001e e e good evening and welcome to the Sako School Board committee meeting for uh what is today today is Wednesday December 13th let this meeting uh be called to order at 50:4 first off I'd like to have everybody join me for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you item number three tonight we do have the approval of the school board minutes dated November 8th for 2023 is there a motion to approve the minutes so moved motion has been made by school board member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member Johnston also that was um Preble oh I'm sorry thank you I was watching best hand second by School Board member Purble any discussion on the minutes okay not seeing any roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble
002yes School Board member Richards yep School Board member roach abstain sorry School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes five with one abstention next item on the agenda number four is adjustments to the agenda are there any adjustments to the agenda there are no adjustments so we move on to item number five there is no correspondence now moving on to item number six public comment if there is any member of the public wishing to speak speak please step up to the podium state your name address for the record and you have three minutes okay we're not seeing anybody wishing to speak now moves us on to item number seven and that is the superintendent's report superintendent Ray all right good evening everybody so just a few items here uh to talk
003about tonight because a lot of it will be talked about in new business when we come to school construction uh but we are coming up on a very important two week stretch of trying to get to December 29th timeline um to meet with the construction committee at State Board of Education um as you guys know we've been doing a lot of Capital Improvements um throughout the district and specifically at SMS and tomorrow night before the uh Dr pole we will be giving tours of SMS just so that you can kind of wrap your head around the work that has been done and again at the early phases with much more to continue on with um but hope that you'll get an opportunity to see the progress that we've made uh it can't announce enough uh
004and as many times that tomorrow night at SMS at 6 o'clock we will have the straw vote um for the Improvement uh for the new school construction site this is about site only uh and is part of the process that allows us to get to the construction committee on the 29th um there will be another one of these later on in approximately two months which deals with the building and the programming um but this one is just about the site principales and teachers have been working hard in budget preparation um the first draft of the budget will uh be turned in to our office right before the holiday um vacation so that we can spend some time over that pulling together over vacation to pull together that first draft we anticipate having subsidy numbers sometime
005early in February uh is typically when the comes we have not had any updates from the doe on like timeline pieces but as you know that's when we'll start uh talking much more in public about what our subsidies look like what our student counts look like what's the end result um that we have to start uh dealing with uh from some of that information finally the probably the biggest topic of what we've been doing the last couple days is we have about half of our transportation staff who has illness and we are working some I know I think our drivers and a whole lot of uh staff around the district is doing pretty darn good with the help of uh families all over the place to come up with a plan to bring uh kids
006to school it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination um but I know that Meg uh just sent some communication as we wrapped up a plan for tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon I think we have a solution where bus runs are covered with plenty of adjustments um but trying not to delay things as much as Pro as possible it's really helpful uh for families that if we send out uh forms or Google pieces that you get that information to us immediately um if you can um because we're trying to do the best that we can with borrowed 10 passenger vans and 15 uh mini buses um and a lot of help uh coming from everybody uh so thank you to the transportation department who is working really hard right now and to everybody
007who's volunteered uh to jump into a van to help get kiddos to school um not perfect but we are we are getting through this stretch thank you any discussion or comments uh for superintendent Ray Schoolboard member Truman uh I we had this conversation separately about um potentially getting child care tomorrow night for the straw pole so that parents who have kids can come and not be too distracted by them and I wasn't sure if that was something that we had any um luck on or so Megan and I spoke about that but we've pretty much been uh occupied occupied with figuring out how to get Vans around right now so we'll get back to you and uh we're still continuing to work on that piece I was worried about asking I was like I'm sure
008they had other things today but I figured I'd ask anyway thanks great thank you any other comments questions okay not seeing any that will now move us down to item eight which is the chair's report Schoolboard member Purble is there a chair report um I don't have anything major to report this evening just further down into the agenda we'll talk about voting for chair Vice chair and committees okay thank you item number nine staff reports there are no staff reports this evening item number 10 board subcommittee minutes the policy and Personnel committee is the next meeting is 11024 at 5:30 finance and infrastructure committee meetings is 12323 at 4:30 which actually was this evening and the curriculum committee is the next meeting is 1 12224 at 4:30 item number 11 there is no old business
009item 12 new business we do have a couple of items first one a is new hires there is a memo in your packet is there a motion to accept mayor motion made by Schoolboard member TR is there a second second by Schoolboard member Johnston can I make the motion yep uh I move we approve the stien nomination of Tina Murphy and issue a stien contract for the 2324 school year thank you Beth do you still uh okay second still by count uh Schoolboard member Johnson any discussion okay we'll go with the r call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 I'm sorry 70 item number B
