001check 1 two three all right at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one na andice I love hearing our students say the Pledge great job guys let the record reflect that all board members are present we will move on to item B1 Dr CTO thank you madam President we have an a great night ahead of us and we have a musical performance to start this evening and I'll have Dr asai introduce our guests we are so pleased to welcome the Elmer choir under the direction of Brian Jackson Mr Jackson is a first year teacher who is doing a phenomenal job with our music students at
002Al Mirage let's take it [Music] [Applause] [Music] away [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] [Music] la [Music] la [Applause] la [Music] la [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it was a pretty good great job guys thank you so much ask a question yes I have a question for Mr Jackson or maybe Miss Marinelli Mr Jackson I don't think he can hear you where's Miss Marinelli she out there too I know I'm waiting for it to get quiet and hopefully she out in the lobby I'll just say is he been in this position that was an open position right he okay I'm I'm sorry that Mr Jackson left um I hope he can still hear me I just want I know that he's a long-term sub I know that's a position that we've had vacant
003over there at El Mirage and when the music first came on I thought oh my goodness it that it's too loud it's going to drown out their little voices and my good they just like projected and they were excited and just really want to think um Mr Jackson that you know this whole he his his his performance Drew such a large community you know response and he's a long-term subs and he is I mean he's already got them engaged he's got the parents connected they all came out and I'm just so thankful and I hope he recognizes and and the administration recognizes um what a gem you guys have in him I mean thank goodness he came to to the school to help that program grow um with that vacancy but that's amazing that he
004was able to do that oh oh yeah well I'm very thankful he's part of our district so thank him for me when you see him that was wonderful very exciting yes it was very good these kids Tango better than I do or were they doing the chaa either way they dance better than I do and they sing it's great all right we will move on to item B2 Dr crto thank you madam president uh members of the board uh cabinet and Community tonight we have another celebration uh and we're going to celebrate all four of our high schools who've been named best high schools by US News and World Report uh for the 2324 school year so congratulations to our four high schools um before we have them come up yes Round of Applause um
005they are selected each year um by benchmarks that you news and World Report uses High graduation rates high scores on Assessments in math reading science college readiness uh there are a bunch of factors that US News uh and World Report uses uh there are approximately 18,000 public high schools in the United States and only 40% of them are recognized as the top high schools in the United States so and we have four of them so that is quite an honor uh great job and we would like to and individually invite each School up we have a plaque for you uh the schools will also be getting a huge Banner to hang on their buildings um big we couldn't bring them in here tonight I don't think they'll even fit in here but um they'll be
006delivered to the school and put up on the building for them uh to show the community that we have amazing high schools so great job guys uh great job to our high schools and uh we're proud of you so Bard I'll ask you to come up and then we'll take some pictures uh we'll go in order start off with diceo diart then Shadow then Valley and then Willow so um one at a Time come on up diert you're up congratulations once again to our high schools uh we are proud of you it's quite an accomplishment great job thank you for being here all right we will move on to C1 we have no audience with individuals all right then we will move on to item D1 Dr CTO do we have a student update uh
007yes we do okay Madam president U Mr muy will introduce our student yes madame president members of the board Dr crto um at this time I'd like to bring forward Valentina Hermes senior Valley Vista High School that's going to provide us our student update tonight is it on okay um good evening Madame President superintendent members of the board I hope you are doing well thank you for letting me speak today I'm going to talk about what we talked about at our last board um or last meeting with dslc so starting off with shadow um Shadow had third dance on October 8th um so it was before fall break they didn't sell tickets at the door um but they turned out at the game and the dance went really really well so they and their homecoming
008spirit week also went really well they did a barbecue for the athletes before game and then they have a trunk Retreat coming up and then going next to daart sorry I'm like a little sick going to daart they had their spirit week also went really well um but they're tell Tate did not go as well um and they're working on their student section more um their Dance turned out not very well because of um their admin they have to so basically if you don't have good grades or um like they do a grade check so if you don't if you're not passing your classes you can't go to the dance and um it's apparently it's always been a thing but they didn't have a good turnout I think they had over like 300 kids um
009and so there the kids at student councils were complaining about it a little bit but overall they did like their dance as student council members but they didn't have a lot of people there and then they also have a trunk or trick coming up and then for Willow um they had uh 98.3 coming um during to coming to their lunches um I think it was this week they came and they really liked it um and then they chalked the school for suicide prevention month they left like really nice messages on every desk for anti-bullying month and it's it came out with like a good positive um attitude for the students and then they didn't have a powderpuff game um because of fighting so they couldn't have that one which is sad and then Valley they
010had uh their homecoming week last week um it went really really well and then um for their Powderpuff game uh you could either enter in for $2 or bring can food drive and the cans go to Valley food bank so it's good for the community and then the seniors won that one it was a really great game in my opinion um and then their dance was also really really well um I not because I it but because um uh because um well honestly every kid has been coming up to me and saying that was the best dance we planned so again not because we plan I planned it but it was really well and then we're also having our canned food coming up soon and we are really busy on working with state so we're
011trying to get everything else done in January cuz we also have January in state and we have hoop coming so we've been kind of just like on a hustle like doing that so that's kind of all the updates for now that's it thank you do I go s okay thank you next we will move on to D to Dr curto thank you madam president members of the board just three quick updates for you tonight um as as you know the boundary committee uh focused on the boundary for Sante prep uh they have met twice now in the last few weeks so uh it's been a great um great meeting Dr s Dr polling have been heading that up and they've done a great job they look forward to bringing you a recommendation we know we
