001Welcome. Yes, I will call to order this public meeting. And there it is. Um, so we'll start off with um public comment. I'm not sure who is here and who is not, but we have three people signed up to speak. If you are signed up to speak, >> that's I'm sorry, Jenna. That's for the board meeting. >> That's for the board meeting. >> No one signed up for curriculum. >> Oh, you said that? >> Not for curriculum. >> Okay, fine. No one is here to speak. I guess I feel a certain way about that. But so it goes. Um I guess the first item on the agenda is to approve minutes from the September 30th, 2025 work session. Um so this is my first time doing if everybody has had a chance to read the
002minutes. Has everyone had a chance to read the minutes? >> I have not. So I will abstain. >> Okay. I have read this. >> I have as well. >> Okay. Then we can vote to approve the minutes by show. All in favor for your help. Let us vote to approve the minutes by show of hand. All in favor? All opposed? All abstaining. Great. We have the motion passes with two with thank you so much. So now the next discussion item we wanted to talk about was >> Sorry, I was jumping off our item just >> Yeah. Look at us go. Um, and that's the end of this meeting. Um, so next up for 4.1, we're going to go into vision setting. Before that, I was hoping um that Trisha would share >> Yeah. >> Um,
003a document um for our work on the curriculum committee given our focus as board members of being all about students, right? Like what should should the student experience be at school? How should we best be supporting students? I think with the curriculum committee in particular, our charge is around the student experience in terms of their engagement at school and also their academic experience at school. Um in conversation with Mary um in setting the agenda, we started to think so what should our vision be that's sort of like grounded in the overall goals of the city school district which you can see right there culture of excellence, equity, and communication. Um, and in the spirit of doing I don't know of thinking a little less in terms of ed you speak is sort of like how
004we called it, right? Like the words that maybe make sense to a certain subset of educators, but rather thinking what do we want to be true for students that we could clearly share with teachers, with faculty members, with parents, families, um, community members. We thought about these three things. And for future agenda setting, our hope was that we might take some variation of these that you see and use these to sort of be our northstar, our guidance for how we spend our time, the priorities we set, how we work with um the district office, how we work with the ITA, had a productive conversation with AAN um about agenda settings as well. Um I do need well wouldn't do anything that would just fell through that. Sorry. Um so I would love I guess to
005start with the curriculum committee members to sort of hear when you see this when you think about this what an instructional routine that sometimes we do with students is what do we notice and wonder like what are we seeing and what are we thinking um first before we get into more discussion critique etc. and anyone can share. Let's just have an open conversation for nearly the next five minutes. >> Yeah. I mean, I think I'm just looking at the that common and coherent experience. I'm thinking about um you know, a sense that I might have that that there are different experiences that might be happening across schools. I mean, some of it has to do with the culture of each school. Um I guess some of it has to do with um you know, with
006student learning, how things are going at each different school. um you know so possibly looking at the way that classes that are taught in different schools by different teachers um but that are supposed to cover the same content um you know keeping those consistent would would be ideal even in the context of whatever culture school. So I I guess it's just something that's jumping out at me. Um, not even saying that it's not happening. Um, but just thought it would be something that important to to keep in mind. I don't know what other people have. >> I'm going to be extraordinarily blunt and just say the words common and parent just stand out to me as um impossibilities and it goes against human nature. For some students, um, a coherent experience might not be possible
007unless we really adapt our mindsets and our learnings and our teaching. Um, and as far as common, everyone's background makes it impossible for it to be common. And I find that word to just be, again, I'm going to be extraordinarily blunt, worthless. And I think that we can do better. I don't know if I can do better right now, but um I I think maybe say have a positive experience because I don't think common is a word that we should strive for. >> How about consistent? >> Consistent is a much better word. Yes. Um >> Comparable is is a synonym to common. I don't think comparable I'll shoot context in a little bit, but would also let your either you I'm sorry if you have more. >> No. Um [clears throat] the first thing I
008thought of was just the change in the way that uh the district has kind of approached the um set plans this year compared to last year and that this kind of shift seems to be um in play um there which uh which I think is great and is a a recognition. I I do agree with Erin. think that um maybe consistent or something makes more sense. But I do I do um like that there is an opportunity in those step plans to kind of follow something uh a kind of consistent model across the board and recognizing though that the way that that's implemented and the students that are receiving it are very different and the needs are different and they need to receive it in different ways. Um but the practices themselves um and the
009goals of those practices need to be consistent and coherent. Um, and so I'm I'm encouraged by that that we're already seeing some of that work happening. Um, I also had a fascinating conversation recently with a um with a new teacher who started just this year both in their teaching career in general and at ICSD. um and just had a really extensive conversation about the differences between um following u standards as the um sole guide for um for teaching practice throughout the year and for curricula development and how um there might be an opportunity to be able to uh make those more kind of uh practical and um and and defined around content to actually make it easier not just for or to not just make it more coherent and consistent for students, but also to
