001Welcome to welcome to the September curriculum work session. Um I'm going to call the meeting to order and check in to see if we have any uh public comments for tonight. We do not. >> We do not. Okay. We have no public comments. We have no committee responses to the last of those comments. Um, our next item on the agenda is item 3.1, which is the approval of minutes from the May 27th, 2025 work session, which actually, now that I say that out loud, guess we can't really approve that yet because, uh, Jacob wasn't on the committee. Uh, and Aaron is not yet here, but he'll be here very soon. Um, so we will do that, uh, when Aaron gets here. And item 4.1 is the election of the chairperson. We also Aaron gets here
002for that. Um but make sure that we do those two items during today's meeting because we have to get them done. Um so I think we shall look to item 4.2. Um and that is going to be a discussion of our uh different school improvement plans. And uh we have a few guests that we'll be inviting down to talk about that. Uh Lyn and Mary. Uh welcome. Thank you for having us. So, we're here to discuss the targeted plans um that we that schools have submitted um to our state department of education and we shared those plans and some summaries. So, we wanted to begin with what your questions are or we're thinking this. Um, Trisha, I think is the next item on the agenda. >> The next one. >> Yeah. Presentation. >> Oh, yeah.
003>> Just all the plans in the >> So, can I just the new number? can get more context around how these claims were devised like what the committee's role is versus your role and yeah >> great question yeah and I want to introduce myself I'm Lynn Klankowski evaluation officer I work in this building to support all of our schools and work teachers mostly and principles um one of I've I've been supporting buildings in the development of their plan. So each building has a team, a school comprehensive education plan. That's what the SKT stands for and skept caregivers were are invited to participate. Um and then those teams have a process that's developed by New York State that they go through to develop these plans. So there's six um six processes that folks have to go
004through including a data review, student interviews, um and uh visioning work as to come up with their plan. Then using all of that information to develop strategies to move the school forward. um or the groups of students for which they were identified. >> Oh, and I would add to that that is a two to three month process. >> Started meeting in late March, early April looking for their plan to be finalized by early July. So maybe I guess I'm just wondering just for starters as like looking over the plans for for this year and looking over the ones from last year like in some ways they seem a little bit different. Um maybe there were some plans last year that resembled these plans a little bit more and some that were a little bit different.
005And I guess maybe it would be good to review um you know maybe like what were some of the effective strategies from past year's plans that you know were something that you could learn from when you were devising this year's plans and just kind of wondering what I don't know like what what worked well because I think there are some um you know some schools that showed a lot of improvement. Um so I'm curious about that. Uh so I think something that we we have learned and are getting better at is just being really clear on the metrics we're using to to to evaluate the success of of measures. So where we had clearer targets uh we were able to evaluate the success of those those also since these plans are related to performance on
006state tests in ELA math and science. Right? So this was a push from the state this year with our plans to really ensure connectedness directly to those academic goals. Right? So in our previous plans um you saw goals that were um somewhat more related some of the goals were related more to school culture um than academic performance. and the state um is really encouraging schools to through these plans really focus on the academic side of things more knowing that it's all important um but in the plans themselves they want us to be very narrowly focused knowing that's not everything a school is working on right so be more concise in our plans um we also saw success in buildings where um there was clear teacher leadership over initiatives, right? Like I'm thinking around um the
007ELA work that I'm talking about at the elementary schools in terms of implementation of MClass assessment for literacy um where we uh had a a robust I would say professional development plan to support that implementation and leaders within teacher leaders within the buildings that were helping their colleagues to develop capacity kind of speaking the same language, right? So where there was more um robust teacher leadership over strategies kind of lost focus I would say because the fact that >> and then just was slightly following up on your question or what you just said. So, um, you know, noticing a lot that there's, um, a little bit more focus, uh, I think it's it's just districtwide in general, not just the news plans, but a little bit more focus on the assessment of math and and
008literacy skills, um, and and checking in throughout the year and definitely doing a lot of monitoring. Um can you talk a little bit about uh I mean some of this is just I think for the purposes of of people listening and also just to kind of have conversation about it but um just just talk about some of the implementation of the skills building because the assessment part seemed like very clear like how you were going to look in measure things in the beginning and check in at certain periods of time and then look at the end and then you'd have some very um like structured goals about people like percentages of students maybe going up a number from two to three or three to four and trying to get more people uh you know over
009the bar so to speak. Um can you just talk about some of the strategies that you uh that were in the plans about implementing the the learning teaching and learning strategies? >> Yes. So, some of those uh at the elementary level uh focus definitely on we've had a new ELA curricul through five that was adopted last year, magnetic reading. Um and so at the elementary Enfield and the BJM were on plans last year and they both included a focus on implementation of that curriculum um as designs right with integrity and using the embedded assessments within that. Same with enclass was a new assessment tool for us um that we implemented last year. So again uh using the assessment universally and then the instructional tools that the instructional recommendations that have come along with that to
010uh guide the work in our small differentiated skills groups that are part of all ELA blocks in buildings. Right? So that was an elementary focus at the secondary level. um their focus was on uh one of the focus on building common assessments and that's ongoing work. Um you'll see that continuing with the with a focus on benchmarking in ELA this year at the middle school level as a strategy. So common assessments built by the English departments jointly between Boon and Dwitz for analytical writing are really one of the the the anchors I would say of that work that was built during last year's plan is continuing to inform the work that's just two examples of >> yeah I I have just like a bunch of questions but I'm not sure in terms of you know
011this is my first committee meeting so in terms committee structure. Is it appropriate and normal for me to like ask more like direct targeted questions about the specifics within the blank or not? >> I think you can you can ask whatever you want. whatever I want. >> Think strategically about the time that we had and the things that we have so much time and probably everybody has some more questions but yeah >> so I um it sounds like at the elementary school there's been a focus on like curriculum and fidelity which resonates with me based on what I know about curricum design and work. When you describe like the middle school strategy of like building common assessments, I guess I'm confused by that because I would imagine that the first step would be to identify
