001welcome to um today's meeting here at um H School Board um we are going to go into our Open Session can we have a roll call please Mr Fraser Mrs Matthews yes Mrs Baker here Mr Davidson yes Dr Copus here thank you sir um our first will be our update from oh first of all i' like to um excuse Mr lawren sprag today from our meeting and then we'll have um our first update from Brookwood Elementary thank you [Music] guys thank you for welcoming our Brookwood team here tonight I am Kayla Richie the assistant principal at Brookwood it is my pleasure to introduce our dedicated team we have Eileen Ernst principal Nikki Jalil our math coach Britney galberth our literacy coach and our incredible title staff Stacy cyth and Tina Mao at the end of
002last school year we surveyed our staff to identify strengths and areas of improvement we also analyze data from map OST amplify Behavior Trends and mtss tier movement using these insights and the strategic planning from the year before our building leadership team established key Focus areas for this year building upon previous goals while introducing new initiatives one major initiative is aimlock a districtwide focus that has been expanded at Brookwood to include all kindergarten through sixth grade students aim block is a fundamental part of our mtss process it integrates various other action steps like utilizing explicit instructional practices and empowers all staff to take ownership of Student Success ensuring that every student has meaningful opportunities for achievement and growth this idea is the driving force behind all the efforts invested in aimlock as it emphasizes the importance
003of ensuring students can first read the words before focusing on comprehension strategies aim block aims to build foundational reading skills ensuring every student can decode words and engage meaningfully with the text I want to talk about an essential part of our reading instruction our aim block this is a Time dedicated to ensuring that every student receives the targeted reading intervention support and enrichment they need to grow as readers aim block is a structured focused time built into our schedule to provide explicit reading instruction tailored to each student's needs our goal is simple but powerful to ensure that every child grows at least one year academically on map Reading assessment unlike other programs where students might be working independently on computers aim block is all about direct full meaningful instruction every grade level from kindergarten through
004sixth grade participates in the dedicated 30 minute aim block during this time students work in small groups with a variety of Educators including Title One staff instructional coaches general education teachers and special education teachers these groups are not random they are carefully formed based on map scores and Amplified data to make sure every student is working at their instructional level aim block is more than just a reading intervention it's a commitment to supporting every student's growth at Brookwood we EXT we exceed the district's minimum requirement of implementing aim block for kindergarten through third grade by extending it across all seven grade levels this ensures that every student receives the Target Reading intervention they need whether it's additional support or Advanced enrichment our goal is to provide every learner with the opportunity to to thrive aim
005block is a targeted and intentional approach to reading instruction that prior prioritizes student student growth by focusing on an explicit instruction small group learning and collaboration among Educators we are making a real difference in our students academic success at Brookwood we are committed to building strong instructional practices that provide lasting support for our students this year our team has worked diligently to not only develop aim block but also to establish clear processes that will ensure its success year after year our planning time planning timeline reflects the thought and intention behind designing aim block as an impactful structured approach to meeting student needs let's walk through how this process has evolved over time it all started last May when we prioritized aim Block in our master schedule our team in including coaches title staff and admin
006came together to brainstorm our needs analyze data and began developing a structured plan for aim block from the very beginning our Focus was on making this a sustain painful and impactful initiative in July we reconvened as a team title coaches and admin to map out the specifics we focused on out how to roll out aim block effectively support map testing and prepare our staff to implement it with confidence this was a critical step in ensuring that everyone was equipped with the tools they needed to succeed as we moved into the school year we provided direct support with planning and grouping students title staff played a key role in creating groups and developing beginning of year lessons we also took the extra step of integrating science and social studies into our reading instruction for our blue
007groups in grades three through six by designing Community Building lessons and thinking about what teachers would need to be successful we were setting the stage for a strong start by November we had new data to consider after analyzing our state report card data we met as a building leadership team to make intentional adjustments part particularly for our gifted students we recognized areas we could where we could better support them and Nikki will speak about that in just a few minutes at the start of the new semester we Revisited our aim block groups with a renewed focus on serving our gifted students our adjustments were intentional ensuring that students received the right level of support and challenge within their instructional groups this refinement reflects our commitment to continuous Improvement and meeting the needs of all Learners
008a block is reflection of thoughtful planning collaboration and a shared commitment to student growth from our initial brainstorming in May to our refinements in January every step has been intentional in creating a meaningful and impactful reading block as you have seen in the timeline these four key ideas have been vital to our aim block process teachers collaborate with one another as well as with title teachers coaches and administrators to to determine group placements that align with their expertise and strengths we are proud to have 55 aim block groups running each day ensuring that 100% of our students at Brookwood receive reading instruction at their level fostering growth and success our title teachers carefully analyze Amplified data and map scores to determine group placements with teachers and ensure students receive the support that they need they