010is resignations again there is a memo in your packet is there a motion to accept mayor mcf May uh I move we accept the resignation of Jeremy Allen Young School strides teacher effective December 22nd 2023 thank you motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman is there a second second by Schoolboard member Johnston any discussion Madame mayor yep school beard member Argie uh I would just like to personally thank um Jeremy Allen on behalf of my family um he has helped us out a lot in the last couple of years um I know my son was pretty upset to hear that he was leaving um but I wish him the best thank you any other discussion or comments okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richards
011yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnson yes motion passes 70 okay item number c is the BDA is the organizational meeting election of the chair and vice chair is there a motion to nominate for the position of chair School Board member Johnson um thank you I move to nominate Jennifer Preble as the school board chair for the next year okay a motion has been made to nominate Schoolboard member Jen Preble is there a second second second by Schoolboard member Truman any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Ry yes Schoolboard member Fel I think I'm going to abstain School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes School Board member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes School Board member Johnson yes okay motion passes
01260 with with one EXT ex uh extension congratulations okay and second to that is there a motion to nominate a vice chair Schoolboard member Johnson you had your hand up first thank you um yes I do move to nominate Sarah Truman as Vice chair for the next year of the School Board second okay a motion has been made to nominate Schoolboard members uh Truman as Vice chair is there any discussion and a second by uh Schoolboard member prel I'm sorry okay not seeing any we'll go with roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Fel yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Truman I can vote for myself right you can if you want yes [Laughter] yep and Schoolboard member Johnson yes motion passes
01370 okay that now takes us to item number D which is the BDA committee assignments uh chair Preble do you have any committee assignments oh I do um I apologize that I did not get them all out to the board but it has not changed from my last email so if I could just read them through and we I think do we vote on them if memory serves correct okay all right um I'm going to do the major committees and then I will go into the subcommittees I don't know if we need to review that but we will um main committee assignments for finance budget and infrastructure I have Beth Johnston Kevin roach and Jeffrey Richards policy Personnel committee I have William Gail Sarah Truman and Beth Johnston curriculum committee I have Arthur Archie Beth
014Johnston Sarah Truman um so those are the main committees that I have um for the subcommittees for wellness I have myself Jennifer prebble and Beth Johnston for pg& I have Beth Johnston and myself Jennifer prebble Dropout committee myself and Jeffrey Richards um calendar Committee of Arthur Archie and Sarah Truman stiping committee I have Sarah Truman and William Gail I hope everybody got that this evening I'm happy to take questions or if we need to tweak anything but that's what I have proposed any questions or anything needing repeating by anyone okay looks like everybody is all set thank you okay next on the agenda we do have item e which is the school construction update oh Madam mayor I'm so sorry to interrupt you um I believe Mr Ray superintendent Ray do we have to vote
015on the subcommittees we do um so I think a vote for approval we have to do a motion I believe okay is there a motion to approve the subcommittee Consignments Madame mayor I move we approve the subcommittee assignments as laid out by chair PR motion has been made by school board member Truman is there a second second okay second has been uh made by Schoolboard member Richards roll call vote School Board member Archie no Schoolboard member purel yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail no Schoolboard member Truman yes Schoolboard member Johnson yes motion passes 52 okay now we move on to item e which is the school construction update and that is with superintendent Ray okay several things to update on school construction uh uh in your packet if
016you remember from city council meeting a couple of weeks ago um we were able to give a timeline for the June 11th referendum and that is in your packet again tonight as this these are the the paces that we need to make sure we keep up with if we're continuing through that June 11th date and giving uh the information that we have from the doe at this time we are on target to hit those pieces I've included just the major Target dates for you um because there are 40 lines on that um construction but the big ones start with straw straw vat tomorrow night December 29th state board uh construction committee January 13th would be the State Board site approval um so that's where the full state board not just their subcommittee um would give
017us uh the go-ahead to move forward March 13th being the State Board concept approval that's where they're really looking at the size of the building the design of the building and the budget for the process which would put us on Pace for a June 11th public vote throughout that process uh there are a couple of notes in the schedule schedule where uh Madame mayor we would have to have a you know a certain Monday night we'd have to have a council meeting to make sure that we took a particular action I worry less about those having to be special meetings because those will occur during the month of March and April when we tend to meet most Monday nights for a budget anyway so that we will have meetings aside from the meeting um calendar
018some things uh that we have been working on oako myself Meg some great support from Pat Fox and uh Public Works uh Department of really trying to hone in on the intersection on Route One and um the business park that is the piece that will not be totally you know designed and defined tomorrow night because there's a lot of work going on there of what the needs are also some of the requirements of the do for offsite improvements in which intersections those could be throughout the town has not been finalized but it's not enough to hold us back from moving forward uh for site approval um and we will have that you know kind of traffic permit uh movement permit in in hand uh for the 29 so that's where really the major discussion right