012have a public hearing coming up in November as well as a final vote in December so uh that that uh committee is going very well um growing Minds uh great news from growing mins preschool uh they are rated every year by quality first um Quality first star rating uh we have been a three star in the past we are proud to announce that they are now a fourstar rating uh which means they exceed quality standards and they were about that far from a five-star so they are uh really going for a five five-star rating and they'll sure they'll get that next year but great job to Growing Minds uh it's a great accomplishment to have that fourstar rating and last but not least uh we are in huge anticipation I'm probably going to stay up
013all night like March Madness and everything but the school district labels and the school and the district labels are coming out tomorrow knock on wood that's what being told so we are looking forward to sharing that with our community um and sharing it with the board so uh we will doing that very soon and that's all I have tonight thank you Dr Coto we will move on to D3 governing board update me go first okay okay it's definitely been fall break um I attended the ceremony where uh Luke Elementary was named a purple star school candidate and you know this is a really big deal because it's the first school in Arizona to get this designation and it just shows how much the district and the school supports and is committed to supporting our military
014and coming from a military family um I think this is a great program and too bad it wasn't around years ago many years ago um congratulations again to all our high schools for this ranking that's awesome the bar is set pretty high and uh go Diamond bags I also attended the purple star candidate ceremony at Luke um a wonderful event and I'm excited that the district's involved um I also attended a school visit at Rancho Gabriella thank you for the warm welcoming and the great dialogue um with the students teachers and staff and then I also attended the CTE Expo that was my first time ever attending and I took my son and it was a great experience so thank you for the district for putting that on I also attended the purple star candidate
015ceremony um and it was just amazing to see how much our our district supports our military families um I attended the bond and override committee meeting the first one this week and I just want to thank all of our volunteers for stepping up for this very important role um in assessing the district needs thank you that's it I also attended the purple star candidate celebration at Luke Elementary and I will Echo what the other ladies have said it was so nice to see how much we support our military families because our our servicemen and women just do an outstanding job you know they go through things that we we don't even realize so I just appreciate how much we're supporting our military families um and I also attended the homecoming football game for daart high
016school and we won yay and I just have to tell you it was such a positive experience it was so familyfriendly um I I told Miss rush and Dr Coto I said we had students sitting in front of us we had parents sitting beside us and behind us and everybody was just so positive I didn't have any bad attitudes I didn't hear a bunch of choice words every other thing even sitting with students you know they they were so just happy the parents were there supporting their students and everybody was it's like every time they made a touchdown it was like yeah you know poor Donald you know my husband was holding him and then everybody would yell and my husband would yell and get excited and he' go whoa but but it was just
017it was so great to see our community engaged and how just how much they enjoyed seeing our students play so thank you that was a wonderful experience and we won just saying all right next we'll move on to item E1 I will motion to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapin seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries we will move on to G1 Dr croo thank you madam president members of the board uh earlier in my update I mentioned the boundary committee but we've also had a bond override committee which uh this governing board asked to be put together and sanctioned to look at our needs and we have an update for you tonight and Mr mcy will introduce this item yes Madam president members of the board Dr Coto um as
018requested the governing board um had requested a bond override committee to be formed to assess the district needs this past Tuesday we held our first meeting with over 30 representatives of parents and community members from all of our schools after each meeting this committee will be updating the board um the committee did end their their last uh meeting with four people that were selected by the members to speak on behalf of the committee and provide those updates after each of our meetings those members are and we have four of them one of them could not be here tonight Megan Perez the other four members are Johnny Melton Patrick Campbell and Shannon Frasier and at this time I'm going to invite them forward to provide that update good evening Madame President members of the board Dr
019CAU uh my name is Patrick Campbell I'm one of four sorry I'm trying to get this thing tall enough for me here stay okay uh so anyways uh meeting was called to order uh we met Tuesday for the first time here and um my understanding is we're going to meet here we have several subsequent meetings scheduled uh seven in total I do believe plus tours of facilities and things like that um so the the uh they went over the the members that were elected the chair the co- chairpersons and or spokespersons uh for our group uh the facts of the meeting were it was called to order on time uh there was some good introductions about exactly what it was what our Focus was where we should be heading what we should be looking for
020things like that um there are 31 committee members in total um that were present um a general overview was given as far as the function the goals what we're trying to do as a subcommittee uh requested by this board um they wasted no time getting into the attorneys um covered uh Arizona open meeting laws um and you'll be happy to know they covered that in depth so there should be no questions about what's going on definite dos definite don'ts um things like that the District budget overview was given to us and it was what I would refer to as a 30,000 foot overview just a quick little synopsis where we stand uh I was impressed compared to other school districts where we stand on some of those things and it was it was good to
021know um there was uh a lot of positive feedback from the group as far as the um the proactiveness of this board to request a subcommittee so just know that the feedback so far has been has been very good um we did get into what is a bond what is an overview or what is a an override and things like that there was definitely some good interaction and questions that happened from the committee um and then as we wrapped up the evening we talked about future uh meetings and stuff what we'll be doing and then obviously the four persons which um which he mentioned were were um elected and then the meeting was um adjourned at that time so questions from the board if any anything else y'all want to add good um again just
