001We're good. >> Trouble setting it first. We'll call tonight's work session to work. So this evening is a work session and it is being livereamed so people can watch after the fact after um the meeting's over if they'd like to learn more about our strategic plan. The entire focus of tonight's work session is about strategic planning. So we are reaching the final year of our current strategic plan. Um we've had a lot of success with the strategic plan we've had in the last four years. Um we've increased grad rate which I know you know well. Academic rates are coming up. Um, we've provided a lot of new student pathways such as welding at the high school, CNA certification. We've added a lot of opportunities for kids such as esports, elementary band orchestra. Um, a variety
002of wonderful things have come out of the last strategic plan and I'm going to present a summary and a regular board meeting in a future date kind of closing that plan out um, at the end of this year and share those celebrations. But the structure that we used for the last strategic plan has been very successful. We've been able to move through with smart goals and action steps and achieve a lot of things in a short period of time. So we would like to keep that same structure and system to start a new strategic plan looking forward to the next four years of time which it sounds shocking to say out loud would be 2030. So, we've been working under the um tagline of blue as in Panthers blueprint 2030 um for a new strategic
003plan that would last us the next four years. So, since we had a lot of success with the last format of how we did the strategic plan with smart goals, um embedding it into school improvement plans, things of that nature, we would like to just copy that same system, but relook at all of our data and come up with our new plan. So tonight is a little unique because a lot of times when we bring back data, we're talking about progress monitoring and goals and where we're at. So we're talking about what successes we've had and what next steps are there to come. Tonight we're going to talk about data and you have the full data packet in front of you. We completed the comprehensive needs analysis. All of this data. It's 100 pages almost
004of data in your packet just about James County schools. And in this packet, this data, we use source data from outside of our own data to get as many different um lenses to look at our corporation as possible. So you'll see a lot of data. One of our favorite sources is Indiana Youth Institute. They have countywide data for every school corporation in state available. So that's a lot of the data clips. Um you'll see data that is assessment data from IDOE and other points from IDOE. You'll see a wide variety of census data, a lot of things about Jennings County and Jennings County schools particular, but you are going to hear a presentation this evening from a wonderful committee of people that are represented by a small group. We had about four times as many
005on the committee. Um but this wonderful group of administrators and teachers were willing to come tonight and represent that whole committee who dug into this work and would like to summarize the data and then discuss the action steps that are recommended from coming out of this. So they are going to just have an opportunity to present um open floor for us to have Q&A to ask them any questions or clarification you would like and then um that will be the close out of this evening is just presenting those overall action steps. So the process they took to get through um from where we started with this being collected by central office staff uh to having goals set today was an entire day meeting. We have a committee of teachers and a committee of administrators together
006who came together. We presented the data for about four four and a half hours that morning. Um so an hour presentation tonight is quite a condensed version. Um and then they had time to process that information in a variety of ways and we divided into groups that had multiple perspectives. So each group that was processing the information had different voices at the table. Then similar to if you were on the board when we did this four years ago, uh what we did, they had a sticky dot. So as we looked at the information and priorities seemed to bubble up that we saw that were needs in our data, they could prioritize all of the data choices on the wall with a sticky choice sticky dot that was an affinity grouping of what the priorities they
007felt were most important were. From that that was grouped into words and then we did we started with calling it buckets, didn't we? Instead of action areas, we grouped into five action areas. We originally called them buckets and that's where we got today. So, they're just going to like walk backwards from that, deconstruct the work we did to show how the data matched up to where these action areas are you have in front of you. Um, so I'm not going to hold it up then very much anymore. I'm just going to mention what data sources are in here. Um, so you have IYI data, state data, the surveys that we sent out to community, the staff, parents, and students. You'll see those referenced in this presentation. And then you'll also see us speaking from an
008accountability model lens. You remember that riveting presentation that Carrie gave on the new accountability model um last board meeting. It took us about an hour to get through because it's that complicated the new state accountability model. We are working through knowing those are the benchmarks set for the state for us going ahead. So making sure that as we're making our own goals and action steps, we're not doubling the work. We're streamlining into a very clear purpose. So that you'll also hear discuss and then the final piece will be them presenting by each bucket. So I have the first bucket is panther well-being and then we will have second uh action area academic achievement and growth operational effectiveness positive school culture and climate and then fiscal responsibility. So to kick it off for us Panther well-being
009Dustin Roller and Melissa Patterson not to interrupt but it won't quite follow yours. We They're all over the place a little bit. So if you're trying to follow through here, they skipped around just according to their group and what slides should >> they're highlighting yes parts of the packet, not page by page. >> Okay. All right. Hi everybody. Good evening. Um so um Mr. controller and I are talking about Panther well-being and Panther well-being um is the overall goal is to create increase student and staff well-being because we know that student and staff well-being is the foundation uh to academic success, staff effectiveness and just our thriving overall school community. So through the strategic planning process, looking at data and and analyzing that and getting the stakeholder feedback, we identified key areas where we focused
010on efforts and we realized that those can make a meaningful impact. So the first one is um our community demographics and they highlight the importance of family engagement. So we understand that overall student well-being directly impacts all areas of the educational experience. So you'll see some census data here and in the 2024 census 5.9% of our community were preschool age which is 0 to four and 17.1 of our population was school age students 5 to 17. And then when you look continue to look at our overall community only 28.3% of the community have children. Um so it is not even half of our community that has uh children that that are in that school age. So during the strategic plan initial discussion and through that data uh from parent surveys that we had, it was
