And then you end up being able to take calculus your junior year in a second calculus class your senior year. And what we've talked about is some students want that, love that, are ready for that, but some students that start in our advanced programming, that may not be the path for them. And so there's also been that that discussion of um that philosophical debate of so do we continue to push our kids in advanced or do we pull back a little bit? But what we talked about with the Northwestern Center talent and development, what they've talked about with us is we've got to give the opportunity to all to

106be able to take the two calculus classes and it's up to the students and the families then to decide if that is for them or not for them. So that's kind of where we're at right now. But I know that it's still it's still a discussion with the committee. >> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> You know, I got questions. >> I I know you do. Um and so yes, this is the advanced learning piece. So I I built it so that we don't have to wait till the end to talk about each piece. So if Wesley's next, >> I think mine are I think mine are kind of easy. Um I'm just I'm looking at the percentiles and I'm kind of going back and forth in my head. If I if you want to pull

107the chart back up. Yeah, that one's fine. So, if I'm reading this correctly, the outer the 95, the 97s, those are automatic qualifiers. >> They are. But remember, these numbers are just examples right now. >> Got it. Okay. >> But on that example, >> anyone who's watching from the committee numbers >> of this example possible scenario that you're putting in front of us, 95 97 would be the automatic qualifier. the fars >> and then the 85 to 94 the 93 to 97 that would be let's look at other data points >> okay so the so the minimum would be theoretically 85 percentile 93rd percentile my question was going to be 95 feels high >> we are also a very high achieving district and not everybody's going to push up into the next grade level so

108that was a great like starter conversation because that I was going to ask like can we define advanced learning it's not necessarily just automatic skipping a full grade. There's different levels in there. So, with us being with our district, since we just did that what, two months ago? Um, no, that was our map update. But like with our state stuff that we do, we're always achieving a little bit higher and those students are still not fully mastering that. They're not quite ready to jump to the next grade. So, it'd be that it's really this like top percentile that we're looking at that's really ready to take on that additional curriculum. And so we're trying to figure out where is that line of appropriateness. Okay. So it could be as low as 85. It may be

109higher depending on what you all decide eventually. But okay. So it's not just the 95. >> Correct. >> Okay. Because I just I was like, man, that's like a small percentage of students that would >> It's not just the 95. And >> I'll tell you some of our discussions have actually been lower than 95, but I didn't want to throw that out as an example because I was I I picked the higher number of our discussions. >> Yeah. No, I think I think that's good for your example. Yeah. I would have done the same. Um my other I think easy question is one of your slides um two up from this. I think it said high achieving students declining from second to fourth. Does that like thought that was interesting that you're measuring second graders

110through fourth grade and then advanced learning doesn't really start until fourth grade. So is there such like should we be thinking about that earlier or >> that would be yes that is something we need to talk about is what are we doing to enrich our students in second and third and we started second just it wasn't arbitrary it's because that's when students first take math y >> so that's the first set of data that um we're able to really pull on for the data analysis um that's why we start second but yes that's part of the conversation what are we doing for our second and third graders and even our kindergarten and fourth graders when we start looking at fastbridge data But um we can't tackle all of that now. And we definitely can't tackle

111all of that with no additional FTE. >> So this year it was fix ELA. Um and I have people on the committee who are on there because they wanted ELA fixed. >> So it was fix ELA, it was fix the identification process because I mean you've been listening to me for years. We knew that needed to be adjusted and that's where in the next steps it talks about identifying our priorities for the upcoming year. So >> I will just interject though because it's in our policy. So we do like grade level acceleration like for a early entrance kindergartener we've had children that are really like in a gifted range and really working well beyond their grade level like subject level advances. So I don't want to leave the conversation that there's nothing right um I

112want to point out >> but again like I yes like what is enrichment for a K1 or two student and >> the level of differentiation etc. So it gets like the committee is going to take a look at that over the longer hall, but >> I think it's important to note that too. >> And and I think there's a distinction between advanced learning and like well I don't know maybe it was the same thing when I was in school. There was the gifted program but I mean those kids were off the charts smart for their age right and so that's I don't know is that a distinction that you're like when you say gifted are you using it in that term or is that a very outdated? Well, it's not an outdated ter. It's not

113an outdated term, but some people have very specific definitions around IQ scores, etc. So, like without getting into a lengthy conversation there, I just when there are children that are I will say like well above grade level functioning, like that is what early entrance to kindergarten is about. That is what potential subject level acceleration is. We've had students, right, who are double accelerated um in mathematics. And so when that happens, um, they might do as a sixth grader, they're taking seventh grade advanced math, which are the eighth grade standards. And then as a seventh grader, they take eighth grade advance, which is that algebra class. So then as an eighth grader, they actually go to the high school and take geometry as an eighth grader. >> Yeah. I knew some kids that actually went to