022thank you so much for for stepping up to volunteer and even um you know being able to chair this committee or co-chair of this committee um I just wanted to ask what your you know or maybe I'm I'm just going to make a statement because I was I was present for it but um this is more to Dr Coto but again I just want to make sure that you understand how much I appreciate the transparency um even having this committee present their findings and information to the board um I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the transparency from from you and from the district on this um and so the ju and just the question so will you be providing updates then after Each Bond override committee meeting yes ma'am so the the the
023expectation to us and I love it um after every meeting obviously we're going to go into a lot more depth starting next meeting right um we do have two scheduled in November and then we'll be meeting all the way through the middle of March um every time we've get information back from that that information in more in depth will be given to the board um it's that way you know every step of the way where we're at how things are progressing and if there's anything else that we'd like to like to see as far as you know taking a left or right heading in the right direction so yes ma'am okay thank you can you share have there been any like just preliminary discussions at all just to get an idea of any feedback or
024concerns from the community regarding bonds and overrides one way or the other so we oh yeah please uh keep in mind as of right now the the committee just formed so we have not been presented any kind of at this moment we don't have we have not presented uh what the needs of the schools are right this is just a high Lev overview uh as for I think uh you asked about Community concerns um I I think that might be a little premature right now but um is are as we we just formed so as of right now no okay so I mean community meeting just the the group like the the your committee yeah no the the the it's a very very good cross-section of the community it's it was very it picked very
025well people represented through for every school has been there and they're all asking very good questions and they're all very tuned in and they're very interested in the information so did that answer your question any any further questions I will just echo my gratitude for our community and their engagement in participating in this committee I know it's a big time commitment and I know it's a very heavy load to carry as a committee making this recommendation but I do appreciate your time I appreciate your effort and I do appreciate the transparency so thank you you're welcome we're we we're equally as excited and I Echo the same thing as miss denmore the the openness and the transparency um and the willingness to open it up and say let's let's take a look at what really
026matters because this matters what we're doing right now so the work is is going to be long but it's worth every minute thank you thank you ma' thank you all right next we will move on to G2 Dr CTO thank you madam president members of the board um as requested from uh a board member we are here tonight uh to present you state assessment proficiency data our schools uh compared to the state and we have our director of research and accountability Miss Amy Harin is going to do our presentation and I'm gonna pull this way down because I'm so short no you're good I'm used to it all right I always look this way so I apologize because that is this is not my I'm right-handed all right so our state overview just as a
027reminder um of who takes which tests because we use a variety of um State assessments students in grades third through e8th grade take the aaay um the engl the ELA component has a reading and writing portion of the test and then they take math our ninth graders take the ACT Aspire which has an English reading math science and writing section the Juniors take the ACT which also has an English reading math and science um and writing section for the juniors the English reading and writing all get combined into an Ela score which we looked at um when we talked about those State proficiency pieces and then students in grades 58 and 11 take the AI which is the state science test we'll start with the third um through eighth grade data and um part of
028the request had been to see District or I'm sorry State averages so because of the different configurations we have for schools you'll see that the state average is different because it's based on what the configuration of that school um that school groups are and what grade levels test so when you look at our k4s which third and fourth grade students test um you have the four um kforce Countryside El Mirage Rancho and Western Peaks um and then you have our district average and our state average you can see that two of the schools were um above both district and state and um two were just below the state average for our middle schools which is grades 5 through eight and all grade levels on that campus test um the state average was 39 our district
029average um was well above that at 46 um with ranges from 18 um through 47% for our K8 the state average is 40% and the district average was 46 and those um scores range from um 20% up to 73% um when you look at those and the differences in those um State into averages um typically our lower grades score um in a higher proficiency than our upper grades thus why um you may see the ranges are a little bit lower in those um just straight middle schools because the third and fourth grade scores tend to help um when you do the K8 model when we look at math you can see that um the state average was 41 our district average was 47 and a half and those um range from 35 to um 61
030and a half for our middle schools it is 30.75 for the state average and our district average was 37 and a half so um a good increase over the state average and those range from um 15 to 44% at the Kate 8 um the state average was 34 and our district average well above that at um 40.8 and again this um range from 18% up to almost 75% for a Sai um for the fifth and eighth grades um you will notice that the k4s are not on there because they don't have anybody who test that so these are representing our um middle schools in our K K8 schools um the state average was um 31 in our school school um District average was 39 we had a um strong increase as a district in our
031scores in science last year both in the fifth and eth grade level for our high schools um our ninth graders take the Aspire um and the scores what you see there represent um the C two categories that the Aspire calls ready and exceeding Readiness um they Define Readiness as students that are on target to demonstrate College read for the act by 11th grade um and so when you look at these you're going to notice the fantastic job that our high schools do when you look at where they are in Readiness by freshman year and what our state proficiency looks like by junior year so um when you look at um Math and Science are lower than our English and um reading and we are um at or above the state in most areas English being
032our highest area when you get to the ACT um we're going to look at it in two ways one is all the subject area scores in the composits and then the following slide will have the actual proficiency that we talked about with the state um labeling system so um we are above the state average in all subject areas including the composite which is that average of all of those together and all of our high schools um as a district our all of our subject areas went up over the last year when you look at our state proficiency this is the category that when the high schools did their CIP presentations to you we didn't have that state average yet that has now been released so that's been included for you um you can see that