011evident that there was a need for community education and more partner resources. So these events will be developed. We're going to promote them through multiple communication forms and um receive feedback in efforts to continuously improve and address community well-being needs. So then we moved on to kind of that second piece of community resources and partnerships um to strengthen that strong collaboration because we all know that we cannot do this alone. Um, so we're going to continue to identify community needs, expand and ac access to resources for students and their families, and develop and strengthen partnerships um that we already have and try to invite new partnerships to support our students in the community at large. >> All right. And then the next one, which is the data point you see up here, is supporting students
012in poverty. And I think we all in this room know that one of our biggest struggles is students in poverty. with nearly 64% of our students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Um we have the second highest poverty rate of the 92 counties of our state um and finding ways that we can support those kids and start educating them to break that cycle of poverty. We've seen a homelessness has improved slightly but still remains among the highest in the state. One thing that we talked a lot about is we've seen a decrease um in the participation and assistance programs like SNAP, which we had a lot of questions talking about. Is that because of awareness? Is that because of access ability to apply? And how can we help families with that? Um and right now
013we have a lot of those resources that we're helping kids with. We have the hope food program. We have the um Panther Pantry at the high school. We're we're developing um the popup shop for clothing. A lot of those items are there, but how can we continue to expand that? And one thing at the high school level that's really important to us is how can we bring pride to those students that are using it? That's been one of the best things about the popup shop is those kids are getting money panther bucks to spend in the shop and the pride they have to actually go in and purchase their own thing with those panther bucks has been really really nice. Um, moving forward, we want to expand on our support systems, access to more resources,
014exploring sustainable funding options to help with our prek. Um, another thing that we see at the high school lot are our youth that are needing to be employed to help support their families. uh going forward with the new diploma, our goal is that as we get kids to that work release stage, those work-based learning experiences, how can we make those paid partnerships with students? So, they're still getting their their education, they're getting their credits for their opportunity to be in work work-based learning, but also receiving the money they need to help support families. All right. Um the next area we talked about is technology balance. Um, we all know the importance of being able to use technology as you get ready for the real world, whether that's college or the workforce. Um, and we know
015it's an essential part of educating. But as we all kind of shifted several years ago to this onetoone platform and utilizing technology, we also now realize that there there needs to be a balance um between the screen time and uh what kids are what kids are using technology. We want to really start having some conversations looking at the data, the research that has come out of students being more on technology and being able to find that healthy balance K to2 that best supports our students. >> And then the next portion that we really looked at was mental health. We all agreed and the survey showed the feedback that we got that was mental health was emerged as a top priority um across all stakeholder groups, staff, parents, students, community groups and um we can see
016the impact of that. On this slide it shows that 60% um of our students who are considered medically homebound um are due to anxiety or anxiety related conditions. Um, we also, as we were going through the data and looking at that, we also recognized a need for a transition process for students moving um, from residential or students getting um, pretty intensive support services back to school. So, trying to figure out how we can streamline that process and make sure that everyone is successful. Um, families, students, and staff all stressed that mental health supports were in their top three priorities according to survey feedback. Um, we see that parents and guardians said it um, second. Staff also reported a second. And then students, they worded it a little bit different, but help with stress and worries.
017That was one of their number one priorities. So, as you can see, this is something that I think we need to really spend a lot of time and the um, data shows that we need to spend a lot of time working into. And then while an overwhelming majority of parents, students, and staff agreed that students feel safe at school, there was a little bit of a discrepancy between staff, students, and then parents who agreed that students feel cared for and respected at school. So we need to investigate a little bit more. More work needs to be done to see why there is a difference of perception and to then go beyond that to identify those 7% of students who feel disconnected and create a partnership with a staff member, a resource to make sure that
018all of our students feel connected and that we um can communicate that to parents as well. Um so then parent feedback showed that increased student support services that was the most important outcome um that they that they pointed out for us to look at in the next three to five years. So as you can see um not only developing that but also figuring out how we're going to effectively communicate that is an important goal for us. And then absenteeism. The best way for us to ensure well-being of our students is that they're at school where we can help them and have these supports and these services. The 2021 2022 data showed that JCSC was one of the 10 highest school corporations for chronic absenteeism. The 2026 data shows great improvement. Um we are down to
019the 25th highest in the state, but obviously still not where we want to be. Um schools will continue along with the JCSC attendance committee to work with community resources and partners um to improve attendance rates daily. Our goal is to each year improve chronic absenteeism by 2%. Um along with offering incentives to students um you know at the high school level some of our best have been our shoes for showing up award. It is it it's was a silly idea that we came up with, but the number of kids who truly track their attendance because they want a chance to win a pair of free pair of shoes each nine weeks. Um, and the kids that will come in late and say, "I'm here today because if I wasn't, I'm out of the shoes competition."