114I grew up in Champagne and so with U of I right there, they would actually travel over to U of I and take classes. Like my junior year, a couple kids were like taking college courses. Okay, that's nuts. Um, but I think maybe maybe your point is like there feels like there's just a varying degree of like >> what this is. It's not just like >> I just don't want to leave the meeting saying like we're not identif because we have a policy that says that we identify and address and I don't mean it's just by policy. We have practices in place >> that may be for that child who's who's well above grade level. >> Yeah. So the really the main barrier here is well one of the barriers I've heard you say it

115a couple times is as we maybe not push but open the doors or allow more kids to flow into advanced learning we're going to have FTE challenges scheduling challenges. There's just a lot of other stuff that come along with the advancement of this that we need to be aware of as this continues to unfold and we uncover more needs. There might be other asks for changes and supports in order to continue doing this. Okay. for your hard questions. You said those were the easy ones. >> Those are the easy ones. >> No, no, I don't have hard ones. I said I think they're all easy. >> We have leveled questions. >> No, not today. I didn't have any hard ones for you today. >> Any other questions for advanced learning before we talk about standardsbased

116grading? >> Okay. So, the standardsbased grading reporting committee continues to meet. Um, and first I just want to remind everyone what standardsbased grading reporting is. It's a way of measuring students learning based on how well they understand specific concepts or standards um rather than taking the average of scores on an assessment, an assignment or even in the whole content area, the whole subject. And what it does it it provides us a clearer picture of what students are learning and what they know. So when we move to standardsbased granium learning next year, we'll your report card will have it for math and science. And on your um report card for math at every grade level, teachers have identified priority standards. And so those are the standards we want to make sure at third grade every student

117masters. So there might be like um 17 or 18 standards out of the whole group of standards that we want to make sure students master and those will be on the report card. And then you will see each trimester whether they mastered the standard which is that they can um independently and accurately demonstrate understanding on that standard or they're proficient in the standard which is that they frequently demonstrate understanding and might need occasional support or they're approaching the standard which is that they partially understand it and they're getting consistent support or they're below the standard which means they do not yet understand it even with support. And so for next year for math and for science, you would see letters M, P, A, or B on the report card for the standards that are taught

118in that trimester. And so why we're doing that is because our current report cards are not really reflecting what students are actually learning in class. Um, I can't think of a specific example right now, but the way the report cards are, I think like one of them might be um I I know it my kindergarten and first grade report cards are probably really notorious for it, but just the the delineator that they're being graded on with the 1 2 3 4 is not necessarily tied to the set curriculum. And so we've had to do a lot of okay, what's going to be a one and what's it based off of? where when we look at the standards, we're able to say, "Okay, we taught this standard in this unit and we assessed it in this

119assessment or this exit ticket or through this discussion." And they're able then to look at just that standard to see how students are doing on that standard. Um, in math, an assessment at the end of the unit might cover four or five standards. And so, you may have seen cover sheets, if you have elementary students, you may have seen cover sheets come home with your math assessment that have shown the standards on that assessment. That's what's going to transfer to your report card that they knew this standard on this assessment and other previous assessments whether summitative or formative meaning whether it was at the end of a unit or it was throughout the unit and that's where they ended up showing their level of proficiency. So with the new way teachers are identifying those priority

120standards I talked about. Those are the most important standards we want to make sure students master by the end of the grade level or the end of the year. Um and that way the report cards are reflecting those priority standards and give an accurate picture of what your students know. The work we've done this year um at October Institute Day, our teachers were beginning to practice entering grades into Power Teacher because entering um the standardsbased grading is a little bit different than that how they have been doing it. And so we spent some time practicing it, starting to get used to it. Um, we'll continue to work on that though so that they're ready when report cards roll out in November of next year. Grade level teams had started in October to build what's called

121shared proficiency language. So looking at if I have a math standard in second grade about being able to add and subtract um from uh word problems, one or twostep problems, what would it look like as a second grader to master that standard, to be proficient in that standard, to be approaching and be below? And so they started in October, the team started working on that language for all of their priority standards. And then you're going to see not in the 26 27 year but in the 2728 year art music and PE also have standards state standards for their subject areas. And so you'll see uh performance levels for those subject areas also. But what they're working on and why they're two years out is because they're working on what standards are they going to be

122assessing and what's the scope and sequence from kindergarten to fifth grade in all of those standards. So they have a little bit more work to do than an individual grade level when they're working on their priority standards for math. Um at this most recent institute day, our teachers continued to unpack the math priority standards and continued to devel develop those proficiency scales. It's not finished work. We are finishing that work in April um during a half-day release where we'll have a few team members from each grade level who will wrap up that work and then we'll go back and share that work with the full team and then practice using those standards with real student work to see how it works out and if we have tweaks that we need to make based off of

