001[Music] Cameron we're back for our third year with a proed teacher Rockstar I'm super excited it's one of the highlights of my Year and no better place really to start than here at the newly renovated Wing Del elementary school and I can't wait to show off some of the new learning environments here it's going to be really cool but the reason we're here is to highlight an amazing teacher doing an exceptional job with our students and tell us who that's going to be um their first rock star of the season is Sandra Scag she's the instructional coach here at wayale elementary and Steve Pro fed's excited to be here too I can't believe it's been three years been doing these videos it flies by let's go meet her [Music] Sandra tell us a little bit
002about what an instructional coach does a little a little bit of everything um mostly supporting the classroom teachers however possible uh the new teachers get a lot of my attention and even working with kids and collecting data for them whatever they need resources I also support the principal um and following through on some things that she asked me to do but you hit on working with those new teachers and when we have new teachers in the district it's so important to kind of help them bring them up to speed with the other teachers tell us a little bit of what that looks like um they do get the orientation but a lot of times when you get into the classroom it's a totally different deal a lot of classroom management with the new teachers ways
003that you can support them um modeling specific lessons sitting in on their grade level collaboration to make sure they understand what's going on and answer questions that they have they email me for resources or just support technically on power school or how to use schoolagy and find materials that are online yeah and I think classroom management is it's one of those things that's so hard as a new teacher even when I have my interns it's like how do I do all these different personalities different age groups and stuff so that's really cool that you can lend help and advice to these teachers that's amazing tell us now a little bit about coaching is a unique position you don't just help teachers but you're doing all these different state tests I ready dibles uh you help
004out after school with programs there's so many things that you're in charge of that really make you a rock star yes we um we for example last night we had a parent night so we stayed after and we made sure we got the information that those third grade parents need the new information about I read uh I can go in and also do some individual data collection uh next week we'll be having data meetings with the teachers so that analyzing of data and helping them decide what teaching strategies to use next that's that's cool and really data data data you're looking at every student so we can get every student succeeding and then eventually on into graduation right so thank you so much for being a rockstar you're our first one of this school year
005if anybody deserves it it's definitely you Karen tell us a little bit about what proed has well proed um has a gift card for you so thank you very much you are definitely a rockar and first Wilkerson design they do these nice shirts for all the rock stars so everybody that's a rockstar this year will get a first focus in design Rockstar t-shirt so thank you very much congratulations thank you and Karen something new this year we would love to give a proed gift card to every single amazing teacher in the district but we just can't do that so we also have an additional sponsor every year and I'm super excited about this one salvator's Italian restaurant maybe one of my favorite restaurants if not my favorite restaurant and that is going to go to
006one lucky winner at the end of this video from Haley Elementary School thank you salvatores for sponsoring fwcs teachers [Music] good evening everyone Welcome to our first Facebook live with the superintendent for the 2024 25 school year I'm Christa Stockman the director of communication and marketing for Fort Wayne Community Schools and of course we have Dr Daniel the superintendent with us and tonight we will also have Elementary director Haley SAU and executive director of partnersh [Music] here's the music there we go all right just a little extra music to start the evening all right so um in the background uh playing music for us is Steve Armstrong so thanks Steve for that all right so Dr Daniel here we are um almost to the end of the first nine weeks of the school year the
007first grading period so how are things going so far well I I think they've gone amazingly well for us for the start of a school year many things happening um so the first thing I look at is first day of school buses and transportation and I want to give a huge shout out to our transportation team our drivers our staff members our routers uh managers it's really been quite an incredible start um I attribute that to the fact that more drivers so again kudos to our HR team and again our folks finding other drivers and bringing them on board training them quickly getting their CDLs and it's been really amazing so what that is meant for us is that we're able to provide some after school transportation for say clubs or for tutoring that's been
008happening um we'd like to expand that like to see that grow um but again if you look at a start of a school year how do you get students how do you pick them up how do you deliver them safely to school and then how do you pick them up from school and deliver deliver them safely to their drop offs and again phenomenal job so hey if you're bus driver or you're part of that department thanks for all you do and parents and others from the community who may be on here please give a shout out to those individuals second of all a lot of uh we we launched our schools of success throughout all of our high schools and wow that's been an incredible event all freshman now wall toall having these case challenges