019now is continuing to focus on traffic and a lot of it is BEC part of the holdup is because the Department of Transportation has some requirements that they're having us look at for intersections that are well over uh a mile from the site which isn't necessarily the most typical um I think that they say that this project has had the most requirements um from the dot as far as intersections because we know of the challenges throughout our city where traffic um is and has become and also knowing that it's very difficult to predict what will happen with the one uh 112 exchange when that's finished um so those are some pieces that uh we're spending a lot of time on and I'm happy to take any uh construction related questions I can update the board
020on any questions School Board tman uh this is probably a very obvious question but I'm guessing that throughout this process where you're meeting with the state that they because I see the concept approval I'm guessing that they've already gotten a glance at what we have planned at this point right if there are any glaring red Flags they would be like oh your building's ridiculous or whatever ahead of time before we got to that point right yeah they've had they've had several sneak peets of uh floor plans we have a meeting on January 4th correct Meg where the kind of whole purpose of that would be for oako to really highlight uh and sit with them around the table this one's actually in person um and sit down with the plans to explain all of those
021pieces so that they can weigh in on entrances ex exits size of the building ventilation those pieces that are greater concerns to them um but yeah I mean there is a lot of timelines and certainly the development of a budget is extremely important for the project um because not only are you looking at what the impact would be locally you're also they're balancing the impact on the state uh bonds and how much they can borrow each year um and so those are the pieces that we fine-tune um whether it's site or in the concept piece there's also a lot of discussion around the offsite improvements and that's sidewalks entrances uh Etc Megan um a week ago uh or it was December 4ish um we held a meeting for a Butters of the property and um
022to start talking about some of the things they can they can expect some of the concerns that they may have during the project how we work through their concerns how we listen and say these are the things that Architects construction Etc need to make sure happened um as we begin to move that forward um Megan I hope to go back out and talk with a couple of of the property owners that expressed some um more concerns than others to figure out okay so how do we make sure that this property owner Andor business um is least impacted during the construction phase and they had some pretty good ideas for us through the process great uh Schoolboard member roach uh you mentioned uh they're looking anything in a mile is there a certain intersection a mile
023away that they're concerned about because there isn't much uh um a mile away from the milbrook route one intersection so they have concerns of um Kevin it'll just be easier if I bring up um my list just give me a second that we're working on the traffic light at 112 in Franklin Street Route 112 Industrial Park intersection um looking at the uh 195 offramp adjustments uh to Route uh Route One flag Pond intersection those seem to be the areas that they are focused on yeah so that's over a mile away so they're going outside their normal parameters for Sako yep and does the doe have an explanation of that from the do of why they're doing that I think that just concerned about the amount of traffic obviously concerned about the interstate piece um but
024when you look at the Route 112 Industrial Park intersection in the I95 ramp they know we know that there's a a large building that was just built right there for the trucking comp it looks like it's Trucking mostly by the uh industrial park on northbound or southbound as you would turn on there what's interesting is that you're trying to look at some situations where you're trying to make decisions about that intersection now yet that's a situation where there's a post construction study that needs to be done and the two are starting to overlap um that becomes a little bit of a challenge for us to deal with and so that's where uh Patrick and fox and his team has been very helpful and we've been able to back off some of the other intersections um
025that were initially talked about as um something that they wanted to study more um and again it's just been the knowledge of the city that's been able to to back them off of not having to look at the intersection by hanford's um so to speak I just I'll just say that this is the same dot that said they would never ever put an offramp off from ma in to merge traffic on the turnpike and and uh never has become now that they have allowed that so I I question their their range of expertise on Sako traffic flows follow up on that um with the new light installation at flag Pawn Road are they okay with that have they looked at that yet we have the new lights up I would assume that that's put in
026because we're using goral Parmer which is the same uh traffic um Engineers that the city uses as well and very uh informed about the intersections and the design of those throughout I'm anticipating that one possibly being uh fairly used for parents coming up and going down and I think that you know like uh I heard in one meeting and it was a great example that traffic it might have been Patrick that used it that you know traffic is kind of flows the same way water does it kind of disperses where it's not um and I think that you're going to see that what we may think of a new location in a new school and what your idea of traffic patterns may be may be a situation where someone chooses to drive a little bit
027a half a mile more but avoids some of what you can anticip ipate for a change in traffic patterns and so I think it'll be interesting to see because I think as as we look at something like busing we may do the same thing okay any other questions or discussion Schoolboard member Gail just a kind of following up on that though too um so the Board of Education doesn't the State Board construction committee um will they hold that against us if we don't have that permitted by main do in the site approval we do not believe that there's any challenges to us moving forward based off the recommendation from Scott Brown that this being the doe that says that here's the timeline we're ready to move forward and then the improvements that could potentially result