010make it a lot easier for teachers to be able to model um a path of even if they then take that and and again follow their own kind of teaching path and and strategies on the different way. >> Got it. >> Thank you. Um, I'll also just share a little bit of context around the intention here and then some potential next steps and then wait I forgot. Can I invite Sorry that can I invite Catherine to join this conversation? Catherine, would you like to join this conversation? I know you just sat down. >> Sure, I'll sit. won't sit wherever you want. Um because like I so I'm just curious also like from your lens what what either stands out to you as something that you're like oh like it's exciting or something like I wonder
011>> I mean I think that that would I mean these are wonderful goals along the target of we want kids to love coming to school every day. Um, I'm really excited for the work that we've done in contract negotiations on um, curriculum selection. So, I look forward to that becoming part of the conversation once we're ready to bring it into part of conversation. I think that there's been some really incredible work there. Um, and I missed the beginning of the conversation, so I can't comment on what anything anybody said before I got here. >> So, I'll just give a little bit of context. I'm trying to set little timers just so you know because I know we have a lot of agenda items and I know we can't go late both because I believe it's
012wrong to go late and also because there will be another meeting in here where apparently Trisha there are speakers want to come to that meeting but not this one. So um a little bit of context especially about the terms common and coherent just because it came up from here. the intention of those terms and I'm indifferent to terms for what it's worth. It's it's actually it's a relatively common way to describe what is starting to happen in our elementary schools and across multiple districts is the idea of as opposed to students when I was a student in the other city school district whether I had I shouldn't use names teacher A, B or C for fifth grade I was going to have a radically different curricular experience because some teachers were like I'm going to
013teach phonics some teachers like I'm not going to teach phonics like everyone sort of had their own mentality which had which had some strengths but also frankly led to inequities um instructional inequities in terms of what students got um and I think in the elementary school we started to see some really exciting ways that things have become whether we want to say common coherent or consistent that's sort of what we mean there um as opposed to saying that all students are the same um but then a quick story and then Mary I would love you to also like then jump in because I'd love to hear from Catherine and Mary from this group. Um, a potential next step is if this is sort of like a guiding north star for this group and a direction
014that the district has already started to move and that we want to help because we see we see it advancing the goals the culture of excellence and equity. The question is um [clears throat] I worked for a school network where at one point the goal of that network was college essentially college uh graduation for all students. And then at some point the school network realized maybe that's not an appropriate goal. Maybe we're sort of like pigeon bowling our students like saying that like you're all going to achieve the same thing regardless of whether or not that is your life goal. And what they did was they created a statement similar like sort of like a re statement of like what their vision was and they shared it with every single family, every single student I
015think um or at least every single middle like every single student who will be able to take a survey and respond to it, every single teacher administrator um involved across that school network and sort of like got input and then clarified the vision and like feedback. And I wonder if there's lessons we can learn from that because I think that we have a very involved community, an incredibly involved teaching um staff and like incredibly involved administrators. Name all the things. And so I'm curious in particular, I think maybe from Mary, Catherine, and then from any of the committee members, what are our thoughts on if we wanted to say that in our next curriculum committee meeting, we would love to say, hey, like we've gathered input and like here's and we feel confident that we
016can say like this is our direction moving forward. Whenever you're Yeah, I'm sorry. whenever you're ready and if you want to skip or not talk that's totally your call as well. So, in regards to common, I think the intent when I as I'm reflecting on that and thank you Jacob for putting up what we discussed in print to see it. Um, a shared sh it's really about a shared experience. Um, so I would make that recommendation that students have a shared and consistent experience. The word consistent is, you know, when Emily and you were talking about the plans and some shifts we made, it was really a shared collaboration. So maybe it's shared and collaborative experience, but that's um one piece. And for me the intent of having this and in the US of maybe
017having this as a as a guide is if we are to resume the practice that we did prior to co of instructional rounds that we have something that we're using to guide those instructional rounds as we're going into classrooms and a and a focus I'm struggling of the notion of what we can control versus what we can't control. We can control what we do. We can't control what students experience. >> And this is a very students will students will have this experience. Students will feel this way centered document that that's not really within our control, especially like we'll love coming to school each day. Like that's that is a lovely goal and I don't think that that's within our locus of control. So I'm just I'm just kind I'm just cognitively struggling with that notion
018as >> thank you for sharing >> and I'm gonna I'm gonna like I think there's potential edits to make and we can talk about that as a process. I'm going to hold off on sharing that right now but would also love to Catherine articulated exactly how I feel. I think students will be and will love coming is an unrealistic expectation. Some students just don't like school. Some students it's not a good fit. I think in ICSD we will create a safe and supportive environment for students so they can focus on learning and reaching their full potential. And I really want to make sure that as we look at our goals, instead of it being graduation or college or whatever, it's full potential because that then allows for each students to be recognized within their own
019capabilities instead of societal expectations that are ableist and antiquated. Um the love coming to school part that's just some students will never love that. That's where we as a school will be actively engaged to will actively engage with students to support them in hopefully appreciating how to learn. But putting the goals on students is is not I don't think that's possible. >> Yeah, I agree with that. I think this we're setting the occasion. I think we're trying to say like what like what conditions will we set as a school district and then what student experience will be we shall see but I think we're trying to come up with like what what is the um like what parameters do we want to put forward um and and keep in mind as we're designing things and