009collaborate closely with our coaches exchanging ideas and exploring creative ways to best serve students whether that means placing them in an aim Block in an upper grade or providing a double dose of individualized instruction title teachers coaches and administrators then meet with the teachers to assess the group Effectiveness and make necessary adjustments additionally coaches and title teachers support classroom teachers by identifying key skills to focus on within their groups and addressing any learning gaps that need to be filled looking deeper into aim block groups aim block begins with fostering a growth mindset helping students develop perseverance confidence and confidence in their learning from there students participate in the fluid small groups that focus on areas like morphology or Gillingham strategies phonics uh reading comprehension and fluency this targeted small group instruction is a key component
010of aim block these groups are flexible we regularly assess and adjust placements to ensure each student is receiving the right support at the right time we integrate cross-curricular learning to make instruction relevant and engaging for example our students recently explored wildfires a timely and important real world issue and by bringing in current events we encourage critical thinking and problem solving and mean meaningful discussions that help them connect um what they're learning in the classroom to the world around them we include highin activities including group presentations Hands-On projects and book clubs creating meaningful and Collaborative Learning experiences one of our recent book clubs focused on the book titled out of my mind which helped our students develop a deeper understanding and compassion for their peers in our multiple MD units at Brookwood with our strong sense
011of community aim block allows teachers to get to know students across the entire grade level not just their home room and this broad this broader connection helps build relationships deepen support and create a Collaborative Learning environment while our district system helps organize students based on the needs and focus areas students are unaware of the groups that and the levels that they're in they simply see aim block as a valuable and engaging time to learn we also work closely with teachers and staff leveraging their strengths and experiences for the best fit this thoughtful approach ensures that students and teachers have a successful and enriching aim block experience we recognize at Brookwood that we have students at every academic level and we're intentional about tailoring supports to meet those diverse needs aim block is an opportunity to
012personalize learning challenge students appropriately and ensure that every child is growing in confidence and capability we're excited about the work we're doing in AIM black one of the biggest system changes in the last few years at Brookwood and districtwide is the development of a strong mtss program this Works hand inand with our aim block the multi-tiered system of support ensures that all students reach their full potential poal we can intervene early and with purpose for students who need to close instructional gaps we know it's important that we are growing and supporting all of our students and that takes time which we don't have very much of we dedicate time to important areas and work to ensure that the process is Meaningful and manageable this isn't a one-year thing we're working to build our system to
013implement year after year with those thoughts in mind we focused on examining the needs of students through map and Amplified data analysis this pinpointed needs and allowed for monitoring of progress this progress has been discussed at monthly grade level meetings attended by teachers title staff coaches and admin this support has been reading focused and allowed us to mine the vast Trove of knowledge around our table title teachers coaches and classroom teachers share the load of progress monitoring to ensure that data is timely and plentiful our decisions are made collaboratively and reflect the culture of shared responsibility that we've C cultivated here at Brookwood these open lines of communication allow us to review plans efficiently to help aim block grow and change with our Learners the groups are fluid and allow us to stay on The
014Cutting Edge of students learning to make this the most meaningful for our staff we also survey our teachers we do this monthly to ensure that all stakeholders feel that the process is best serving our kiddos it is through this process that we've adjusted our January meeting schedule to ensure that teachers felt that aimlock group focuses were well planned and meeting students needs good afternoon as you can see from our testing data um we were very close to meeting our gifted performance index percentage we were missing the mark by just over 1% so we saw 75% of our students identified as gifted performing at the highest level prompting us then to reflect on the remaining 25% % and what we could do to help them grow as well this data helped us realize that we needed
015to have in our building to serve our students who are gifted recognizing that our gifted students are not serviced during the school day we began brainstorming as an instructional team and collaborating with the district team as well to explore ways that we can support their growth having a structure already in place with aim block we began putting a system in place to start reaching our highest learners in recognizing our need to serve our gifted our students identified as gifted we have committed to having ongoing targeted PD for our teachers teachers in grades three to six were able to attend a PD in November given by Amy Alexander who was a gifted curriculum specialist from BCC she provided valuable insight and resources to help us serve our higher Learners after the PD we surveyed our teachers
016to gauge their thoughts on her training the word class that you see pictured here represents our teachers and the words that they used in their survey based on their feedback time with Amy was well spent and teachers learned a great deal about how to quickly Implement gifted practices in their classrooms we have a high number of gifted students identified in grades three and four we restructured our aim block group for these higher Learners so that they are receiving more open-ended cross-curricular critical thinking content during their 30 minute daily aim block the coaches are currently involved in a book study geared toward coaching teachers who are serving students identified as gifted this book study affords us the opportunity to learn strategies and techniques that are proven effective and quickly apply them to benefit our teachers and
