001with um presentations from the early um Childhood Center and hermis Elementary School our first agenda item is a presentation from The Early Childhood Center administrative team on their continuous School Improvement plan welcome principal Susan Orosco and assistant principal Katie [Applause] Harris hey hi hey hey good evening everyone good evening ladies and gentlemen of the curriculum board and Dr nurel thank you for being here we are as told the Early Childhood Center I'm Susan Osco the luckiest principal in the world to work with our tiny Tom Cats our youngest officially schooled Learners and with me is Katie Harris our assistant principal so we'll be sharing the uh presentation this evening uh we'd like to start off with our highlights from last year um last year our students maintained an average daily attendance of 87.4% um 75%
002of all of our classrooms reached 90% or more of full implementation of the pyramid model classroom Essentials checklist this checklist makes sure that our environments are set up and our relationships are set up um so that students have success during their preschool year um we also had 77% of our students grow one level or more on our assessment the desired results developmental profile affectionately known as the drdp uh first they did 77% in our math Cog 2 classification uh measure and then 70% of our students grew one level or more in our language and literacy area uh responsiveness of language and then 100% of our classrooms continue to implement dual language prep good even evening everybody I am going to start with Goal one which aligns to educational Equity by May of 2025 all classrooms
003will achieve a score of 60% or hire in subscale one number seven teaching behavioral expectations as measured by the teaching pyramid observation tool our action plan includes conducting walkthroughs with feedback professional development and instructional coaching sessions celebrations of classrooms as well as individual staff celebrations and analyzing the data from the teapot observation tool um to measure growth goal number two aligns to operational excellence um which will be the Early Childhood Center will maintain an average daily attendance of 95% or more in seven of the nine months between September of 2024 and may of 2025 the action plan here includes weekly team meetings where we will analyze data and stay um and make connections with families to identify barriers to offer support and encouragement for positive um routines and then have yearend celebrations um regarding our
004attendance plan and for our last two goals by May of this uh school year uh in student achievement 80% or more of our students that are scoring building middle um and below are going to grow two or more levels in uh Cog three one of our math measures number sense of quantity and we plan on putting into place or We are continuing on action plan to make sure we're using our COG our uh common formative assessments our cfas to see where students are and adjust our instruction as necessary um we're going to use our small group time when we're working on helping students grow through this to help them learn the skills that they need including counting with onetoone correspondents oral counting those types of things and at our monthly ilt meetings we're going to
005be looking again at our cfas and our discussion notes from plc's to see what additional supports we need to provide for our students and staff also in student achievement we are going to have uh kind of the same entry students that are building middle or um lower on our initial scores um will move up two or more levels and the comprehension of age appropriate text this turns into um kindergarten retelling skills which are very important uh to support both reading and writing and so again we're using our cfas to look at um what's being done and make adjustments to that we um are going to explicitly model those retelling skills that they need and again in small groups we're going to kind of hone down and help them learn the skills that they need to
006be successful in story retelling and then at our ilt meetings again we're going to focus on that data the CFA data and our PLC discussion notes to see where we need to fill in some gaps and potentially provide more supports um for the staff and students anyone have any questions just a quick question how often do you um do the drdp for with students um for preschool we have three Windows there's a fall window we're now in the winter window which will close in uh mid-February and then we have another spring window at the end of the year so they have three points of collection for that okay no questions for me just uh going back to the highlights good job throughout the last school year thank you awesome thank you so much so [Applause]
007much our second um item is a presentation from the Herman elementary school administrative team of their continuous School Improvement plan welcome principal Kelly Hills and assistant principal Jessica Henry all right good evening Dr Nell Dr Engel Miss Martinez cabinet and members of the Board of Education I'm Kelly Hills the proud principal of Hermes elementary school and I'm here tonight with Jessica Henry my amazing assistant principal thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak with you tonight about Hermes okay all right so some highlights that we want to uh share with you from last school year 56% of our students made their expected growth in math in their reading in their L1 56% also made their expected growth in MA math and we are currently finishing up our winter Administration right now so we look