020doing things. So I think it's a good point and that that we won't we won't know what students are going to think or feel ever um but we can we can decide how we want to set the occasion. That's the best that we can do. >> I would also want to put something in there about community engagement because so much of what we do as a school that success of a school district is also dependent on community supports, community activism, parents, caregivers, families, what other things are in place. ICS cannot control every single factor that will impact our students and so putting this solely on us is it's too much and I think you know adding a piece about community engagement I don't know how to make that happen or how to word it I
021think is important because those partnerships are what lead to success because yes it's a long time where students are in school but there There are so many factors that contribute from the outside and impact our school day. And so, how can we work that into our goal setting and acknowledge how important that is? >> By the way, I'm writing down everything that data that I'm a piper. So just a note so that we have a I'm sure >> I think the only thing that I would add is um like constant reflection of how those practices are actually impacting students in the district and and and kind of revising always thinking about how to improve the work. So, one potential next step um and we should we should sort of like move on from this conversation
022else, but one potential next step is like Catherine Mary when we do agenda setting like I would propose that we take the notes from these folks and like and sort of like refine anything that like seems obvious to agree on. Um, and then I I mean personally I think it would be a beneficial thing to share this out with teachers, >> with administrators, potentially with community members, although I understand that there's a thing called overload for, you know, for anyone. Um, the way I saw it done in the past, frankly, was it was just a here's a thing worth thinking and like write an open-ended response. Some people took that as an opportunity to say, "No, thank you. I'm going to delete the email. Some took it as an opportunity to say I will write
023you an essay and some people wrote it to like share like little word sniffing and I'm curious Mary Katherine does that sound like a reasonable next step? >> Okay. So I'm capturing for myself like that like in terms of an action item sort of like we'll have like the sharing I guess like in terms of order we'll first go to like minimal revisions >> based on the really excellent feedback that we all shared then sharing and then for our next curriculum committee meeting we'll sort of like share out a revised version based on the input and the rationale for why we've revised it in the way that we have. Are there any concerns, questions, wonderings about what I that next step that I just proposed? Awesome. Well, thank you all so much. I really appreciate
024it. Next up, um unless there's any public comment. Sorry, Trish. I'm just going to keep on saying that. >> Yeah, just as a joke that no one laughs at, that's all. Um so, um it's time for us to do the culture and climate survey data review. Um and that's Lynn and Mary. Wait. And Kevin, you sure you don't want to come? >> I'll come over here. I like I like to I like to sit with the laptop at a table. So, I'll take that invitation. >> Let it be noted that twice. Catherine will refuse to sit. Um, also, if anyone wants my cups and they're really good [laughter] for >> No, I don't want that. Um, and based on the time I I was thinking that probably this should be around 10 to 15 minutes.
025Does that sound appropriate? >> Shorter. We can be shorter if you'd like to. >> Say a maximum of 10 minutes. >> Okay, great. On your mark. >> Sorry. Go ahead. Uh so we did prepare a presentation that just uh pulls out key uh questions from the survey. We can either go through that or or have you if you prefer another option would be for you all have that to review on your own and then we can ask answer questions that time. So I look to you all >> how many slides? >> Um I think it's 14 but they're pretty short. I think I'd like to go to your slides. >> I would I would um let's watch the slides and and pay attention to the questions that we're asking because the intent we collaborate with
026uh K2 insight that's correct to create this survey so that they're high quality questions. And so you might notice that would be really great feedback for us because we don't want to over survey or you know um so having we've seen that the survey response rate for this because sometimes teachers need time for students to take it in their class and um administrators take time for staff to take it um in staff meetings that it's got a pretty good response rate. But there might be things, you know, questions that you want asked that aren't reflect. So that's the one caveat I would suggest. >> Yeah. >> And this is not every question that is included in the survey. I'm sharing questions that are aligned to the board the current board goals and also ICSD learning
027forward. So we'll talk. >> All right. So for 2425 the survey was administered um in late April 2025 um for it was open for about three weeks the response period this is about the same timing as we've used for the past three years and the survey that we used this year was consistent uh no questions were changed so we have um comparative data over three years um with the exception of a few school specific questions added in at VJ JM Huga Heights and Dit specifically uh to answer questions related to their their planning process for their schools. [snorts] Uh you can see here this was how many responses we received over a thousand students um 1600 parents and 398 staff. um this, you know, it's um response rates for parents or guardians, it's about 27%.
028Um for students, it's around right around 20%. Um and then I'm sorry, that's not correct. Students, it's right around 39%, it's grades 6 through 12 only that we we survey. And then our staff response rate is around 18%. uh >> 39% of six of >> six or 12th graders. Yeah. And those numbers may seem low to some people but actually 20% response rate in a survey is is actually pretty good in survey survey world. So um we always want more participation but happy with what we have. Um what [clears throat] else do I want to say about I don't think anything else. And you might say it's both parents of a child. So in a way like it could be 20% 20 could be more percentage of families but individuals is 20% or >> correct.