012curriculum and then use the curriculum embedded assessments given that those exist. So I guess I'm just trying to understand the discrepancy between these two strategies and where are we with addressing like curriculum use at the middle school level? So at the middle school out level it is they are using standards and writing their own curriculum. So having a common assessment to evaluate how that instruction went the curriculum that teachers have written is where they are at and focusing right now. and having a shared understanding across open schools is a goal. Um, and the collaboration between those teams because staff can staff can be shared, students can be shared and having a thoughtful approach has been a focus as far as collaboration. And so then implementing so you're doing those assessments and then is there like
013a a time throughout the year you might have already said this I apologize with in the middle schools where there's like assessing kind of what is that actually telling us about how well this locally developed curricula is actually working and what how might we want to make adjustments even throughout the a single year before >> yes it helps identify so one tool and looking at the results. So Lynn shares out the itemized results of the state tests with building leaders. This year they came out quite earlier than than typically early August so that buildings can look at that with their department leaders and teams and make goals for professional development and instructional support throughout the year. And um you'll see some while that isn't mentioned in the plan that's how this tool is used beyond
014the plan. Is there any plan in the works for there to be some sort of curriculum about it at the middle school levels? I I I I see that as connected like if we're talking about success at an elementary level again based on curriculum and implementing it >> is there a plan to replicate that success at the middle school level and provide some sort of coherence for kids through eight >> I see that as in service of plans support plans in the future that are more focused on I guess like more nuance like like more instructional nuances like the big like a big thing like we don't have assessments yet that are um across the schools. I'm glad we're doing that. But are we planning on >> I'm sorry. My question. >> All right. So,
015it's by I think um one of the shifts as you know from elementary to secondary is a departmentalization of content. So for middle school, if we're thinking about math for example, they've gone through a process of thinking curricular supports that both into it use with Desmos. Um last year's focus for the English departments and on the October PLC day was do we need as as educators do we need a curriculum or do we need time together to discuss how our standards are vertically aligned and what resources we're using to meet students needs. and that is where they spel spent time and they built outcome assessments um for science that's also an ongoing conversation. So what are we seeing from the test results? Where's where based on trends we see? This is one indicator of many
016of you know the state test. What support do you need? Um what tools are out there that we want to try? um and is it a curriculum that we need or tie with the standards at the specifically for science I'll say the challenge has been um among the science educators wow there isn't anything that we're seeing that hits the three components of the standards when we're looking at the engineering and the content and the science standards being like similar to the the reading rope we've looked at having three components. Is there something out there that exists that we feel with the time that we have with kids is going to nail all three of those or is that something we need to spend more time creating and developing? So that's where science is. So let's
017see you talked about English, math, science, and then social studies at this moment in time is standards based. >> So at this time there isn't a plan for curriculum alignment K3. there's a plan for vertical alignment as far as instruction and I think that is um an inspiring step. So what I mean by that is this year in our district plan we have a new role of math strategist at the elementary level. So that's an overbridgeidge for a teacher to be a teacher leader in math and work with technicals. um they meet monthly to talk about tools or specifically around Eureka mass squared and then throughout the year we have five half day releases planned. So all kindergarten teachers across our district will come together for a half day say in the morning and then
018in the afternoon all first grader teachers will come together and it's five um catchments of school feeder schools to to Boon and Dit. So for example, if my elementary school will be the students will be going to DWIT, those four schools are going to meet for professional development. The opportunity there is then we can meet the sixth grade math teachers and begin that vertical alignment. How are we continuing? This is where Eureka Masquer these are some trends. Um, and that's a that's exciting and I think that's a really important next step for us. I have just one more question. Um, so then with the elementary plans um somewhere I guess like my my understanding with intervention is that ideally the intervention is closely matched with a program, right? like the like the like in the
019federal government like before like you know like like their their education briefs were like don't make your own intervention materials use what is provided. That was like a consistent theme in their recommendations. And so I'm trying to understand like when I look at some of the plans I see like >> we're going to be designing literacy intervention or we're going to be designing like math tasks and intervention. Am I reading that accurately? And so are teachers both I guess at the elementary level are they being expected to create their own intervention materials math and ELA or they saying the provided materials say from MC class which we use or from >> so definitely more of the latter of using resources that have been that are existing either within the curriculum programs or are in supplemental
020like MCAST is an assessment program that also includes includes instructional recommendations and mini lessons of it. And it's very skills based, right? Whereas magnetic reading has within it, embedded uh supports and scaffolds for reteing and pre-teaching uh lessons uh throughout the curriculum that teachers use um both um as intervention and support resource rooms. It's a um and part of the work of the math strategist this year at the elementary level is really helping uh teachers learn where those supports live within Eureka math. Right? So they are they're not like in a neat package but there are many extensions and tools for retaching. So how to use the embedded resources within Eureka Math to provide those um interventions that are aligned to the curriculum I would say. Um, and I would add, so MCL class this
021year for math and that being used um to support interventions is it's a pilot. So different grade levels are using it at different schools. Um and our teachers are being really gracious I think in the troubleshooting of that because it is first year of that tool um for the company and so there are things that need to be addressed and things that surface just as far as data syncing. So to give a concrete example, a student might do an assessment and if they don't click done, that data doesn't feed in to the tool for the teacher. And that is something that a teacher can't override. And so we discovered, oh, some students clicked done and some students didn't. So why is our data set incomplete? And so now we're going to solve that problem. And
022I I mention that because um the actual intervention that we're using MClass is not aligned to any curriculum with intention, but it lists multiple curriculums used throughout the country that okay, if you're using based on this assessment, if you're using this curriculum, here are some recommendations. So just echo what Lyn said. Yeah, >> I would want to zoom out a little bit. Um, you said that the state is requiring that more of the data and focus is supposed to be on on academics. You also acknowledge rightly so that student academic achievement is impacted by so many things that are not directly related to instruction and certainly from test scores. Um and last time last year the um the set plans like varied quite significantly across the school based on how much was really focused on
023like you know tutoring and instruction and which ones were related to kind of broader um approaches to student well-being and engagement. Uh so my question is kind of multi- one is I want to make sure that I understand if they're saying that the reporting requirements need to be kind of focused on you know academic outcomes versus like the inputs. Well, let me just ask that before I ask the second part of my like are they saying like you the the strategies that you're using you have to show have to be more directly related to instruction or just the measurements of those that you're reporting on like what the outcomes are both right so uh and just to explain kind of how the feedback from the state come comes to us I guess uh u since