028uh in order to get the permit is that going to be folded into the state funding of it or is that going to be on the local share portion of that I think that's what the two commissioners of education and transportation are trying to figure out of again our argument and look at this is to say these improvements are in the area that are required for a school building and these things that are now a mile or more away certainly the Department of Education is why set education funding and the Department of Transportation may have a plan and there's some different models that they're working really aggressively to try to put into place uh to figure out what that split will look like and then so anything on dot side then that's going to come
029from us sounds like locally right it's not cover probably in a share some sort of share and then um so then a so [Music] assuming um approval of the site which looks like in January then we then we're going to start focusing the conversation then starts to Pivot in terms of messaging from us the board and the consultant to actually looking at the concept of the building and correct and curriculum and space and things like that correct they'll start looking at the building having more conversations about you know one of the things that I wasn't necessarily didn't even know is that you know let's take masonry for example the state has some specs on certain things that they would have and what they would pay for and then you know let's say uh will I'm
030totally making this up but the city of Sako said no we want blue masonry um and there is a charge for blue masonry right right that would be where they might say okay that one's on you that's right um we do red M we do red brick and if you want blue brick it's this much more y um so those become the next phase to think about uh that flooring costs because you know again Architects can have a really great idea and it can look great and be exactly what we want but someone on the other end may say hey it makes more sense to do this is what the state will fund as this part of it yeah um and so that's what the really the next piece of it will start looking like
031and that straw pole vote in February on the concept does that lock Us in to for example of red and blue tiles over green and or you know orange and yellow no not necessarily it just gives us that again the same pieces yes this is about what we want our building to be like okay uh design program those types of things um and again then you'll once you get that kind of concept and again it's concept approval they'll spend a whole next year working on what that true design looks like with tweaks and colors and roof patterns and elevations and Window Shades Etc okay great thank you okay anyone else okay so next on the agenda we do have item F and that is the straw pole for the site selection and again I mentioned
032this already in superintendent report just again making sure that everybody we can't say it enough tomorrow night 6 PM Sako Middle School um site selection um and I provided the language from chapter 61 uh sorry chapter 60 um in there that um are rules for the State Board uh and what needs to happen and is that there will be a recorded vote tomorrow night of those in favor or [Music] against any questions regarding the straw pole tomorrow night okay um one so straw poles again are the state requirement right Jeremy it's a state requirement to basically take the temperature of the community that is exactly correct okay and there's two just to be clear tomorrow night is site selection February is conceptual the grades the layout of the building so correct I'm going to call
033tomorrow night it's the Jack straw pole okay I'll name the other one later okay next on the agenda item G we do have uh a presentation on nwaa good evening so as promised uh we do have our fall data to be able to review now which is that standard map growth that we've taken for quite some time in Sako and allows us to look at scores over time I'd like to thank the curriculum committee who participated in a pretty indepth conversation around this data during our last meeting and helped to kind of tweak and inform some of the takeaways or some of the components that are shared with the full board tonight just plug it in and click they say there we go so to start you're going to hear me repeat the same stuff
034again and I think you've probably heard it many times but I think it's important just to understand what we're talking about NWA stands for Northwest evaluation Association they're the company organization that writes the assessment owns the assessment the assessment is called measures of academic progress and we often refer to that as map and we shorten that or extend that to map growth because really what we're looking at when we look at these assessments are students growth over time because it is an Adaptive test adjusts the difficulty of the questions for each student that is answering those questions to kind of see where they are unlike the through year which is that single grade level measure and do you or do you not meet the mark for what the expectation is we administer map growth now
035twice a year in the fall and winter with the through year occurring in the spring the third time a year year is um adaptive and grade level questions whereas the fall and winter are all adaptive questions the achievement scores are reported out in two ways writ and percentile if you're an educator it helps to understand what the RIT score means but I think for most folks that RIT score converting to a percentile which tells you where on the chart of students at that grade level in terms of average bell curve that students RIT score Falls the normative data is based on scores from 2015 to 2020 and it's based on that 50% prediction so everything is about averages it's not what we want to see at grade level but simply where in the nation students
036are at that grade level and uh very much like growth charts that you get from a pediatrician the normative data still does not account for covid so that 2015 to 2020 year when they collected the percentiles does not obviously take into account the information from Spring of 2020 because they collected it prior to that uh given the differences in the data between the map growth and the through year I just wanted to take an extra moment to talk about Norm reference versus standards reference ref that growth is using grade level average to determine what is normal as the 50th percentile percentiles show where a gr where a student is relative to their same grade peers that current Norm data is preco the assessment is adaptive and adjusts to student answers again similar to a pre