029Yes. So invitations for for our caregivers or um invit individual email and text invitations were sent to any um receives mail contact for students. So that be two three four for some students. Yes, those those individual folks >> for each student too, right? >> 2K fill it out twice. >> Yes. So, we do ask uh we do ask that uh caregivers fill up a survey for each of their children. Whether or not they choose to do that, it's um up to them. And the reason we ask that is because we recognize that student experience can uh vary dramatically um even though they're the same family. And we both I keep forgetting that I am the one that controls the like looking for it to go. It's not working. I don't have that magic yet. I'm
030okay. Um I think it's important for us uh to uh just acknowledge that uh response how look at how responses uh align with our district demographics. Right? So we're always thinking about who we're hearing from and who we're not and maybe who is over represented in the sample. Now this uh K12 insight uses census sampling. So it's you know we put it out to everybody. We get who we who responds. Um so this is a representation of the thoughts and perceptions of those respondents and it's inappropriate to try to make like statistical generalizations to like the population as a whole. So this is uh important relevant data but it's not we can't say because this samples thinks this we can apply that to everybody right um so up here you'll see that um the the
031left hand column is looking at the percentage uh the breakdown of race ethnicity demographics for our student enrollment population at the time of the survey and then you can see in the surveys we ask students to identify themselves within race, ethnicity, subgroups or categories. And we ask parents to identify the child uh who they were responding about. Um so ideally, right, we'd like to see the numbers be the same all the way across. That would say we kind of have a representative sampling. Um and you can see that we have we have some differences in representation. Now a tricky thing about this is just difference in how the data is collected. So on the K12 insight survey, folks can pick more than one um one category. So that's why the numbers add up to more
032than 100%. That is not a math error. It's just the way the data is collected. Whereas in our student enrollment data, that's looking at uh classification of race ethnicity based on the business rules of state and federal reporting. So books are just in one category. Um, but overall it's I I it's not like a huge difference. So that's good. I'm glad that we have relative started to double. So overall satisfaction here, you got it. Uh there's a question for each population. Um throughout all of these slides, uh we have not seen any major shifts in the data over the last three years. We've seen slight increases or decreases. Sometimes it's up one or two% from 2023 to 24 and then back down or vice versa. So um there no wild swings in the data I
033would say over the past three years. You know when I look at this of course I'm always like students first. I would love to see that student uh satisfaction uh increase significantly. Um I will note that parent satisfaction has increased over the past three years. Uh so 2% in tier. So that's great to see. Um always love to see it more in [clears throat] >> just a question for clarification. There's two parts of the survey, right? One it's um about their experience in the school and then one it's about the district like I'm think about parents specifically about their experience with the district. Is this satisfaction those combined or one of those pieces or the other? Um, so there's a question I believe it's the first question on the SE on the survey for caregivers
034that just ask overall how satisfied are you with your students your child's experience in the IP that's here. So it it doesn't differentiate with that within this over overall satisfaction rating and the same question structure is the same for the other two stakeholder groups where it's just basically like if you were going to rate this like rating your Uber ride, right? Like how would you rate your overall experience with them? >> Okay. holistic rating of satisfaction. >> Do you maybe this is getting ahead of ourselves, but do you like is there have you looked to see if this is like an average of feelings about like specific schools versus the district or is this on par with both of them? Do you know what I mean? Um >> yeah so we don't uh that is
035that's an important thing to point at this the survey does not ask you to distinguish between your feelings about the school and the district and that is actually feedback we've received from caregivers that and staff like if I was reading this about my school that I work in or my school that my child goes to I might respond differently than when you're asking about the district >> I feel like it does because if I it does I think that uh just this year uh no it doesn't but we can I can that can be a followup I'm happy to throw in the question so you can >> I feel like there's so many does my child feel like safe and comfortable in the school and then there's like >> I can follow up just like
036a list of question so moving into just alignment with our these are board uh visions of success aligns to the board goals I realize these goals are from I think 2018, but they are still the current goals, maybe 2019. Um, so 100% of students will report that they have a very positive relationship with at least one adult in school. We're at 93% and this has been relatively consistent. So that's something to celebrate. Um, and uh is really an indicator of of like school wellness, I think, right? like that that single relationship is something um that is a strong indicator of student wellbeing. >> I I just want to know that it's been around 10 minutes. I'm sure we want more I'm sure we want more time >> service. Yeah. Okay. >> Want to give a
037sense of time. >> Great. Thank you. Uh this next board vision of success is around uh curriculum and student experience within the classroom. I won't read it to you. Um again these numbers have not shifted uh over the past three years and this is actually I would say one of the slides and data points that as a curriculum committee I think is really worth paying attention to and as an instructional leader is is for work at the front of my mind right um so how can we make uh how can we understand student experience more and ensure that that experience is feeling meaningful relevant and diverse. >> Yeah. When I when I see that, I think a lot about what we were talking about with consistency. Um it's it's hard to get 100% of students
038to agree with something when the definition of rigorous relevant content might vary wildly. Yeah, I would also add as a teacher and I think um teachers can experience this when they do exit tickets of a student's experience in a class that you might have a group of students say I want more group work and a group of students say I want less group work. So that's also something to explore the things that surface in both columns uh as a feedback loop both as an as and some instructor and for us as we're looking at these results. So looking at the board vision of success around uh culturally responsive and relevant curriculum. Um again these numbers haven't changed dramatically. the um gap in perception between students and staff I think is what's important to pay attention
039here. And this is not it's not there's no blame or faults. I think where this points for us is an opportunity for um for us to make our of our our intent more clear to students about how we are making and how we are designing curriculum and how we feel like that's responsive to students. And at the same time, so much to Mary's point, like how how are we how are teachers getting more short course feedback from students on on lessons and units that they can adapt to correctly, right? So, at the end of a unit, you know, asking students to reflect on how um on some of these goals around that unit so you can adjust along the way. >> How do how are we I'm trying to think how are we defining culture?
