Volusia County School Board Meeting - Workshop⧸Work Session 03⧸10⧸2026

001Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the school board workshop. Today's Tuesday, March 10th. It is 1:30ish and we will go ahead and get started. First item is please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence and reflection. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. Welcome back everyone to the schoolboard workshop. I'm going to start by introducing my amazing counterparts that are here with us today. We'll start on the left we have Mrs. Donna Brosmer representing district 4. Next to Miss Brosmer we have vice chair Miss Chris Miss Christa Goodrich representing district 2. Next to Miss Chris the Goodrich we have Dr. Gilbert

002Evans who is our schoolboard attorney. Over to our right, we have our amazing agency clerk, Celeste Gilmore. Uh, next to Miss Gilmore, we have Mrs. Jesse Thompson, District 3 representative. Next to Mrs. Thompson, we have Miss Jamie Haynes, representative for District 1. And next to Miss Jamie Haynes, we have our national superintendent of the year, Dr. Carmen Balgabin, our superintendent. My name is Ruben Cologne. I have the honor and pleasure of serving as the chair this year, also representing district 5. Next item on the agenda, 2.01. 01 dual language update. Dr. Balgabin. >> Yeah. Thank you, chair. I would like to ask uh Dr. uh Vay, our chief academic officer, along with Dr. Julie Olman, our coordinator for multilingual students learners. They will provide us today with a presentation as it pertains to our six

003dual language programs that we have in our district and our foreign language academy. >> Thank you. Welcome. Good afternoon, board chair Colon, board members, and Dr. Belgerman. So, I have the honor of um introducing Dr. Julia Omen, who is our multilingual services um coordinator and she will be talking about dual language. And so, since 2022 under Dr. Dr. Belgum's leadership. We have six schools um that has dual language programs. Dr. Omen who leads that department um has done a great job with her specialist and I believe her specialist is here. >> Yes, Miss Ramos. >> Miss Ines Ramos as well. And so I just wanted to give a little bit of background. So part of today's presentation, you're going to be able to see the data um where students have been really learning another language

004to be bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate. Um research shows that strong academic and cognitive benefits um occur when you learn um a second language. You have better attention control, stronger working memory, and great problem solving skills. So the brain is constantly switching between two languages at all times. And so, um, Dr. Omen actually speaks, um, and master four languages, English, Russian, Spanish, and French. So, Dr. Almond, take it away. >> For lingual, thank you so much for this wonderful introduction, Dr. Ver. Um, I'm very excited to share exciting information and data about our dual language programs. Um and I do want to give credit to uh Miss Ines Ramos behind me. She has been instrumental in um rolling those programs out and supporting them. Um um so as um Dr. Vay said, we have six schools

005currently in Malushia County that have dual language program. Um, and even though it's not a lot of them, it serves they serve almost 500 students across Valuchia County. Um, the program is still very young. It's in its development. The longest running one is four years old with the highest grade in Spirit Elementary um, being a third grade. And as um, Dr. Va said, there are a lot of benefits to dual language education. It's not just that students are learning another language. Obviously, they do, but that's not all. So, after they learn the language, they actually use that language to access content in other academic areas. So, they um learn science, social studies, language arts in Spanish. So, they really becoming biliterate and they access information in both languages. And there's a lot of cognitive benefits

006to developing um that bilingual brain and I know Dr. Vaya mentioned some of that um some of these benefits. So it's not just um look at the students speaking Spanish but we can see that there's a lot of um advantages to those students along the way. Um I do have to point out that dual language programs are a long-term investment for the district. It's not something where we can see the results overnight. It usually takes several years to develop. And um according to research, the students in these programs reach their highest potential by middle school by the time they reach grade six. Um but we're already seeing some um positive data as well. Um so as I mentioned um academic benefits there is also um social and economic advantages to bilingual education. U bilingual people

007um also have uh more career opportunities. They have higher secondary education potential and as a result higher earning potential for Spanish-sp speakaking families. It is also an opportunity to preserve their heritage language and culture and really strengthen the community relationships. So, um let me show you what we have in Malushia County. Um as we mentioned already, we have six dual language schools. Um Spirit Elementary, George Marx, Freedom Elementary, Discovery Elementary, Holy Hill, and Pearson Elementary. Our youngest program is Pearson and currently it's only two grade levels with preK VPK and kindergarten. And the longest running program is at Spirit Elementary. Students are currently in third grade. So that's really the year where we can see students blossoming and thriving. Um, additionally, three out of six schools offer VPK, um, pre-K programs in new language, which

008gives parents an opportunity to be exposed to the program, see the benefits, and also prepare students, um, to continue into elementary school. Speaking of data, um the most information we have right now is from Spirit since it's our longest running program. And something I wanted to share with you is how students are developing in terms of their literacy development. As you can see the blue graph, the blue line shows students in do language program and orange is students in county schools. Initially we see the drop in performance which is totally normal as students are developing two different skills at the same time but then by grade one they start to close that achievement gap and that gap just widens as the years go by. Um and right now we see by grade three that the

009students are outperforming their peers and we project that this just going to improve as they as the uh students go to fourth and fifth grade. Looking at the English data, this is across all our dual language schools. Um again we don't have all grades in all schools. Um and we see totally normal that research supports um kindergarten students um literacy drops a little bit. However, they catch up by grade one. Um and actually u most re research shows that that parity appears between the dual language and non-dual language students between grades two and four. Um so it is um totally expected that in the beginning when students are still learning the basics that um their achievement is slightly lower but it catches up pretty quickly. One of my most favorite data points here is comparing

010dual language students with their peers in the same school because we can say that there's a lot of variations across our schools in the district. But um if they are in the same school, we assume it's a similar um learning environment. So we can really analyze the data. And as you can see in all our schools, students in dual language programs outperform the ones that are not in dual language programs. I'm only including grade one because that's the one we have in most of the schools there. Um when looking at um George Mark's data, there's a variety of factors in play there and um we have been working uh alongside TLLL team and school leadership to ensure that they all set for success as we start the new school year. Um one of the programs

011I want to highlight is a freedom elementary. Um and the school leadership principal Nurig and dual language teachers really believe in the program. They support the program and the data shows it. So um it is fair to say that the language is really implemented with fidelity in Freedom Elementary. So if you want to see great instructions, I would highly recommend you go there. Um kindergarten data doesn't look very impressive. they're in the same level, but starting with grade one, students are way above their peers and the district average as high as 20 points um as we can see in grade one. So, um really amazing results that come out of Freedom Elementary School. Another one of our longest programs, Spirit Elementary. And here we can see students grow in both languages. um in the true

012um manner of dual language programs, we have English in blue and Spanish in red. This is how we differentiate different languages. And um kindergarten um it's it's um kind of the same. Then by the first grade, English literacy goes a little bit ahead. And um but then we see by second grade that's when students already start accessing academic content. That's when we can really see the Spanish literacy growing. Um and that's exactly what research shows. That's when students start transferring those skills between languages and that's when they can start um building those connections in um their academics. Uh when looking at Spanish literacy data um also everything is on par with research especially in the early grades kindergarten and first grade students are still acquiring the language. So, it's normal to see um a lower

013literacy in Spanish, but then if we look at freedom and um spirit data by the second grade, that evens out and we can see that students performing equally in both languages. And I know I've been talking a lot about research and um some of us like it more than the others. Um but so far um do the language programs have been around for many years and um even in Florida there's a lot of districts that have the language um for years very successful programs and what we seeing in our schools is completely supported by research. Um we can see that initial gap in literacy, the evening out um students outperforming their peers and greater results with higher fidelity. So everything is by the book if we see exactly what's happening in our schools and as

014I mentioned the program is still in its infancy. Uh we are growing it. um next year all six schools are adding another grade level. So we're very excited about that and we're preparing um the resources and the teachers and the staff um to be ready for that because that's a big deal. Um, we also want to replicate the best practices that we see in schools like Freedom Elementary and Spirit. So those can serve as examples for other schools um because we know it is working in our district. So we want everybody to be able to access um that resource and we are um collecting data as as we go. Right now we don't have a solid um years of data. It's only a couple of years. So hoping um by the end of this year

015we have another full cycle of um data to share with you and as the time goes by we can do yearby-year comparison um in our schools. And speaking of uh program expansion um the the staffing is very crucial because great teachers um make the program succeed or not. Um, and with the schools adding each a grade level, we're potentially looking at adding 12 more teachers in the program. Um, we are planning to um look within the district and identify internal candidates that have the skills that are necessary for this program. And um it's important to note that just because somebody speaks the language whether it's Spanish or French or Russian it doesn't mean that they can teach it and it doesn't mean that I this person is truly biliterate and that's something that we require

016for our teachers in dual language programs. Um so um our starting point actually this week we having information session for people oh sorry for teachers in Valuchia that are interested in dual language programs um hopefully we'll find quality candidates um if um that doesn't um fill all the spots that we have we are looking at other options up to um collaborating with um [snorts] um Spanish embassy exchange program potentially um recruiting candidates from outside the county and I do have um few highlights and I think we also have a video after that and just before we watch the video I want to um share that um the the leadership support is really important for this programs and um it's one of the reasons we wanted to share um that with the you and principles and

017school admins are doing phenomenal job supporting our teachers and the students and I know um I can't be more grateful for um support of Dr. Vay and Dr. Balgabin who themselves are bilingual and biliterate so they have this other layer of understanding of the benefits of the program um >> but Dr. Omen, do you think I would be a good dual language teacher? >> Uh, well, we might give you like a placement test to see how how biliturate you really are. >> You know, and I [laughter] asked that because sometimes we think that because a person might be bilingual, they can teach this, for example, in my case, the Spanish side of the of the class. And I really cannot. I can read and I can and I can fluently um speak Spanish, but the