020So, um, finding those incentives that engage kids, like you can always throw an incentive out, but if it doesn't engage and draw kids interest, it it doesn't work. So, um, continuing to work as a school corporation to find those incentives, um, and remove barriers for our students with their attendance. >> Thank you, Bobby. So, to summarize this section, I'm going to go back and share tonight, we are sharing any area that we looked at 100 pages of data and we are not looking to celebrate tonight. We're not looking to share successes. Tonight's work is where can we find ways to improve because although we've had some great successes in the last four years, there's always things we need to improve upon and work to be the best for kids. And so you're going to hear
021a lot of things are this is where we get better. This is what we need to do because we are looking to dial in on what are some areas that are unique that need support. And so in this section, what I would highlight is is we went through the hundred pages of data and student well-being kept bubbling up. And you will a couple facts that I'm sure jumped out at you. One of which being that we have the second highest poverty rate if you look at it from the perspective of free and reduced lunch in the state comparing all 92 counties. That is a very significant statistic and it also shows us that means everything that we look at we need to look at it from a different lens of how are we making sure
022we're supporting all of our populations all students and if there are barriers to programs or things that are needed how are we removing them so that statistic jumped up and again that's from IYI data so that is a state entity that publishes a book anyone can go look at it online um it's the 2026 kids count data book um we also Alo have one of the top homeless uh rates in the state. Now when I say the term homeless, I want to make sure that I share that data includes students who are what's called doubled up. So if um someone is not housed and they're living with um if parents choose to take their children and live with the grandparent, that's considered doubled up. And so that qualifies and that's a that's kind of an
023unusual way that they term that. So I just make sure I share that. And then the next one that really jumps out to me that I want to share is the number of our high school students who are employed. Um it is a very high percentage is not quite half but it's edging up to that. And when we have frequent conversations with our high school students about that reason um it is to help their family with finances. And one of the things that we significantly had to work with to improve graduation rate was helping students who were dropping out of school to help support their family financially. And so that's something that we're well aware of and the high schools worked really well with kids to help come up with alternatives to help them achieve
024both of those goals at the same time. Um, so that is the Panther well-being section. I'm going to kind of pause there. Did you have any questions about any of the data in that section or anything that they shared? Okay. So then the next section will be academic achievement and growth. And I have Dylan Boswell and Leslie Hill who are presenting for us. So we were going to start with our data. We know that you have seen a lot of the academic data for iLearn SAT and that kind of and those kind of items. So we wanted to start with that so you could just get a quick view and then we'll talk about kind of the direction we're heading. >> If you would like That's us. >> See what the next one is. We
025can tell. Is that operational? >> Oh, there we go. >> Okay, there we go. >> All right. So, these are um ELA um scores from third through 8th grade for three years. And so, we can see some pretty steady growth there um across the board. The next one will be math. Those are some dips we see, especially when we get to that sixth, seventh, and eighth grade that we're going to talk about. >> When we get here, we start looking at our uh special education data. And a really interesting point that we found or first, this is our I read data. Uh I read is really big right now. It is going from the third grade focus that it's been for many years now really to a second grade focus test. So, we're having to
026get kids more advanced faster, which has been a lot through our science and reading work, but developmentally wise, we got to catch up in that area. The state's continually moving that priority to second grade students passing that. Now, there's multiple opportunities as I move into third grade, but that's still a huge priority. Now, we've made massive successes. We've been down from 21 22 in the 60% to now almost every building being 89 plus. That's a huge growth, but it's still not good enough for us. That's our area to continually raise that as we go. Especially when you tie in the research with students at third grade and their reading rates and their futures and the jail processes that happen there and the percentages. We want to eliminate that for our students. Right? If we can
027start that foundation high and set them up for success early on, we're going to set up success all the way through for their future lives. Here we have our special education data. And the big point we talked about is with our decrease in enrollment in size that we've had over time that we all know, our special education percentage on the right is going up. So that's a very interesting point for us not only to focus on our tier one instruction in our classrooms, but also how are we approaching tier 2 and tier three to boost those students? What are we providing? What extra resources to help them? Then when you tie in all these massive tests and the stress and all of the mental health that we've talked about, we really have to be well-rounded
028in our approach to say, "Okay, we have to assist these students academically as well as emotionally to combat that with our higher percentage." The SAT slide is a lovely beautiful slide that I'll take >> favorite slide. So the first two are the reading and writing scores. And to me, this is interesting because those are pretty high. So the top score, the orange line is the state average. Our blue line is our current stores at the high school. So you can see there's not a large gap there. What's exciting is we've done a lot of science reading work at the younger grades and that foundation is being built. Those students are in roughly fourth grade right now. So that's going to continue to grow as we go through here. Now where you can see the discrepancy
029here is is the math. So the state average is that yellow line. It kind of blends in there and then ours is the red. So we're seeing a huge drop off within moving really from sixth grade into middle school and then into high school. So our priority priority f focus is to continually raise that. So we're starting to adopt. We've had such a focus on science of reading. Now we're looking into the science of math. What new ways can we teach math? What conceptually based items can we get? You know, students aren't going to a cash register and pay with cash anymore. So simple things like that we have to start thinking about because we're swiping cards. It's the new waste that we're relying on. So we're continually focusing on changing from reading being the