040I guess I I'm I'm I'm interested in this because in my experience with surveys like this, we would ask about getting to know students as individuals as opposed to getting to know a culture. >> Do we ask questions about that? Um there there is a question later that specified a little bit more about uh students get to know me or sorry my teachers get to know me and it has some descriptors but um I think that's important to think about how are students defining culture right versus teachers we do not ask about as an individual that is not currently question unless they >> there so there may be some words where they really or an operational definition. So I think you use the word culture. Everybody's just thinking of their own definition of that. If
041we wanted to dive more deeply into that, we could provide a definition on like you know by culture we mean xyz um if one wanted to wanted to that. Um but that's just that's interesting and that just happens I think a lot with surveys that obviously people interpret collections through their own lens. That's just one of the the drawbacks, but but sometimes providing definition. >> This is the board vision for success around commun communication. Um this is an area where we have seen a a a steady increase over the past three years. So, how um caregivers are feeling about communications from the district. And this is specifically about the district. It doesn't say school. It says from the district. Shout out to our communications department. And then um about meaningful opportunities to be heard, which
042continues to be kind of the the lowest out of all of our communication bills. So um how do we make that interactive? I know that's come up many times at both this meeting and the broader board meeting about how do these structures right structure we have um sometimes impede that meaningful connection. Nothing new just right through and um now we're shifting there's four slides on our alignment to learning board ICSD students as partners and leaders as one of the four tenants um these again have not shifted a lot over three years I think something to note with this is u this is the question on the student survey where we have the largest percentage of students that respond I don't know. So about 12% respond I don't know to each of these which I think
043points to um kind of that shared uh definition of what uh what this could look like and then also make raising awareness around opportunities that do exist. For what it's worth, and I'm sure we'll talk about this later, but when Emily and I were at one of the sessions, especially thinking about student reps for the board, >> we heard from a district that had just a really interesting process of sort of like school level reps, district level reps um and then board reps that were sort of like mentored by principal, superintendent, board um working towards leadership projects >> um was very interesting. I know that that's something that I imagine will like that will be brought up in polic educator identity work is another tenant. Um this is definitely you know something to celebrate. I
044think we had a consistent and considerable uh investment in professional development around helping teachers uh unpack and understand their identity and how that impacts their practice. Um we have the micro credential strand specifically. Um, with that being said, um, I think when we look at this data, when we're looking at students and educators, um, and here, Jacob is the question where we asked how frequent do you feel like your courses assignments helped you learn something about yourself with some definition and that teachers are designing specifically for students. um will again see that large gap in perception right I think it's with the earlier curriculum like um is a a window into a place where we can do more inquiry and learn structures of support on it again relatively flat up and down about one or
045two% between 23 and 25. This is the last one. When we look at student and staff well-being um in terms of connection, belonging and safety um questions agree or strongly agreeing with you. >> Yes, absolutely. So uh for the connection category um students are asked I feel connected to my school community and staff are asked I feel connected with my school slashwork community because um when we're talking about staff for questions that are not instructionally focused this is holistic of all uh employees of the so that might be transportation or food therapy uh for belonging students are asked how frequently did you feel that your teachers made you feel that you belong. Staff are asked, I feel like I belong in my school/work community. And for safety, students are asked, I feel well cared for
046in terms of health and safety. Staff are asked, I feel well cared for in terms of >> Thank you for sharing. You're welcome. Questions, comments, concerns, next steps. Um, I know when it comes to agenda setting, I'm I'm I personally just I'm wondering and interested in the disconnect between how educators are feeling and how students are feeling in some of those. >> And I am just also wondering about like some of the questions and like the things we ask and some and like the things we don't ask. Um, I guess just because I'm I'm coming from the educational world of like asking more questions like, and maybe this happens in other surveys, like do teachers feel supported by administrators? Like, do administrators feel supported? Like, like, do they have the resources they need to do
047their jobs? Like, do you feel like able to participate in your class and that your teacher is engaging you? Um, so I wonder I guess I wonder like do we have space for more of the rudimentary questions? I'm so pissed off I'm throwing my um >> I want to get this one. >> I wonder. Yeah, I mean I I wonder about um [clears throat] like unpack I'd be very interested in unpacking the rationale for for the answers and I wonder if that could be accomplished in some kind of follow-up work like for example if you had a sample of students or teachers or parents and sort of saying tell us ways that you feel supported in this tell us ways that you don't tell us ways that you see yourself in the curriculum tell us
048ways that you don't um I think it would be very interesting to hear the answers Because I guess in the absence of that we look at a question you know we see that that there's some lack and then we're trying to fix the lack like oh I think I know what we can do if we want this to happen then we can do that you know if we want this to happen we can do that but without really getting the direct feedback then we're just sort of projecting our own potential solutions into the void and trying to see how those potential solutions might change the data next year but it might be nice to get some feedback um that might help direct our methodologies about how we're going to try changed some of the things
049that improved some of the categories that were lower than we would like to do. So just one one it >> follows you. >> Yeah. >> We had a number of these conversations last year. Um and uh I think expressions of of similar things to what both as you are saying of um the goal behind the questions itself like the what is the goal and if the goal is to improve upon things it seems like we're missing a lot of information in order to do that. Um, so the one thing that I see that's positive is that it's kind of if if [clears throat] we're keeping the questions consistent, we're seeing over time that whether our guesses of what we should do are working and then can maybe change to something else. But it's probably creating