018academic side of the house to be able to actually teach um I would not be able to do that in Spanish, believe it or not. So, that's some that's that's a myth that I think that we sometimes or a misunderstanding that we sometimes think that because you can speak another language, you should be able to teach in that language, >> right? And I think it works with other um academics, right? just somebody comes from accounting, they might not be great math teachers. So, it's the same thing. But the good thing we have great mentorship program in some of our schools, so we can pair you up. Um, Celeste, do I just go to the next one for Oh, okay. I don't touch anything. Okay. All right. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Let me show

019you this one of the little highlight. It's very short. Oh, >> you're good. Yes, they're doing it now. >> Here we go. To is me and as prepos. >> [clears throat] >> She's taking video. >> [laughter] >> So the student and teacher having academic conversation about parts of speech um and student makes an error and teacher corrects her so she finds the correct preposition in text. So just an example here >> I will admit I didn't even know the answer to that question. And so to your point though you speak the language doesn't mean that you certainly and so our students are learning the uh proper uh way of looking at this at the different languages for that matter. All right board does anybody have any questions? Miss Brosmer, >> I have to say I

020especially appreciate this because in my years in Miami, um I was with a lot of Cuban students and uh some of them were older when they came to the United States and um and they could speak it, but they had not been taught to write it. And well actually the same was true with the the little ones who came in uh because they went immediately into school and started learning in English and never learned to write Spanish. And so I appreciated seeing that this is comprehensive that this is um reading, writing and speaking it. Um so I I I think it it sounds like a wonderful program and it looks like the like the data is very strong. Um so I hope this expands. Yes, thank you so much. And actually, thank you for bringing

021it up. The program has students with the first language, English and Spanish. So, it's a mix of students. Um, but it benefits both with Spanish development and with English speaking students learning another language and becoming biliterate in two languages. >> Thank you, Miss Goodrich. on the class. >> So, you know, I all knew I was going to do that, but >> I hope that one day we have more classes with more languages. Um, and I said thank you in Russian. So, um, >> from Sex in the City. >> So, my questions are, of course, my first question is going to be, why do we not have this in D2? I didn't see any D2 schools up there. So, I would like to make a recommendation that that gets further looked at. Um, but then also,

022um, are we stopping in second grade? >> No, ma'am. So, usually the way the program works, we do one grade at a time. It's really um not a good way to switch the whole school K through five because um there's a lot of planning that goes into that. Plus students are learning gradually and every year knowledge builds on the previous year. Um we start with kindergarten and then every year uh we add a year. So that's why um next year all schools will add the grade level. So like Spirit right now has third grade so they will have fourth grade. Um Pearson only has kindergarten so they will have first grade and kindergarten. So they're adding another year. So in two years we going to have um the full program in spirit and we actually

023have plans to expand it to middle school because we don't want that to stop after elementary. We want students to continue their bilingual journey and um that transition to middle school is crucial. So we have something for them to continue with their um literacy development. >> Okay. And what foreign languages are we offering at the high school level? >> We have majority of schools offer Spanish. We have few schools with French. One school offers Russian. One school offers German and one school offers Japanese. and two schools offer ASL, American Sign Language. >> Okay. Um, I would just say that as we look at magnet schools in the future, I know that conversation's come up from multiple people. Um, they're across from my place in Georgia, there's a school called the World Language Academy, and it

024is a language magnet school or charter school. I'm not really certain which one, but um, so that might be something that we want to look at as having a language magnet school at some point. loved it. It was great. Love that we're doing. >> Thank you, Miss Thompson. >> Thank you. And Miss Goodrich, you asked the question I was gonna ask because I'm looking at the numbers. I'm like, why would we stop at second grade? But it makes sense the way that we're running the program. I also would like to say that I don't see any district three on here. So, you know, just spread the love a little bit. Um, >> I got some. >> But I I do appreciate this and I love that we're going to keep building on the data and

025moving that forward. I would also say on a similar note to your magnet school program because I've talked to we have a fantastic I've said before German teacher at Spruce Creek and she and I have been talking because having in high school is great but as we know when we teach them when they're really little they pick up way faster and then they have that knowledge to build upon. >> So just I would love us moving forward to look at all of our options as far as finding teachers for it >> because as you said Dr. IA just because you speak it doesn't mean you can teach it and I think that's really important to make sure that our kids at that young age have that foundation but thank you so much for all the

026work you're doing with this. >> Thank you Miss Brosmer. Miss Thompson reminded me of something I wanted to ask you. And this is kind of a random question. Um, but I saw that the notation about uh getting um teachers from Spain >> and I lived in Spain many many years ago and actually spoke Spanish. Um, all of which I've forgotten so don't ask me anything. But [laughter] but um there are there are regional I won't say dialects but there are are distinct different ways of speaking in Spanish it I mean in Spain. So how do you how do you figure that out when you're doing a class? Um h how do you teach I assume sort of a generic uh >> correct? So it would be like a classical version of Spanish. And actually when

027we look at Latin America, all countries have different accents and different slangs and expressions that people from other countries might not understand even though they speak the same language. So when um teaching the language, we want to stay with the castiano, the one that is proper uh classical way of Spanish. that way people can understand the >> and our tongue in Spanish is actually from Spain. >> So um it's it is standard. We teach the standard of of what everyone will be able to to speak because you're right and you're right. It's like different places um have different dialects and have different I mean even one word can mean one thing for one country and another for another country. So, um, we definitely want to keep it, um, standard, right, Mr. Cologne? >> Absolutely, [laughter]

028>> Miss Haynes. So, I want to also say thank you for the work that you've done with the um immersion classes because the community got to see a highlighted short snippet of one of the French immersion classes the other day at the state of the schools and a lot of that brought up a lot of questions and um at the same time they got to learn about the dual language pieces and so I think you know highlighting both is very important so that people understand that we have lots of choices out there. So, thank you, >> Miss Goodrich >> Rosmer made me think of something. Are we teaching Canadian French or French French? >> French French. >> Classic. >> I mean, I think it's Canadians, but it should be the original. [laughter] >> Hey, >>

029again, thank you. I think for for all of us, you know, thank you for having bringing the data, the backup. You know, it was one of our uh I won't say fears, but one of our challenges was how are they going to do in English if they're learning English and Spanish? And I think the data is supportive and I and I love how you correlated uh this is the dip we expect but then they just take off and your data is supporting that. So thank you for that and thank you for your many many years of serving our ESOL students as well as other members of the team. So uh board are there any other questions? Thank you so much for this wonderful presentation and we look forward to the expansion in uh district five.

030>> Uh >> and I I encourage you to visit some of those programs. They're phenomenal. >> Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you so much. >> All right. Next item on the agenda, schools of innovation. Dr. Valaban. >> Yes. Uh chair. Uh we already have with us here Dr. Vay. I'm going to invite Mrs. Copeland. Uh Mrs. Copeland to join Dr. Vaya along with Mr. McCalliff if he's here he might be on his way Dr. Drayton and uh Miss Castellanos and they're going to provide with you an update on schools of innovation as you know we've embarked on this journey this this past year so they will be sharing with you how our students how those schools were selected but also how they are currently performing. Thank you, Dr. Balgabin. Good afternoon again, everyone. Um, so

031the packet that you have printed, um, is a previous version. What you'll see projected is the most updated version. So, I just wanted to let you know that in case you're following in the physical copy, you might not have the exact same slides. Okay. Um, and Celeste, you'll get that for them. Okay. Thank you. So um schools of innovation is um following obviously policy 307 which is our student progression plan and it supports our guardrail too which is provide conditions that enhance student learning. So you've heard Dr. Balgaban speak about our three pillars um that we have been focusing on this year and for the next couple of years and those three pillars do not live on their own um and let me just remind you what they are. One of them is innovation and

032the other is career and technical education and then the last piece is literacy. So when we think about um innovation, I want us to really think about obviously we we we really are very proud of the work that Valuchia County Schools have been um doing this past year. We're in a school for a reason um a school district. However, we do not stop there, right? So, we have to con constantly have to reimagine how we um continue to support our schools. How do we continue to increase student outcomes? You don't get the A and just be complacent, right? And so, um thinking about that and you know the state of our schools, we mentioned um especially with our business leaders and community leaders, they have to do this constantly, right? They have to look at

033the product that they're producing and if they are successful um with it, how do they reimagine? because every every um year there's something else happening on the cutting edge. Um and so for us in education, it's the same exact um way. So that when we think about innovation, I want us to think about those um pieces that is meaningful that engages students in real um life learning experiences. It's going to promote critical thinking skills, creativity, problem solving skills. And so the team today is going to go over not just how this came to pass um but also the um application process for our schools and then the designation of school innovation. Now I know that Dr. Drayton will be going over um on the um slide seven I believe the statute. This is actually the

034Florida statute. If you um were not aware, schools of innovation are grounded in Florida statute 10002.33 and Dr. Dre will be going over that here in a few minutes. But it gives us a um as a public school system thinking about engaging our students in innovative practices. And so it is not something that is required, but the state does encourage school districts to um to be thinking about this and what it is that we do to make sure that we have these innovative practices. So Dr. um Dre. >> Yes. Thank you. So for the first time in 16 years, Valuchia County Schools has achieved an A district rating, which is a significant milestone that reflects strength in our instructional practices and our commitment to student success. However, sustaining, strengthening, and accelerating this progress requires intentional

035and strategic action if we want to keep the progress going. So, Schools of Innovation represents just one of the key district-wide strategies we are implementing to build on what is working, refining our instructional practices, and ensuring that our highest impact strategies lead to improved student outcomes across our district. So we do look at this in terms of our Florida statute 10002.33 which establishes innovation as a recognized and supported strategy within Florida's public education system by explicitly encouraging public schools to use innovating um learning methods and expand learning opportunities aligned to this statutory intent county of innovations we provide structured flexibility to redesign instructional models expand advanced coursework and pathways and personalize personalized learning experiences and implement innovative practices that respond to the unique needs of our students and our community while remaining our principles are

