001All right. Good evening you all. Uh if those of you in the back would find a seat. There's plenty of seats. I sound like a teacher. There's plenty of seats up here in the front. Uh if everyone would join us for the pledge of allegiance, we will begin the meeting. United States one nation under Godisible. Nikki, would you please call roll? Mrs. Hopper here. Mr. Kilpert here. M Franklin here. Mr. Schindler here. Mr. Seltzer here. Mr. Spectre here. Mr. Todd, I am here. Uh we have uh just a little housekeeping. We have no close session tonight uh upcoming and we have no uh well, we do have regular meetings which we're in now. Um and we do have some special recognitions. So I want to address those right now. Uh the board of education is
002pleased to recognize an exceptional group of Parkway students who earned all state music honors during the all state festival conference at the Missouri music Educators Association conference in February. I'd like to invite Jeff Lackey, our coordinator of fine arts, to the podium to recognize our students. Jeff, good evening, President Todd, Vice President Debbie Hopper, members of the board of education, Dr. Marty and Miss Stove. I'm here tonight to recognize 40 extraordinary, talented, and dedicated Parkway High School musicians who were selected for the 2025 Missouri Allstate Band, Jazz Band, Choir, and Orchestra. These students earned spots in these prestigious ensembles through a highly competitive audition process. To even be considered for the first, they had first had to be selected at their local ensembles. From there, they auditioned at the state level, demonstrating the technical skills,
003musicality, and artistry that set them apart from hundreds of other students from across the state of Missouri for the very same seats. The all-state ensembles performed on February 1st at the music educators conference before an appreciative audience of music educators, administrators, and families. These performers were celebrate is a celebration of the students hard work, talent, commitment to artistic excellence. I'd like to take a moment to thank their music educators who inspired, coached, and challenged these students along their journey. Your dedication and is the foundation of their success. I'd also like to recognize the parents and families who support, encouraged, and have played a vital role in every step of the way. So, at this time, I'd like without further ado, I'd be honored to introduce this year's All State musicians. We'll group them up by
004ensemble, and I'll call you by group. So, when your name is called, please come up and be greeted by the board of education. I'll start with all state band students. For all state band, we had eight students participate and perform at the All-State band and they were clarinet North High, Ethan Denny, percussionist from West High, Colin [Applause] Jackson, Alto saxophone, South High, Sophie Kalis, [Applause] on flute from South High. Ella Metaxoff on altos saxophone from West High. Dominic Perez on obo from West High. Cara Pertie on clarinet from West High. I'm sorry, Bascara Wahana and Alto saxophone from Central High. Hannah Wilkawitz for the Allstate band. We also had three students that were alternate or honorable mentions and they were um on alter sorry alternate piccolo from Central High. Samantha Taylor [Applause] Honorable mention on
005Tuba West High, Zack Card. An honorable mention on Tuba North High, Dakota [Applause] Trier. Our second ensemble we'd like to recognize are the All State Jazz Band students. We had two students who made this organization. One all-state person was tener saxophones from Central High, Zack Bonnet. And then we had an alternate trumpet player from West High, and that's Cole [Applause] Kru. The next ensemble would like to recognize our All State Choir students. We had four students perform in the All-State Choir. And singing bass from North High was Max Benisc. Singing alto from South High was Bella Bower. Singing based from West High was Jack [Applause] Mullen. Singing tener from West High was EMTT Vernon. [Applause] For all state choir, we also had alternates and honorable mentions, five of them. We had an alternate soprano from
006North High, Delaney Kuran. Alternate soprano from West High, Evelyn Fitzpatrick. Alternate tenor from North High, Levi Schulty. Honorable mention alto from Central High, Kira Anderson Pitman. And honorable mention, soprano from North High, Ava [Applause] Jansen. Our final ensemble was the All State Orchestra students. We had 10 students perform in the group. I'll read them in alphabetic order. We have violin one from West High. Ian Chung on bass from Central High. Lyric Green cello from Central High. Eileen Henners, viola from Central High, Adita Kafar, violin one from Central High, Asher Co. Violin 2 from Central High, Grace Lee. Violin one from Central High, Aiden Moon. Viola from West High, Joy Sheen. Violin one from West High, Kyler Wang. And violin two from West High, Alicia Yin. We also had eight alternates or honorable mentions for this
007group. On cello from North High, we have Alex Beck. Cello from West High. Ian Cho viola from Central High. Macy Heimberger, violin from West High. Felicity Jackson, violin from Central High. Um, Dwara Kamar, violin from Central High, Hannah Lee, violin from Central High, Evelyn Monzik. And finally, viola from Central High, Ava O'Brien. Before we conclude, I would also like to acknowledge the music teachers for um of these students who are here tonight by having them stand and be recognized. We want to thank them for their incredible dedication and once again congratulations to our 2025 Parkway All State musicians. [Applause] So, as we celebrate our students, it's equally important to recognize the educators who inspire them every day. Tonight, I'm proud to recognize one of Parkway's outstanding educators, Katie Henderson, who [Applause] is Katie was recogniz
008Katie was recognized or named as the 2025 Missouri ASTA elementary strings teacher of the year at the state music conference in January. This award given by the American Strings Teacher Association honors excellence in strings teaching across the state and Katie exemplifies that in every way. She's a dedicated leader in our music community, volunteering her time to mentor new teachers, support colleagues, and collaborate with administrators. Her experience and commitment makes her a trusted and respected voice among Parkway educators. Over the years, Katie has taught generations of strings teachers, many whom continue their musical journeys into high school, college, and beyond. Her ability to reach inspire every student is a testament to her skill and passion. Katie lives out the Parkway mission every day. Her students are not only strong technical players, they are confident and creative
009musicians. Please join me in congratulating Katie Henderson on this very well-deserved recogition. [Applause] Thank you again to all of our students and your families for being here to celebrate tonight. Uh parents, you have some outstanding children and should be very proud. Congratulations also to Katie. Uh we're so as a board we're so thrilled at all of our our students and teachers accomplishments. So congratulations to you all. Right now, we'll take a brief recess and we'll resume the meeting shortly. Are we all Everybody left. All right. Uh we will pick up right where we left off. Um with addendum, additions, corrections, and or modifications to the agenda. There's only one 7.01 1 addendum to agenda item 11.12 approval of personnel items. Uh next up we have citizen statements and we only have one person who has
010signed up. Um so that is Lindsay Brand. You just uh you have three minutes and just reintroduce yourself and tell us what your affiliation or uh connection to Parkway is. Sure. Okay. Hello members of the Parkway School District board. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Lindseay Brand and I live in St. Louis County. My friend has two sons in the Parkway School District and I'd like to bring to you all's attention the topic of mental health support. My friend cannot attend this meeting herself as she has a standing Wednesday night commitment she cannot get out of and I was happy to to come and attend in her place. Um my background is in education. I previously worked in K through2 education school public system schools and I now work in