008forward to seeing um our growth this year on our I ready diagnostic 44% of our students made their annual uh typical growth goal and 19% met their annual stretch goal and we're actually on track to beat both of those numbers this year so we're very excited about that on our access test on the portion 55% of our EO Learners achieved a proficiency level of 3.0 or above and then I'm proud to say that we maintained a summi of designation of commendable this is our building wide data from last year um some celebrations from our data include the growth of our kindergarten students additionally we had a large percentage of our fifth grade students meet or exceed their expected growth in map reading an area of focus for us this year is our I scores particularly
009in math um one of the things we've done this year has provided our third through fifth grade teachers with iir practice questions and tests and additionally we plan to start tutoring for third through fifth grade students prior to I testing this year Miss Henry and I worked together to set the tone for this school year and as we did that we decided we wanted to focus on collaboration celebrating staff and student achievements and most importantly ensuring that all of our decisions were data driven to help our students reach their full potential so at this point we would like to share some of our 24 25 goals with you our first goal um aligns with educational equity and that is that by Spring of 2025 65% of students who take the access test will achieve a
010proficiency level of 3.0 or above in the writing portion of the access test so we have continued um to put a focus on writing in our building and to achieve this goal our action plan involves the collaboration of multiple teams and all of our staff members some things I'd like to highlight are the writing prompts that instead of it's that it's all of our Learners who use these prompts not just our e Learners we have brought in members of the language acquisition Department to work with us to provide professional development for our staff um we have implemented access prep within our classroom and different differentiated instruction during our win time we've implemented daily access Bell Ringers in classroom since the beginning of the year and then just last week we um included our eight-week access
011tutoring where we targeted students based on our 2024 access scores another goal we have under educational Equity is that 95% of our students will receive one or less office discipline referral for the year and we have been really focusing on positive reinforcements um One new initiative is Milestone incentives for our students for good lunch and recess behavior and so that has been decorating students tables at lunch um it's been five minutes of extra recess and popcorn parties um we have also rolled out an initiative to make at least one positive phone call home for every student in the building before the end of the year and we're keeping track of it on a chart um we have also been tapping into our district experts and have trained our lunchroom supervisors on trauma informed practices and
012um one of our favorite things that we have continued um from last year is celebrating student of the month for those students that demonstrate school expectations and that's lunch with Miss Hills and Miss Henry so that's why we love it um and um our focus on positive reinforcement seems to really be working because we are on Trend to meet this goal our goal under operational excellence is that Hermes will maintain a cumulative monthly average daily attendance rate of 95% for the 24 25 school year and um one thing we would like to highlight as a new program we brought to hermis attendance buddies and this is where we've taken um students who have role model attendance and we've intentionally paired them with students who need support with attendance and we trained both um Pairs and
013they meet every morning for about a minute um have their little pep talk greet each other and then the students can earn weekly incentives um if they're um at school each day of the week um since the beginning of the year we have seen success with this program and we're even ready to graduate some of those students um for any of the students um there there are a few that are not responding to this intervention and we've already um met with parents and or done home visits and are ready to implement a new intervention we have two student achievement goals oh we have a lot of student achievement goals but the two that I want to talk about tonight are both centered around map our first one is that 65% of our students in K5
014will meet or exceed their expected growth goals in Reading as measured by nwaa map and a few pieces of our action plan we have items up there but some things to highlight our leadership teams and our plc's meet regularly to analyze student data um We are continuing to provide small group and grade level instruction during literacy block win block and this is based off of map and FMP data additionally our teacher assistants are absolutely amazing at Hermes and they also work with small groups of students on identified skill practice so that we can continue to support all of our kids and we've also started holding quarterly Awards assemblies we started that last year in order to um honor students growth and achievements and our last achievement goal for tonight is that also with map 65%
015of our kids will meet or exceed their expected growth in math as men measured on map and a lot of our steps are the same because you know we are working towards the same goal but one of the things I most proud of is our fifth grade team they every week give like a mini CFA and then they redo weekly guided math groups and so that's been really awesome to see and we've seen a lot of growth with our kiddos with that um we've also worked with our instructional coach and engaged our data analysts to add lunch and learns this year for our staff and those focus on various instructional practices and data analysis and in addition to the awards assemblies I mentioned previously we've also implemented different incentives in assemblies to help motivate our