036remaining accountable for student proficiency, learning gains and equitable access to educational opportunities. This approach ensures that the innovation is intentional, measured and transferable. meaning we want to take our practices and we want to take those best practices to other schools so that we can get the same outcomes. This way we are strengthening our district-wide instructional excellence and supporting the continued success of our district a performance. So with anything of this magnitude, there was a selection process. All schools were eligible to submit an application. through the application process we were looking for schools that just weren't creative but really focused on the pillars that Dr. Balaban outlines and in the selection process once they did the application a committee of cross department team got together to look at and score these applications. After that process the

037schools that were chosen to move on to the second round participated in an interview. And so the schools that were selected that will be speaking before you today all participated in an interview process and very creative in how each school participated in that interview process. Some brought together their staff, some brought together students, and so we could really get a feel for what this innovative practice was, how it was sustainable, how it could be replicated if so chosen in other schools, and the measurable impact that it was having on their student achievement. So, we're going to roll right into our first school in Chisum Elementary, and they will be outlining their innovative practices with technology. Hi, I'm Melissa Marple. I'm the principal at Chisum Elementary. Chisum Elementary represents our innovation pillar. Our instruction begins with

038the Florida standards and the benchmarks and the technology that we have available helps increase rigor through interactive learning. Our students are equipped with iPads in all grade levels. Our third through through fifth grade students all have keyboards attached to their iPads, making it accessible just like a laptop. Our teachers each have MacBooks and iPads, and every classroom is equipped with Samsung interactive panels. Our students engage in standardsbased learning enhanced through Apple technology, allowing them to create, collaborate, and demonstrate learning in meaningful ways. A key shift is giving students choice and how they show their learning. Not only does it increase their ownership of their work, but it also builds their confidence. Students are excited to share what they create, and more students participate when they choose what method they use. For an example, in kindergarten,

039they're learning oral reading fluency. One of our teachers provided three options for them to use an app that they wanted to choose. One student chose ChatterPix Kids and what she did was she took a picture of a page in the book that she was practicing her oral reading fluency. In the app, she gets to choose the character from the picture that she took and the mouth moves as she is the one recording her voice and that can be shared with the teacher who has that opportunity to listen to the students oral reading fluency. Students use iPads and interactive panels to create products, collaborate, and present their thinking. This supports deeper learning through projects that combine reading, writing, research, and communication. Our fourth grade students earlier in the year were doing a novel study. The teacher

040shared the text with them through AirDrop, which many of us are familiar with. The students took that text, placed it into the notes app. They were able to highlight the text, annotate the text and then next the students were able to collaborate with a peer. They were working on the benchmark of summarizing the text and each each pair of students was provided a chapter for them to summarize. The students chose their app, they produced their slides and shared it with the rest of the students in their class. Our approach to learning supports engagement across diverse learners, allowing students multiple pathways to demonstrate mastery. Students can communicate understanding through visuals, multimedia, and other formats beyond our standard responses. Our EBD and our ASD students are currently working on a project right now about their unsung heroes,

041which are staff members on our campus. They're interviewing the staff members and using an app called Keynote, which is an Apple app. >> [snorts] >> It's very similar to PowerPoint in which we are using a lot of and our non-verbal students. What they have done is they've taken a picture, some have drawn a picture and they're using a voice over from the person that they interviewed to really share about that person. Our other students are using their own voice to um share what they have learned about their unsung hero. Not only are our students learning and growing, so are our teachers. We have built systems to support our teachers through PLC learning time, coaching, step-by-step support, and shared resources. Teachers are building instructional capacity so these practices can be sustained and shared across other schools.

042We've had professional learning where we've learned to utilize several different Apple applications. All of our teachers and administrators are Apple certified teachers. And if we could, our next slide talks about our academic achievement. Chisum has maintained an A rating for the past five years. Chisum has exceptionally strong performance and the number of students scoring at or above grade level in ELA, math, and science while also being above district average for students growing in their performance. Our next video or our next slide shows a video and it's a quick overview um of the work that we are doing at our school. And before we want to watch this, before we watch this video, I just want to say that innovation comes in, you're going to see iPads in the students hands, but it's not about being

043an Apple and having iPads, right? This is Chisum is working on becoming an Apple distinguished school. And that is something very special for Chisum. Uh, but this technology and why this is so innovative is that this can be brought to any of our classrooms. These apps can be accessed through any device that we have. may not be a specific Apple app, but it could be a different app. So, it's about the students being able to respond to their learning and being creative in the way that they are able to share their responses and their answers and and just that creativity um that comes because all students think a little bit differently and all students want to share um their outcomes in a different way. So, that's what makes Chisum innovative. one of Earth's largest areas

044of land. >> I'm very excited to announce that we are on our journey to become the first ever Valuchia County school to become an Apple Distinguished School. So, we're on that journey. We're we're not there yet. It is a year-long process that we will be going through. Our teachers behind the scenes are receiving professional development in order to become the Apple Distinguished School. We're innovating our learning, coming up with creative lessons. It's very technologydriven. But I don't want you to think that everything that we do is revolving around technology because it's not. We still have curriculum pieces. There are still hard copies of books and text, but what we are doing is integrating that technology with those Apple devices for our students. All of our students, preK through fifth grade, have the iPads 11, which

045are the newest ones that are out. Our third through fifth graders also have keyboards that are attached to those so that they have that accessibility to learning how to use the keyboards to write text passages whatever it is that they're working on. >> We can write our own stories and text and we can use like like there's this little thing in the top corner where you can use like the marker and underline and annotate text. I like the notes app because like you can like use marker on it and like you can airdrop things like from your teacher so you can like work on like a test or like a book or something while like summarizing and annotating it. The combination of our standardsbased rigor, student ownership, inclusive access, and strong teacher support is what

046makes our work innovative. Our integration of technology does not take away from teaching strategies we've used in the past and continue to use now. Utilizing technology supports our students growth and provides them with additional skills needed for college and career readiness. And our next step is to deepen that implementation as we continue our pathway toward becoming the first Apple Distinguished School in our area. Thank you, Miss Marple. Next up, we will have Mr. Watson from Atlantic High School. You guys can clap if you want. >> I have a hat for you. [laughter] >> I know. I'm so jealous that I didn't bring you guys hats. I did bring um a small gift. However, if I can go ahead and indulge uh you guys in that. Um I want to pass these around. It's a respect

047the locals Atlantic High School sticker. Don't tell Dr. but I put my stickers on my computer. Okay? But you can put it wherever you'd like. Um, I'll pass those around. >> We won't tell them. >> We have plenty for everyone. >> Our secret. >> Okay. Thank you all so much for inviting us in um nominating and selecting us as um schools of innovation. Atlantic High School represents the career and technical education pillar and our focus is to prepare students for their futures by placing real world experiences at the center of their learning. Our CTE programs do exactly that. Students engage with industry specific equipment, earn nationally recognized certifications, and participate in internships and hands-on learning that mirror the expectations of today's workforce. As you can see from the slide there, we offer um an an

048array of programs andmies at Atlantic High School and the students at Atlantic High can earn a remarkable range of industry certifications through their participation in these programs. For example, in the public safety sector, our students could earn 911 dispatcher certification. In the area of aerospace and aviation, private pilot license, UAS safety level one, visual line of sight certifications. Automotive technology certifications include a large number of ASSE certifications, but our students start with brakes, electrical, electronics, um, steering and suspension, and general maintenance. And these are real certifications, guys. I go right out of high school and use them. Agriculture, we have environmental science, um, agriculture associate certification. Digital media and technology, we offer CIW multimedia specialist, CIW social media strategist, Adobe Visual Design, Storyboard Pro, Unity Programming, and WordPress Certified Editor. In culinary arts, we offer

049ServeSafe food safety manager, national registered food safety technician and the area near and dear to all of our hearts, the field of education. Our students in our teal program can take the FLDOE professional educator test and we're looking to add the paraprofessional test as well. Um in career explorations and readiness, we also offer the ASVAB testing for um our US armed forces. Um if you can go ahead and advance the slide. Um this is the best slide because it shows the data that that shows you guys that what we're doing is working. Okay. In just three years, you can see by the bar graph there. It's an excellent slide that Kyle made us. Um our percentage of graduates who have earned a college and career readiness point moved from being seven points below the district

050average to being five points above. And this is directly tied to the expansion and strengthening of our CTE programs. And during this same time frame, our school's graduation rate has increased to 97%. And our total percentage of school grade points has increased from 51% to 64%. Bringing home our very first Agrade in school history. And that is a 30year history. [applause] Thank you. Next slide, please. >> Before we move forward, I just want to make sure that um we highlight that the auto academy and our early learning academy are the onlymies at Atlantic High School that are not in the other schools. However, we are looking to expand the early. As you see, we are transferring a lot of our best practices and those practices into other schools to get out that we are And

051thank you for um bringing that up. Our teal academy is an exemplar academy and we are more than uh ready and willing to share those best practices with the other high schools so that we can build the pipeline of teachers um for our own county. Um and on this slide, our our students put together a few clips. It's not a professionally made video, but it is um it is we will tell you a little bit about what we do at Atlantic High in a couple of our programs. Another unique opportunity at Atlantic High School is the Teal Academy. We are the only teaching education and [music] learning program in Valuchia County. We partner with our on-ampus preschool, the Shark Pubs, weekly to practice what [music] we learn in class and develop as teachers. We also

052regularly visit local elementary schools and daycarees to learn more [music] about early childhood education. Seniors who complete the program have the chance to participate in an internship [music] at one of our local schools. Students in Teal can earn WordPress certified editor certification and take the professional education test. My favorite thing about Teal is [music] getting to work with the Shark Pups hands on. >> As the only automotive maintenance program in Valuchia County, Automotive Technology and Maintenance Academy provides students with a unique opportunity. students gets hands-on experience in our industry standard automotive shop working on vehicles that have been donated by leal dealerships. We regularly host guest speakers from the automotive industry and educational opportunities for after high school. We go on regular field trips to the local speedways for different events throughout the year. Our