011higher education as a professor. So what I do is I help students constantly navigate the student services at my school to ensure they have access to resources they need due to non-cognitive challenges to facil facilitate their success both inside and outside the classroom. Um, these two areas do not exist in a vacuum. What happens at home doesn't stay at home. When I found out that my friend was struggling to get Henry Elementary to partner with her to provide mental health supports to her son who's going through a difficult period in his life, I was honestly very surprised. Parkway has a good reputation in the St. Louis metropolitan area and I thought this wouldn't have been an issue. In fact, like last year when I moved, I even considered Parkway District for my children when I
012relocated out of Webster Groves. I looked on the Parkway School website and I found that this district is part of the trauma-informed school initiative. And one of the things Desi's website says about this designation is that it means staff have been trained to recognize the widespread impact of trauma and understand the potential path for recovery so that they can respond by integrating knowledge about trauma into its policies, procedures, and practices. I would have expected the staff at Henry Elementary School to partner with my friend to help her son as he goes through a challenging time. I thought they'd offer him supports and check in on him from time to time. Unfortunately, they have made it clear that since his classroom performance has not yet been impacted, they don't consider it their responsibility to support him
013or give him access to mental health resources. The Parkway School website says, "Ask your child's counselor about mental health resources." But the counselor has not given my friend anything other than a list of community providers. She's waited days without a response from the administration to her emails asking for support check-ins for her son or even a meeting to discuss it. This is not adhering to standing school policy. Is my son's is my friend's son a special case? Why doesn't he have access to the same resources other students have? My friend even made it clear to the administrator she spoke to that there are so some socioeconomic challenges. I would hope that her son being part of a minoritized race isn't part of the lack of action. Ultimately, I'm not asking for special treatment for the
014student, just that he receives the same educational resources and mental health supports as his peers if they were in a similar situation. Thank you for your time and attention. May I have a motion second to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of the board of education? So move second. All in favor? Opposed carries. Next regular board meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 14th, 2025 beginning at 700 p.m. at Parkway Welcome Center. the board's annual spring workshop will take place on Saturday, April 26th beginning at 8 8 a.m. Also here at the welcome center. Uh next up boards, I just have a few quick things. First, I want to thank Rob Rudy for his service to the school board. I welcome John on to the board. Look forward to working with you. And um
015I want to congratulate a Parkway South graduate. Yesterday, Miss Cara Spencer became mayor of the city of St. Louis. Nice to see a Parkway graduate out there taking some leadership roles in the region. And then I'm going to do a plug for everybody listening hopefully for the future teacher um signing night on Thursday, May 1st at 6:30. This will be the third year of the event. It is one of the best events in my opinion of the school year. The kids are excited, their mentors are there. It is just a great event. So it'll be here at the welcome center. I encourage you to attend. So it was a busy month uh for me. Um on top of uh went to the all district honor band concert which was an amazing performance by both the
016middle and high school bands. Um went to these we many of us went to the student advisory group where we talked a lot with middle and high school students on student discipline and how we can make that better. What's going well? What would you like to see? It was it was a great participation by our students. Um we had the election. I want to thank everyone who entrusted me with uh being back on the board. I it has been a humbling experience and I and I hope to do it for many years. Um as um many years, yes, as long as you'll have me. No. Um as as Matt said, um I want to thank Rob Reedi for his service for the past three years. I did run with him initially. Got to know him
017well and really wish him the best of luck. And also to John Kilper for being um our new member to the board. wish you the best of luck and excited to get to know you more. That um yeah, so congratulations to Jeffrey on your re-election. Um I uh appreciate everybody coming out to vote uh last week, whether you voted for me or not. You know, every election is important. Uh local elections are important. So, thanks for everybody coming out. Thank you to everybody who did support me in the campaign. Um I'm really truly honored and grateful to have this opportunity to serve on the board. I'm eager to to to get to work, you know, honored to be sitting with you folks up here and looking forward to working with all of you. Um, and
018just a a a quick plug um, you know, to the uh students that were honored earlier for the uh the work um being the uh the all state, you know, band choir and all that. And then also to to Katie, it's just it's amazing how strong of a fine arts program we have in the district. Super proud of that. And uh, you know, the arts are so important. Um, so you know, to those the students earlier, they really should be proud. Um, and you know, to Miss Henderson and to all of our teachers and directors who uh who bring the arts to our kids, uh, thank you for that. And that's all I have. So, I just want to um congratulate Mr. Spectre and Mr. Kilper for um Mr. Spectre for being reelected, Mr. Coper
019for being elected. Welcome. Um, I'm sure you'll be a great addition to to the this this group of people. Um, so this last month, it seems like it was so long ago because we had a spring break between our last meeting and this meeting, although the board also had several meetings after spring break. At least it seemed that way. Um but after spring break uh a few of us um did attend the project parkway steering committee meeting. Um there we talked about the CSIP update for the 2025 2026 school year. Um and we also talked about the facilities 2050. Um for the CEP update, we will be uh hoping to bring that to us the board. um next month. And uh as part of the steering committee, our our goal was to um make sure
020that that it was ready. And so we did a noise analysis. Uh noise stands for needs, opportunities, improvements, strengths, and excitements about the plan. So um that was a a good meeting. And then as um Mr. Spectre said, we did also um attend the student advisory meeting on April 3rd. Um that was also a really good meeting. I always appreciate hearing about the student um the students perspectives about things. They brought up some really really great points in regards to um the discipline and the behaviors that they see from other students and what they think actually would work better than some of the things that we might be doing now. So, um I mean it it was a really good conversation and I look forward to those every time we have those. I think that
021is all I have. Thank you. So, uh, you know, we're in midappril now. Following this, you know, in the next few weeks, we kind of get to the sprint towards the end of the school year, which is really really an exciting time with graduations and honors evenings and all that. Uh, and it it's wonderful. Uh but before we you know dive into that period I kind of want to reflect on where we are right now which is kind of a period of a mix of continuity and uh transition in the district. Uh for those of you that weren't here for the 6:30 show we had the organizational meeting and Rob Rei uh who is uh his term ended uh spoke very eloquently about this district and I just kind of want to echo some of
022his sent sentiments. You know in my professional life I have clients where there you know things don't you know 20 years people stay in one place and that's one way you know that that's one way of accomplishing things but in the school realm it seems to not take place. Uh teachers uh educators they they tend to you know there's more fluctuations. Uh and as we sit here right now it's a perfect example of that. We have a superintendent who who's term who's retiring at the end of the year and will be replaced by another superintendent who we're very very excited about. In my seven years on the board, I think five six of the SAT team has turned over. But in the same time, even though the the face has changed, what Rob was saying