123any anything that comes up. um one grade level team was able, our first grade team, they were able to get through all their proficiency scales in February. And so they did actually start that grading calibration where they were looking at student work samples and using it against their proficiency scales. Um and first grade was able to get through it because the first grade standards are a little bit more cut and dry um than intermediate standards. Intermediate standards are very wordy. Um and I walked into like the fifth grade room and the conversation was around, okay, recognize. What do we mean by recognize? And so just the breakdown of the intermediate standards is a little bit harder than like the first grade standards that are students can count to 20. So it's more black and white

124and it was easier for them to get through their priority standards. So with standardsbased grading for the rest of this year, as I said, we have small groups are finalizing the math proficiency scales. We'll share those finished proficiency scales with the full grade level team and look at grading calibration sessions. have grading calibration sessions, which is where everybody takes a piece of student work, um same student work, they assess it based off the proficiency scales that are developed, and then we talk about um what everybody chose, whether it was mastered, proficient, beginning or approaching, or below or approaching. And we see if we're all aligned. And if we're not, we have conversations about why did you pick proficient when I picked mastered? So that we can work on as a team of nine teachers across

125the district get closer to assessing similarly so that no matter what school you go to, you're going to be assessed on the standards in a similar fashion. Um, and then we're also working on throughout this year completing the parent and teacher FAQ documents that will go out next year as well. so that once we uh start standardsbased reporting with the first trimester report card in November, parents have a document that explains why and what all of this means and what it means to be mastered proficient be below and approaching the following school year. So for um or in 2627 we will implement standardsbased reporting for math science and then learning behaviors. And you actually saw the learning behaviors on this year's report cards um in both middle school and in elementary school. And so that

126actually has kind of already been implemented. That won't change. It's now going to be the 1 2 3 4 you saw with the colors um that highlight like gets darker, what whatnot, darker greens for fours, threes, and so forth. Um then we also next year need to begin a social studies curriculum resource review so that we have a solid resource that everybody's using across the elementary schools for um that they're using to teach but also then assess students because right now it's not all consistent. Our social instruction um is standardsbased but everybody's doing it in different ways and by everybody I mean the schools are doing it in different ways. Um, next year we also work on developing the ELA and social studies proficiency scales. What it means to be mastered, proficient, approaching, and below

127in those subject areas for the priority standards for those subject areas. And we will continue family education 2627 and by 2728 all subject areas will have um a full standardsbased report card. And so this is all elementarybased. I do want to note that Hower is going to continue to use letter grades and we had talked about that. Um with the transition to the high school and the high school still using letter grades, we made a conscious effort or a decision that we didn't want to switch houser to standards the master proficient and so forth. Um we wanted to keep letter grades but we have been doing a lot of work on um how are we grading based on the standards we're teaching. So the work behind those letter grades is still standards aligned, but what's

128being reported to families is the traditional grades. Um, so standardsbased reporting and grading questions. Yes, I have a question. >> Um, and I apologize. I don't I don't know what like I've never seen a list of the standards specifically. Um, but this sounds very similar to how like medical professional students are scored experientially. So my question is though like like for my students we keep the same like 14 objectives all throughout their experiences and then we see them grow throughout the four years. So are the standards in a grade level the same like what so is what's going to be on the report card like the same standards that are being tested from August through June so that we'll actually see like >> wonderful question and yes that's exactly what it is and that will

129be in the parent FAQ. Okay? >> Because it's going to concern some parents when their kids come home with approaching on that first trimester report card. >> Um especially at the primary level. And so we want to make sure the FAQ document the communication on family night um in September. Like all of our communications explain that this is to be mastered. It's what it looks like by the end of the year. >> And some students will master it before the end of the year, >> but some students might be approaching at the first trimester and that's okay. >> Yeah. Um, so that will be that's definitely something we've talked about as a committee that we have to make sure we just really hit hard in our communications with families. >> Yeah. Because we do something

130so similar, but we shift the scale as as time goes on, we shift the scale up. >> Um, because I think it would be hard otherwise for I could totally see that. Like why are you only at this level? But if you're if the expectation is that the master is by the end, then that's a totally different picture, right? Okay, that's cool. I like it. >> So yeah. So sort of along those lines, I had a question like so I guess somebody like a second grader enters they should be my guess is probably like at approaching and then at the end I mean I guess I'm just looking at like the a normal trajectory >> it start off approaching and then at the end they should be mastered. >> Yes. In theory. Yes. So, and