053seniors have the opportunity to complete a pre-apprenticeship program in partnership with Gary's Ford and can apply to participate in two different internships. Students can earn industry certifications in entrepreneurship in small businesses, ASC brakes, ASC electrical and electronics, ASC steering and suspension, and ASSE maintenance and light repair. >> Through a partnership with Embry Riddle, students in the technology, engineering, science, and aerospace academy explore the science of flight and engineering through hands-on projects and real world applications. Students develop problem solving and technical skills while preparing for careers or further studies in aviation, engineering or aerospace. By the end of four years in the program, students are able to earn the certifications in Autodesk, Fusion 360, FAA, ground operations, and visual line of sight systems operator. One thing I love about Tesla Academy is that this academy leads

054students to learn about their career paths that help them to become pilots, engineers, mechanics, and so on so forth. >> The Academy of Law and Government is one of our most established CTE [music] programs at Atlantic High School. Students are consistently exposed to real world experiences through projects, field trips, and simulated activities. Our academy ensures that students have a cohesive understanding of law and law enforcement by combining criminal justice with legal courses. Our seniors accumulate the program with a chance to earn the 901 public safety telecommunicator certification. My favorite thing about ALAC is all the amazing volunteer experiences I get to experience. >> Yeah. And it just cuts off there. Sorry about that. But you can see obviously that um our our and you know when you make a video like that you inevitably make

055someone mad because we have so many programs to offer and when you pick just three or four to highlight inevitably um the other groups um get upset with you but we'll get to them very soon. Um what truly sets Atlantic High School apart is our ability to live to deliver this work with intention, alignment, and vision. The CTE programs that you've just seen are not isolated courses. They are part part of a cohesive schoolwide innovation model and a pathway. We also are expanding the pathway. In the immediate future, we plan to add an aircraft maintenance track to our TESA Academy as well as a medical academy to our program of studies. Thank you for the opportunity to highlight the exceptional work happening at Atlantic High School and we are proud of our students and our

056staff and continuing to partner with career and technical education. >> And we just want to add about Atlantic. This was a very student centered uh interview process. So when we did the interview process, I wasn't interviewing Mr. Watson or his APs. He brought his students and they answered the questions for the committee. So the CTEmmies that are happening at Atlantic are truly driven by the student leadership there at Atlantic. Thank you, Mr. Watson. >> Yep. >> And last but not least is Deltona High School with Dr. Lap. Now, [applause] >> thank you so much. I am so incredibly honored to be here today. Um, as most of you know, I don't love being the center of attention, but this is an opportunity for me to brag about my students and my teachers and my people.

057And so, uh, I love that I have this opportunity. Uh, this was something that we began three years ago. Um, this is my 12th school year at Deltona High School. I bleed blue. I love that school. I love the community. um they're my people and I'm just so proud to be there. And so this was three years ago when Mr. McAuliffe was the principal and I was his data AP and we thought wouldn't it be nice if the areas that have the most eyes on them that make up our school grade had a little more time to plan together to have some interventions to really do some more meaningful work with the data and with our kids. and we came up with our small group WTI plan. Um, right now we utilize it in our

058ninth grade and tth grade ELA classes in geometry and algebra. Uh, the teachers have common planning. We put in common planning years ago, but this is an additional hour that those teachers have to push in to pull out to do PLC work to do some data analysis and really get in the trenches with our students. and we've seen wonderful growth over the last three years um to support that it's working for us. So this is our data slide. Uh thank you Mr. Shikar and Rea. Uh but what this data slide doesn't show is the literacy impact that we've had and I taught English for 10 years so literacy is always going to be near and dear to my heart. my English teachers, they are amazing and they work so well together and that is the

059reason we're seeing the success that we're seeing with the LA. Um, I pulled the data from the Florida Department of Education and out of the 425 public high schools, we were number 20 for learning gains in ELA. Number 20 in the whole state. [applause] uh we were the highest in learning gains uh for our lowest cortile and for ELA learning gains in the whole district. Uh so it was really something to be proud of and to celebrate and we're hoping to see that this year as well. Um so we are in a school. This will be our third year. It will be our third year. [applause] We're working hard to make sure it'll be our third year. Um and we do have a short video made by the amazing Chad. He made it a few

060months ago as we were uh putting in for the school of innovation. You'll be be able to hear a little bit from our teachers who are in the trenches and our students as well. I'm Christina Lnau and I am the proud principal of Deltona High School here in beautiful Valuchia County, Florida. Deltona High School has about 1,800 kids. We're a title one school. And I'd like to share a little bit about our small group, our walk to intervention plan that we have here that we've seen such an amazing return on for both our teachers and our students. So our walk to intervention plan is an additional 1 hour period of time within the day that we have built out for our teachers to really have some quality intervention time with students. So in addition to

061their common planning that they share with their PLC, they also have an hour that they can do small group pushin and pull out of students within roal like classes and some of those classes are our areas that are tested at the end of the year and that would be English one, English 2, algebra, geometry, US history and biology. And what that really gives us is a chance to do intervention within the day for our students. And so it allows us to do that tutoring within the moment with those students when they need it with an additional support person, an additional helper in the classroom. Or it could be a small group pull out or the teachers may use it for additional time to look at data or to really do individualized intervention plans for our

062students. started out as just an extra time to dig deep into the data and then after our VBA1 we would pull kids based on the bubbles based on their scores um and based on the benchmarks that they missed. I would go into Miss Madera's room who teaches algebra 1 as well and I help her do the small groups so that it is it's more support within the classroom and we're not taking them out of the classes that they love so much. Most kids love the band and they're they're here for choir, they're here for art, and they're here for Cambridge and they're they we want to keep them in those electives. So, we now push into other classrooms rather than pull the kids out. So, the WTI then flows really nicely because we're able to

063communicate what we need like on the fly if we have to. Um, but we also have our own teaching views and experiences to bring into the classroom that we may not have normally. So, when we push in, we can bring that into there. The plan has really been in place for about three years now and the teachers love it. The students seem to really get a lot from it. Um, and we have seen a lot of growth, especially within our learning gains and within our lowest cortile learning gains, the students that need it the most. >> The one-on-one learning is really helpful for me because I can directly ask a teacher for help and they can help me and it makes me learn 10 times faster. We are a title one school and the students

064fall through the cracks sometimes, especially the quiet ones. Um, and this is our opportunity to really hone in because we have more teachers to give into one class period. And so we have the smaller groups for the kids that really need it and they don't fall through the cracks as much and they feel like you're actually paying attention to them and not a test score and that you're actually helping them process and not just, oh, okay, we're going to move on because time says we have to move on. So they really do get a lot out of it. Working with small groups really helps me understand things point by point how I want to because sometimes maybe I don't know something but the other person knows something and it helps me get to that point

065and understand it better. If other schools want to implement WTI, I would say definitely start with your core classes first as far as your ESE courses. Um but it almost has to it's not a cookie cutter, you know, one sizefits-all. It is see what works for the team and then obviously run that by admin. But it it's truly figure out what works for the team and for the student. It is based on the teachers, but it's also based on the students needs. Um so push in might not work, but small groups pulling out might work. So it just depends on where we are with the students. It really has helped me um see the aha moments a lot faster. They are more excited because they actually feel that connection. For the last three years, we've

066been taking the time to make that extra effort and that extra connection with them in their WTI period. [music] Just conclude, I just want to say thank you because we have always felt for years the support to be innovative, to think outside the box. We've tried certain things that didn't work and we've tried certain things that just take off. So, thank you for that, Dr. B. And thank you for the board as well. >> [applause] >> as um you want who has the next up. >> Okay, Miss is going to wrap it up. >> Yes. Yes. So, you just heard from three of our phenomenal leaders who had a vision, right? And it starts with a vision and then you have to stick to it. So, even, you know, with with the student voice um

067at Atlantic High School, the technology piece at Chisum and the literacy at um at Deltona, it's just when when you have a vision as a leader and you can stick to that and you really think outside the box, as Dr. Lap now said, you try things that work and you try that don't work and you try things that work. And when those things work and when you see that impact on student outcomes, that's when you go for it. And I applaud the three of them. And I know that we have other leaders across our district who are working to do to replicate some of these same processes and these same practices in their building. Um so moving forward we are going to continue with our annual application process so that any school any school across

068our district um with a strong vision and an innovative thinking has the opportunity to participate. So we eval we will evaluate these schools and our focus is always on what's working for the students and we know that that's different from school to school. Um when we see those successful practices that improve engagement and achievement those strategies will be shared and expanded to other schools across our district. So we know innovation and education is not optional. Our students we are preparing our students for college and career and we know that those colleges and career things are changing. It's different than when we were in school. Uh, and it's different. Our careers are looking different now. So, we know we have to have different practices within our school. And that's that outside of the box thinking and

069that's exactly what those these principles are doing. Um, so schools of innovation will continue. We're going to learn from them and we're just going to continue to scale up to see what works so that innovation becomes part of how we operate and it's not just a program here in Valuchia County. It is our way of work. So, thank you. >> Thank you board members. Anyone have any questions, thoughts, feelings or concerns? Miss Thompson? >> Thank you. And so, I want to thank all three of you because I think in a very similar fashion yet different, you each approaches every student learns differently and you really like go forward with that. And so, I love that. I will say because she's from district 3. Thank you, Miss Markle. And because I walk through the school and

070I've seen it chisel, it's really cool because I mean, as she mentioned, you have your non-verbal students, you have your EBD students, every single student is using this technology. and it's so amazing and they're so smart. It's scary how smart these kids are and you just keep pushing them forward. So, thank you all three of you for what you're doing and uh thank you Miss Marble for representing District 3. >> Thank you, Miss Haynes. >> Thank you. So, to hear each of you speak today brings back some of the history of what's happened in Valuch County. And some of you have been here a long time just like me and you know [clears throat] we had a superintendent several years ago that made the statement every student will go to a college or university and

071at that time they shut down every one of our CTE programs votech programsmies and they sold all the equipment and when Mr. for Cologne and I came part of what we ran on in 2018 was we were bringing programs andmies back to Valuchia County because it's unrealistic to think that every single student will just go to a college or university. We need students to go into the fields that we have brought back. We need to bring back even more. And I do want to go ahead because I think I can say this. I've been asking for plumbing since I got here. Like, try to find a plumber out there. They're almost non-existent. And they can set the price at any rate they want because it's difficult to find them. And we're finally bringing plumbing back