023is that the heart stays the same. And I'm very proud to be a part of this district because as we have new faces and new people in new places, which I didn't intend to rhyme, but there you go. Um, I think we preserve the essence of this district. And I think, you know, the the stability of this district and I think it's something we can all be really proud of. You know, for instance, uh Jeff and Debbie at that earlier meeting have been reelected to be president and vice president and I believe this is the sixth year that that's been our tandem. Fine. Eighth year point being that's an example of the stability we have and you know a board that works well together that leadership isn't an issue and it's just it's very nice
024to be a part of. Um, we welcome John Kilper to the board, uh, which makes three lawyers, so we're getting there. And, um, anyway, I just like to see the this mix of transition, uh, and continuity, and I think that's kind of what enables this district to be such a stable presence. I will uh, extend congratulations to both Jeffrey Spectre and John Kilper. John, um we we know Jeffrey um his term of office the last three years has been stellar and has brought a lot to the district and uh as um as an alum of the district and you're an alum of the district now as well. And so I and all of your involvement with the district up to this point, this just is a culmination for you, I think, of being on the
025board. And I think we will just be benefited by all of your experience and involvement with the district. So, thank you for your continued service to step up to be on the board and um I wish you well and we're here to support you in every way possible. So, welcome and congratulations. Um, in addition to the project parkway steering committee meeting and the um, student advisory meeting that I also attended, I did also go to the West High uh, Special Olympics Day. That was a lovely lovely event. Um, it was so much fun just to see the the collaboration with our students as best buddies to this um, the other students and this is a collaboration throughout St. Louis County. So we get students from various different school districts, Hazelwood, U City, Clayton, um, Lindberg,
026etc. So it was it was a big deal and um it's just about a whole dayong event. So very proud of the students that are participating in that and for our um school district. Every high school I believe does this in our district. We're very proud of them for doing that. Um, I've also been involved in a lot of planning committees with our St. Louis County uh board of education's um professional learning community. Uh, we're planning our June activity for St. Louis County school boards as well as um involved with the legislative advocacy committee there as well. So, I have been involved in those things. And I will just um also reiterate, I I had the pleasure of attending a choir concert and a couple of other uh musical performances since the last meeting. And
027I tell you what, the I just I get chills and goosebumps when I hear some of these students perform, whether they're doing orchestra or whether they're singing. And so proud of our fine arts um program that we have here in in the district. And I want to continue to support that to make sure that we we just keep it as stellar with all the different educators that we have and and the variety uh and um diversity of types of music that are conducted and the different types of choirs that we have. It's just remarkable. And we're just so proud of all of these educators and students for participating in that. and congratulations to those that we just honored tonight in their special recognitions. Uh I will echo congratulations to John and Jeffrey. U when I
028started on the board I was the only alum and I I was like really excited about that but now we can actually have a quorum among alums. There's four of us now. So uh but uh no congratulations. We're we're excited to have you join us. Um, and Jeffrey, continue the work uh that you've been doing. Um, let's see. Project Parkway steering was mentioned. Uh, student advisory was was mentioned. It was that was great. I like a couple other people said, I I love those opportunities to talk with students. Um, last week, uh, Dr. Marty and I met with our faith leaders uh who uh are just a a great group of people u that come from all different types of of backgrounds and and represent different congregations here in St. Louis in the in the
029Parkway footprint. Um they're always a very collaborative group as far as things that they can offer to us and and support that they offer the community. So that was great. Uh we heard or we received an annual report from the Parkway Food Pantry last week. Um and uh their work is continues to be amazing. Um they served or they they continue to serve uh over a hundred families every month uh who are food insecure and uh in addition they provide things beyond food. Um and we also heard last week they they rep were represented at the faith leaders meeting as well. Uh we heard that this fall they're going to have an education fair uh where they're going to have uh one of these drives where they where kids that can't afford or don't have
030access to school supplies and backpacks and things like that. They're they're working on getting those materials. So there'll be more information about that coming up. Um let's see. Last week uh last Friday I I had an hour or so of recess duty at Mason Ridge. um fourth and fifth grade students in uh no one ran away, no one got injured. Uh there was no profanity on the playground. Uh and the kids were good, too. So, um that was that was always that's always a fun event to do. Um it's it's a gift of time and so they get volunteers to come in and uh work playground duty, recess duty, so teachers have an extra hour to to do whatever they need to do to catch up on the day. So, um, let's see. Uh, again,
031my, uh, my best wishes to Rob Rei and thanks for his service on the board. Um, and I'll just shout out one of the kids that was honored here tonight, Max Bameek from North High. Um, he I've known him for a number of years. He's a great kid, much smarter than I was in school. And he just started singing this past year as his senior year. It was his first year in any kind of music class and he he did very very well at state. So he told me after the the meeting this tonight that the choir has become his like favorite thing at school. So I thought that was cool. Uh and then lastly I just want to mention that next week last month we talked about board recognition. Uh but next week is
032actually board secretaries week. So, I just want to give a shout out to Nikki, uh, our amazing, irreplaceable, just stupendous board secretary. Um, she keeps all of us organized and looking good and sounding good and um, we really appreciate everything you do for us. So, thank you. Stole my thunder. I was going to say something about that. But it's a it's a national as administrative professional day we now call it for Nikki and and all that ser in that ro. We got others, but particularly want to thank Nikki for her leadership. Uh, you cover most everything. Uh, again, congratulations to our elected and our our reelected officers and John and Jeffrey. Thank you. And, uh, I just want to mention that uh, somebody mentioned a lot of I think Tiffany mentioned a lot happened. We
033did have significant had some significant damage in some of our location. I just want to again make uh to salute our our uh our custodial grounds maintenance group for the cleanup. Uh fortunately we didn't have school and take some time to get everything worked on and uh central high central campus including our area was hit pretty hard. So want to just salute those individuals who made it all happen and during the during that time following the storm of was that March 14th or something like that. Um also just want to uh uh talk about Special Olympics. We also had special Olympics last week at North High School. Equally well attended. They had good weather before it rained in the afternoon. So they got that in. They have a track meet and they were outside actually.