037pediatrician's height and weight chart where you are looking for your child to generally maintain a curve of course in a scenario where we're talking about student achievement we would love to see those curves increase in percentiles over time which would mean that a student is growing more than a year in a year's time whereas if they're decreasing in their percentile they're growing less than a year in a year's time as compared to the average growth a standards referenced assessment like the through year is basically saying we expect all XG grade level students to be able to have these skills and is simply testing students on whether or not they're able to achieve those skills so uh for some of our highest achieving students that actually becomes a little bit tricky because once they're over the
038bar we don't know how far over the bar that they are and the same for our low lowest achieving students knowing that they're below grade level is not as helpful as knowing that they need to be introduced to specific first or second grade skills as a fourth or fifth grader so having that data about adaptive assessment and where students actually lie is incredibly informative to be able to move students over time and that's similar if we're kind of using that weight or height thinking that's similar to kind of saying you cannot be out of a car seat until you weigh 8 pound so it doesn't matter how old you are or what else they're just setting One Singular Mark so with all that in mind we will now jump into uh some of the assessment
039data this graph shows every grade level in reading and math and the percentile of the average Sako score in that grade level you'll notice that overall we tend to score higher in Reading with the exception of our grade to students in this particular snapshot year another thing I would urge you not to do which is a rational jump is to kind of say oh fifth grade math looks bad what's happening in fifth grade it's this year's fifth grade so we have to look at fifth grade over time in order to determine whether or not there are specific gaps in terms of a grade level curriculum now we'll take a look at both cohort growth over time so you'll see the fall scores for each grade level on the far right and then looking to the
040left you'll see that same cohort of students as from back in time to when they started taking the assessment again this isn't necessarily the same group of students because we know that all Sako students who are in first grade in one year are not necessarily the same group of students that leave Sako Middle School in 8th grade there are turnover both additions and subtractions throughout the course of of time in uh reading here all the bars that you're seeing are Sako achievements and I've put the mean RIT scores on the leftand side those lines are the National averages so what we are hoping to see is that over time which the fourth grade is a really uh clean illustration of over time we have closed the gap between our students achievement and the national average
041whereas now that current fourth grade average score is over the national average so we're kind of looking to either close that Gap as we approach that average score Nationwide or looking to jump over that with higher uh in increases over the national average over time here we have our middle school students the gaps that you see in these graphs just represent that um covid test year where an assessment wasn't given otherwise it looks like they made a a real big jump in a single measure but it also kind of helps you to see if there were deficits during that covid Gap for these particular grades and we do see that as we've talked about before for all three of the current sixth seventh and eth grade where when you look at their preco scores to
042their just after covid there's a substantial decline in the average score as compared to the national mean this graph really tries to consolidate all grade level information by giving you a percent over or under national average over time by averaging together all grade levels and how over or under they are and we see almost a pretty clean example with the exception of spring of 22 of that kind of preco achievement a big gap some problem areas with some recovery taking place again with the exception of that spring 22 I left that spring 23 kind of placeholder in there because that's main through year and and prior to us switching to main through year we were really looking spring to spring or fall to Spring and so without that spring data now we're probably going to
043lean more on fall to winter growth or fall to fall growth when we look at individual student growth so some take ways that were discussed with the curriculum committee average scores are above national average in all grade levels in Sako all grades are making more than average growth compared to last winter scores some grade levels just barely but when you break down those numbers it's either exactly just over that average growth or well over that average growth the next steps when we look at this data at the school level are reviewing individual student scores for achievement and growth there's a chart that many of our schools use that shows student growth and student achievement and we're obviously looking to move students into the quadrant that's high growth and high achievement and paying really close attention
044Even in our highest achieving students of low growth and really focusing on that growth metric to make sure that we're either maintaining a Year's growth in a year's time for our highest level students and closing the gap for our lowest achieving students to uh grow more than a year in a year's time and the other thing that we will uh be looking into more is a subgoal score analysis which allows us to look at some subgoal areas specifically in reading for foundational skills to take a look at whether or not we see any patterns in foundational skills as a result of adopting a new word study curriculum in math which as you'll recall from the beginning slides was not as rosy an average picture as our reading achievement is compared to national average here you
045can see first and second grade students our third fourth and fifth grade students in fourth and fifth grade you'll see that we are below the national average with third grade being right at that national average and our current 67th and 8th grade again you can see that Gap year for the spring assessment and a fall assessment that represent the test sessions that were not administered and you can again see that clean pattern of achievement for this year's current Sixth sth and eighth grade that preco was above average currently in seventh and eth grade is creeping back up above average and closing that Gap uh recently in sixth grade but still not at the average here we see that math comparison to national average that shows all grade levels and tries to like really condense that