017our students as I mentioned previously our aim groups are data driven driven using data like what you seen on the screen allows us to make informed decisions the bar graphs compare our fall Amplified data using Dibbles 8 to our winter data so as you can see the colors change depending on student Performance red would indicate well below Benchmark scoring yellow would be below Benchmark green is at Benchmark and blue is above Benchmark through mtss and intentional differentiated instruction we see decre creases in the incidence of students scoring well below and increases in the students exceeding Benchmark our kindergarten well below benchmark scores decreased from 62% that's that red bar there to 44% so 62% came in well below and now we can say 44 are still there and growing that shows the focus of our
018instruction help students become more proficient in early literacy skills in second grade our well above or blue portion increased from 7% to 22% so data analysis like this helps us to quantify the work that's happening at aim block and our classrooms every day while I highlighted kindergarten and second grade we see increases in blue and decreases in red at all grade levels K through three here at Brookwood we are closing gaps in literacy knowledge and we're building confident readers so as Britney mentioned our amplifi data shows direct impacts while we're not seeing the overall growth we hope for in our map data this information helps us analyze our current position and identify areas for improvement we observed dips in map achievement for kindergarten and first grade which may be influenced by the implementation of our
019new reading program introduced last year in grades 3 through six and it's new this year in K through 2 we recognize these dips but also use them to problem solve for not only aim block groups but also support for tier one whole group reading lessons as well despite these challenges we are seeing achievement gains in second third and fifth grades while fourth and sixth grade have remained steady after completing a semester of aim block we surveyed staff members to gather Reflections and identify the support they needed for the second semester rollout the survey data showed that staff find aimlock to be a valuable addition for addressing reading needs but they expressed a need for more support specifically they requested additional planning time strategies to better enrich our highest achieving students and opportunities to collaborate as
020a team to analyze data especially for students they just see during aim Block in response we prioritize these needs in our second semester planning we provided dedicated collaborative planning time for each grade level with support from our coaches K through2 teachers focused on the new elel reading program while our third through sixth grades had extended planning for aimlock this time allowed teachers to plan lessons apply strategies from Amy Alexander's PD and feel confident and ready for their second semester groups while organizing planning time for this cover was a bit challenging it did have a significant impact by ensuring that teachers felt supported and equipped with the necessary resources to help students grow as you have seen this evening our team feels passionate about aimlock and our ongoing work to support students and help them grow
021our focus is on delivering explicit and intentional instruction to meet students needs we continue to support and monitor focused instruction while expanding gifted services and activities for enrichment through staff surveys We Gather feedback to refine and improve our system for the 2526 school year our data driven approach sets clear goals for this school year to achieve increases in growth and achievement on reading map and to ensure that 76% of our third grade students score proficient or higher on the reading OST collaboration remains key we work as a school team to support students and nurture a love for reading ensuring that every student is given an opportunity to thrive awesome thank you so much for the presentation and also to your to the um team for just allowing just being intentional about what you're doing and
022um invested in yourselves one for having that coach come out to you know further train so definitely appreciate you guys taking that time to invest in yourself for the betterment of our of our youth and I think what I what really stuck out to me amongst all of it which was great but was that the you said that you have 55 of the aim blocks running a day daily see that's really nice that that's that's sweet I mean that's that's a lot of you know resources and stuff and time being pour to our kids and um I'm taking a statistics class so it was really cool seeing the data and how using data really does drive direction and give you know lots of insight and input and also um I do appreciate you guys getting
023the surveys from the teachers to get their feedback because it's everybody you know it's all hands on deck making sure that you know that goals are met and even though when there are dips and stuff you still learn from those things so um I thank you guys for taking the time to you know U review and and learn from it so thank you so much for being here and what you do for our kids appreciate it likewise thank you um for years I've been advocating that we have to get into students in kindergarten first grade and third grade need to know how to read they need uh reading skills and comprehension if we don't get them there we're going to lose them and there's a lot of studies out if you don't get to this
024uh to a student while in grades K through six with their reading skills and their comprehension then they're not going to succeed in Upper grades this aim is great program I love the fact that uh you're challenging your gifted students um sometimes that's forgotten that you know A Gifted student needs to be challenged you're sitting in a classroom that's geared towards that level but they're up here and and they need to be challenged and I think you're doing great things and I look forward to my visit tomorrow with Dr Copus to your building and we'll learn some more about your program thank you um I just ditto all those comments um doing a great job very intentional and and I was quite taken back by the 55 aim classes as well so keep up the
025good work thank you um assistant principal Richie yes sir I have a question for you did you volunteer to go first and make the first comment or did principal ER make you do that not a team decision okay well you you did great and good answer answer like my fellow board members I I think the aim block is a wonderful program and and I respect what you're doing with it one of the smartest people I've ever met I've heard them say that the ability to and the love of reading is the greatest sign of intelligence so you know I respect what you're doing but a couple comments that I think are great about your program there at your school is 100% involvement that's wonderful um and the flexibility of the system uh where I guess