131I guess that's sort of where I guess I'm sort of going. It's like how those standards and I know sort of understand why we're trying to do this, but it's just I think it's going to be a big switch because more before it was like sort of quantifiable. You got 95% test, you knew exactly what you got. You got 70%, you knew exactly what you want. So, I'm just that communication piece is going to be >> I mean, as you know, is going to be very crucial. I'm just um is there a plan to like I saw like there was talking about like continuing educa family education. So is like are parents going to get something sort of every like beginning of the school year? Like how is that what's the plan or is that

132is that still inform? We've started um looking at how it will be introduced at family uh parent night >> uh in September and started talking about the slides that we would use for that. And then um there will be communication that goes home with the report card in November just to remind people and probably second and third trimester again just as consistent reminders. And we'd also send what we've talked about as a committee is also sending something out like mid-trime that just reminds families um that this is the switch that we're going to have and this is what you can expect to see. So regular communication about it would be going out for this first year and the second year too since we're rolling out ELA and social studies the second year. >> Okay. I

133mean yeah I guess one thing that I guess one one of my thoughts if it's okay is just sort of I know we're not the first school that's doing this right. So let parents know like maybe other schools that have done it. Okay. As well because I think I think a lot of parents are going to think >> like what is this and why are we doing this? >> And Brookfield Lange does it for elementary school currently also. So um we have a neighboring district right there that also does it. >> Do you know like is there is there a known percentage? Like do you know how many? >> I don't know. I don't know. >> Um >> it's become I mean it feels like this is becoming more common. I'm hearing about it a

134lot more, but I don't know how many >> feels like it's more common. I know in my curriculum meetings um if people aren't already doing it, we're having a lot of discussion. What are you learning as you're doing it? We're switching to it. Here's where we're struggling. So, there's been lots of conversation about it. Um I feel like the districts that are always at our curriculum meetings, all of us are in one place or another with standardsbased grading >> with for elementary students. But but I but we're also >> listing it would be good. >> Yeah. But we're also we also deal with this like a lot more than a new family that moved into community who doesn't necessarily know this, >> right? Yes. So, I would say there almost needs to I I don't

135even know if this is possible, but to have some kind of like maybe a parent information night um where we where this is discussed kind of like where what it means or I'm just worried because I feel like fall parent night feels rushed all the time and it's like a quick 15 minute and the PTA is trying to get in there, you know, usually that person. >> And they're also talking about more than just like teachers have probably 20 things they're trying to talk about. >> Yeah. And like like because I know at Hollywood like always like everybody together kind of thing, but then that's not always everybody and then people are going to have questions. And >> I also wonder um about posting a video online um just of explaining the process and explaining

136what it means and once the report card is there showing the report card. So like it'd be one version for this upcoming year and then next year the full version with the full report card. So I can see that also so that parents can just go to it at any point >> when they have questions as well. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I think you mentioned the current report cards. If there's something in there saying next year, grades might look like this. Just >> I like that. I hadn't thought about that. That's a great idea. >> I don't know if there's for this third trimester comparison like oh your student got a four, which is kind of like mastering sort of like breaking them into >> Okay. >> Expect this. >> That's a good idea. >>

137Yeah, that is a good idea. >> Or just some mention of it. >> Yep. No, I like that. We will we will be looking at implementing that. >> Yeah. Good. >> And how's our We're on a fourpoint scale. >> GPA. Yeah. Is that right? >> Yes. >> I was trying to look at my kids report card, but there's no GPA on it. So, I don't know. Is it a four point scale? >> Still here. >> Do we do Oh, >> there is a GPA on there. I did have some discussion with someone about this week like what is the purpose of that because I think it does. Oh, do we not do it create some anxiety because we really don't talk about the kids >> is okay. Well, my question was going to be I

138I assume RB is a four-point scale, not a five point scale. >> They do. Yes, they have a four-point scale. >> Cool. Anything else? >> All right. Last part's quick. Middle school mathematics. Um I just want to bring you up to speed on where we're at with middle school math. So, um, talk a little bit about what we've been doing before, what we've done this year, and then what we're looking at for next year. Um, this says 23 to 25, but I do want to point out, you know, everyone knows that we have a curricular review cycle. Um, but middle school math hasn't had a formal quote unquote review. Um, but over the course of the past five years, Mr. Heralis and I have been working um with the math team, assessing the resource, assessing

139how it's working for them, utilizing updated materials, getting professional learning with Carnegie Math um for our teachers so that they're able to continue to keep up to speed on Carnegie Math. And we would have regular conversations each year about is this meeting our needs or do we want to look at another resource? and our teachers continued to say um that it was they felt it was meeting their needs with some supplementary materials but that they were pretty happy with it. Um as we continued through 2325 we evaluated like I said the ongoing effectiveness of the program we've incorporated those updated materials and we supplemented along the way. This year when we had the conversation with them though at the beginning of the year the conversation turned to well maybe there might be something where we

