001This work session of the board of education of the Cleveland Municipal School District will come to order. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role? >> Miss Elicott >> here. >> Mr. Phillips >> here. >> Mr. Briggs >> here. >> Miss Jones >> here. >> Pastor Jones. Mrs. Lebron. Mrs. Peak >> here. >> Dr. Shredar, Mrs. Welchow >> here. >> There are six members present. >> Thank you. My understanding is Dr. Shrear is on his way. Uh I'd ask everyone who wishes to rise and participate in the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you. Um, quick point of information for board members.
002I think everyone's been briefed so far, but we do have a new system for raising your hand to be recognized for a question or comment. Um you'll see on your screen that there is a tab open that says CMSD board light control. Um has a raise hand and a lower hand button. Raise hand will light up your light like so. Um we'll save these for when we have a game show night, but for tonight they will be very helpful um for the board meeting. All right. At this work session, the board will continue the practice of placing a number of resolutions on a consent agenda which the board will vote on to adopt all of them in a single vote. This evening's work session consent agenda includes the minutes of the last two board meetings.
003Resolution 4.1 4.01 approving the general fund four-year forecast which the board discussed at our September 23rd board business meeting. The chair will now entertain a motion to approve this work session's consent agenda. Second. >> Thank you. Mr. Stockdale, will you please call the role? >> Miss Elott? >> Yes. >> Mr. Briggs? I'm sorry, Mr. Phillips. >> Yes. >> Mr. Briggs? >> Yes. >> Miss Jones? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Peak? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Welchow? Motion passes with six votes. >> Thank you, Mr. Stockdale. This evening's board meeting agenda also includes an additional eight resolutions in the areas of finance, operations, academics, excellence, and culture, which the board will vote on as part of its consent agenda for our o October 28th board business meeting. The board will now hold its monthly monitoring of goals and
004guardrails. Dr. Morgan. >> Thank you, Chair Elad. Well, I'm uh excited to bring together our uh first of our goals because I believe the two monitoring sessions we've had so far have been our guard rails. So, now we're into uh uh one of three of our goals. And this is specifically uh thinking about what students know and are able to do. And now we're in the year where we're actually getting real-time data. So, we'll take a little bit of a reflective look back on um last school year, but really talk about our progress moving forward. Uh so tonight's goal uh is on math proficiency. Of course, math proficiency focused on algebra 1. Uh we have two interim goals. One of those measures being um one of the CEO measures being that uh we would have
005proficiency in algebra 1. So looking at students who are currently in algebra 1, seeing their proficiency rates and ensuring that they're on track. And then we have another goal that's specifically looking at at the end of our five-year uh period of uh goals, who are the students who will be taking algebra 1. Uh so we're specifically looking at the cohort of fifth graders now who will be in ninth grade in uh spring of 2030, but then also looking at um some other cohorts that may potentially uh be eligible to take algebra. Um I I'll be uh though I'll be presenting, I have my amazing team here uh to answer any questions and also fill in any of the gaps. We have Dr. Selena Florence, our chief academic officer, Dr. Anna Turner who's our deputy chief
006of teaching and learning and then also Miss Erin Fru who is uh our deputy chief of schools and then Jessica Weisman who's our executive director of special education. So really excited to have our academics team and also Dr. Demo always on uh on deck there who is our executive director of research evaluation and accountability. All right, we want to start with just a moment of uh celebration. Um last month our state report card uh was released and uh you know over the course of the next several board meetings we'll be diving into just look at look at uh some of the things that went well in our report card but also some things that we have to focus on. Uh this is the year of leveling up. Uh but very proud of our educators and
007our scholars to see the proficiency gains that took place across every tested subject area. Uh tonight we'll be focusing specifically on our math uh uh in terms of our math progress. And last year our greatest progress or some of our greatest progress was in math. Uh we saw 12.3 percentage gains in algebra 1, 8 percentage 8 percentage gains in uh geometry. Uh almost 5% uh point percentage gains in uh K8 math and then our math overall when you look at all of those cohorts was 6.2. Uh that is significant gains that doesn't happen just by happen stance or magic. Uh there is a lot of hard work happening in our classroom. So shout out to our educators and our teachers and then our school our school leaders who have been leading this work. Uh our
008school leaders at the central office but then most important our scholars who've been meeting the demand of the complex text uh or complex tasks we've been putting a uh in front of them in math. Um if you note here we have now exceeded the prepandemic proficiency in algebra 1. So this is uh uh you know we often hear about what the pandemic uh has done to our scholars um and now we've exceeded where we were pre- pandemic in algebra 1. We still have other areas we need to improve. Uh we also exceeded prepandemic proficiency in high school English language arts as well as US government. Uh more specifically, as you think about the overall proficiency growth in the district over the course of uh o over last school year, um combined with all the assessments
009that were taken, our proficiency growth is outpacing where we were for the previous two years, even from last year when we achieved a three-star rating. And so very proud of this progress. We want to keep it going. Our board goals are helping us stay focused on these areas and making sure that we um when we see areas that need attention, we can focus on it. And so tonight uh is a perfect time. Uh we're almost at the end of quarter 1. So for our families uh please make sure you uh are checking your child's grade book. I was meeting with the parent advisory council today and there was a parent who had her her child's grade book and she was showing me the grades. She was also asking where are the assignments. So we also
010want to make sure that the the grade books are in there that their assignments are there. But parents check it out. I believe Friday is the last day of the quarter. uh and we want to ensure that our scholars are on track and meeting um everything that needs to happen in math and in all the subjects. One other thing I want to note before I move on, one of the things that our academics team has been working hard on is ensuring that there is high quality curricula in every single classroom across our schools that is standardized. And um in math uh they vetted they vetted a few high-quality curricula that we're using across our schools, but in algebra 1 and geometry, we've had a single curriculum. Um, and I know in ELA there is a