030focus and still prioritizing that. But also now we got to really support the math along the way. So, some of the district priorities that we came up with our meeting was working with these PD days that we have applied for the waiver for that hopefully we can get so that we can work as a corporation to um continue with the science of reading PD to add in science and math PD to strengthen all the STEM PD just all of those areas that um teachers just need time to learn and work and have conversations together and hopefully those days will really bring that to us. We're also going to use a common tracker to monitor students across the district. So students who move from one school to another will come with a common tracker so that
031a second grade teacher knows, okay, here's what my second grader accomplished at Brush Creek now that they're at MBE and with our transient population. That happens with a lot of kids. And so being able to have that one piece of paper or that one tracker that says, "Okay, here's here's where they were. Here's here's how they came to us." And then also aligning all of our initiatives towards improving the graduation rate which is incredible we know but there's always room for that. And so you know all of these steps at the elementary the middle school moving towards that idea of everyone every kid in Jennings County graduating with that diploma plus and even a little bit more. So Dylan and I decided to break it down kind of in grade strands starting with K through
032two and moving our way up. So our K to2 focus really is that foundational piece learning to understand okay letter sounds building that into words then building that into reading. If we don't have that students can't comprehend it's that first piece of the puzzle. So our first goal is really to have all students in our corporation pass I read by grade two. Now again they have multiple opportunities but the higher percentage we can get there the future we or the further we can get ahead. Those students who are not reaching that benchmark success we're going to really have that tier 2 MTSS support. That's been a big training piece in the PD as well as a lot of buildings are focusing on how can we elevate those students and get them caught up very rapidly.
033We have summer school opportunities and multiple things every day in our buildings to help those students reach that especially by the end of third grade. We're going to continually dive into the science of reading. All teachers have to get that on their lure in K to 6. So we're continuing to add those and now we're going to see that success roll through from that middle elementary range as they get into higher and we're really interested to see where that goes. And then we've also talked about the impact of our STEM initiatives. We've seen more students being able to think outside of the box using STEM. We don't think of reading and STEM going together, but we're having students approach a text way differently because now they're learning a conceptual based how do I do this
034project? We can now align a lot of those things together. So tying all those together towards that common goal of having all of our students passing I read and having that early success moving forward. When we go on to the uh three through five, the upper elementaryaries, we're talking about strengthening and expanding the skills. Again, continuing the science of reading, really digging into the introduction and the expansion of the science of math at all grade levels, but especially that three through five as we get closer to the sixth grade, moving into a grade level that is required to do some advanced math. Um focusing on the STEM across the um district. um high ability as a as our MTSS as as well as our tier two and our tier three MTSS and then the accountability
035model we know included science and social studies. So we have to make sure that when our third, fourth, fifth and sixth graders are taking the science and social studies that their science and social studies skills are strong enough that that gives us that extra bonus point that they're going to need when it comes to the account accountability. So social studies and science will be that extra push to give them those extra points. >> When we look at six through eight, this was a really heavy piece for us being two sixth grade teachers because there's such a jump at the end of elementary going into middle school that we want to see our kids continually succeed and then finishing out with their diploma. So our focus is continuing that science of reading and that science of
036math, but also reaching the rigorous levels that it takes to be at sixth through 8th grade. A lot of our sixth grade standards are middle school standards. They're tough and it's a big jump. So really aligning our rigor to match not only I learned but what they're going to have to face as they continue to go forward. Our goal is to have most of our students reaching that algebra one by eighth grade with our new advanced mathematics that we're implementing now. Sixth graders are going to start receiving higher level math right now this next school year. So that's going to allow a lot of our students open the door to algebra 1 and eighth grade which then gets more with the workbased learning and those opportunities when they reach high school. We also have our
037new math coaches that we're going to work really closely with. If you looked at that data, there was a huge drop off when we got to math when it hit sixth through 8th grade. Things were kind of getting positive and then it kind of took a dive. So really approaching that on what ways can we support those students in such a heavy piece there. And then lastly, aligning everything so those students when they hit 9th grade, they're ready for that diploma track because we want all of our students to reach that diploma. Plus, we don't want just a normal diploma. We want our students to be more prepared and stand out compared to other communities around. We have also already have um some PD this summer for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade math teachers
038who are going to teach this kind of advanced math um to streamline it and make sure we are sharing our resources and all those kind of things is one of the things we've also already got on the calendar for the summer. And so then high school and middle school of course is college and career readiness. Um the SAT is going to be incorporated. It's 10% of the high school's accountability model. So, um, that will be a key. The ACT will be offered as an additional way to get that extra point for high school students. And then, of course, just the idea of that continued emphasis on getting that diploma plus option. And the more pluses we can add to the end of that plus, you know, the better off our students are, the better off