033we are well above the state average in English proficiency and also above the state average in math proficiency um that Ela is that combination of their reading um English and writing scores and a student has to have a score in all three areas to get an English proficiency score and then the last one is um the high the high school a side data um and you can see we are right at the um State um average for that one and I can say um you'll notice that they are right there we have not um focused on the a side as much as we have this the ACT science of course two different tests the Juniors take both of them um on back-to-back days we have um put a focus on the a side test this
034year um and focusing on items that are um in line with that so that students are better prepared and we can show an increase in scores for that area this year and with that I will stand for questions thank you so much I appreciate this presentation you know when we're looking at CIP and data and it comes up as you know 39% for proficiency if you're just looking at it and you don't know anything and you're going 30 number wow this is this is crazy like only 30 a%c which we always aim for higher we always aim to be a little bit better next year than we were this year we always aim to grow so I asked for this item so that we could see where we were in comparison to the state average
035and it's very encouraging to know that in a in several areas we're above the state average um it's very encouraging looking at our high school data and seeing that almost all of them are at the state average or higher and it's very encouraging and I do thank you for that and I'm I'm guessing we have practices in place to for those percentages that are a little bit below yes so um the elementaries finished their first Benchmark today and um the high schools use a um released act system so that we have kids practicing um doing that for our high schools one of the biggest challenges is that they go from having untimed tests to the AC and the Aspire are timed test and so that is not um they have to start with that practice
036of how do I efficiently um and effectively answer questions versus taking my time which is a practice we teach for so long and now all of a sudden I have to answer qu questions very quickly thank you so I thank you for the presentation excuse me and just as I said last time not shooting the messenger at all you're very thorough and I always appreciate how you present d um so this might be more towards Dr Coto cabinet whomever wants to jump in I found like over the years I mean we're thankful that we most times are at or above State average but and which I'm thankful for but it's hard for me to get excited about a state average you know when we're looking at State averages of being 39% 37 or 30.75 per
037to then say well we're above State average well we should be I mean that's awful um so I know as Miss jaffin had mentioned I'm sure because there there's a couple middle schools I'm very concerned about um but in general you know what's it going to take for our district to be well exceeding this I mean this 30.75 that we we should never e we should not we should be well we should be surpassing that and so and we never seem to we always seem to be ing right around or maybe a little above but we've never been like even 70% and 70 is average in my opinion so what is it that we need to do to make sure that we're providing our our teachers with the tools our students with the instruction that
038they need to be able to well surpass a 30.75 u Madam president member Pritchard I think you're seeing some early uh beginnings of systems were're putting in place to handle that uh you've seen the summer workshop where we work with our curriculum alignment uh making sure that our teachers understand what the standards are uh looking at the materials they're teaching to their standards uh making sure they're aligned and making those uh changes uh that was a big process we started last summer uh we will continue it again this summer uh so a lot of those processes help and help our teachers become Familiar of the expectations of what students need to learn um I also think through uh the professional learning communities and the collaboration we have going on uh we are in early stages
039of relaunching that but again those are conversations and talks about student data with the outcome of student learning and the expectation of student learning so as we get deeper into those processes and we embed those in our culture um I think those two processes along with the amazing job that our um ed services does with our carec I mean their our curriculum is very well formed and and it's very well in place and so all those processes to keep it going and inspect it and make an awareness about it um will draw these scores up it just takes some time to do that um and it takes uh the experts that we have to uh make sure we are following our processes people understand that we have a Common Language uh towards getting to where
040we're going member prer if I may also interject um under Dr Coto we've been um encouraged to really look at our our results more I think we we've been here for a long time where it was nice to get by um you know Dr crto is all about accountability and that every student can succeed um ed services has made some changes under that um Miss Harin and Miss Noble oversee our Focus Schools project where we've identified schools that aren't where we need them to be because when you have schools that are lagging even though you have a freedom at the top that's well well above the state average I think they were number eight in the state last year which is where we want to be you know we know we have schools that need
041more intense support So this year we've gone in and done some really intense support um they've coached some principles going in and helping with systems because lots of it's about systems we've also revamped our TLS program uh which supports our zero to threeyear teachers we know lots of times our zero to threeyear teachers uh they'll leave and every time we get new teachers we have to do new training it impacts test scores so being able to allowed to pull the TLs one time a week to do training to do observational protocols to really look at data so they can support teachers in doing that I think we're going to see a yield from we have also we have a new math program math is one of my passions uh coming as a former principal from
042a stem School uh Although our results were above you're right they were four to six% above depending that's not where we want to be uh so we've really pressed our new math curriculum you'll see some title things being presented at our next board meeting that Focus even more on math so we can raise our math achievement and I have something else written down but I really can't read my handwriting so that'll you're anticipating my question that um that's it but I think it's a new culture of accountabil but accountability with support which is a good place to be it's not just hey I want you to do this in District you can support it's hey you're going to go out there and you're going to make sure this gets done and your job is to
043support schools not just feeling good but also making sure that the numbers come in and that students are achieving right and I hear you and maybe I'm not expressing it correctly and maybe you can help me with this like but not to age myself but so I was first elected in in 2006 D's always been around the same general area like I know it was a long time ago thank you Dr um it they we've never way surpassed the state average so when it's like well it takes time and we're doing all these things like it's been a long time that was a long I mean and we've so we've been working at this for a while and we've never seemed to really break away from a little bit above the state average and the