011single curriculum, but when you look at the gains that are taking place in both algebra 1 and geometry, um, on top of some of the things we're going to dive into tonight that the team has been doing, um, really making sure that there's a coherent model that the team can support has been one of the uh, attributes that I know the team um, attributes to the success from last year. Uh, really quickly, just one other thing on uh, two other uh, slides on last year and I've been sharing this for a while. As anticipated, we knew the report card would be changing this year. So, a new measure is added, college, career, workforce, and military readiness. We shared uh about this in our first uh monitoring session of guard rail 2, which is uh you
012know, CEO measure five. Sometimes they say guardrail five, but it's guardrail 2, CEO measure five. Um really looking at our college and career readiness. And so as we present on our college readiness uh goal in the coming months as well as going back to that guard rail too, we'll be talking more about that college career workforce and military readiness. As anticipated uh we uh have went down by a half a star uh because as a district we've historically not done as strong in this area. Um right now um for the cohort that was recently uh measured on this last report card which was the class of 2024 we have a little bit over 35% if you round that up 36% of our scholars that were proficient on that measure. So we have a lot of
013work to do. You'll be hearing more about our measures with this uh as we talk about building brighter futures. This is an area that will help address this and it's also aligned to our board goals. Okay. Now into our measures. I wanted to do that uh reflecting on last year. um but into uh this year. So if you look at board goal two around math proficiency, the goal states the percentage of firsttime test takers who are proficient in algebra 1 will increase from 26% in August 2024 uh that was last fall to uh 50% uh in August 2030. Uh one of the things we mentioned is that uh when we went and got feedback on this goal, some thought 50% would be too ambitious. And already you see from the the gains that we had
014in algebra one last year of 12.3 percentage points, we're more than halfway to the distance of the goal. And so uh if we continue with that progress, um one, we may need to adjust the goal. Um but two, it just shows that when we set the buy for our scholars, they meet it. And so that's just a charge for all of us to level up for our scholars and not um uh uh count them out. Now, our interim goals or our CEO measures under each of these uh as I mentioned before, we're looking specifically at the percent of those students who are uh uh who are taking algebra 1 for the first time that are predicted to be proficient as measured by the winter NWA MAP assessment. That's our benchmark assessment. uh from the baseline
015of last year when they took it uh of 24.3 to 26.9 in winter 2026. So what we're looking at today is actually our fall data. So we're not actually at the point of looking at what will be measured on this interim uh goal. Uh but we are looking to see if we're on track. Interim goal two is focused on the percent of the students from the graduating the 2020 the 2033 graduating cohort. These are the students who uh will be taking algebra 1 for the first time. Some of them may um have already taken it in eighth grade. Uh but there are current fifth graders and so we're looking at their winter I Ready assessment. I Ready is a new assessment that we're we're using to measure proficiency in math in our elementary grades. Uh
016so we're looking at that baseline of last year that was 33.5% to go to 38% in winter 2026. We're not at winter 2026 yet. That will be in a few months, but we want to see if we're on track for that. And I'll talk a little bit more about this assessment and some of the things we're seeing in the data. All right. So, if you look at this graph here, these are just looking at algebra proficiency rates over time. Our interim measure or CEO measure one are different cohorts of students. So, I want to be very clear, these are not the same students that we're looking at over time, but we are just seeing if the strategies that we're doing in algebra 1 to support our ninth graders year-over-year are improving. Um, there are some
017caveats because every cohort is different. So, sometimes when you're looking at year-to-year growth, uh, you do want to grow. We expect to grow every year, but they're different students. So, you may have you have some co cohorts that come in and they're stronger. Um, and you have some cohorts that come in a little bit further behind. And so when we're looking at different cohorts, we're actually just really looking at the progression to see are we on track and also um are the strategies that we're using working. So from this data, if you just look at the fall set of charts, uh because this is comparing fall 2023, uh which was my first year uh as CEO last school year, fall 2024, and then now where we are in fall 2025. Um, and as you can
018see, there's a progression of growth uh from fall to fall for our for our nth graders. Um, and if we follow the same trend, the interim goal is actually looking at winter to see where we go in the winter. We have not taken the test yet for winter 2026, but if we follow the same progression, we are on track. Now, uh we'll have to take that assessment to see where we land, but if we were looking at just a statistical analysis of this, we are on track. We're seeing growth from fall uh to fall. This is actually the same assessment every year. What we use for benchmark exam uh the benchmark assessment for algebra 1 and for our high school students is the NWA assessment. Uh this also has um is statistically relevant when you
019think about uh a predicting students who will be proficient on the OST assessment. So uh we are on track to meet this goal. uh we have roughly right now if I'm looking at that and I know I have it uh down here we have about 24.35% of students who are proficient now uh what that test is saying if today was the day that students were taking uh the OST test we would have about 24.3% of our students um proficient on the goal um and uh the the the uh in what you see from last year uh from the fall to winter there was growth and so if we see that same growth we're hoping to realize that one other thing I would note here um I know you're looking at the proficiency predicted proficiency of
020where we were um this is based on benchmark assessments our students showed up and showed out last year so even this predicted proficiency from last year of winter uh where winter 2012 uh 2025 our students around algebra 1 ended around 24 point uh I believe that may be about three um I believe we ended at about 39% % proficiency for algebra 1 with the growth. Is that is that correct Dr. Turner? Yep. Roughly around there. So, um you know, our predictive rates usually it stays within a margin of um you know, a couple of points. Um but we even saw even more growth. So, um know that even when we're looking at these assessments, there can be even more growth uh in our scholars if we do measures. On the flip side, sometimes you see
021proficiency growth and if measures are not taken into account or sometimes the assessment is even harder at that time, it can go backwards. Um, so it's a predictive measure. It's not an absolute or a guarantee. Um, what we see here are uh a few different things. I know this chart can be a little uh confusing, but this looks at the different years uh fall and winter. fall 24 and that's school year 24 which was the 232 24 school year winter 24 which was winter 23 24 school year fall 25 which was last year 2425 and winter 2425 and currently where we are in 26. One of the things you've heard us talk about, you've heard Dr. Florence talk about it, we've been focusing really hard on getting the number of students to take the test.
