001school district understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the o aam jid and a ok aamel oam people who descended from the hookcom and have inhabited these lands since time in memorial. The Oam, whose name translates literally to people, are a vibrant culture and community spanning countless generations into the past, continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful legacy for generations into the future. With this acknowledgement, the Kraton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices, policy, and human relations. Tonight we have uh Miss Gibson McClean um is uh on the phone and um we have Mr. Jones and uh Miss Marquez in attendance.
002Members of the public who wish to address the governing board may do so in person. Or if you would like to virtually submit a comment, please email h wararez atratonchools.org by 2 p.m. the day of the meeting so that she can send you the link and instructions. Board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda. Members messa. You know what? I should have you read this one. You read it. >> Okay, >> you're better. >> Find it. Small press. >> It's in the middle. >> There it is. Electron schools.org. Thank you. I didn't practice, so I might have been able to read it. Good evening. We want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address the board cards that must be completed and
003submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item. Board policy provides for two cards, white cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments. Due to the open meeting law, board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda. Do we have any >> any what? No, but you need to do approval of agenda. >> I need Oh, I'm doing it now. >> Um, I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I I Katie So, we don't have any cards for tonight. >> I thought she always asked in the front. >> Okay. Um, now we're going to move to governing board
004reports. Miss Marquez. >> Hi, everybody. Welcome back from fall break. Hopefully, you got to do something fun or get extra sleep. Um, let's see. A few weeks ago, I got to join our team at my very first learning walk. Yay. at Macken. And uh first off, hail all teachers because being in a classroom and seeing like the the kids and the boards and all the stuff you have to do and and like it like in my mind I was like mind blown because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so much." Like I couldn't do it. So hats off to all the teachers who are out there grinding and taking care of our kids. And so it was really cool to to view that and experience that and see it from from that perspective of
005what our team is looking for um to help improve our outcomes for our students. And so it's really cool to see that work and see how our team works together um how Dr. Pombo's team works together and um and all that. So that was that was really amazing. And um let's see what else. Yesterday we had our study session again diving into the student outcomes focused governance and I you know I love how how our team is and and our board and our leadership and we got some really good feedback from Dr. Ramos. So that was great and I will be attending um at the end of this week there's a school board training hosted by the count or the county um superintendent of public instruction. Looks like it's going to be hosted by the
006leadership institute. So that should be interesting. So we'll see what I have to report back from that later. And that's all I have. Thank you. >> Marquez, Mr. Jones. >> Hello. Good evening everyone. Uh I was going to bring up the uh study session which we had the privilege of attending last night with Dr. Ramos. Uh I felt it was very productive. Uh our board just seems to work together very well and uh the main focus of last night's study session was looking at our policies and how they align or not al if they are aligned with or not aligned with um student outcomes focused governance. Um other than I would say it was a very productive meeting and uh just happy to be there and here. Uh I also wanted to mention uh on
007Tuesdays at noon Arizona time I've been attending webinars virtually with uh the campaign for grade level reading. Uh it's a great organization that's uh putting out a lot of ideas from voices around the country from different school districts and uh different organizations mainly around literacy and grade level reading. But if you want to find out more and just sign up to attend, they don't it doesn't cost anything. It's uh grade level reading.net. >> Yes. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Jones. Miss Gibson Clean, do you have a board report? Um, yes. Let's see here. Sorry. Um, okay. So, one, obviously, I really enjoyed the study session last night. I look forward to us to continue the work that we were doing at the study session last night. Um, and it sounds like we'll
008be able to work out something within our board meetings, existing board meetings to continue that work. Um, a reminder that our next um, sorry, our next committee meeting is uh, October 29th for our advisory committee that's reviewing um, student conduct policies. We're still in the thick of it. That'll be here in the boardroom at 4:30, which is a little earlier than we usually do. Last time we met virtually. This time we'll be in person, but we will be online at 4:30 on October 29th. Um, I just wanted to I know um I know she's not here tonight. I wanted to congratulate um Sophia on being recognized as an outstanding governing board member for aas um which is the Arizona Association of Latino Administrators. I'm pretty sure I'm getting that right, but please correct me if
009I'm wrong. Um, and so that's pretty exciting. I know that there's going to be something on se on November 2nd for that. Um, additionally coming up, gosh, there's too many dates for me to keep track of all the time. Oh, it's November 5th. Sorry, on Wednesday, November 5th. I don't know the exact time. I know it's going to be in the evening at Central High School. I believe at the very least um Representative Lori, myself and Miss Cardio are going to be hosting a education town hall of sorts um for folks in in this area. And so um we look forward to doing that if people um want to come attend. We're going to be answering questions. I don't know exactly our agenda yet, but it should be fruitful um to have some discussions and
010be able to connect with a lawmaker at the legislature. Um, other than those three things, I just look forward to, you know, the end of uh of the semester. Hopefully everybody's doing well. I know my kiddo came home today and told me that they took a test, but it was a practice for the test tomorrow. And so, um, it's a math test and he's super excited about it. And so, for a six-year-old, that's cool to see things like that. um especially when we're doing this work at this level, it's cool to now um have four of us with kids in the district and we're able to kind of hear what's going on from their uh from their mouths about how this work is going and how they see things. So, thank you to everyone that's
011there tonight. I'm sorry I'm not in person. Um I missed bedtime last night and then I have a board conference that would cause me to miss bedtime two more nights this week. So, I'm not trying to miss four times. So, I really appreciate everyone um being there and allowing me to be virtual tonight. >> Thank you, Miss Gibson McClean. Um so, I think everybody kind of covered um all the bases that I was going to say. Um we had a great study session like everyone said last night. Um it's really interesting work and um it just it's really easy work um with these people because there's no fighting and everybody is really genuine um and caring. Um don't get me wrong, the work is hard, but with these people it's a lot easier um because
012nobody fights, which is really nice. Even though Jay gets black from telling everybody he has a great board. >> That is a problem. >> Yeah. Sorry. I mean, we can cause some drama. Um and uh I hope everybody had a great um fall break. I really did nothing, which was my whole plan for the whole break. Um so that was really nice. All right. Um super what? >> I missed something. >> Okay. Yeah, go ahead. >> Okay. Sorry, I forgot about this. um October 29th as well. um I believe at 8:30 Ivonne is we're having our um district PTO meetup and um this time around uh Sophia and I will be there and we're going to be doing a two-way conversation with the the parents and the folks the volunteers who show up for that
013to get some feedback about SOFG and share some information and and get more um uh insight on our our goals and guard rails, vision and values. So, um, for anybody who's part of a PTO, um, go ahead and reach out to your CEOs about information for that because that'll be coming up on the 29th. And, um, just touching on SOFG one more time, PXU is starting their process of doing SOFG and I attended a meeting with two of their board members a few weeks back. Um, so they were doing their very first process, two-way conversation with the comm about that. So, anybody who may have kids as well in the PXU high school system, um stay on top of uh what their board is doing and give some feedback if if you're willing on um
014how that's working um or what you see working as far as here in Kraton with SOFG or how that might impact your family. So, just wanted to share that as well. Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Man, superintendent report. >> Yeah. Um so so October um there's a number of different sort of recognitions that are going on. So I know a couple weeks ago we have moved our uh end of January leadership seminar believe it or not from the end of January all the way to >> the beginning of October. Actually we were last week of September I think technically. Yeah. >> Yeah. end of we kind of um we're across the end of September, beginning of October. And so that sounds really wild, but the intentionality behind it was to get looking at our
015data earlier and get moving on making impactful changes sooner so that way they have longer to benefit the students um during the school year. But one of the things we discovered during that week is um we had an opportunity to celebrate recognition for our coaches because it was like I don't know if it was national coaches day or week but it was time to you know thank our coaches which feels very appropriate on a night that we're going to have progress monitoring reports. Um and it was also an opportunity to um uh similarly celebrate our principles and assistant principles. So, just want to give a shout out for all of our great coaches, principals, and assistant principles. Um, also wanted to give a quick shout out to the facilities team. Um, for those of you
016who might have been out of country the last couple of weeks, there's been some pretty intense storms that have rolled through. And I know it's kept facilities and technology hopping between, you know, the intermittent power outages and having to get servers and phones and all those things back online and all of the storm damage to our facilities, including for us last night at our our awesome study session. Um, we had it without AC because our air conditioning got knocked out in the building. And for those of you who are physically present tonight, you'll notice how nice and comfortable and cool it is because um our awesome facilities team got on the roof this morning to make sure we would have cooling for tonight. So, just wanted to give a a shout of appreciation to them
017as they've kept school up and running despite some of the challenges we've experienced recently. Um and then lastly, um this was really exciting. Uh I I found this out like I was I just didn't realize this was the week but uh Miss Wasolic, Mr. Hail and I were out visiting schools on Monday and we wandered through the cafeteria and I'm like why is there a lunch with croissants? I've never seen croissants in the cafeteria. So then I got this note um from Aaron Bronner, our amazing uh director of nutrition and wellness. Apparently this week is National School Lunch Week. So shout out for National School Lunch Week and it's a celebration of the National School Lunch Program and the theme this year is Taste the World, your school's lunch passport. So apparently that's why there
018were croissants on Monday. Um and it highlights the importance of a healthy school lunch in a child's life and the impact it has both in and out of the classroom and was chosen to inspire curiosity, cultural appreciation, and adventure through food. So, just want to appreciate our nutrition and wellness team because um it's really kind of cool that they brought in these inspirations around the globe. Um because they're one of the things that they're really trying to do is kind of tie into some of the things we do as a district where it's important to us to have cultural appreciation and they're bringing that into the cafeteria which I think is really awesome. So, many thanks to them. And if you're in a cafeteria, you might have some fun this week seeing, you know, what