034So that uh as Mrs. Hopper said, we have special Olympics at all our schools and that was the last one for the school year. Uh do want to reinforce uh the idea that the food pantry is in need uh of ongoing support and they're seeing numbers go up uh in terms of people families coming for support. do want to also indicate uh we did send a message out to our community and we've been talking internally about some new budget challenges and so I just want to thank Carrie and Nun and and all our SAP members and the work uh that we are working on to come bring to you uh next month Carrie will have a report and in June you'll approve the tenative budget but we've had some challenges as I can tell you
035most school districts in Missouri are facing increased health care costs vendor costs unknowns about what the legislaturator is going to do so and of course a senior tax freeze which we've spoken about a number of times. So, uh we're really working to bring a budget to you that is um responsible and also proactive and also u some concerns about what the future is going to mean and which we have Dr. Schneider is going to be forming task force in her early uh tenure on the uh to certainly get ahead of what challenges we may have and also the benefits advisory is going to continue looking at benefits. Um, we did I did attend last week the National Honors Society or two weeks ago at the Northeast Middle School. Our junior highs or middle schools have
036national honors societies and then last week Dr. Matis and I attend the PACCD, our special education parents advisory. Had great discussion, a lot of parents there. um SSD administrative or leaders were there to answer a lot of questions uh that people have about staffing with the special school district and I was proud that uh Amy Blumenfeld did a great job of facilitating that discussion and we had really I think good honest transparent discussion about the certainly staffing our special education students needs. I will conclude by uh mentioning that Dr. Schneider is going to be back in the district next week and we'll be attending our board workshop and our appreciation night. And then finally, I just want to say uh uh I think a lot of people are aware of this, but we did have
037a former superintendent and a very close friend of mine, Don Cente. Dr. Cente passed away over last weekend. Uh Don Centi was uh this an interim superintendent when I came to the district and for a whole semester I had a chance to be mentored uh by Dr. Centi and I've told Dr. Schneider, if I can be anything close to what Don was for me for her transition, uh he was wonderful. Uh I've got to know Don over the years and uh didn't have a lot of contact with him the last couple years when he's as his health deteriorated, but uh what a wonderful leader he was, a powerhouse leader in the community here, but also in Clayton and eventually at Ed Plus. And so, um just want to keep Don in our our thoughts and
038prayers. His son Bill of course was a a leader for us and another son Jim who works in California. Uh we did post the obituary uh Lisa Tomicha working with the family but again uh what a wonderful leader and uh again talking about the tradition of Parkway uh he certainly is one reason why we're the district we are with his tenure back in the 80s and 90s as superintendent and when he returned as the intern did a wonderful job uh in in that role and helped me greatly uh in my first first years in Parkway. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh we've already approved our agenda for this evening. Uh next up 11.0 is our consent agenda which is rather healthy this month. We've all had an opportunity to review that over the
039last week or so. Uh so may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented in the April 16th, 2025 board materials. So moved. Second. Is there anything to be pulled to action or closed? I wish to pull 11.12 and abstain. You just wish to abstain or pull it? Abstain. Oh, sorry. Abstain from 11.12. Okay. Uh, all right then. Uh, all in favor? I Any opposed? Any abstensions? I obtain. And I'm I'm abstaining from 11.26. Okay. Should we should I abstain from something? No. All right. Motion carries. 70. Next up, uh, we have an action item. U we don't have an action item. Uh oh, we we had an action item last month. Uh so that is uh that is the uh pol approval of policy JG-R1.bp student discipline. Um so may I
040have a motion and a second that the board of education adopts the new JG-R1.b BP policy to clarify our practices for the 2526 school year and beyond as presented in the April 16, 2025 board meeting materials. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carry 70. Next up, we have no policy review. However, we do have a report. So, I'd like to call on Apparently I'm calling on Kevin Beckner uh who will uh probably call on Lauren for World Languages program evaluation. That's correct. I just want to take a moment and uh thank Lauren Fairley and the entire World Languages team who spent the year evaluating their program and really diving into a lot of great questions. I introduced Lauren to you I think uh beginning of this school year with just what an excellent review
041she'd received from teachers last school year and she kept telling me just wait till program evaluation because she was very nervous about the process but did a masterful job and had a great team of teachers who were gathering frequently throughout this school year. Um and she'll present all the findings and all the work that they did this year but just wanted to congratulate the entire world language team and Lauren for the great work. So, with that, yes, I'll turn it over to Lauren. I always say I have to bring Kevin everywhere I go because he's just so nice. He says the nicest things about me. Um, so, hi, nice to see you again. Um, I was here in September. We went over the guiding questions and the topics that we would have for program evaluation.
042We did our program evaluation. So, I'm here to to go ahead and go over it. Can I use this quicker? Okay. Um, so, hi again. This was our timeline. Um, I met with my teachers and along with Dr. Nathan Tyson on August 15th for our first work session. Uh, they came up with our guiding topics and our questions and then I met with the subcommittee and then met with you guys uh in September and then we started our quest into diving into our guiding topics and questions. Um, and then here I am tonight to go over our findings and recommendations. So, as a reminder, here's our guiding topics. We're talking about our mission and vision of a world language learner. We just wanted to revisit that as a as a whole group to make sure
043that what we have is what we like and that will drive all of our professional development topics moving forward. Um, curriculum and instruction was a big beast that we took on and it has a lot of sub uh subjects underneath including instructional practices, curriculum, assessment, teaching about culture and resources. And then our last is program structure. Uh here's our program evaluationship leadership team members. I just want to take a moment to recognize them. There's Blair Hopkins from West High. She's a French teacher. Suzanne Johnson, North High French teacher. Kelly Leon is the Southwest Middle Spanish teacher. Jesse Mench is our West High ASL teacher. Carolyn Miller, West Middle French teacher. Matt Peard, Central High Latin teacher. Michelle Roman, Central Middle French teacher. Christy Stazzic, Central High German teacher. And Stephanie Venes, a South High Spanish
044teacher. Here's our current language offerings. Just to give you an idea of what we have at the moment, you can see that our main languages are French, Spanish, and Latin. Um, those are the ones that are in all of our high schools. We have German also at Central High. That program is being sunseted. I'll touch on that in uh this evaluation as well. We have Latin in the high schools, but not in the middle schools any longer. And we have ASL smatterings throughout the district. Um, and then we have our St. Louis virtual campus offering ASL and Chinese. A little brief history of the world languages and parkway. Um 2015 2016 is the last time that we had a program evaluation. That was before my time. This is my second year here. During that time,
045there was a shift from traditional grammar-driven program methods into this new thematic unit program. So the way that we probably all learned languages, the way that I learned languages when you were in high school and college, you probably learned this way was a grammar-driven program. So there's vocabulary lists and there's you memorize grammar, you conjugate verbs on verb charts and it's very methodical kind of translation method. There was a shift to this thematic unit program and actually parkway was ahead of the pedagogical curve and during this time because there was no materials out there and there was no textbooks to support this shift. It was just there's this new research. This is the way that we really should be teaching students. It's about real language in context with real. So instead of memorizing a verb
046about how to order food at a restaurant, you're actually practicing how to order food at a restaurant, like a real scenario, right? Like using your language appropriately. And so because Parkway was ahead of this ped pedagogical curve, there was just no support, there was no resources that actually supported the teachers. So the teachers had to create everything. So they we had lead teacher contracts. Um for example, this lead Spanish teacher for high school, lead French teacher for high school, and so on and so forth. and they created a bunch of materials that aligned with this new pedagogical curve that was in 2015 2016. So that's what we've been doing for the past 10 years really relying heavily on our lead teachers. And then in 2022 and 2023 we had some enrollment shifts. Um there was