022if they sit for the test, we can have a better understanding of where they will be and if they're proficient or off track. Uh, proficient or on track or off track. Um, I will name for this fall for algebra 1 test takers, we uh had the a higher number of untested uh students. Um, not the highest number. Um, as you can see in that first fall, we that was the highest number, but we had a higher number of untested. If you look at our two high school networks, network one and network two, uh, we saw the biggest gap in network two. So, our high schools that are in network two, um uh there were not a a lot tested. And so, I know that the academics team is putting uh measures in place to really
023work with our school leaders to ensure students are taking uh the test. Um but then also, we're focusing hard on attendance and chronic absenteeism. That was another area on our report card that we need to work on. And if students aren't in school, they can't take the test. So, this is something um that's alarming for me in terms of the untested rate. Um but I know the team is already hard at work and we're looking to see that we can close that gap in the winter. Another thing I uh want to note here, uh when we looked at our data last year on the OST assessment, we had gains in all of our testing areas. Uh but we did see two groups that we want to really focus on. And I'm I'm I'm glad that
024we have Jessica Wiseman here who's our executive director of special education. Uh because when we think about uh our our students with disabilities as well as our English language arts uh not English language arts, our English language learners, um those were students where there were gaps. Uh and as we look at even our fall uh tests that we just took in algebra 1, uh the proficiency rates of students who are um English language learning as well as students with disability is uh is lower than what the proficiency rate is of nonlls and non um students with disabilities. So some work we have to do there. Um, we just had a special education audit from the council of great city schools because I know the academics team is really working to figure out how do we
025support our students better um focusing both on tier one instruction and for those um on the board or those who are listening who are not familiar with tier one instruction. Tier one instruction is when the teacher teaches it to all students and that that's what happens in the classroom when teacher teaches the content to all students. you want to ensure that they uh they get it. But students have different needs. And so we also must focus on students with tier 2. Um those are the students who say, "I kind of I I may have gotten it, but I need some extra supports." And then our tier three students who need uh intensive intervention beyond what is taught in the general curriculum. So we're focusing on that and we're working on some measures. We got some
026great feedback from our colleagues at the Council of Great City Schools and we're looking to dive into that to improve this as well. All right. So this next measure, this is uh CEO measure two. This is looking at a cohort. So if you're looking at this line, these are the same students. So these are the exact same students from where they were in third grade which were uh you know you're seeing their third grade in fall of 2324 their third grade uh in the winter of 2324 their um OST like what they actually did when they took it in the spring in third grade their fourth grade year in terms of fall 2042 winter when they were in fourth grade and 2425 and what they just did this past spring when they were in fourth
027grade. Now they're in fifth grade and they just took the I Ready assessment and these are the students who will be taking uh 9th grade algebra in 2030 uh which is the the year of the culminating year for our board goals and what we see is a massive drop here. Um so it's all the way to 17 um 63%. And I'll talk about some of the things that we're seeing and why we are off track. So this is a goal we are off track and thank goodness for our board goals. Uh, I know when I was reviewing this with uh some of our board members, it's like, you know what? What if we didn't have very specific targeted board goals? This could be a group that goes under our radar and we wouldn't even know
028that there was this massive drop. I mean, there there would be people that would know, our teachers, I'm sure our academics team would know, but we want to lift this to the community because this is a group we want to focus on. These are who will be graduating, our seniors in 2033. That feels like a far way off, but every day matters and uh proficiency matters along the way. So, um a a few things to note. We typically do see a drop in our uh proficiency rates from fourth to fifth grade. Uh the standards are changing a bit. Uh students are starting to get into some pre-alggebra content in those middle grades. So we do see a drop. Uh this though is uh the second largest drop that we've seen in over a fiveyear span
029of um where we're seeing you know drops of greater than uh greater than 10 points. And so um this is something we're we're looking at and I'm going to talk a little bit more about what we're seeing. um like what we saw in uh the other grades, this is looking at those different bands. And uh if you're looking at the bottom row, that's the the data we just looked at where there were um 17% of students proficiency. So the green and the light blue tabs, those are showing the students that are proficiency. So that 13% plus probably another 4%, those are the students that are proficient. that blue actually the the the lighter blue and actually the the dark blue those are like accelerated in advance those are students who are um you know high-flying
030uh enrichment some of our gifted students probably and then that green band is showing that they're proficient um if you are uh yellow or orange and also blue because those are our untested um we have a majority of students who are not proficient in this measure um now if you see here uh we still had some students that were untested but our elementaryaries did a pretty good job only 3% % of students were untested. So, uh we we would love to get more students that were uh that are taking the test, but we had the majority of students sit for this test. Uh a few things that we noted when looking at this. Uh our proficiency rates um overall were fairly even across our networks. Uh you could see that network one and two had
031slightly higher proficiency rates uh than networks three and four. Uh, Network Four had the smallest drop in proficiency from last fall to this fall, from when they were fourth grade to fifth grade. But I will note that Network Four, if I'm and I'm looking at Dr. Florence in this, those are um a lot of our our our schools that need a lot more academic support. Um, so some of those schools are not um as highly rated on the report card measure. So, it's a it was probably not as big of a drop because there were probably not as many students to be proficient to begin with. Um, so some work to do there, but it's we saw this consistently across networks. That's the headline there. And once again, another area where we have to really
032focus on our groups that need uh some level of differentiation, our English language learners and as well as our students uh with disabilities. There is a uh a gap between proficiency rates in those groups versus students who are are non-English language learners and non- students with disability. Um now I want to point out another cohort. Uh I'll get back to I'm going to get back to the fifth grade data because if you're looking at it, you're like, "Okay, what happened?" Uh, so we're going to go back to it and talk a little bit about some of the things we're seeing, but I want to talk about fourth grade because the reason why I had our team pull fourth grade. Technically, fourth grade is not part of the interim uh CEO measure or the this the
033CEO measure that we have here. Um, but it is a a big uh part of of of a student group that could be taking algebra 1 in 2030. Uh you have heard me say over and over again that algebra 1 uh access to algebra 1 in eighth grade can be a gatekeeper. When students have access to algebra 1 in eighth grade, our data shows that they're more likely to be proficient. Last year on the OST test, uh the students who took algebra 1 in 8th grade uh showed 76% proficiency, but they only represented 3% of the test takers. Only 3%. Currently, right now, only seven of uh 61 elementary schools offer algebra 1 and 70 70 students are enrolled in algebra 1 out of 2319 eighth graders. So, um it does show and there was
