001Item seven, superintendence report. And the first item is high school schedule implementation update. And I see Dr. Bales. Welcome again. Good to see you all. Yeah. U. So, actually, I brought a lot of my colleagues with me today. the last few times that we've had updates, it's been a lot of um a sharing out from the district perspective um some of the things that we're doing, but I wanted to make sure that um our community realized um the the efforts that you know each of our schools have put in over the last um year um plus no worries. So over the past um couple of months um we've been continuing um as we move through our um professional development um we've been able to have rolling professional developments at each of our high schools around
002our AVID um implementation um best practices in some of our small groups um elevation um working with our ML students and being able to you know figure out grouping with that as well. Um we were also able to take about three to six staff members from each of our high schools um to a neighboring high school who imple implemented a flex in the last couple of years. Um they were able to see that action um build some partnerships, see what their schedule looks like and get some ideas um in terms of what we can um explo explore that um in the upcoming year. Um we had a day where we came together um all of our high schools to discuss um our cross enrollment and figure out ways to actually do that. In years past,
003it's been a little bit further down the line. Um, but we were able to do that in one of our teacher work days. Um, get everybody together and really talk about, you know, what we want to put in place for this year to align our schedules and then looking in future years as we move forward. Um, lots of collaboration back and forth. Um, especially these last couple of weeks, um, as our schedules have been, master schedules have been built, um, lots of questions, um, different ways to collaborate. You know, we've had lots of, you know, Google meets and conversations just as principles. Um, and one of the pieces that we were able to do is when we talk about that cross school collaboration is our AP Latin class, um, we were able to make sure
004that that's taught at the same period to ensure that we have that available um, for students to all take in person and not have to navigate. Um, so we're going to be doing that next year um, at East Chapel Hill High School and our students from Chapel Hill High School have the opportunity to either drive over there or zoom into the class. um just one of the ways that we had talked about what we're going to be doing um in future years. So, I'm going to hand it off to Dr. Sullivan who's going to talk us through um his professional development um and then Mr. Casey and then you'll see me again. Thank you, Dr. Bills. I don't know how to use this, but uh kind of fancy for me. Oh, there we go. Uh
005I'm going to go backwards to go forwards. uh uh one of the things that for the past three years uh we have had a well actually we're on our final year of a three-year professional development plan and uh if you kind of look at the things over the past three years you know we've already talked about a lot of these tonight uh Kate and uh Nick had mentioned about uh MTSS and AVID and Wicker. So uh two years ago uh our focus as a school was uh PLC's professional learning communities. uh this last year it was MTSS and this year we've been focusing on uh AVID and Wicker strategies and our uh instructional coaches Miss Duncan and Miss Dickerson have done a wonderful job of uh infusing the strategies that we use with AVID and
006uh showing how these strategies equate to good strategies to be used in block scheduling. So we spent a lot of time with that this year. Uh and we got through we were focusing on uh uh the wicker which is the writing and quir inquiry uh collaboration organization and reading uh part of the avid. So uh what we've done this year is those large group uh pds uh and uh Dr. Bales and Dr. Stanley had just uh uh put together or had put together this year some uh student centered coaching for us and the principles got to take place in that. And one of the things that we learned yesterday uh was uh once you get those large groups in now you can start focusing on those small that small group professional learning and individualized special
007uh professional learning. So our goal next year is to have a focus on all three of these PLC's, MTSS and and AVID and Wicker as we move forward in that block scheduling piece, but focus it more on the needs of the teachers as far as what particular area do they need specific professional development and instead of us just blasting the same thing to everybody, let's focus on those individual groups. uh do they need help with uh uh Socratic seminars? Do they need help with uh uh writing with purpose uh organizational notebooks? Whatever needs to be. But going back through what we've learned and studied over the past three years and getting to that very deeply and individualized, we talk about individualized instruction for students. What we're hoping to do is get that individualized instruction for