009and every one of our uh everyone of our high schools and quite frankly no one's doing what we're doing and the experience of students are receiving uh Second To None and uh again as I'm with Business Leaders they will say your kids are different your kids are different because they've had these experiences they've learned some life skills and they're executing those life skills and it's noticeable so I'm talking about maturity levels I'm talking about um their ability to communicate they're all going to be better for this and again sure we're teaching the standard sure we're doing what we need to do within the classroom but these are experiences that are enriching our students and I call those life skills um success skills so um kudos to Junior Achievement uh for providing this programming for us
010but more importantly kudos to our staff who are implementing um and supporting our kids it's I'm telling you folks it's it's amazing so I would also say that you know as I look at um the number of dual credits we're now offering and our plan is to continue to expand this every freshman now is in a dual credit class so they're getting college credit we'll be meeting with our local universities and colleges and how to create a coalition so those hopefully those credits will be seamless they'll transfer from one institution to the next but the plan ultimately is how do we move these students to where they're truly planning what they're doing uh the Monday after graduation which means what are they planning in regards to their continuous learning year 13 year 14 year 15
011year 16 so again it doesn't just finish in the 12th grade what are they doing in the 13th 14th 15th and 16th so again these things are coming to pass uh these are not just now theoretical they're not just on paper but the two years plus of planning and the training professional learning for our staff they've all come together and with this culmination of implementation I'll also say that this goes all the way into our prek through through eighth grade as well other words we no longer just have field trips we have experiences and those experiences are tied to these life success skills and yes um an example is you go to the zoo absolutely everyone loves the zoo but also how do you connect this to again cultural agility communic ation problem solving critical
012thinking analytical thinking um teamwork and collaboration and then ultimately also this whole self-direction piece so again tying all those into all these various pieces evolving into one connected sphere and it's very complex but again I cannot tell you how appreciative I am and the level of implementation um it's a e e all right all right we're back I don't know what happened yeah you know sometimes those things happen so but now we are back so I think you were uh talking about um the guaranteed experiences experi so as we have these guaranteed experiences again wanting to have more and more of those again we have transportation so we're able to facilitate those um and I'll just give you an example today I was at the 122nd Airborne um which by the way over a thousand
013employees out at the 122nd um and unbelievable what programs they have out there so the discussion was well how do we open up opportunities and I like to say experiences for for our kids to see well yes you can roll into postsecondary you can be employed but you can also enlist and what's happening out there in that space uh we're very very fortunate to have the 122nd Airborne Division out there so what I'm talking about this is National um National reserves and again how do we move how do we have our students either going there to see the site to hear all the different occupations that exist but also I was talking about how they could perhaps join join us with ja a3de where they present a problem to our students our students solve that
014problem and therefore they gain uh in first of all they're engaged and they're problem solving but they also start to understand what are the opportunities um with the 21st Airborne but that's just an example but I'll just say the business Community is raving over what we're doing and right now we have about 35 business partners through ja 3de will be expanding to over 75 so this is a continuous build again all freshman this year but it will continue so I'm very very encouraged by what's happening in that space so guaranteed experiences I've told you about the business community and how they're raving for what we're doing and then I will also say this we are way ahead whatever the diploma requirements are going to be and um again I with uh someone from from the
015Indiana Department of Ed this afternoon as well and they're saying Fort Wayne is ready for anything that happens Fort Wayne Community Schools whether it's the traditional academic honors diploma if they go that route or whether they go the route of um more flexibility it's all about work-based learning experiences but it's also about flexibility so we've been talking about how to ramp up our dual credits we know that that's critical we're giving students AB as freshmen students will still will soon be receiving a dual credit from IB Tech that's phenomenal but a dual credit means nothing unless we have means and the number one deterrent is do I have financial means to continue my postsecondary training in other words training in my college or at a community or at ivtech the community college or university or
016in some type of additional training and you know we've just seen a major the wood foundation with Questa just did a major survey and the number one deterrent is do I have money to go on well guess what we can start to figure those things out as well and helping our parents by helping students gain these dual credits so they are several would love to say two years ahead of what's Happening upon graduation and then connecting them with other resources Financial Resources to make that happen and again I just mention one if they become the Air National Guard that would be one as well so again um it fits very nicely with whatever the diploma is going to be I hear some qualms about well you're going to have internships how can you have all