034a there was a a a teacher and I I wanted her name uh here and if I cannot uh get it before the end of the meeting, I promise I will shout it out at the next board meeting. But um each year our teachers union does a um uh almost like a problem of practice demonstration event that happens in the spring. Uh and both chair Elicott and I had the opportunity to visit this past spring and hers was specifically focused on access to algebra 1 and 8th grade and really looking at our gifted students and her research was pretty incredible. She was also seeing some of the things we were seeing before even our data became official that when students are taking algebra 1 early and often um there are increases. Uh what's the school
035name that she's at least from? I'll give her a shout. Was it G uh Gallagher? >> Orchard. Okay. Well, I promise we'll get the name. It was phenomenal work. Um and um I know both uh myself as well as chair Elott was really impressed with her her research. But it just shows that there's a strategy that we have an opportunity now through building brighter futures and some of the work that we're doing to offer algebra 1 to more students in eighth grade. So this group, this 2034 cohort that are current fourth graders, there may be more students taking algebra 1 represented in our 2030 data. Okay, after that mouthful, let's look at what we see in this data. These are the same groups of students looking at both their third grade um fall, winter, and
036OST. So you see a progression. they grew last year and then you see where they are in the fall. So, a little bit of a dip. You know, I don't know if there's an alarm here. There's um they're in a new grade level. Um the dips are um actually if you're looking at fall to fall, they actually grew. So, this cohort grew. Um what our data shows is that that that bigger uh drop off is between fourth and fifth grade. So, of course, these are fourth graders now. Um and they are also taking the I Ready for the first time. So, this is also another group of students taking the test. um but showing that that um demonstrated proficiency. And this rep, as I mentioned before, this data represents a potential like 714 students that
037could be taking algebra 1 in that uh 2030 cohort. Few things before I go into strategies for improvement. I want to go back to our fifth grade data. So um and I'll talk a little bit about this when we're we're doing our analysis. Let's talk about the two sets of tests. So if you're looking at this cohort, the fifth grade cohort right now, uh up until this year they're they were taking the NWA and this year we're taking I Ready. Now I don't want I don't want to overdile on this because both are statistically uh significant researchbased tests. So we don't want to get into, you know, which test actually is better or not. As you saw, we just saw two cohorts, both that took Ready, one that's predicted to be a little bit ahead,
038the other one that's not. So uh but it is something to note. It is a new assessment. It does take time and uh it is an adaptive test. So the more we take it, the more our teachers get used to it. I know our teachers are getting used to the I Ready portal. Uh the better we'll get at it. Um but both are uh predicted to be uh proficient. So um we are looking at the 17 number and we're concerned and we're focused on it. We're not throwing it out. But I did want to note that there is a new test. The other thing I want to note on this data for this cohort is in both I Ready and NWA students take a test the test based on the standards for that year the
039fifth grade standards for that year. And um sometimes demonstrated through a time in the the year they will pick a certain amount of questions that maybe the teachers would have hit. One of the things we found was that this test was heavy on fractions of which in our um our pacing guide and I'm looking over at our academics team if it's been hit it's just now getting hit not necessarily there yet. >> Yeah. So what what Dr. Turner was just sharing there out of the four curricula that we use only one has really started hitting on fractions. So and I think there were 17 questions on this I already that was um about there or was a good majority. 35. >> Yeah. So, third 35% of the questions on the test hit fractions and only
040eight uh eight of the schools actually have started to hit on fractions. So, one of the things we note is we haven't really got to the content area. That's one of the things we start to do an analysis on, but in a moment you're going to see we have a focus. There's a group we have to focus on. um just sharing those uh those things that we did do in an early analysis and I know the team is hard at work really thinking about this group. All right, so let's go into what what are working strategies for improvement and then we're going to talk about some things that we've noticed. So um as you've been hearing us talk about for a few years now, uh implementation of highquality curriculum and high quality instructional materials is
041really important. Uh I know our academics team has worked hard to uh put uh scope and sequences in our system. So that those are pacing guides that are on our now curriculum portal. Uh there's a uh curriculum and instruction newsletter that goes out to all teachers which if you access that portal, it has information like the pacing guides there. The curriculum is also linked there. Um I know that several of the program managers on our teaching and learning team are there with strategies from for improvement. Um I think some videos have been uploaded but I know if they haven't there is the ability for us to upload videos share different practices both from the central office and school leader perspective but also from teachers sharing best practices across the classroom. So we have work to
042do to really continue to really engage and vet those common set of materials and support our teachers. Um one of the things we noticed and we noticed this also with ELA um but today's not the day for us to focus on ELA. We'll be doing that on the 28th. Uh but our teachers are teaching the text. Um and that's a huge celebration to our teach teachers. They when we go in and walk into the classrooms, they're teaching the text. Um but teaching the text alone uh does not get students to higher levels of proficiency. Uh they need to be engaged in cognitively demanding uh uh mathematical tasks. Uh our students need to be engaged in actually uh doing the all parts of the the curriculum and not chunked out parts. Um, which sometimes I, you
043know, as a teacher in the classroom, we realize sometimes when planning materials that there's some aspects of the the text or the materials, it may be easier for our students. Um, but they're designed to scaffold to really engage students in higher level thinking. And if we're not taking our students to that that higher level, uh, they won't reach it. And we do have data that shows in our walkthroughs that we have work to do as educators. and that those aren't just teachers in the class, but the work we do to support our educators to ensure we're getting to that higher um cognitive demand. And then also uh data driven instructional protocols. Uh what that is is we have to be obsessed about the data. We have to look at it and see what's happening with
044our students. Uh so the fact that we're seeing that there are 17% of students proficient like this is not just a wakeup call to everyone in our schools but to everyone here like these are these are students they're faces behind this. What are we doing for them? analyzing that data and saying how are we adjusting instruction? What must we do? What are the works we need to do? What professional development we need to do? And so, uh, when we think about our teacherbased teams, when we think about the professional development, I know some of that sounds like, oh, that's not important. No, this is the work. And if we're not doing it, we're leaving kids behind. So, I just know that the uh the academics team has been working really hard on this. All right.