019happens to be on the menu on any given day. Um, beyond that, I just wanted to double up on the congratulations to our board president for being recognized by Azales and um, you know, give my despite my complaint last night that I don't get any superintendent street credit because I can't complain about my board. Um it was really nice having a chance to dig in on student outcomes focused governance, you know, have some deep conversations and it was also nice to see the board um work through the their second quarter for this school year of the uh board evaluation. And it was you might not toot your own horn, but it was really cool. I think we had like a 36 point improvement on the evaluation rubric from the prior time we did that evaluation
020back in July or August. So, um, and that is all I have for this evening. >> Thank you, Mr. Man. Going to move to student outcome focused governance. Tonight, we're doing progress monitoring reports for goals three and four, revisions to goals three and four, and revisions to gar four. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Pomo. >> I I'm getting set up, but just I wasn't ready. I'm sorry. One second. I was so into listening to all the stories. >> Okay, from Mr. May >> apparently have a reputation for being long- winded and I wasn't long-winded enough this time. um governing board member errors and our governing board members and superintendent man. We're presenting the progress monitoring report for goal three and this is our pre-EST um information and I want to introduce our coordinator
021for language acquisition which is TA Sanford. She's going to be presenting with me tonight. And so we're going to start off with what is our goal three and it's to increase English proficiency for emerging multilingual. And our goal is we originally started at 25%. And we want 40% of our students by 2028 to um move one or more levels on the AEL assessment. And this is our data from last year. Our annual target for last year was to get 31% of our students to move one or more levels on the AELA. And as you can see, we had 35%. So this year we're really focusing on our students to continue or maintain that um that growth. And so we have 34% as our annual target for this year. Um because as students are moving proficiency
022levels and it's harder to keep moving up the different proficiency levels. So our goal is to maintain this growth for this year. And now um Miss Stanford's going to go over our current pre-EST data for our three interim measures. >> Good evening. Um, let me move your microphone a little bit closer. It's more for me, but thank you. >> Is that better? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, uh, board member, board members, and, uh, superintendent man. I'm going to go over the interim measures and the proposed goals that we have for those as well. Um so our first 3.1 is around our uh third through eighth grade emerging multilingual learners increasing one or more levels on proficiency levels on our DNA benchmark assessment. So between the pre-EST and the post test. Um currently we do
023not have data for that one. We're still comparing because um we'll be able to present that information at the December 9th board meeting. Um, but our proposed goal is May of 2025 or 20 sorry 25% May of 2026. >> There's not much to present on that one at this time. >> Um, 3.2 2 is in relationship to our third through our first through third grade emerging multilingual learners who score at the 50th percentile for our FastBridge oral reading fluency assessment. Again, the 50th percentile is in relationship to the correlation of reading fluency proficiency that our district has established. Um so this fall our students on that pretest um 8% of the first through eighth grade students were performing at that 50th percentile with um a goal which is a goal that we're proposing um because
024after further review of the data we discovered that our students started this year at 8%. Um versus the 13 that we had originally seen which is why our goal we're proposing now is 12 instead of the 14. And we believe that to be appropri appropriately ambitious. It's a targeted lift in relationship to where students ended at the end of last year, spring of last year, it's still a 6% increase between uh spring 2024 25 to spring of this year. >> And I just want to add like if you look at over the last two years, you know, they start like last year they started at 9% and they went to 6% by spring. And that's because the cut scores change each um assessment. And so when they change, they have to keep continue to grow
025at the same rate. And so this year um that 12% we really want to have it going up instead of going down each assessment because um even though the students are growing it, they might not be meeting that cutoff. If you remember, this is a FastBridge has cut scores the same as DNA does um for each for each test. So that originally was 14%. So, we're going to ask if you could approve 12% for um this one based on the the most current data that we have. >> And for measure 3.3, this is also using fast a fastbridge assessment auto reading, but for our fourth through 8th grade students looking at um foundational reading skills. So auto reading covers um decoding, morphology, vocabulary but at that fourth through eighth grade um expectation. So currently um
026again we discovered that our students were similar trajectory to the last couple of years but 18% in the fall of this year with um with an ambitious but attainable target of 24% by the end of this school year. Um because if we look at where students started also the end of or the beginning of fall this time last year we're at that 18% but we want to continue to ma maintain that momentum that we've gained for our emerging multilingual learners. So we believe that um although it's it's 4% over the course of the year we just we believe that we'll be able to maintain that growth over the course of this year. >> And if you remember from last year we didn't monitor the fast bridge this way. So this year we're monitoring the parts
027of the fast bridge that relate to language acquisition. And so the 24 is new. You the original um report said 26. So we're asking to approve the 24 with the updated data. >> Sorry, could you go back to the last one also? Um again cuz in comparison it would be if we were to we would be doubling the rate of growth between last year and this year if we were to reach for that 24%. So um we we are excited about the momentum that our students have continued to make over the course of the last year. This shows a breakdown of 3.2 2 and 3.3 in relationship to the schools and the number of students within those grade bands who are um identified as emerging multilingual learners. So when you look at the individual schools
028um out of that total population so for example the first one would be out of 23 students um two of those students would be performing at the um at or above benchmark. And just to reiterate the 3.1 we don't have that data because we have to compare the pre-est to IBM the first benchmark to have that data and so we'll have that for the next um progress monitoring report. >> We um there's some very promising growth within these um within these different um grades and also different campuses and we're excited to see um the continued momentum for our emerging multilingual learners. and excited to talk about the continued inputs that we're um providing for those students and for our teachers. Um so our professional learning, we have essentially still the same buckets, well three of
029the same buckets from last year, professional learning, instructional coaching and family engagement. Uh professional learning, we are continuing from the success of our SEI cohort last year. We have two SEI cohorts this year, a year one um and a year two. So a total of 17 teachers who are receiving targeted uh intensive language acquisition consultation from our consultant Heidi Ksky who we um also worked with last year. So we have 17 teachers participating between the two cohorts um as well as brand new teachers to um targeted SEI instruction or I should say targeted SEI instruction in um Kiteon professional learning that we provide four times throughout the year, one each quarter. So, we have 28 teachers participating in that as well, which is a modified version of what the cohort is receiving, those two cohorts
030are receiving. So, we're excited about that. Um, in addition, we now have one of our new inputs or is the reorganization of district support. So, Sarah Beth's position last year contained both language acquisition and mine. Um and so now the two are separate which means we have focused dedicated um teachers to be able to provide that intensive support for both language acquisition but then also literacy as Serbath will talk about um instructional coaching. We've also our language acquisition coaches as well as the other coaches are receiving um support through AD or intensive training through AD through an instructional coaches academy uh program to leverage those high impact instructional coaching strategies and the language acquisition co coaches specifically are receiving five days of intensive instruction from AD as well around language acquisition practices supports for um
031our emerging multilingual learners and also um ways that we can engage families as well. There are components in there as well which is a continuation from last year. We are still working on our SEI family nights for throughout the year for the nine campuses with a total of six. We had our first one on September 29th. Um and it it was roughly the same amount of families that participated this time last year. So it was really exciting and promising. Um, and then instructional materials. This was another input that was new from last year or continuation from our work with Heidi Kosski was we've developed nine or sorry, seven across the grade levels, 17 grammar, scope and sequence guides that specifically work on or are in alignment with um the information that they are learning teachers
032are learning in those cohorts and that instructional coaches then are able to leverage with teachers who are not participating in those cohorts. So, it builds on those foundational grammar practices for um emerging multilingual learners. >> I was just going to share like when we presented math last time, do you remember how with the math we talked about how the standards are all being taught third quarter and then not as many first and second, so we adjusted. Well, this is the same thing with our content expertise Heidi and obviously at that also working with Sarah Beth at that time and and Tea is that our um teachers were going through our unit guide and trying to figure out what to teach for the grammar scope and sequence. And so one of the suggestions from our um
033expert was to like outline that step week by week what they should be teaching. And so now when we go into the learning walks um I think you were with us with one of um um Miss Marquez where we saw the SEI lesson and we went looked up the planning guide and they were right on track for that planning guide. So it's been very helpful for our teachers that are learning those strategies when they're supposed to teach each one each week. >> Um the other thing that I just want to point out is that Vanessa and I have gone through a lot of the cohort training. We're actually graduating next week and one of the things that we learned was how to adjust our progress monitoring report. So you'll notice this year there's I mean
034we've been following the success criteria for that and part of it is that we only are supposed to have five slides. We have a little bit more than that but we're trying to cut down but each slide has a certain title. So this used to say inputs on here but in the success criteria it says planned adjustments and next steps. So like what we're doing or adjusting or what we're doing next. Um, that's what we're putting, that's what this slide is titled that. So, you'll start noticing that pattern. We're just basing it off the success criteria for progress monitoring. Um, and I think I didn't know if there was something else I was going to add from the Oh, for the SEI family night. Um, that's something that Mr. Carvajal is also working with the