047the decision to sunset the German program due to lack of enrollment and the decision to discontinue Latin in the middle school program also due to lack of enrollment. I'd like to take a minute to brag about our seal by literacy program. Uh in 2017 and 2018, Missouri became one of 37 states to have the seal by literacy program. You may have heard about it. Now all 50 states have the seal by seal by literacy program. Uh South Dakota was really hanging on. They were the last state to get in there and so now all 50 have it. So it's recognized nationally which is very exciting. Uh the Missouri steel by literacy recognizes students who are proficient in English and another language. We have several students who get their seals in multiple languages as well which
048is really awesome. Um colleges and universities can award back credit to students who earn this award is college dependent. So there's not a set chart that they have all out you know that they all follow. Of course they follow their own patterns but for example at um Soul a local university students can earn up to 17 back credits for free if they have their seal by literacy. So it's pretty amazing. A lot of students will usually take their seal of literacy, get their credits, and maybe take one or two more courses and have a minor in their language already by the time that they're freshman. So, it's amazing. It's a really awesome program. Um, there's scholarship and employment opportunities through the seal of literacy. It's recognized as a market value asset in Missouri through the
049success ready student network and it offers students its distinct advantage and other sorry, over others in a competitive market. So we're really proud of our students because this year we had two sorry we had 371 students apply for their seal of literacy. 214 students earned the Missouri seal of literacy and 31 students earned the distinguished Missouri seal by literacy which is a very high level is advanced proficiency levels. So the combination there is 245 Parkway students earned their this very prestigious award. This is open to juniors and seniors. So it's quite a great number that I I'm very proud of our teachers and our students. Um, and this number is more than double last year's number. We had 114 awardies last year. So, we're very, very proud of the progress that we've made in our
050program. We also have a credit by assessment opportunity. This is per board guideline IKFG. Students can earn credit for areas in which they demonstrate competency. So, this includes languages. So specifically, students who know a language other than English can earn up to two elective credits in world languages if they score an intermediate mid or higher on all tested domains on a nationally accredited language proficiency exam. This is the same exam that we use for the seal of biiteracy. So they can earn for example two credits in Arabic or Tamil or Telugu or any language that they have competency. I'm I'll be testing a student in Dari next week. from spring 24 2024 to spring 2025. Right now, there were 15 Parkway students who took advantage of this opportunity. Just to give you an idea of
051how many students are taking advantage of this, here's our current program structure. We have pathways, two different pathways for uh students to take a language and continue on through high school. There's the middle school pathway. If they start learning in middle school, they can start in sixth grade with a global and cultural connections class. This is kind of an explo class where they can explore French, Spanish, German, Latin, and ASL al together. And they get a little sampling of each. Then they can pick a language that they're most interested in and continue on into seventh grade. That would be level 1 A and eighth grade is level 1B. So, for example, if they're interested in Spanish, they would take Spanish A and seventh grade and seven and Spanish B and eighth grade. Then onto high
052school, they would continue all the way up into AP level five. And all of our level four classes are honors classes. So, that's for students who start in middle school. And then for students who begin in high school, um again they start with nth grade level one and move all the way up to 12th grade level four. So due to the two different pathways, our capstone course is either level four or level five, just depending on where they begin. Current staffing, we have 18 high school Spanish teachers and eight middle school uh Spanish teachers. Six high school French teachers and five middle school French teachers. Three Latin high school teachers. We have two ASL high school teachers, one middle school teacher, one virtual teacher, and an outofd district virtual program to try to support our
053ASL staffing issues. We have one high school German teacher, and then there's me, our curriculum lead through the program evaluation process. These are the research tools that we use to answer our driving questions. So, we had a Parkway parent survey that went out digitally. We had a world languages teachers digital survey. We did an ASL workg group mostly because we had a little bit of a staffing crisis in the middle of the school year so we had to meet with them frequently. Um we had a French focus group, a German focus group, Latin focus group, Spanish focus group, a book study, uh district comparison, and we had many work sessions with my program evaluation leadership team. So here's some main findings from our parent survey. Just first of all, there was an approximate 5% return
054rate on the parent survey. And while the responses provide valuable insights, they reflect perspectives of those who chose to participate rather than the broader community as a whole. We would have loved to have answers from the whole community. Obviously, um we had a 5% return rate, so that's what we're working with. But of that 5%, 88% of respondents indicated that learning a new language is important for their child. 77% of respondents indicated that their child has shown an interest in learning a new language. Over 88% of respondents indicated that learning a new language is meaningful and relevant to their child's future. This was music to our ears. We were glad to hear this and we were like, "Yay, we're still relevant. This is wonderful." Um, when asked which languages parents would potentially be interested in
055to adding to Parkway's world language program, the top requests were Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and other. And in the other category, the most mentioned language was Spanish, which was a little confusing, and it's probably because most of the respondents were elementary school parents, and they don't have any languages in the elementary school at this point. So, they added Spanish in. 56 of the respondents expressed interest in an emergent or a bilingual elementary program if it was possible in the future and 25% were neutral. 18.5% did not express interest. 84% of respondents were interested in world languages being introduced as a special in elementary school similar to music, art, PE, and strings if the possibility became available in the future and Parkway. For the world language teacher survey, only 6% of respondents indicated that the current world
056language curriculum is working with no holes, issues, or other items to be addressed through the program evaluation process. Uh 65% indicated that the curriculum is mostly solid but has a couple of holes or issues that need to be addressed. And 28% indicated that the current curriculum as it stands would benefit from a complete overhaul. If we break that down a little further, the French department said it's pretty solid, but we have a few holes and issues that we need to address. Spanish had 60% saying that they it's pretty solid, but we need a to address a few holes and issues. And 32% requested a total overhaul. 100% of Latin teachers reported that the curriculum is working well. There's three teachers, so they work really well together. So, all of them said it's working really well.
057And 100% of our German respondents, we have the one German teacher, said that she would like a total overhaul. Some marking findings for a role language teacher survey. 93% of our um our respondents would like a textbook like resource. And again, I will remind you that there was just nothing out there when we switched to this thematic unit style. And so now that there are um products out there and there's resources, we can really switch over to something that can really support our teachers and kind of align them. Um this would provide like a baseline scope and sequence, common assessments, a bank of diverse school appropriate ready-made authentic like resources to support teachers and students. again because teachers were having to go out and find those things on their own in their own time. Kind
058of mining these authentic resources and creating things from scratch and it would always be the story of you can find the perfect video but then like somebody's smoking a cigarette in the background or they're talking too fast or they're not using the right vocabulary word. And so somebody's already done all of that work for us. It just saves teachers a lot of valuable time. Only 6% of respondents indicated that the current world language curriculum is working well with no holes, issues, or other items to be addressed. 65% indicated this mostly side of it has a few holes. 28% said that we need a total overhaul. Oops. Oh, I don't know what's happening here. Sorry. I'm stuck. Not sure what. Say that again. Oh, okay. Let's keep clicking. All right. U regarding requirements for middle school
059students to earn high school credit. teachers teacher respondents are mostly evenly divided on their opinions um on whether or not students need to complete a level two in order to earn back their credit for middle school. And so this was because the opinions were so divided up, we're going to have a recommendation that we reconvene and kind of discuss that. And world language teachers are also varied in their opinion on whether to bring world languages to the elementary school in some capacity. So, while there's a general excitement about the possibility of adding this in the future, there's some valid concerns about staffing these courses and potentially favoring one language over others. And I'll just name the language, Spanish, um, which can negatively impact future enrollment for our other languages like French, Latin, ASL, and German.