045I know there's a lot of words here. Some of this I've already covered. Um, some things that are working. As I mentioned, teachers are using the curriculum that is working. um the creation of now a math walkthrough tool. I know that there was already a ELA walkthrough tool last year and our uh teaching and learning team has now worked to have a math tool and worked really closely with our um with Dr. Demo's team to really make sure that the way we're collecting data is consistent and there their trends that we can make across the board align to our curriculum. Um as I mentioned before uh we need to build the capacity of our school leaders and our principles. uh principles are the instructional leader in their building. Uh we don't actually have as many
046touch points with teachers. We have PD in the beginning of the year and I know throughout the year there are different types of PDs that are offered, but not we can't hit every teacher all at once. Um principles have time with their teachers now other than just seeing them every day, but they have 50 minutes every week. And how do we leverage that time in the best way possible to ensure that we're progressing the work? And so we know our our principles need support and there's been a lot of work that the academics team and schools team has done to make sure that these materials are um are turnkey so that uh when we're doing principal professional development they could just turn it around and give it to their teachers. Um we already talked about
047uh getting more students to take algebra 1 in eighth grade uh is also something we're looking at to figure out how we can get um more students proficient. Um it's under uh it says what is not working but I would say like what needs attention. Uh I already mentioned I I ready. It's not that it's not working. The assessment is is here. It's a great assessment. Uh there are districts that have had great gains with it. We have had great gains in other grade levels. But it is knowing it is a new tool and we have to continue to work with it, learn from it and see how we can better support. and then really asking these questions about why do uh gaps ex exist between um some of our most vulnerable populations, thinking about
048our our students with disabilities as well as our our English language learners. And it goes back to uh to what I shared about um the different tiers of curricula and the way we're supporting students through that um with a real strong emphasis on um um MTSS, multi-tiered systems of support. Um, I know when we we use a lot of acronyms and so where I can I I want to make sure I can explain that, but that's really just thinking about those different tiers of instruction along the way. Um, so what supports and adult behaviors will change the response of this data? As I mentioned, the analysis that we're doing in those meetings, really thinking about the curriculum, thinking about the support uh that we give to all students, but but really specifically looking at those
049those student groups. Um, one of the things I know Dr. Florence mentioned when we got our OST data back, we said we can do more work to actually look at our our specific groups and our subgroups. And I know this year they're studying that data as well. And if we're doing that along the way, we can think about what supports need to be put in place. Um, a deeper analysis of this fifth grade cohort um with with the school leaders uh and also just in general general just figuring out what happened uh with this group. um and the implementation of bimonthly algebra 1 and eighth grade math teacher cohorts to do a deep dive into the curriculum unit assessment and teacher best practice. Um and some things we need to speed up the progress. We
050do need to look at this fifth grade cohort. I mean, we have an entire interim uh measure on this. And so, it's really important that we we dive in, we look into it, uh and we'll have the luxury that over the next several years to look at this cohort and study this cord and find out uh what's going on with them, how they're improving, the support that they need. And so, shout out again to our board goals for being so focused. Um, we I mean we have an entire district to focus in on, but it's always great when we can really get specific and think about how do we move the needle through a a few cohort groups. Um, oh, some some best practices that we we want to replicate. So when I think about
051the progress from last year, there were some there were some best practices that we saw that we are looking about codifying and figuring out how to replicate. Uh so one really leveraging there there we have three and a half star plus schools uh that have things that are working and really figuring out how do we replicate those best practice share those best practices for teachers. Um and those schools come in all types um there are there are schools uh you know uh shout out to uh AB Hart which I think now is a three and a half star school on this uh the southeast side of the city. So they are not just our specialty schools they're not just on certain sides of the city. our school leaders and our teachers have been putting in
052the work and our school our students are meeting the demands and we want to find out what's happening. Um we've been utilizing EXL for uh several years now and it is a platform for personalized learning. So thinking back to that differentiation how can the teacher utilize tools like this specifically in algebra 1 uh to give more to students supplement the curriculum and also help um students grow on these standards. And then uh shout out to the OST benchmarks. Those are in checkpoints. Uh those are incredible. Uh what they are are uh tools and uh pretty much retired assessment questions that teachers and school leaders can use. They're previous OST assessments uh that teachers can use in their classroom uh to see how students would be doing. And we've seen that school leaders that are using
053this. I know um when I did a a walk with at Gallagher, I think Dr. Florence, you and I did that a couple of years ago. Um, uh, the principal there, principal Bosley, uh, no, not Gallagher, um, Garfield. Garfield, yeah, wrong G. But yeah, principal, uh, Bosley was like all into these OST checkpoints and using them and using it to really track the proficiency in data and that is another school that is uh, seeing gains and growth. So really just replicating these practice um, evidence that uh, these shifts will work. um you know the implementation of the cohesive supports at the high school that resulted in the the gains that we saw. We saw that we have a streamlined curriculum in both algebra 1 and geometry but really replicating those practices. Our high schools also
054use quite a bit. Um and so when we see this growth um just seeing how um they use that to really support that um and then we talked about the check the checkpoints uh that more of our schools can use. And with that, I'll pause. I'll But before I turn it back to you, uh, Chair Alakat, if there questions, I would invite my colleagues to see if there's anything else you guys would add. >> Okay. All right. >> Uh, thank you, Dr. Morgan. Miss Welch. Oh, uh, Dr. Shreer, >> my light wasn't working, so so I I asked my colleague to >> Thanks for sharing over there. >> Yeah, we share. Um, good evening. Um, but first of all, my apologies for being late. Um uh but but thank you so much for this um
055for this detailed presentation. I want to go back to um slides 9 and um and and 11. Um talking about the those fourth and fifth grade students. I just want to understand the cohorts a little little more. Um first the I Ready assessment the so so did I hear you say correctly that this is the first year that you've used the I Ready assessment. So is there any kind of comparison data that um that looks at the I Ready assessment and and what would come from there from a calibration perspective to what was what was used in in that same thing in that middle of that slide where you say fourth grade um school year fall right so is there something to say um you know there's a certain certain measure that would that that
056can show a a correlation or something like that >> so since these are both um nationally normed test and aligned to uh Ohio the Ohio State test. Uh it is the only data we have. We're comparing them to each other knowing that they are two separate sets. Um we did have a cohort. We had a pilot of some schools using I Ready last year and we could see what we could pull. It wouldn't be statistically significant. Um but we can see what we can find there. Um but that that that's all we have. >> No, that's that's helpful. So, so that that means that I I I asked that question in the way that I did just to point out that there isn't just some kind of you know statistical difference and things like that.
