001usually not a um paper and stick to a script kind of person, but I don't know what it is. Like all of a sudden 10 minutes before this got started to begin, I like nervous. Like seriously nervous. So I'm going to hold my fingers. I'm going have my clickers and I'm going to say thank you for coming to our first state of the district summit. Um we're also live streaming portions. We are Okay, great. And so this is for the Ammeris column, the Amoris column regional school district. And I want to talk about where this came from in terms of our mindset. Um, and so I have been having data chat since I arrived. The schools came in last year and did data chats around um attendance and what's been happening and and what kind
002what does it look like for the different levels. And then this year I had departmental data chats where I had the different departments um come in and present the data from data. And in the last data chat, I believe it was the English learners and um ELA data chat. Not the last but one of the last I sat down. I was like, you know, the the community keeps asking from different lens different questions. I get questions in the school committee at different points where I present at four towns the towns are asking how are kids doing what what does it look like when I sit with the caucus groups I'm ask different questions when I'm sitting with them we have different questions and I was like it's kind of time for us to bring all
003the stakeholders in a room present the data kind of like how I look at it or it's presented to me through the lens of the different departments and everyone else because in that room when HR is presenting CN um our curriculum team is there, our family team is there. So they're hearing all of the information and it's like we're asking questions from the different perspectives and I wanted to provide you as our key stakeholders as caregivers, committee members, PGOs's, community groups, leaders the same opportunity to walk through data with us and kind of engage in that conversation. So today is called the summit and research talks about coherent systems and how powerful it is when a system is coherent. Now I know it's three separate districts but we all feed into the region. So a
004lot of the conversation we're going to talk about is with the end in mind with a high school graduate, right? Because at the end of it when they've gone through our system, our product is a regional graduate, but they start in our elementary districts. So this is a unified conversation for everyone and um data can be used as a tool to support but I don't want us to think about it and when we have our data chats it's not about we're using the data to support our points right we're using the data to so and a lot of the conversations we've had are to support our points we're actually now using the data to tell us a story >> to become become the driving force in what we need to shift. So you can always
005use research. You can research a topic. I can say well I really feel like attendance should include starting 15 minutes late and I find all the research based points about that. But we're starting in a different lens now. We're going to have a conversation from the data perspective. This is what the data is saying and what do we need to do as a collective to do it. So, it's a fun day. Thank you. Okay, here we go. Found it. So, for those in a live stream, you're going to kind of have like a rolling um we're going to have the presentation for the live stream and then we're going to stop for the chat and share out and then we're going to have a presentation again um so that everyone who's not here can have
006the opportunity. But on live stream, you also have a FAQ link. Um, so you can submit your questions and you can submit some suggestions through online for you in the room. We're going to have a live discussion. This is not in your handout. You want to try to print a jam and if you are in if you're in the world of education, whatever you prepare a lesson for the day, something goes wrong. So as in our good old we are all educators and we've all been teachers you have the students in front of you. So this this resource will come later but you trust me as a teacher to take you from whole group to small group. It's called gradual release of responsibility gradual release of learning where we go from I do as the
007instructor large T small S. So we shift over to large S small T. There's different models over the years of how it's presented itself and we're going to walk through lessons for you. A workshop model for me. I have the joy of being co-eing with various leaders today. I have to apologize. Some of my leaders were not feeling well this morning. So I'll be presenting their information for them, but they couldn't be here. But we work as a team. So and I've already walked through a lot of this and so I'm going to walk through it with you. So today I'm going to start off with our opening um from reality to action again with the end in mind talking about why we're here, why we look at data the way we do and then
008shift into some peer discussion and then we're going to go into our data chat. It's a chat um there's a lot that's going to be presented. There's going to be questions um in that moment. The presenter is able to say again let's pull a question to the end or if you have an aha moment you can share it. Oh, let's get through our data. And then we're going to have some mixed table dialogue where you're going to be in your handouts. You have a series of handouts. For one of them, it kind of tells you if you're in a sun group, a lightning bolt group, you're in a star group and you go to your table, you have your guided questions. You get to go through the mix table dialogues are in the back. The
009tables are in the back of the room. Okay. So, when is that time? If you don't have one, the team will definitely because some people registered late or some people just came in and I like the door is open because we have space. So the team is actually going to put you in a group and so you'll get that. Then that's mixt. So you don't get to sit together as a unified group. Then you're going to come back and have a home group reflection to see what happened in that learning. How did you peers interact? And then afterwards we'll have a quick break again and then you'll go into your like groups and have a discussion and we'll come back out and share because what we're going to do today is ask you for two