026you know as students progress they can move to different groups that's that's great um but principal Ernest one thing that you said that really impresses me about it is when you look at the slide and it says 52% of your staff felt that they had what they needed in terms of resources to well you know what that's not really that good because that means 48% does not have it but you recognize that and you've put plans in place to address that and hope the and help the program become even more successful so um I appreciate what you're doing love the staff love the teachers so I just wish you continued success so thanks yes uh Team Brookwood eileene Kayla Nikki Britney Tina and uh Stacy I want to thank you for being here I think
027what tonight shows more than anything is that brookwood's all in uh you guys are a staff that comes together if the other 30 of them were here you'd hear the exact same thing from them which is amazing um what was really neat in that data is you are lowering the students who are significantly below but also raising our students that are above so we're not just filling gaps we're accelerating growth and that's what's really neat is when we look at consistent growth and achievement we're tipping the buckets right one shouldn't just get smaller the other should get bigger so I applaud your efforts I applaud your passion I know some of you can now breathe a little bit Miss Tina um but I want to thank you for what you do for our kids every
028day coming to Brookwood is a highlight when I get to come over there and see what you're doing and I'm just really proud of each of you both for representing your school so well and what you do for our kids each and every day so thank you so much thank you thank you thank you all right next up we have um Bridgeport will be presenting next we going to change of the guards a little bit because we have some smaller participants this evening that will be joining us yes next time I'll be prepared with a few dad jokes mom [Music] jokes what is the cast oh hair time yeah there all right I think we are ready um good evening thank you for having us tonight uh I am Stephanie Oaks the principal at Bridgeport
029Elementary and here with me uh parts of our team are Becky Davis the assistant principal Katie Jordan our literacy Coach Amanda green one of our intervention specialists and Angela Henson our physical therap one of our physical therapists we also have Miss Calhoun our Music Teacher and some very important members of our Bridgeport choir so this year bridgeport's theme is stronger together so you can see in our paw print here we are representing all of our staff in this paw print because we are working through building goals together we are working through daily challenges together and we continue to bring this Focus back together of we are stronger together as a team we come back to the idea of collective efficacy so the idea that the staff has a collective belief that they are able to
030positively impact students in the work that they do and doing that as a team is easier to do than doing that on your own so I'm going to review our three building goals with you because we are going to be celebrating um a success from each of those goals so far this year so our first goal is ensuring all students make one year's growth in reading and math our second is implementing a structured and consistent multi-tiered system of support program and our third is building a positive School culture for students staff and families so as we there we go as we touch on each of those um this evening you may think these kind of sound familiar if you remember bridgeport's goals in the past um so they are we have had success with these
031goals and as we continue to focus on them we get deeper and deeper and more intentional and strategic in refining systems refining instructional practices and overall maximizing the achievement that we are able to make at Bridgeport so I'm going to be highlighting our first goal of ensuring all students make one year's growth in reading and in math so when we're looking at the student levels of students that are coming to us we're seeing where are they at and it is our expectation that when they leave us they've grown at least one year while knowing that we want for students to exceed that one years of growth so that we can close those achievement gaps and catch those students up that may be behind so the success from this first goal is comes from our value
032added data so value added data comes from Ohio State report cards so this was released um from last year's State Testing and it measures impact that schools and teachers have on students academic progress from year to year so it's looking at each individual student and how they grow from one year to the next what I want you to focus on from this snapshot is What's called the index on each of those years so this is showing us three years worth of a growth index and that number is telling us the certainty that a group of students either met expected growth exceeded expected growth or didn't meet expected growth and when a growth index is between negative -2 and positive two this indicates that growth the expected growth has been met so as you can see
033in the last three years we are exceeding a two each year so as we focused on making growth with our students our state testing data is showing that not only are we meeting growth but we are exceeding growth and I'm excited to point out as you see 3 years ago two years ago last year that number continues to rise so when we look at value added data we can break it down a little bit further by looking at the content areas and the grade levels that students are tested in so when we're looking at those colors the yellow is representing not making expected growth the green is meeting expected growth and the BL is exceeding that growth so we are excited to really highlight the amount of growth that we have made in both reading
034and in science through the extensive work last year rolling out that new El reading curriculum with our third through sixth grade teachers and our literacy coach we you can see here that looking at the English language arts data that rigorous instruction that elel is providing is greatly impacting our students so much so that if you look at that little blue section that represents um the growth index of between two and three there's that special little parenthesis at the end that means not only did we exceed but we're Beyond three we've got a little parenthesis to show that growth is through the roof and we contribute that to our third through sixth grade teachers that e curriculum and our literacy coach as far as our science grow growth um something to highlight is that it's not