016students for testing and that concludes our presentation for this evening thank you you guys have questions questions I just want to give you a public Kudos because really your data is most closely aligned out of all the schools that I've seen in terms of your come your cfas and your map growth so that's and so I'd be interested to see your I growth because I bet that aligns too so that means your teachers are doing a phenomenal job in the creation of their cfas are spoton so that's definitely noteworthy so I just wanted to put that in the record thank you and that's what I was going to say that's all credit to our teacher so absolutely thank you thanks thank you our next item on the agenda is the EA magnet Lottery 2526 with
017Dr Jennifer vanen good evening Board of Education superintendent Nell and members of cabinet I have for you this evening the school year 2526 update on our magnet Lottery process so I'll go through with you just timelines and just some of our communication plan that we have uh planned for the upcoming weeks um up first is kind of knowing a little bit about the open seats that we have for school year 2526 um right now we are slated for 75 open seats for third grade students at Johnson magnet school and 25 open seats for our sixth grade students at Fred Rogers Magnet Academy for our eligibility criteria we look at our nwea map in both reading and math which our schools have really highlighted and showcased a lot about the empasis um that goes into that
018um and so that is um one of our major eligibility criteria we're looking at being at or above the 50th percentile on those assessments and then we also look at um student grades student progress in their classes as well our communication plan in the next couple weeks a couple things that I just want to to highlight for you in February would be our press release from um the district about the lottery process and um some key dates for families to know and be um be thinking about in March will be calls and messages um that are sent out to District families um also in March we have the magnet application process would be presented at our parent Association meetings copy with principal um any schools that have specific newsletters that go out we would showcase
019the uh the process so um we're informing parents of important dates and um what that looks like and then in late March of um this year would be if there are additional seats available on letters of invitation to those students that do meet the eligibility requirements for magnet for our timeline we have a fast and furious next couple of weeks in February uh 20 uh 25 of 2025 our window opens and the online application would be available on Friday March 21st our deadline to submit the online application um would close April 11th parents would be notified of the eligibility status April 24th would be the actual Lottery um for students that met the criteria um for incoming third and sixth GR grade students and then May 1 parents would be notified of their student selection
020or if we have a wait list um they would be notified at that time of that weight list status as well and then May 22nd would be the deadline for parents to return the acceptance form of enrollment um or the denial um if in case they decided to not go that direction um but they would return that to the district as well and then we would begin um making sure that students are registered at the um um the magnet school and we are excited about continuing this opportunity for all of our young people um that concludes my presentation any questions for me I do have a quick question okay um are these additional 25 seat for sixth graders come after the the 75 they are in fifth grade yeah so the 75 would roll up
021um and then the 25 would be open to our three other um uh they would be open to our Elementary uh fifth graders for possible seats so we would have a total of 100 seats um at at Fred Rogers and I don't know if you know the answer to this or someone can answer this for me um so we have three SE sections in uh Johnson for magnet for third fourth and fifth is that also the same model for dual language magnet that you have a how does that work with three classrooms I can I can answer that um because I was here when we had to make that transition we just did that I think gosh it's been two years so this is our second year with that um because we still want to
022do the um same model as all of our other elementary schools we have expanded to four teachers it's just that the fifth grade this year is the very last group of kiddos that will go over with just three because duel right now is only to four so three and four at Johnson are the four teacher model and that fifth grade is the last year we'll only have 75 matriculate to Firma and then that's why we still have 25 seats but then going forward next time we will still do a lottery but it won't be as many as 25 seats we'll just be filling for any attrition that we may have had so it'll be a much smaller uh availability you're right when that next when fourth goes to fifth and then the end of next
023year we'll be filling those so it's one more year on the old model because the answer to your question is yes we did do um the the four teacher model Y is there a a possibility or um maybe a a look into the near future or expanding that magnet because I knew at the beginning when we transferred that over to Johnson I think that was a goal is there a have we ever looked at that again or so actually duel language has an unintentional positive consequence of moving duel into Johnson was that we just did just that it actually forced us to open up additional seats in fact the last couple years we completely cleared the lottery and didn't have any kiddos that met the requirements that did not get get accepted and so that