046picture this graph is a little less clean than the reading graph so we we can't necessarily make as many jumps as to whether or not there's kind of consistent growth over time there though um there certainly does appear to be that kind of shift from below average in two test sessions to above first second third seventh and eth grade are currently above the national average for their average scores with fourth fifth and sixth grade scoring below national average all grade levels are showing more than average growth as comp compared to last Winter's assessment our next steps are around individual student review for growth and achievement very similar to reading and then in our curricular review we will be further determining why in some of those grade levels we may be seeing below average achievement and
047um if there are consistent patterns over time for those grade levels or or if it's more of a cohort scenario that we need to take a look at I plugged in here some other information because I know we continue to talk about um how we compare to other states or how we compare to other countries that was an interesting conversation that we had as a curriculum committee Maine currently performs not significantly different than other states averages and over time Main's performance has declined in comparison to other states there were uh times and grade levels where main was above like substantially above the national average internationally the US performs above average in reading and Science and below average in math and US performance over time as compared to other countries has been stable those two studies
048linked there will take you to a lot of fun and interesting Graphics that will either put you to sleep or keep you up at night depending on what kind of person you are happy to answer any other questions thank you mik do we have any questions Schoolboard member Gail um I guess just questions on the so I guess I'm kind of struck by the if you look at the pre preo and postco um just the rate of um in math or reading or do you want me to reference a specific slide it doesn't matter both of them so like 2017 through 2019 were're 1.5% above even in in Reading in 21 forward where we when we are above the national average um that increase isn't as high and so I guess I'm just curious like
049yes we may be above the national average but coming out of covid um we're not doing as we're not as high as we were postco so I guess kind of what correct what are we doing that's different and so I I don't think it's necessarily about what we're doing that's different like if that that spring below average bar if that bar stayed at exactly that level that would mean that on average postco we were growing kids a Year's growth in a year's time so in order to make up that Gap or deficit we need to repeatedly grow kids more than a Year's growth and a year's time in math reading Etc to get back up there so am I optimistic about our ability to do that yes but it's not an overnight solution and it's
050not necessarily an obvious fix if there were something that we could be doing we certainly would do it and everybody would be doing it right it's just kind of striking to me on either in any of these uh like on slide8 on the reading we look at f2 and W2 um we were so much higher than the national average and even though we're we're exceeding it I guess in F6 it's by you know whatever point on the RIT but um like so then that kind of leads me in my second kind of question just generally is I guess this is all great information but it's hard for me to really glean any anything from it in terms of like do we set I don't think we set any goals of where we want to be
051and so this is just telling me that we're slightly above the national average and all this stuff but do so at the school level and at the classroom level there are definitely discussions that utilize NWA data those goals aren't necessarily articulated ated schoolwide the ones that are articulated school or districtwide we do articulate in our ESA application for title funds and we base those goals around X number of students making a Year's growth in a year's time generally we don't have to write them that way that's what we choose to do because we've found it valuable to make it about growth but we could write goals for certain average RIT scores at certain grade levels if that was an important factor to us I think we've chosen to focus on individual student growth and making
052sure that we have percentages of students making a Year's growth in a year's time and is that do we track that through this tool we do track that through NWA yes okay um I guess that would be really interesting in one of these presentations is using that as a here was our goal in F7 or you know however whatever time frame you you are using yeah um because it's just like I don't know I mean I guess I kind of don't find this a whole really all that valuable because it sounds like there's all these caveats and it's it's kind of complicated and it's it is complicated that right this isn't a a scientific study of of one group of kids that is in the same class from prek through 8th grade so you know
053things change but um I think the most valuable and reliable information is looking at individual student reports and when we're talking about the number of students that are taking the assessment it's hard to see that without just looking at averages so this isn't intended to provide an indepth look at where or why we might be in the position that we are but a snapshot of Simply where we are and where we have been over time yeah yeah no I get that and I it gets back to that last presentation where um you know it's for any body looking at this you can come away with your own conclusions on what's going on and and why why it's going on but um for me it's just helpful to have have more of a a context of
054it and if you know why are we reporting out on these statistics rather than just like here A bunch of Statistics that we collect and it's out here now so if you have any other specific questions about data I'm happy to take those back or if you want to think on them and then present it in a way that might be more provide a better context for you yeah great thank you uh School Board member Truman then School Board member Archie then School Board member roach uh I just wanted to say uh this is just a snapshot in in like one particular week and anybody can have a bad day I used to be a bad test taker but um also do you suppose um so I have one child that's in fourth grade and
