001Excuse me. I hereby call to order the work session of the board of school commissioners for Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. Would you please stand and join in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Before we get started, I want to note that we will have language translation services available upon request at our action session. So this evening we're here for our mail work session. Again, Miss James, would you please call the role? >> Commissioner Moore, Commissioner Rashid, >> Commissioner Thomas, Commissioner Thompson. Secretary Mink, Vice President Kerry here, President Star With that, we'll move on to section two of the agenda. Do any commissioners have any opening comments that they would
002like to share? Hearing none, moving on to item 2.602. I would like to mention that we continue to accept written public comments for our online portal. The written public comment portal is available under the schoolboard tab at myips.org and will remain open until 400 p.m. on May 19th. At this time, we have not received any written public comments. It is my understanding that we have not had anyone sign up to provide public comment either. Is there anyone present who believes they have registered to sign up to speak? If so, please state your name for the record and provide comment. Thank you. I'll now turn the agenda over to Dr. Johnson to introduce the first agenda item. Thank you, President Star. Good evening, commissioners and community. Um, sorry to not be with you all in person
003this evening. Uh, a couple of team members and I are in Florida at our um, AI convening and so coming to you from rainy Orlando, Florida this evening. Um, but nonetheless glad to be with you. The first item on the agenda this evening, item 3.01, 01 is uh an update and some additional information from the Indie East Promise neighborhood team. And so I will turn to Dr. Santos to introduce that team. I'm going to turn it to them. >> Hello. Good evening, commissioners. Tonight we have Dion Reynolds, vice president of the Indie East Promise Neighborhood, and Jamie Scott Massie, senior director of community family initiatives with the Martin Center. And they're going to share about our partnerships that we have with the Indie East Promise Neighborhood. It's very exciting work that's been going on for
004almost five years now. And so I'm going to go over to them to give you some updates. Good evening everybody. My name is Dion Roads. I currently serve as vice president for administrative and >> good evening commissioners and superintendent James Scott Massie again vice president and director of community family at Christian Center. >> All right. Awesome. And we are going to go ahead and jump into presentation again. uh in east neighborhood is a partnership uh here in the Indianapolis area uh working with IPS uh some other school entities which uh on the top. >> Sorry. battery change. >> One second. That's it. >> So, uh, first I'm just going to start and share what is a promise neighborhood. It's a question that I get often as a VP as I'm out in community school talking
005to parents, family, staff. Uh, it just read this verbatim and kind of add some additional context. So uh a promise neighborhood is a placebased collective impact approach uh to improving results for children and families. Uh play space for us is the near east side of Indianapolis and Parkdale Brightwood. Those are the two neighborhoods that this primary neighborhood serves. Uh collective impact approach uh to improve results for children's families. Uh we work with uh a multitude of partners that you all will see uh in the presentation. uh and we all work together uh creating data systems, sharing data, sharing information because of a lot of times we're all working with the same students. Uh so we uh try to make sure that we are aligned in everything that we do with the partners that we work
006with. Uh the transformative vision for promise neighborhood initiative is that all students and youth grow up in promise neighborhoods have access to great schools strong systems of family and community support and promised neighborhoods are selected by the federal government department of education specifically uh through very competitive grant applications process. So the gist of what a promise neighborhood is that's kind of like a textbook definition for you guys. uh this promise neighborhood specifically in the east promise neighborhood uh John Bonner neighborhood centers and head Martin Christian Center were awarded in 2021 uh 5year $30 million grant uh to create what we know as the east promise neighborhood uh and the work started in 2022 uh so we're currently in our fifth year of the five-year grant and we want to share some updates with you all
007of what we've seen uh data wise is trending with students now clubs over this past five years. Um, of course, like I said, we cannot do this work alone. Uh, this is the partners that Indies Promise Neighborhood directly engages. Uh, whether it be through an MLU or a data sharing agreement of some sort. Uh, this does not include all of the partners that the schools that we work with have or the two background agencies, headquarter and John Bonner have. These are just the ones that we have direct contract contractual agreements with to do the work. As you'll see on here, the geography uh like I said earlier, it's placebased and the place that we are in is on the near east side of Indianapolis. Uh and in Brightwood. So, if you all want to think
008about the boundaries, uh, think about like the Mon Trail or that like I 65 kind of like corridor, Washington Street, uh, to the south, Emerson, uh, to the to the east, uh, and then, yes, and then 34th Street, uh, to the north. Uh, and that's that pretty much, uh, creates our boundary, uh, for where we do our work. Uh the schools that we work with uh specifically we have 11 of them. Uh we work with Brookside Elementary James Bite Thomas neighborhood school and watch neighborhood schools that makes up our elementary schools. For our middle schools we work with Harshman Longfellow and then Kip College Prep and for our high schools we have Marshall Tech Kip Legacy and then Purdue Polytech and that makes up our primary schools in our promise neighborhood. And now the promise.
009What is our promise? Every promise neighborhood around the country has its own promise. Our promise uh that we have in East Promise neighborhood is every child on the near east side in Martinell Brightwood will be ready for college prepared for a career. Uh so when you think about promised neighborhood work uh it's really cradled to career work. So throughout this presentation, you'll get additional context about the work that we do uh in the neighborhood to better understand how we fulfill this promise. So here are some of our goals coming off that promise. The first one is children into kindergarten ready to succeed in school. Number two is students are proficient in core academic subjects. Number three is improved attendance rates. Number four is students graduate from high school and obtain postsecary degree certification or credential.