024was an unintended consequence which was a good thing and so we essentially have expanded that um as far as expanding that at the middle school level we are a couple things one it's a space issue and then to keep the level of steam programming that we have to have those spaces to have the expanded coursework and lab space to really run those highle science Project Lead the ways it would be hard to add additional classes and the other piece of that that we've often talked about is that we want to mitigate brain drain in our other middle schools and so um again what we've been able to do is clear the weight list so we'll see going forward if it poses a problem the board will certainly have an opportunity to explore that in the
025future to look at a way to maybe add an extra section but right now we actually did expand magnet as a as a result of going to duel thank you thank you item number um 3D on the agenda the next item is the rec winter and spring catalog uh presented by Marissa Martinez good evening Board of Education Dr and cabinet members thank you again for this opportunity um today we will today I will present on our wreck Discovery day that happened in December 14 2024 um these are families that we had present at our event um just a lot of smiling faces happy families a lot of Prize winners smoothies all the good stuff that we enjoyed that day uh Discovery day entailed yoga classes that had participants Dance Fitness who had 15 participant artistic
026Adventures that house pre second grade with a whopping 24 participants um creative canvas had third to fifth grade 17 and our Foods class were pretty full at 15 at 24 participants so overall we our students and our families enjoyed 116 experiences for attendees um just a few pictures of our yoga that was very well enjoyed our dance our dance class was well attended um you'll see The Smiling Faces never mind it's just a next time it's just a brief little clip of one of the dance classes offered it was really cute yeah I we had so many happy families it was such a cute experience um they just our families want more uh I provided families and students well parents and students with a survey just to give us feedback um what they would like
027to see that they enjoyed their class um just things that data that we can collect for future classes or workshops um danc and yoga Fitness parent and student feedback so overall 100% of our parents enjoy the class it would retake it again 100% of our parents found it very beneficial um 83% of our students enjoyed their class you know I think a lot of parents just said hey let's go and they were not too happy some of them uh 93% of parents I mean of students prefer classes with their parents again this was the lower level classes so they still pretty new um and seven Brave per of students would do the class by themselves um now moving on to our artistic side so we hosted two classes um artistic adventures and creative campus again
028the pictures show a lot of happy families Smiles um just overall a great time um data again 100% of our parents enjoy the class and would retake it again 100% we recommend the class to other parents or students uh student data 91% of our students enjoyed it uh 80% prefer to have classes with their parents and 20% of the students would like to do it by themselves moving on to our culinary um strand we held a create a healthy breakfast and cookie decorating which was very popular um our uh healthy breakfast was not so full and I think as parents were noticing that oh there's you know do we have space available which they enjoyed it you know they enjoyed staying for both classes so it was beautiful to to give the parents overall a
029great experience of what the rec center has to offer uh data from our culinary classes 100% of our parents enjoyed it and would retake it again 100% found the class beneficial uh student data 84% of our students enjoy their class 66 prefer to do it by themselves or with their parents excuse me and 22 prefer the class by themselves this class was a nice mixture of lower level and middle school students so that was nice to see um the mixture uh parent and student recommendations so again from the survey I gather data and feedback from our parents um and I in this slide I just pointed out what parents would like to see in the future more Hands-On cooking traditional foods um Dance Yoga with weights Pilates parent workshops uh knitting sewing and Health Resources
030uh students would like to see a lot of art dance um cooking music classes technology pretty much what this Rec Center has to offer um we had a lot of students would want to do more baking so that's something that we look forward to in the future now we will go on to a preview of our winter and spring catalog so in this catalog I took the data that was collected from the rec Discovery day and uh we created just a presentation or a catalog uh you'll see here what we plan to offer in February uh for the art studio so we have a few painting classes and a few ad artistic Adventures so we will focus on our Middle School pretty much all of our age group pre 12 uh the same thing goes
031for March um again I'm just taking the feedback and the data that I received and created classes to suit our families and our students uh April classes so we're looking at uh creating comics for middle school and high school again that artistic Adventure was such a good hit for our pre- of fifth grade students uh February for our culinary we're focusing on four classes um so we broke it down to six to 12th grade and then first through fifth grade same thing goes for March and April um let's see same for dance um we're hosting classes again once or twice a week February March Dance Yoga [Music] and that is yeah so we look forward to seeing what the wreck has to offer for our families the next few months and look forward to seeing