035common in all elementary buildings of the Staffing structure they look we obviously you know we look at the number of students there are and that determines how many sections there are so we were challenged with okay you're going to have three teachers in the fifth grade so in our minds we're like well how are we going to make that work for our instructional minutes how do we maximize that so what we have decided both last year and this year is to dedicate a sole science and social studies teacher in fifth grade so we have one math one language arts and then one science and social studies teacher and that teacher Works hand inand with the reading teacher to support the reading and the writing standards through teaching science and social studies so we attribute some
036of that positive growth um in science exceeding that growth to that model that we were able to implement um for fifth grade science this data has also allowed us to identify that math needs to be continue to be an area of Focus so this year we have been able to Target some specific instructional strategies to ensure that we continue to make growth in math some things that we are intentionally working on this year are eliciting student responses within the classroom focusing on explicit instruction within our lessons and then targeted coaching support with our math coach hello goal two f focus is on implementation of a structured and consistent um multi-tiered system of supports program or mtss first of all I have to give um thank you to Brookwood for setting up just right on the
037tea for me to talk about our aim block so I really appreciate that all building of all that context so I just go right in and share all of our good pieces so again a big part of our system of academic support is our aim block time aim or academic intervention minutes block is a dedicated 30 minute chunk of time each day where all students in the grade level receive instruction tailored to their needs so for example some students are receiving small group reading intervention during aim block some receive tier one core instruction reinforcement deepening some of those Concepts from the El curriculum like Mrs Oaks was talking about and others are engaging in those enrichment and extension activities during that this time all teachers including Title One Reading teachers our intervention teachers um when
038appropriate those case managers um and our classroom teachers teach groups based on student um areas of growth and strength so Stephanie and I along with our academic coaches our Title One Reading teachers our classroom teachers and our intervention Specialists used map and our Dibbles data to find those areas of reinforcement and refinement that were needed by each student uh once the instructional area of focus was identified then we went through with title teachers with our coaches with the classroom teachers to um choose the best best uh instructional focus and lessons and tools to and projects to meet the needs of each group so some of the enrichment activities have been really exciting so students have had the chance to explore the solar system in first grade they participated in a hurricane relief service project they've
039gotten a chance to study the state of Ohio um in fourth grade they uh leaned into the El curriculum to do a study on the founding fathers and our third grade students are currently creating biography bottles so we along with our instructional coaches meet regularly with Title One classroom teachers to review student progress and intervention outcomes and then that data is used to plan next steps for the student interventions that flexibility that you guys heard about um earlier so I would also like to bring your attention to uh that same again data um that you guys saw before so that's a snapshot of our Dibbles 8 data from this year so Dibbles assesses the basic early literacy skills like phonemic awareness decoding word reading and fluency and some of those tests depend on what grade
040level the student is in it gives them an overall composite score based on those smaller subtests so what we're looking at in this um data is a graphic that shows the number of students in each of those composite score areas like we said before well below is that red below yellow at Benchmark green and then above Benchmark blue so the first line is our beginning of year window the second is uh middle of year so as you can see K1 teachers did a wonderful job of intervening and enriching there's there was a reduction in the number of students um who were scoring at that well below Benchmark category an increase of the number of students at the um that at Benchmark that green category and like we discussed earlier early intervention with literacy is critical
041this is the time to close the gaps so we are working hard to use our data to to do that this next slide um we show you grades two and three we also saw that same reduction um in the number of students at the well below uh category in second grade but you if you notice in third grade we did see an increase of students who dropped to that well below category so what we would we will and have done next there is that you then look at the student level so I'm going to identify all those students who moved from either the that at Benchmark above or below into that well below and I'm going to find out who are they so the team along with our coaches will look at that data so
042we'll ask questions we'll dig into that composite score we'll say um what subtests choose to be the most difficult for that student what was the focus of their intervention during aim block did they progress in that subtest are we seeing gains there but just not it's not transferring yet to the other measures in the assessment so did they improve what was their intervention outcome did they improve where their intervention was occurring is a tier 2 screener needed in order to dive deeper into their early literacy skills so those are the questions that we ask and our literacy coach helps facilitate some of that to say maybe this student does need an additional Deep dive with the tier 2 screener to really find those small skills so we can get there early and and get that
043movement going the other way so students have really been enjoying aim block this year and we're excited to continue to see the growth they're making through this targeted instruction and enrichment okay so next I'm going to start and kick it off to something I think you guys are really going to enjoy it's looking at um building a positive School culture for students staff and families in this section we chose two areas to highlight for you that I think you'll enjoy you'll be hearing from staff members as they share about our accessible playground equipment project and from our very own Bridgeport student choir hi um so our teachers saw a need especially on our small playground where our kindergarteners preschoolers and our MD um students play for shade it's wide open and um especially our students