060All right. For our focus groups, we have some strengths. Um, all of our world language groups have a dedicated um, talented, committed, and deeply invested in student success group of teachers that are working hard for our students. There's positive student experience and experiences and retention, especially in French, Latin, and ASL. Usually, once the student starts on a French, Latin, or ASL track, they continue all the way up into the capstone course. We have high standards in academic rigor. Each language group reported strong student outcomes with students exceeding benchmark expectations. And I think our seal by literacy data shows that as well. And there's an intentionality to integrate cultural diversity, equity, and inclusion into the curriculum. And we have some curricular consistency. Not the key word there is some. Latin has a wellorganized and common curriculum
061and assessments supporting a multi-tered system of support and imple implementation. We have some weaknesses. There is that lack of common instructional resources. Again, during this time when teachers were creating their own materials, they kind of went into a survival mode. And so some schools do different things than other schools. So there's a lack of um commonness amongst all buildings. Staffing challenges and isolation. Of course, German and ASL programs face extreme staffing shortages and in some cases a complete lack of in-person instructors. We have an inconsistent implementation of MTSS. The Spanish and French groups noted difficulty implementating implement implementing English MTSS equitably due to inconsistent resources and varying instructional practices. Once again, once we have a common resource that kind of unites everybody, they'll be able to implement that a lot more easily. And then there's
062some enrollment inequities and access. Latin is not currently offered at one high school and both French and Latin raise concerns about declining enrollment in general. Latin also experiences challenges with academic diversity in their student groups. Some opportunities uh we have several groups that identify the opportunity to adopt a common resource that would strengthen the vertical and horizontal alignment. We have innovative course offerings. We've recently approved two new courses through the course proposal process. One is Spanish for Spanish speakers that's getting off its feet. It's in its first year this year doing really well. And we have Roman myth and introduction to Latin um which is kind of like a pre-Latin one to help students and support them. We have interdisciplinary uh collaboration opportunities. Latin teachers identified partnerships with history and ELA to help boost their
063enrollment. And we have technology and virtual learning as an opportunity for our programs as well. Despite some drawbacks, virtual options like St. Louis's virtual campus for German and ASL provide opportunities for continued access when staffing is limited. And lastly, student travel and enrichment. The Spanish teachers highlighted the potential to expand real world learning experiences through educational travel that the district would support. And lastly, we have threats. There's some declining enrollment in feeder program elimination concerns. Uh the French and Latin programs both reported concerns about declining enrollment and Latin noting the elimination of the middle school feeder as a key concern. We have staffing shortages and certification barriers particularly in ASL. Um as a reminder, there is no certification for ASL in the state of Missouri. Um we've been told that they're working on that, so
064we're hoping that they are and that will be remedied soon. Uh we have the virtual only risks. So while virtual learning offers some solutions and helps maintain programs and keep them afloat, there is some concerns raised that over reliance on virtual programs could be lead to reduced engagement and quality. And the equity and language representation concerns as well. Spanish and Latin groups raised concerns about introducing a Spanishonly model at the elementary level if that were to happen, advocating instead for exposure to multiple languages from an early age. From our book studies, just a couple of main findings. There are many many benefits to language learning and research shows that learning a second language enhances not hinders academic performance boosting skills in reading, math, science and even standardized test scores. So we do recommend that every
065student take a language. Um communicative language teaching is an approach as a teaching style that emphasizes real world language use and student proficiency leading to stronger outcomes and greater engagement over traditional grammar methods the way that we were taught when we were in high school. Uh, language learning is for all students, not just the academically elite. And world languages should be considered a core subject like math or ELA and our dreams. Any well-taught language can yield strong benefits. The specific language matters less than the opportunity to learn one. So, when we're trying to figure out which which languages to offer, it just matters that there's some languages to learn because they have done research and when you learn a language, you can more easily learn other languages. As soon as you learn one, it's you're
066like get it and you can continue to learn. Uh we can use objective practical criteria when deciding which languages to offer including teacher availability materials community interest and program capacity. Continuing on here, the foreign language and elementary school pushin style programming is the program that we're looking at for elementary school if we ever have a change in Parkway School District. Um but they have to meet a minimum amount of time and frequency to yield proper results. We would not want to start something and do it in a weak way that would not yield any results. So it's we we consider concentrating instruction at the upper elementary immersion programs offer the highest language outcomes especially when sustained through K12 but they do require higher teacher proficiency and very long-term planning. Uh we would love to start
067language learning early if possible but we have to start smart. Launching a week early program is worse than waiting until the right resources and design are in place. And curriculum units should be purposeful, culturally rich, and standardsbased while also engaging student interest in critical thinking. And communicative assessments reflect real language use, measuring what students can do rather than the what they know. Again, it's about that approach of using your language correctly in context with real world scenarios, not just do you know how to conjugate this verb. And then a clear mission, vision, and values give direction and unity to a world language program, aligning faculty around shared goals. For district comparisons, as part of our program evaluation progress, we did talk to neighboring school districts regarding their program design and structure. And while these discussions
068provided lots of insight and valuable resources, um there's not anything that they would recommend that would enhance our current structure. So based on this comparison, our district is already implementing the most effective and research aligned program structure. So recommendations here, we recommend that we adopt the new mission and vision via the newly created portrait of a world language learner. I know this is probably difficult to read. Um, but our portrait of a world language learner says that each world language student is a global citizen, an effective communicator, a collaborative partner, an empathetic explorer, an empowered learner, a resilient individual, a creative contributor, and a critical thinker. So, this would drive all of our professional development and everything that we do. Any assess sorry, any resources that we choose, the assessments that we write would all
069align with our portrait of this world language learner. and then all of our professional development would be a piece of the puzzle. So that's our first recommendation. The second recommendation is kind of chunky. We have program structure and design. So 2A is expand opportunities for elementary students to engage with world languages through developmentally appropriate exposure and instruction. So 2 AA, if the elementary schedule ever permits the addition of a new special class, consider adding world languages to the elementary schedule. So we understand at this point in time with the way that the schedule is that we can't just insert ourselves into without ruining a bunch of things, right? So if this that if the schedule changes and we're looking to add another special, consider RO languages as a special. Um further exploration of the FE
070sorry Flees model would be pursued if the schedule is allowed. So we would do a study and we would figure out how to do this appropriately and in the right levels. The leadership team acknowledges the difficulties in staffing any type of one-way or two-way dual immersion at the elementary level. So, they do not recommend these models at this time. Um, the dual enrollment or immersion programs usually do best when we have more than a 25% population of the second language. And right now, we just don't have that structure in place. Um, nor do we have the type of teachers that we would need to to make this program successful. So, at this time, we don't recommend this model. And we do support the implementation of community-led language clubs at the elementary level. There's been some