017all these students out having internships we're already working on that where it there will be groups and you can do things through a hybrid uh in other words some might be remote I.E through virtual and then some maybe in person a combination of both will most likely happen and Ja a3de is helping us work through that phenomenon but they're saying work-based learning for about a 100 hours well those 100 hours can start as freshman and we're starting to log those hours today not waiting for their senior year so again Kudos of fwcs and their ability to track but also thinking three four years down the road and being ready for what's going to happen in the class of I'll say class of uh probably class of 28 so that's really my cap my summary um
018super proud of what's going on regards the various implementations I know Haley's going to speak to some things and Matt will speak to some some different things and we can catch up but again we've had phenomenal gains um our I read scores phenomenal growth the last three years over 12% growth uh we're celebrating that right now in our various elementary schools going into those and just sharing a little bit of a uh you know a cookie or so with the staff and but just saying wow some major movement in that space but also we're seeing some phenomenal things in behavior and I think with what we've done with the school reform or the school um the referendum for safer schools that has been um and Matt you can you can explain that in more detail
019but moving that that metric in regards to behavior we're seeing less and less inappropriate behavior more and more appropriate behavior and I'm trying to see if you're going to talk about these I'm sure you're going to talk we'll bring it up soon but there are things in place that are providing resources for our teachers so our teachers can focus on teaching and we need to help students that aren't able to self-regulate that's our job we need to do that and we need to do that most likely if we can't do it in the classroom we can't do it within the school we need to do it at another location and we need to we need to provide those services for our for our kids and then they become involved they return to their school when
020they're able to have these I'll also say and I know you're going to talk about prek Haley prek is critical and I'm going to let Haley speak about prek okay when it's time but boy we're seeing some good movement in that so I'm going to finish with just one other thing we believe that we're an educational institution we used to think you know with Public Schools public flow dollars flow to us we know that we are in a market driven system we have to have better programs than other schools that surround us whether they're public or not Public Schools we have to be aggressive to find Revenue sources from every Revenue stream that may mean on my way prek dollars that may mean through Title One funds or title funds that may mean through CSA
021which are our career savings accounts these are all in my terms they're all vouchers and we're a public school but we have to think of how do we tap into every voucher that is available because those funds are going elsewhere if we don't find a way to connect to them they will go elsewhere leaving us with less dollars to do less things so we are turning that we're flipping our mindset and saying we are after every Revenue stream to provide maximum number of services for our kids and finally we have to use private we have to connect with private donations private foundations private folks that are going to enable us to do things like a Early Learning Center that is going to provide not just an opportunity for our teenage mothers to have their kids
022in a educational institution but also training for future daycare providers so in other words our career kids able to focus on that so I'm I'm going to tell you these are exciting times challenging times but exciting times and I just want to say this to our parents we need you to be alongside of us as we do these things as we talk about conscious discipline we need you to know about conscious discipline so we're a team working together we need you to know about the opportunities your kids have and our kids taking advantage of those opportunities and Matt make a note here you you get to talk about robotics I mean that's a beautiful thing talk about what happens when you have private sector coming in assisting us in our educational Mission so I'm GNA
023be the one of the greatest things that that we've had uh is the opportunity uh to expand our first robotics program uh from one High School uh which was Northside High School last year we added SN High School in the first robotics program and uh Snider's uh Team actually made it to the World Championships in Houston and uh now we have partnered with uh Doug Herer in medical informatics engineering uh and he is helping sponsor all five of our high schools so if you think about it uh three years ago we had no first robotics uh teams and first robotics are very challenging robotics programs uh we uh had none in Fort Wayne Community Schools and this year we'll have five uh and uh Doug and medical informatics engineering is actually building a practice space
024for our team so that they'll have a realistic uh practice field uh to uh work on because again those aren't common around our region uh either so through that partnership and also through the help of Steel Dynamics who has been sponsoring Northside all along we've been able to provide uh these programs that are very expensive and one of the reasons that we haven't had them uh is because they've been cost prohibitive uh in the past schools do fundraisers but when you're looking at programs that are $25,000 a piece uh you have to have help from the community so we are really uh fortunate and blessed uh that two of our companies Steel Dynamics and medical informatics engineering have stepped up uh to provide uh this worthy cause that will prepare our kids uh to work
025uh in in high-tech whether it's right out of high school or whether they're going to become engineers and computer programmers in college and then also that leading into programs in middle school and Elementary School with Legos and so forth and different yes what what we eventually want to do uh we've had a pretty robust Vex program in in middle school and uh in elementary we would like to continue to scale that up so that it aligns with what we're doing with our high schools so uh if we can become more and more uh complex at our middle and elementary schools all the better and then Matt you're multi-talented so tell them a little bit about what's happening amp lab having a satellite lab at the Pearl Arts yeah so the the Pearl Arts by the