008our teachers to help them be successful in block in block scheduling by using these best strategies across the board. So, so that's our goal. And uh Dr. Griffin, you mentioned something earlier about the uh the the number of strategies that uh was in Kate's proposal and what the the the DPI requires. It's just tons and tons of strategies. Uh a couple of months ago, Dr. Bales brought to our attention that we were going to focus on uh the big rocks PLC's uh multi-tered uh systems of support and AVID uh moving forward next year. So I really like where we are focusing on those three main topics that we've really been working on the past three years as we transition to block scheduling and and not having 20 or 30 different projects that we're trying to
009to implement as we're making this change. So, I think we're in a good place. Uh the the the direction that I seed has uh kind of brought us to, I think we're moving forward and uh we're excited for what's going to happen next year. Any questions? Questions for Dr. Sullivan? There might be later if you can stick around. All right, I'll be here. I'm gonna give this to Mr. Casey. See if you can work a better. You figured it out. I can. There we go. Good evening, board. to say it's an honor to talk to you a little about what we did. Um I put together just some glows and grows uh from our opportunity to run the block schedule. Um my first slide kind of shows how we use the block schedule. I just
010wanted to show this to give you some reference that it wasn't an exact orange to orange running of the schedule because we're had to modify our seven period day to what will be eight classes next year. Um, but we did, the whole idea was it to give teachers an opportunity to get a feel for teaching to the block, teaching to the 80 minutes. That was the most important thing. Not so much of the schedule itself and where things are, but really getting an understanding, a feel for what it's like to teach to 80 minutes and the flow of the day of just four classes and that flex um, in between third and fourth. So, if you look at our schedule, you just see we had some um, creative things we had to do with that
011eighth period. Um, and so that's where you'll see some things. We did a digital wellness um um during the uh digital wellness week that was the countywide thing that was really good. And then we had a less stress fest that um Thursday, which was good because it actually provided students with um activities that they could do during flex next year when we might have a wellness type Wednesday or put some things in where they can choose certain less stress or social um emotional type uh activities that they could choose from. So some of the globes that work well, I did take this information. I was able to um poll uh teachers and students during that time where I was walking around going into classrooms just seeing how things were going, seeing how things um went
012in the moment. But also surveyed teachers, also was able to speak to students directly and I also had an opportunity to bring together the um our equity advisors team that the um every high school has. I was able to bring them together and talk to them since they're a good um you know microcosm of our school and this is where I got some of my data from. So instructional benefits uh the longer period supported full lesson delivery. I had a couple of uh students tell me that specifically like science classes that they were able to do a a lab that they would never able been able to do because of the chemicals and how the lab works. You can't do it in multiple days. You can only do it in one day. and it was
013an engaging lab that they really liked. So that was kind of the feedback that they felt like teachers were able to take a little more time in what they were teaching and they didn't feel like teachers were rushed and so that was some of the parts of the glows. Um definitely varied activities um to hit multi multi- different types of learners and they like the fewer transitions because they could focus more focusing on students again. uh they reported less stress, they liked the fewer classes, they felt like especially in language immersion courses in English, there was more engagement and uh students definitely as I go back enjoyed flex every day. Teachers um felt like they felt a little more confident because they had more time to teach. um the flex time between blocks helped reset
014or um help with reset or intervention. So they like being able to see kids every day for intervention type purposes and definitely fewer preps. Um so they felt like they could focus kind of like the students did. They felt like they could focus and and be more intentional to um less preps, daily preps. Some of the grows uh long blocks do require varied and more interactive strategies. Um, in some ways you can see that as a good thing. Um, they were a little concerned about disengagement. Um, lecture heavy formats, which we know we want to try to get away from, but if a class does lean itself to that, they saw some of those um, as challenges. And then fatigue um, without as many movement or breaks. The flex time structure, some of the grows
015is there was some mixed staff feedback. um they do find it valuable for intervention and and reflection, but the frequency created shorter duration. Like at East, we have one day for an hour, which gives the opportunity to make up a test or a longer project, but with every day, we can't we'd have to shorten it. Um so that was some some some grows there. And then of course attendance and absenteeism. When you miss a class, you have it's missing more than you would in a in a standard year. So they found that students that missed a day or two during that week, they had to do a little more to bring those students back up. But some general summaries, it did it it was good to see, especially from kids, that there was an enthusiasm.