039our kids are ready for college or career or whatever direction they're headed after graduation. >> Terrific. Thank you. Um, so some of the highlights to point out from that section, as I'm sure you heard, making sure we continue to have increased supports for kids who are in different subgroups such as special education, English language learners. Um, then also we've really identified in our data that the need for extra support for that transition to middle school. we we just see it across the board. And so that's become a big um focus for this section in this group. And then particularly for all for secondary math, which we're excited about that addition of the secondary math coach next year. We think that'll be a big piece of this work. And then finally, that we are seeing a
040lot of positive results from all the work the district's done in STEM and the importance of continuing that work going forward and how that relates to both outcomes for students and also how they approach standardized tests. They really look at them in a different way. Um, so continuing those same focuses. Anything you want to add to academics that I missed? >> No, I think they they covered it well. >> Question textbooks, especially grade level, are they going to be okay with advanced math for sixth graders? You're going to have to get >> with with our math textbook. We have K through eight ready. So, it doesn't shift that. They have the same math book in sixth grade as they do in seventh and eth. So, it's just a natural transition already. And when you look
041at the pacing guide um in the um recommended guide, it's adding like for sixth grade like it's adding like seven um seventh grade standards. And what is interesting to me and you Leslie can probably speak on it um more than I can. A lot of the um sixth grade teachers say that it's standards they've already taught in the past and when the standards changed some of those standards were taken off. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, Leslie. >> I mean, yeah. I mean, there's it's just a handful of standards. I think sixth grade it's about at sixth grade there's about seven seventh grade standards and they are a lot of things that kind of lead into what we're already working on. So nothing not a huge pivot point just kind
042of adding to you know Pat for example you know we're doing integers but sixth graders don't do any operations with integers they've added those four standards so it's just that kind of continuation and I was going to say that I ready that we have the digital component of I ready all students can get to the sixth grade seventh grade or eighth grade part so they can access that online as well so >> anybody else questions for that section. All right, rolling right along. Next up, we have Molly Von and Felicia Hill who are going to talk to us about the third action area, which is operational effectiveness. So again, as we're looking at these hundred pages of data, this was another area that bubbled up as a focus for the future and feeling left out.
043All right. So, the next action area we're going to look at is operational effectiveness. And some of the data and insights that we're going to look at have to do with staff training participation, instructional practices, student achievement and growth, and staff retention. And these indicators are going to help us evaluate how effectively our system supports both educators and students. So, our goal is to highlight strengths, identify challenges, and outline strategic steps for us to improve across the board. >> Yes. So inside the operational effectiveness, we have seven pillars that we're looking at. And so what we wanted to do is just kind of introduce those pillars and go through each of those with some data. So you've heard it's going to be like we're kind of repeating ourselves. We're going to talk about the elementary
044to middle school transition. When you look at that data you just saw, there's a huge drop in scores. And so we want to figure out why. Um we also want to look at um special ed licensing and training um because that is an area we struggle in. We want to talk about staff training focus and leadership development which we're getting ready to have a new opportunity for. Um online programming for students um staff compensation and benefits and in marketing. And so um the first area that we're really worried about is that middle school transition from elementary. And if you look on here and you see just looking at the sixth grade scores and then looking to seventh grade, there is a significant drop. And that's a concern for us. And so one that we kind
045of talked about all day in our training was what can we do to fix that? And so, um, when you look at this slide and then the next one, it goes to show we need a stronger alignment in curriculum all the way through, but we also need to make sure kind of our practices are the same and then working together building to building for that transition. Um, and then we just need to continue to look into that and then make sure that we're um being successful. >> Uh, so Dylan kind of touched on this earlier, but uh, our special education percentage in Jennings County is up across the board. Um, we have a lot of students who are qualifying for special educ special education support even with our declining enrollment. Um, so that puts puts
046pressure on our special education teachers. So, one of the areas we look are looking at is making sure that we have high quality special education teachers. Um, if I think it's the next slide. There we go. Um, so we do have uh six alternate special education or teachers that are alternate special education lure. Um, so we're working to get those teachers certified. Um, as well as keep and retain some of our our more um hard to fill positions, our self-contained programming. um we have a hard uh time keeping staff in those programs. So, we're looking at what professional development, what training can we provide for our staff to make sure that they feel comfortable in those programs as well as doing what's best for our students in special education. >> Um yeah, so with that,
047um pardon me, uh staff training is definitely another key component of uh operational effectiveness. So we're working to ensure that professional development is going to be both um meaningful and aligned to district goals. And then on slide 69 we uh see that we are targeting those training opportunities. >> Yeah. And also when it comes to the training um and opportunities for staff, um it was indicated in one of the surveys that while we're making progress, our staff still wants to feel heard and be more a part of the decision- making. And so there are two ways that we're going to combat this. And the first way is we are going to apply for um a professional development waiver for this next school year, which we're in the process of. Um, and that's the ED flex.