010Five is students feel safe at school and in the community. And then six is families are stable and empowered to support thriving children. So as the started with this is a very um data intensive initiative. Um again while the promise neighborhood work itself was funded in 2021. Um a lot of the work that we're going to talk about today um then we'll share uh again questions at the end. Um the work has started for a while has been going a while much longer than we've had the promise promise neighborhood initiative with the backbone agencies and some of the selected school partners. Um and so as now with these additional incentive or opportunities um to expand on what we've seen progress um it has really happened I think accelerated in these last uh five years with
011the um specific promise schools. So um one of the big key um outcomes that we've u been watching and participating um in some solutionoriented work around of course has been attendance. Um we've seen a significant um increase um and overall attendance. So you know as we'll kind of share this this title data know that we're talking collectively about the 11 promise schools as a whole. So across the um promise neighborhood um over the past three years um we've seen a 9 point um increase um in attendance rating um and this again is average daily attendance. Um a lot of this uh it really stems from individual attendance plans um and attendance models that each of the schools um have been able to identify for themselves. So we have family navigators and community school coordinators at
012each of the schools um and family community engagement managers um who are really supporting the work on the ground whether that be incentive um based activities u field trips at the end of special um competitions throughout the school year. This is really these are all individually assigned by the schools but we look at the attendance campaigns kind of as a whole as a key solution being implemented here. So you can't really talk about attendance without really addressing the chronic absenteeism rate and this is how uh the the work is initially really activated around attendance is really focusing on decreasing that chronic absenteeism rate. Very proud of this work um here collectively our our teams are um have really been focusing on this. Um we have a special um initiative with uh Washington neighborhood school and
013Thomas Greg uh neighborhood school. As you know, the dark bottom neighborhood center has a union apartments that are directly located across from Thomas Grey. And so students living in that u apartment complex actually get to go have to go um as part of the agreement to um Thomas Bray. And so having that um additional support staff there, you know, on the bottom floor with the Bonner Center really close by has been one of the key solutions here for those schools. Um however basing those attendance uh attendance plans and individual attendance campaigns that we're seeing in each school down to onetoone attendance calls um at at certain schools we've seen this uh pretty significant decrease in contact with TSM um for the past years the academic proficiencies. Uh so what you can see here is uh
014the trend line uh of Ivory over the past uh few years. Uh we went all the way back to 2017 2018 school year just so we can get an idea of what uh proficiency looked like post or pre-COVID. Uh, of course you can see that co dip uh and through the work with the schools that we've been doing really focusing in on course some uh legislation uh came out recently and students will be held back if they didn't pass. So we wanted to make sure that we really focused in on making sure that the schools had supports specifically for those third graders uh so that they did pass the wack. Uh and as you can see with the most recent data pool for the schools uh the five elementary schools uh the 24 25 uh
015number is 62%. Uh so we're getting really close back to where we were uh precoid. Uh so we're hoping that we are we have our target when we pull the data uh again with the schools that we work with. So in the IP data point and then for the I learn proficiency specifically for ELA uh you kind of see a similar trend uh for the schools that we work with um kind of like a decrease going into COVID coming out of CO flatlining a bit. Uh and then this past year 2425 school year is the first time that we've seen decrease uh in a few years. Um however uh we do want to add additional context here obviously work with Harshman Middle School of course with their changing student population did inflate that number a
016little bit but when we uh took out of the calculation we also still did see a positive increase uh which was uh a positive trend as opposed to what was happening uh statewide. Uh so and you'll see a similar story for math as well that decrease leading up to co kind of creeping up after co and then seeing that big increase for private state schools for I learned math this past year seen a big increase same thing taking out you'll see still decrease about two or three% so know that we were celebrating with you last year when we had this um significant uh kind of historical graduation rate um just in celebrating some of the work being done um at each of the high schools. So here we're talking about Arsenal Tech um Kid Legacy
017High and Purdue Poly Technic on Washington Street. Um so also sharing historic uh very very positive uh graduation rates here. Um this has been where work has been most activated in the last um year. we've been really trying to hone on and where hone in on where there are some gaps in support for graduation rate. Um we are seeing positive trends and so this this work has really been um more about coupling and doubling down on some of the work that the um schools are are seeing already. uh and we see some additional um partners at this uh activated in this space that we are really excited about. >> Well discussions um so college persistence is also something that we are um really paying attention to. This is probably one of the the spaces that
018we don't or that we've uh really had to dig in on um as far as data. Um we have a partnership with the National Planning House that allows us to get that data and of course it's a bit delayed and so we're really working closely with the schools um as they're leaning into the matching onetoone matching and then the followup with uh with those graduates when they're leaving. Um we found that that is definitely an area that schools um still struggle with because of commitment um uh of their meeting on graduation day versus the the followup. We're really excited about the work being done here. Um, and all of the innovative programs that the schools um are really deploying um and then the community centers backgrounds are really deploying um so that students really go
019into graduation show up in high school with those um really clear graduation plans. uh here uh we we definitely attribute a lot of work uh to those hunger as far as like seeing this number come down super excited to see the students are saying uh in school that they start with uh the the side of this I think particularly is the what J mentioned earlier with family navigation and community coordinators uh when we were in our beta uh students that had uh families that had a family navigator at those schools were less likely to be mobile. Uh so we were super excited to see that. But what you see here is the overall number across all the students that we work with. But definitely want to highlight the work that the family navigators are doing
020at those schools each day and families. Uh I put NWA uh as a data point at the end. Uh it's typically you know kindergarten started and that's our first giver that we report on. Uh but I wanted to not start with a declining uh number. Uh but we do want to be transparent about what trend we're seeing with NWA. Uh and also we uh we've talked to our partners or our colleagues around the country and it's not unique to the near east side. This is a trend that's happening nationally. Uh NWA and kindergart greatness uh is just kind of on a deep right now. It's a lot of folks have different thoughts of why that could be. Uh something that we're doing right now is investing more into our early childare providers uh in the
021neighborhood. Uh we just recently released an RFP that closed and we awarded four early childcare providers. One so they can keep their doors open um but also to continue to serve students um in the neighborhood that uh families may not be able to afford with some of the changes uh recently. Um and we are right now working with those partners to understand uh their data better uh as those students are transitioning into uh the elementary like James Kip. Um and we're basically aggregating to see if these students are performing uh at a better rate on NWA or kindergarten readiness uh than the general uh students that are coming in. Uh so that's data that we'll be able to share later date once the next uh iteration of the WA comes out this year. Um so