035CIA um or curriculum instruction assessment department to plan those and family engagement. And also to clarify, uh, Miss Stanford said AD and that's Arizona Department of Education training. I know most people probably know, but anyone listening, that's Arizona Department of Education um, department is training the coaches. >> Thank you. >> And so that's our last slide. If there are any um, questions or any slide you want us to go back to or members, do you have any questions or comments? >> Not for this one, though. That's m >> No, I do not have any questions. >> All right. Do we have to do them separately or >> um you um we approve the um >> progress monitoring reports separately, but then we No, we need to approve this progress monitoring report, but then we also
036need to approve the changes to the interim measures. >> Okay. So I can just make a a motion to approve inter measure for goal three. >> Um >> do I do them separately? >> Yeah, I would do the progress monitoring report first and then the changes to the interim measure. Got it. >> Sorry, I know it's extra complicated because we're making an adjustment. >> All right. Thank you. We vote to approve this now. >> Yeah, I would take a motion now to approve the progress monitoring report and then vote on it >> and then take a motion to approve the interim measure changes and vote on it. >> Okay. So, make a motion to approve um goal three, the progress monitoring report with the changes that were um made. >> Second. >> All those in
037favor? >> I sorry. >> I think we need to separately approve the interim measures changes. I know you rolled it in, but I think we do as its own. Yeah. >> So, each one? No, no. Just the um I think there's an item that says >> I think it's the one >> interim 3.2. >> Yes. 3.2 and 3.3. >> So it' be there would be changes to interim measures. Yeah, 3.2 there. >> Okay. So, make a motion to approve the changes that were made in 3.2 and 3.3. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> Thank you. >> Okay, we're going to do our next progress monitoring report. And I'm uh we have our coordinator. Is it for literacy? Yes. I'm used to saying language acquisition for Sarah Beth George. She's going to
038help me present. This one is also our pre-EST data. Um so our goal number four is increase the reading proficiency for all third graders. And so we originally started 18% and our goal by 2028 is 41% which is about the state average. And last year, this is one of the goals that we did not meet our annual target. So you can see on this graph that our annual target was 22 and we had 13%. Um and we've been looking closely at our uh in measures and test scores so we can improve that hopefully for next this upcoming year and I'm going to turn over to um Sarah Beth George to talk about our interim measures. >> Great. Um good evening board member heirs and members of the governing board and superintendent man. Thank you for
039this opportunity to share with you our three interim measures and our goals and or our uh progress and next steps in terms of increasing the reading achievement of our students here in Kraton. Um intram measure 4.1 is measuring the percent of our percentage of our third graders who score proficient on our internal benchmark and post test. So our goal here is that 31% of our students will score proficient by the post- test. And while that is a 16% jump from where where we are starting right now in our pre-EST data, that is the necessary momentum that we need in order to gain so much that we achieve our our 2028 goal of 41% of our third grader scoring. proficient. And so last year we made a seven% growth. We made seven points of growth. And
040this year our goal is 16 points or gained 16 percentage points. Um one of the things that we do want to point out on this slide is those little R numbers underneath each of the data points that shows um it really it does show a correlation coefficient. And the reason it's especially important this year is because we, you know, we have adjusted our cut scores for our benchmarks and our pre and post tests. And the numbers that you see here might be a little bit different than what we showed last year because we've applied this year's cut scores to last year's data. And the cut scores were adjusted to create a tighter relationship between how our students perform on our benchmark assessment and how they score on the state test, the AASA. And one of
041the things that you'll notice when you look at this is that you'll see it says that last year 13% of our students scored proficient on the AASA. And we do have that tighter correlation here. However, 13% and 19% doesn't seem especially close. And so when we were talking about that, um, some of the ideas that we have are that the AASA includes standardized tests of reading and writing standards as well as an extended writing prompt and also oral reading fluency. And our benchmarks only include the write the multiplechoice um, standardized assessment of reading and writing standards. They do not include an oral reading fluency component or an extended writing prompt. When we look at inter measure 4.2, uh this is a different intra measure than we had last year and that's because we really wanted
042to look at all of our first through third grade students in terms of their proficiency in fluency. So, it recognizes the role that fluency plays in reading comprehension and overall reading proficiency and it was uh really came from one of our conversations here at the board last year about well we know that fluency was a new part of the ASA what are we doing to really track that at this level so that's where this measure came from and originally when we were setting our goals for our interim measures we set a goal that a quarter of our students would score at the 50th percentile on their fluency because we were using our spring number of 17% and so we were expecting to grow from 17% to 25% and tonight I we are recommending a new
043goal for this interim measure of 27% of our students of our first through third grade students reading fluently at the 50th percentile by the end of the year. Um, and while 24 to 27 does seem a little bit small, we're we're saying 3%. We do want to acknowledge are the trends that we've seen in the past. So, two years ago, we decreased by 6%, last year we decreased by 8%. And this year, um, we are wanting to increase. And that's it was this was referenced in the goal three progress monitoring report that the cut scores at each point in the year increase because our students are expected to maintain a certain rate of growth. And when we look at our individual student scores, we do see that they grow at each point in the year.
044However, they're not growing enough. And so we want to push that forward growth um that matches the expected rate of uh growth across national percentiles. All right. In interim measure 4.3, we're looking at fastbridge early reading composite scores for our first graders. And these first graders will be our third graders in 2028. So we want to sp pay special attention to this cohort. um we used their scores as kindergarteners and we're looking to see how they grow this year as first graders. So we are also recommending a new goal for this interim measure. Originally we had landed on 25% so also a quarter of our first of our students that was based on the fact that in the spring the kindergarten students on their early reading composite uh we had 19% score at the 50th
045percentile. And so they actually these the same cohort of students grew over the summer and we'd like to continue that goal that growth. And so our recommended new goal for them is that 32% of our current year first graders will score at the 50th percentile. And so last year as kindergarteners, we saw a seven point seven point increase. And so we're looking to see a 10-point increase this year. And so this graph shows you the same information at the school level. So we just looked at it at the district level. And so as a reminder, this 4.1 column, the May goal is 31% of our third graders passing. And um this that shows just our pre-EST data right now. And that second column, our new recommended goal is that 27% of the first through third
046graders score at the 50th percentile for fluency. And then on the final column, our new recommended goal is 32% of our first graders scoring in the 50th percentile. So this shows I'll give you a minute. I'll stop talking so you can look at the school by school data. And in terms of our planned adjustments and next steps, uh I do want to highlight some of the things that we're doing this year because we have a lot we have a lot of growth uh that we need to achieve this year to do right by our students. And so when we look at our professional learning opportunities, we are doing something very similar that we did in the SEI group last year. And um and so you'll see that we do have a foundational professional development seminar
047for reading foundational skills. So that's our those are Kraton professional learning Wednesdays. We have 50 57 teachers who are participating in those four sessions. We've completed one in September. Uh we are replicating the success of our SEI cohort that we had last year with our K3 with a K3 literacy cohort this year. And one of the exciting additions to the cohort is that we have administrators joining this year. So we have 11 kinder through third grade ELA teachers and four administrators. We have two assistant principles and two principles. And so far we have completed two of the five training days and two of our instructional coaching days. And then we also this next piece is a continuation from last year. So we are providing professional development through a partnership with the Arizona Department of Education
048for teachers to take letters courses. We have 18 teachers participating. This is the same as last year. You can ignore those last two words that say we're filled. Forgot to delete those. Um, and then the second one is this is the also the same grant that we applied for last year. We just submitted it on Monday and so we are applying for 18 seats for additional courses for our teachers to take. that will improve. It will promote their professional growth in early re early literacy skills and pedigogy as well as it does qualify for the education requirement for our 2028 Arizona K5 literacy endorsement. And in terms of our instructional coaching, one of the changes that we made this year is we really wanted to hyperfocus our coaching support on our K3 teachers. So when
049we looked at, you know, last year we had four coaches who supported both language and literacy. And so they really were spread across the grades. And when we looked at it, we actually had not very many K3 teachers being coached. And so the goal this year is for at least 85% of our literacy coach case loads to include K3 teachers. And right now we're at 90% of the teachers that our literacy coaches are working with are K3 teachers. Um in instructional materials, I know we talked about this last year uh that we last year was our first year of using our 95% group tier 2 intervention materials. and we had a goal that we did not meet of 70% of our K8 teachers using those materials for tier 2 intervention 3 to 5 days a
050week. When we looked at survey data, one of the challenges that teachers shared was training. Uh they wanted more and another challenge that was shared was access to the materials. So we did two things for that. So this year we provided training again with 45 teachers who were registered that included new teachers as well as teachers who uh did not who were not able to take it last year did take it this year. And we had three librarians work at all nine schools over the summer to organize and increase access to those materials. And then, you know, we talked about this in goal three is that we split language and literacy to increase capacity. And I wanted to just share an update that of right now we have two of our four literacy coach positions
051filled. So, we do have two literacy coaches serving nine schools right now. And we are still actively recruiting. And we just got a new applicant was um routed to me on Monday. So, fingers crossed. Yes. >> Board members, do you have any questions or comments? >> Yes. U with interim measure 4.2. Um because you brought it up, would do we have any guess as to why like I most people would suspect, you know, the fall would be the lowest and you'd see an increase over the school year. But why why these dips? Do we have any guesses or >> it's the really it's related to the rate of growth that our kids do grow and that's what you can't see here. They just don't grow fast enough when we're looking at the normed percentiles across
052the nation. And so I it's a really complicated question. Um, and I >> I could say just as an example like if a student scored I'm just making up a number 20 on the first assessment and to be able to see stay at that same rate they have to score 30 on the next assessment but they score 28 then it shows that they didn't make that same keep that same rate of growth that is happening nationally with other kids that scored in that same area. So, we have to look at it more closely to see what the if those students how much they're growing and how far are they away from staying on that wherever they started um or increasing to the next level. And a lot of our schools are working on having students