024Enfield is a CSI or comprehensive school um improvement school uh we are actually paired with a consultant from NICE who gives direct feedback and provides approval to the plan. Right? So whereas the for the TSI schools our other four schools those are locally developed and and approved. >> Okay. Um so this feedback came directly from our consultant at the state and field and in the actually development of the plan uh the state changed their template where you have to separate out your strategies as instructional or non-instructional this year and that you are required to have um at least two instructional strategies. Non-instructional strategies are not required and the requirement is that you have more instructional strategies than non-instructional strategies. So the state really have like cars that out um bring that focus. >> Okay. Thank
025you. So keeping in mind that the vast majority of I think people are very interested in the set plans and like what the district is doing to support these schools recognizing that the vast majority of people have not looked at these plans and don't really know all of the things that we're talking about right now. Um, like what what did you like if you were talking about just like elementary how do I even ask this? Are you being more consistent I guess across the elementary schools because of this new requirement. Um, has that kind of made you you all think that the the approach needs to be a little bit more um similar or streamlined? Um and similarly with the middle schools and then my other piece is like how how are you given that
026you fully know that all of these other pieces have such a big impact on that? How how have you decided to build these plans? Like what do what do you think are the most important quantitative data points around academics and then the ones that are more related more broadly to student well-being and engagement and getting them to school in the first place? Like how did you balance this new? I >> yeah, >> you're right. >> Um, so we had a real opportunity and gift and looking at student data, getting teacher input, hearing from caregivers, for example, from Enfield that you appreciated this, this, and this. and the states I would say simplification of the the template and the very direct feedback to really prioritize three to five components and we're going to ask you to
027measure them instructional was somewhat liberating in being able to really target and have three priorities and we had the benefit of the data from Enfield and the experience to say all right this is you know these these portions of the plan other schools want to use when we're just analyzing and reflecting on what did we do with the amount of money that the state gave us for this and I I think That's that's really important to identify what went well for students and teachers and where they felt supported and then replicate that. So I think these plan the plans this year are more aligned and are um reflect Enfield's plan last year more with some of the key strategies on professional development pink to put around pacing the use of um assessments whether it's M
028class state test. >> That's great. That's great to hear that. >> Yeah. >> You know, because there has been a a year of testing those things and seeing only positive outcomes from Enfield. So to know that taking those lessons learned and being able to duplicate them across the district, it was great. >> And I think learning from schools even outside of the STEM plan. So thinking about really intentional um schoolwide intervention cycles. So that's something that was started in a couple of our elementary schools last year and they resulted in a lot of growth for students. We saw where it was the whole school was kind of like on an eightweek cycle where we were we were revisiting the data and changing up groups at the same time. And so this year all eight of
029our elementary schools are doing that and you see that reflected in heights plan and that's direct result of looking at a successful practice in one of our buildings and growing that elsewhere. Right. So, sorry to go back to the the second piece, but about thinking more of the whole student um is there I mean it sounds like you're actually seeing it as more of an opportunity. So, maybe it's not that we're having to do any tradeoffs, but is there I I guess is there streamlined ideas for that too? And is there specific areas that they're emphasizing? So, I'll say last year there was a school plan that was really focused on caregiver communication. So, setting up a system for that. What's the newsletter going to look like? Who is it going to, you know, who's
030going to contribute to that newsletter? How is it going to be shared with the community? And that was in close partnership with parents and caregivers. So, that system set up. So although that isn't on the that's not on the plan anymore because now there's a system that's and we can use that newsletter as an example for other schools and norm around weekly communications home because that was a um connecting with caregivers was a big component of last year's plan. Um and also how are we engaging students because there was more of um a focus on absenteeism and so setting up some of those systems don't even plan another year to continue it. I I'm so sorry that just made me be quiet. Can you can you um I know that the last time that we
031heard from uh principal right >> yes from Boon that it sounded like things that that kind of creative approach to home room felt like it was having a positive impact. Do you know offhand if they I don't know is there any like data that supported whether that students feel more engaged or coming to school more often or maybe not in time but just curious >> it's hard to um it's hard to say isolate if that in and of itself was the factor but that is was a really innovative thoughtful way for students to be put in the home when based on educators they had a direct connection with. >> Yeah. >> Um and was really positive and wellreceived. So that's another great example of something to continue. >> Yeah, I would be very curious to
032go this year and they got any anecdotal feedback from two more questions. So I want to check into this. Other things will have questions too just to manage time specific. Um okay, one question that I had um was just thinking about test scores and performance. Something that I think about a lot and um when when a student is getting like a four on a math test, we can have a good sense that they probably have a good mastery of the standards because they're getting a fourth. And when they get a one or a two, I feel like there's just so many more questions that come up about like why did they get a one or a two? Do they really need to know the standards? Like what factors actually went in? Was it about the
033test taking? Was it were they hungry? 10,000 things. >> Okay. So then I was looking at one of the plans for um I think it was in the uh I think it was in the DJM plan and you guys were talking a little bit about phonics. Um no, not phonics, I'm sorry, reading fluency. Um and and so like whenever we're looking at reading, there's a lot of ways to look at reading. Phonics is, you know, how you pronounce the words. Fluency is how fast you read. Comprehension is how well you understand. All of those are aspects of reading. So I noticed that there was a lot of emphasis um or at least portion on fluency. Um and then that just made me start to think about like all the reasons why somebody might have trouble
034with fluency. I mean from just that they're not very good readers or they have ADHD or they have you know another 50,000 other explanations. Um, so that's just my setup to my question, which is kind of like I'm wondering about like a like an individual student approach so that there's a certain number of students that are passing and I'm just kind of wondering how or if um, you know, as part of these plans or just as part of teachers looking at this like how you know who's or how we're looking at each person that isn't passing and trying to sort of figure out what do they what does each person need? like this person, you know, I'm just I know this is beyond the school system, but this person needs to be on ADHD medication.