026Surak Foundation is an amazing uh experience and it's multifaceted so one of the things that we are trying to do for second semester is to actually have an amp lab program at the Pearl Art Center uh which uh has its grand opening in mid October but we already have some private lessons that are taking place there but our amp lab students who are interested in entrepreneurship as it relates to the Performing Arts would actually have their classes at the Pearl Arts where they then can encounter professional musicians professional recording studios uh staging all those kind of different things that allow that entrepreneur ship to really Foster as it uh regards to music secondly at Pearl Arts uh we've been challenged by Chuck Surak to get at least a hundred of our students taking private lessons
027at the Pearl Arts and I'm happy to report that right now we have 165 uh students uh from elementary all the way through high school that have signed up to take private lessons uh at Pearl Arts and then beyond that we're actually working on some guaranteed experiences for our musicians so we already have two performances one by hip hop Orchestra and one uh from a Mara player who is internationally renowned in October and November uh and each of our secondary schools will be able to send 14 uh students to those performances free performances at the Pearl Arts which is not only a uh a vibrant musical Community but there is Art artwork and um you know it it's centrally located downtown it's definitely going to be a hub of not only instruction for music but
028also having a performance venue as well that we hope to have a lot of our students perform in so as you can hear Christa and we're just I mean we have Indiana Tech doing a partnership with us at amplab for advanced manufacturing we have as Matt just said and Matt's a musician that's why I said he's multi-talented so he's M he's very interested in this as well but I'm telling you folks when you can connect with the professionals that we have in the area of arts and it's at what we can afford I mean it this is truly a private public Partnership of which and I I love to say this uh you know we have some angels and I would say the sarak Enterprises is one of those angels and they are providing these
029Services if you again what you can afford so where else you're going to get this and absolutely these kids could then move from the Pearl Arts having these experiences to PFW and you know they're going to build a multi-million dollar facility for exactly what we're talking about and on produce Fort Wayne's campus so you can start to see the connections and these connections are beyond anything that quite frankly I've ever seen and what I've ever heard um you just don't have these connections but we do in Fort Wayne Community Schools and we want our students and our parents to hopefully have these experiences and truly truly engage in these again these are not just opportunities these are real world experiences so I'll finish with that one um I could talk about flag football with our
030girls and that being sponsored by the by the Indianapolis Colts but that program happening phenomenal and I can't wait to see what happens as they go down the playoff um again Fort Wayne Community Schools leading the way all right Christ it's all yours so um one of the questions that we have is about um you know one of the Great things about education uh when kids are in school is that they get to experience a lot of different things and that they can just sort of stumble across something that they never realized they were passionate about and I know we've heard this concern um with schools of success that is it too prescriptive then is it putting kids on a path where then they aren't able to experience other things and maybe find a passion
031um that they didn't know a hidden talent they didn't know was there so can you talk about that and maybe Matt and even Haley you know from an elementary perspective how we will make sure that that that sense of wonder that Curiosity Still Remains in the programs I think the important thing is is trying to get those guaranteed experiences to happen you know we we talk a lot about high school but they have to start in in kindergarten so uh we met uh last week with the Fort Wayne fire department where we started talking about what kinds of experiences can our students have beginning at kindergarten and all the way through Elementary how can Fort Wayne fire department partner with us we are talking with the uh Fort Wayne Police Department about having uh work-based
032um experiences for our high school students that are interested in becoming Law Enforcement Officers so since we have SRO in our middle schools right now what a great work-based learning experience it be for juniors and seniors uh who are interested uh in having those uh those opportunities and kind of like Dr Daniel has said there there are plenty of experiences uh in the community where businesses and and universities are reaching out to us I mean I have yet to really encounter a business or a university that when we say can we partner uh we always get a positive answer we uh we had the great opportunity to meet uh nationally uh with a member ERS from Google uh last week who are ready uh to partner with us once their data center uh gets open
033we have a meeting this coming uh week with h the University of St Francis that wants to know more about our locally created uh music pathway we've met with uh Purdue School of uh engineering technology and computer science has become a 3de uh partner we've met with IU's school of medicine that wants to provide more and more opportunities for our kids so as as we continue to reach out companies and businesses are reaching uh to us and it's a really symbiotic relationship and and I'm just excited to be able to have that many opportunities I don't remember being a student all the those years ago where where we really worked with uh resources outside the school it just seemed that everything that happened at school was just contained locally uh in the building and we