010things at the end. We're going to ask you if as an individual or as a person, what's your commitment to take back to your roots, to your town, to to your classrooms? What are we going to be able to start doing when you're sitting with your colleagues or your friends or your peers? And then what do you need from us as a district? A lot of these conversations is always the district saying, I need, I need, I need, but we need you to tell us what do you need from us? Do you need us to kind of shift how we partner with you? Do you have ideas for how we can work differently? So, that's the end of today. And so we're going to walk through that and I hope that you have a great
011um investment in time. This we don't have all the answers. We probably don't have a lot of the answers, but it's our hope that it as a collective we can start thinking of how we can commit to supporting our students together. Are you on for the journey with us today? >> Awesome. If anything, at the end you get a great box lunch. So it has to do. All right. So I did say I was nervous and I have a heap of papers but I'm not going to defend. All right. So state of the district summit from reality to action and I have the setting the stage. So why is change necessary and what are we building together? And it's not all about change. A lot of times people say change like if we're going to
012do something brand new, right? We're not. Change also talks about shifting what you have and building on. Because when you build on what you already have and we have a lot of good things in these districts that we need to build on and expand and step forward to and that's the that's the conversation today. What are we building on? What maybe we need to leave behind and start a fresh or even what have we never thought of? And so all of those three steps are a form of change. And so what we're going to be talking about is some form of change is necessary and how do we build it together. So it is not change itself but our goal is a stronger system more aligned to better serve our students. And I feel like
013everyone in this room regardless of how you get to the conversation the why you are in the conversation is you want a better system for students. agree. And so this is very important. Our students experience. I've been asked that a lot recently, especially from my school community members, um, who are in the room or not in the room. They keep asking me, well, what's the student experience? What's the student experience? And then I have parents who I talk to who are telling me about they are they've heard from their students about their experience. I have individuals who don't who aren't in the system enough to talk about our experience and then I have individuals who experience our students after they've left us the industry right when they've graduated and they've gone to to postsecary and
014so the student experience the the most impactful right now what we're talking about is supporting a system to support our leaders to support our teachers who support our students the student experience the most direct impact In our 10, 11, 180 days, our educators at the school, our family and community, your goal is to kind of encompass and support that. And as district leadership, we have to hold space for all. That's how our student experience is actually a collective. It's not a silo. It's a collective being of how we all come together to create. And that's the intent of today. So, we're going to go through our diagnostic reality today in terms of we want outcomes, but they're not consistent across student groups. So, we're not even just having a conversation about how we as districts
015compare to the state because that looks really great. You see our numbers compared to the state. Yeah. But we're going to be talking about how we compare to ourselves. We're going to be talking about how we support every group of learners that come through our doors and what does that present in this story, but does it match up to what our needs are because our student needs are increasing and they're showing up differently? And then is our system just being reactive versus proactive? And then we know I I tried to find a very good graphic. Me and AI were back and forth about finances and this is the only one I could think of because there are a lot of pressures around finances and the need to strategically plan and how to move and so
016we get stuck in a fragmentation trap because we keep acting or in the same vein. What's the definition of insanity? And so it >> puts our student in the center of that trap because we are not in a in a sense the systems or system has a lot of broken pieces that are not connecting to the student experience. And it's the reality of what we're facing, not just here, maybe nationwide, the financial strain, they need increasing student needs, but the experience of the student. There are gaps that are broken because our educators start to feel it when things shift and change, when policies shift, when we have to go through notices, when we turn around and we say, "Well, we're not we're going to adopt a whole new program or we just spent two years
017in the program." Like, it starts to affect the student experience. And so there's also a conversation of we've been doing some things a very long time. So we have our own status quo, not just the national or state status quo. We have our own status quo. And for me, this is the reality of it because I have to look at the whole system. The district leaders have to look at the whole system. So we start to see gaps and it's hard because when you're sitting in your own sphere, you're not seeing that. So it seems like we're trying to shift from the old paradigm, maybe focusing on one thing or two things or three things. Um taking data as this is what it is and this is how we're going to work and shifting it