016I saw some kids who kind of talked about how they thought they might not like it, but actually they did and they enjoyed the 80 minutes. Um, and you know, we need to make sure we address concerns from both staff and students to ensure equity, engagement, and effectiveness and just continue collaborating with our teachers as they feel challenged that we provide the support that they need. All right, any questions? Mr. Casey, a couple days after you did this, I wasn't aware you had done this, but I was in a committee meeting with a room full of adults and a student from East and he's a permanent member of the committee and he always reports in on there's a couple students on the group and the committee's talked over and on about the block and when
017it got his turn to talk, he started talking about the the block day at East and he was so positive and so effusive in his praise and so that the just the room just started like actually paying attention like in a way that we've talked about the block in this room before and people kind of just doing whatever they're doing. Um so I just pass that on to you because um he was a better ambassador than any of us adults had been. the the students always are and and I applaud you for doing that with the kids, you know, because I've heard since from some other kids that they really liked the day and I've also heard from your students who went to other events we've sponsored and they didn't like it at all and
018they're not afraid to tell you that. Right. Right. But I think the most the best feedback was during my time with the equity group and uh just in asking the questions they were engaged in wanting to talk about it and just seeing the the couple of the students who just were like it wasn't what I thought it was it was better and so it was good to see that and I think that the I know there's been a lot of challenges with this but I think just the change and we talk about change a lot is just is forcing us to do some things differently in a better way. And I think the students are at least buying in and I think the teachers are too. Thank you. Uh so unfortunately Dr. Thomas has been
019navigating a death in her family. Um so she wasn't able to be here tonight. She's been trying to prioritize her time back um at Carbo High. So condolences to her and her family. Um I'm not going to be as eloquent as she would have been, but she did give me notes to speak on. Um so one thing is just you know throughout the last two years as we've been dealing working through the block schedule every single teacher from Carro High School um continually came back to to the flex period and wanted to make sure that that was something that was continued daily and it wasn't something that we were trying to go away from. Um so every single time every single person from the school um that that was a piece of and you know
020also you know our students our students were adamant um as we're looking at the flex of making sure that it was daily and that they had some choice in what that looked like they also understood that that choice may not be choice every single day but some choice in that. Um so some notes from Dr. Thomas because you know they're a school that has had flex for the last few years and they're really looking forward to expanding it to a um a daily flex next year. Um so they've been working with their team to try to figure out, you know, what does this look like? Um what is the future of their JAG block? Um which is their real time and their flex time or real talk and flex time during next school year. Um
021so they've been um looking at different schedules, going to our neighboring district, help them see um a couple different options that they could look at. Um but one of the things that they're really trying to prioritize in this upcoming year, which isn't always able to happen on a monthly basis, is giving um PLC time during some of that flex and being able to protect a given time. So, a math 3 class um your teachers will be able to meet um during a set amount of time once a month um where it might be, you know, other times where they don't meet or they're doing something on Google doc or they're meeting after school um been able to navigate that within the block um as well or within flex as well. Um so they've also talked
022about you know how they um each group identified key priorities um through their students group that looked at and for students their top three you know themes that emerged were student choice um wellness and teacher choice. Um so they want to make sure that that is something that they continue to you know look at as they're moving into flex next year. While the plan isn't necessarily finalized next year it's still in development. um feedback from staff and leadership um will play a central role in shaping the structure. They aim to ensure that their school priorities are reflected in the final schedule as well. Um and then also just knowing that each of our schools are going to have different variations of flex um when I come back and talk again. Um we'll talk a little
023bit about um what things we're going to put in place this summer, but every school has its own identity. So we're really um looking to garner a lot of feedback from Carver High School who's been on this journey for the last couple of years. And I know that our other principles have been picking her brain on what um could work in future years. So I will hand it over to Dr. Dixon. Hey, good evening everyone. See if I can utilize this. Here we go. Uh at Phoenix Academy High School, I'm proud to say that uh we've been around the block for a while now. This is three years that we've been on the block at Phoenix Academy. Uh, and I'm proud of what we've seen as a result of that. So, I want to talk
024a little bit about that tonight. Again, we are no strangers to the 4x4 model. Uh, we've been operating on it, like I said, for the past three years. Uh, and what I'll say about that is our our students and staff enjoy life on the block. Uh, I think some things were mentioned earlier. Uh, some positive things at other schools as a result of what Mr. Casey saw. Uh, I can say that we see the same things at Phoenix. Uh, I've spoke here to the flex time. I think being able to personalize that time is really really important. Uh we were able to really build relationships I think on a different level this year. When I look at our data from Panorama, I think the way that students are feeling at Phoenix Academy has a lot