053set goals, understand where they're starting and where they need to be at the next um assessment um and working with the teachers too to help set those goals with their students. So, that's what we're looking at with um the teachers and the students. Yes. And so in Thank you, Dr. Pombo. So in that example, it showed that the student grew, but on this graph, it will look like we're falling. And that's right. And >> uh Mr. Myers just brought up um our goal sheet for the year in terms of uh oral reading fluency. So to give an example, our third graders in the fall on their oral reading fluency need to read 97 words in one minute and in the winter 120 and in the spring 134. So it is a moving target and I
054you know we we talk a lot about best first instruction and increasing our ability to provide that best first instruction for our all of our students and also providing that intervention. And so that's that's really where we're focusing our next steps. No, thank you. >> It's really disheartening to see, but we're >> Yeah, but I mean it >> clearly we're putting different strategies in place. And again, to repeat um what you shared earlier, like a 3% increase may not look like a big increase, but in reality, when you look at it, spring of 25 to spring of 26, it's actually a 10% increase. So, we're we're really less worried about what the increase is from fall to spring than having more growth this year compared to last year. So, last year you had a decline
055of 8%. This year we're targeting an increase of 3%. So, it's actually like an 11% um improvement over what happened last year. And one interesting thing about this particular measure is that we're looking at some of the same kids and some different students. Sure. >> So, it's it'll be interesting. And one of another thing just to point out >> and we're not really sure how it affects things yet. Um, but we I know we talked about this at one of the study sessions this year is that we added oral reading fluency for first graders in the fall. And so when you look at last year's fall data, that was actually last year's second and third graders. And so the fall data this year is this year's first, second, and third graders. >> Oh, that's interesting
056because that probably is an indication that they are probably doing a little bit better because it looks like it's 1% less, but it includes first graders, which would not be as far along. Right. >> And then, right, and those the winter and spring numbers do include first, second, and third. All right. Um, some couple questions and wondering. So, looking at inter measure 4.3 and because I'm I'm really curious about that that increase from the 19% to 22 between spring and fall. Are we looking at the same cohort or was this last year's first graders compared to this year's first graders? >> The same cohort. So this is our first graders now who were kindergarteners. So it's this that same group of kids. >> Okay. And when was this fall test given? Like was it like
057August or September? >> August. >> It's given within the first three weeks of >> Oh, okay. >> Okay. Yeah. So that that's was curious to see that increase that that making those gains over the summer coming in fresh and >> that >> and then you know a wise a wise principal once told me that that uh children learn on the laps of their parents and um so I'm going to kind of pivot back to the previous report um because under planned adjustments and next steps we have family engagement for SEI um goals and I most of y'all know I'm a huge proponent of getting parents involved. So, so I guess my wondering um right now I know we're supposed to as board members kind of stay out of the inputs, but I I can't stay
058out of input. That's kind of what I do, but um no, I would love to see, you know, maybe a family engagement on this. Um I know at Kraton Academy, we're trying to push more um reading and and getting parents into the class and help read. So, um, you know, perhaps maybe a district-wide push for for that as well could be beneficial. So, >> absolutely, we've been talking a lot about that. We feel the same way. We're still working on how that can be developed. >> And one of the challenges, if you think back to um goals one and two and the inputs, so last year we added the SEI family nights, which we're continuing this year. Um, this year we're adding our math family nights. So, you know, while we obviously would love to
059be able to do family nights for everything, we also recognize there's a point of diminishing return of how often we can get our families to return to us, right? There's only so many nights a month that they can spend with us. And we also recognize that while, you know, we have an amazing team, there's only, you know, so much team bandwidth to go around to support those nights. And so, um, reading is very important. And so, there there may be some ways that we can dig in on family engagement that doesn't require them to necessarily spend another night with us. Um, one of the things um, and I think um, you know, we've had some conversations about this in the past. I know Mr. Jones and I had kind of a sidebar about how important
060it is that kids read a certain number of minutes each day. And so, you know, even if there was some sort of activity we could create to encourage more out of school reading, that probably would have a pretty significant impact. Um, you know, as we're kind of ratcheting up all these, you know, additional activities that we're doing. But I don't see a lot of districts having the level of family engagement that we have around trying to integrate our families into the learning process. And one of the things I've observed in my 20 almost 25 years um in K12 is you know I have heard many parents say I wish the schools would help us understand how we can help our kids and I've heard many teachers say I wish the parents would help more but
061you know there's rarely that intersection of like how do we bring those two things together and so um you know what what I saw last year with our with our SEI nights was amazing. and was really supportive. I've done some things. I know it's a smaller scale with community council where um we taught families some math games and things like that. So, you know, we need to continue to ratchet up those engagements, but I think we also need to find ways to make sure we're not overburdening the families at the same time. When I say that, I don't mean that they don't want to do all these things, but like how do we make it accessible for them in a way that they'll actually be able to um get support from it rather than have
062it become a burden. >> Okay. So, I'm just going to put this out there because it just popped into my head because obviously the kids and even us adults, we love our phones and kids love games and being competitive. So Russell, if you could come up with an app, I don't Anyway, I was just picturing like maybe something where they can track their reading and it can be, you know, you can see what the other schools are doing and maybe the other grades and then it becomes competitive and they're like, "Mom, I need to read so you could put my score in." Anyways, random wonder. It's um not as random as you think because I know Miss Wazolic shared in our um one of our newsletters, I don't remember if it was the Kraton Connection
063or our leadership links the other week, um there's a read to the final four competition that's going on right now. And so any of our schools that are willing to step in and participate, I know some of them have participated in prior years, that would be a great way to get something competitive going for kids and families. And I I do want to share I appreciate all of those thoughts and one of the common threads is that reading happens everywhere. >> Yeah. >> And we do uh Mr. Superintendent Man shared that some it can be included in community council and has been there before. The SEI family nights do include I mean they're all about language and literacy and we a couple years ago with our Native American family nights introduced to read aloud each
064night and so we do that has also been part of our conversation is while it's not our entire population we do already have pieces of our population who are getting these nights and so what still working on what is the best way to engage the the people who aren't yet involved. >> And thank you for that reminder because if I remember correctly at the end of last year, we had a little bit of a celebration at our American Family Night because of some of the gains that were accomplished. >> I'm sure I know that moved completely into the community department last year and I wasn't there at the end. >> Sorry, I didn't mean to open old but >> but uh yes, and they and the kids get books at every night. Like we we
065started that a couple years ago. So All right. Is there anything else? >> I know I could just like add to the party here, but it was making me think of like summer reading program and I know that Maricopa County Library District does winter reading program, but it's just for adults, but it would be cool to get our librarians involved. Not that this is just an idea like some sort of winter reading program that could be insular at the schools and just like you and yourself and your family. It doesn't ne everything doesn't have to be a competition. >> Um but it could be a way to have incentives or something like that. just an idea, something cute and easy that could be shared across the entire district with all librarians that could then go
066home with the kids or something like that over winter break. >> Nice. >> Right. Thank you. Um, thank you of course for all your hard work that you guys always put into this. Um so I am going to make a motion to approve goal number uh progress monitoring uh four goal four progress moni report one >> second. >> All those in favor >> I >> all right I am going to make a motion to approve the revision to um go for interim measure 4.2 and 4.3. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I. >> And I'm going to make a motion to approve revisions to guard Row and interim measure 4.3. And that was in the consent um agenda item 6K. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? >>
067I. >> Thank you. >> All right. Public comments. Okay. All right. Um, approval of consent. >> Move. >> All right. I move the governing board approve consent agenda agenda items A through K in accordance with policy 1-302. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> All right. That takes us to eight. approval of standard evaluation system and administration annual evaluation and I'm guessing that I'll be handing handing it off to Dr. Lauren. >> Great guess and Dr. Laurens's technology works tonight. So that's great. Uh member heirs, members of the board, uh thank you for the time this evening to discuss our uh recommendations for changes to our evaluation data portion and the approval of our administrator evaluation for this school year. Um Dr. Dod's Kieran is not available this evening. So Mr. Meyers
068and myself uh will be joined by Mercedes King. She is a teacher at Lom Melinda and she's a member of the evaluation committee and supported our focus group as well. All right. So, do you want to There we go. All right. So, uh I just a reminder that the governing board has a statutory and policy requirement to approve an evaluation system. Uh last year you approved the uh Danielson frame for teaching that was revised to the 2022 version. This year uh we're bringing to you a slight revision to the evaluation data portion. Uh Mr. Myers will go a little bit more into the details of that, but the data portion in statute has to be between 20 and 33% of the outcomes for the final evaluation. Uh so as I mentioned last year the board
069approved the Dangerson framework. So why are we bringing this to you this evening? Uh we wanted to be intentional in our alignment to the student outcomes focused government framework. Um the previous versions of the student the standard evaluation system weren't necessarily aligned in a way that we felt supported this do not come focus framework. uh not only for the certified staff but also for administrators. The administrator evaluation has been evolving over the last couple of years. So it's more closely aligned and we'll talk a little bit more about that at the end of the presentation. Um and this year we're working toward greater alignment of the certified staff. I will not be reading this slide to you and I apologize for being so tiny but just to uh point out a couple of things. Um