057This is a drop. Um it's not just a it's not just a perceived drop. This is an actual drop which means that um we the district have to implement new strategies to to think about how we can help this group of students get back on track. Um so so that that's a that's a really good observation. So thank you for that. Um and and then you know along similar lines um you know if you go to if you go to slides um uh later um that that that drop um you know going from 34% at the in the third grade OSD down to 31.7 in fourth grade fall is also a drop because that in in the previous cohort that that same difference of comparing at the end of third grade and the beginning of
058fourth grade there was no drop there was an actual increase. So this is also a drop. So I would, you know, while the the the points that you make on this slide of saying there's additional students who would be able to sit for algebra in 2030 um and that could increase our numbers and so on. The this this group also needs more strategic help um to look at those things. Um and then one last point I'll make and that's just I I that's not a question that's just an observation. The question I have is uh and you started to answer this a little bit on the next slide where you talked about um strategies um you know um so so when you look at when you talk about that third bullet point um implementing datadriven
059instruction protocols can you say a little more about that piece um you know when you say when you you know that's that's a pretty broad statement right when you say datadriven instruction protocols and utilizing curriculum based assessment results to adjust instruction Are there examples that you can bring to us? Maybe not. Maybe the next time we come back to the same measure of saying here's what you saw in an assessment here's the here are the topics that are connected to a particular assessment. I'm not asking you know about teaching to a test. And I know that you that's not what you mean but like how it would be helpful for us to see um what is the what is the strategy behind developing professional development for teachers that is meaningful to teachers that they see
060as helpful and is helpful to the students that are in front of them. >> Yeah. No. Uh all really great points and one of the things we could do is as we prepare for our goal our our ELA maybe in a couple of slides we can share um samples of our DDI protocol. So I do know that the team has really worked hard on what what do these teacherbased teams uh look like and also what progress monitoring looks like and that looks different. Um the state uh has what are called ramps which are reading improvement plans um at the and that that's for at the reading level but now there are MEIPs which are math improvement plans based on students who meet different uh proficiency levels and so there uh is a requirement that the
061state has in terms of what progress monitoring looks like and there's some protocols that our team has put in place in um while working with our um our uh labor partners to ensure that those are things that are done. But I can give you guys a sample of that. Now, this is new. It's not uh the sample we'll share is probably an ideal state or some of the things that we're doing. It's not at scale. So, we have work to do. I think we just had a PD that we've started to do with teachers last week. Um but I don't know if that was in math or in ELA. Oh, that forms. >> You can also come. >> So, DDI in and of itself, this is our second year of implementation. And so that is
062a broad it is broad to say data driven instruction protocols but we've given schools a specific protocol to use that asks them to look at the strengths in the data the areas of growth in the data. So what are where do we see students not uh performing well and then how do we use that data to in turn decide what we retach and how we retach what strategies will we use to retach and so it's very focused um this is our second year as I said um principles bring samples to our network meetings and uh go through them together and look at what's working well in classrooms across all schools so they can share best practices that way as well >> and I would just add to while it's the second year in terms of
063doing that with school leaders it is our first year doing it with teacher cohort. So, we are getting directly to the teacher of which we've done 8th grade which we do DDI with them as well. The feedback has been really good. Um, and then we did we have algebra and coming up next week. So, we'll get to the teacher when it comes to these as well. >> Thanks for the question, >> Mr. Phillips. >> Thank you. >> That's your light, right? >> Yes, it's my light. U, so I I got a couple questions. Number one, I wanted to go back to slide five just so that I make sure that I understand. Um when when it looks at the percentage um currently at 35% I believe we have one star on that um number correlate
064to stars do is that clear information or is that something that I missed? >> No, it's not shared here and there is clear information. So um what you see and this is a busy slide but where it says ways to demonstrate post-secondary readiness is achieved by the states these are one I believe of 11 ways that our students can share uh show uh proficiency on this category and all they need to do is one um and so what we find is in our schools there are many different offerings some of our offerings aren't full uh pathways or are it doesn't give the full range of opportunities for students to actually um demonstrate uh this proficiency and also our attention to detail on making sure the students are actually being qualified in one of these areas.