025to do with what we have seen in our flex time this year. If you can imagine uh a teacher taking the time to work with a student to teach them that they're not only an expert in social studies, but they're also an expert gardener. uh or if you would sometimes even the principal at Phoenix Academy has been known to work with kids and play guitar with them or play music at school. Uh we have another teacher who again is known as a social studies teacher who's also a great seamstress. Uh so they've been able to get into uh and and work on their own clothes and men their own uh materials uh at school. So the flex time has been a very valuable time. Uh and another thing that's not mentioned here in the slide,
026but I was reminded today is an important thing to bring up is that you know our students in surveys told us that seven classes throughout the course of the day is a lot of preps to weekly prepare for. Uh we talk we know we hear about teacher prep. When you think about it from a student's perspective, a student has seven classes, that's seven homework, seven projects, seven work, seven classes worth of assignments throughout the course of the week that could equate to a lot of time. I think our students appreciate only having four classes at any time. And again, that's what the survey data that students gave us uh said in regard to uh 4x4 and their thoughts regarding what they wanted from a schedule. Uh so I just think it's uh the stress of
027kids and the fact that a 4x4 block makes them feel a lot less stressed. There's a lot less uh there to have to manage. I know that the time piece is certainly something that is a concern for a lot of folks. Uh but again, I think like most big blocks of time, you break that into smaller blocks of time and uh as Mr. Casey mentioned, find those engaging things that students can be doing. Uh what I'm excited about, uh we talk a lot about equity in our district and I'm very excited that this is going to allow my students more equitable or more equitable access uh to the coursework that's throughout our district. uh Phoenix students as a result of having a small staff uh have had access to very few classes and courses uh
028many of the courses that they have to take are apex courses which are is like an online module system. So the fact that our students at Phoenix are now going to have access to all the great courses and they're going on all around our district uh is an exciting thing and the right thing to do. So I'm proud of us for that. Uh, also with the cross enrollment options that we're looking at for next year, we've got a lot of kids already excited. They know what two classes they want to go take at other campuses. They know they want to take those courses because again, we can't offer them at Phoenix. Uh, and I'm just excited that we are making these moves in what I think is a very, very much a right direction for
029our district and certainly a right direction for Phoenix Academy students. Uh so again, they're going to get access to those specialized hands-on interestbased electives. Uh Mr. Casey alluded to this earlier, but being on the block allows you more time to get into real projects and really spend a lot of time in a lab or something of that nature. But my kids are now going to have uh access to these courses, be that AP level coursework, which right now they don't have access to. Uh the firefighting tech, the EMT courses, uh the um uh automotive courses I know are very popular ones and ones my students are interested in in uh in seeing for themselves. So again, just the access to those CTE pathways and college prep uh tracks that they have not had access to
030to uh previously uh again is why I think this is a good thing and a move in the right direction for our whole district. Again, what does this lead to? a more personalized learning experience for all students where I'm able to take courses that may lead to a certification or may lead again to a career interest whereas before my students may not have had those options and may have just had to take whatever classes we had available not necessarily the ones they were most interested in. Uh so with that being said again our future is a promising one I think in regard to 4x4 block the the future at Phoenix is a promising one. Uh I do see a future where again our students are no longer defined as I say here by the limits
031of a single school site uh but instead are empowered by the collective offerings of our entire district and all of our high schools. Uh this has given us that scheduling power to make this vision real. You us deciding uh as a district to go to the four to 4x4 block. Uh and again that cross enrollment just takes it a step further and again brings us closer to again excited and engaged students about the classes that they're taking in our Chapel Hill Carver City Schools. Uh I'm especially committed uh again to using this model as I say here again not just ensuring access uh or or ensuring access and not just availability. It's great when things are available but if students aren't accessing those things that's kind of a moot point. So the fact that again
032we are making the uh the moves that we have made to ensure that my students have access to these courses and again that all Chapel Hill Carbur City Schools uh students have access to many many uh courses throughout our district. Uh something I'm proud of, proud of us for. Uh and I thank you for allowing me time to speak to this a little bit more tonight. Thank you. And with that, I'll hand it over to Miss Atkins. Thank you, Dr. Dixon. Thank you. All right. Good evening everybody. I'm also joined by Timothur, but I think I'm doing most of the talking. All right. So, school I'm the director of school counseling, Rebecca Atkins. And part of what school counselors do, of course, is academic advisement and supporting students in selecting appropriate coursework. Counselors also are