070we really were looking at recognizing the governing board's focus on SOFG last year. uh the conversations that happen during study sessions and during governing board meetings regarding our outcomes and where we're seeing an opportunity to look at how the data is represented for teacher evaluation when we talked about our aggregate evaluation scores and things such as that. So, we really took the governing board's kind of direction from that. Even though it wasn't formally said do this, we took that as a signal that we needed to look at the data and see where we were. Um, so Mr. Meyers took a look at all of the evaluative data from last school year. Um, did some comparisons and came up some options. He then presented to the uh executive team. We talked through those options. there were
071some that were um more robust than others. Uh and I think we dis discovered that we really wanted to present this option as something that was a step in the right direction but not really fully where we want to be with evaluation data at this time. Uh we evaluation committee started to meet in August. We shared that information with the committee. committee was represented by the people that you see on the list there. I won't read to you who they were. Um, but we've had four meetings already this year and the goal was really to present the changes in the system and seek input to make sure that we develop communication so that teachers understood where their evaluative data was coming from. Um, we also received input from administrators uh and had a uh frequently
072asked questions document that we published in the Kraton communicator or Kraton connection, my apologies. Um, so that teachers could have a deeper understanding of some of the questions that they might have related to the changes. Uh, we also held a focus group right before last uh, community council. Um, we had a really great representation of teachers from across grade levels, across assignments, and across schools. I think we had all but one school represented. Uh, and we had a very robust conversation. And I know Miss King is going to comment a little bit about some of the the concerns and the challenges that came up during that conversation. Uh just in general, I think we may have touched on this in the last meeting. Some of the concerns that we heard were related to pay for
073performance and how pay for performance is connected to the evaluation process at it for this year specifically and then what that's going to evolve into for next year. That is a process that's ongoing because we haven't developed that plan yet. So, we're looking at this evaluative data for this school year and then we'll plan that pay for performance plan in future meetings. We'll bring that to you. So, what we're looking at for this presentation is we'll be discussing how the data distribution is being proposed to change the some of the sources will be changing for the evaluated data and also looking at how the cut scores are altered. So, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Great. Um, member errors, members of the board, good evening. Um, so tonight I'm going to talk to
074you a little bit about kind of some of the the history of our evaluation as well as some of the breakdowns. Uh, I'll do my best to to take it slow. I am going to share some technical stuff with you. I'll try to pause um and see if there's any questions or provide any clarification. Um, but to start with, we're going be talking about the 33% of the certified staff's evaluation. So our our total pi if you look at it comes 67% comes from the observation that the administrator does when the teacher's in the classroom teaching with kids. Tonight we're going to talk about the 33% which comes from from the data side. So the original piece um I've been doing this 10 years um and it's always been 7% growth 30% achievement which is
075what the board established well over 10 years ago. Our recommendation tonight is to shift that from a 7030 to a 50/50 which is more aligned to our governing board goals. 50% growth which is goals one and three and then 50% achievement which is goals two and four. So more equally distributes growth and achievement. So on the achievement side um we are changing a little bit where the metrics are coming from on K2. Uh for 38 it's going to be um passing rates on our post tests from DNA which we take every May um which are kids that are proficient and highly proficient in grades three through eight. K2 is going to be aligned to the 50th percentile spring measure and fastbridge. So as you heard Sarbat talk about earlier the 50th percentile is the district's
076measure on uh passing um for our K2 kids. questions so far. Okay. Um so for overall cut scores, we're recommending that we maintain the district average. Um we know that eventually our governing board goals are set on the state average in 2028. Um however, right now we think a good bridge is to maintain our district average cut scores. So right now for growth, um ELA sits at 20%. um and math at 18% and achievements for ELA is a 21 and 24. What does that mean? That means that if 20% of the students grow one or more levels from P to post, the teacher would get credit for that for that child moving. On the achievement side for ELA, if the student if 20 if the student passes or gets 20% of the questions correct, they
077would pass the test and the teacher would give credit for the achievement side. Questions on this one? So is it's um per student not per classroom. >> Yep. Marquez, great question. Members of the board, um our evaluation system is based on every individual student. Um I process the data. I actually look at all 4,500 students. Um every student. So it is based upon did the student meet the growth target, yes or no, or did the student meet the achievement, yes or no. So it is individual student by student. >> Thank you. >> Do we have kids in just like an SEI classroom like like how do we do we don't do we do you guys mix them like >> Yeah, there is of course the targeted instruction. Um but they also have the regular ELA
078>> as part of their coursework. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, so on the left you'll see our current cut scores. So when we take all the data and put everything together. So we take the observation side from what our from what our evaluators see in the classroom and we add the data together. We put it all together and we come up with a number. And right now if you look at the breakdown um right now if you get 75 points or higher you're highly effective. 50 and above is effective. 25 to 50 is um developing. Below 25 is ineffective. Our recommendation is to change the cut scores from 2550 5075 to 40 60 80. Um in the next slide I'm going to show you what it looks like when I break it down by teacher.
079But you would see just a slight decrease or start shift from highly effective into developing if we uh make these changes. I'll pause there for questions before we actually look at some samples. >> So just to clarify, Mr. Meyer, this is um Myers, this is the data from last year that you applied the new standard to. So this is what that distribution would look like from last year's data. Okay. So, I'm gonna try to walk this through slow. So, um on the left in the beige columns, you're going to see last year's last year's data. Um each row represents um a teacher in our district um across our all of our campuses and across all of our various teaching roles. So we have um third third grade teachers, we have reading interventionists, we have um
080behavior interventionists, we have eighth grade math, eighth grade science. All of our various roles are represented in the sample. So on the beige part we have their data and then we have their observation and their total and their rating. So this is as the rules applied last year. Everything in beige you'll be able to see their overall scores. I then grabbed their data and I recalculated it to our new cut scores. Remember some of the stuff from our study session. So I reormed all the data and I recalculated all the district averages because of course with new with our new cut scores we have new passing rates. So that purple represents the new data point for each one of those teachers. I then added that to their original observation score and come up with a
081new total. So that SY26 total would be their observation score from their administrator plus the new data score. And in the orange box you'll see that was the change from the old overall score to the new score. So I did I took the data and from 25 to 26 I wanted to see what was the difference between the two. What was the impact of making these changes on the data side and then on the green I then we then added everything together. So we added the observation score from last year plus the new data score and applied the new cut score to it. And you can see the change between what the 255075 model was and what the proposed new 4060 80 model was. And you can see the difference if teacher shifted. You can
082see the impact that this proposed change would have. And I'll pause there for questions because I know there's a lot of numbers. And yes, I do I do spend nights doing this. I have a computer. It helps. >> Data people, they just love this. >> I know. Yes. And this this was um this was definitely a labor of love. I had to go back and pull every teacher um manually and find out all their data and work with spreadsheets. So, it was it was an interesting task. I'm still alive. >> Okay. So, some additional recommendations um uh teachers in their first two years of teaching um in the past have been attributed classroom data. One of our recommendations is to shift those folks to school level data so that they can have um more time
083focusing on their craft. They're still learning to be new teachers. And again, these are teachers that are new to the teaching profession, not new to to Kraton. They're coming from another district. These are folks that are the new to profession. The academic progress plans um our recommendation is put a pause on these. They can be academic progress plans have been um if teachers didn't have valid and reliable data, they would sit with their administrator and they would create a plan unique to their to their classroom or to their kids. And it could have been sometimes K2 teachers, it could be sometimes special area teachers, uh it could have been a resource, it could have been a variety of different teachers. And what we found was they didn't always align to our governing board goals. So
084our recommendation is to shift all staff to one of the the plans. So a um a PE teacher for example would receive school level data because we teach all of our kids reading, writing and arithmetic. And Mercedes will step up shortly and she'll share some of the insights from our from our teacher groups as to how that can fit. And also um alternative valuations are for teachers that have been highly effective for three consecutive years. They don't have a formal observation. Instead, they do other tasks. They mentor teachers. Um Dr. Lauren, what is the list? Mentoring. >> Mentoring committee work. >> Committee work. Um so being highly effective, they don't have to take or participate in the observation. So our recommendation is now that we've shifted to Danielson 2022 is that all teachers have the
085opportunity to to learn from the new framework. And I'll pause there for some more questions before we >> So what does it what does it mean or what does it look like um when a teacher's um getting shifted or or using school lab school level data to evaluate the teacher. Mhm. So instead of a classroom, so um I taught, if you don't know, I taught I taught in this district for 10 years. I was a first and third grade teacher at Macken um under Dr. Dupin who's now moved over to Abendale. So um as a classroom teacher, we would get data attributed to my kids. So my 30 kids, uh I taught ELA and math and science and social studies. So the data of those 30 kids would be attributed to me. So, um, teachers
086that service all kids. So, our special area teachers, um, our resource teachers that see large populations of kids because they don't see a specific group, we take the whole school collaboratively and apply their scores to to them. And so, the 30 kids, but then because they see a whole host of kids, they see all kids in the school throughout the school year. And I think if I could just add to that, uh, member Marquez, the um, the law that, uh, guides us with evaluation allows us to do something different with first two years of the profession teachers. Uh, and time to reflect on what Mr. Myers was saying about focusing more on their craft, teaching, their skills. uh we find that site level data tends to be more forgiving uh because it's a much larger