035You know, this person needs to wear noise cancelling headphones because they can't concentrate. This person needs help with like reading and phonics and things like that and that's why the fluency is low. So, I'm just a little bit curious about if that plays a role or you know. >> Yeah. So, it it absolutely does. So, one thing uh is requirement of the state is that there is a threshold uh between level two and three on the New York state test where we are required to individually review each student that scores at or below that in the context of other measures of achievement. So yes, we have the state test score, but then we look at MCL class for example or classroom assessments or at the middle school grades from from the courses of the subject
036areas and uh using that collection of data to say um what do we think contributed to to this child's score on this test and what supports do we have in what supports are in place for this child? And if there aren't, do we feel like they're needed? Right? So, does does that performance on that test match the performance on other measures of achievement? If it doesn't, it's probably more likely a like I don't know, it was a bad day or like the test format or whatever. But if it's consistent, um making sure that they are either if it's content in a content lab, uh like at the middle schools, we have different structures for support. Some are more study skills at the labs where it's working on really about how do I organize my work
037for completion versus like how do I do the math, I should say. So it's there is an individual process for each of those kids. Also each of our schools have as part of their MTSS structures the multi-tered systems and support. Um we look both in PL so at the grade level PL level reviewing data on a regular basis and and putting into place supports either for immediate uh implementation like these these kids didn't get this concept in math this week based on exit ticket data. So, we're going to do another lesson for these children or kind of those eightweek cycles looking and saying, "Okay, we've done another progress monitoring and we have a bunch of kids that are still struggling with bow teams, right? So, we're going to put put a group together for that."
038So, um I guess there's the data conversations are happening on a cycle at different levels within each school. Um and it is individualized and also, you know what I mean? We also look at across level because the fluency goal was for example seeing that we had really good accuracy on the M class in the grade levels four and five. So kids were reading accurately but not fluently. And when you have more than 30% of students are struggling with a skill. That's not about intervention. That's about what are we doing in the in the classroom to to help support all kids. Right? It's not very efficient to say we're going to make an individualized plan when it's something that many kids are needing support with. >> But I have a kind of a follow-up question to
039that. Being with ADHD, my meds have worn off. So I forgive me if I trail. I should have written this down. Um, so okay. Thank you. Now, now it's back. So thinking about kind of to Adam's point, but also I think about anecdotally what I see from helping my own children in their work, supporting them and how vastly different every teacher is and especially at the middle school level. Just every teacher does the standardsbased grading differently, has different ways about doing things. And so just I think you know helping students and then thinking there there's no system that is the same throughout each classroom and I understand the need for autonomy for teachers but as we're talking about curriculum and and supporting students is there any and I always think about what we can do
040as a board. What can we do to make this better? What policies can we look into? And so when I see when I see the difficulties in trying to understand how I can help support the students in my home, I see that lack of synergy and connection between even the teachers within one school. And so is that I mean is that something that falls under anything the ICSD can do as a district? Is that something we can do as a board to to to implement policies where that standardsbased grading has some sort of crossover between classrooms to make it easier for students to understand expectations and and caregivers to support their students with those expectations to work towards twos, threes, and eventually fours. So if I'm hearing your question, >> I know it might not
041have made sense. It makes sense here. >> Is basically can we improve um support for students through well well I'm just going to try to answer it. professional development and time for teachers to collaborate could support uh more common experience for the student. And I think hearing from you know you sharing that experience and having different students or in your in your own home um as they go throughout the day is a that's a data point. And so policy from where I see the conversations that happen in PLC's and the professional development that we offer and that feedback loop can help support the situation immediately rather than keeping it the same and trying to craft a policy that's going to make it better. Like I I think asking for example the secondary level there are
042department leaders who are teacher leaders and asking them hey you know we'd like to open up some time for communication between your departments on based grading and how it's playing out in your course because if you as a you know and at the middle school there are team times so you can request to meet with a team. Um, and actually some teams communicate out to families as a team to grow that consistency for the student from teacher to teacher. Um, so I think we I think your question highlights something we can do better at and I don't know um if policy is the way forward as much as just an immediate conversation about it. Follow Yeah. And I think one strategy that you'll see in the district plan that is that is kind of focused
043on on what you're talking about is the um implementation of data strategies at the grade level. So um we implemented data strategist one for building at elementary that is really helping to to facilitate those those problem solving process and data cycles at the elementary school. At the middle schools, we had one person that was an architect coordinator. We have uh as a result of these plans um shifted that so now there is data strategies for sixth grade, seventh grade and eighth grade at both and those teacher leaders are um facilitating some of those team conversations. So once per week facilitating a team conversation that is looking directly at a shared data set. So, for example, looking at um the the percentage of students getting a 1, two, three, or four on a grade across a
044a grade level so that we can look at how does that differ across classrooms, how does that differ across different groups of students and why might that be happening, right? Um so supporting more um intentional I guess use of that time around shared data sets and protocols is one way to elevate those conversations and the kind of making practice more transparent and shared amongst a team that we know what's happening in each other's room. Um, like another example of something that might happen with that data strategy has been a team is doing something like a slice protocol where everybody brings their homework that they gave for the last for the last three days and we look at that across all subjects and classes and say like what is the student experience and how does it
045differ what where do we go from there >> working towards that. So I want to I think I what I was trying to say maybe over complicated a bit is um these experiences for me highlight needed structures and so an example of a data strategist and and focusing and prioritizing that structure I think is pretty important. >> Okay. Well, thanks. Um, I think we might want to bring this uh this item to a close for now because I want to make sure we get to our our next item. And before we get to the next item, we're going to just backtrack to a couple of items that we passed over. Um, let's go back to item and thank you both very much. I'm the only reason why I wasn't formally thanking you is because you're