044in the wheelchair that can't escape to a um shadier spot or move around and uh so we formed a team a committee to come together to um address this need to see what structure would best fit the need for our students and how would we pull the money together to provide the structure so um the committee decided to um uh get a structure with a roof and some adaptable um manipulative panels that they could seek shelter and also um play with the the panels we um notice that it was going to cost $220,000 for the structure and how are we going to raise that money so we went to PTO and asked PTO um if they could help Provide support um this was the first year that popcorn day was coming back um postco which
045we all are excited about that and PTO decided that all the funds that were going to be raised in popcorn day would go directly to the playground equipment but we knew that wouldn't be enough so we reached out out to the community and uh got some donations from the community members um as well as some parents um you can see our popcorn flyer here that advertises that all proceeds will go to the Adaptive playground equipment um and some donations here um some that I would like to highlight is we have a group of Miami University students that volunteer their time on Fridays to come in and work with the MD students and they really love them especially the girls in the MD room um and they uh decided they won a contest and decided to
046donate their money their winnings to our playground equipment um yes very nice and this has happened not once but twice the um also we had a a fundraising for our library and our librarian donated some of her the money from that towards our our playground equipment fundraising um as well as uh our fourth graders so for our curriculum as mentioned before um the fourth grade curriculum asked that they do a service project and the fourth graders knew that um they we were trying to raise money for the MD playground so the money that they raised in their service project was also donated to the playground equipment um and you can see that uh we we kind of had a thermometer there of how we were getting close to our Target it was getting to May
047and we were about $8,000 short we reached out one last time and um in June we received um a donation that pushed us to our limit so um I believe it was uh in October November of this year the playground equipment has been installed so if you come by Bridgeport you can see it from the street um it's this little blue roof with uh some interactive panels and our students love it uh first of all I would like to say that the Miami students that come are from the fraternity py capify their philanthropy is working with uh people with disabilities so I wanted to make sure that I mention their name because they've been phenomenal um okay so Bridgeport has three unit classrooms filled with students who want to play have fun and be like
048the other kids however this isn't possible for many of these students these classes have kids in wheelchairs unstable Gates Vision issues and some of them are unable to regulate their body temperature when they go to the playground there are still obstacles keeping from them from enjoying the playground but with the addition of the interactive Playhouse students have more activities available to them no matter if they walk up or roll up they are able depending on the position of the sun to get out of direct sunlight this has been a great addition to our playground because it is still difficult to impossible for some students to access the limited adaptive equipment in our playground the interactive Playhouse allows kids to sit together and play music play hide-and seek and draw in the shade while I'm far
049from done with working to create a more inclusive and safer playground for our students with mobility issues I am very happy with the opportunities the students now have with this Playhouse thank you so through our third goal uh we have been working on the inclusivity we've been working on how do we get our students involved in Bridgeport and proud at Bridgeport so we do have here with us uh Miss Calhoun and her Bridgeport choir which is new to Bridgeport this year and they are going to perform a piece for you I am new to Bridgeport this year and uh started a choir because that's my primary instrument that's my um most you know favorite way to make music um we do a lot of different things in general music throughout the class day but I
050wanted a space for students to push themselves further and what I found was simply hinting that we might start AC choir the student body was ready they were so eager and met every have met every challenge I've given them with enthusiasm so I think um it would be hard to say that the choir has like changed the culture Port as much as it has uh offered an opportunity to show the culture of Bridgeport and make it very accessible to the community around it um because these students are ex creative and collaborative and Brilliant and they get to show that off every time so to demonstrate that there is just oh actually I should asked for everyone to stand for the star B bner please hopefully we he can you see by the's early light what
051so proud We and the Twilight last who and bright stars through the par fight the we watch we're so G streaming and the rock is red theing in came Pro the night that our was still there oh say do the star SP better [Music] away for the land of the [Music] [Applause] of this is about half of our choir these are third and fourth graders doing a beautiful job every week I just have one comment before I grew up in choir all through my uh grade school and high school years and and even in church sing in choir but that is one of the most difficult songs to sing because the range and you guys did a great job great job you know I have a question about the choir if you're getting ready to
052leave uh the Young lady in the back row on the far end what what's her name some is there someone with a noticeable name over here do you want to share this is Mac Macy do well I couldn't help but notice she had a beautiful voice but now it makes sense because I've heard her father Mike Dole sing in Num he has a beautiful voice also but what a great idea and please continue that that's wonderful thank you very much well I agree awesome job maybe we could talk to Missy Harvey and see if they could do a basketball game this year basketball okay uh yes should be a regular it should be absolutely thank you guys so much for coming you guys sound amazing amazing so thank you for being here that was that
053was cool and keep saying it brings a lot of joy to your life yes you know and I have one other comment being a retired Soldier I have a deep appreciation for that song particularly when it is sung or performed in a manner that it was written without a lot of alterations and you know other things but they did a wonderful job thank you very much Miss Calhoun before you leave um to our Board of Education First of all kids Bravo you sang that song beautifully and it's sometimes nerve-wracking to stand up in front of a group of adults um I love to see all your Guardians that are back here they were singing it along with you I saw lots of uh a lip service back there but um to our board I I