034are so far beyond that now haly your turn sharing you know I just want to add that we even consider our prek students in with our portrait of explorers so we have our portrait of graduate at the high school level and then our connectors in middle school and then we are the Explorers so it's pretty exciting as we will roll out more of this over the next um year next two years and making connections to what we already do in elementary um with our guaranteed experiences and you know elementary kids typically change their career choices or their career path or college path or professional sports path uh several times in elementary school but we're making sure that students are getting those connections and making connections to our community and we do we have so many
035so many volunteers from um everyone around the fwcs community and it's so exciting to see guest speakers come in we tie our field trips to careers and opportunities and so we're proud of what we're doing and now we're just making it a little bit more um tied to specific uh careers and the schools of success so we're trying to create that path and we don't want to say okay this is what you're going to do when you leave fifth grade but as they experience these things they'll have a better idea when they get into middle school and their a connector so it's exciting we do include our prek though we don't want to forget about them which I will talk about in a little bit and again it's about experiences it's not about locking a
036kid into a particular career or pathway it's them finding where their passion is where their I'll just say their gifts are and then they're heading in that direction um but the success skills the life success skills they work across anything so again if I'm talking about collaboration teamwork if I'm talking about communication if I'm talking about cultural agility if I'm talking about self-direction again those things they do not know a subject they only know this is a life experience and how do I understand where I am in those attainment of those skill sets and those skill sets will take them anywhere um but yes I would love for students to get a jump start and and again if they're not there they're not there and we'll allow them to especially in the high school you
037know freshman year is all about exploration sophomore year you start down in a career in one of our schools of success which we've identified those we have the health uh services and Human Services path you know schools of success which they will be in small learning communities so if I'm in Project Le Project Lead the Way biomedical that would be in that area but I have another house which is engineering technology manufacturing trades that maybe I'm in Project Lead the Way pre-engineering very natural fit but I also have a third which is business and the Arts which is entrepreneurship and that sort of thing which is a high flexible area but again we're not locking a student in oh you have to be in manufacturing no we want you to be in an area where
038you has some interest and I want you to see why the curriculum is important so we like to say this breathe breathe real world into the curriculum so kids understand why we're teaching what we're teaching and therefore Watch What Happens engagement just it's exponential in growth engage kids learn it's when kids tune out they don't learn and we're about engagement so we do engage we create engagement through experiences experience create interest and interest creates hopefully academic success as well as success of being around adults that are mentoring them and that's probably I think that's probably the most critical piece we now have not just Educators in our buildings mentoring kids and teaching kids we also now have volunteers coming into our building and mentoring our kids and we love to see that grow and that's
039part of the plan how do you expand this to where hey folks um a kid's not going to have a chance to uh have a chance in regards to being inappropriate they will know and they'll have this expectation not an expectation that is minimal we want maximum expectations for our kids and quite frankly you know what are the metrics we're looking at absolutely graduation rates absolutely IAD scores absolutely um Behavior metrics and attendance metrics all those are important but they all lead to the success of of the student so but quite frankly I I see the numbers climbing up a little bit on our viewership here it doesn't happen unless we have the entire enire unit I.E parent student Educators Community all coming together it doesn't happen so but we're seeing it come together which
040is really really exciting and can't wait to see what happens in 2028 the graduating class of 2028 I'm going to tell you is going to be a different class so speaking of mentors and people in the buildings who are there to support students um let's bring Matt in on this one um so that he can talk a little bit um give us a safety update and safety for us means not just um you know making sure that doors are locked although that is an important part but also making sure that students and staff but students in particular have the support they need so Matt this year we're not quite 100% of our schools having student Advocates yet but talk about what their role has been in the school buildings and then at the high school
041level uh what the the peacemakers are doing and I happen to have my be the piece shirt on right now um just supporting that initiative so tell us more about that sure so we uh went to the voters back in November of last year and asked to make our schools move from safe to safer uh and really the focus of that referendum was to improve student well-being as well as uh security and so um when that money became available in January we have started to implement so when we look on the uh The Human Side the well-being side our first uh group of people that we really enjoyed hiring and getting to work have been our student Advocates so student Advocates just like the referendum uh have a role in both security uh but also