033a big part of just the physical labor of scheduling and creating schedules within our student information system. And as we all know, we are moving to a new student information system at the same time as moving to a new block, which is its own unique challenge that we are ready to rise to. So here is the registration timeline that I think I showed you back in January. And if we are looking at a we are here map, we are now in the last bullet. We made it. So at this point, all of our students have selected their courses. Our high schools have begun building their master schedules and we've started putting students into classes on the back end. Power School sort of helps you do that somewhat automatically. Um, but it takes human eyes to
034go back through and make sure that it's both correct and and appropriate. For example, you wouldn't want to have a student scheduled for four core classes in one semester and four electives in the next semester. Power School doesn't really have a great way to do that automatically. it takes human eyes. So, at this point, uh we know in our transition to infinite campus, the better we have things set up in Power School, the better off we'll be for when we start using a new system because no matter what, we don't know how to use it um yet. So, at this point, we're reviewing and uh revising schedules starting already, but that will continue throughout the summer as we move into Infinite Campus. Um, and we look and see to make sure those schedules have loaded
035correctly and beautifully into our new system and tweak and make any changes that come up as staffing changes, new students enroll, etc. to support our counselors. We've had two sessions with uh a neighboring school district central office administrator who's we've invited to come in. She has worked um in high school her career and has been in 4x4 her whole career. Plus, they are a phase one infinite campus. So, she kind of brought the lens of both things. So on February 17th and May 6th, we had a guest speaker speak with all of our counselors um to go through best practices and then troubleshooting. We also had a high school collaborative scheduling meeting with principles, APS, counselors on a teacher workday to kind of talk about what are you guys doing, what is cross enrollment going
036to look like. Just having everybody in the same room makes that easier than 45,000 emails going around. And then our counselors also meet monthly um in our PLC's and we make sure to leave time in every PLC to talk about just the nuts and bolts of any barriers people are coming up against, questions they have. Hey, how are you guys handling this? How are you guys handling that? So that we can make sure everyone has that community support of their colleagues. Our next steps are um happening right now. We're already starting to pull data. Dr. Dr. Bales and Dr. Buckram have been looking at schedule builds, making sure they're making sense, have asking questions, having a different set of eyes. Not that our high schools can't do it, of course they can, but having all
037of us working together, we want to be in the best uh place we can for our transition. We're communicating with schools. Tim and I, our offices are next to each other and we are constantly going back and forth. Hey, have you thought about this? What are we going to do about that? So, we're really in the stage of making sure that we're thinking through things that that aren't any on a list anywhere. And then we're also talking about what are the backups we need to have from Power School as we move into Infinite Campus. I'm sure it will go fine. It went fine for phase one, but you have that worry, right? So, what kind of things do we want to pull so we have them sitting somewhere just in case? All right. So, if
038you remember 364 days ago, like we literally were sitting here um we were probably just starting um our presentation and my watch did not tell me to stand up for 3 hours cuz we were standing here. Um so, in the last 364 days, I feel like there's a lot of work that's been done. There's a lot of work that still has to be done. Um we have some of that that we're still planning. um everything that we talked about um at this time last year. Some things have shifted, some things have went on perfectly. Um there's some different ideas just like Rebecca said, every day there's something new. So, hey, we should try this. Let's do this. You know, getting feedback from students, from teachers. Um so, I'm excited about the work that our team
039has done. I'm excited about the work that we'll continue to do as we move forward. Um as we look over the summer, you know, like Rebecca said, we're finalizing schedules. Um, just so our community knows, we were able to secure um some extra duty contracts for our counselors to be able to work over the summer. Um, so I know that was a worry that we've had before. Um, we were able to secure funding for that. I know they are all very happy with that as well. Um, and then really just making that transition to Infinite Campus. Over the summer, we've talked about creating a um a committee for our flex um so that we can learn from each other. One of one of the main things I think that we really have learned is how
040powerful we can be when we work together. Like not that our high school principles didn't work together before, but this has made them have to work together all the time. They get to come to board meetings. They get to do presentations. They get to meet. So all of those things um have allowed them to really think and build things together. Um and that has been really cool and unique to see. Um, so as we have that committee over the summer, um, really being able to decide on some flexible stability. I know that's been some worry of some of our staff members of like, well, what is flex? Is it just going to be wild? Is it going to be whatever? Um, providing some of that flexibility so we know what the schedule looks like on
041like a monthly basis, but knowing that it's still going to be flexible for our students, flexible for our teachers. Um, also knowing that those first couple weeks, like we're not going to just jump into a flex and say, "All right, go where you want to go." Um, we got to build that muscle memory for our teachers, for our students. Um, and there's lots of stuff at the beginning of a school year that having that extra 40 minutes every day would be helpful of like, let's get this um, in place. Let's do this. Let's talk about this. So, that will happen as we move forward. Do I anticipate that how flex looks on day one is going to look different than the middle of the year and the end of the year? Absolutely. Um, I think