044state average is in the toilet as far as I'm concerned it's not where it needs to be so there's that um I and I know like and I I believe in Dr croto we've had we've had some good superintendent some phenomenal superintends in the past so I and I know they've been most of them have been about accountability um so that's there I've been in classrooms I've looked at curriculum I know we work hard so it's not like I feel like we have subpar curriculum or we um aren't in classrooms enough I I hear what you're saying and I know that we're doing those things so what's missing though because you can't say well it takes time because again 2006 and you can't it's not like well we need to do better and we need
045to be different things we can always do better specifically a couple of them that I know you know I'm following there's some things that some definitely need to be working on but we've for the most part like our teachers our administrators I go into these buildings and I read reports you guys send out and we're doing great things yet we're 37.5 so that so I'm honestly asking what is missing is it just that Arizona is in general as a state has work to do and we're you know kind of the byproduct of that I don't know but I mean there has to be something more I don't want to be like well it's going to take time because I've put the time in and well we're going to get these great programs because we've got
046great programs we've got amazing teachers and administrators what's missing I I think for a long time we left some of our staff behind um you know and we referenced this with a summer workshops that Dr Coto brought in is this is the first year this slat past year where we had everyone involved in curriculum writing I think over 85% of our teachers attended before that we took the best of the best we took the top 10% and the the rich got richer and the poor got poor you know when we talk about mastering a standard there's a lot within each standard and I'm not sure before if we really included everyone in unwrapping the standard and really understanding it I've been I've been here not as long as you have probably because I'm you know
047but uh but over time with that I think that our plc's haven't really not all schools have owned it we've had some schools that did that they were really our kids and teams addressed the children as a whole and we've had other ones where we didn't necessarily promote the PLC structure we didn't hold principes accountable for we didn't hold teachers accountable for it so it's kind of individualized practic and it creates an educational lottery and I don't think that's an option anymore and I think the ability to hold things strong and not make them Invitational but make them mandatory we're going to see we are going to see a great change this year we're optimistic where our benchmarks we just took Benchmark one for elementary you know the our we are seeing gains in it
048so far I believe at the schools I've talked to and practice over time is going to consistently go up so in the interest of time I won't keep talking about it I'm I'm still not hearing it though like I'd really like maybe Dr Coto can you just maybe you and I can talk at some point just there's there's that wouldn't account for we're at 37.5% after all of this time I feel like there's something still missing to why we're not and again maybe it's a state level thing and I just want to better understand that because again I I just feel like and we can certainly talk um but when you go back to 2006 too remember you're not comparing Apples to Apples it's not been the same testing system or the same accountability system
049uh in since 2006 but we've always had that though I mean we've always had those same issues we're talking about now we still had varying like the the State Testing changing over time we had aims back then we had all these other things so there there was always those same reasons and variables that we are facing in the moment but we are never able to break through that next level whether it's 2006 or now is what I'm saying may I also offer that our state test seems to change every year that's what I'm saying they always and that's not uh that's not a district thing I think that's a state department of Ed type of thing it's like as a teacher when you finally get something figured out and you and not only do you
050have to because there there's a disconnect between some of our tests and how we teach we teach for knowledge we teach so students internalize it we teach so they understand sometimes a test will ask a question that's not even like the process isn't part of the state standard so sometimes a test will ask a question that goes like two or three levels deeper than what your state standard goes through if if that's an accurate description or is that just not close I think sometimes we teach differently than we've tested and it takes time to figure out how they're asking the questions so one of the huge things we've discovered is when Dr and Sai and I taught when you taught summary you taught kids to write a summary they took key details from it and
051there wasn't a specific thing now when the kids are asked they're asked which sentence is the best part of the summary which one is the most important detail so when we teach it now we have to teach it with we're going to go through and the way you ask the questions to kids are different because you have to ask the questions and the way in which they're going to see it on the test so that they're able to access that material so I think there is some um legitimacy to what um Miss chaan is saying and the fact that it does take time for staff to get familiar with how the test is set up and the standard the way it asks questions um you are correct you know I've been here even longer than
052um you have been here so we have um you know we definitely have room to grow and um I honestly think if if we all had the answer to your question because I think what you're really asking for is what's the fix and I think we would love to know what the magical fixes to get everybody into the 70s and 80s because I agree I I would love to have we spend a lot of time and effort um in what we do and I certainly don't think teachers come to work every day to say I I want to go for 30% I you know it is just as stressful for the students in sorry students and teachers in just him now and he's in the 70s so I I know that that sounds like a
053bragging moment but I just want to make sure that everybody understands I'm the same parent same mom went from one dice art school to another all of a sudden my son's scores shifted tremendously and he's thriving and I'm I it frustrates me to the a little bit because I I know that that speaks to the leadership there and the teachers and and all of the wonderful support staff that that are there for for my child and all of the other students there but why why can't we mirror just some of that why I mean I know we can't clone you know some of our leaders but we can take some of those those talents we can maybe make a mentorship program I and I know that Dr Cotto is working on you know a lot
054of this through the plc's and um and I know that we're going to get there but I'm I'm glad to hear that you didn't use that excuse tonight but I have heard it in the past every year I got the same well okay I just wanted to make that point but I appreciate your presentation thankk you I have a question regarding the a science for 11th grade okay what are the challenges of this why I don't understand the the averages I mean the state average is 22% we're at 21 what what are the challenges is it the curriculum is it how it's being taught I'm very concerned about about this correct and um sorry now I feel like it's really loud um there are a couple factors one of them as I said is that