032many smiling faces oh we do hope to add a jump class um come in the next few months we just have to get staff for the class and just kind of have a nice opportunity for our jump start which is 03 correct me if I'm wrong Rosary so that's one class that we do plan to offer um in the future and we do also have a parent engagement section that we plan to offer a lot of parents again want that yoga piece we still have to find an instructor for that but it should be coming soon and then just information about the resilience education center and does anybody have any questions when this starts I mean the parents just have to show up or do they sign up no no they sign up so when
033we did Discovery day they would call and we created a spreadsheet and okay that's how parents signed up well I am glad to see that I think from what I saw the catalog we have you know Saturdays and then during the week as well yeah so that is nice you know for some of the parents that are not able to attend maybe this one they could go and a ton of different class so that's good thank you yeah yeah I just have a quick request if there possible to um attach us the presentation to our agenda item yeah absolutely I and I will take full responsibility they were still um because they did uh post and offer our staff this so they were still getting some of the details down so I told them to
034hold it so that they can give you a preview tonight it's actually not going to go until next week and then it'll be the full um catalog so that the entire board will have a chance to look it over starting that Thursday when you get the board packet so yep I just asked her to hold it because it was not quite finished thank you for the presentation it was good to see um there's some activity I you what I wanted also to see some of the data the how many students are actually attending class during the day during the school hours oh okay so um so we can have an idea as to how you know how often the facility is being used by the students during the day as well got thank you Mitchell
035I hate to put you on the spot you're gonna kill me for this but um a board member glp I think we can tell you that actually right now okay um so I'm gonna look at Mitchell but although you're there too so you can speak to this but I know she is programming so every single block so on Mondays and Wednesdays is red day and Tuesday and Thursday is black day with alternating Fridays red and black and every single uh period of every day we have utilized the art studio The Culinary Studio The Dance Yoga Studio the Esports and then on opposite red and black days we have music production and broadcast journalism so that's the only one that's split so basically we have five of those sites filled with students for all four periods
036right because we have four periods that run red days four periods that run black days or yes okay so they're running three right got it yep so so um that's your so it but all of the rooms are full for those periods because I know they alternate teachers on days because one teacher has filled their schedule while the other one's at the high school and then that vice versa so we are run in full and I can I don't have exact section numbers um but they're anywhere from what 18 kids to would you say 25 24 yeah 24 okay so what's the number of students that can be housed at one particular time up to 400 at one particular time but we bu we build in some for lunch so let's say that um five
037of those rooms are running and you have like you know 20 students then you've not got we're not near our maximum um but we but keep in mind we still have the possibility for red day or black day for half the seniors to be able to be in the building for that entire period so we have staff the classes but we also make sure that we're covered and we're not doing a fire hazard for lunch okay I just know that one of the reason for the rec center was the social emotional kind of support and that we're youring the students are being and families are utilizing that social emotional part for that for that facility that's a good point do we have an update on the hiring I know we posted for counselors to be
038able to provide the counseling services until we get an official partner the board gave us the authority to move forward we did we they were board approved at the last meeting and we're moving along with a uh streamlining a process for uh referring students from our district so we created a process we created a flyer so we're going to connect with our student services team okay and get it moving so they're every day after Monday through Thursday after school counseling yes from what what are the hours we are looking at 4 to 7 okay so can we um just like we get the report the goals and you know ideas if we can have that same type of presentation from the as well you know how many students you plan on having role in your
039Alli in the facility and then what are the goals in terms of needing that social emotion support absolutely okay we get that so we look forward it's okay we look forward to seeing a lot of happy face but I think that's it all right thank you thank you the next presentation is regarding light sale platform by Dr Amy Engel we are so excited because we had the opportunity to try out the light sale platform when we did the great reading tournament and it was a big hit in our middle school program uh we know that reading is an important Focus for our students and um during that great reading tournament uh if you recall from our last meeting Waldo Middle School actually receiv received recognition for their participation uh the platform itself is uh and
040what we're hoping to get some licenses for and make it available to all of our middle school students for this uh upcoming school year and uh if it goes well we will consider looking towards uh El as well thank you okay um the next presentation is in regards to the Ki literacy pilot recommendation with Dr Rita Gusman and Dr Amy Engle good evening curriculum board Dr nurel and uh cabinet members so good evening today we come with an update regarding K through 5 literacy pilot recommendation we really wanted to again start off with our pillars Equity educ you know educational equity and student achievement that that was really our pillars that we um really anchored on the pilot summary there was two products that were piloted hmh into reading ARA Laur and Benchmark ADV um