072this year. They figured out the way to connect it with all of the, you know, classwork that you need and the rules with the state and we're bringing plumbing back. But I want to thank all of you, especially the three of you sitting there. Melissa knows that I brought technology to the title one schools starting with the Apple technology when we did BYOT and it was called bring your own technology. Well, our students that lived in poverty didn't have access to technology. So that's when we brought the first Apple project. And one of my goals was that we would have Apple certified schools. So Dr. I want to thank you for supporting that and making it happen because it was a long road. We we got we kept getting people certified to be able to

073do it, but then we just didn't get it off the ground and it took Dr. because he had the vision that other people in that department at that time never had to be able to see that. I want to thank you, Mr. Watson, because one of the things I still have a photo of it. I'm sure you do too. When you looked at where themies and the CTE courses and everything were in 2018, they existed on the east side of the county. They didn't really exist on the west side of the county. As a matter of fact, there was an entire high school on the west side of the county that didn't even make the list because they didn't have a single course. But where you've expanded and what you've done is phenomenal. But at

074the same time, because of the expansion at Atlantic, it's brought more programs over to the west side of the county. And that's what we need. We need to continue to add programs and meet the children or well high school students where they're at so that they can walk out that door and be ready to work and make money and and be a citizen that's productive. And then Christina, you know how I feel about literacy. I mean, our children have to be able to read. We live in a world that you need to know how to read and it's very important. And what's so nice to finally see is that we've taken what we've been doing at the elementary level for a long, long time, doing walk to intervention, having that small group instruction. We knew,

075we've known it works, but we had to get it to continue on because you just don't stop it when they go to, you know, middle and high school. They still need that support. So many of our students do. And so you have shown that at the high school level, yes, they need it. And look at the progress your students are making because you're providing it for them. So I think this is a learning experience for all of us today. And the information that was shared, this needs to be shared to everyone. They need to see all the things. I mean, I almost wish we could take the form from the 2017 school year and say, "Here's where Valia County was with programs. Here's where we are now. You know, here's where Valuchia County was. Yes,

076we were using technology, but did we ever think we'd reach this point to have an Apple distinguished school? And here's where we were with our literacy because we were doing well at one point and then we did a change in leadership and our elementary schools all bottomed out, you know, and so here's where we're at. Here's the progress they're making. And by the way, if you continue supporting them all the way through, they will do it and they will show you what they know. So, I just want to thank all of you today and I hope at some point you can share this and you know, I don't think it'd be a bad idea to say here's where we were and here's where we are now. But thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Bros. >>

077I want to thank you all too. The CTE programs are my favorite. Um I when I was with Palm Beach Community College in the mid 90s, I was pushing them to do more AS programs and and get away from the two plus two and send everybody to universities um because not everybody belongs there or even wants to be there. Um my question however is a little more specific because what jumped out at me and I forgive me I don't remember who presented about the auto tech. Um what jumped out at me is that it's not what it used to be. You know, we don't our um we don't have gas station maintenance unfortunately uh anymore and it's really computer tech. So is that how that class is set up? >> Yes, ma'am. And all of

078the equipment is industry standard. make sure that we're our students are learning exactly what the shops in our community are learning. Um, and that's the most exciting part. Yes, you you don't just change oil anymore. You ask a computer what is the car need and it'll tell you what the error message means and all of that >> and it's for the students, but it's it's also customer service. You know, they're they're learning to diagnose. They're learning to communicate with with the customer. They're learning to give the customer bad news. you know, [laughter] it's not always not always good news when you go to the car shop, right? So, there's a lot of different skills that we >> Thank thank you. That was great. And that's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Goodrich.

079>> I also want to thank you guys. Your vision and leadership from the three of you, it shines through all of you. So, thank you guys for being amazing. Um, I'm a little more familiar with Atlantic's program, so I'm going to speak to a few of those. um special special school that's going on over there and the students are so passionate about their programs. Check them out at any time. You can walk in and they are in so involved and so I was going to ask you Mr. Watson if you could share with us for the kids that are in teal. Um there's a guarantee for them. >> Yes. Our HR department is um providing them a letter of intent and so once they complete our program they have to go off to and get

080their degree. That's still a requirement by the state of Florida, but at least it's the assurance that hey, come back to our school, come back to our district and and contribute to our community. And so, absolutely with that and with what Tiffany Fuller is putting together with the pathways to teaching. Um and so that we the thought process then is graduate high school, take the paraprotest, take the classes in the evening to become a teacher while you're working at our school as a parent, getting all of that experience and learning the whole way. So those are some of the ideas that we have. >> And when you refer to the shark pups that they're working with, what are those? >> Those are our prek students. And so it's it's a regular legit prek. Um but

081they do get harassed by high school students every now [laughter] and again, do small groupoup instruction and things like that. that the students are learning how to write lesson plans, what learning looks like, how do you know they've learned, all of those things um that teachers need to do. >> Awesome. And then um in the I'm going to call aerospace area, have I heard rumors of us getting a hanger? >> Don't want to jinx us. I think just I still think there's some money on the line and people that out. So, we're hopeful. We're very hopeful to have an airplane hanger. But amazing that it's right there, right by Embry Riddle and right by the airport and everything. So that's phenomenal. Um, last couple things, just wanted to let the culinary program know I have

082not gotten an invite from them and I wanted to point that out. Um, but also, um, glad to hear that Ice Cube and Green Day are still going strong. [laughter] My last question for you is, is there a shark attack tonight somewhere? >> Yes, thank you for bringing that up. Um, the boys basketball team has advanced to the final four in the state. [applause] We're um we're taking the school van up there to UNF. The tip off is at 7 o'clock. So, go Sharks. >> So, academics, CTE, and sports. Great job. Arts. >> Great job. >> Sharks. >> Go Sharks. >> Dr. Valabin. >> Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Um I I do want to say thank you again to our three principles that are here today along with our district district team. We know that

083it takes public education. Quite often it's a thankless job. But when you have folks with the level of expertise that is required, coupled with the level of passion for students learning and the right support systems in place, anything is possible. And I think that's what you're experiencing here today. Also, Dr. VA, I would like for you to share briefly because this morning at University High School, uh, Principal Wilds was uh providing um an update of our district to a district that is visiting here um district leaders that are here from this from Veo County, I believe, and because they wanted to learn more about our PLC's and ask questions about our growth and how we have experienced this growth. would you like to share a little bit because from what I understand Miss Wild did

084a phenomenal job so we would like to give her a shout out as well. >> Yes. So through um Dr. Drean actually um and her contact um had contacted her um over in Indiana. That's where Vagel County Public Schools is um located. They came down and when I say they the deputy superintendent for teaching and learning was here their two high school principles were here. The assistant principles were here. Some district folks um were here. director of secondary and they really truly were very thoughtful in terms of gleaning from us what it is that we're doing because what we're doing Dr. Dr. Belgaban under your leadership is um is is something that other people are actually noticing. And so we um Amanda Wilds um she hosted the first part of the um of their visit.

085They're actually going to three different schools. And so that was the first school um very proud because she was able to speak to her systems, her process, the structures that she has at um University High School. And because the schools that were there were um high schools, they really truly just ate it up. Um they actually um commented Dr. Dre and they commented to you how um wonderful it is that she is a non like no like all business. >> Um but what I saw um and and so being here for four years, Dr. Belgin, what I have seen from our principal group here as well as um obviously this morning with um with Miss Wilds is a true um not just passion for um doing what's right for students, they also have pushed their

086own thinking um to make sure that they're in the cutting edge of what it takes to be an instructional leader. Once upon a time you can be a principal and be a manager and just manage the you know that that building like no one no one's business and that has changed with the amount of accountability that there is. You have to be able to know instructional leadership and that doesn't happen um overnight. That really does not. You can manage a school and you can have a checklist of things that you need to have, but to truly understand what instructional leadership is and be able to understand how do you provide feedback to be able to move instructional practices, that's a heavier lift that doesn't come from a checklist of things. Doesn't come out of a

087textbook. And so I have to commend our principles. The ones that are here are examples of that. And Amanda Wilds is certainly an example of that. Um, so just very proud. I'm proud chief academic officer. >> Thank you. I do have some questions uh for Chisum. How do you balance tech and touch? And so, you know, being a person who's surrounded by tech all day and I will tell you I was impressed by but also had a little bit of concern. >> So, it sounds like all we do if you go into a classroom that's what you're going to see everywhere you look. That is not what you see. You're going to go in and you're going to have text in their hands. They are reading a piece of paper, a book, whatever it might

088be. It's an integration. So, think of it as integrating into learning. So, yes, there you're going to see typical learning taking place, but then there's this other avenue that teachers can utilize. It's another strategy at hand that we have. So, it's not the second they walk through the door till they leave, they are on a device because they do that at home and we know that they do use it a lot. As adults, we use it. But we also need to remember that we need to integrate it because like you said, everywhere you work, there is technology. There's technology in the auto industry when they're when they're fixing the cars, you know. So that's something that we do have to prepare children for. However, it is not the majority of our day. So I don't

089want to leave here and you think that it is. >> I know. And I appreciate that, you know, again, because I think it's it's an important part of the day, but obviously it can't be everything. So thank you for that. And and what I'll say is, you know, as a person who works in tech, it's very easy to only indulge in tech. It's very easy. Um, and then you lose that balance. And to my next comment to Deltona High which was really interesting how what they spoke about though they've got some amazingies that are doing great things was about the touch was about what you can't substitute with tech and what and and as Miss Haynes pointed out what was an elementary thought process of I care about you enough to sit with you brought

090to the secondary level. As Miss Haynes always said, some of these kids just need someone to listen to them. Love the balance. And Atlantic, um, I have a question for you. So, where have we, what has your school done to increase the requirement for CTE test taking? It was a time in Valuchia County where we had a lot of students in CTE programs. Uh students who were going to be successful. They were going to be amazing at whatever they did. Uh they got to testing time for CTE and they decided I don't want to take the the certification test. At which point, you know, I I'll say it this way. In some cases, that took the opportunity away from a student who that CNA certificate was probably going to be the next four years of