054do want to highlight something that just fills me with pride um weed used to have one Honor Choir that would serve throughout our community and last year Mrs Spurlock sat down with Mr Wright and myself and said we'd like to expand this opportunity to allow all schools to have an Afterschool choir and so it's just so neat to see that coming true um but what's amazing is Bridgeport has taken this on this way at Lyon they have a drumming uh group that comes together and I just think what an amazing example of providing opportunities for our kids so thank you thank you very much so we want to thank you for the opportunity um to share the exciting progress and achievements that are happening at Bridgeport our staff students and families are working together every
055day uh to create a safe supportive and engaging learning environment where every child can Thrive we're grateful for your ongoing support which is essential to make our vision a reality and with you we are stronger together thank you so much for being here and presenting I think one of the things I that I love about your presentation is that you shared your goals and you said you know these are some of the same consistent goals that we've been doing what I love about that is that you keeping you you've kept those goals before you until they're met and so I think that's pretty I think that's pretty cool and um you're making sure that that those goals say a PR a lot of people have goals they're like well we didn't make the so we'll
056just set new goals but you can you stay true and stay consisted to see results and that's and that's that's amazing and also the um the the park for the kids and making sure that everybody has access and and and able to be able to play and to be able to share with their friends so I think that is that is amazing and that you guys you know was able to raise the money and shout out to all those um in the community and local that that supported that make sure that that was um that that neat was me because I was going to say 20,000 popcorn woo that's although the popcorn is right because I remember you guys put the T roll at the bottom of them no no yeah might have to be
057an addition yeah that's yeah trying to tell you you guys build a whole new district with that but no thank you so much I appreciate it thank you y uh thank you um I'm not sure if you were in the room when um last group when Brookwood was in here but reading and reading comprehension and writing are so important and we need to get to the students in the early grades or we lose them and what you're doing over there you're tackling that issue you're making sure that these students have the ability to read comprehend and learn how to write so they succeed as they move on up I was really impressed with the playground how you integrated the the the children or the students and raising funds for it U parents through the PTO
058I'm sure the staff contributed to it and then you went out and got the community involved and it it's a it's a whole process that I I think is such a neat thing and I'm glad you did that thanks thank you um principal Oaks um thank you very much um just a couple comments I'm looking at your slide number six your value added slide or value added data slide I'm kind of a science guy so it makes me feel good that your growth index in science was excellent but what was impressive about that when you were presenting that was like Brookwood you know you recognized that math is an area that you're progressing but not as much as the other two areas and and you're making adjustments to to even enhance that progressiveness so I
059I think that's absolutely wonderful um and also like my fellow board members talked about the the accessible playground equipment project what a what a great thing that is and I respect that so much and by the way I want you to know that I'm a big fan of both candy bar and popcorn so the next time you have those fundraisers let me know first Friday of every month okay well um okay I'm going to write that down and Mrs blevens I would submit to you that that type of project is just an example of the so many great things that occur in our district that I wish the entire district and the entire Community was aware of so our new incoming director of community engagement of all of the other things we're going to expect
060of that position that's something that I will expect of that position and I I think you would agree with that yeah that's right in vain you know I I'm in a lucky spot and I get to see all of these things I I work directly with each of these buildings but you are right there are so many Amazing Stories you know they saw a need they they found the funds and they got it done for our kids but I agree with you you're going to see much more of that coming moving forward even our kids today I watch the room the entire room lights up when we get to engage in our kids really are our future but they're also our bright spot they're why we do the work we do and so how can
061we continue to highlight um through some different staff and community and student spotlights that's a big piece as we move forward as a board I would like to recommend for these meetings to be to be able to tell that story both here and out in other ways yes I agree Mrs Oaks I just want to commend you and your team um you know what I loved about it you know your your mission or your motto this year is simp stronger together but it's so true um it really is you you talked about supporting achievement and growth of all kids you saw a need for a group of students that might be marginalized or left out of some of the experience that is being in elementary school and then highlighting student voices literally here tonight but
062in other ways you're you're creating that sense of community and I say all the time when our kids and our staff and our community feel connected sky is the limit so hats off to you all for being here tonight and for the work you do every day and I'm just going to say go Bobcats thank you one other thing thank you for hosting Dr Copus and I last Friday on our visit we really enjoyed walking through your building and meeting teachers and students thank you great to have and you know principal Oaks I love all the schools and support all the schools but you know why bridgeport's one of my favorite right even though my grandson got in trouble on his first day of kindergarten oh I don't think we'll ever forget that story all