022food support and basic needs um are definitely one of the key areas that our family navigators lean into and support in each of the schools. Uh one of the early um activators within promise was really leaning into the schools to um support food pantries happening on a more regular basis. um as well as the um in the backbone or some of the community partners. Um and so we've seen a significant cre uh increase in this data um which is very difficult to track but um uh it comes from our community survey and so definitely seeing that more families are taking advantage uh of those in-house um community pantries both at the schools and in the neighborhoods. Um this is continues to be an area that we really prioritize um from a community standpoint as again
023we're really trying to address basic needs so that can kids and families have what they need. Then student safety. So this is another area um that is coming directly from our um student survey. Um so the other uh data point comes for our our neighborhood community survey. Um this is done with middle and high school students each year. Um and again in the spirit of being transparent and um identifying some areas where some of our community partners can really step in. Uh we have seen a little bit of a a decrease in where students are identifying that they feel safe in their schools. Um so really working with our community partners, some of which on the the uh previous slides um to be more activated within the school. We also have our uh youth advisory
024board um coming through the second iteration where we'll have representation from each of the schools. Um those students will actually be leading the charge in identifying some of the supports that will carry and develop uh across the neighborhoods. Um so we're really excited about the second cohort. >> And now talking about the future of course like you mentioned at the top of the presentation uh we're in year five of this fiveyear grant. So we are uh in a position where we're you know kind of sunset but we are looking for additional opportunities to sustain this work uh through uh different grants and pieces. Uh none as big as promised of course uh but we want to be able to continue to support the schools uh at at a certain level. Uh so you'll see what
025our priorities are uh for the future uh from 2027 through 2030. Um and the first thing is cross agency uh coordination uh specifically with shared systems and measures and co-creation and co-investment. Uh we understand that we don't own any of this data for this work. It is truly a collective uh impact effort. Um and we just want to make sure that uh we bring folks together uh and we create uh these systems together and also measures the shared responsibility. um we have less expectations of each other for the schools, the community, parents and all those different pieces. uh and of course the absolute partners would uh so as we continue to build uh shared systems with partners uh folks able to go in uh and see exactly where we are as far as our number
026serves student outcomes uh with aggregate data of course um but everyone just understanding where we're moving and where we're going uh so we want to continue to have that be our number one priority uh youth leadership as James mentioned Our youth advisory board is uh getting ready to start again uh next month. We have a brand new cohort coming in with the three high schools uh five students each that will be leading the charge and lead efforts uh in their schools and also in the community. So we want to make sure they always have a seat at the table. Uh our community school model talk a little bit more about that. Um so again the work uh of promise neighborhood existed um the grants aside um with many of the school partners again a couple
027were added um started the grant uh due to building stronger and filter um schools to ensure that we have that full network supported um but here um every uh we follow a similar framework for our community school model that really follows four pillars from the institute of educational leadership um and as facult agencies at Martin and Connor have really worked with uh this agency for a long time. So, this is where our family navigation model comes from, our community school um coordinator model comes from as well as our family community engagement model um allowing each school to have some autonomy and what that really looks like. Um so, we this again will continue our investment in in those um individual school staff. Um we'll continue uh to work with our schools there with that uh
028individual uh student level data. ide I deal with these incoming dashboards really excited for as part of that continuation. >> And of course number four is continuous improvement for student outcomes. I think that was pretty self-explanatory. Want to continue to see those percentages go up and students doing well in all those different spaces. And then five family stability and economic mobility. I believe that's the unique value proposition that John Bonner Edmart had. uh stabilizing families of course will always yield better outcomes for students. Uh and we can see that in our data when we bullet uh that families are getting jobs or education, better housing, better income, better employment uh and that of course increases their economic mobility. Uh so doing that research and doing that work uh is super super important for us to
029continue to do uh so that we can make sure that students are one stay at the schools that they start with and their families have capacity to be able to support them. Uh so that's what looks like and then our last piece is really kind of like call to action joint movement. Um these five pieces are we need in order to sustain and expand this work uh we need to sustain investment and proven approaches. Uh as you all can see from the presentation with the numbers increasing the way they are or decreasing if they need to increase electronic absenteeism and mobility uh they're definitely going in the right directions. Uh so we want to be able to sustain investments so we don't lose that momentum and all the work that's been done um and build
030sustainable systems for long-term impact um so talked about that a little bit earlier shared systems um specifically uh so that those things aren't happening in silo and everyone's kind of doing their own thing you want to make sure that it's co-created um and it's co invested uh shared data insights uh to guide decision making uh I try not to make decisions if I don't all the data to inform me. Uh so that's definitely a focus of ours, but we definitely need partnership uh to be able to share that data uh amongst a results based accountability group uh so that we can all make those decisions together for what's best for our students that we serve. Uh and to support cross sector collaboration and alignment. Uh so as you can probably tell the theme with all
031of these it's all about you know coming together in partnership um and having shared systems and then also prioritize policies that remove barriers for children and families. Uh this is a big one that we kind of been trying to tap into uh for oursel uh as a promisehood entity uh we're not always able to do that ourselves. Uh so we need partners that can come alongside us and support that particular uh piece as they join the movement uh in that space. questions. >> Commissioners, do you have any questions, >> comments? So when we you talk about chronic first of all thank you for what you're doing community and the places where we do see increases and changes and obviously you guys are coordinated so I'm encouraged but I did have a few questions just to
032go in a little bit deeper the chronic absenteeism program you talked about you know the increase in the change but could you share just an example of something Yeah. So, um I think there are some really unique models um at some of the schools and again with some really dynamic principles. We we collectively have some really dynamic principles um and school staff. So I think that one of the ones that come um to mind um just really fresh we get to participate more locally but um in at um we get we are they deploy kind of a one to one attendance team model um so everyone in the school is assigned um to a group of students um kind of starting with the even the admins are all assigned a group of students and so