042as we move forward, just like Mr. Casey said, "Even just doing it for a couple days, I know there's feedback of like, okay, this wasn't as bad as it was. Here's something we thought was going to work really well and we might want need to adjust a little bit." We're willing to do all of those things. Um, and then professional development over the summer. Um, working with our directors, school admin, coaches to create some just in time PD. So, not something that's going to take an hour for someone to get, but something of like, okay, I'm thinking about this. What's a video or something I can watch for five minutes that's going to give me the gist of what that entails. Our teachers are asking for I need that little bit just to kind of
043refresh me where I'm at. They've also asked that we reoffer the same sessions that we offered this year when they're actually in the class and doing it of a better understanding of what this might actually look like. And then again continuing to gather feedback um and where we may land. And then again continuing branching minds. Um, we've had a lot of teachers that have accessed that asynchronous options and what we've noticed is if you are a teacher that's taken advantage of that, you took advantage of all of it. So, either took advantage of all of it or none of it. Um, so continuing to make sure that that is out there and available for our teachers. Um, and offering as much as they may need or not need. Um, and as they get into the
044process next year, I think they'll understand a little bit more what it looks and feels like and we'll be able to continue to navigate. So, from there, I will open it up for questions. Thank you for the presentation. The um feedback from the students, especially the ones who did the uh experiment that um Mr. Casey did, they were certainly encouraging. Um one kind of technical question that I had was about transportation. So obviously we were touting the cross enrollment as a benefit and I know that that was a concern that had been expressed by a lot of people. Do we have a plan in place for getting kids from one school to the other or is it all going to be done via Zoom? I mean, I just I worry a little bit about Zoom
045because it's often hard to hear. It's just that's not ideal. Yeah. So, I mean, we're still working with Durham Tech and having different conversations with them on what are some different funding sources that they may be able to utilize. Um I have a meeting with our um city transportation to figure out can we alter some bus routes um to make you know a little easier because in all honesty like they need that transportation for the most part you know we provide it if you're going to do half the day if it's that one class at the end of the day and we provide that route it won't be that difficult and I I know that our city transportation when I emailed them they were quick to respond. So I'm excited to see once we can
046finally get that meeting up and going what we can do with that moving forward. So, it's still things that we're continuing to look at. It's also the fact of we have to have the students actually cross- enrolled for that one period. And it's kind of that you need to have the students before we can say that we have the need. Um, if we're going to have multiple buses, I don't want to have multiple buses and 12 kids. Um, so I think over the next, you know, 3 to 5 years as we continue to grow the programming, um, we'll have more of that cross enrollment. And then with Durham Tech, um, I don't remember and Mr. Casey may be able to give a better number on this, but I know there's multiple courses that instead of
047being taught like on campus and at Durham or online, the teachers are actually coming um on campus to teach the courses there. Dr. Bails, has there been any conversation about the ability to have um Durham Tech do any teaching in their for our district in their space at the Drakeford? I know I was speaking with um an administrator at Durham Techch a few weeks back and she was telling me that at that time they were those spaces were pretty much going to be for um continuing education. But I I also know that they have the CNA lab there. That's the continuing nation continue continuing education version. But do you know if they're going to be looking at possibly changing it to the curriculum side for credit to see if maybe that would be a um
048possibility for our students since it's I mean it's set up right in our backyard and it's ident it's completely identical to the one except smaller scale but it's a lovely lovely space for the CNA program. Yeah. No, we're definitely they're open to whatever partnerships we can have in our community whether and we've even talked about do we utilize the public library and some of their spaces that they have there. Again, it's do we have the students that are wanting to take those courses to be able to do it. I they've been extremely flexible um with us. They want this to work just as much as we do. Um so I'm really excited to see as we're moving forward, you know, I told them like think big and then you know, I want to be able
049to say in three to five years like here's all of the things that we've done. So yes, just not yet. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yes. And I I I mean, I just want to reiterate something Dr. Bells um talked about. I mean, they are wonderful partners, but I think a lot of the heavy lift is going to be on us. Like, if we can bring the students, uh they are going to bring the programming, and we've heard that from the highest levels of their administration. [Music] Yeah. Um thank you. Oh, go ahead. Durham Tech has been coming to us with ideas. We actually are piloting a coding class with five people. I just want to reiterate but follow up on Dr. Tom. Durham Tech has been coming to us with ideas and they