050years and years worth of guesses and then recorrections and guesses and recorrections instead of taking the time to really drill down into even what like some sub priorities are and taking the time to only survey about those things this year maybe aligned with you know Dr. runs um his goals or the the district goals or the board goals or whatever it is that it doesn't have to necessarily be all-encompassing, but if what we're really trying to get at is X, Y, and Z um to to take the time to really get the answers in addition to just the overall sentiment. Um, and I would just say from a a a chair point of view, I we started to have these conversations more deeply a little bit in the second half of last year. And by
051the time that Len and I had an opportunity to like sit down and talk about it, it was like very very close to when the survey was going to actually be able to go out. So, um I think even in this conversation like there's not new things coming up right now of like what are we really learning? How useful is this information? And that maybe to make something actually happen this year if like the committee wanted to work with the team to kind of think about like maybe there's like one piece of this that this year we might want to see if we can like fix or you know try a different avenue I think might be good. doing that sooner rather than than later so that when has the opportunity both to give some
052thought to that and then also work with our partners at whatever we're getting already K12 insights >> um I think that that takes a little bit of time based on our conversation last year so I think >> just sort of like two two things to mind one is like the qu like at what like when do we reverse it potentially add remove questions that are asked and also um I mean honestly the slide that mainland where we like this is the one that we probably best situated to any we are as a curriculum committee best situated to address the the academic slide um as well as probably some of the the like not necessarily the culture slide so like the the student essentially like the two things that are the the primary focus of the
053vision statement that we talked about what the student's academic experience at school and how are we creating an engaging experience school. Um, >> I just I feel like I might have asked something very very similar many years ago, but when I see these surveys, all I can think of is when I see the student responses is they feel developmentally appropriate in that students are contrary to adults. I think of my own experience even as a super nerd where you have a total lack of empathy for the human experience of what your teachers may be going through and you expect perfection and forget that they're human and make mistakes hence a lower score and and I wonder you know you mentioned that things haven't changed much in three years I wonder if historically those surveys have
054changed much and I wonder if there would be an opportunity not that there's resources whether it be staff or financial, but I'd be more interested in a focus group of students where you could have a sit down and an exchange. So, when they answer in a certain way, you can actually push and and follow up with questions to really get a more clear picture because I think that the tale is old as time. Students are just who they are at this age. I think we all were and I think the numbers are always going to be lower and it might not necessarily reflect the hard work that's being done by the adults in the room. Not to say that there's not room for improvement by all of us, but um I don't know how to
055I I would like to find a way to capture a more clear picture and I don't think a survey is always it. >> I think you and Adam are both describing some more like some more ideas around >> which resonates a lot. I think there's value in both, right? like a survey can give you very big picture like information but like a focus group especially when it comes to actions I think the key is how do you get a representative group of students to the degree that you can have a representative group of student um >> so I would I would add that we have teachers who are really um who have been very gracious in inviting us into their classrooms throughout the year. So last year, myself and a group of Ithaca High School
056administrators were invited to visit by students to visit their classroom because they wanted us to hear about how that classroom worked in affirming their identities and having they felt they were highly engaged um experienced a strong sense of belonging. And so we came in and witnessed the Socratic seminar that their educator had been facilitating all semester and took notes and that resulted in those students offering insights at the educator orientation. And so I couldn't agree more that beyond the survey identifying where this is happening and students are indeed telling us where they're seeing this and experiencing it and celebrating it. And that was incredibly powerful to get, you know, to watch um and experience as a potential. The focus group doesn't have to be something that we construct. It's already there offer that sort of
057captured some notes for like for the next agenda setting like do you think that what I'm hearing from folks is like yeah what are we asking why are we asking it um the ideas of like surveys focus groups however we're defining focus groups and generally I'm just curious about like structures and timelines so that like what we're doing right now has a routine cadence in terms when we look at the data like when etc and to avoid potentially what might have happened in the by the time we're looking it's too late. >> Yeah. Because you know what I've experienced is through other leaders reaching out to me who heard from those students and like hey can I have that resource so although I so I do know it had an impact if we're thinking about
058the scale of effort being our our xaxis and axis and impact being the y that that was a fairly low effort or significant impact on the students. I think just one one last if I can say one last just thinking psycho I know psychometrically speaking like just thinking about the the numbers and the data I think it could also be very very helpful to get some data back from the survey company to find out like across school districts you know if similar questions are asked you know in other districts like what percentage of students are you know affirming these particular questions so that like if we say that 60% of students are are satisfied and we're thinking like oh 60% that's not that good And it turns out that across all the school districts, you
059know, that use this 52% is the average or 60%. It does contextualize that, you know, going back to Erin's point. Um because because it does sort of help answer that question, the tail this time question like are students just negating these questions and just being surirly or are they, you know, really responding higher or lower than some kind of a a bar that we can compare to? And then of course we we can go back and decide amongst ourselves. even if we're beating the average and we're still happy that only 60%. But that might be helpful too. Um because also when we see when we see good numbers on the survey like oh 90% of the students were you know happy in this particular category we do celebrate that. So we don't want to say