041advance adante 58 teachers piloted all ac across the district all programs and buildings inclusive of dual language opt out and special education there was a realm of teachers within um special education that also um participated in the pilot um oh sorry and then um pilot teachers were trained by the vendor and received support throughout the pilot we had a total of nine kindergarten teachers we had seven first grade teachers nine second grade teachers 10 third grade teachers 11 fourth grade teachers five um 12 fifth grade teachers and this was really important and we really anchored on those pillars due to the fact that this was going to impact over 5,000 students in different programs throughout our school district we were very excited to offer opportunities for the staff members and the pilot to provide feedback
042and we did that throughout the the pilot and we also wrapped up the pilot with a participant exit survey and these are the results that you see there uh it was on a scale of one to three with one being low three being high and as you can see hmh uh resoundingly received uh higher ratings than our Benchmark products which uh leads us to the recommendation in the survey we also asked for specific feedback um and open-ended questions and several staff members gave us some great great uh feedback there as well they talked a lot about how important the foundational literacy the reading support and the alignment with our current resources were and that was a big emphasis with the hmh platform and they were also looking uh especially for Equitable resources that honored both
043English and Spanish and hmh was able to provide that as well we were super excited hmh also includes an AI reading tutor her name is Amira and the students absolutely loved it and the staff members really appreciated the data it provided so uh we're recommending the six-year adoption of the hmh into reading and ARA Laura resource uh it would include the student digital licenses including Amira the student my books the student know it show it books and the teacher digital licenses teacher guides and appropriate teacher material materials for each grade level along with a professional development to ensure a strong start so this is the breakdown cost by grade level um and the product and what it would cost per grade level the professional development the shipping and handling so the total product cost in
044addition to that we really wanted to make sure that we continue to focus and provide support for our teachers and our administrators with this new um Core Curriculum so there's a timeline where February would continue to include materials ordering so that they could arrive on time and that we could have enough time to distribute um inventory the planning for implementation curriculum needs all the professional development that goes um with a new curriculum adoption in addition to not just learning how to use the material but actually teaching components within the literacy plan in addition to um you know pieces of the components of reading March through May digital access to materials provided to all teachers professional development um continues and then summer obviously continue supplemental professional development offering for all stakeholders involved with this um piece
045and the material distribution making sure that everyone has what they need and that they have enough time to be able to explore it before they leave the end of the school year um and have time for that planning that occurs during the summer a quick question for you um I see that we had 58 teachers that were piloting um total teachers how many teachers um piloted Benchmark and how many teachers piloted hmh I'm gonna have Amy answer that question uh it wasn't quite exactly split evenly there were a little bit more who tried out the hmh then it was Benchmark so hmh could have received a higher score because there were more they could have there was an average score though so it wasn't individual scores okay um I just personally I want to say
046thank you for all the staff that participate in the pilot I know how hard it can be and um just trying new stuff while in the school year um for me I just just a recommendation for next time repilot curriculum um I would prefer to have staff pilot both claim at the same time because it's very difficult to assess one and take the word from your other colleagues when you didn't try it and I know that this is the way this maybe has been done before or but I would prefer to have if next time um to if we're going to Pilot something that the staff has the avilability to Pilot both so they can have a complete picture of both programs absolutely thank you for the feedback since you know I'm still learning so
047what what have you done in past years when you kind of pet different tools for the teachers to utilize I mean how was what's that process so it's a long process there is a determination of um first the rubric and then looking for um products of whatever it is that we want to Pilot after that they have a presentation with each of the vendors and then from that from that vendor list they go ahead and determine from their presentations who do they want to continue then they still narrow it more Down based on the rubric on what they're looking for within that purchase product um they want to Pilot and from there they go ahead and determine which two finalists is the ones that they actually want to Pilot and then half the teachers usually