042in wellbeing so from a security role uh they are checking to make sure all classroom doors are locked they are checking exterior doors they're checking the perimeter of the building the parking lot uh they help our students safely transition in the morning uh from either the bus or cars uh into the building and vice versa at the end of the day uh they also have that spatial awareness uh to make sure that they're constantly on an alert uh for people that are or are not not supposed to be in the building as we start to roll out the weapon detectors uh they will have a vital role in doing that uh as well so in addition to uh their activities as it regards to uh security uh they also have a well-being component and so
043they are constantly in the hallways in classrooms and they're really looking for students uh that are having a rough time either they're sad or they're anxious or they're angry R all circumstances that can either come from uh their arrival or happen during the school day and really what those Advocates do is is try to help those students regulate uh be an open and active listener uh with really the ultimate goal of of getting the students back into the classroom but also knowing that in some cases students aren't ready to go back to the classroom so then where can we take those students and sometimes uh they're going to a mental health therapist sometimes they're going at they're in a high school uh to the peace room to work with a peace Advocate uh they might
044go to the guidance counsel an assistant principal whoever really is best served uh to meet their needs uh in that moment and so as Dr Daniel talked about before as we continue to do this one of the pieces of data I've looked at is the number of serious Behavior events we've had over the past three years and I know that even though our population in Fort Wayne Community Schools has increased the number of serious incidents in Fort Wayne Community Schools has actually decreased so uh that's a good correlation and we hope to keep that relationship moving uh for the rest of the year we are excited as you said it was a peace week last week uh we do have peace advocates in all five of our high schools uh they also have a Afterschool
045club uh of peacemakers students who helped us in a uh a food drive for feeding Uh Hungry families that was initiated by our board member Steve Corona and we were able to donate 1300 lounds of food to the Community Harvest Food Bank and that was all really driven uh by these high school students that are trying to really bring the six principles of nonviolence that were created by Dr Martin Luther King uh as a way for our climate and culture uh to be a peaceful nonviolent uh location in each one of our buildings so we hope to expand The Peacemaker program down to Middle Schools we're talking about a potential pilot next year with two of our uh middle schools and so we hope just kind of continue that that piece as as we talk
046about uh throughout our entire uh District so you did ask about the open Gates weapon detectors so that's the next part of our referendum that we've been implementing started at the high schools first uh you can see a picture that Steve is provided for us of what the weapon detectors look like uh we are really looking for weapons of mass destruction so we're looking for um guns large knives and anything that might be bomb making material so they're actually kind of an intelligent metal detector we don't want to set them at the level that they detect every piece of metal like they would at an airport because if they did that it would take hours to get our students uh into school so we really want this to be something something uh that students can
047walk through there are some items as you can see in the bottom picture that the metal detector uh does uh detect at the setting that we have it so sometimes we know that that it will detect umbrellas sometimes large metal water bottles sometimes stearing binders so part of the uh initial practice that we do uh for a week before we actually go live uh helps us determine what items students are bringing that are perfectly fine but that might set off the detector so that we can pass those around the detector so that we can keep it moving and I'm proud to report that all of our high schools now have had their week of practice and now have gone live uh and that that's pretty exciting we uh started uh today in fact at amp
048lab and also at the anthus career center and we started practicing today at Jefferson and Blackhawk Middle School so every single week we're either practicing or implementing we'll have all of our uh secondary schools high schools and middle schools uh done by about mid November uh and then uh in another week or two we start using them at the elementary school to screen visitors so even though we're passing high school and middle school students through the weapon detectors we don't think developmentally that we should be passing large numbers of elementary kids uh through those so they will be there to screen guests as they also are being used at the secondary schools but there may be those occasions for a student that arrives late at an elementary when they arrive late they have to go
049into the main office so our late arriving elementary kids probably will pass through those metal detectors uh and if they alert we'll have to we'll have to search backpacks which is what we have to do uh at the middle in the high school U it's unfortunate I think that we have to do that but again the community uh when we did our referendum said that was one of the things that they wanted to do uh and and so uh we we as I think Dr Daniel was always emphasized we need to listen to the uh uh the the will of our community and that was one of the things that people spoke loudly about and so I think again like Dr Daniel said we're ahead of the curb I don't think there are too many
050other districts in Allen County that are doing this to the extent uh that we are doing so um that's that's where we're at we are we are busy but we are moving forward and I can't thank our staffs and students enough because they've really done an excellent job of listening to the teaching and and moving through them so that the weapons detectors really don't ever become an impediment to getting to class on time you know we want we want the process to work so that kids walk through they walk through quickly uh they get to they get to where they need to be on time so that's our ultimate goal and so far our high schools have done an amazing job so kudos to them so Matt one of the questions that we have is