065So, it's a new measure in the state, but we've already been working very intentionally with with our school leaders on this. And to your question, how it correlates to stars, it's not up here in terms of the rubric, but there Oh, Dr. Deiko, it seems like you were you already in there. Um, >> so to to get to two stars, you need to be a 53% to 63%. Uh, three stars is 63 to 75. for 75 to 85. Five stars is 85% or higher. Uh the state also has an element where if you improve by 15 percentage points in a single year, they will automatically give you three stars on the measure. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> And um w without doing you know a spoiler alert of what we already see in 2025
066because it's already a lagging measure. We had a lot of growth in uh from 24 to 25. So even with this and before we've done building brighter, we've had a lot of growth and even with that growth, we're still going to be a little shy. So we have work to do and building brighter will help with that. All right. I and thank you for that. I I just wanted to make sure y'all fully understood that. Um I kind I got a couple more questions. Um on slide number 12, um one of the strategies was around um scope common scope and sequence. help me to understand will that help for kids that's maybe transferring schools to stay on track in in different situations like that? >> Yes. Um we have a very high mobility district uh
067where students move from school to school. Um we also have a lot of students having chronic absenteeism is an issue and in a a system where uh students are moving in and out um sometimes are are not coming to school as often. the things that we can help to control for to keep consistent across the board has helped. Uh and so not only teaching the same material but then also having the same pace in terms of what should be taking place in general in this dayto-day like it's not a uh there there are some flexibilities built in. We know that people have different schedules or sometimes a teacher may be sick one day and they're not there. So there there's some there's some room built in but we do want to make sure we're progressing
068forward. And I also know like I said I was a teacher in the classroom. uh sometimes without a pacing guide helping you to move forward, you can get stuck where you're like, "My students, not all my students get this." So, you teach the same lesson over and over and over again until you're like, "Okay, my students have gotten it." And there are so many standards, so many so much content to to teach in a year. And so, we want to help our teachers move through that content. Now, this is where we go. We talk about that um those different tiers of uh levels because sometimes when moving through the content, it is fast-paced. And I remember there was a young lady last year at the state of the schools last year. She was like, "Wow,
069this is fast-paced. It feels like it's moving really fast." And so we should be pushing that pace for our students uh with that rigor. But if students do need to slow down or there's different supplemental work we need to do, we want to provide that to them without needing to slow down the pace for all kids. So uh that's work that I know the team has been doing pushing both that scope and sequence as well as uh really thinking about the tiers. >> Yeah. Thank you. I I think I got maybe one or two more questions. Uh Dr. Morgan, um I'm just trying to think about um as we move through the next few school years, um and we we kind of touched on it a little bit here and there, but the number of
070young the number of our students who are able to um take algebra in 8th grade. Um I just I just want to make sure that I fully understand it. Are we expecting that that number of students will increase? I know we mentioned kind of about 70 students. Do do will we expect that number to move to move? >> So, we're working hard on that and I know um many of you have been uh actually all of you have been to a building brighter futures uh presentation. A few challenges with that one uh right now our enrollment is really small in some of our elementary schools. So in some of our elementary schools there are 20, you know, 15 eighth grade students. All of them may not qualify for algebra 1. And so there's one teacher
071teaching that con they're teaching probably eighth grade um and teaching all the content areas. And so even if there's two students or three students who are elig eligible for algebra 1, there's not enough students to actually form a algebra 1 class. And so the work we're doing through building brighter futures, we talked about that healthy enrollment to give students a true middle school feel. Um, I was uh blessed when I was in middle school to take algebra 1, but and uh in my algebra in my eighth grade class, and I tell people this uh that was validictorian in my eighth grade class, and they're like, "Oh, eighth grade was probably small." But we have 532 kids in my eighth grade class. We were a large middle school. Um, and because of that, there was an
072honors cohort. And so, I took geometry in my ninth grade year. I finished with calculus. Um, and I took all of the honors classes uh because that was something that was available. Um, we can't offer that right now. We don't even if students who are who are moving a little bit faster or even students who need additional support. There's sometimes students who aren't ready for um uh algebra 1 and 9th grade and may even need to take pre-alggebra. So, how do you differentiate those students out that need additional supports? When we're so small, we can't offer those differentiated supports. So, building brighter futures will help with it. Um will it change overnight immediately? No. Uh but we believe with healthy enrollment, we can help schedule it. Um, and I sure hope we have more than
07370 next school year. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, well, first of all, I I want to say we mentioned kind of um that added support for um students um English language learners um and um students with disabilities. Um that just kind of reminds me back to a couple weeks ago the teacher who spoke about um some of those challenges. So, it was refreshing to read about the extra support for those students. But I also wanted to kind of touch on the um teacher cohorts um around implementing the bimonthly algebra one um deep dive into the curriculum. Um do well is is that something that's going to help support the teachers in in their ability to deliver the the material in the classroom like a a support system for teachers? Uh yeah, actually I'll have someone
074from our academics team come up and while they're coming up before anyone I I gave the 532 in my eighth grade class, that is not that is not the goal of building brighter futures. Our goal of course in in an entire elementary school is at least 450. Uh but this point is when you have more students, you can offer more. I just don't want people to think we're going to have uh you know eighth grade class of 532 if we can even find that many students in our city. So uh Dr. Turner, >> yes, thank you for that question. Yes, the the algebra 1 teacher cohort will help to increase the teachers capacity to understand the curriculum with their peers, right? Teachers understand the most when they're able to talk to each other and find
075best practices across schools, especially our schools that are 3.5 stars and above, right? So having them all in one space to be able to learn from each other and from the academics team will be helpful for them to be able to turn key that information to go and help teachers and mentors. So they do the deep dive curriculum and then also the DDI process. >> So yeah, >> thank you so much. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Briggs. Oh, sorry, Mr. Phillips. Are you done? >> Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Briggs. Yeah, I I was curious in the example that you gave Dr. Morgan where um you have maybe two or three students who were eligible for algebra. Is there any way to to take advantage of the online um uh offerings that we have
076like Khan Academy or there may be others? I just know of that pretty well. Great question and those are some things we've looked at and actually there are some students who in the past that has been an avenue of which we've offered algebra 1. Um I know when working with our our our teachers union president erinsky we know that the veing varying levels of support in the virtual environment u virtual environment could be hit or miss and so um we have both talked about and agreed that a solution will not be at scale to say we are offering algebra 1 to 8th grade students and it's all virtual. um we know the levels of support that need to happen. Um and also uh just who is that person supporting that student when they're they're they're