091their job until they decided to go into nursing, respiratory or whatever it is they decided. So, how do you balance that at your school? >> Wasn't an immediate process. It was a cultural shift for us and it eventually became our way of work. this is when you graduate from our school, you are going to graduate with a CCA point, which is the college and career readiness acceleration point. Um, and so really, we made it very difficult for students to bow out of it. We didn't let them take an easy way out. And so, what I mean by that is when a student would say, I don't want to take this exam, or I'm not interested in taking um this course or this course, which course is it? We have we have a lot of courses

092to offer, but you're going to take one of them, and we're going to encourage you to do it. And um and and at the end of the day, that extra nudge, that extra bit of encouragement, if left to a teenager, left to their own devices, that a lot of times they'll opt not to, you know, if you if you encourage them and give them what they need um to and then and then support them the whole time, they will do it and they will rise to the occasion. And I think that's the example that we set with with our CCA point and the increases that we have is that it just became our way of work. We're we're not going to take no for an answer. If you're if you're trying to bow out, I

093want to talk to your parents. I want to talk to you. We're going to have a sit down. I mean, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it doesn't look good, you know. >> Gotcha. I appreciate that. And again, thank you, board. Does anybody else have any questions? All right, hearing none. We'll take a break. We will restart at 3:00. Uh they have to get some resetting done and so we'll be back. Thank you. And thank work. >> Good afternoon and welcome back. We will continue our school board meeting. Next up, we have 3.01 modern unified communication platform. Dr. B. >> Yes, chair. I would like to ask our speaker is already at the desk. speaker's desk. Dr. Kudor, chief technie technology officer. Uh he has a presentation for us as it pertains to our new

094unified communication platform called Parent Square. >> Dr. >> Thank you, >> guys. We have sounds like we have a mic on somewhere. >> Not my mic. As you can see, I'm muted. Test test. There we go. >> You got it. Okay. >> All right. Good afternoon, members of the board, Chair Cologne, Superintendent Belgalan. I'm Matt your chief technology officer, and today I'm presenting an introduction to Parent Square for unified communications. I want to give you a little bit of where this came from. Uh this came from many focus groups that really started in August when we started realizing that some of our surrounding sister districts were using a system called parent square. Uh there were some other ones we were also looking at at the time called apptog and some others. But we started asking

095our principles what they wanted in their communications including their websites. And we started looking at other districts and what they were doing and realized there was a gap. Uh we also did some focus groups and I I want to emphasize that these were led by TLLL and community information and its participating. Uh we had a focus group with some principles in Orange County School District and that one really pushed us the most at parents career. They spent a lot of time with us. They were very kind and generous with their time. A lot of principles were on that meeting. I was on it. uh and they explained all of the ways that parent square made their communications very efficient uh and very effective for them and some of the ways they explained how it worked

096uh we were wanting you know some of them we're like wow that would be great if we could do that so I'm going to be explaining some of those ways to you as we've come to this conclusion we've put it on your approval for the board meeting tonight and if you do approve it uh we are ready to start implementation right away. Well, first off, why to move to one unified communication platform? And when I mean unified, I mean really unified. Like this time, we're going to have district, school, classroom communications, social media, and website all integrated into one single platform. That's more than we've ever been able to combine into one system. It reduces confusion because right now we have multiple systems. Even though we try to push one system, we really have a

097lot of different ways that you communicate. You have to log in to your school's Facebook account. You have to log into Final Site and update that web page. You have to log in to Focus Communications and send out that text message. You know, there's a lot of different ways and that's just at the district and school level. The teachers are using all sorts of things. Uh many things they shouldn't be using like Remind or other uh apps off their phones. So we're trying to provide them a platform where they don't need to do that, where they'll have everything they would want in one place. It also helps us with our training. If we have one unified system, we can offer professional learning in that one system and it reduces the confusion of people not knowing

098how to do the communications. It uh improves consistency district districtwide. So when a message goes out, it's one message. Like right now when you use different platforms, it's kind of a telephone effect. You know, by the time the message finally sends out in the system one classroom tends to be using, they've kind of translated it down the way and it it becomes muddled or uh not the same message that we really wanted to send. It also supports an inclusive communication platform. You know, when you're using a different language in your family, uh it becomes very confusing. If your third grader happens to be using one thing that a teacher is using, but your seventh grader is using something different and then the district communicates in something different, you really then just kind of check out

099because you can't figure out all these different things. But if you have one platform that's easy to understand and translates into your language, it then includes more people into the communications. So what is Parent Square? It's a K12 district school classroom to home communications platform. It's purpose-built for the educational environment. It's one hub for posts, alerts, direct messaging, newsletters, calendars, and engagement workflows. Uh one of the principles, for instance, when we talked to Orange County principles, he had a really good example. He talked about how long it took him to send a message out before they changed to parent square. And then he showed us how he could put one message that then he could just hit some check boxes under it and it would go out in about five different ways. It would update

100his website. It would update his school's Facebook page all in just one message. So he it was very quick. Like if he had imagine you have an emergency going on, you don't have very much time. You don't want to be constantly logging in and out and trying to figure out how this system works or that system works. If you can do one that goes to everything, that's good, fast emergency communications. As you can see on the right side there, it handles mass notifications securely. Uh it handles school websites, classroom communications, and it's it's designed for K12. It's basically sweeping the country. When we started really looking at what other districts use this, it was starting to hard be hard to find districts that weren't like uh it was all over the place. And we've noticed

101that some of the other vendors of websites and school communications are getting very nervous about Parent Square uh including the ones we use now because it is just so wellbuilt. Something else we will benefit from from parent square is they've been there and done that with implementations. they've implemented in the districts that surround us all across the country. So when we talk to them, we feel very comfortable. We can hear their confidence in how well they can implement this system. And we know that implementations are very difficult. Uh so it gets us nervous if if someone is unsure, but these folks have come to the table with a plan that we can feel confident about. I want to show you a quick little video that we hope will be something that is similar to what

102we would see when we implement parent square. And this would be something that maybe we would see in July or early August. This is coming from a news channel in um Kentucky. And Kentucky actually has very similar laws as we do when it comes to student data privacy. So, it's pretty relevant even though it's Kentucky. you haven't downloaded Parent Square yet, you probably will soon. On their website, Parent Square refers to itself as a 21st century school home communication platform. Back in May, the school board voted to approve a contract with the company and because of a new law, it'll be the main company they use for communicating with students. A presentation from the school board shows a FE county schools were using multiple different platforms to communicate with families with infinite campus being the

103most popular but class dojo talking points and remind also getting high percentages. The move to parent square will put them in compliance with SB81 which was passed by state lawmakers this year. We've talked about how that law requires teachers to use traceable school approved platforms to talk to students. The law also says in part, "Each local board of education shall designate a traceable communication system to be the exclusive means for a school district employee or volunteer to communicate electronically with students." It also says the principal of each public school shall give parents written or electronic notification within the first 10 days of the school year about the type of program that they have chosen. The parent square is the exclusive means that County leaders have chosen to communicate with families. Programs like Class Dojo and

104Group Me will no longer be used, but Infinite Campus is still being used for some purposes. Those accounts will remain active. Now, Fyet County isn't alone. Multiple school districts in Kentucky are using Parent Square. That includes Woodford, Webster, and Powell counties. If you have a good question, just email us good question at wkyt.com. I'll see you on WKYT Mornings. Well, Parent Square is actually on the line with me on Teams right now and uh in a moment I'm going to let them do a little demonstration for you. But I want to emphasize much like you saw in that video that we too want to make sure we have a traceable unified communication system. Whenever there's a question about what's going on with communications and if that it's breaking policy, we need to be able to

105quickly act upon that. If I can't trace the communications because it's used off of some teacher's personal cell phone account on their personal cell phone, I I have no visibility into that, then it's very difficult to gather any sort of evidence to protect both the teacher or the student or both. So, we need to have one system that the district manages and advocates and supports. I'm going to call Cliff Scarboro up here in a moment. Uh this system will be implemented by two different major groups. The IT division of course myself and Mike McAuliffe as the acting uh chief of communications for community information. Both community information and IT have major roles to play in this sort of implementation. It is a communication system. So obviously the main advocate for well be communic uh community

106information but it's technical. So, it needs to be involved and the day-to-day day-to-day project management will be managed by Cliff Scarboro and a team from both of those groups, including our new web master that just started today. Cliff, would you come up for a moment? Cliff's going to talk about the two phases of our implementation. Good afternoon, board superintendent. I am proud to be the project manager leaving leading my second website transition. I did the first one to final site four years ago and I'm happy to be here doing this one. Um, parent square is actually two different transitions. Um, we have the communications platform which focus will be ending um, our contract on July 1. So we are going to be very quickly pulling up parent square to actually have a enough runtime to

107do a pilot and also do some testing before we have to go live with it on July 1. So a lot of the items that we have to do is district setup, SIS sync, roles, message governments and a part of the vetting process, we actually deconstructed all of the requirements for parent square and we have worked with our teams already to make sure that our data systems are ready to upload the data. We have done implementation testing with every feature. I I have an app on my phone that is live with our school district all in a beta mode to really run this through the paces before Dr. brought it to you the board to approve and it is amazing how much they have worked with us on that. So all of that is ready

108to run and we are ready to very quickly implement and bring the system online so that we can do beta testing. A lot of as you know with a lot of change comes staff training and we are I'm working with the edtech department in creating a robust training package for our teachers that listens to their needs. As a former teacher I knew when I was in the classroom what I needed to be able to communicate with my students and I had them at all hours of the night. So I'm trying to work with our teams to figure out how do sports teams use this? How do our afterchool classes use this? In addition, how do elementary teachers send newsletters that look pretty and convey what is happening out? So, we're not printing stuff to go