051how are we keeping uh special needs students safe and special needs students we have uh some schools that have um applied skills programs um severe and profound programs for students how are we making sure that those students are also safe I think the biggest thing with with our special Edge students as we speak about them as a subgroup is really making sure that their individual education plan is followed uh that there is a behavior plan in there uh that helps them and in their really specifying what specific supports they need because many of those supports will not only make them feel academically safe but make them feel socially emotionally uh safe as well I think the other thing too that we need to rely on with all students is parent input so if if students
052are communicating to parents that they don't feel safe that's a really important time for parents to reach out to the school principal to the special ed teacher to the teacher a record uh so that we can make sure that uh that we are keeping them safe because when you think about it um the the needs of special ed students to feel safe should be uh the needs of all students to feel safe you know to feel that they're welcome that they belong that if uh things are not going well for them that they have a safe and trusted adult in the building uh that they can communicate to but I can't say enough that that that when parents believe uh that the safety of their child is in question that they got to communicate that
053uh to the building principal or assistant principal and then if the building principal or assistant principal needs support or extra resources that's when our department the security department can provide additional supports as well and they go through the weapons detection just like General ed students correct yeah for the most part we have a very small number of students uh our students that are may be severe and profound that that are that are wheelchair bound or have a very low cognitive uh ability uh some of them are not screen it's a very small number but generally all of our special ed students are treated like our Genet students uh and so just like in the real world when you go through an airport everybody goes through screening so part of part of what we have to
054prepare uh students whether or not they have special needs is we have to prepare them for the real world and in the real world whether you're gin Ed or special ed um if you go ride an airplane there are certain accommodations that you have to do to be able to get on that airplane so uh we do we do want them to have those experiences yes all right well thank you for that um if we have any other questions uh before the end of our time here I'll let you know but in the meantime um Haley let's talk about prek okay and if I could add one thing about The Advocates the schools that have added so far at the elementary and then looking to January when we get to add the other AD Advocates
055it's just amazing to see what that means to our schools and providing our students and our staff one more um adult touch point so thankful for the referend being passed and being able to provide this to all of our schools so it's been a great blessing and a great addition um so prek wow we are growing and I can also say that there's constant talks about how we can continue to grow and even have more seats available for our future Fort rain Community School students and so we are sitting right now at 760 seats filled so that has been an amazing uh number to reach but we plan to even grow more and we've actually added a new program a new pre program at Harris um which will start later here in October and it
056is already filled so we will continue to grow as best we can and you know one of the things that well there's multiple things why we're so proud of our prek programs in Fort Wing um one of the reasons is the high quality curriculum that our teachers and our assistants have been trained on and so our students are getting this high quality curriculum from highly trained staff um to make sure that they are providing that in an environment that is best suited for our little ones our pre students and so for those those of you that do not uh know the acronym na our programs are all NY accredited which is um National Association for the education of young children and what's great about being nationally accredited it supports our high standards and expectations for
057our instruction our curriculum and then also for um The Learning of our students too so we keep up with our accreditation when that comes up um every so many years for each of our programs and it's a very strenuous very uh detailed um accreditation uh but it does give us so much to provide what we need to provide for our students um the other you know areas of uh our prek opportunities and why it's so important for our students to participate and be enrolled in our prek programs because it's going to give our students a great start to their educational career in Fort rain Community Schools and U many of you have heard our fwcs focus is on literacy numeracy and well-being and this begins with our prek students so the more students that we
058could have enrolled in our programs it gives us the opportunity to get that started right for them and then when they join us the next year and it's kindergarten students then we're ready to take off right where we left off and so we um support uh we responsive to parents and their questions about prek and so make sure to contact your attendance area if you have any questions about our prek programs and you can also call GLE as we have several people that can speak to what we have to offer Dr Daniel I think you wanted to add a few things here as well well I'd add that when you have certified teachers with four year olds that's Second To None I mean there is I don't know of any program or programs around us