077doing it virtual. Uh some students are do great in that environment. Um some don't. Uh and so uh we've looked into that. We've done some of those things before, but we're also looking at other solutions where we can provide some other supports. uh and you know to that point though on onl though it uh it's not a tier one approach in terms of how we offer that as a course to students um platforms like algebra one I believe some of our schools may use con do we use con still in some for practice and different things those are elements and tools that teachers can use to help advance students and give them content um but not to replace a tier one or a teacher >> Miss Peak >> yes I was going to ask something
078similar to that in a sense of leaving no child behind. What are some of the intervention methods? Uh are is there tutoring? Uh I know we do summer things like that. So if you could just give a couple of examples of how we keep that momentum going, but just because a child may struggle, we can still provide some type of intervention and support. >> Yeah. Um you know, different schools there's different levels of intervention that takes place. Um there was a time I I know post pandemic where we had u more of an organized uh tutoring. Um there was also resources and dollars through recovery dollars for uh for for that to do that more at scale. Um but there are different things that I know our schools are doing. I don't know if there
079are a couple that you guys want to give uh um give not to. >> So we have the personalized learning pathways in all grades in the K8 space. We have that with I Ready and then in the high school space they have that with EXL. Um and teachers have the ability to then pull reports on a specific cadence to be able to say what I need to retach, what I need to go and do an intervention for, what do I need to go and do an extension for. So they have access to continuous data on their students to be able to pull them for small groups and differentiate those small groups based on the need so that way they can retach or provide interventions. >> Wonderful. Thank and it's in the block for the schedule
080as well. So, they have designated time to do that. >> Great. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Great to hear that. >> Um Dr. Morgan, I have a few things. First, um wanted to build on what you said about board goals and sort of the need to obviously serve all students and all needs across the district. I did want to mention that uh the board goals of course are district goals and that although you all have leaders, teachers are um driving progress and improvement every day and looking to address all kinds of needs um across the district. The idea is that we can't boil the ocean and we want we can't you know if you focus on everything in a deep way then you can't you're not really focusing on everything. And so, you know, looking
081at these this progress monitoring, especially for algebra to me is really enlightening of, you know, why looking at some of the um reasons why maybe we haven't made progress. I did want to get or made the progress that we want to make. Um I did want to ask a quick clarifying question maybe for um Dr. Florence or Dr. Turner around. Was it that you said that the state tests the 35 35% of questions were about fractions? What was it? >> This was on the I Ready Diagnostic, the test students just took at the beginning of the year. >> And our assessment is that so we we've standardized the ELA curriculum, >> but we've been looking at the various math curriculums that we have across the district, which vary. That's right. And we've determined that only
082eight schools have a curriculum that adequately addresses fractions. >> No. So at the beginning of the year. So they take this test as soon as they walk in the door. So maybe they may have a week of school starting and then they start the assessment. So they haven't taught it yet. >> So eight schools have can what was the eight schools? >> So eight schools have touched on fractions this early in the year. The rest of them it will come as we forgot about the course of the year. But that early fractions is not taught in most curricula that early. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Um, you know, I wanted to mention anecdotally something within my work at Minds Matter that we always notice with our students, which are all CMSD students, when they're working
083on the ACT, we tend to see especially low algebra or fraction in knowledge or even awareness. Um, so some of this, you know, progress monitoring is going to be incredibly impactful for the future. Um, and then I wanted to ask when you said that few students are eligible for algebra 1, can you clarify what that means for everyone? >> You know, there's there there are many things we could look at when thinking about algebra one and what would eligibility be? um if we were taking some of those highest performers. So, let's look at that cohort in fifth grade right now and that 17%. And particularly that three and maybe 1% that's in the blue and the dark blue. Uh those are those are high-f flyers like they are they are getting the standards. They understood
084those fractions even though it hasn't been taught. And I just wonder those are kids sitting in a class that are they're probably not challenged or bored. Um and how do we think about that group and how they're getting what they need? And going back to your point of when classes are so small, the teacher teaches, you know, one group and there's some kids that they they may be fine when they are not challenged, but we also see that when students are not challenged, sometimes they start misbehaving. And this is a group they're in fifth grade. Um, some of those high-f flyers may, if they're not being challenged in school, may find their themselves in other things. And so, uh, it is really important to think about what that eligibility may look like to give them
085something more. Um, but there are many ways we could define it. Uh, I know some districts have moved to like a algebra one for all. Um, we're not quite there yet, nor do we have the data that says that all students will be successful there. Um, but when thinking about that eligibility, we do know that there's some high-f flyers that probably could qualify. >> Is there, without getting too tactical, is there a strategy around other foundational math concepts in the earlier grades that would prepare students for algebra 1 and eighth grade? >> Yeah, we we we can look in that. And I don't know if you guys have a a response to that, but that I think that's a really great question. Oh, go ahead. Hear me? >> Yeah. So, some of that comes to
086looking at number sense routines, making sure that there's clear pathways for that. And then it goes to our second strategy around engaging students in cognitively demanding tasks. So, making sure that when teachers are working with the curriculum, when we provide our suggestions, we're really hitting those questions that cause students to think. We have them participate in math discourse so that they're using the appropriate language and attacking problems in a way that raises their level of understanding. So to your point about fractions, like the the joke I have is it's always fractions, right? So when you hit that fourth grade to fifth grade pattern, how are you using fractions in a word problem? How are you making sure that at the beginning you give them manipulative so that they can physically touch it so that they
087can move from that concrete understanding to the conceptual understanding. So really helping them make that progress so that by the time they hit seventh grade we can do a compacted curriculum so that in eighth grade they can then take algebra 1. So that's kind of like our goal as we move forward in mathematics. Does that answer the question? >> Thank you. All right. Thank you, Dr. Morgan. >> Is there any old business? >> All right. Uh, I have new business. I'd like to wish a happy birthday to Mr. Bilips, Dr. Shrear, and Miss Welch Howell. All of who have October birthdays. Happy birthday. >> All right. As you know, we are here on the east side. And the next regular board meeting will be a board business meeting on Tuesday, October 28th at 6:30 p.m.
088at Garrett Morgan High School. The chair will now entertain a motion to adjourn this board work session to move. >> Second hearing. No objection. This meeting is adjourned. Have a good night.