048Um, I think it's 1003 waiver. Is that correct? Um, and then these, you know, having those days built into the the year for our staff to do professional development will also help with subs and and helping with the kids. And then another thing that we're also going to do is actually Dr. Johnson just sent out this week. Um, we're going to invite staff to join us on the strategic plan and kind of build leaders within our corporation. We have lots of young teachers. um and we want to, you know, get them involved and get them knowing the inner workings of our corporation. So, we're super excited about that. >> Another area that we looked at was um student enrollment. So, we were losing students and I think if the next slide would show you maybe
049one more uh so that we are losing uh students to online programming. Um our our way to kind of combat that this year was we started our Panther online academy uh for K through eight. Um moving forward we're looking at potentially expanding that program to high school, seeing if that's effective that's effective or not. Um but looking at ways to keep students enrolled in James County schools. The other thing that we do is we use egenuity for middle school and high school credit recovery. So we're finding different pathways for our students to to earn those credits. And then uh also the the possible um micro school micro school study at looking to see the effectiveness of micro schools and if that's something we want to pursue in Jennings County. >> In addition um we definitely
050want to look at the uh staff compensation and benefits with this. Um it's certainly a critical role in recruitment and re and uh retention. So to attract and keep high quality staff, we're going to have to remain competitive um with the surrounding districts um not only salary wise but benefits wise, working conditions and and opportunities for professional growth. So investing in our staff is is certainly ultimately u an investment in our students. >> And then finally, our last piece was marketing and community engagement. And like we want to do a better job at showing the good that's going on at James County Schools. And so we There are lots of things that are doing that are going well, but we don't think we do a good job at sharing that. And so, we want to
051improve communication um because we think if we improve communication about our school system, it's going to increase student enrollment, we can strengthen our partnerships with our families and the community, and then we can attract and retain quality educators. And so, we just think we need to tell our story more effectively and just show all the good for Jennings County schools. So in closing, operational effectiveness is about aligning our people, systems, and resources to the best support students to best support student success. U we do face challenges, uh but we're looking for clear strategies and opportunities for growth. >> Thank you. So in this section, um I'm going to highlight a couple areas. Marketing, I know that's one that we've talked about, um often in the past. It does keep bubbling up for us. Um and
052the marketing story that we need to tell or we need to share that the the committee felt were the successes and experiences, but they really loved from the personal level um of what's an experience like for a high schooler in the welding pathway, what's the experience like for a kindergartener or a preschool program. Um so a lot of innovative ideas and things that we can look at um with that portion. We also did a lot of study and I know you have um we have together in the past on the impact of online corporations um in the state and that's what this data reflects. This is on the transfer report for all corporations in the state. Someone can find this data themselves on the uh Indiana uh website under assessment um information portal. They have
053that information for every corporation. Um and then staff training is a big focus in this section. what are our needs in staff training, how can we support staff, and then making sure that we have programming available. So, any questions in operational effectiveness or anything you'd like for us to clarify? >> I think the I I don't think we brag enough on ourselves. So, I I totally agree that we need to get that out more. And then who was the young man that jumped in right there at the last? >> That was my bad. Sorry. I might need one of Amy's signs with the arrows. >> All right, to share. >> And then um our next section, the fourth, uh action area is positive school culture and climate. And we have Tevin Schultz and Morgan Lyens
054here to talk to us about that. >> Yes. So, thank you so much. Yep. We're going backwards a little bit in our presentation. Um there we go. All right. So, we're here to update you again on the reasons and some of the possible work that u we intend to bring about with this priority. And you're going to hear tonight about a focus on safety, student preparation, behavior systems, and communication. So, I'd like to start with what I believe is probably at the forefront of everyone's mind when it comes to creating positive school culture, and that is school safety. um across every single stakeholder group in this county, whether it's parents, teachers, the neighborhood um watchdog with all the kids on the going to the um getting ready for school. Um it's a top priority and
055rightfully so. So so because our parents and our community want our children to um have a safe and secure learning environment um when they are here in our buildings. So in response to that, we intend to focus on both systematic and a structural um improvement across the across the district. When it comes to safety, this could include work um at um building level safety enhancements um to strengthen physical infrastructures. Um it also is consistency with our procedures, the expectations that we have and our responses. Um we we do a lot with safety already. We meet monthly and um we want to continue to strengthen those partnerships that we have with those key agents for safety which would be um EMS and our police departments and um those those agencies as well. So just collaborating on
056some more proactive measures for safety. >> All right. And then the next part is talking about what our community needs as far as uh employability skills. that is a huge part of the new accountability model um and one piece that we keep hearing of you know specific needs from local businesses. So with the help of the economic development center um the survey that Dr. Johnson sent out early uh second semester the feedback we had um is is up here on the screen. So the biggest areas that uh businesses wanted was workplace expectations, us to work with kiddos to establish, you know, we're building those employability skills throughout um their, you know, our daily lessons. And so the expectation portion, technical skills, hands-on opportunities, what we're expanding on at the high school, um the additional opportunities