071community groups that have suggested that we do the language clubs in elementary school and we 100% support that. Continue on with with two. We're on 2B now. Oops. No, we're not. I don't know how to go back now. Sorry. Yes. Okay. Retain the current 612 world language program model as is until a possible elementary school schedule allows for change. So, we're just going to keep everything. We recommend students keep starting in sixth grade at this point and then if there's a change we would pursue that Flees model to C continue to offer French and Spanish at the middle school level French Spanish and Latin at the high school level and virtual learning opportunities for any requested language for which there is an affordable and accredited online course option. So we also recognize that we would
072love to offer every language that we that exists but staffing is an issue. So we do have virtual learning opportunities for those languages that we don't have teachers for and we want to take advantage of that. We will also continue with credit by assessment opportunities for any requested languages for which there's a nationally recognized language proficiency exam that aligns to actful standards as outlined in board guideline IKFG3 and opportunities for accredited language schools to transfer up to two elective credits of world studied world languages when a transcript is provided. So we have some partnerships with for example the Missouri Tamil school um the Telahoo school they have accredited programs and so when they bring those transcripts to us we do award two credits and lastly opportunities for the steel by literacy program to continue to
073thrive and expand. Moving on. I keep getting stuck. I don't know what's going on. Just going to keep clicking. Okay. All right. 2D. Okay. uh continue to explore pathways for students interested in German. So, the community did mention German as one of their requested languages to bring back. Um this could include opportunities such as offer a virtual option for students across the district as part of the German teachers regular teaching schedule or option two offer a virtual option for students across the district in the St. Louis area via the St. Louis virtual campus. Just gonna keep clicking to E. With the introduction of our newly approved Roman myth and introduction to Latin course, the Latin teachers would propose to remove AP level 5 as the capstone course for the Latin program and bring AP to
074the level four level. Um, this would be through the course proposal process and pending principal approval. And to F, we would like to introduce a proficiency pathways program beginning in middle school. This program would provide standardized testing when funding is available and award students pathway recognition as they hit certain milestones on their path to language proficiency. This program will bolster the world languages program, give students clear goals and progress monitoring tools, and boost enrollment and retention in the world language courses. Additionally, offering standardized language proficiency testing at multiple levels give students opportunities to earn college credits without having to take the AP exam, enroll in an advanced credit course, or earn the seal by literacy. So if they have an actual score report that says that they are at a certain level, colleges do recognize
075that and some of them do offer back credits for free for those. So that's really awesome. It's just going to take 20 clicks every time. And 2G move the ASL American Sign Language program to a fully virtual model until there's a Missouri certification for ASL available. You're all aware of the staffing issues that we've had with ASL. Um so in order to save it and kind of keep it afloat, we're moving it. We'd like to move it to the St. less virtual campus program and keep it there until we can get some teachers with some Missouri certifications and two H a subcommittee of the credit review committee should reconvene to discuss the requirements around high school credit earned in middle school. So again, this is that level 1A and level 1B tops. Topics of discussion
076at this meeting should include changing the grade requirement in level 1B to a C or better. Right now it's a B or better to earn credit. uh the requirement to complete the next course in the sequence to earn credit that is that they have to finish level two in high school in order to earn their middle school credit and alignment with the math credit earned in middle school. Our math program does this as well. So we just want to make sure that we align with them and we want to encourage communication between the world language department staff and those leading current elementary levels community-led events in world language department for promotion, cultural connections and potential middle school high school tie-in. So there's international nights and things like that that are happening all throughout our district.
077They're wonderful. So we want to partner with those and maybe bring high school students down to the elementary schools and work with them to promote world languages from a very young age. For our curriculum instruction and assessment section, we would like to begin the resource adoption process for a robust French, German, and Spanish resource at the start of the 2526 school year, so next year to provide these languages with a strong baseline for teacher and student support. This new resource, whether textbook like or digital platform, there's many options out there now, will vertically and horizontally align the world languages department and free up valuable teacher time so they can focus on student growth instead of creating those assessments and rubrics. A new resource will also provide the means to teach about all cultures equitably. The
078Latin department already has a really strong resource and a new addition addressing diversity in the Latin language will arrive in the fall of 2025 and it's already been budget approved. All right. Next, we would like to eliminate the language specific lead teacher contracts. So, if we do adopt a new resource, there's no need to have the lead teachers language contracts that we have in place right now. Again, those teachers are the ones that are getting paid a stipen to create a bunch of lessons to send out to the group because there is no textbook at this at this point in time. If we get a new resource, these teachers would no longer have to spend their time doing that. So, we wouldn't need those contracts anymore. And lastly, for staff development, we would use the
079new portrait of a world language learner as a guideline, providing ongoing high-quality professional development opportunities for the world language department members, addressing each component of the portrait. Do you have any questions for me? I know I went quickly. Well, Kevin wasn't kidding. You uh did a lot of work. A lot of work. So, thank you. That was that was very thorough and a lot of good information. Uh any board membership question? I've got one question on the Latin program. Yes. So with taking out of the middle school, how are we seeing enrollment in the high school? Are we envisioning Latin for the foreseeable future? Um or are we seeing a decline where it may end up in sort of that German um you know the way that we've kind of lowered enrollment. Yeah. Sunset. Um
080we have seen a little bit of a dip in enrollment. Um, but we discussed this with the high school Latin teachers because they're the ones that are the program, our three high school Latin teachers. Um, when we said, you know, if we put it in our recommendations that we'd like to bring it back to the middle school program, we need to find a teacher to be able to go down there and teach. And so that there in lies our issue is finding the highly qualified staff to teach those courses. And we have our Latin teachers are stretched very thin right now because they are the the three of the district. And so the three of them weren't feeling like they would be able to take on going down to the middle school to teach those
081courses. So, we're thinking the middle school teachers do a really good job of promoting Latin in middle school still, even though there is no Latin program to start with in that capstone course. And then again, with the new introduction to Latin course that we have, they're just doing their own little acceleration track. So, we're monitoring that progress. At the moment, there's no plans to wind down the Latin program at West. It's very, very robust. The teacher is even teaching on an overage. They have a really great travel program and so their reputation precedes them. They're also three excellent teachers. So because of that, they're doing okay. They're hanging in there. But we will continue to monitor that enrollment trend and just make sure they're staying bolstered. Thank you. I will just add that my son's