055the the Juniors take two science tests and they're different and because of the fact the factors of what the weight of the ACT has been teachers have at times focused on act style content questions those types of things because it's hard to teach to two tests at the same time um and so this year we are intentionally focusing on items related to the AI and doing AI um readings and pieces that go along with that um so that we can focus on increasing those scores because 100% um that is very difficult um and that is not you can see the kids were performing much better at the fifth and eighth grade so they had that solid knowledge at some point and then um their um effort on this test I don't think accurately represents the
056science education they're getting in the high schools and that's why we're we're intentionally switching our Focus um as we're preparing students for the testing Parts this year um when we did the ACT um Benchmark at the start of the year with the high school students they also took an a Sian and um our science specialist then met with all of the um schools and did a half-day training with the junior science teachers on um lessons around those standards that students didn't perform well in um and being able to then really Target the standards where students the a side test um for the juniors is a three-year test it covers all their content um taught in n9th 10th and 11th grade so by the time I get to 11th grade somebody's going to have to go
057back and do some review and some standards from my ninth or 10th grade year and so when they do that um test at the beginning of the year it tells them what standards they really need to go back and focus on and if I teach Junior physics I may not have expertise in biology so I'm going to have to work with other teachers in my department to make sure if a student in my classes didn't Master some bio standards that I'm going back and helping Gap fill those areas because I'm a physics person not a bio person so um we're starting to do some pieces like that so she she brought back brought in content area experts who could then design lessons to help do those pieces for teachers who aren't in that content um
058that's not their area of specialty so if we're going to focus on this test what's going to happen to the other test that they have to take is so in in my this is me speaking that like so I am hoping that because of the way the ACT is set up it is a lot of reading and um application of what you read we are hoping by focusing on the content sections of AI and being able to do those pieces that that will translate that regardless of what I read on the ACT test I can apply that information because I've practiced it in content in my science class so that the ACT is more of an application based piece and the AI is more of a content content based thank you m do we have
059any other questions all right thank you yeah next we will move on to item G3 Dr crto thank you madam president members of the board tonight we have two more school CP reports and Dr asai will introduce our guest speakers Madame President members of the board it is my pleasure to rep to introduce Mr Rick Haney The Proud interim principal of El Mirage thank you Dr asai uh so thank you again for allowing our students to come out and perform for you so you saw the turnout was tremendous and last night we had a costume ball and uh it was a fire marshall wouldn't have liked it but the gym was packed it was good to turnout as well uh Madame President governing board thank you for having me here tonight to talk about our
060C CIP uh plan so this is our aasa data over the past 3 years we are slightly above State average when it comes to math and we did take a a dip in ela uh by 0 44% in a couple slides I will show you our plan to address that and what we need to do to get those scores closer to 70% which like you say is the goal right so this this is our Zella testing data and this is for our El population and we do have a large population of El students it's close to 100 students on our campus and this is the data over again the past three years 21 20 to 21 21 to 22 and 22 to 23 um recognizing that we have a need for more support for our
061eel students we have been working closely with Dr Longoria and the federal projects department for 23 and 24 we have a dedicated eel interventionist this year year that works very hard with our students each day in a pullout system she also coaches teachers on best strategies for our El Learners that is a subgroup that we get points on uh with our state report card grade and we didn't do very well um P last year on that so we re again recognize the needs so we'd have to support the teachers so that these Learners can get where we need them to go okay our goals so we do you know smart goal realistic goals so we have our scores um so the goals that we have for are two tested grades and so third grade they
062uh they take a test and the proficiency is measured fourth graders proficiency plus growth is measured so a realistic goal is to improve in ela and math by 5% for both grade levels for p excuse me for proficiency and highly proficient students and also decrease minimally proficient students by 5% for our K2 students our measure is going to be our Dibbles data and so what we want to do is we have a beginning year Dibbles report and an end of year report so again we want to be realistic so we want our students to grow by 5% in each grade level and also decrease the minimally proficient by 5% as well some of the things we're doing to uh excuse me address goal one is the alignment so the curriculum writers in the summer as
063was talked to summer workshop they uh really hit it hard when it come to writing the Scopes and sequences for our grades and it's really tight so when we do our walks we make first thing we do is look at the scope and sequence where are we supposed to be today what lesson are we on what standards are we supposed to be teaching in each grade level so we look at that before we go on our walks to see if our teachers are actually staying on schedule and staying within the scope and sequence and making sure that the students are exposed to the full curriculum that they should be for and they're on track for that uh we have ongoing PD every Monday uh recently we had a cont content um curriculum specialist Cammy Bernard
064came in and she did lesson planning with our teams in a prep connect she met with our first grade team which is a relatively new team and then our third grade team moved from first grade to third which is a bit of a jump excellent teachers highly effective teachers but the curriculum is new to them so she met with them and did a special training with them um Adriel greaver is meeting with our third grade teachers as well on going to uh talk about online assessment because online assessment is way different than what a first grader would take and again our third grade teachers used to be the first grade teachers and they're an excellent team I invite you to come out and take a look for yourself okay second is our goal is excuse