033they reach out to those students daily if that student is not there by 10:00 a.m. So that does require a lot of people power. Um so we try to support them at the very beginning of the school year. D has gone out a couple times. I've gone out um to knock on doors and if students are missing at those first couple of days of school, instead of excitement, hey, we're so sorry we've missed you. We can't wait to see you. Um here's some information. And then hey, you don't you don't remember. Here's how you all look forward. You're going to be absent. But all of these days matter. And so that relation that relational element we know again does take a lot of capacity. Um so that just collective community model um where groups come
034are willing to come and volunteer whether you're on staff or not um to support that onetoone reach out. Um we're seeing some some really good results there. >> Absolutely. I want to kind of add to what Jamie shared is we have these results based accountability groups that we bring together and attendance is one of our focuses for one of those terms. Uh so Elizabeth Shelley who leads at learning schools work for promise neighborhood she brings together we focus specifically in on the middle schoolers uh because we understood that that's when you kind of fall off a little bit. So so so we we focus in on that and she brings that group together of school leaders and folks that uh have to take in like the attendance things that happen at each school. So forgive
035all fellow department. So all of those folks come together uh share promising practices and learn from each other and that's what the results based compatibility groups are kind of all about. Of course we look at the data uh but really it's a space for learning uh and folks have been able to take uh learnings from other schools that are happen at their schools. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, then they may try something else that somebody else might not mention. And of course, they tweak it to make it unique to their student population because that's one thing that we definitely know about this work is every school that we work with is different. So the employee >> Thank you. I I have a few questions, but I'm going to just leave it at
036this last one. Thank you for that. Right. It's it's interest um but the increase without harshment is something that I think is important to our board. We're wanting to make sure there aren't disparities in you know achievement gaps and so I noticed that it was like 22% or higher and you were you know specific to say that was included in that number but that they do not represent the full increase. So what would you say the increase is >> for ELA? uh it's probably three or 4% or bad it's like two or 3% that number >> I'm not so much exact but I don't but that is one of the things we're trying to think about our goals we're trying to make sure oh that's a great increase but is it increasing those who are
037already increasing or wereing without any other questions from any other commissioners. Um, thank you so much again for the presentation. Um, we appreciate both of you and your hard work. Thank you to the IPN team um commissioners. I'm sure you have appreciation for all of the work that they are doing in partnership with our schools and community um and the real impact that it's making. So very thankful for their collaboration and partnership over the last several years. Um so thank you team for being here for being there. Moving on to the next item, item 3.0. 02. I will turn it over to Vice President Kerry for the board's continuation of your um strategy work. >> Good evening, commissioners. I am very excited for this conversation. I'm sure you all are also very excited. That is
038great. Thanks um to everybody for doing that followup survey from our work session um last month to try to align on our north star um and goals and metrics for either this upcoming year or next two years. Actually, that is not surprising. It is going to be two years. That was almost unanimous in our decision. So, um, today we're going to we're going to be thinking about that two-year time frame and I'm going to share first I'm going to do a quick 10 to 15 minute presentation of all the results of the goals of the survey and then we'll have a space for maybe four decisions. Is this the right north star? Do we need to snip it? Um, what does that look like in action for our district? Um and then what are the
039four goals that um that we agree that we agree on? And then after that we should just have very little refinement um based on some data we'll need from the district and um we should be good to go. Okay. So again, six7 of us supported the two-year time frame um and believe most of us believe that we will have uh the ability to have really meaningful community engagement by the end of that time. And so wanting to formalize that um and then use the next year to engage in a community based strategic planning process for the first school years 28,29 and beyond. So this is the north star that had the most agreement. Um by July 2028, IPS will be the district where every student from early learners through high school experiences a coherent highquality
040education that earns and renews community trust. In fact, five out of seven of us voted that for our first choice. Um there were two themes from the open responses that um I folded into the next statements that you'll see um following the the star statement which is we need to have a stronger commitment to early childhood education and a clear line through the full K through2 experience. Five or seven of us chose the ambitious target for um early literacy which is a 25 to 30% increase aiming for 91% proficiency um for IE um I'd like to have a discussion around what accountability looks like in that space um if that is where we are leading. I'm one of the ones that chose moderate and I can I can share my thoughts around that but um
041five or seven of us chose ambitious. When we talk about which metric um the options we had with the graduation rate, college and career readiness, belonging and engagement, composite high school held um the five or seven of us chose CCR that college and career readiness and so that is the percentage of graduating seniors meeting at least one CCR indicator. Um and so that is not that is the metric but we have to figure out or that's measure but we need to figure out what our metric needs to be. Um when we're talking about the operationalized norms um this is really really solid for all of us. Um seven out of seven or six out of seven on most of the the comments of what does it mean? What does most surprise me? This is something
042that Commissioner Thomas asked for last time that the values and the moments are great, but what do they mean in action? So that is why those questions were on here and so major decisions communicated to all board members before meeting community um etc etc. I will um you all to read but the majority there's only one that didn't have a majority vote. Um, so of all of these or majority um, preference I should say. >> Well, I did have a question. So does that mean at the one that was not majority vote they're no longer >> so one more time >> well we have a majority still >> but we don't >> but we do >> there was one indicator that didn't have a majority >> which is listed >> oh it did get listed
043It did not. But I have it pulled up here. I can share it. >> But regardless, it means that whatever one that was, it sounds like it's a that we do not want to choose. >> I'll follow up with you. actually someone. Okay. So, there are two things that we need to discuss before we get into all of the particulars is early childhood as the foundation. We name early learning in our north star, but two members of the board named the need to define early learners as prek forward. And so we should discuss what that means. um and if we all support that. And then also CTE expansion in high schools experience metric. And so one member flagged that um access to CTE pathways across IPS and nonIPS school high schools within our boundary was
044excluded in the survey. Um the CCR composite metric was assigned to capture this work. But I'm the question I had here was does that need to be expanded? So I just wanted to bring that for discussion first before we get into what what we are agreeing upon. So would anyone like to expand on if we should or should not include prek in our specifically in our um metrics? I would definitely like to include prek into the metrics. serve prek students still but also early childhood is an early learner has been divided to prek through third grade and we're going on nationals that's most important addition. >> Yeah. Um I would also agree that that prek is just that's a foundational piece that we have to have if we're going to you know uh increase enrollment.