050have things like they came to us and said that they had a coding class they wanted to try to pilot and so we have five kids in it. Wanted to see how it would work and you know want to build on that. So, you know, we have a very strong relationship with um Ariel Beaman who comes to us Thursdays and Fridays from Durham Tech. And if you ever come on Thursday and Friday in the Commons, she's sitting there with all different kids working out plans. But it's not just us coming to them. They're coming to us and we are open to anything they want to bring to us because I know a lot of their um programming and their classes are kind of more of what kids are looking into these days. So, and I
051can add to that too. Um, our automotive classes, we in years past have had to um pay an additional stipen to our automotive teacher to teach, you know, an additional class or two every year. Um, and they were able to actually get um certification so that they can have the Durham Tech class taught at Chapel Hill High by the instructor and they're actually paying for it, so we're kind of not having to pay that bill anymore. You're welcome, Jonathan. Um um so that was you know that's a partnership that we've been working on and you know those are some of the things that we want to continue to look at. So when we talk about pathways and we talked about the gifted plan like this is a way for us to you know we have
052our pathways here but how do we expand them just a little bit more over here? So we're offering um multiple pathways. So it's not like here's the one you can take but here's three or four. But they are extremely interested Durham Techch in making sure that like we have completers. It's not that you're just coming and taking a couple of courses like you're leaving with a certificate. you're leaving with something. Um, so I'm excited to see, you know, in a couple years and and next year, um, you know, the numbers that we can bring back and say like here are the number of completers that we've had. We talked about that in our CTE courses, but being able to bring additional numbers, um, about our partnership with Derm Techch. Thank you, Barb. You and then
053Riza. Um, uh, I guess thinking back over the meetings we've had to discuss the block schedule in the past, some of the, well, two of the points of kind of resistance, I guess, from people who didn't like it. One was about whether how we were going to address taking the AP tests. And so I guess I'd just like to hear an update on either the PD that's been going on or just anything you can share about like even just a vibe check on how AP teachers are feeling. And that's one. And then the second is um another thing that I feel like I kind of know the answer to this, but I kind of I think it's worth saying. There was like a people were like, "Oh, we're going to lose 380 minutes of instruction
054time or something." people had calculated this number and it's like but it seems so obvious to me that even if you have a little less time of in a seat like the quality of the time that you're in there just seems so much higher but I guess just anything you'd like to share about those two points would be super helpful. Thanks. Yeah, I will say Chapel High and um when we went um to our neighboring district about flex AP came up a lot because they actually sent some other teachers and to just hear from other teachers of like I don't know why y'all are worried about it. It it works out. It's going to be okay. Um and then asking them too like okay what what are some things that you put in place you
055know and it is that strategic like you know in the last month of April during their flex time very specific like okay on Mondays it's going to be like these three AP courses every Monday you're going to come in we're going to um you know review get ready for the AP exam. It's not and it I just also want to make sure our community knows that that's not something that says that if you take an AP course you need to go into review every Monday throughout the entire year. Um they talked about, you know, when you get back from spring break, that's kind of the mindset shift of, okay, we've got a month or so. Um I will say on our end, too, um and you always talk about what can the board do, you
056know, continue to advocate, um that we have multiple windows for the AP exam. Um, when we're looking at calendars, um, you I know if we were able to scooch the first semester up just a little bit and end right at winter break, that would honestly when you talk to teachers and they got past some of the things, they're like, if we could just do that, like that, um, would help. So, you know, we're trying to figure out ways to best navigate that. And I think after the first year and how they feel, um, we'll get a better understand what the feel is and what the need is. Um the second question was around time's a little bit. Yeah. Um so I also want to make sure our community is very clear that like flex time
057isn't just run around and be free and we're not doing anything. Flex time is a time to actually like get what you need. Um, I could be a student that is extremely talented um, in my math class, but I really struggle in my English class and I might get done with my math work and be just sit there for 45 minutes because I'm I'm done. If I had a little bit of that time I could devote back to my English class. Um, and that's honestly what we're doing is we if you take a little bit of time, we're honestly giving it back to the student to say like what do you need? Do you need some extra support? Do you need some SEAL time? um when we look at the scope of a lesson and
058you know we're not telling teachers to go and teach two lessons in one day but in reality if we took two lessons there's a warm-up there's an exit ticket I would really hope that on a block schedule you're not doing that twice um you're taking that away and honestly if you don't do two warm-ups you don't do two exit tickets that's your time that is lost in that time frame um and as Mr. Casey was able to with his students just being able to go in depth into a conversation um is really helpful. Now that means that we've got to provide resources um and professional development to make sure teachers are doing that and not just lecturing the entire time. But there's many places that we're just maximizing the time. Um and we're giving some