140don't have to supplement as much and so Mr. Havales and I um and Miss Kessa uh worked with talking to neighboring districts, other districts, seeing what resources they use and also talking with RB because when Carnegie was first adopted, um RB was also using Carnegie, but RB stopped using Carnegie. And so we talked to them about what are you using instead? And so we brought that resource as well as four other resources to our teachers. they the the companies came to our teachers. They talked about their resources and what it entailed and all the re the pieces to their their puzzle. Um and we had a lot of discussion with the math team then about are any of these resources something that we might want to investigate further or are we happy with Carnegie? And

141through that we came up with they came up with they wanted to explore what's called Edge Gems Math a little bit deeper. um they felt that just based off that presentation, it might have some things that we felt might be missing in Carnegie. So before deciding if we're going to pilot it, if we're going to bring it in, um we went on a field trip to Hinsdale Middle School where the teachers watched uh a gems be taught and then they had a chance to talk with the teachers as well as the curriculum person in Hinsdale at Hinsdale Middle School and they were able to get questions answered. How do you address this? How is it for your high learners? How is it for students who need supports? Um, and they felt they stopped that visit

142that it was worth continuing to explore. And so when we had asked the companies to come, they gave us sample materials. And so we have a gem sample materials. And we asked each grade level team to pick a unit that was um equivalent to a unit they were about to teach in Carnegie and use edge gems to teach it instead to see how do you feel about it. And this is with no professional learning. It's I'm picking up this book. I'm an educated person and I'm following what the book says to do as well as looking at the resources they say and the supports that they have right there in the teacher book. Um, and so we're at a point right now where our teams are sharing their feedback with us. Um, and we've met

143with two of the four teams so far. And I say four because we also it's a sixth, seventh, eighth, and then advanced learning. And so we've met with two of the four teams so far, meeting with the third one tomorrow. And so far all the feedback has been just raving. Um I know Mr. Heraldos and Miss Kessa have also seen instruction in class. Um I think one teacher even used it during her evaluation maybe. Yeah. Um like that's that's how much they love it and felt so comfortable with it. Or maybe they just feel very comfortable with their administrators. I don't know. But um >> Maybe both. Probably both. Um, but they just the feedback we're getting is so positive about how it's meeting the needs of students, how it's providing different levels of support

144from those who need support all the way to those who need to be challenged. Um, but what we're also finding out is because we just jumped in, no professional learning, there's a lot of stuff we don't know yet. And so that brings us to the next step. Um, Chris and I are working on setting up professional learning with Edge Gems for April and May. and we're going to pilot edge gems throughout all of next school year. And so we'll do the professional learning in the spring. They'll pilot the resource next school year. Um and this way they'll know all the different pieces of the puzzle so that they can use it more in depth. And we will have regular check-ins with each team on the implementation and then in the spring come back to that

145conver conversation of which one best meets our students needs and our staff's needs. So, it's not that Carnegie is done. Um, we're still holding on to that because if Edge Gems once we get into it after the professional learning doesn't meet our needs, then we would go back to Carnegie. So, we haven't said no to Carnegie. We're just exploring if Edge gems might be better and we'll take next year to do that with a final determination and recommendation coming to the board in the spring of 27. So, that's where we're at with middle school math. Any math questions? I started with the most meaty and then worked down. >> Smart. >> All right. >> Well, thank you guys for your time tonight. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Dan. You've been busy. >>

146Are we Well, is that does D2 Oh, no. I'm sorry. That's a different different area. >> I think that's done. So, I'm trying to get back to my agenda here. Um, >> no, that uh Oh, no. Sorry. It doesn't have a name next to it. Should say Miss Kick there. Family and Engagement Committee. >> Hi. Um, >> Kathy's cutting you out. >> It's okay. >> She's not giving you your credit. >> No, it's totally fine. It's totally fine. >> I didn't notice it either, >> because I didn't I didn't either. >> So, um, why is your name on there? No. And actually, this was Matt's turn to go to the PL meeting this month. But, um, I did get a brief from him and from my Hollywood PTA president. But um I do know that

147um Diana Silva came in and talked about the food pantry needs um that they are looking for things beyond food as well. Um and that the schools talked about kind of alternating between the PTAs kind of helping run um drives within the school but kind of uh rotating responsibility so they don't get a lot of the same thing. Um but kind of needing more like um feminine products or toiletries, laundry detergent, >> Pet food. Yep. Baby supplies, things like that. So, um so they're tackle that, I guess. >> Did the PTAs make a They didn't make a decision, right? >> I think a decision made. They're going to talk about the elementary schools and and how they're aligned. >> The Hollywood PTA president actually offered to make like a matrix of how the schools would