109in students backpacks. It's arriving to the parent in the way that they expect to see it, which is a social media style blast that is private to them. Our family onboarding, another huge thing. We have 64,000 students. We have twice, three times, four times the amount of guardians, not just parents, but guardians, people who need to know information about pickups and stuff. Those are a lot of people. We have three things that they will be able to provide, but we've got to do a robust education package to say, do you want the app? Do you want text messaging? Or do you just want to see it in email? It's going to be the the parents choice. Our go live for the entire district is July 1 of 26. Now in our second big project is

110our website migration. We have the uh the nice ability that we final site is not ending July 1. So during our website we're going to take a little bit slower than I had the first time in four years ago bringing final site up. We are going to be diving into what does need to be on our website. What does our website represent to us? What does it look to our outside stakeholders and community? So, we're going to be pulling together workg groupoup teams to define all of that so that we have clear guidance for schools building their website presence in addition to our district sites to actually produce the information where our stakeholders expect it to be so that there's transparency on the website and it's it's not brought together as we're just moving it

111from the final site over to the new parent square environment which that requires a lot of building a lot QA, a lot of answers, a lot of um and stakeholder review and and my goal is to be very transparent with teams. However, bringing it in the guideline of at the end of this year in uh December, probably over Christmas break, switching the platform over to Parent Square and then we will be fully on uh the the software so that we you we can utilize all of the uh uh integration features of the communications piece tying into their website. >> Thank you, Cliff. Uh I also want to emphasize a couple other leaders besides Cliff that will be involved. We are really lucky that Cliff was once the web master for the school district. So he's

112done a web migration already and obviously you learn some things when you do that. So he will take those lessons learned and apply them to this web migration. We also have Brenda Leto who is our assistant director of student information systems who implemented focus communications when we implemented that. So she is going to be involved and has lessons learned in her mind as well. Uh and then Chrissy Brio in edtech who did the training last time for our communication system. So we have an experienced team in its I feel very confident in. Uh we'll be supporting probably some uh folks in community information that are not quite as um as experienced in this sort of migration, but I'm sure that they'll be fine with our support. So moving on, uh the phase one as Cliff

113mentioned will be all about the basics of communications. That is really important to us because we don't want our schools starting the school year concerned about their communications. So we'll be laser focused on getting the school level communications up and running first district of course and classroom with that as well. And then of course that phase two is the website. And we do have the luxury of being able to go slow so that we can contemplate and carefully choose what goes up on the websites without being rushed. All right. Now we're going to go into the demo. So before I bring up uh parent square, what I want to emphasize is that they're going to be demonstrating very briefly. So if you want a more in-depth, you know, demo, we'll have to u schedule that

114at another time. We've had very long demos from them, like hours kind of thing. We're not going to do that to you today. Uh, but we'll give you a brief taste of their communications, their their uh website platform, and something we haven't mentioned much called stickers. And stickers is a positive student behavior motivation feature uh within Parent Square that we also want them to show to you. Now, just in case this demo didn't go off perfectly, uh I have a linked video to the stickers uh module that you can use, you know, on your own as part of this presentation. It links to that image right there. But I think Parent Square will be able to handle that. So, let me go ahead and get online with them now. Give me just a moment. >>

115All right, folks. Folks, it's up to you. Okay, great. >> Hi, Dr. Can you hear my voice? Okay. >> Hi, Dr. and team. Can you hear my voice? Okay. >> I don't want to turn my mic on because it will There we go. Okay, Val, I think we're ready to go. >> All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us this afternoon. We hope to be very efficient over the next 10 minutes. So, I'd like to introduce myself and introduce my team. I'm Valerie Ball and I have two VPs on with us as well, Bill and Michelle and my senior solutions engineer, Jeff Windsor. We're going to share with you a little bit more here about Parent Square. If we could go to the next slide, please. We're

116going to cover the Valuja County top priorities. As I have met with Danielle Johnson, who I understand has moved on from the district, but I've met with her many times over the last three years, and with Cliff and Dr. and many others as well, your teachers, your parents, many stakeholders in the district. We're going to do a quick Parent Square overview, very, very high level for you this afternoon. and Michelle will then show you stickers and Jeff will show you a little bit of our websites and we'll talk about the next steps as well. Next slide, please. So, over the last couple of years, I've really learned a whole lot about your district. And may I just add in here that we are all extraordinarily humbled by what we've heard in the last few minutes.

117Thank you, Dr. and Cliff for um really humbling words about Parent Square. We are in fact a very very proud group of people. And first and foremost, I want to share our 99.4% retention rate. I say that not to brag at all, but to really share with you the message that in 15 years of business, we do not lose clients. And we pride ourselves on that. The the challenge in Valuia that I've learned and our team has learned is fragmented communication channels in the district data privacy and compliance concerns and issues. We've worked long and hard with your legal team there to make sure everything eye is dotted and te is crossed. More personalized family engagement near and dear to my heart as a 30-yearong educator. And I understand from many conversations that a particular

118pain point has been with other vendors that has dealt with um that there may have been a lack of support and we for are here to promise you that that will not be the case with parent square. We are going to be with you every step of the way. Most importantly, we want to help you to rid any issues whatsoever with barriers to entry for all twoway true two-way communications back and forth. So, first and foremost, we're going to really help you to clean up your contactability if there are any issues whatsoever. Can't expect parents to engage if we're not contacting them in the first place. The uh the language barrier will be removed as well. everything from newsletters to electronic signature forms to day-to-day communications or um urgent alerts. We're going to make sure

119that all comes through in the preferred language at home. We're going to pull that right from your student information system and we want to help to reduce the information overload. Lastly, I want to share in this next slide that first and foremost, we're going to work with Cliff and the team to make sure we really have 100% contactability. And as Dr. intimated a few minutes ago. Um, that's really important for us to make sure we meet you folks and 100% of your stakeholders where they choose to be met, whether that's text or email or uh app notification. Um, and with the contactability right out of the gate and every single day, those with upper management and higher level permissions will be able to see your contactability rates. So, in that little information, that donut of

120information on the bottom left of your screen there, the green will be families with whom you can communicate via text, email, and phone and app notification as well. Yellow is going to highlight where we're getting through to them, but not to all modalities. And we're going to clean up that red zone immediately to make sure that we are able to contact in at least one way, preferably all four. I'm going to hand it over to Bill Frenzil, but I I really want to thank you for your time and your trust. We are really here as a seasoned team to let you know that we are not going to let you down. I've really enjoyed this process with Danielle, Dr. and Cliff and many many others over the last couple of years. With that, I'm going

121to hand it over to Bill Frenzel. >> Thanks so much, Val, and thank you so much to the Valuia team and board. Um, we are so excited about this partnership. Um, I, you know, I had a moment of reflection as we joined early. I've, you know, through the years, I've been 23 years now in these school district communication tools and the passion with which you talk about your individual students and their and and understanding their own paths um was really inspiring. it it just made me more excited to partner with your district. So, thank you for that and thank you for the work that you do. We're really excited to partner with you um and show you what we can do here with Parent Square. So, I'm going to quickly talk about our communications platform,

122then I'm going to hand it over to Michelle to talk about stickers and then we'll conclude with Jeff talking about our smart sites website. So um as we think of parent square in these kind of buckets and how we roll this all into one unified platform, we have to have have you covered in multiple different areas. One is mass communication. You know, if you need to get an emergency message out, your day-to-day attendance messaging, that's kind of a typical bucket for a communication tool. One area that we really shine in is classroom communications. How do we bring that all into one place? direct messaging between teachers, parent teacher conference signups, two-way translations, things like that. And then we have a bucket that is really unique to parents square, which we call school services. It's that

123digital backpack being able to address things like forms and permission slips and secure document delivery. And then finally, we round out the solution with our beautiful smart sites, which are branded, customized to your district, and really let you highlight your message to your families. Um, I won't spend a lot of time here, but I do want to provide this deck for you. There's a QR code to hear our story from our founders. They tell it better than I ever could, but Parent Square was created because two software engineers who were husband and wife went to their first back to school night 15 years ago and found that school communication was very fragmented. And they were smart technical people and they still found it very hard to keep up with everything that was going on. So,

124they built Parent Square to address that problem and that's why it evolved into the tool. It was built through that parent lens and our founders are still here. That's another really special thing in the industry. Typically by this phase of the company, they would have turned it over three or four different times to different venture capital firms. Yet, our husband and wife team are still here focused on their mission and their growth with parent square. So, I think it's really great if you have a chance to uh to to view that. This is what most school districts that we talk to look like. It is a fragmented kind of chaotic approach to communication. We've got an alert system like focus or blackboard or school messenger. We've got classroom tools like dojo or remind or group

125me. We've got newsletter tools like constant contact or s'more or mailchimp. And then there's all these other use cases where we might be digitally gathering tools. We might use our sports and clubs have their own apps. But we have to ask ourselves what does that feel like as a parent or our district? And we call that the parent challenge. It's usually a folder full of apps or different ways that you're communicating with the district. And I, as a parent, have to figure out what to navigate. Is one teacher using Remind? Is another teacher using Dojo? Am I receiving district messages from an auto dialer? It's it's just a a landscape which they tend to check out. So, we believe parents square is a solution to that. One centralized tool that's district vetted for all users.