065me go back okay second goal is going we're going to engage um our families to be more involved they were out tonight and they were at the dance last night but we want them to be engaged in the academics as well so we encourage them to use the parent portal to check the grades we send assess assments home so parents can look at the assessment with the parent with the student and they can do test corrections and then that comes back in the take-home folder um we have student-led conferences with uh the parents present of course uh with the teacher uh the parent excuse me the student is facilitating the conversation looking at the portfolio and the data that's in the folder and the students can talk to the data they have they set goals
066each week on what they're what they what they would like to uh be at with reading and math primarily and those are signed those go home in the take- home folder as well and uh parents sign off on that they got the communication so goal three is a safety goal we're trying to reduce referrals by 10% and we had 393 referrals last year and we want to reduce that number and we're on the right track there and I'll show you what that looks like in just a moment okay going back to goal one uh we're checking the scope and sequence we do have tiered support for students we we have all three tiers on our campus we have tier one which is the uh instruction to the Core Curriculum then we have tier two which
067is kid hasn't mastered a goal so we're going to make sure that they know that so we do a ret in for what each kid needs we call it when time what I need uh that's going to be for each kid and then we have tier three that's going to be for our special education students our El students and students that just need extra support in reading and math okay again going back to goal two we have the student Le conferences of course the teacher is there and again they go through the portfolio and they look at their data and what they can do to improve upon it uh we always encourage our parents once again to look into the portal because they can check that every single day to see what kids are missing
068and what they can do to support the curriculum we have newsletters that go out each week and in the newsletter it talks about the standards that are being taught and how they're going to be taught and if there's a project and what the project should look like and what the assessments going to be at the end of the week uh that's what we do to communicate to parents and then we of course use class do and there's email blasts that we use as well so for goal three we have Tiger Pride and so what that is it's really clear expectations and positive reinforcements to students and that really works for up to 90% of our students students that it's not really effective with we have tier 2 Behavior plans for each individual kid and that'll
069address a lot of other kids that are struggling with behaviors and then we have RTI for students that might struggle even a little bit more with behaviors and they are evaluated for special needs such as uh for an IEP or something like that and our data for referrals has gone down so first quarter last year we had a total of let me see here okay we had 52 last year for the first quarter and we only have 26 referrals this first quarter so we cut that in half and so the behavior on campus is really um I think it's amazing and our teachers do a really good job of classroom management so we're really working hard with again addressing plcs to tighten that up making sure instructions where it needs to be so that we
070can get the students at El marage performing at a higher Lev level academically and that is it that's my presentation questions thank you I appreciate you mentioning the classroom management when discussing the decrease in referrals because there's times where principles is say oh yeah we decreased our referrals but then they're really not dealing with behaviors so the fact that you're communicating that all of your teachers have very good classroom management and they're actually managing behaviors and not just ignoring it thank you I appreciate that absolutely I thank you for your presentation and I just want to thank you also just for your transparency with your data and um the way you've outlined it and then how your goals are very specific to what you're going to do to improve the data especially the um increasing
071the highly proficient proficient by 5% and then decreasing Mally proficient by five so again just really liking the way that you're looking at your data and you're coming up with very um focused interventions to um address them so I appreciate that thank you very much thank you I was just GNA thank you so much for the presentation but thank you guys um I I really app to go off of what Miss Chaffin said though I want to Echo what she said as far as the uh referrals because so often I I know from other districts I hear that they want to reduce the referrals but what they're doing is they're not managing their classrooms or they're ignoring um or just trying to get along to get along um right to kind of skew that data
072so I I appreciate you taking it seriously uh for what it is and truly to help these students absolutely so classroom management you know if if the class is chaotic the learning is not going to take place so we know that so it really starts with the classroom management and so we focus on that especially with our new teachers we do a lot of training with them Miss Crow the AP at Omar she just did a a PD on classroom management and expectations and behavior as we came back from fall break we know that we have to do that because they forgot uh so we have to remind them of expectations and again most kids will meet expectation if it's really clear to them um and that's research based stuff so right yeah just knowing
073that that they're going to be in the classroom you know those you're You' you're cutting it by 50% you know in that first quarter they're in the classroom that much more so that that's amazing thank you yes ma'am to say too obviously again just back to Performance and just the large group of parents that came that really speaks to the culture that you're building there so kudos for that as well well thank you and that we're I I hang our hat on the growth you know from third grade to fourth grade and I feel like we have very highly effective teachers in third and fourth grade which which has a tremendous impact on student achievements so uh we got our Benchmark one data today and we're going to look through that of course and then
074by Benchmark 2 uh we're definitely going to show some growth good job all right thank you guys and our next school up is Riverview Elementary the principal is Miss Norma Chavez this is Miss Chavez first year in our district and we are so proud of her leadership and she is here to present to you on Riverview School good evening Madam president members of the governing board Dr Coto and cabinet I'm excited to be here this evening to share with you the wonderful things that we're doing at Riverview to share our school goals and how our work directly aligns with the district and the governing board goals okay technical difficulties there we go I would like to begin this evening with our three-year data trends for ELA Math and Science as you can see we have
075seen a decline in Proficiency in ela and math with scores that have been consistently been below the state average and this causes great concern and a strong sense of urgency on our campus and our district we have been excited about the new curriculum adoption with the aligned and more focused implementation we aim to achieve higher levels of proficiency we ac expect to see gains this year with the new curriculum and the intentional roll out of plc's a celebration that we did see was in the area of science we saw an increase of 8.37% in proficiency our sub population are always an important asp aspect of our data and we're always looking and working to identify the needs of our students yeah here you can see the [Music] data we will continue focusing on what our