060well in this case what was 40% that's just survey. So we have to like reconcile how we're going to feel about the numbers. So just just adding that >> and Catherine I'm also looking back particularly at the at like what I think is probably the one student percentage that we're all kind of worried about of like how frequently did you feel that your course assignments helped you learn something about yourself and like as an English teacher I would hope that kids in my class would be like oh no I'm learning about myself and others and the way we work but like in AP physics if you're taking this. How frequently did my AP physics course teach me something about my soul might get different results. And I'm wondering if it's in the asking of the
061question and the environment in which the question is being answered that's creating some of that because there's because if you look then at the like how frequently do you feel like your teachers created opportunities for students to discuss race, racism, oppression which is really where the identity work kind of ties in but it's very different percentage. So students are seeing the identity work in practice but then reporting that you know in course assignments which I think is vague and broad for many adolescence to really gracure also from like comparative time and the environment which we the question advanced how it advanced all of which are things where maybe there are like clear like we actually should have a clear like protocol or answer that or if we then we should have one and articulate it
062which will be not something we need to get into right now but suffice to say it has been captured and noted. Um given that the full board meeting happens and I think we should take at least three minutes or five minutes before to not be here. Um I just want to highlight that we have deeper dive into the MTSS data which is a slide deck that we have access to. We have pedagogical strategy for tutoring updates. Um I my inclination is for us to spend five minutes on the ting up because that was a follow up from last time and then to see what we had from [clears throat] that that resonate with folks. >> Yeah. I mean my philosophy last year was just if we didn't get to a week come back to it
063as opposed to rushing through that you're able to. >> Yeah. So I that's why I think tutoring because I will not be a rush. Um, so is that okay? Would you be willing to talk to us about tutoring? I know we've had some questions from last time. >> Sure. Yeah, you may have to remind me of those questions. Let me give you the updates that I have. Um so uh tutoring will be starting um next week in three of the five schools and within the next two weeks in all five of our schools and again that's BJM Cuda Heights uh Enfield Bon and Dit um we have uh hired lead teachers to coordinate that in all of our buildings at this point. those teacher leads have been appointed and have been on board board reports.
064Um and what else um numbers vary between 15 to 25 in each of those buildings. So how um essentially uh for each of those five schools buildings were allocated um 15 groups, right? So 10 of those 15 groups were for individual students. So that's 10 students and then tribe that can be used individually or in a small groups up to groups of three. Right? So um one school has has decided that they wanted to focus based on the students that they have identified all individuals. So they are serving 15 students for those 15 slots. Um another building is trying uh as doing 25. So they have 10 individual and three small group slots and we'll be working in eight week cycles of tutoring um in using data to inform to inform us whether adjustments need
065to be made to those groups or um adjustments need to be made to the content that tutors are working with or perhaps if tutoring isn't the right match for a student for various reasons you look at attendance or >> I know that we also hit it Um I think you're answering a lot of the questions that I captured last time. We also had questions around um cost of the tutoring program and how that cost is covered. >> Yes. And I am pulling that up right now. >> Catherine, I think you had a question as well. >> So the cost of the tutoring is covered through the grants that we receive that are one time only or you know as as but the is allocated per the designations. So, it's school improvement grant funding from the
066state and the total contract is for uh $25,000. That is uh per per student cost of $1,0008 per student for the small group tutoring. >> What's the cost? uh $1,08 and that's for up to for 24 weeks, 90 minutes a week in the small group settings up to three. For individual student tutoring, um it's 25,599 per student for 24 weeks, 90 minutes. >> That answers my question. I know. Yeah, I was um so this came up last week and one of the things that I've been feeling and hearing, you know, >> forever is how the um extra work opportunities for our secondary staff versus our elementary staff are pretty different >> and hearing a program of tutoring that's you know that elementary that's after school at elementary especially elementary staff were like wait how do
067I become involved in that tutoring? So can you explain a little bit how we how we got to hiring an outside tutoring company rather than doing offering the tutoring with staff that we recruited from inhouse and whether that is long-term plan whether there is an opportunity for interested in-house staff to be involved. >> Yeah, absolutely. So I of course you know our our ideal would be for staff to be doing it. So we had that hosting up and there were no applicants. So if folks are extended and and not able to take on those additional DVs, this was our next spec thinking as as far as supporting them. And of course it's a work in progress, right? like maybe um next year or in the summer people are going to be in a different spot
068in a different place. Um I would say um I know we compete against ourselves with all the other things that are happening and more managed at times with the staffing that we have. So, aside from just posting it on the website, was there any other because like I'm going to be completely honest, the conversation surprised me and when people are like, "What is this? It's my first time hearing about it." Um, so I'm just wondering how, you know, and I'm not in a classroom every day, so sometimes I don't get fulfilling lists, but >> the general sense was Yeah. And yeah, we're no long we're no longer getting postings emailed to us at the buildings. we used to >> um we are no longer getting postings. So >> So that sounds like something that we