046not done yet and we have one more. >> But you can thanks. >> Um, so thanks for that. Um, so going back to item 3.1, we just have to approve our minutes from the May 27, 2025 work session. And you and I have such a hands. So are you okay with those? >> I'm okay with that. >> I'm also okay with those. Um, so that's good. Um, the next item is item 4.1. We have to elect a chairperson for this year for our um for our committee. And uh I'll open the floor up to see if there are any people that are interested in that for this year. I'm interested for what um should I say? So, I'm I'm interested. Um I love this stuff. I love curriculum and instruction. It's like my my job
047and my career. Um and I think like Erin, what you honestly what you said a minute ago sort of resonates a lot in terms of policy. I think like you know the board's role of governance. I think a lot does come up with policy. They're not tending to get in the way of any of the initiatives that are happening and we'll sort of strat PLC's etc. But I do think that there's ways that we can support and hopefully accelerate the work being done around teaching and learning through board policies. And I don't know, I miss like facilitating meetings, elevating voices, like my job once upon a time. Um so I'm humbly interested in it. Yeah. Quick, >> I'll also throw my hat in the ring. Not uh it's a hard job and as a new
048board member, I must say sometimes it helps to wait watch for a year before you join in. So, I'll just throw my hat out there as well. >> Uh and I um have enjoyed being the chair for the last two years. um I'm okay uh you know passing on to somebody else for for this year. I plan to be a very active uh member on the committee regardless of whether I run the meetings or not. Um and it might be nice to just be able to kind of participate and not necessarily facilitate. Um but happy to help out whoever uh whoever is the next chair and I'll I'll definitely be uh be active behind the scenes and in the meetings as well. So I'm okay not not doing this. Um, so, so let's open it
049up for um, I guess for nominations. Um, I don't know how to do this. We just kind of go. >> I think we both self-nominated. >> Okay. >> I think it's just a matter of voting. >> Um, all right. Well, Jacob went first. Uh, so I'll say um, we can take a vote. All in favor of having Jacob chair will pass >> two one. >> Um >> yes you can take over. >> Okay. >> Thank um all right. I guess it is time for us to go into the overview of assessment data. You have a presentation. We are excited to watch and uh should we ask questions as we go or should you want us to wait to conclude >> as you please? >> Yeah. Ask questions as we go >> then you should start
050to wait for the >> well the slide is coming up. I do just want to share the folks that may be watching. at home if anybody watched. If you are interested in seeing the plans themselves, they are all posted on the district website under uh the about us tab accountability. Um so you can find the school plans and the district plan there. >> Folks at home are having a hard time hearing. >> Oh, but sounds like the microphones are not adjustable. So maybe we'll just need to speak up for it. >> Louder. >> Okay. All right. fun. >> Um, great. So, today we brought just a few data points. This is, uh, you know, we can we could look at lots and lots of different data. So, today we're just focusing on the three through
051eight New York State exams. Um, those were taken last spring. And, um, as you can see up here is a line chart showing trends for the last 12 years for all three subjects. English language arts or ELA, math and science. Um, the yellow line is ELA, the darker purple line is science, and the the red line is our math there. So, um, if you go to the next slide, Trisha. Oh, I have it. I'm sorry. I didn't test this. Um so you can see from all this one one you know celebrating that in all three subjects we had an an increase some more than others over last year so year-over-year increase um and we are also at or above where we were at with the exception of science I'll say but for ELA or math
052precoid right so that is also something we are happy about. I don't know how to make it go forward. >> Oh, here we are. Great. >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. >> Do we have this data available by school? >> Um, yes. Yes. And schools have that data. Yes. How do we find that? >> Um, you do not have that data. I would say schools have that. That is something new to provide to you all. But >> you guys have the presentation. Um, yes. So, ELA or English language arts. Um, we have put a a lot of focus in over the last few years and we are really excited to celebrate that. We we saw significant increases last year for the first time in many years. Right. An eight percentage point increase overall
053in grades three through eight. Um in as I said five out of our eight elementary schools we saw double digit increases, right? So over a 20% increase in one of our elementary schools. Um that's really incredible, right? Um and I think you know you can't contribute it to one cause or the other but thinking about that we are in um year four of our implementation or of our universal implementation of the foundational skills program at grades K2 for ELA. We adopted our three through five comprehension curriculum last year universally and the use of MCL class and more intentional intervention. Right? So like all of those I think are contributing factors that we saw. >> That's that's amazing. >> Yeah. >> Very very exciting. >> And when I shared this with teachers at summer um at
054our MTSS summit like teachers like really like this is the result of lots of hard work on the part of educators and students right and their families. So um we're really happy about that and it's one year right but like we are excited about the trend also that those increases although um the amount varied across subgroups it was universal across all sub all groups of students right so that's that is really great um and that we saw the most needs in grades three and four is also exciting just thinking about compounding impacts of multiple years of implementation Yeah, I did this time. Yes. Um, for math, we saw a a smaller increase, but an increase nonetheless. Um, and again in in several of our elementary schools and one significant increase. Um and then looking at
055grades three and eight, right? Grade eight math math proficiency is something um where we've we've had our lowest proficiency rates for many years. And so seeing bigger increases there is is also exciting. Um but this is also when you think about the implementation that we see in the plans and district work or bringing more focus to math through our professional development efforts this year. This is in response to the data, right? So, how do we keep the foot on the gas with literacy while also also increasing our focus on math with more intentionality? >> I mean, that's particularly notable with grade eight because that's a lot of the deeper work that we've been hearing about at least in the new uh curricula, our K5. >> So, that's like we're either seeing that continue or that
056would be and map strategists. >> Yeah. >> Or >> Yeah. So, definitely more PD. Yeah. >> Yeah. I would say too last year um the um prior to the math strategist that we started this year, there was the math network. So it was someone from each school going to monthly meetings to you know talk about professional development needs um research teaching strategies and resources and sharing it out and the math strategist role just grows that. So, I also think the work that Cat Nichols did in collaboration with educators last year around pacing guides and getting um getting through Eureka mass squared content. Um that's ana example of you know adopting a curriculum but enhancing the supports around it to implement it take takes time. >> I'm going to put you on the spot. Do you