148have a rotation and then the PTA the PLT as a group seemed very invested in that idea of like >> following a rotation. >> That's awesome. >> It was a great conversation. That was I mean it was maybe half the meeting talking about this. A lot of interest. >> That's great. So that will be um TBD. Are we gonna talk about it at the next PLT or >> Yeah, I think Stephanie will bring in a >> Oh, Matrix. Yeah, >> look at her. >> She does love her some Excel. >> Um and then it looks so I'll have more next time, I guess. And then um fifth grade games night. The decision was made to not have a district-wide fifth grade games night um for many reasons. and but it was still okay for the

149schools to have their own if they still wanted to do. >> There's been probably a multi-year discussion on how to improve it and was it really meeting the goals of bringing the four elementary schools together and this this was specifically a PTA PTO run event. Um so I I I think it was after a lot of discussion right and certainly with this goal of we don't want to have less transition activities for fifth to sixth grade but over time also like hower has added more in the PTA's at like yeah >> we use the example of the pasta night has become sort of also a fifth graders get a free pasta ticket and they get to have tours with the student leaders and so there's some nice things that have been added. step up day

150has been added. The sixth graders coming in for their first look, walk through schedule, set up their lockers, all the so um so I I want to put that out there as something that the PLT and the DT really deliberated about over a pretty long period of time and just decided that maybe this wasn't the most positive. >> It's not about less transition. It was like there's a lot this one's not really doing the right thing. So >> there's more meaningful stuff that's already being done. >> Yeah. So, we're just eliminating that. We're not replacing it. We're just eliminating it because we filled it with other things and more frequent touch points. Okay. >> Y >> um and then there was >> Sorry, that was the one with the scavenger hunt thing, right, where everybody

151came in and they they played the games and they had to run around. Yeah. Okay. >> And it's a lot of like I remember from the year Henry was in fifth grade. It's a lot of planning. It's a lot of manpower. >> Oh, yeah. You don't just throw that thing together. There's a lot that goes into It's a lot of work and it doesn't really >> Yeah. The kids aren't necessarily meeting with other kids. They're just >> running around. >> Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. >> Unless they're from Hollywood, they're the only Hollywood kid in their group. Then they kind of have no choice. >> The pasta night fifth grade tours was awesome. >> Like the eighth grade kids, I think they're eighth graders. They gave the tour to the fifth grade kids and kind

152of told them about different teachers, different classes, and that that was great. And that's more what the kids want. Like they're going to have their buddies. They're going to have their buddies no matter what. But I think that like >> there's a group of like five or 10 kids, whoever came in at that time and they all went around and >> I think the kids enjoyed hearing it from another kid. Yeah. >> Like more senior. >> Yeah. >> Oh yeah. Um and then there was some discussion about the involvement of um parks and wreck in the half days and how um they just need like you know they want to be able to plan ahead and we'll need some headcounts and so the PTAs will assist with kind of gathering that information. Was there anything

153else about that? >> That was about it. >> Okay. I >> think just that the calendar is now set and those days are set in the calendar. So now moving forward with that plan is ready. They just need people to sign up. Yeah. And so, yeah, and we can obviously like the PTA's getting that information out. Um, the strategic planning survey, hopefully everybody did theirs. Um, and then the Doug Bolton parent information session will be April 13th at Hower. >> Yes, >> at 6. It's on the website. Let me >> Okay, sorry. I'm sorry. Um, I think it is 7, but I'm not sure now that I say that. >> Yeah, I was wondering. I didn't look at the website. >> News item. whatever newsletter I saw it in, it didn't have the specific time

154on it. >> 6:30. Okay. >> So, um, the PTAs will be advertising there as well. >> That was it. Was there anything big from the different PTAs and PTOs? Spring is busy for us. I know spring is busy. >> Yeah, lots of stuff. Um, I don't think that stood out. >> Okay. I took uh I think I had 13 of those uh cards from our last meeting and I put a little note on it. I dropped them in people's people's mailbox with a little >> mandatory take this survey and pass it around to everybody that you know. So, >> as of last week, I think we had 186 surveys and that was before we sent the reminder yesterday hoping we would get another bump and I don't have the numbers for today yet. >> Okay.

155How do you have any idea how that compared? I don't remember what our number was from the last time. >> Um I don't I I should find out. That's a good question. >> Once you get the final count, I would be curious compared to the last one because we had I mean 187 is pretty good. Um >> yeah, percentage wise it doesn't feel like good enough yet, but it's a good number. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. Cool. >> It represents families more like have multiple kids. >> Yeah, I guess. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because you can Well, in each survey you can pick, you know, if you've got multiple kids, it was a multi-choice, too. So that was >> so your 187 could be both parents taking it possibly, but it's probably a good spread.