048do one and then the other half does the other okay so it is somewhat kind of make a comparisons it is and it's really like um board members saiva shared it's really trusting your peers but they came to together and they went ahead and compared them as they came together throughout the process okay thank you yeah I also want to thank the teachers Who U piloted the program um like Mr Oliva said I would want to see I guess in the future the balance of the pilot just to make sure that you know that one's not just selected because maybe they have 40 teachers who tried this one and you know the difference over here so I just would like to see that balance um just so the numbers aren't skewed in any way um
049I have no problem how how do we I mean title one fun where does this come from the the title money or uh because it is a core curricular resource title dollars aren't used for this so okay understood I mean I have to say both curriculums I think if you talk about neighboring districts I mean they're either using Benchmark or hmh so it's just it's different when like because I know westa uses hmh and over in iGo we use Benchmark so it's you know it's very uh right so I mean both curriculums you know are kind of targeting um you have to look at the the population that you're serving and what best serves your students so and again you know we we might be like all in a world but we have different needs
050so but again thank you for all who participated in the pilot and thank you mras for mentioning that because we really did look at those components because of the program that that we have really looking at the morphology the you know the phology of the words that were used the vocabulary the syntax all of the vocabulary that was incorporated within those reading content materials we really looked at those pieces so thank you okay thank you and if Dr Rita Gman if you can stay there the next presentation um is regarding World Language curricular resources so this is really good news for the feedback that you guys just gave da uh for current reality today I'm here to speak about the Heritage and AP Spanish curriculum pilot proposal we're looking at textbook uh currently the reality
051is that they are working with textbooks for 1997 and 2002 so we are very uh due for uh to begin some of this piloting um in Spanish um so I was trying to look up who the vendor was for this one mundoo and obviously some of the pieces are not even in copyright anymore so that is we're urging oh did you learn this okay so some of us learned Spanish with these content with these materials so we are looking at piloting new curriculum and this was brought to um Us by our teachers so we are very happy to be able to respond to them the program desired right Heritage Spanish curriculum needs to be revamp for students especially with our dual language programming especially with our students having a lot more exposure to uh different
052languages and us really pushing and valuing language so strong AP Spanish language exams especially with our Sealab by literacy really increasing and focus on evidence-based reading and writing for the four language domains listening speaking reading and writing a strong emphasis on that and preparing students like we shared for the Apple exam for the Seal of by Literacy for the commodation or for them to actually prove that they are fluent in all languages and obviously with the technology needs we just wanted to share that that that's one of the rubrics that we shared um that um that's one of the vendor list requirements before we even looked at any material so the pilot process would be selecting the pilot material implementation for six weeks and I do want to share that we each teacher will pilot
053each one so that they could be able to determine which one they prefer um obviously feedback uh analysis throughout and curriculum updates and much training um after um what is each that they wanted to um go ahead and go with so the vendor options for AP Spanish is Vista Higher Learning Wayside and Savas and the vendor options for Heritage Spanish Vista Higher Learning Wayside and carnagey that those are basically our tops for World language for Spanish thank you are any questions no so we're not are we still using mono yes we have and we've ALS but the teachers the teachers have created units and created you know their own materials but we wanted they've asked us they really want to continue to now establish something and honestly it's just that they had not found something
054that they really wanted to Pilot and the Spanish World in World Language has really you know been actually really escalating and really being able to produce good products now yeah I was going to speak to that just being a a former High School person in that world that um Heritage language is different than normal you know when you think about language AC acquisition where and so most of the vendors produce books for um just regular Spanish one Spanish two so Heritage if you find a a good book that actually meets the needs which are very different needs for those who are Heritage speakers um they hang on to that and so they were just kind of hanging on to it with all of their materials but now um thank you to the curriculum team yeah
055they've been able to convince everyone to do something different so yes and we have very strong strong um voices in our world language department so they are very strongly feel regarding the recommendations that they're making to Pilot thank you any questions thank you thank you our final presentation is regarding the educational credential be a program with NIU presented by ASA Gordon uh good evening uh curriculum committee uh Dr noral um very quickly if you remember last spring I was up here in front of you presenting about our teacher vacancy Grant and we utilized some of the funds to work with our non-certified staff who had bachelor's degrees to allow them to be able to go back and become certified teachers well we um have looked at that and it's been going very well but we