057we have there, and then time management. Um I think the biggest thing is getting kids there or getting employees there on time. Um, so that's a big big component. Um, with that, what we're doing is obviously expanding on internships, work-based learning opportunities for our kids. Um, but before that, we're we're working in other employability skills into um lessons daily, whether it's STEM integration, um, any of opportunities that we got hands on related. Um, and then adding in a emphasis on executive functioning skills. That is one thing that the employers wanted. Organization, responsibility, problem solving, um all those different skills that we think we, you know, we cover, but and we do, but being more intentional with it, um would be obviously valuable for the workplace. um with positive school culture. Um a positive school culture
058is also going to depend on how we support student behavior. Um data from surveys also indicated that this is still a strong need that we need to um try to reduce discipline um action that might be happening at the schools while also helping be proactive by teaching some skills that might be leading to some of these discipline areas. Um and so we can see that from a lot of district discipline data. Um PBIS or positive behavior interventions and supports um is a framework and that framework aims to create environments where students can focus on learning rather than all of the other noise that is out there for these kids. Um and while serious behaviors I don't want to I don't want to discredit this serious behaviors are going to be addressed appropriately. The aim of
059PBIS is really to focus on some of those smaller things and prevent them from becoming the larger things as well. Um, in our discussions, we had lots of different discussions over student behavior. And we recognize that some of the critical skills that are leading some to some of the behaviors that are um bubbling up and becoming problem problematic in our in creating these positive environments for students um are skills that we think we can support them with, including conflict resolution. Um so we want to build in opportunities that we can support students with. How do you argue with kindness or how do you um have discourse around something when you have disagreement? Um so we believe that this is an approach that um allows skills to be taught rather than um simply punished and ultimately
060it will lead to positive school environments. And the next portion is talking about student opportunities. Obviously we are doing what we can to keep our kiddos in Jennings County. We want them here with us. Um, but expanding on what we offer, I think, uh, when you look at what other uh, districts are doing around us, we are miles ahead of them for what we have to offer. Um, just think of Black Cat Racing, all of the, you know, expansions that we've done on at the high school for careers. Um, it's it's what's bringing kids in. Um, additionally, Todd talked about um the online programming expanding on what we are offering to keep our kids um if an online option is what's best for them. Um, so we still have a connection with our kiddos. Um,
061and then two, with that online option, how can we get them to come and do other things, you know, tutoring opportunities um with the coordinator. um we still get to see them for testing and things like that, which is wonderful uh when they come in. So, we're doing what we can to to uh keep our kiddos with us. >> And I believe the last group touched on it as well that that communication piece with our um stakeholders and in this community are really important. So, we want to use this um this action um area as an opportunity to also share that story of Jennings County Schools, not just with our families, but with our whole community. Right. Parent Square is an excellent resource and it's great for reaching out to our parents, but that's only
062about 25% of Jennings County residents. So, we want to make sure that we are looking at how do we increase the engagement and the communication with our whole community. Um, we don't want the shining moments of our students to go unseen. We want to showcase those. We want to make sure sure that we reach the whole community and we see all the positive things that Jennings County Schools are doing. So, that's part of this um bucket as well is just in increasing community engagement and communication. >> Thank you very much. >> And I'm just going to reiterate what she just said in the last part because we've been really excited about Parent Square. We've had a lot of great positive feedback from parents about parents square. But we've also become where that's our main mode
063of communication and an important data point that we came across was that's um just around 25% of our population in the county is reaching that because those are our parents. So we are leaving out a large portion of the county who might want information about the local public schools by relying too heavily sometimes on parent square. So that was part of the marketing strategy that's already bubbled up. how do we have broader communication um to make sure that we're sharing information with all groups um not only our parent stakeholders. So that was an important data point. And then the Oh, I'm sorry. Is there any questions on positive school culture and climate? >> I've got one, you mentioned reducing discipline occurrences. I mean, are you saying that we're we need to reduce those or the
064kids's behavior needs to? >> I think we take a proactive response to that. We I feel like what we want to do is what we want to aim for is give skills and teach skills to students so that they can mitigate their own conflict so it doesn't escalate because I think that that's what we saw in a lot of our conversation is something that is maybe a disagreement is turning into something way bigger because we don't have skills to mitigate some of that >> and I'm glad you're clarifying that because the discipline data shows overall decreased discipline in the last four years but the work of PB you always study what your discipline is and you look for where is the most area of need. Um is it I'm I'm just making up a category
065but is it um uh issues in the bathroom? Is it peer conflict? Um and then PBIS has you study that area and put proactive teaching in place to help fix that concern overall. And so I think that's what Morgan's referring to is through that student conflict is what bubbled up. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Any more questions? That was great. Another great question. >> I just wanted to comment. So, at my job, I'm usually the person when we have students doing work based learning um here with us at Lowe's, I'm usually the person that's talking with their academic adviser or whatever, kind of evaluating them on that. And I just want to say from the data that they gave us on this slide, actually we can teach those kids the importance of attendance and punctuality,