156>> Yeah, because I think actually the way they reported it was 186 surveys and that included staff too. But then it also talked about the number of children represented and it's a much so I think if you have two different children, two different schools, you could answer it differently, right? Or more than two even. >> Um, so that see >> anyway 187 doesn't feel bad. That's a lot of comments to read through. >> Yeah, >> if they left comments. >> Um, yeah. 151 parents, 17 certified employees, one seven support employees, one six community members, one legal guardian or grandparent, and one administrator. And this was um as of March 1st. >> A community member was defined as not a parent, right? Essentially, right? A non-child in the school district. >> Yeah. What could be a

157former parent or >> and then children please like where your children attend and then that number goes up to 229 from the 151 parents. >> Yeah. >> 229 children >> get some for both of their kids in or multiple kids in the same one. Yeah, >> that's good. >> Cool. >> That was it. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Uh facilities we've got so tonight is a special meeting because we've got an approval in front of us. Did we validate that our invoice matched our pictures? >> Yes. Yes. DA responded and said yes. Okay. >> Blue birds. >> Got rid of the blue words. Put them Put white and brown. I think they said to change the color. >> Yeah. >> Um any further discussion on this topic before I motion to vote?

158>> No. Okay. We've talked a lot about this thing. So is there a motion? I mean I didn't Is there anything that you would like to add before I make a motion being the facility >> for the actual playground part? No, I think that's Yeah, we have talked about it. It's just that clarification I think is what we're waiting for to vote. So >> Okay. All right. So I'll do that and then I'll let you add with whatever else you want in your ad uh committee update. Um, is there a motion that the board of education approved approve the quote to Imagin Nation LLC in the amount of $263,200? That is the motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Uh Kathy, would you please call the RO? >> Okay. Mr. Barati. >> I. >> Mr.

159Hunt. >> Hi. >> Mr. Ole. >> Hi. >> Miss Kick. I >> and Mr. Mayor >> I motion passes. >> All right. Getting a new playground this summer. >> It's very cool. >> All right, Mr. Olic, what else do you have for facilities? >> Well, so with Yeah, with the approval of that, I think that we'll have plenty of time to get everything in ready for the summer. So, that's that's good that we moved it. Um, I had the we had a small facility advisory committee meeting. Um, and more of conversational, a lot of proactive ideas talking with Zach and um, nothing major, but it was what he's learning on the job and kind of where he's going, what he's looking for future things to change. And it was really good conversation. This one, there

160was no, I think, formal decisions we were making or things we were talking about. thought it was just kind of what he's seeing, what we're expecting, and positive. >> Yeah, >> positive moment. >> I think it'll be interesting by the end of the school year, by the time we're done with the strategic plan stuff, he'll have a couple more weeks under his belt of like assessing things, compare that to, you know, what the serve the community's parents say and >> trying to match that up for the next five years of uh capital improvements. >> Yeah, he's jumping right in or whatever. looking at bills and everything, looking at what we paid for, what we um didn't pay for, what we could pay for. So, yeah, it's exciting to to see him looking at that. >>

161Yeah. Good. Cool. Sounds like he's transitioning well. >> Yeah. >> In his first couple months. >> Absolutely. Very well. Yeah. >> Great. Um Okay, we do not have Stephanie here for policy. I don't think we had anything anyway. Um personnel. Yeah, I don't have much for personnel. Uh though, as you know, we're all we're looking for new superintendent. So, I appreciate everyone who's I've spoke with and their feedback. So, just to give people an update on where we're at, we are going to have uh two search firms come in actually at the NYX board meeting the 18th. Uh BYP and HYA. They're going to come in and give us uh presentations uh on on that like the process and what they're going to be offering. I did time bound it so I did not ask

162for it. Um I don't want it to exceed 45 minutes. I know that could make it for a long rather long evening but uh I'm gather we're I'm envisioning this presentation will last me about 20 minutes and then I'm offering another 20 minutes or so for questions. Um it's also going to be very similar to how we did the uh like the afterare. I mean uh is that >> one's going to come in and the other one's going to sit out be outside and then we're going to uh switch them on and then after that then we'll have a discussion um I know we're not meeting again uh until like midappril but then we're going to start talking about hope to have a decision my expectation is probably like the end of April early May

163and then to move forward which is still well ahead of our schedule. So >> sounds good. >> We are not going to have that discussion in open after those two presentations leave though or are we? Um and that is a that's a question for I mean I we could have a discussion uh afterwards if you want it's just given that we might approaching about I think 8:30 potentially I don't know I mean it would probably be good to just have a brief discussion. Um but okay it's just I I it's pretty much what would we like to do? I'm totally open to it, but I sort of want to be respectful of people's times because I know it could it could possibly go be a longer even. >> And Martha and I can make sure

164that we I mean I'm always trying to think of like guessing how long some of these things are too so that we don't go too long into the night um unless it's critical. But I'm just thinking with the with the afterare discussion, we didn't want to necessarily put either of those candidates in a position of maybe being um negatively spoken about or the perception that we were speaking negatively. I think of both before and afterare and strategic planning when you've had consultants come in and maybe two different ones or three different you know um one of the things like you hear the presentation and even though you can't confer seven board members like David could reach out to each of you as an individual and then you could vote on one at a future meeting.