059of that time back to students to get what they need. Well, Dr. Bales, you hit on my question. you know, how I guess how are the staff being supported in this transition? Not necessarily professional development, right? Like I I'm assuming all of our educators know how to teach, right? Right. It's like first base assumption, but it is a mind shift, right? I'm I'm not going to knock or throw any staff under the bus, but if they've been teaching the same class for 20 years, I'm certain they just dust off the same lesson plan every year. And now it's different, right? you're going from a 45 minutes to 4550 minutes to 80. So now you've got to like reorg that a little bit. And I hope we're not lecturing to our kids for 45 to 50
060minutes anyway, but for those who are, we can't lecture to them for 80 minutes, right? That's painful um for anybody. So how are we supporting staff with like restructuring their lesson plans, giving them time to do that, right? And then that's first question. And then the feedback from the staff because what I don't want is staff come to talk to me or any of the seven of us. I can't fix anything for them, right? I mean, I might try but I can't fix anything. The fixing happens with you all, right? It happens with their administration. It happens with you and your team, Dr. Bales. And so, I want to make sure that feedback loop isn't just at one school or this school, but across the district. you guys are gathering it because maybe maybe some
061staff at one school feel more comfortable about giving the feedback, but that's the same issue going on at another school. They just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to say anything to that administrator because then that's not good. So, I think those those are my two concerns because I I want to make sure people are going to the right places where change can happen um while, you know, while we stay ahead of it because at the end of the day, it's going to impact the kids. And so I want adults to move I want adult issues to move out of the way of kids so that they are going to be learning regardless of what schedule they're on. Can I can I just weigh in before um Dr. Bells, I just want
062to remind the board and also our community um that we're developing a comprehensive evaluation plan. So when you mention feedback loops such as student surveys, staff surveys and identifying the needs that we have as a district over time, and I'm not just talking about next year, but really over the next three or four years as we kind of do deep implementation. Diane Vilwalk and I have been working pretty hard on on kind of what that uh will begin to look like. There are some community members who've expressed interest in serving on uh that committee as well that we've been in contact with. I mean, you'll hear more about um the evaluation piece, the feedback loops that we're going to create from the very beginning starting in the fall as a board. Um you'll you'll you'll
063hear about that uh in the fall. So, this not on our, you know, next steps for the summer, but uh almost immediately when we come back, the board will hear and see the plan that we're putting in place for the feedback loop. Good. Thank you. Yeah. And I'll just say like in terms of our curriculum and the scope and sequencing and all of that like that work has been done by our teams and by teachers you know within the last year. Um so teachers don't have to go back and you know dust off their lesson plans and redo it all like we have that in terms of like here's the pacing that you know moves this to this part of the the year moves this over here um and it maps out the entire year.
064So for our teachers, I'll just remind them like, you know, look at the pacing guides and, you know, we have um instructional planning teams where, you know, every year regardless if we're doing a block or not, they give feedback on like what's working, what's not. Um so that piece and I will say in terms of the feedback piece, um like I'm in schools a lot and I will tell you teachers are very willing to talk um and give me some feedback. Um, and you know, I know like that, you know, as we move forward, it's just a continual if if they feel like, yes, you're actually listening to it and that, you know, feedback doesn't mean like everything's going to go back and change, but okay, what does that look and feel like? And I
065I try to remind our teachers um like our grading practices, like we had a couple years where we did some modifications to grading practice based on teacher feedback, um, based on student feedback, parent feedback. Um, that's the same kind of rotation that I want to get into is like this is the baseline year. Um, and trying to continue to get feedback. You know, I talk with our principles all the time who do get that feedback. Um, you know, because they're in those classrooms a little more often. You know, I've talked with my team next year like when we do, you know, transition into flex, like we're going to block off the first month and we're going to be in the buildings to look and see and feel what it what it actually looks like. What
066does Flex look like? What can we support with you? I anticipate that a lot of it's just going to be us in the buildings next year getting that feedback, you know, on day one, day 20, day 98. Um to see like what what things are they feel, what's stress, what's not stressful. Um and we're in all of the schools so we can kind of get a pulse of where that all is. But you know, our principles, like I said, they do a great job of getting that feedback and able to they come together all the time. I would glad I'm not in their group chat um because I I know that you know that comes off a lot. Um but just continue to build that team and so our teachers know you know any of
067us are open to the feedback. Um, and we've got so many different avenues for them to do so. You know, if they want to call, they want me to pop over. Um, we've talked to about popping into PLC's a lot more next year. Um, so that we can get feedback directly from, you know, our English 2 teachers say this, um, and kind of navigate that piece. All right. Well, we appreciate that, Dr. Bales. Thank you. and to the principles that were here tonight. We appreciate hearing directly from you and Miss Atkins on behalf of the counselors. We it it's reassuring to hear all the activity that's going on and it's actually quite overwhelming the amount of work and effort and believe me, it's appreciated and I can say that on behalf of everybody. So, thank
068you. Thank you.