045I mean, that's as a parent, that's how I locked in on where we, you know, when my kids went to school was based off of where we had that that prek development and it just was a natural progression to continue in that district. U it's based off of what kind of care you get. So you do a good job with prek, you retain those parents and now you got, you know, kids, you know, going through 12 K through 12 as a result of that. That's what I've seen. I've seen it multiple areas for parents. So I just think it just makes sense for what we're trying to do, the initiatives we're trying to pass, and it just just want those kids to be ready for all those all those tests that are coming as a
046result of you know what they receive in the prek. So we have to we have to provide that and if you don't we see what happens kids come in not ready so that off we we have to I think we got to make a part of the money. So as a early learner advocate I struggled with this. Um we have had to mandate kindergart and we do not offer prek seats to all students and if we are those things I want us to make sure that those things are called out around kindergarten being included in K12 learning. the state you know calls it K12 it is not mandated and then um if we are going to put early learning as a foundation I don't know how we do that we don't offer that that's not
047accessible to all students >> yeah I would agree I'm also a huge advocate of learning how important it is 03 particularly but also um to to development um however I we are thinking about our directive and our focus in the district and where we need to be fiscally responsible. I think we should delineate on things that are absolutely mandatory for us. And I think if we are saying these three things or these four things are a mandate, we're going to ask the district to to put funds into something that is the most import. And so for with the measurement that we're trying to say is third grade literacy um I don't see how we can how we can mandate how that looks for a district if that's not a part of our directive if we
048are legally defined as a K12 district. to that point we did capture early learning overall. If students participate in early learning in any facility that is um measured by the state then that would at least give us a foundation. I think just including for me in our mandate of what we're doing for our goals for the next two years is financially a struggle for me. um when we had like you know even ask for push for support for all students for me I would say just as a some feedback to what I just heard you're going to spend money one way or the other if you don't invest in prek then you're going to invest in remediation and so I guess as a board I would just ask what are we willing to invest I
049mean, we really need to be grounded on that that an investment and everybody knows that prek is worth the investment so that we're not looking at remediation for third grade literacy. So, we're going to so what I hear when I hear we're not going to invest in prek is that we're going to invest in remediation for third grade literary literacy. not willing to invest in the foundation of literacy which is preschool. So that's that's what I said. I think for me again we're going to call early learning then we need to call it early learning and early learning is from birth to about eight which is third grade months and so if we're going to include that then we need to include the metrics from all and whatever services they received they receive early on
050like that would be the measure to foundational conversation when we include it again in the district's responsibility on hard to to get there not because there's not a understanding of the need for early learning but early learning doesn't start prek so when do we start um deciding where we're going to start and stop because the foundation for early learning is zero through eight and so prek is a part of it kindergarten is a part of it but that is not the beginning and so we're able to capt and use that as a foundation for what we want to see as success. And I'm okay with tracking that information for students um as they come in at any level if they were early learners or if they were walking early learn. I just don't want to
051stop at prek and I don't know where we put that in the budget because it is not our right now, you know, since to mandate first kindergarten and then prek with support for those students to receive those services. I'll I'll just be on record that I don't I don't support that. But we're gonna I understand what you're saying. So do to me I mean you do something. You don't do nothing. You invest in something. Even if you can't do zero to eight or prek but you invest in four four year olds you got to invest in something. >> Well you kindergarten because Correct. It's not mandated. But if we can encourage people to do prek, then we have a less then they as commissioner she said they would stay with us most likely and then
052they would encourage them to go to kindergarten. >> My thoughts are I think I was probably one to one of the two maybe. I'm not sure. Um because I was really struggling with early learning and not really what our definition of what that was going to be. Um I also believe Charlie I think you know Commissioner Thompson I don't think we will find anybody around the table who doesn't agree with what the outcomes are when we have early learning. The issue is we don't have any money for it. And so I'm because we have a commitment to the grades that we are that we do promise our community. So I'm totally supportive um if we just if we go back and find a extra grant or bag or something or people who want to invest
053in believe in this as well. That's my only struggle is how do we afford it without taking away from the other grades. um if we could I think it's very very important. The other issue that I have is that because of the no mandate we have folks who we have a hard time getting their kids to kindergarten. So then how do we measure for something that not everyone will have access to. That's another concern I have. The other is that we spend a lot of time and we are mandated and we step up to the plate around special ed education and we're not even talking about that because we also have to figure out how we continue to hold that um carry that work um as we move forward so that that spread around. So
054I I just feel like we have some special areas that all are important to us and then where do we find the funds to pursue it? So just a just another feedback. Um I mean when you get a student at preschool or prek 4 whatever age you're looking at for preschool or prek now you have built it's one of the things is you you work with families and you say how important kindergarten is they learn that also and so the hope is that then they would make sure their kiddos can make it to kindergarten those that attendance should increase that should That's the goal. Um I'm I'm a witness of that. Um where people did think it was important when their child was three, but 100% kids for the last 10 years I've seen go
055to kindergarten. Um so I would just you know just as feedback for that prek is where you kind of start that thought process for parents to encourage them education enrollment in kindergarten. Um, so yeah, if if we're going to say start with kindergarten, then we can't say early childhood. That's not that's not what I thought we were discussing last month. I thought we were discussing early learners, prek, three year olds, four year olds, not five year olds, because that's the status quo that we're doing. And I want to be part of a solution that's not, you know, I want to be a part of us being proactive instead of reactive. We all know, we all know as you stated that that's not where it starts. And I get we of course we're strapped for funds