063right but thank you very much yes thank you thank you next um next on our agenda we have our first read of our um PD reimbursement yes um president Matthews if you remember at the last board meeting um we started talking about what a PD policy could look like uh needed some updates from our last rendition and so I took all of our comments that we had and tried to bake those into this policy I've not put this up for a vote right now because again we're still in discussion mode with this um when we as a board feel that you know this captures our board's uh Focus we'll move forward is there any purpose for in the first uh section of it section B that really necessary that actually was in our old policy
064that if a board member so if you remember that first one and a and b is talking about each year and this I believe Dr Copus proposed this is that we put out a list of events that the district would like to see board members at and we would prepay for that that's correct I'm talking about a board member can also attend such events as a private citizen expenses Oh you mean to just delete that whole comment yeah I mean why is that even necessary really we can do what whatever we want as a private citizen absolutely we don't need approval yeah I have no problem striking that out I was trying to kind of meld the old policy with the new one and um of those pieces but I have no problem with that
065yeah I I would agree with Mr Davidson on that but I you know I I just have to say that I think that it would be easier and I said this the last time and if nobody else agrees with me that's fine I'm not GNA um I'm not going to die on that hill but um I really just think that it would be easier if we set the policy at 250 we go in as individuals and you know make our own reservations that way then if we don't go Jeremy's not having to chase the dollars down that's that's the only suggestion I got I just think it would be easier and we and we did try to meld that so there's two parts of this particular piece the first part of this policy um and
066it came up in good conversation and there are you know you think of uh state of the schools are next week it's nice to have our board sit together and so if people are registering separate I heard that kind of notion it it's difficult to make sure we're all together or sometimes it's just easier for Mrs Fuller to book that for all of us and that's what that the first part of that is the second part of this that the policy that's drafted here is if there are additional items I know Mrs Baker you mentioned there was a training that you wanted to do that was $50 well that's not going to be on that list of ones that the district is responsible for pre-registering people for and so down there under A and B
067I tried to capture that um that up to $250 and as long as it doesn't require overnight travel individual board members can go ahead and proceed with that and then submit for reimbursement if it is over the $250 Mark or requires overnight stay then that still requires that board pre-approval prior to the board remember conducting that that's F yeah I also I just want to make that yeah I I also linked on um the actual uh on our agenda tonight the AGS and our AGS you know our policies are our umbrella of of what our expectations are our AGS are the actual process for that and so I worked with Mr Frasier to just determine what that reimbursement would look like um so that it's a really simplified process for you um jery I don't
068know if you want to speak at all to that yeah B basically um if you attend um something under the 250 um or even if it's over the 250 and you have prior approval uh from from the board um all you would need to do is just submit the um receipts to me directly and we can turn that around really quick so um I I think that's probably the easiest thing to do um we don't necessarily have a formal form form we do have a mileage form if you want to turn in mileage um but I think the easiest thing to do is just submit to me the receipts and and then we'll get you paid so does this draft policy kind of strike at the vein of what the board was looking at and
069would the board be comfortable with us at the next meeting on the on February 27th putting this up for vote I I think so and Mrs Bev you're correct I did say that you as the incoming superintendent should be able to select three or four or five events that you would expect the board members to attend and and um you know I I think it's appropriate then for Melissa to handle those reservations for us and one of the things we put into the administrative guideline is that is by August 1 each year we would give those to you so that you have those obviously if you can't attend it's not a mandatory piece understood but those are ones that would make sense and and we'll work collaboratively to make sure you know what what events
070those are but but we thought this captures yeah I think the heart of the conversation I agree okay so I will have that on our next board agenda for review and approval I just check with Lauren though he may have some comments on it I will I I met with him for my board 101 oneon-one uh last week and we talked through this a little bit but I will Circle back just to make sure he's comfortable with it going to a vote thank you um next on our agenda is our spring policy update yes um I wanted to update the board as you know twice a year we work actually policies at any time can be updated but we work with Neola two times a year we sit down to make sure we're compliant that
071all of our policies are compliant with state and federal changes that happen um we have a number of legislative actions that are going to come in effect here pretty early in the spring things ranging from the bathroom bill that's going to be going into effect the parents Bill of Rights we are scheduled to meet with Neola next Tuesday Jeremy and myself will meet with our representatives to get that draft language um but I'm bringing this up to the board just because it's going to be we're going to have to vary vary a little bit from our normal process what we typically have done we put it on for two reads um and go through that piece state law only requires that we have one read of those and because of the dates of implementation of
072some of these bills we're going to have to take action or else we won't be compliant and so my goal right now we will meet on Tuesday afternoon is to send the board a copy of all of those new updates with descriptions as we've done before but I will need to put them on for a vote on 227 just for especially for the two that I just named that will go into effect if as long as we have three or four days advance so we can look through them just because it varied from our typical process I wanted to be trans transparent and and make sure the board was comfortable with that yes okay that's all that I have this evening Mrs Matthews awesome thank you so much for those updates I appreciate it make
073bring Clarity um I'll consider a motion to adjourn into executive session I make that motion thank you second thank you Mr fer if you can call the roll please Mrs Baker yes Mr Davidson yes Dr Copus yes Mrs Matthews yes e