069need to do better. >> Postings going out. So you're no longer receiving postings. >> Yeah. >> From at the building level that go up on the district updates of hey, there's a new posting on the website and it goes to the lister. >> I So I don't I'm not on any building lister. Nancy can speak to Caroline, but we used to get them forwarded from our secretary and I don't know if they stopped forwarding them to her, so she has nothing to forward or if she was instructed or we I don't know. Okay, I just know that we used to get them and for example, I didn't know about the maps. I learned about it at the last. >> Okay, I let's follow up on that. Next week I'll talk with our HR department and
070then we can >> follow just add like one of the reasons uh that was one of one of many reasons that made this particular partner attractive to us Lara is that they were they are we need to be willing to partner with us that if we do have teaching staff that we would like to serve as tutors that those teachers could work through those their platform and receive training around their ting curriculum. So when we think about consistency and experience and also the logist like progress monitor and we use data right so this company would allow for us to utilize internal staff to deliver a coherent tutoring and and >> so would it be appropriate at this point to do a round of recruitment on that to at least provide the opportunity and make it
071really clear like the parameters of what you're what you're signing up Yeah. >> Or are we or has that or is it like Nex? >> I think that it would have to be NESA just because Lata has already like matched like the tutoring is starting next week. They have already from their pool of tutors uh matched students the tutors that is starting in two days. Um but that's definitely something I will bring to them as a question if that cycle. >> Okay. It sounds like is there one at what point will we be might be helpful maybe not to ask like to when necess I guess something happened with the communication and that we want to not like to fix it but >> we want to do better. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Absolutely. Thank you. >>
072Should all have some. [laughter] All right. So, um I am confident that we do not have time to talk about the deeper dive that I've added to our agenda. Mary talk a little bit about that agenda and how to present that information. Um >> do we have time? >> Yes, please. >> Just for the two. >> Yes. Are you sure? >> Um, [clears throat] so there were concerns about like access to like computers at home and having somebody who was like actually able to support a kid to sit at a computer for 90 minutes, which um might be challenging for some students. Um, it sounds like sometimes it's happening at school, after school. Is it still in multiple different places? And related to that, can you talk a little bit more about the um you
073said that there are like teachers that have been assigned to like what does that role look like and how is that supporting like all of these 15 to students? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, just to clarify that 90 minutes is spread out either over two or three sessions per week. It's either two 45 minute sessions or three 30 minute sessions. Okay. We don't expect any children to sit nice as a restorator. Um in terms of the at home tutoring again a positive of this company that we partnered with. So Muga Heights uh has three students who are going to be participating from home and they're just uh that was collaboration between building leadership the lead teacher and the families to say yes this is something we feel like we can support and just talked to technology
074this morning. we are providing devices for their ch for at home. Um so that is still a possibility and only one school is utilizing that model for this first round and we're going to kind of learn from that and see how that goes. Um the the lead teacher in each building is will be the one who is supervising the afterchool tutoring sessions. there to help support kids in getting on the computer uh being able to intervene when they're if there are problems. I mean the hope is that the tutoring will be engaging right that's what we're been sold on right so we'll be watching that I think if we're finding that we are needing a lots of management to keep kids engaged in the sessions that's good feedback to us that perhaps this isn't the
075best partner for us >> so do the staff that are helping facilitate this are they paid out of the grant or is that >> they are paid out of the grant so those are 167 stipens uh that are paid through the sig or the school improvement grant Correct. >> And so it's after the first 8 week period that's the first week that >> that we can evaluate >> we can that we that you'll like how are you going to >> Yeah. We look at data every session but that that's like the cycle we're using is looking and seeing if we want to make adjustments to student groupings. We want to add or remove students. Uh I will say the contract is for a year right. So, and if any unused hours can carry over into
076the summer for us. So, like if we don't use all of the hours, we can use those during project innovation or other ways in the summer. But, um, in terms of reevaluation, it's not like we can scrap the whole thing or we might be wasting our time. >> Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Um I have I think at this point I would love to move us into are there any other like essentially are there so in terms of action items and agenda setting for the next meeting. I will name that next time we should talk about like just a quick update on like the tutoring like tutoring communication like solution moving forward whatever that may be to follow up on a vision which that plan will have reddrafted based on input from the stakeholders that
077we described. that we can sort of have a guidance uh force for our work work moving forward and from there I know we will need to talk about focus groups like teacher focus groups which is something that we Erin brought up last time is like a powerful strategy that I think we can have really focused ideas like background about what we talk about particularly around curriculum adoption and hopefully we will also have updates on next steps for survey in terms of what is the what are the structures we have and to do the the two items we did not get to today. So not a full agenda at all. We'll be um with that it is the people we are done in 30 seconds. Are there any other things that maybe will be discussed before
078we >> Yes. Uh at the last uh facilities and finance meeting, we discussed the possibility of being able to have some sort of a joint uh meeting between potential meeting between curriculum and finance to be able to um talk about helping the community better understand the way that our um our goals are being or or meeting student needs within every school are to throw those into um budgetary decisions at the school rather um and so the chairman of that committee suggested that maybe there might be do it in tandem with so that Mary and John were there to kind of talk about like what initiatives are coupled with like public budgeting since a lot of these questions last year were around like I don't understand where my mind >> see that we are sort of
079nodding and making so that as a very hur and I might ask you for some more context that's really helpful. >> Well, thank you so much. Thank you Adam for teaching me how to be a chair. Thank you Trisha for dealing with me. Emily for for being part of committee were assigned to other ones as well for See you all in four minutes for the Lord.