056and but I think just like everything else, we reach for the stars and we work try to work towards it, but not say we're not going to do it. We don't have That's too high a goal. Like that's not the ideal health and Indianapolis has a really abysmal maternal mortality and mortality rate and especially for black women and black babies just dying at three times the rate of national average. And it's something that everybody who cares about health should be doing Right. And so I have I'm much like the the promise program, we have a collective impact model where we are mobilizing resources between different entities because there are grassroots organizations, there are community organizations, there are whole health systems, there are Medicaid payers that all need to be at the table solving this problem
057together. And so the work that I do is bringing that those folks together. And I just wonder knowing that this is such a big issue, it means all of the folks at the table, maybe I think the mandate from the board is to collectively work as a community to focus on this issue as opposed to standing up to own it. I I like the idea of us um taking some leadership around expressing what we think is important. Um but being realistic about what if we're going to set a goal, I don't want us to set something that we already can't promise. That's what I'm concerned that we, you know, we set ourselves up to fail out from the beginning because we don't have a 100% buy in across the board. ever really did. Even though
058we know it's important, but maybe what we need to be doing is sounding the alarm and figuring out how legally we're going to get funding for it. What's the actual statement early child? >> So, we will get to that. Um, I just wanted to have this conversation as we decide if that's the goal. how we measure we've measured it by third grade is the measure that we have on. So um and then also for CTE pathways do we we um talked about improving the high school experience and how we would measure the success and so there were several options of how we could measure the success but they didn't speak specifically about CTE expansion. So wondering if that is something that we to be a part of what we're measuring. >> So I know in
059our education committee um which we've talked a couple times around seeking pathways and making sure that they are um not just accessible because they're accessible to all. We make sure that that information is shared with all. Um and we talked about it last month. We did talk about all students within boundary within boundaries being able to tap into those resources. Um as one is enrollment um push and also just because the programs are like really cool being able to to students on pathways to success. So I was that's that's this is not my comment but I was surprised that that we did not include all students definitely across the four high schools but it was all students having access to those programs. >> Help me what would be the metric for success? So superintendent Johnson
060we want all students have access to CTE programs. How do we measure if that was successful or or not? >> So it wasn't It was promoting what we actually enroll in the enrollment. I made that comment on my survey as well like it was about different transition years >> um that that students were made aware of the program. So like I think it was eighth grade year going into high school or even sixth grade middle school, they would been already exposed to the opportunity somehow and then they would elect basically because I guess that was something that happened before they used to what was that student was in it. So for me high school my junior year going to work in early learning and did that for both semesters. But it didn't matter school that
061early learning program oversaw our signings and our internship so graduation. Yes. So they would the metric would be the number of students that selected the CT program by sixth grade or eighth grade by different points points in their trajectory. Well, I know I don't know, but I think I know that the state just changed the law or a process that in seventh grade the student has to choose their graduation pathway. Um, it is one of those accountability metrics that the state I think I know because I had a letter that said I had to sign it. It was a new mandate. >> So, when I think about that, I would say they're starting to be exposed experienced the measurement the selection process increase. Okie dokie. Okay. So this is the northstar. Um by July 2028
062IPS will be the district where every student from early learner through high school experiences a coherent high quality education that earns someone's community trust. This is our belief statement. This is what we're telling the the um the community. And so I just added these we can throw these away but I think that this is a good add-on to that leads to our goals. what we believe every third grader reads on grade level. I think this speaks to that 100%. Every middle and high school are supported through their transition and or is supported through their transition and on track to graduate. Every IPS graduate leaves with a real plan for college, career or service. And every family in our community feels confident choosing IPS for their children. So I just sometimes you have a vision statement
063and then you have what does that mean in action? This is what I I'm saying this is what we mean by this statement are these four things and that leads to okay with all of them except the second one I don't know I was on track to graduate or on track for postsecary success like graduation is not it's a we have this is not the and it to be tied into >> I think that's a it's a good point and the metrics that we chose to measure are not just graduation anyways. So, one thing I would ask is if we're not going to measure preschool or preK or less than that, I would add um some percentage of students enter kindergarten. Enrollment in kindergarten increases by 70% 80% whatever our district numbers are and 70%
064numbers of students that live in our district that are age five honestly 80% of them should be that Commissioner Moore, would you on that second bullet point, would you be good with every middle and high schooler supported through their transition and on track to a successful career path? >> I just think that what it's kind of listening and so We need to be on track like so my question >> I think that your question doesn't go >> it doesn't go far so >> what would you suggest postsecary success Okay, so this is just a quick review. These are our six values that we agree to. So what does this look like in action? We talked about student success and experience. It asks us to make every decision answerable to one test. Does this does this
065serve students? One team vision asks us to behave as unified body. I thought this was important especially because one of our val fiscal prudence and we don't have a specific goal around um solveny but ask us to store resources for students who are not yet in our schools to sustainability that will come. Um community voices ask us to treat families, students and educators as co-authors of the work, not as audiences for our decisions. It asks us to report progress openly, including when we fall short. It asks us to remember that this is about the safety, dignity, and healthy children. Um, I just included this again because it's something that we're going to hand the district and say these are the goals we want you to meet, but they need to be um in alignment with
066our values as a board. Does that make sense? >> Okay. So the four strategic goals were around literacy transitions enrollment and a strong high school experience. So the first one was easy because that we know that metric very well increase the percentage of third graders proficient on i from 70 to 91%. With measurable improvement at every subgroup and so we can define that what those subgroups are um the stronger transitions. So I asked the data team and I think that there are some things that we will have to um if this is what we should decide um we'll have to ask them to start to track because not always are tracked I think but for for nth grade on track that is based on credits um that a student achieves. So they do track of