057know uh offhand how many more uh specifically students of color uh were taking algebra at 8 grade? I do not have that number off hand, but that's certainly look into that. >> I do know even if we've seen like a a similar kind of increase to some extent given the goal. So, >> um >> it's okay. >> I don't want to misspeak and I again I can reshare we did a presentation in curriculum committee last year where we looked at that and I would say we're not where we want to be in terms of participation, right? where I would say that representation of students in algebra at 8th grade does not reflect the population of the school as a whole. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Uh speaking of algebra 1 um at the middle school
058level, this next table um so if we went back to the first chart looking at math students that are not included in in the in that percentage of proficiency are math are students in seventh and eighth grade that take the math regions in lie of the math exam. So these are kids that um accelerate into algebra and then if you accelerate into geometry even even in grade seven eight. So you can see from here that um as we continue to uh increase participation in algebra 1 at the middle school level um performance continues to be very strong on the regions exam. Um so your passing gives you assessment credit the high school level. a 99% pass rate last year and at over 50% of kids at very high levels on that region. So thinking that
059at 85 plus >> how how normal is that in New York state or abnormal? >> Yeah, I don't have the numbers off hand but let me let's get back from you. But I like to think they're exceptions. >> Exceptional better than >> And you I know you're about to go into sort of >> and plus. Yeah. Yep. >> Let's call it but I am curious like you you shared celebrations from LA and it sounds like there are certainly much to celebrate. Do you also have anything on your mind in terms of like what this means in terms of next steps either based on highlighting the successes or addressing areas where you feel like we need to change course? >> Yeah, I mean absolutely. I think the the one thing that's been mentioned several times is
060the math strategist and those map release days for professional development for elementary teachers. that is in direct response to I think um that we're not seeing the accelerated growth that we are seeing at ELA. Um so we want to provide more support to teachers in implementing the math program at high levels with it. Um so that is one strategy. Um also another piece not mentioned in is in the plan is uh that we are going to be implementing um partnering with a company to provide tutoring to students um and really focus on that in our five identified schools because a tension we have and that um really I think was elevated last year as we um got better and more focused on providing intervention for reading is that there's not enough time, right? Often times
061kids are struggling in multiple areas and we have to make decisions about we have a half an hour uh to provide intervention, right? Um how do we do both? Um and so we are looking towards tutoring that can pop in um before school, after school, at the middle school, thinking about during study hall, like ways to uh provide more targeted support, especially in math since we have less support in that area. We have reading teachers in all of our buildings. We do not have math support teachers in any of our buildings. Right. So that is um that's a that's a strategy we're trying. Yeah. >> Right. By reading teacher you mean by like reading inter like specialist or >> certified teacher? Yes. Certified reading teachers we have in all elementary and middle schools that can
062provide additional support. Yeah. >> Can you say a little more about the about the company and what the tutoring looks like and just how that works. >> Sure. Sure. So the company's name is Lera. Um and they uh do although they provide tutoring in both ELA and math. math is kind of their area of specialty. Um, and it is it's virtual tutoring, but it's done by humans. There's no AI involved in in it. So, um, Lata is the one that who hires the tutors and trains them. They use a curriculum that is aligned uh or built off of a program called Illustrative Math, which is aligned with Eureka Math approach. That's one of the reasons we we ended up with this company is looking at their tutoring curriculum was uh most closely aligned to Eureka
063mass squared. Um and Desmos at the secondary level compared to other companies we've looked at. We're looking for that cohesiveness. Um and what it will look like is uh students will be will meet so research around the impact of tutoring is is really looking for 90 minutes a week for for impact and so either be three times for 30 minutes or twice for 45 minutes. Um and our target is to have that in place for 25 students in each of our identified buildings. So we are in that process right now of of looking and it's like a complex process of like who looking at the data around who can benefit from additional support in math but also then thinking about accessibility so transportation right so that's that's something we look at especially at the elementary
064level and we look at how we can leverage like at BJM kids that are at Belgi or Gak or in academic press are are we can support those kids more easily because we can walk them to where they are versus somebody that um has to get on a bus and go home, right? So, um it's I would say a pilot year, right? This is the first time we're doing this and and really looking for impact on you can share more as it goes along. Yeah. >> So, so these students would be sitting at a computer basically with an instructor. >> Yes. And the the instructor will always have their camera on. Um, we are going to have a a teacher leader who is a tutoring coordinator in each building to kind of manage the what's
065a a.167 stipens on campus. So to kind of manage the scheduling, uh, LERA allows us to basically um, sit alongside and watch in on any session. So a principal or that tutoring coordinator can jump on to see. We get reports at the end of each session both around um achievement in terms of like meeting the targets of the lesson that was taught as well as engagement. So with the students and you know so we get that data and so that tutoring coordinator will be sharing that back with teachers to kind of close that feedback loop and make sure that um kids are making progress. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm very excited about that idea, so I'm happy to hear about it. I I just had a couple of quickly just paying for it
066through the grants that were given for the improvement plans. >> Yeah, we're still using Yeah, school improvement grant money to pay for it. >> And then just one question about like teachers, current employee employed teachers. Was that something like did they have an option to do tutoring or was that something you guys discuss with the teachers? So there's actually a posting that closes tomorrow for math tutors. We have ex zero applicants. >> I mean and that it's not that's not like it's just like when we thought about how to provide this capacity, people are busy, right? And so um looking for a a vendor to provide the service for us. There's no stepping like sort of teachers can and and Lata is ability to partner with us that if we have if uh if we
067did have teachers that had applied to that they were going to tutor through the LEA platform I mean be paid by us at their teacher hour payment for that. Yes. >> What is the cost of the partnership? >> Um I would have to you have to plan it's around um >> if you don't know. Yeah, I can provide like a per student cost and a total a total cost. Yes, it's like around 1,200 per student um total for the year. >> 30 weeks for n Yeah. Yep. >> Would we be able to get like >> I can I do that? Yes. >> And it's all like again all paid through through the existing synced grants >> with those grants. Is it required to spend a certain like percent on like is it wide open about