126So whether it's the superintendent or the communications director sending a message districtwide, whether it's a classroom teacher sending a two-way message and engaging in a direct message or a principal or a coach, it's all going to be in one place. And most importantly, you're going to give your parents that that confidence to go, I know that I go to parent square for my school communication. One other thing that's very important to us is the way that we do two-way. Parents Square invests heavily in this and we're one of the only major providers in K12 communication that allows you to respond to a direct message which is a conversation without having to log in or without having to download an app. So you can actually receive the text message in your home language and reply right

127to that text message that assures as close to 100% of your families are involved in a communication and a conversation as possible. It's automatically translated in over 190 languages and there are zero barriers to communication. You do not need to download an app and you do not need to log in to respond to those messages. That I think is one of the most important things we can do for our districts because it helps build trust. Trust is built in those two-way conversations and we we invest heavily to make sure that that is done right. And now I'll turn it over to my colleague Michelle to talk to you about our stickers product. >> Thanks Bill. So, building on what Bill already touched on, a key part of strong student and family engagement is recognizing students

128in the mo moment while it happens. Having your educators have visibility into things like patterns of recognition across their classrooms, across their students. One capability districts really appreciate is our recognition tool, as we call stickers, which is built directly into the parent square platform. It allows your teachers to quickly recognize those positive behaviors as they happen without interrupting instruction, not having teachers log into another platform, really streamlining that enduser experience. What makes this especially powerful is that those moments of recognition are then shared with families. This helps families stay connected to what's happening in the classroom and they can also have more meaningful conversations with their students at home. Recognizing students and building positive culture is of course one important part of engagement. The other critical piece is how you as a district communicate with

129your families and your broader community. With that, I'm actually going to turn it over now to Jeff to walk you through how Smart Sites or CMS platform can help districts do exactly that. >> Thank you, Michelle. Your district website is often the first place families and community members go for information and it's also one of the first impressions people have of Valuia County Schools. In Parent Square Smart Sites, it helps districts create websites that are not only beautiful and professional, but also easy to manage and p with powerful communication tools. With Smart Sites, your team can launch modern, mobilefriendly district and school websites quickly using flexible templates built specifically for K12 education. There's no coding required, which makes it easy for staff to keep pages updated and accurate. Smart Sites also helps ensure your information

130stays fresh and consistent across platforms. Posts, calendars, and feeds update automatically. And when you share an update in Parent Square, you can publish it to your website and social media at the same time. That means your team can write once and keep all communication channels in sync. Accessibility is also built into the platform. Smart Sites includes built-in ADA guard rails and multilingual translation, helping ensure every family, regardless of language or ability, can access the information they need. And because Smart Sites is part of the Parent Square platform, your website becomes part of a single unified communication system connecting websites, social media, and two-way messaging with family. Finally, it's worth remembering the reach of your website. In the United States alone, more than 330 million people have internet access. Your website is the district's front door

131to the entire community and Smart Sites helps ensure that front door is welcoming, accessible, and always up to date. I'm going to hand it back to Val for final words. >> Hey Val, I uh you may be muted. >> Thank you, Bill. Sorry about that, folks. My goodness. I am hoping what really translates today is that you folks genuinely can trust parents square with we're 22 million students across the country all 50 states over 42,000 schools we're going to update this slide shortly for 45% of US families using the platform now we've really had a nice surge this year and again worth repeating is our 99.4% 4% retention. We pride ourselves so so much on our retention rate because we understand what that means to you folks when you sign on. Next slide, please. >>

132That's actually it, Valon. Um, I do want to just close with saying a a big thank you and um you'll be in great hands if we are uh awarded this and and and uh approved uh here with through the board. Um however um you uh you you know have access to directly to our implementation team and support team but this team here on the call is always going to be a resource as well. We uh are a phone call away or an email away at any time and you'll have that access to anybody in the company all the way up to senior leadership and our founders. So we like to get to know our districts. We like to get to hear about your challenges and how we can help those. So, um, we will partner

133side by side with you on this project and make sure it's a success in your district if, uh, if the if we approved tonight. So, thank you so much for your time and Dr. I'll hand it back over to you. >> All right, I'm going to let them go because the mics will interfere if I turn on the mics. So, I will have to chat in every question if you have question. >> Before they go, board, does anybody have any questions for >> I can chat in a question, but I don't want to turn. Um, >> yeah, I can just I can hear Dr. >> Co. Okay, go ahead. They can hear you. >> Okay, thank you. Um, first I want to say I love the stickers as a parent. Like I that's what I

134miss most about Class Dojo was the stickers and my kids missed that too since we don't have that. So, thank you for having that. Um, just end there. Um, as a parent, I do love all of this being in one place because with all due respect, when I get a million texts and emails and phone calls, it drives me insane. And I know it's well-intentioned, but this will be nice. How are we communicating this change with the parents? This could be a question for you, Dr. Ken. >> So, we'll be communicating this change to the parents after we've first had a chance to do it with the schools. Um, so if you approve it tonight, first communication rolls out to the schools. We're already working on that communication >> and then once the schools know,

135then we'll let the parents know. It it'll basically be the same way we communicate anything right now. We'll put out our normal communication system right now that says we're going to change what you're getting right now is going to change to parent square over the summertime. they'll have some time to digest it and ask questions. >> Okay, good. Yeah, as long as everyone knows what's going on because I feel like we have had a lot of changes and so that sometimes that can be really frustrating to hear like, oh, there's another change. But I think if they understand that this is a really good one and everything's in one place. >> We'll also put together like a a guide for them how to get their apps. We'll be training our help desk team so that

136they can call in if they have any trouble trying to get it on their phone, someone could walk them through it. >> Okay. And then follow up. I saw that if we approve it tonight, the go live is July 1st. So, when will our teachers start having access to the training, being able to really like play with >> Well, that depends on what school they are. We are going to have three pilot schools, so obviously they'll have immediate access. Uh then after those pilot schools, we'll do the full training with all the rest of the district. Uh most of that will happen during Valuchia Learns, but there will be follow-on trainings because not everybody goes to Valuchia Learns. So during pre-planning before the school year starts, we'll be doing training. Again, we'll have multiple sessions.

137The they don't have to attend every session, of course, but we'll give them many opportunities to attend the trainings. >> Okay. And have we picked those three pilot schools yet? >> Yes. Uh Citrus Grove. What are the other two, Cliff? >> Oh, >> that's right. We're we're going to do a high school and a middle school we haven't picked, but we have picked Citrus Grove as our elementary. >> Okay. And I can I assume that even though or can I assume since the parents have access to the help desk and the teachers will have people there to help them along the way? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Wonderful. Anybody else have any questions, thoughts, feelings, or concerns? So, I had the opportunity to meet with parents square a long time ago.

138It seems like an eternity ago. uh where uh they were just starting to work on this whole stickers and and the fun things that we love about uh other products and so I want to thank them for uh listening for being committed to uh ensuring that their product uh will meet our needs. I think their record that last slide was very telling. uh they would not be in that many school districts serving that many students uh if their product was not uh superior. And so um if you get bored, Seino County Schools is one uh place that uses them. And so if you wanted to look at their website and how their stuff is form formulated, uh you can see that there. And I don't know if there's any other school districts that are awesome

139that they want to recommend that we go look at. Um but I think >> county >> this will be good. I do have one question for them and it is if there are multiple students. So the challenge we have now is that parents get text messages or they may have three students in school and they have no idea who the text message is relating to. Uh does parent square um have something in there that lets them know which school is writing and for which student? >> Yes, Mr. Cologne. As a matter of fact, uh every text message will be um prepended with a uh a school code or a teacher's last name, so they will know exactly what teacher it's coming from or what school it's coming from when they receive a text message from

140parents square at all times. That's just part of the uh natural flow of the the communication. >> Perfect. Thank you. Other than that, I don't have anything else. >> Right. That was our last M. Dr. Co. >> Okay. Okay. So, I'm going to let parent square go and then I have a couple more slides to tie up things like with cost and so on. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you. >> All right. Remember this is a longer demo that I it's seven minutes long. It's all about stickers. So, I'm not going to play this, but you can play it on your own if you want to learn more about stickers. I want to emphasize stickers much like class dojo before it is not PBIS and we purposely don't call it PBIS. PBIS is a

141comprehensive program of behavior management. Uh this could be a tool like 5% kind of thing but it is not a replacement for the entire PBIS program and systems. Now now let's talk about costs. So our current systems focus communications and a separate system final site website are currently costing us as you can see 173 and 136,000 about. Uh that's this year's costs and then next year we'll have implementation costs and year one you'll notice is a lot less than years two and three. That's because parent square gave us a significant discount as an offset to final site so that we could keep final site on next year in parallel as we migrate the two sites. Uh so that's so in essence it doesn't cost us any extra to keep final site on as we migrate

142to parent square. So that's a real good deal for us. And then over the three years, if you actually just kind of did the math of what our old systems would cost compared to Parent Square, over the three years, we'd save somewhere around $27,790. So we get a better system unified into one at a lower cost over three years. And that's the end of my presentation. I hope you approve it today in the board meeting. Miss Bros, >> I I just have one question about I I don't know these things well enough to ask you any intelligent questions about the actual function. It looks great to me. Um but with regard to the cost since it's enrollmentbased, how often is that updated since our enrollment changes every year? >> Well, if the enrollment were to

143go down, uh our number of licenses would also go down. So that that's why I said it's approximately 27,000 some in savings. It could be a little more or less depending on our enrollment. So if it's a certain amount per student, uh you know, if we went down by 300 students, of course, we would save that amount and we would do that every single year. >> That's what I wondered. How often it >> second year, third year, those could be a little less, a little more depending on enrollment. >> Okay. Thank you. So, I do have a question for um principal wilds this morning because we were talking about it and the question was does it integrate with focus? I understand that they're able to send text messages now via focus to parents with the

144kids' grades uh etc. And so that's I'll just add that to the wish list. not so much a question but uh something that I think our some of our schools have enjoyed from focus communications and so if that's something that can be done I'll just throw that >> I can't address that we we that has been a very big item on our agenda of working with parent square to figure out the integration we will still have the basic version of focus communications but it does not include text messages or voice that's the premium version that we're paying for now but that will be migrated to parent square. So we'll still be able to do text messaging and voice. We'll still be able to do email through our regular outlook email system and through focus. So

145uh attendance notices via email would still work. Also inside parent square will still be parent portal. So students uh grades and attendance will still be through focus but you'll see a link inside parent square where you click it and then it takes you into parent portal and you're just looking at your attendance or grades instead of the communication system. a single sign on. >> Yes. >> Perfect. Very good. Well, thank you so much. And if there's no other uh business, we'll adjourn this workshop. We'll resume at 4:30. Thank you.