067course attendance and suspensions and so those things are related and so that that composite score would be easy for the district to track at 9th grade. Um because You talked about six sixth grade being an important transition. Just use those same metrics. So sixth grade track is not a national standard or anything, but it's just the same. You know, are they getting are they passing all their core courses? Are they do they have strong attendance rates? Um and no more than one suspension and disagreed by race income. We would need to find the baseline for that. metric to we have the freedom track but it's not based on the competitive but we do know all three of those numbers for the district. And then for the third, an enrollment stability and growth. Um, and that
068increased net district enrollment by 2% with attention to school tax and family choice patterns. Over the past two years, we've had a 10% decrease. And so, um, trying to figure out what would be a good target. So ready um wanting to hear your reactions to that. And then improve the high school experience as measured by college and career readiness composite. The percentage of graduating seniors need at least one CCR indicator um this aggregator outcome or income. So we will get back to I was curious on why there wasn't any any discussion on retention during in the enrollment stability and growth box retaining students. It's easier to retain a student then recruit a student and that is a um usually that's like most schools 80% retention is a goal for most schools. Can we not >>
069attend retention >> enrollment >> retain over here >> retain the student? >> How do we track that retention >> retain system? kindergarten to first grade or you were looking at prek data to kindergarten or >> do we want to look at that >> six to seven >> for one specific transition periods or >> I would say transition periods is important but I would say overall honestly 10% decrease over year it's a lot of students you're missing 10% in 10 years. >> Years okay so this is the last page of my presentation which was two minutes but I think we have the discussion that we need to have. Um so for some things the targets are foundational for this year coming up. So we establish baselines if things are not tracked currently. Um time for them
070to design systemic interventions begin community engagement for the plans moving forward and then 2027 2028 will be the target here. So, just wanted to put that into context to make sure we have the right numbers. We want to track year. Okay. So, and I'm having to go back to slide to talk about um each of these three things, but was there any part of the north star with those four bullets other than what we already discussed that we would want to exclude or include back. This is the statement I would exclude early learners that start with kindergarten if that's the majority of the board's decision. >> Even though the definition of early learners goes to eight, >> I was going to say I would >> it starts at zero, >> right? I would take it
071out because we still focus on it and our primary um metric is going to be third grade reading. So what is you're not going to start with a pure definition then it's So bring your ears. And then does anybody have anything additional to add here? >> Are we going to vote on this or something? I also said something kindergarten um enrollment enrollment goal kindergarten enrollment goal. Wouldn't that be a this is these are um speaking to the north star statement. This is what we believe will be the result of what we're doing but not the early >> but I'm saying wouldn't that be long as a metric these aren't metrics if we're if we're tracking enrollment that would be a metric with the goals >> every student starts obviously then majority of our students enroll
072in I mean something that starts with How would we measure that if you're not student? So you say every student who is eligible kindergarten and her family chooses >> every kindergarten that reading starts at 8 years old actually starts. >> So we measure the percentage to those who do enroll in kindergarten. >> Correct. >> So you want to say that kindergarten students are prepared for that transition. Say every third grader is on grade level every kindergarter and measure by third grade and enrollment. There can be two measurements to a goal. Maybe maybe there need to be some as I'm thinking about what you're saying we did every third grader may not obviously be the same sort of percentage of kindergarters that we receive. So measuring them against one another maybe we just need to have
073a separate one. I will just clarify these are value statements in that first one that every third grader reads on grade level. That was my my attempt to us to say we want 100% of kids to read a grade level, but we're choosing that 91%. So getting a stretch goal that we're going to hold folks accountable to that to that number, but what we believe as a board is that every third grader reads on grade. I mean, I just put out there. I believe that reading begins before third grade. So that is my input on this and what it means in action to me would tie into how many kids started kindergarten with our district and so we wanted to like realistic students on the road and qualify to our program um because the offerings
074now except And that measure can't be 80% of the students eligible because our so we don't have 80%. So we consider an increase of 10% per year. What else got to consider is that only that increase only happens if our growth rate increase like it's so much more into that enrollment fees than just um so I think this are we saying we don't want net enrollment we want to have the different not just aggregate our school type transition >> and so for entry transition entry so you would do kindergarten six and n versus end of fifth that they're supposed to next transition. So add that to the enrollment stability. >> Yes. So adding supportificate in any way we want to have high income for adding their retention. Is that right? So think about how somewhere
075we're talking about what is that we desire for students to say what is I'm sure I'm sure that what does that mean by school like does school a retain 90% of their students every year that that's case like can we study that parents leaving seats open up in the building what'sing Andrew, we need your help in remembering the board goals for the previous the previous strategic plan were specific to and enrollment and what was the fourth one. And so and then there were specific guiding principles that um how did you use the guiding principles when thinking about um achieving a core goal? How that how that work? Yeah, the guiding principles acted I think more baseline. Yeah, baseline and then we build an initiative off those principles and those initiatives are what we tracked over
076time. But did you do it? It's kind of how that schools were based on So I think the question now is are some of these other things that we're talking about as therapists that we put them in here so they guide every decision. We don't talk about um we don't have a specific goal around our finances but that is one of our values. So you know what does that look like in action here? Is there any way that we can incorporate some of those things that we're saying? And we can ask the district to track anything that We find it important. >> Yes. These are why we had five core values that we show for good three to four years where especially really every internal meeting external some of those you just described. We use
077it as this is kind of how we think about framing. >> Yeah. promotion, promote racial equity, you know, community authentic engagement. Those those were the type of things we tried to just set the table around. We'd like to make decisions. >> Commissioners, just really quickly, I um and I think Andrew is stating a bit of what I was going to say to be sure we're not conflating. So the guiding principles the board put forward specific to rebuilding stronger when we were doing strategic plan 2025 we did engagement around um vision mission and then the strategic priorities which is what Andrew was just talking about the board goals were aligned to those strategic priorities. So they were two the guiding principles that frame was during re for rebuild what became rebuilding stronger. The strategic priorities were