068how it's spent or is it >> wide open is it's not wide open no >> no um I mean it has to be directly directly tied to our plan so we have to show that direct alignment between we're spending this and how is that connected to the key strategies in our plan. Um yes, >> great. >> I I also want to add one one thing that we heard from caregivers and parents because part of this process is asking the groups that are targeted by the state, what do you need? and after school support um competes with athletics. And so having something that's flexible that can be done um not always the traditional after school hours when we have late buses and having more flexibility was the feedback that we received. I think it's important to
069note that >> are like hotspots offered for families who have like if they don't have internet access and things like that like how do we work through those equity issues right I think we can absolutely I mean we have provided those before and we can I think that's another thing that was very attractive about Lata is that they are willing to work with us for to have kids tutored from home they don't have to be in school so like if we know a child uh has to go on the bus home but we can get agreement with the family that we we are confident we can we can get the child on a computer we can provide whatever that support is needed in terms of like equipment uh a child can receive tutoring from home
070rather than have to stay at school. So we have maximum suckability in like the structures we can use to make that happen with this partner whereas some other partners were like nope they have to be in school setting or whatever that's and we do have community partnerships to provide Wi-Fi if needed. That's something that um hotspots that um co highlighted as a need that we've been able to continue. I would just I'm sure the same thing. I I'm very like agree completely. Very exciting to have tutoring opportunities. I I have so many questions swirling around access and I mean even thinking about putting a kid in front of a computer especially when they don't have an adult standing right next to them for 45 minutes expecting them to do I can imagine many standing up
071and walking away and the you know so there's questions about that and just so like kind of the social emotional support but also I mean so many access questions so I think it would be really interesting to hear you How many of the first like if you identify the first group like how many of them even accepted the offer given all of the conflicting challenges or just like their trust in the system and and everything else. Um, and then kind of pretty regularly if if students were actually able to kind of especially on a younger level about whether they're able to follow through and access it and how got bumped off of the internet times or couldn't make it to school when they, you know, just all the things. It just seems like >> I
072assume that the company also talks about some of those barriers and how to overcome them. But it sounds like >> if it works, it'll be great. >> Yeah. Okay. And and we're we're looking at tutoring in terms of like eight week cycles and some kids might participate in all three of those A cycles throughout the year or four of those cycles. So perhaps like check early January would be a really good time to invite some of the folks that are hoping to leave this in our building to come and share their experiences at home. >> What I've done in the interest of time is I'm I've added some next steps for us to like request information like more about tutoring so you can then talk more about it. shall we move ahead to uh and
073it does say they're both up here Jacob so that um yes uh for folks that aren't familiar with this MC class is the platform through which the assessment dibbles 8 is administered here in in city school district um these are looking at composite scores so this is of a composite of lots of different skills that are assessed by different tasks. We talked about those a little bit last year. And you can see um this is looking districtwide. So this is K5 with a few sixth graders because we used it uh were experimenting with it at sixth grade last year. Um that we um saw grow great growth right district right from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. We decreased the percentage of students that were at the well below performance
074level by 11 percentage points, right? And we increased the at or above by 14 percentage points. That's really awesome. I would say what we are looking for, right? And I think it's a sign of a healthy system of curriculum and supports is that that well below or below is around 20%. So that's like our goal, right? >> 20% in red and yellow. >> Yes. Yes. That would be where I would like getting below that is is really really challenging, right? Um and that would uh that would be a healthy system, right? >> Looks like it's 40 to 50%. >> That's 30 36 there right now at the bottom, but the end of year was 23 below and 13%. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I will say like at fifth grade we were under that 20% at
075the end of the year. So great. We we're we're making good progress. Um >> good. >> Yeah. So this is district data. The next slides are provided to us by Amplify which is the company that has MClass and is comparing us giving us comparisons to a national data set. That's one I think really nice benefit of of Amplify and its reach. So this is looking at sample size of around 700,000 students nationally for grades K through three. Um the green line represents Ithaca in this case and the blue line is that national user set. This is based on last year's data. Um we're looking at the percentage of students that were at or above um at the beginning, middle, and end of year. So three data points. You'll see that um for grades K through
076two, Ithaca was uh significantly below the national sample at the beginning of the year in terms of that. And we um like second grade we are meeting right the national sample by the end of the year. So that is again evidence of effective instruction and intervention for kids um and closing that gap. And by third grade we are above the sample across the board. >> The next Yeah, go ahead. I'm just curious like so when I look at like the especially I guess first grade at the beginning of the year >> um I guess like are there theories around why that was the case like why the first graders were starting off significantly lower than the average. I mean I think this is you know this is year one so um just looking at that
077we we've looked more at like of our the subs skills we're looking a lot at like phmic awareness versus uh uh you know accurate decoding and thinking about uh our curriculum our foundational skills program and is it providing enough practice in certain areas. So we are digging into that data more deeply now. It's not as though >> and similarly for the speed test question are we going to be able to see this data disagregated by school type of like subgroup of student. >> So so we we have that data and buildings have that. So let me work with Mary and Dr. Brown to see how you want to provide that to you. That's good. Um I was like that is not like uh principles data strategists have this broken down by lots of different ways
078that they're using. Um so >> I'm asking more I guess >> for you as the board. Yeah, >> I guess both from the board but also I think like from the community perspective of like you know we have a really cool tool like we have the equity report card. Seeing this within the equity report card is something I would love to be able to direct community members to or like I'm the you know proud parent of a kid at South Hill. Um I'd love to be able to see how we're doing at South Hill and I imagine like folks would go other schools would feel the same way. Um, so is that a standard practice though to >> I was going to say we have very intentionally in the equity report card not disagregated across