055you know looking at the math and their reading it's you know they're they're plugging along and I think in the grand scheme of things considering how much schooling they missed during covid I think they're doing pretty good considering that Gap that we had in there and I think you know they're still growing every year right so we're I don't know I just I see this as not a terrible thing it is a nice snapshot but it's also you can see that kids are really they're doing the work and they'll I think they'll make those gains and I think once the kids who were in The covid throws if you will in the earlier years you suppose that like kindergarteners and first graders now if we watch their growth like how they'll come back up you
056know they'll meet those thresholds that we're kind of hoping for as that works its way out and not to say that like the fourth graders now won't come out of their hole but I think because of their because of that year they're going to be a little bit behind and we're comparing them to numbers that was before covid am I making sense I feel like I'm going in circles but like I think in the grand scheme of things I think teachers and and students are doing really well considering we were in school two days a week for that entire that entire year you know so um and then the other thing too I I think we talked about this in curriculum committee how many score-wise we have students now who have language barriers and that
057could also potentially be playing a part would it not yes it absolutely would right so I say you know take your data look at the in you know the individuals and look at their growth I think makes way more sense than I mean I appreciate all the graphs and everything else and it's a great snapshot of what's happening but I think individually I think that's way more important uh to assess how a student is doing so thank you El that's okay Schoolboard member roach uh you answered one question that the state kind of mimics the national but is it too difficult to send slides with the state data too or just to take a peak or we I I'm not sure if we have state averages from Fall yet I will look into that the
058winter assessment is not administered Statewide it's like elective by districts so I can also I think get that information but the winter data would probably be less helpful in terms of knowing who opts to take it and who doesn't may impact the average but I believe we should be getting the fall scores once they wrap that all up and clean up their data as a state okay um The Other Well what I could glean from the look of the data was first to third grade perform better than fourth to six six grade and um you know during Co years those fourth to sixth grade kids were in first to third grade so maybe looking at other communities or state data maybe there's time for you know curriculum adjustments or what what have you for the
059fourth to sixth graders to help them further catch up for what they lost I I was I remember from I I think it was the prek debates that by third grade you kind of have a feeling of where the where a kid's trajectory would would go to or what grade level achievement that are they in the right grade do they get held back do they get extra you know so third grade seems to be and the data shows that after third grade the fourth fifth and sixth that have graduated from covid that they're the ones that are struggling the most so would that be a consensus Target to to try to address with other communities it wouldn't be just Sako um maybe main suffered a little more because of weather you know you can't really
060have outdoor stuff in the in the winter during Co that type of thing but um I I I don't know that but um is that a direction you guys would look at would be the to somehow try to maybe still try to whe there's time with someone say in I don't know fifth grade right now or sixth grade to to to adjust curriculum for them yeah and that that is a conversation that we're certainly having regionally is like what are the key components that fourth fifth sixth grade missed in those covid years and how does that relate to the grade level content that they're learning now and where they might struggle so if you missed a year of like pretty intensive work around multiplication facts then fractions and algebra are going to be really tricky
061and so how can we then support our teachers in fifth grade sixth grade that are really really heavily fractions to bring them up to speed on some of the instructional components that are usually taught at lower grade levels while still maintaining the grade level content so those you've you've articulated the exact challenges that we have before us thank you Schoolboard member Johnson first of all thank you thank you Meg for giving us this information again and um I think we all are sort of in agreement that it's valuable but we are also wanting to dig a little deeper into the individuals um so my interest is where it says next steps are individual student review for growth and achievement can you give us a little bit more detail as to what how that actually occurs
062because I think it obviously every child as Sarah said someone else here comes in with different abilities and even good days and bad days so can you give us just a little bit more insight into how we would deal with looking into that individual review of growth yeah I think looking into it for the number of students at this level is incredibly challenging our grade level teams and our school based teams are looking at students that are either below grade level or sorry below the 50th percentile below the 40th below the 30th and having discussions about those students and then looking at students at all percentile levels that did not make their 50th percentile chance of growth and then talking about those students and some of those conversations teams are having rest on like wow
063that's really unusual for that kid and their achievement percentiles before this and their achievement on reading assessments or classroom math assessments don't indicate the same pattern so there's a little bit of a wait and see approach and for other students there's a like teacher saying yeah I have some real concerns about this and a team developing an intervention plan for that student to try to fill some of those gaps or whole teams of teachers saying let's address addition facts as a team and how might we split up the planning of that to fill in some gaps that we're noticing across cross groups of students so that's a really high level snapshot but um certainly we can explore our principles sharing a little bit more about what those teams do thank you very much Schoolboard member