082in in the Latin class at West High. He loves it. It's probably one of his favorite classes. Yes. It's such a good course. I'll ask um so what's the estimated time for the Missouri certification program to come to ASL? I know this was apparently a big disruption and and disappointment with the students to learn that they weren't going to be able to do this in person anymore. Yes. Um we've been told they've been working on it for years now and there hasn't been a lot of progress. So we're trying to make a lot of noise for calling the state and and trying to get updates. Um but it's going slowly. So I'll just I'll say that. But we have been told that it it's in progress. So there's something going on. I just don't know
083how quickly. Um, so the move to St. Louis Virtual Campus is our effort to keep the ASL program afloat. Um, we did interviews uh Tuesday for our for our St. Louis virtual campus program and we do have applicants for that program. We just don't have applicants for our in-person program. So at least we can keep it alive in St. Louis Virtual Campus and it's teachers that the students would know and connect with. It's just difficult to staff it in person unfortunately. and our Latin or sorry our ASL teachers this year are all moving on to wonder do wonderful things they're all leaving for you know great reasons but if they would have stayed I think you know our program would continue to grow but we'd still run into these staffing issues because it is growing
084so eventually as you can see this year we have our two high school teachers our middle school teacher and then we have to rely heavily on virtual even with with them so it's just difficult so I have other districts calling me too saying we want to do ASL how are you staffing it and I'm going Well, it's kind of hard. So, we're calling the state. We're trying to get progress, you know, updates and it's just moving really slowly. Can Can just stay there for a second. Can we even if the state uh came up with a certification, what universities are really doing a good job of of establishing courses? Well, we learned through this process this year through our ASL teachers that many um deaf and heart of hearing programs don't require the learning of
085ASL to to become deaf. in heart of hearing educators. Um because a lot of the program is about teaching how to um help DHH students thrive in a hearing world. And so they teach them how to, you know, use hearing aids and communicate in ways if if nobody knows ASL around you. So there's a couple in the nation. There's not even any very very many locally. Um but for uh Flow Valley has a really great program. So we've talked to them and we've partnered with them. It's just again that teacher track. We're just having nationwide shortages for on teacher tracks in general, but Flow Valley is our our best hope for local. So, I I think it's important even if the state, you know, had there's got to be some universities that step up, right?
086But, you know, they're having difficulty staffing, too. They've Yeah, they've called us as well. We plan on continuing with the global and cultural connections class. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, when a student takes um a foreign language virtually, are they doing that during the day in the class in a classroom within their building? It depends. Some take it extracurricularly like after the after school they will stay after and take their course. Um some are doing it. It depend each school kind of does their own thing. Some students are scheduled like kind of like in a study hall and they're si they're being monitored by a proctor and they're all taking asynchronous courses kind of side by side and some are doing it when their schedule aligns. So every school kind of has their own little method
087but some yes, some no, but it's mostly asynchronous work. Um which again it's not the the greatest environment for language learning because we do a lot of interactive collaborative work but it's better than nothing. It's better than what we have saying. Sorry, you can't take one. So, this isn't directed at you because you've only been in this role for a couple years, but since it's been 10 years since we've had a program evaluation, when can we expect the next program evaluation? I think seven, especially given things have really been moving quickly the last few years. We're scheduled for seven-year rotations. So, um, my since my first year, we were actually scheduled for program evaluation last year, but it was my first year, so they threw me a bone and and pushed it off to this
088year, which I appreciated. Um, so seven years is our rotation, but yeah, you're right. I mean, I can't even imagine in seven years what language learning might look like in regards to technology. We really have to stay up on the trends. Well, hopefully some of the challenges that we have at the moment work themselves out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to say I I think uh what what a thorough examination that Lauren has done here. Oh, thank you. And uh showing a lot of issues on the table, but it it's I think it just been very fair. I mean, world language is in a in a transition, isn't it? I mean, from curricular instruction, how we deliver it. Uh there's so many demands out there. People want certain languages and at least we are
089working to have those virtual opportunities. I do want to brag a little bit about Lauren. Uh you may recall some of you that last year we did have a call from our our Hindu our Hindi languages and so Kevin and and uh Lauren and I met and uh Lauren presented him with the seal of biiteracy and I think I we haven't talked but I I think that's they're doing great. Yeah, it's going well. They're very happy. Yeah. So, I mean that was a great option and it, you know, the these individuals really wanted to have this program and when Lauren talked about that, that's been a really nice option and they certainly get the credit and they it really it honored it honored their cultural desire and we certainly have students uh as we know
090because we delivered we were there last spring and saw, you know, what was going on, but I think they really wanted us to do more and step up. So, I I just want to kind of brag to that Lauren really presented them with a nice alternative, which I they've taken advantage of. And yeah, we'll support any any student that wants to test in any language. I'm I'm running around testing students all the time and it's they're doing wonderfully. So, it's really working out nicely when we can't have a whole class of Hindi or a whole class of Arabic, for example, or Hebrew. We would love it. We would love to. We just can't staff it. How do I'm sorry. How do students sign up for that? what's the the channels that they have to go
091through? So, there's two different Well, there's a couple of different ways. So, they the seal by literacy program happens every year. The seal for seal by literacy they have to be a junior or a senior in order to sign up. They find out through their buildings. We push out information um and I run that whole program. We test in buildings and give them their score reports and there's all sorts of different requirements. They have to have an English proficiency score. They have to do a project. Um so, that's that program. Um they can earn credits that way and then their the credit by assessment opportunity. They just reach out to their counselor. Their counselor reaches out to me. They fill out a form and I just go test them. I order a language test for
092them and I sit with them and proctor them as they take their language test. And when their score report comes back, if they hit their certain benchmark, then they earn their 2.0 credits. It's a really intense test. It takes up to four hours. It's, you know, testing their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. And they do a really fantastic job. I just going to with the diverse community we live in and you know in the number of languages we have home language I mean we really are you know trying to do our best and offer a broad program and yet meet those individual needs and again I think the your recommendations are are interesting I uh I I don't know how you I know you listen how many recommendations you had up there in task
093quite a few uh but I I I think the major task is really to just try to continually try to be as supportive as we can to the broad nature of what students one but also those individual which you address some individual needs that we can address through virtual or through the seal by literacy but what a what a challenge right that I'm sure you're facing with you know you all your staff recommendations parent recommendations students desires um again I I just want to say we're fortunate to have you in this role and and the challenges you face but uh wow as as Mr. Todd said we probably should keep revisiting, right? And keep which which I know you'll do and I'll stay on it. You know me, I'll I'll keep keep on it. And
094um but yeah, I'm happy to support anybody. Obviously, languages are my passion and we have a really wonderfully diverse community that's really so kind and so they really do understand that we're working for their best interest and um we'll work with anybody for anything. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we have no special meeting and no work sessions. So may I have a motion on a second to adjourn the regular meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you all for attending and or watching.