076students need using datadriven instruction and utilizing our district scope in sequence and curriculum resources when we focus on supporting professional growth of our teachers our teachers in turn are going to support our students we are incredibly excited for our partnership with solution tree and we've begun working with our consultant we have a lot of room for growth at Riverview and we're very thankful for the continuous support that we've received by Dr assai Miss Noble Miss Haren Dr Loria and all of the district Specialists this year alongside our Partnerships with our ESS and PLC Consultants I know that only together we can ensure that our barracudas are achieving at the highest levels and Riverview is ready set to grow do you guys have any questions thank you so much for this presentation um I love the
077fact that with action plan goal two I love the fact that you're implementing the positive consequences as well as corrective we need corrective consequences we need students need those kind of consequences but for those students who are always following expectations always doing the right things and they seem to get ignored because all the focus is on correcting the negative behavior I mean there's several times I would make positive phone calls and the mom you could tell the parent would be like okay and they'll be like hey your students doing great they're wow you know it just makes their day to hear something nice and then the kid comes back and they're excited because their parents are excited and it's it's great to not only focus on just the corrective action but also reinforce that positive
078too um and I really love hearing that Riverview is embracing all of the resources that were and support that we're providing it it's just you know we've seen that Riverview needs to grow and the fact that you're saying yeah we need to grow so let's do it I I think that's great thank you thank you thank you for your presentation just um some clarifications regarding goal three um May 2024 100% review teachers will be active members in their weekly collaborative time working with the PLC model was that uh where did that goal come from like is was there concern that we didn't have all of our teachers involved in collaborating with their teams or what was that about that was a a collective decision with our team um I can tell you I wasn't there
079last year um so I wouldn't be able to be specific as to what the implementation was um but we decided as a team that we're all going to be part of our professional learning communities we do have um common agendas and expectations of our PLC teams um and that's something that we decided as a team okay I'm glad to to hear that I mean being in the conference over the summer the PLC um time is just so important and so I'm glad to hear that you're building you know pulling your team around that whole philosophy and everything so I appreciate that um so you're new as a principal at rivie this year appreciate your time there for sure how are you feeling you know what I'm feeling great I think I've been very welcomed by
080the riverb community and the daer community and I can tell you that the level of supports have been absolutely amazing I know that I can count on anybody including our fellow principls assistant principls our Specialists um and they're very they're they have been incredibly welcoming that's good to hear because my question is going to be is there anything we can do as a board or cabinet can do to help support you I would say continue um keeping those supports okay uh for us I think that would be really important um I'm really excited um to see our scores at the end of the year and continue on the work for the years to come but I think it's really important that we maintain um um the current supports that we have in order for us
081to be able to continue to grow well I appreciate your energy and your dedication you came into a very challenging school so I appreciate you thank you thank you you mentioned one of your supports being your partnership with solution tree and um can you speak to that a little bit like are is there resistance um at all with the PLC model well it's we just started we actually um met our consultant was it two weeks ago she came in and it's really important that the consultant um gets to know Riverview um before being able to actually work with our teachers so right now she's working with our leadership team first to make sure that she um is able to support us with aligning the goals before we bring her into our teams perfect but positive
082so far oh yeah she's been great great thank you um I just have a general question and the administration could probably jump in on this too um the last school does student-led conferences I was wondering if that is a district thing um for all schools because I know with my son and his past school they used to do them and it was very very positive the parents loved it the students loved it and I'm sure you're getting a positive reaction from it right yes ma'am I was yeah involved in their own learning yes I think that is extremely positive and I think that's something maybe the district should do wide with all the schools especially our elementary it's something we can definitely discuss uh there's some real power in it when I was a principal
083we used to have student Le conferences and many schools do we haven't mandated it as a district but it's something we could look at implementing districtwide yeah I think it's a positive thing but yeah thank you thank you do we have any other questions all right thank you thank you all right next we'll move on to item H1 Dr curo thank you madam president uh we come to uh tonight to welcome a new person to the daar family and Mr he will introduce this uh item thank you Dr crotto Madam president members of the board um it is with my pleasure um um I'll be introducing Todd blutter the administration is PR to present this recommendation Todd if you could wave so people can see where you're at back there thank you he's being recommended
084for the assignment for the 2324 school year as the Director of Maintenance Mr BL has an extensive facilities and construction experience as well as 14 years experience with the Glendale Union High School District he is currently a facility super supervisor for Glendale Union Todd blutter will receive salary and benefits commensurated with the position his education experience his resume is attached for Board review a comprehensive selection process we used to identify Todd blutter for this position the position was posted for sufficient length of time for candidates to apply a paper screening was conducted and a pool of qualified candidates was determined through a screening and interview process all right thank you very much do we have any questions okay at this time I will move that we approve the appointment of Todd blutter of as director
085of Maintenance second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don denmore get checking me out don't let me back but motion carries congratulations welcome welcome all right do we next we'll move on to a request for future agenda items do we have any okay go ahead yes I would like to look into the student Le conference for the district are you asking for an information item yes please okay do we have any others okay I move that we adjourn the meeting motion made by Crystal chaff and seconded by Joe Grant motion carries we are adjourned