056wanted to expand that Outreach we know that from that original survey that human resources sent out we have other staff who are interested in becoming certified teachers who may not have a bachelor's degree this is where the excuse me this is where the leak program with NIU comes into play um their particular program will allow us to work with 28 noncertified staff to allow them to be to earn a bachelor's degree in the science of special education they will also receive an endorsement in um the lbs1 so this is a 18-week program that will be done in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays every eight weeks they're taking classes so the classes run fairly quickly every eight weeks it's a cohort model where the students are together the one thing that we um liked about
057the program with NIU is that it is virtual so it's virtual however NIU said hey you know what we can do it virtually but we've also seen that this works well if one or two times during the eight weeks the students actually meet face to face so we took that feedback and we're going to have of the eight week sessions the first and the fourth session will actually be face tace here in the district but it does allow for our staff who are teachers assistants to be able to receive the um certification um with the majority of the time remotely um so as I mentioned it's the ab program starts this summer and these people will have their degree and certification by December of 2026 one thing that we um mentioned that we had discussions
058as a um as the cabinet and then conversations as of Friday with NIU was okay these 28 people will be special ed teachers but what can we do in addition to this um to give them more flexibility so if this is approved we have talked with nor Northern to say can we add on an extra semester let's say you were uh you got your Associates in history or you got your Associates in English well NIU said you're only a couple of classes away from getting the Middle School endorsement or the high school endorsement so if this gets approved and we have our people who apply their transcripts will be evaluated by NIU and then we will U reassess to see how many additional classes in that in that additional semester in Spring of 27 can
059these 28 people um take to be able to get additional um endorsements so that is the proposal you see here are there any questions is this the only University that we looked at for this program or that we explore any other possibilities of networking with any other great question so we looked at um our partners if you remember we did the first one with aora University um the reason why we looked at NIU um just kind of spreading the wealth a little bit but NIU has had experience in this particular program with um people with um with an Associates so they have already run this program with another district and they're actually looking when we start our if we are able to start our cohort they're looking to do something similar like this in rural
060areas so they have their College of Education has experience in working um with school districts in this area and let me let me say this Mr Gordon I'll jump in one thing to note publicly is this will be completely Grant funded so when we look at the budget in terms of H maximizing the number of our staff that we could offer this to looking at somewhere that's not more of a private university our dollars are going to go much further it's still a very reputable University and a proximity too so that is our closest state degree credential in granting University in in Illinois so that also factored into um our selection of NIU as well when is the deadline for that we might approve this or if there a timeline that we can go back
061and maybe explore other possibilities sure so it was slated to go to the board for um approval in on next Monday gosh I can't believe the next board meeting is a week away we got kind of backlogged so it would be next Monday however if we want to Halt we'll just let Northern know and maybe we start it next year so we could just wait have our staff wait a year that's no because there is a there is a teacher shortage and so I think we I mean I think the staff has done their due diligence and so I think we at least for now this is Grant funded that we move forward yeah we I'm sorry I I yep to your point um it is Grant funded when does the Grant in what's the
062end date so the grant we have to spend the money the we it's a three-year Grant we've already um spent the money for the first year the second year um expenditure needs to be done by June 30th of 20 25 of 25 yes yeah and then we have one more one more year to pay that correct tuition okay I mean you know taking into account both of them both of the comments I mean I agree there is a teacher shortage and I believe we should probably you know look into this and move forward um you know I agree next time maybe have you know maybe show us you know a couple different options but for now I I would say probably move forward but what what he said was what Dr nurel said is state
063colleges and not private right right and and Northern is the closest State College um that offer these types of program again it was just a clarifying question right I just want to clarify to make sure if we had time or not not saying that we were not going to follow through through but again having options whether it be private or not I think is always a good thing to look at yeah thank you no problem any other questions no all right thank Youk thank thank you Mr Gordon um our last agenda item will be the updated enrollment um you have the documents in your um packet and our current enrollment is 12,312 students we have no new business for this evening at this time I would like to um thank you all for joining us
064on this 27th day of January 2025 for our curriculum um board committee meeting we will now adjourn this meeting at 6:55 p.m.