165That's really what we did. We didn't really deliberate >> Yeah. >> openly. It was more of a you each had your impression that you shared individually at a different time. >> Yeah. >> That and I can help out with that outreach as well. I think I just feel a little bit more comfortable. I I don't know talking pros and cons on camera and then both sides can see it and then being out in the public and I don't know. Um I don't necessarily want to talk bad about I don't know either of these firms other than this 20-minute presentation and Q&A, right? So, um I don't know that I would be comfortable necessarily fully candid openness, but I think I could if you want help on the phones because I know it can take a

166little bit to try to coordinate with six other people. >> Um I don't know unless anybody else is >> up for I kind of agree with you. It'd be hard to you debate pros and cons right in that moment right in front of everybody. >> Yeah, I'll probably want a little time to kind of think over presentations too. presentations, kind of think about it. >> But I think between you and I, we could probably call everybody within that two week time frame and and if we have enough of a consensus, make a vote, and if we don't, then we can >> that would be four weeks because we're not meeting April 1st, >> correct? So four weeks. We could definitely do that in four weeks. Okay. >> All right. Okay. So 45 minutes each. Just

167recapping that. 20 minutes present roughly 20-minute presentation, 20-minute Q&A. >> Essentially, what we what we've told them is that they're capped at 45 minutes. the longer their presentation, the less time we have for questions. >> Got it. Y >> So, because we are going to call like at the 45 minute mark, it's >> Yep. >> Because we start at seven, now we're at 8:30 and we're I know we'll have at least one other thing because we'll do a um >> uh >> strategic plan update. We actually booted that off of here because we had a couple other meet uh meaty ones and so we'll bring that to March, but that should be a relatively light update. I don't know yet what else will be on there, but that'll that'll already be a 8:30 end time

168at minimum probably. So, >> so yeah. And then we should probably just just for planning it. I'd almost say let's if we could do the presentations up front and then do >> Yeah. >> That I put the I put it under superintendent report just because that's a that's an easy way to I think move something forward. There's not action. So I mean obviously I won't be doing it but you know just put it on that sort of portion of the agenda that >> student presenters. >> We do have student presenters. So I would do it right after student presenters. Yeah. Okay. So, I'll be very cautious of what else we put on the agenda because that'll >> that part right there will take a lot. The student presenters are usually what 10 10 to 15

169minutes. So, >> and then a quick update. We're probably pushing nine. So, even even with that probably having a robust discussion right after it, we'll probably be kind of tired, but reacting in the moment on that probably isn't the best thing to do. >> So, let's do that. Dave Dave and I will figure out a way to follow up with everybody afterwards and and then if we've got enough of consensus, we'll just move forward and if not, we'll figure out what we need to do to >> have that dialogue. >> That works. >> Okay. >> Anything else? >> All right. Thank you, Dave. And um Miss Claps was not able to be here tonight due to a work commitment, but I don't think we had anything on We don't have anything, but I don't think

170there's any other updates on finance. Okay. >> Um no other public comment. I'm guessing I don't see anybody else's here. No. All right. So, future meeting dates are March 18th, regular business meeting at 7 p.m. in the Houser Learning Resource Center. April 1st is canceled at spring break. April 15th, regular business meeting at 7 p.m. in the Houser Learning Resource Center. May 6th will be a committee of the whole meeting 7 p.m. at the multi-purpose room of Central Elementary. and May 20th, a regular business meeting at 700 p.m. Uh we are uh we did not want to box oursel into the 45minut time limit limitation that we usually do uh for close session pre-open. Um so we are actually going to go into a close session now but this is purely internal dialogue. There is

171nothing uh nothing coming out of this that will be a vote. So we will go back into open and we will close but there will be no voting actions with any of the discussion that we're having tonight. So with that, is there a motion for the board to go into close session for the reason reason of the appointment uh appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of a of specific employees of the district or legal counsel for the district, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity and any matter involving a student incident. >> So moved. Second. Kathy, would you please call the role? >> Okay. >> Miss Kick, >> hi. >> Mr. Ol? >> Hi. >> Mr. Hunt. >> Hi. >>

172Mr. Barcadi. >> Hi. >> Mr. Mayorhead. >> Hi. >> It's tempting to say. >> And everyone has to bring their own chair. Bring your own. >> Oh, yeah. That's right.