018over to a new paradigm where there's a lot more coherence in how we think, how we operate. But it's more so about the understanding of the why. I'm not rooted in we're all going to do it the same way. We can't. You're going to see different presenters today and all of us are going to present differently. So no teacher teaches the same. Everyone doesn't do it the same. Every student doesn't learn the same. But there needs to be a symbol of coherence and it starts from our why. And so I know I had three pillars. I always talked about student safety. I talked about data and accountability. I talked about equity. And I'm kind of shifting my third pillar to system coherence, sustainability, practices that move. And it's not about practices that stay rooted. That
019we do the same thing all at the same time. But it is that we actually start to build a practice around what are actually sustainable things that if we eb and flow, it's going to meet our goal. making sure we have an ecosystem for children where all learners can learn. So priority one, this is the most important part of this slide. Maslo before blooms education when you first started everybody talked about blue, what are they going to learn? What are they going to learn? What are they going to learn? We are actually in a system where we have to talk about what our children need, their safety and belonging. How do our environment structure is inclusive? Because if they are not well or they do not feel well, they do not feel safe, they are
020not going to learn anything. So everything else needs to build upon it. And the key to the roof is equitable practice. Making sure that our students safety belonging is encompassed within those inclusive supports and environment. So we've been operating from a reactive lens though. A lot of what we've been doing is because there's an ember, there's a fire. We react, we change. But when we react and we put change forward, are we thinking about solving the problem now, which is what we need to do, but we need to talk about how we're going to sustain moving past that. And a lot of what we've been doing is this is the issue now. Solve it now. And then two three years later we are then seeing the issue of only thinking about the now but not
021planning that sustainable. So we have to kind of get ahead of certain things and I understand we react but we need to put those proactive supports in place when we solve a problem. A lot of things are arrows versus this is just what we do. So data and accountability we want to get to get get from our students are struggling time passes failure reactive to what is our data signaling what is it telling us about how we operate again you're going to see trends today not just the now for the last two years you might even see a 9-year trend that says we are operating today the way we operate already 9 years ago that our students are not the same today as they were 9 years ago and immediate supports but always knowing that
022we may need to course correct. Course correction means that we've actually put in a measure we're going to stop analyze see how we're doing and shift and change. Course correction doesn't mean that we did something wrong in the beginning. Course correction means that whatever we're doing, it's not working the way we thought it was going to work. What do we need to tweak? And pillar three for us is going to be system coherence or sustainability. I talked about being reactive. Now I talked about was the data signaling and course correction. Sustainability is very key because that's where it comes from. That's where it lends to. It was a data point that I wanted to point out and it says 40% of students entering a two-year institution. I didn't even go to four because community college
023here in Massachusetts is free, right? Individuals get but 40% of students nationally entering two-year institutions require remedial courses because their K12 experience was fragmented. I have some college folks shaking their head in here. So reactive systems are delayed in interventions and so we aren't catching systems for students because they've already fallen behind because we are behind our planning and then we're reacting to the now but we haven't put in the proactive supports of what if or what's presented. So the idea here is looking at it from a vertical alignment standpoint but beyond that trying to determine what the interventions are. Are there interventions in the system that we need to put in place? Is there access issues or how are we planning appropriate? And the goal is to take all three priorities and create a
024cohesive ecosystem for student. But this is not a Dr. Z or a Tanya or a Stephanie or just a school committee or just a PGO or just a community group. This is actually a collective like this for us to shift what's happening in these districts. It is actually a shared responsibility. So when someone asks about student experience, we should all be able to speak about student experience. Maybe not with the same depth and breath as a classroom teacher, but with some kind of understanding of what we are doing to create and shift that. And that's why we're here today. So in your handout you have a present presentation one reflection and there are about three or four questions. It kind of tough presentation once you and so you have elbow partners next to you um
025at your table and I'm going to give you about 5 to 10 minutes to kind of reflect on what we're talking about and start to frame your mind in what it is that you expect today you walk me through. So there are some questions under presentation one. What stood out to you and in that not just what stood out to you but what are you thinking when you think about student experience wellbeing? What should students ex consistently experience around our schools and you have to kind of jugg so that we can refer back to this later on this afternoon or today. Okay. So, I'm going to give you about 10 minutes to have a discussion with your elbow partner. Um, fill out your questions and then we're going to come back and >> stream. We're
026so close.