059that have that kind of instruction and we want to expand this so next year we want to see more programs and we're trying to expand these classrooms and Hal I think we probably by the time we at Harris We'll have over 51 classrooms so you think about that um she's giv you some that are on prek but we also have some Services we we provide for our students with disabilities that again every student should be afforded this opportunity and we know that there are limited openings across our across our city matter of fact there are limited openings for prek across our country and I think again Fort Wayne Community Schools is being very very proactive and very very aggressive and how we expand these programs because they're so critical for the success of our kids
060I'd also like to say next year when we start this enrollment process we're going to have everyone fill out the the on my way prek application and you may not receive the the benefit but you could and that means it helps us again as I said at the very beginning we need to find all revenue streams th that Revenue stream enables us to provide these Services because we are not funded directly by the state you have to go through this on my way prek Grant process which is another voucher in my opinion and we have to be aggressive in signing up our family so we receive those those dollars and I believe we had approximately 100 I think we're up to like 126 students this year that's a huge gain from what we had last
061year but those dollars again enable us to expand the program so I'm going to say this right now this will happen next year and we're going to figure out how to make it happen for All Families to be involved in the application process and then hopefully enough revenue generated at from the state because the state then provides us those dollars and yes you have to attend you have to be there on a daily basis that's how we receive those funds but I can tell you when we start to connect this with our families and this is how we handle structure this is how we create structure for our kids this is how we teach them to understand their letters understand their numbers this is how we start to expand it into word recognition oh my
062gosh we will achieve the goal of 95% of our kids reading at third grade level at the end of third grade which by the way is not an option if your little one is not there at the end of third grade and we will have a summer school they by law will be mained so we don't want that to be a number that is not manageable we want that 95% and you know you're gonna speak Haley why don't you speak speak to the IAD results that we had last spring I don't have them right in front of me but the growth that we're celebrating and you mentioned the growth earlier um I think we are visiting I want to say around 17 18 schools uh for a certain percentage of growth and so many more
063are right there and everything that we're doing instruction wise with um focus on literacy focus on youly and making sure that we are once again um highly trained teachers when it comes to literacy instruction and making sure that that's happening that's going to help ensure that we have our students passing this test and we're seeing a gain in our second graders passing this test which shows that it's working and so they take this as a second grader and if they pass they don't have to take it as a third grader so we're hoping to see that flip to where we have less and less third graders needing to take it because we have advanced them so far with their reading skills and you know when you talked about uh attendance and doing all this together
064when we start with the prek attendance is huge absolutely because that consistency for students to learn routine and be there for um that instruction which is developmentally appropriate we're not trying to push kids so fast that they can't handle it developmentally but this goes for all of our grade levels and that's why it's so important that students are in school they're in their classrooms because this instruction starts as soon as that bell rings and you have to be there you have to be there for that instruction to learn so when we think about the specific I read and the growth we've made we believe that we're going to to blow that out of the water this year too and so students need to be there teachers need to be able to teach and then we're
065going to make those gains great all right I'm not seeing any other questions in our chat um that we can answer tonight I've answered quite a few just um within the chat um so just a couple upcoming important dates we have fall break October 11th and 14th and so the district is closed that's our traditional fall fall break that were completely closed on October 11th on October 14th that's Monday the district offices will be open all students and teachers are off that day so there may be some administrators who are working people in central office who are working um some people may decide to take a vacation day that day um so completely closed on the 11th if you need to reach us we'll be back on the 14th and then parent teacher conferences are
066November 6th and 7th and so then of course students and staff will have the eighth off um again district offices are open on that day if you need to reach us but uh students and staff will be off uh from the buildings this is the this year this is the only time that we are doing um scheduled parent teacher conferences so the parent teacher conferences that we would traditionally have in February uh those were less well attended um a lot of a lot of the feedback we got when we asked about it was that these the November parent teacher conferences were more important than February so um so we're just going to have one this year we encourage parents of course family amilies keep in touch with your children's teachers teachers keep in touch with
067families and you can always meet anytime um and then our next Facebook live is in March so we're just going to do a couple of these this year unless for some reason there's a Hot Topic where we need to come back and do a a special Facebook live but otherwise um we're here today and then we'll be back in March any other comments from anybody I think we covered everything appreciate it all right well thank you to everyone for being here thank you for all of our viewers who are watching this and who will come uh who will see this in the coming days um that's one thing we've learned over time is that we have maybe a small number who watch live but lots of people will watch later on so thank you all
068for joining us have a good night good night [Music]