087number of students in aggregate. Uh that's also a similar measure that's used for different groups that have more connection generally to the broader uh population of the school. There's also district level data. Uh so for some of our certified teachers that are district level teachers, teachers on assignment for instance or coaches, uh they would receive district level data. >> And then this is actually what um the current plan render in school 25 and then what they recommended would change for school 26 with some of those um special populations of teachers that may not have classroom level data. um such as special areas or resource alternate. I think we've kind of covered some of those. She kind of taken it to see some of the shifts. Okay. Now, we're going to invite Miss King to come
088forward and uh share some of her insights from the work in the evaluation committee as well as some of her personal observations. >> Hello. Do I have to? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Um so, Mercedes King, Linda, wear of many hats and responsibilities, things like that. So some of the concerns that came from the teachers in general is just in the hustle and bustle of the beginning of the year. Some of us, myself included, glimpsed a little bit over the part that said that we were going to be re-evaluating the data portion. So at first we were a little taken back. We're like, "Wait a minute." And we all look back, we're like, "Okay, yes, it did say that. We did agree to that." Um, just the hustle and bustle of the new year. Some
089other concerns came uh from special areas teachers uh departmentalized science and social studies teachers who don't directly teach reading, writing, math like explicitly teach it in their classrooms using site level data. That that was some of the concerns. But I mean we do all have learning targets. We have our success criteria. Kids are reading and interacting with materials all the time. Other concerns that came up that um Dr. Lauren talked about is impact on pay for performance and that's a separate committee and concern for compensation. Um, another concern that came up is we know that we have kids who have moved within our district. Also, at times we've because of personal reasons, we've had teachers who have had to step out midyear. And so, having uh achievement be a bigger portion. Some of us are
090concerned of well, how much do I control? Because teachers, we love control and we love our zone of control. And so thinking about well as an eighth grade teacher I don't know if their fifth, sixth, seventh grade teachers taught these taught them these things and now my achievement score is going to be affected which at first can seem very uh daunting or even disheartening but I looked at for achievement for my own self because it's based on district average. I have 92 eighth graders. Also, I do not do math well, so if I get some of the multiplication wrong, I'm sorry. But I have my 92 eighth graders, and for me to meet my goal for achievement, I would need 21% of my students passing or proficient on our end of year benchmark. And at
091first, I'm like, wait a minute. And I look at that, I'm like, oh, I need 22 students to pass that. I look at the new cut scores that have been realigned to better reflect AASA and I say, "Oh, I have 37 kids who are currently there." So, we just have to keep the rigor going. Looking on the opposite end of that spectrum, uh, a kindergarten classroom, because I did talk with a gateway teacher about this at the focus group, she said, "Oh, this number seems very large. For a kindergarten teacher to meet their new achievement goal, it would be 20% of their students need to be in the 50th percentile on the early reading. So if you have 25 kids in your kindergarten classroom because they tend to be smaller, five students passing. When you
092put it like that, it doesn't seem as daunting or as doesn't seem as far of a goal. and you think, okay, these five kids and then just the overall impact as they're starting to grow, as we push our own selves for achievement, we need to make sure that the little ones are achieving so that as they get older, they're not falling farther and farther behind. Um, the other number I want to share with you guys, uh, and I'm working with Tyson to get a more updated number because this number is a couple years old. Take a guess in your mind what the Kraton School District high school dropout rate is for Phoenix Union. So three years ago our number was 24%. And that's just average. So, of my 92 eighth graders, mathematically, 22 of them
093are probably not going to make it through high school. If they are ELD, add about another 5%. And this is based on a couple of years ago. Our special education students or uh ESS students, I don't know called them, another 6%. Mckin Vento students who are having housing concerns, another 4%. So when we look at these numbers and the achievement again it for some of us it's a little scary because it's also a reflection on us like we want to be the best that we can. and we put our heart and our souls into this job. But I think it's also a time for us to step back and be like, okay, where do we need to refine? Where do we need to refocus so that we can make sure our students are getting to
094and through high school so that they can get to and through college or vocational training. And we have students who can do it. We have some great alumni stories, but it does start with us in our classrooms and making sure that they can read well, they can write well, that when they go into high school, they're not in reading foundational classes, which does take up one of their extra electives in high school. And then if they don't pass that, then they're already a credit behind in high school and put could potentially push their graduation date. It's okay. That's all I got, folks. >> Questions or >> questions? >> I don't have any questions. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Uh thank you for coming to share your perspective um as a teacher because I had written down
095like how how do they feel about that 5050 um passing and growth um as a teacher myself like that is something I would think about um because our plan is a little bit different. Um, we h we we do it a little bit different, but I love how you broke down um the percents because the percents do seem big. Like when you say 20%, you're like, "Oh my gosh." But when you break it down, it is a pretty small small number and I think it's really achievable number. Um so I like that you did that. So, I hope that's something um that maybe you u principles can do with their own staff like look having them look at oh what is 20% of this or what is this percent of kids that I have to
096get to make this. So, I think that's a really good perspective um to do that because I I really think it's a lot easier to see, oh, it's not unattainable. It is very very close to what I can do. So, thank you for that. >> I think you're good. Thanks so much. >> Thank you. >> Help me. >> Oh, you're going back to the corner. >> Um, so just the last slide. These are the um we call these uh the bullets. We call them score compilers. This is actually what the teachers can see. So remember, as you remember like what numbers do I have to get to? um these score compilers um are going to be in the standard evaluation system document for teachers. It's actually a worksheet. So they can actually see if I
097get this percentage of kids, I get this many points and I add this many points to this and then I add my observation score to this and I add them all together this is my final score. And then if I have the total cut scores, this is my final rating. So it's basically a worksheet by position group. Uh we've also shared um our updated cut scores. So teachers all have this available to them. Um and as Sarah Beth shared earlier that I brought up to her, these are actually all the fast um cut scores. So kindergarten through second grade teachers can actually see, oh, how many words a minute does my kid need to read in order for you to make that fifth percentile? And we've got them all the way through. So we have
098all these available for for teachers and administrators to share. And as you can see, I don't go anywhere without my board goals and and people keep trying to steal them. I won't mention any names, but they're sitting around corner. >> And Tyson, without getting too much in the weeds, um there are some opportunities for teachers to monitor their progress through Educ. >> Uh yes. So, both of our assessment platforms, um, DNA, which is actually our assessment, uh, tool or vendor, um, I've actually built tiles by grade band. Um, and it's actually a spreadsheet, so teachers can click in, it actually shows all their kids, it shows their pre-EST, it shows the change, it shows them if they've jumped levels, it says if they passed or they failed. So, they can see it in DNA. Uh,
099they can also go into Edge Climber. Um, and we're rolling out Edge Climber this year. um they can actually see where their kids are as well through interactive data walls and they actually populate every time our kids take a test. So we got two different places for teachers to go to poke around to see how they're doing >> which also means they'll have access to that data faster because as soon as >> as soon as the child submits the very next day it's it's posted. Yeah, I like edgy climber. >> All right. So, uh I think in your um board update, you had a copy of the proposed draft of the standard evaluation system. Uh it also is included in the board docs for you to review. Um we're proposing that that uh document be
100adopted to this evening. Uh, but before we get to that, um, we would like to turn it over to Dr. Pombo and to Tyson to talk about the administrative evaluation. >> Can we just hold for a second, see if anybody has any comments or questions on this one? >> Does anybody >> I just wanted to make one comment. Um, I really >> actually two comments. I really like that you did the focus groups and feedback. Um, I think that was really helpful and that must been what I walked by when I was going to our Kraton community night. Um, so I really like like that. Um, and I just I really feel like the the changes reflect a more accurate representation of the categories that teachers should be in, which was something that I had
101a concern about. Um, and I talked to Mr. man about because I I I feel like as a teacher myself, I know staff members on my staff who who should be getting a developing um who should be getting, you know, highly effective. And so I think um I really do think that people need to work for it and I think that admin needs to make sure that they're in classrooms and making sure that they are giving that feedback because teachers like we want feedback. um we crave that feedback. Um because uh personally like I I always want to be better than the year I was before and this is my 25th year so I still want to be better than I was last year. Um so thank you for making these changes and I think
102like I think we'll see something more realistic that is aligned to all of um the SOFG work that we're doing. So, thank you for all your hard work cuz I know looking at this it looks like you put a lot of time in it. So, thank you. >> Also, if I could share, I I really appreciate Mercedes insight of breaking it down to well, how many kids does that mean for me? Because I think a lot of times we talk in statistics and they can be really scary. You need, you know, 20%. It's like 20%. But when you figure out that that's five kids, it's a different type of um goal that you're trying to achieve. >> Okay. >> Um so to uh to also go back to the SOFG, we have aligned our administrator
103evaluation um to the SOFG goals. And so if you look here, it has student achievement which is based off of our four goals which is worth 32 points. Um the same with the administrator has to have a certain percentage of student achievement. And so the highest is 33 but we have it for 32 just for mathematical reasons. Um since there's four goals, they're going to be worth um eight points each. And then the guardrails um is we put as the next section and that is 44 points and they're going to be worth 11 points each for each guardrail. This section is obviously worth more. This is where we have most of our inputs and things that we're uh working on all year. Compared to student achievement is our annual targets. Um and then the last
104part is our Arizona professional standards which is our standards for administrators and there's 10 standards that we look at um for that. So if you go to the next slide, this should look very familiar. We aligned it um to Superintendent Man's evaluation. And that's kind of small. So, I'm going to put this right here where I could see, but um so you can see at the very very top it has an example is our math um goal. And for us, for the district goal, we want to go from 79% to 64%. But each school is going to set their own um in target that they're trying to get to the end of the year based on their school data. So, for instance, for the first school, we want to decrease minimally proficient 15 percentage points.