079schools um in in that tool and we can that's probably a great conversation to have at another time about the reasoning behind that and consider that how do we learn from data and not judge from it knowing that there's lots of places where you can find that comparative data but um let's put that on a a list to talk more about >> we'll do Um and then the final slide is is looking at kind of the inverse. So percentage of students that are at the well below. So these are students that are significantly below grade level. Uh the red line being Ithaca, blue line being the same national we just looked at. again seeing how we started the year um in grades K through two above some places significantly above with many more of our
080centers of our students at that well below and how made considerable progress and closing that gap throughout the year. So right now the work we just finished benchmarks for this year. So we have a new collection of data for students. We're doing some analysis on looking at some regression over the summer and thinking about that and how kids that were getting supports last year probably need continue to support kind of like firm up those newer skills, right? So getting that in place really quick for kids. But we're excited about this, right? excited about the data and um the work that went shared. Well, as a as a followup to that, I am also very excited about so much of the data that you shared today and I'm curious how how is this celebrated like with
081teachers and school leaders and what does the district do to be able to really kind of celebrate and recognize all the folks that are I mean students for sure are doing the the brunt of the work but with everyone like how how how is it to start doing that and are there ways that we as a board can help kind of elevate that information and also um yeah just curious how how you already are with recognizing educators and communities. So I would say that um building leaders in collaboration with teacher leaders and their building you know by building we're looking at this data as Lynn mentioned the retreat that happened and looking at the systems but also starting the year talking about it. here's one data set as is a way of having a shared
082vision for where we're going to go next >> um was really important. So it definitely was a discussion at the beginning of the year when staff were gathered for openings and and building leaders are leaving um alongside with their data strategists. Yep. the conversation of okay let's look at where we're starting the year and the work that we did last year this could be a great opportunity to partner with PTA council as well to make sure you know PTAs have an opportunity to be able to share this with their communities as well >> thank you so much for sharing and guess what exciting Lots lots of fun work to do. Are there additional questions from any of our board members about this presentation? Okay. Well, in that case, um, we now move into other discussion
083items. Terms of other items, I do not believe that we have any plan, but I wanted to see there are things that folks would like to raise in this last I have two things. Great. One, um I think the 4:30 start time is really uh when you talk about equity, it is just not conducive to most people's lives and work schedules and exploring at least making it 4:45, potentially 5 and keeping tight meetings would be important. I'm going to just throw that out there. And then uh two in the interest of discussing meeting structures um last year we had some really great sessions going to PLC meetings and I wonder if curriculum would serve and learn more as a committee if we took it on the road to some of those. And so instead of
084having this formal meeting of presentation of slides, really just, you know, go and engage and have discussion items in those environments like we did last year, but but potentially have those take the place of this meeting just in the interest of, you know, feet on the ground getting that feedback from teachers doing the work and building leaders. It was so valuable. So I'm just throwing those two things out there >> that captured the note around like the meeting time and I know that that's something like we can discuss with Mary um just can you give for the sake of I guess myself and anyone else who's not aware can you just talk a little bit more about the PLC start >> so I mean Mary can explain what PLC's are the history of them and
085I can happily share my perspective as a board member >> um but I don't want to get into the technical aspects of what those are. Well, they were initiated um last year. We had certain topics um listening circles that were optional for educators to come to during their PLC time on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month to discuss topics such as standard space grading um and inclusion were the two topics. Um in past years we've also done instructional rounds um at buildings where we toured the buildings with an intuitive purpose and a note catcher around whether it's math instruction really great instructions and a launch of that you know there were different topics that we used and that's another format of hearing directly in the building hearing directly from educators ers and leaders
086and I found it to be a really great way where it could be a targeted focus like the standardsbased grading conversation we learned or I mean I don't mean to speak for everyone else I learned so much more in that session than I have learned in half a dozen of these meetings um and and it you know and it's a way to collaborate and ask you know educators what they want to talk about in a format that is just a little less formal that really lends to just sort of more of a cander and a give and take than this in the room presentation model. I would just say I like that idea. No objection. I want to do what you're saying. I don't know that I would want to eliminate the the meeting when
087we all get together because I think it's nice to go out in the field and then I think it's nice to kind of pull together. I mean obviously it's just my opinion and we can do whatever. >> I don't mean eliminating every meeting. >> Sure. But, you know, some months it can be very hard to do more than one thing. And so, I'm just pointing that out. >> What you're reminding me of just like having, you know, making sure that the format matches the intention, right? Like we really want to get sense of like what say is teacher perspective on X issue then what you're describing makes a ton of sense. Like I know for me also with one of the weirdest things of being a board member is not actually being like not visiting
088schools in any capacity. I think that being able to do that from the perspective of like just seeing what it's like what team is like especially connected to initiatives makes a lot of sense and there are like times I think like tonight honestly like with the data presentation where this sort of format makes a lot of sense so I fear it and I'm talking about >> well maybe that's couldn't agree with I think that they are so so so valuable changed my perspective dramatically on issues and I think that it's really hard for us as board members who are not in the classroom to make >> a lot of these decisions without being able to have >> even even decisions to continue talking about something without being able to hear from educators. So also thank
089you Larry for organizing that and and allowing a space where frankly I mean educators speak very candidly and not always you know in support of what's going on or with ideas about ways say we want to do things better. So I think the insights are way more you know coupling that like looking maybe looking at the data to be able to know what areas we want to focus on then >> yes and also thank you to Katherine Sera and David Eley who helped organize those pain and I think one other thing to point out it's meeting teachers where they are during their time it's not asking them to take more time out of their days Yeah, >> it's it's like being in their environment and really soaking it in. >> Hopefully that's so I've captured
090I know like we all capture perspective items about like what to look for next time. Um we will um do again the setting trans meeting and make sure that is published with advanced notice for the public. And with that because we have four minutes perhaps we should stand for a few minutes before the rest of our evening. We will close the public meeting. >> Thank you everyone.