064Archie and then Schoolboard member G all right I changed my mind um the first grade was not tested on reading correct correct why was that we have not tested first graders in Reading because we relied on Benchmark assessment system instead of NWA we do have two first grade classrooms that are going to Pilot nwaa reading in this spring because despite what I said about main through year that's only third through 8th grade so the spring data for first and second grade is still map growth data so we're exploring that because it would certainly give us a better longitudinal picture so my second part of the question would be like um it's hard to go back go back to what you just said it's hard to compare you know per student if you were if we're
065only testing on math and we're not testing on reading but like if you had a a child in first grade that was at like the 30th percenti in mathematics uh how would a parent perceive that and what what where where should we be concerned if you know they don't meet the 50th or you know at at the spring I think the number one a loaded question yeah I think the number one question is what does the teacher say or what do the other student indicators say because this is a multiple choice test this is one day in a kid's year so I think gauging like is that an accurate percentile representation and then digging into what skills or concepts is my child struggling with and what are you doing at school to work on those
066and what can we do at home to work on those are the three key questions is it accurate what are you doing at school to help with any areas and what can we do at home to help work in collaboration on those and so say you had that student that was at the 30th percentile and then you know in the spring they were at the 60th percentile but you had the child next to them that was the exact opposite they were at the 50th and now they're down to the 35 that's going to skew these numbers yep and it's going to make it kind of go chaotic so it's it's nice to see these numbers and and you know get a picture of it but really I mean we I I kind of take it
067with a grain of salt because it is per student I mean you do a really good job with your graphs and I love them but it's we don't we don't really know I mean per student that's that's what matters to me just to make sure nobody's you know poking at it too much um and and will if you did want better I know I missed the last two curriculum me meetings but um you're more than welcome to come and hang out and learn more thank you thanks um I think what what really kind of resonated with me was what um School Board member Johnston mentioned and and that response I think it would be really great if we did have the principles come in because I guess that's that's where I'm getting hung up is
068the connection between what this all means and so to have that have that aspect of it I think would be really helpful um to kind of see what this looks like from the abstract in this data to then actually at the school level and then to school board uh member Archie's point about the actual student um I think that'd be really helpful for me hopefully others and the public to see kind of what this really means let me get these and I'll take R up on that uh at some point thank you okay any other discussion all right not seeing any thank you Meg uh next on the item we have uh H and that is the grant award notification do you want to speak to it first okay this um memo just outlines a
069grant that was written collaboratively between bford Sako and Dayton it it was a very specific Grant around climate education professional development and what we've proposed Ed in the Grant and been awarded that we don't know if we've been awarded the full amount yet is uh an award to have a cohort of teachers participate in some professional development after school as well as the funding of a Institute in the summer around climate education happy to answer any questions though again we haven't gotten the full Grant award amount we just know that we applied for about $73,000 for that Grant and we will be funded some portion of that any questions for m not say any thank you thank you okay that now takes us to item J and that's a first reading of the policies field
070trips and other student travel website and social media student trans transportation services instructional and library media materials challenge of instructional materials form next meeting it's the second reading is there a motion to approve the first reading of the policies School Board member Johnson excuse me Madam mayor but I believe before we get to that issue we have the tuition update oh we do I'm sorry yes item I tuition update so just information in your packet um typically in December of each year we were reformed what our 9 through2 tuition rate which is set by the Department of Education will be um I reached out to the state uh last week asking when those might be posted and they informed me that sometime the week of the 18th is what they expect obviously hoping um like
071other years to have it at this meeting so we can inform you guys um but that's not available yet once we have that information um we'll get that out to you in review at the next meeting so that we have a clear understanding of what our Uh current budget will look like for tuition and then preparations for next year's budget so just waiting on info okay any questions all right thank you than now we will move on to item J which is the first reading of policies is there a motion to accept the first reading I move we approve the first reading of policies JJ OA field trips and other student travel i j and D website and social media EA student transportation services IG JJ instructional and library media material selection and JJJ challenge
072of instructional materials form second motion has been made by Schoolboard member Johnston second by Schoolboard member Truman any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Fel yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member tumman yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 70 and that will be second reading at the next meeting item 13 other information there is no other information this evening item 14 there is no executive session item 15 is call for adjournment so moved second motion to adjourn made by councelor uh Schoolboard member Johnson was it Truman sorry and second by Schoolboard member Preble roll call vote School Board member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member
073Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion to adjourn passes 70 thank you and I I appreciate everybody's humor and please correcting me on my transition from Council agendas to Schoolboard um first one and uh continue doing it if I uh miss anything or make an error I appreciate it thank you everybody