105So that what each school will do or have been doing, they did worked on it in leadership seminar is look at where they're starting and they have to decrease 15 percentage points as well wherever they're starting. Um and so every school is starting in a different spot. So we just had them align what the district goals are and look at their school data and align the same amount of growth or for the first goal it's decrease in minimally proficient. And so if you look at the next section are the three interim measures and those measures are blank because they're going to look at their school data and then if you can see the first one says like minus 10 I think does it say >> I can't see from the minus 10. So they would
106have to look at their intram measure and decrease um minimally proficient on the DNA assessment by 10 points or 10 percentage points and um it's the same as superintendent man where you have two ways of getting the points. you get two out of three interim measures or you get the ending point or what the act the actual um the yearly annual target um and I think we discussed it in the study session but last year we didn't know we had to have at least three interim measures so like when Mr. commanded his um evaluation. He only had two intra measures. It was hard to get that 2/3. So this one, all of our um administrators have three intra measures for each goal and also for each guardrail. So they have to get two out of
107three or for the goals, they have to get the um annual target for their school. So that's just one example. Um what's the next slide? So this is the entire document. Um, do you want to see the entire document? >> Sure. >> Okay. >> So, click on there and I'm going to look at it on here because it's really >> Oh, he got you good. >> So, it looks to say my hearing impairment. I wasn't looking at you so I thought you said yes. >> Um, so basically it has the four goals and the four um guard rails and then are the administration administrative standards. All right. So, if there aren't any questions for Dr. Pombo, >> anybody have any questions? Can >> Yeah, just a clarifying one. So, is this um this particular evaluation
108who is this for the principles and APS or who? >> Yes, it's for It's for all administrators. So for the principles, the assistant principles, directors, district office. >> Okay. >> Um but the district office one, we're we're based off of all the schools. So anyone that serves all the schools, that's an administrator is off that one based off the district goals. And if you're a school leader, like a principal or assistant principal, it's just based off your own school data that's aligned to the goals. >> Thank you. And something I think important to note um and he may have said it this evening as well, but I know he mentioned it to me in a conversation we were having with us. You know, it's important to realize um Dr. Lauren shared like the approval tonight.
109what we're legally required to approve is the principal's evaluation. But much like how we um you know we kind of have this trickle down effect with the board self eval and the superintendent's evaluation you know the assistant principles share that same evaluation with the principles our directors um our coordinators. So a lot of our team members um are being aligned onto the same instrument. those individuals don't require the board approval for those instruments. Um, but we figured since we're bringing the principal evaluation and we're standardizing the instruments to create system alignment, then it actually gives the board the opportunity to evaluate all of those. The other instrument that is out there that isn't represented here because we've talked about teacher and we've talked about principal is we have a separate in instrument for our classified
110staff. So that would be, you know, custodians, cafeteria workers, um, front office staff, paras, >> ESP. Yeah. >> Anything else? >> All right. Then I move the governing board approve the revisions to the standard evaluation system for teachers and the administrator annual evaluation. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. All right, thank you. Uh we will move to 10 um business and plant uh presentation and approval of that annual financial report for the fiscal year 2425. >> Uh members of the board, uh superintendent man, thank you for having me tonight. I know Vanessa would have liked to be here uh she was unable to to do so. So thank you for letting me step in. We have two presentations tonight. One is the AFR report and the other is the use of bond
111and capital override funds. >> Thank you, Russell. All right, so here's the AFR report, also known as the annual financial report. The annual financial report contains the details from fiscal year 2425 uh expenditures. The AFR is required by law and we maintain uh financial transparency by posting our AFR on the district website. Uh after we upload that to the Arizona Department of Education or AD, uh that's due to be uploaded tomorrow after um approval tonight. And this slide, this first slide contains some of the uh requirements for AFR reporting. This next slide gets into M budget balance. Uh M is a budget controlled fund where the ending budget balance is used as budget balance carry forward in the following year. Meaning the amount that you don't spend from your budget can be included in your
112next fiscal year budget. Um there's also a fund balance for budget controlled funds that reflects the cash in the fund, but those two amounts uh typically do not align because of the way revenues come in um from property taxes. Um budget balance carried forward is an important factor in maintaining reserves to protect the district's fiscal health for the future. Uh and the fiscal stewardship committee recommended a 20% budget balance carry forward. So the uh budget balance carry forward is based on the prior year's expenditures. So uh in fiscal year 24 we had a little over close to 39 million in expenditures which would make a 20% budget balance carry forward 7.7 million. Uh we came in at about 19% to end fiscal year 25. So about $300,000 short. Um but it'll be a budget balance
113carried forward is an important part of our planning. Um the percentages can range from anywhere 5 to 20%. Um 20% is a very conservative amount and that's what the fiscal stewardship committee recommended that we uh keep on hand. Um so um so part of the reason why they recommended a conservative 20% is due to the the federal clim climate the um declining enrollment and immigr immigration impacts on enrollment. Um increased cost for products and services because of inflation and tariffs are also a factor. And so on this slide, the functions were inadvertently left off. Um, but I understand you guys went through a budget 101 session and learned a little bit about function and object codes. Um, so function and object codes are a way to really drill into your financials, your expenditures. Uh, and
114I'll kind of walk you through some of these function codes here. So classroom instruct instruction is function 1000. Uh, and I know you guys have been reading the AFR and might want a little cheat sheet on how to how to read it. So, we can we can get that to you um eventually. We didn't have enough time after I talked to Mr. Man today, but um so classroom instruction is function 1000, student support is function 2100, and instructional support is function 2200. So all of those functions sort of combined uh to represent the direct classroom dollars. Um let me see so compared to the prior year um those three functions remained relatively um stable. So we had 64.23% of our expenditures in 24 were from those three functions and 64.22% uh in fiscal year 25.