078generated through the engagement that we did to anchor our strategic plan and then we built board goals to measure and operationalize the progress we made toward each of those four priorities. >> Sorry Dr. because I was speaking in the so sorry. >> So does anybody have any comments about this here? >> So to that point, fiscal prudence, long-term sustainability, that to me says where are we going to put our investments? We don't have a lot of it, right? So, where are we going to strategically invest so children are succeeded? I think it got a lot of good stuff out of this. I really do. I like the CT stuff. I like the transitional grades and all that. I think but are we really That's just me asking a very honest question. Are we really investing
079in what? And that's not about freaking to me. I just really want to know like are we really making um based off of this document so far, are we making those invest are we saying this is where we want our investment to go with the little that we have this is where we want it to go enrollment we don't have a lot I mean we have we can do more there we can CTE we have Great. We got great partnerships already in place. Do we just need to tweak that? Like those are just questions, honest questions I have when you talk about being prudent in having long-term sustainability. Where whereas the needle for kids? That's my honest question. No, I feel really good about about our goals. I think I still feel like that strong
080early literacy goal is a stretch goal for sure for the district. Um, and when we had the the the big push because of the retention of third graders if they didn't pass IR huge jumps and so the work that our our educators are doing I think is worth investing in um and we'll be able to see vast improvements and I think if we include a directive to work with community and to collectively solve community problems then I think that we would be investing our our money in the best the best way for the mandate that we have. I don't know where to go, but to President Star's um statement earlier, I still think there needs to be um convening or supporting a collective one response to the early learning crisis. Um and being I'm okay
081with being proactive. I just think that that voice um it's just not like I don't know where it goes in this conversation but I do believe that we need to be a part of either conveniently or supporting um what has happened for our students and I think while we have this attention on the boundary of the district we do use that as a le to elevate to the state and push them to support in ways that they haven't before you know we talked about asking boundary to be supported for special education. Again, this is another need and so we can be on how we frame it. What would happen if that invest was solid across the boundary with um level three and four schools getting support and we attracting students? That's something that we can
082leverage. It doesn't take a lot of capital, but it does take some required and time. Um I know that when I was in early learning we had um school 56 51 and 69. We feed we fill their kindergarten classes every year. We have 47 um we fil every year we have 47 kids um leaving each school. Um and so that happened over years of us just being a partner that community and um parents know that that the school that we partnered with were schools that were going to support their kids. Um, I just want to add to that that without a focus as a board game on academic outcomes, I think we do have a really good opportunity to mobilize ourselves and other people around that whole topic. It's hard to measure something that we
083don't have full control over. We we have had a we just recently made some decisions about changing the pricing for So until we get a really stable model for it, which is something I think we could advocate for. >> Okay. So I think next steps are you probably have to give me a good timeline but to make the edits to put out a version to you all. Um and then either our June or July work session or action session to vote on edits >> edits or edit all. So just be clear the last point was going to be including conversations early or preschool prek and early child care. >> What session? >> Maybe it's a new session. I'm not sure, but it is an action. I mean, if we're talking about taking the lead in
084that area, we might want to figure out how to quantify the work or it might not m happen. I don't know. We can think about where it goes, but >> you could also do the edits float around if you want the topics for the office. >> Okay. Yeah. So not >> I think you still keep on flushing it out because if we're asking the schools to implement for this school year side of so if you want to get done you need it for July and those meetings are the second week or the third actual dates. The July session is July 30. So you soon give you guys a month. >> So this wouldn't be a ton of revisions. >> We have a couple here. So that's something be able to see the video responding to
085it. any additional that they would like to add to it that you guys don't have tonight um that we could connect about as well but the July if you guys can get done for June please set fourth but I want to make sure that the other commissioners also are able to respond if they have any additions they might have as well and that meeting is June 25th session. Don't have more sessions. So, you'll have more time to respond to as well. Thank you, Vice President for the discussion. Commissioners, I really appreciate all of your participation, providing your insights, the edits that we were able to make this evening. Um, thankful that we'll have something to get soon have our commissioners give their before close, I want to touch on partnership between the on partnerships between
086the board and superintendent. Maintaining balance between our roles is very vital, especially now um but for effective governance. It prevents confusion and keeps us all moving in the same direction. By respecting these boundaries, we show our commitment to the staff and the students that we represent. I'd love for us to just take a moment to talk about how we're feeling about these distinctions. had a commissioner bring up the topic and um I sent out an email as well and obviously board and all sorts of new moving parts but um I'd like to open up the discussion. So, I'm I'm gonna just share my why. When I'm in community and I hear of anything, it is my um goal to get the information to the superintendent and to you all as soon as possible. Um and
087so I will continue to level that I am not solving for um anything. If there's a crisis or I think there's a danger, I work through justice superintendent, deputy superintendent together um just to let them know what I've heard and then share let her share it back with you. So um I just won't have information that I've received from community that I have not shared um with the superintendent. She will make aware that we are aware of and please let me know. Um, so continue to >> Forgive me. Um, Commissioner Moore, I was I meant to also bring that by asking commissioners if they brought any examples or had examples this evening of things that either you're confused about or um that you've seen us do in practice that you were doing it correctly or
088anything of the sort as we Thank you, Commissioner Ward. I too I mean we all know what our role is as commissioners and we can certainly ask questions and I think um we have hear information. It's an incumbent upon all of us to share in the spaces we know. Um so and I I think sometimes we found that u there's appreciation on the other end too that thank you for breathing. So, um, if everybody is clear and comfortable, I do have these, um, four superintendent RO sheets if you want them, but they're inside your binders as well. Any closing comments for any commissioners this evening? Our next scheduled meeting is our act action session on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in this room. Having completed all items on the agenda, the meeting is
089adjourned.