066teamwork, and work ethic. All the rest of those take care of themselves. I mean, those kids show up with that. I mean, if they want to stay working with us after they graduate, we'll hire them 100% of the time. And I just I really like that that's some of the feedback that we got from that survey because that's something we can really try to instill to those kids. The community employer survey responses were really interesting and we talked about um modifying the survey a little bit for a future year to follow up for progress monitoring. One part we didn't realize is if you think of a large employer, they don't know who were our graduates and who weren't. Um so we're really asking it in that context, but it's more of overall what's important for
067entry level employees. So th that was one thing that we learned. The other was we love to your point seeing what employability skills are truly most important to the employer because the high school's been having deep conversations about employability skills and life skills overall. You know, we're adding financial responsibility class. We have preparing for college and careers. So, how do we create a K through 12 scope of employability skills and executive functioning to help our students with all those pieces of development that aren't measured on a test but are determine life success as well? And so, that's embedded in this next strategic plan is really putting a focus on that and looking at that whole child focus of how do we make sure they have all of the domains of need to be a successful
068adult. Um so then the last and final section is fiscal responsibility and um I'm just going to share briefly we have had a lot of meetings talking about finances. Um so I'm just summarizing very quickly that that focus would stay in as an action area. Um our big four areas of action would be long-term needs planning, doing a facility study, doing a redistricting study, looking at how our resources match our enrollment and our needs. Um the use of future bonding capacity. We do have some bonding capacity opening up soon. What are the maintenance needs of the buildings that we have and making sure that we match up our timing. Um looking for innovative funding. School funding in public schools is decreasing. Um you see it's a drop in the bucket of what we get compared
069to what the needs that are still there. So how do we think outside of the box when those if those dollars don't come that we're used to and anticipating to have the same programs for our kids? And then finally, cash balance sustainability with dropping enrollment that always has to maintain as a focus. So we always maintain our um credit rating and all the things that we need to operate effectively. So those would be our fiscal responsibility priorities. So all combined um you can see the great work that this large committee did. They spent an entire day looking at pages and pages of data. They only highlighted a portion of it tonight, but they were trying to highlight why the things that you see on your sheets as the top priorities got there. Um, and so
070what we would like to do is to proceed forward would be at a next regular the next regular board meeting to ask for approval of these action areas of the strategic plan and then the next steps and the timeline would look like first um broadening who's involved in strategic plan. We really want to see our um teachers who want to be leaders having an opportunity to step into those roles. So we'd like to use the strategic plan as a driver for that and people opportunities. If you want to jump in and help with food and security in the county, volunteer for as part of the committee. If you want to help with connecting community resources or employability skills, that's your passion, jump in and help on this committee. So, we're going to really open the
071doors to make this the community and the staff's plan. Um, not just an operational plan is is our focus. So, we will put a call out to ask for volunteers and then in June bring that group of volunteers together to get the 100page version. um presentation deep dive into the data and then like the last plan we will make action steps with smart goals. So for each of these areas that you have on your paper in front of you there will be a smart goal developed what the progress monitoring will be and what the action steps will be to achieve it. So that's what we'll end up with. Um so this is just the first step in a long four-year process. But I cannot thank the committee enough for their work. um we were guides
072on the side and had all of the papers and things prepared and the data pulled together, but it was the committee that really dug through that data and sorted through and found what rose up to the top for priorities and I appreciate all their hours of hard work and um deep caring and thought that went into that day. We sure have some wonderful staff. >> So, that was very well done tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Any any other questions or um comments? >> My only question is you said at the next school meeting you're not talking about tonight. You're talking about >> I am referring to the next one that's tonight. Okay. It's on there for approval. But if you would like more time because I know you've had the data packet before this meeting. Um
073but there's always other options if you would like to extend the timing. >> And uh in front of you you have the timeline. We're on track with the timeline. There is one piece that we've skipped over, but it's because it is kind of um a beauty of technology enhancement. I'll bring it back to you. Um it's defining vision and mission. So, do you remember on all the surveys to the community, the staff, the parents, the students, we had a question of what is your ideal school? We've taken those thousands of responses and were able to get frequency of words um to put it into a mission and vision statement that would have if you would thousands of community members input on what the vision and mission would be for the school. I didn't want to
074take the time that that's a little bit longer task to do that tonight together, but I'll be bringing that back to you soon um because we have a really neat um vision and mission statement that was developed out of out of that input. So, I'll bring that back to you at another meeting. Any other questions? Hearing done and we'll close this work session and we'll be back for the meeting tonight at 7.