115So not much of a a change there. Uh function 26 and 2700 are physical plant and transportation. 20% of the budget was spent in these student supported areas. A a decrease from 21.43% the prior year. This was due to the utili utilization of less purchased services. Function 2500 is central services that includes HR, payroll, accounts payable, um purchasing and finance. So these functions support all district operations. Four 4.54% was a slight increase from the prior year of 4.28%. And administrative costs are accounted for in 2400. So that would be your principles, your also your office managers at the school sites um and assistant principles as well. 2300 is another is the general admin category and that represents your executive team and their staff. Admin costs for fiscal year 25 are at 10.87% but are typically
116a little bit less than 10%. uh one-time costs in fiscal year 25 affected these numbers and I'll address that on the uh final slide and just to get a little bit into the object codes um 6100 and 6200 are salaries and benefits and that typically represents about 80% of our budget. um it's typically a little higher than it was in fiscal year 25 because we utilized a lot of contract services um in the classroom. Um the implementation of SOFG has also driven an increase in administrative costs as we work hard to create alignment and cascading. Um some of the increased costs in the administration administrative functions were due to um getting experts on the team and creating additional support to achieve the su success criteria uh to increase our target goal measures. Some notable changes
117from prior year. Our ADM decreased by 108. That was a slower rate of decrease from the prior year. M spending increased 1.9 million. The majority were in um staff's uh staff wage increases. So 5% for teachers, 10% for classified staff and two and a half% for administrative staff. Federal spending decreased by a a little over 11 million. Uh and that's due to the sun setting of ESSER and a small decrease in title funding. Majority would be ESSER. Um and we expect to cons continue to see decreases in uh federal funding, federal spending going forward. Capital spending increased by 1.9 million. Uh that's a big increase, but it's due to planned phased spending. So some large capital projects require multi-year planning and uh fiscal year 25 was the year where we got some of those projects
118done. Um so we're watching uh the 2526 ADM closely. Um the initial numbers are coming in a little lower than we expected. Um so we're watching those for our December and our May revisions. Um the re the recommended 20% fund balance reserve though that we've been carrying will assist us in um dealing with th that decrease in ADM. Um so dur during higher years of or years of higher uncertainty the committee tends to lean towards that 20% rather than you know closer to the 5%. And we expect the fiscal stewardship committee to sort of maintain that 20% fund balance carry forward. So here's just a couple of notes on the administrative functions. Admin costs are expected to return closer closer to 10% in fiscal year 26. Um we had a couple of uh long tenur
119employees leave the district who had accumulated um paid leave balances and those were paid out when they left the district which was a a large one-time cost. Um some of the increases in 2400 school administration were due to raises both both at the admin level and the classified level. uh an additional 2.0 FTE were was uh implemented due to the M override pamphlet. So that would be the uh assistant principles that were added. Uh there was an additional 1.0 FTE added for the LCK administrator and also the LCK office manager. Uh and the cost for the new uh principal at Excellencia was also an increase last year in fiscal year 25. Uh it's important to note as well that you know compared to our surrounding districts our admin costs are actually quite lower. The only
120district that is lower than us is Phoenix L. They're at 9.5% um admin costs. But if you look at Madison or Balls, they're uh little little bit over 12%. though. Um although we had a slight increase in admin costs, they're still relatively low compared to our peers. >> Any questions on the AFR? >> No questions or comments. >> And Mr. Thank you so much for stepping in tonight. Mr. Ruth did an excellent job. Um, I believe if I remember correctly, this one requires a roll call vote from the board, right? Didn't they change statute to require a roll call vote on the AFR? Was that just the the audit? >> I'm not 100% on that. >> So, I mean, it wouldn't hurt to have a roll call vote. So, since I'm getting older and my
121memory is not as clear, we might want to cover. >> Might as well. It won't hurt anything to do it. I just wanted to say also, thank you for stepping in tonight. Um, I did have questions about the administrative cost, but then you answered at the at the end, so I appreciate it. >> Yep. No problem. >> All right, >> move on to the override or does the >> We're going to approve this one first and then you then you can move on. All right, I move the governing board approve the annual financial report for fiscal year 2425. >> Second. >> All right. So, roll call vote. Uh, Miss Gibson McClean. >> Hi. >> Um, oh my gosh, >> why did I forget names? >> Starts with the J. >> Thank you, Mr. Jones. It's
122getting late. And we were >> second board meeting. >> Go ahead. >> This is Nicole Marquez. I >> and myself. I All right, you can move on to the next one. Okay. All right. So, this is the use of bond and override funds. Our district additional assistance is also addressed in this presentation. So, a quick bond overview. In November 2024, we passed the voters passed an $85 million bond authorization. Um, the first bond sale was completed in May of 2025 for $30 million >> and we reasonably expect to spend 85% of that of that first bond sale proceed within three years. So, just a little small little quick breakdown of the $30 million that we plan to spend. 9.7 of that 30 million will go towards solar financing. 4.3 for safety and security projects, 2.5
123million for building and site improvements, 750,000 for school furniture, 2.9 million for technology, and 10 million for Builtmore pre-construction costs. Oh, I apologize for not moving the slide there. >> Um, so here's a breakdown of our 2024 2025 uh bond expenditures. Um, and I'll just highlight a couple of these numbers. I know it's kind of small and hard to read there. Um, but uh $6 million was spent at Kennedy to complete the build there. Uh an additional 800,000 was spent at Kennedy to furnish the school. Um life cycle projects like fencing, flooring, uh furniture, and HVAC equipment were um were installed using bond funds during 25. Special systems were also installed. Um, a part of that special system cost is our first solar lease payment. We financed the uh solar and made a our first
124payment on that. Electric bus chargers and a Papago fire alarm system. Some of the renovations included TCA guardrail replacements and the physical plant services swamp cooler and lighting upgrades. This is the uh historical bond expenditures by site. Um so you can see in fiscal year 11 through 14 we were using a $22 million bond authorization. Uh and then we also passed another 2014 $22 million bond authorization. And then in 2016 was the $85 million bond authorization. And those funds have carried forward through fiscal year 25. Uh and but they are sunsetting or um those funds are basically completely depleted and in 2024 we have our uh new $85 million bond authorization. >> Any questions on that slide? Sure. >> Just about the 2016 one, why was it allowed to extend that long? Because earlier they
125said it was only for >> Yeah. the the three-year uh mark. So >> that is just an expectation um that we spend that first $30 million authorization in three years, not the entire 85 from >> um from 24. Um, but yes, uh, I think I think our plan is to spend the money quicker than the 2016 authorization was spent. So, >> okay. >> Yeah. So, our plan planned bond projects in 2526. So, we have the energy efficiency project, the solar panels, uh safety and security, building and site improvements, school site furniture, an electric vehicle match. So, those are the electric buses. Um the majority of those buses are being paid for using federal a federal grant, but there's also a district match and that 1.7 million is the amount that the district will match. uh
126life cycle technology built more rebuild starting costs. So that's two million and life cycle fire alarm systems. And so you can see um Mr. Jones that this isn't the full 30 million here. This is just the first year of spending that initial authorization of 30 million. >> Okay. And just to comment on a couple of the uh details in the safety and security category, um we're installing cameras, uh an Epic system, which is essentially an intercom, alerts, uh voice amplification, um to communicate messages more clearly, a bell system, and uh improved uh door access. So, you know, we use keys around the district. We'll have the ability to use um cards to to get into the doors electronically. >> So, back to 2024 25 uh district additional assistance and capital override uses. The uh first
127column is the district additional assistance. So, this is essentially the capital budget that we we received based off of ADM. And then the um the next three columns are your capital override categories that were approved in the voter pamphlet. So the district additional assistance uh is approximately 2 million a year. Capital override is 2.9 million a year. The capital override was passed in November 2020. And so fiscal year 29 is the sunset year. Meaning if we don't pass another capital override by fiscal year 29, we will no longer u have access to that 2.9 million in additional budget. Um unlike M overrides which on the fifth year of an M override it decreases by a third and then the next year by another third. Overrides m uh stay consistent throughout the entire life of the
128override. So there won't be any decreases in five or six years but um it will be important to pass before then. Um and obviously it's pretty clear if you look at the numbers uh our budget was close to 5 million uh that the funding we receive really is not sufficient to to upkeep or build new schools. So that's typically why we try to pass our bonds. So the 26 2526 planned capital expenditures um plan is to spend a million dollars on instructional materials, 1.5 million on technology and software licenses. So what that really means is uh software. We use a ton of software both uh on the educational side, instructional side, and on the operational side as well. Classroom painting 170,000 parking lot crack seals 150,000 school renovations 830,000 and then curricula curriculum and supplemental
129supplemental purchases a million. >> So switching from capital and going to M. The M override was reauthorized uh in November of 2022. So like I mentioned before, the M override will reduce by one/3 in fiscal year 28 and 29 and then by another third in 2930 and then in fiscal year 3031 the override will end. So, the district is planning to go to voters to renew the override in November of 26 to uh preempt that decrease. And this allows the district an additional year um to go out for another override if the the initial one doesn't pass. Um, and the plan also is to hit an even year because historically Kraton has had success in the override elections on even years. And this is just a quick overview of the um impacts of the override
130funding. So override gives us access to full day kindergarten um art, music and PE opportun just various opportunities for students and school safety supports. So, assistant principles, nursing and custodial staff, supervisory aids, expansion of transportation routes through unsafe zones, and it maintains salaries to attract and retain uh highly qualified and effective teachers and staff and supplies uh materials for effective classroom instruction. Any questions on um override capital funding or bond? >> Anybody has any questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, we're moving on to legislative political report. Does anybody have anything they want to share? Nobody. >> Uh, sure. Well, since we just talked about it, uh, Phoenix Union is also doing a bond override and it's on your ballot if you've received your mailin ballot already or, uh,
131if you plan on voting in person by November 4th. >> Vote yes on that. >> Anything else? >> All right, we'll move on to future agenda items. Does anyone have a future agenda item? None. Okay. Awesome. Then we will move to 13A. Our motion to adjourn. Thank you. Thanks for coming tonight. >> Oh, sorry. >> Vote. Vote. >> Sorry. I make a motion to adjourn. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> Good night y'all. >> Good night. >> Thanks, Katie.