0017:00 we'll call the meeting to order. Flag salute. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh we I don't believe we have any public comment online. Look like we have anybody else at public comment. Uh so we will move directly to the study session. Um and this is a roundt study se session. Uh we're here at John Lince Elementary School. Do we are we recording any of this? We are. Okay. We're at John Lince Elementary School. Robert Elementary School. That's good. That's good. Uh and we're joined by the principles of Robert Lince John Campbell Primary and Cela Intermediate School. And we're really thankful. Thank you for opening your school to us
002this morning. We appreciate that. Um and with that, I guess we'll turn it over to the principles and I'll take it first, Hunter, and then we'll get right there. So again, this is our annual opportunity for the board to engage with principles. Uh there's been it's my understanding variety of formats over the years for this and we've kind of landed on the last three years of this type of a format that brings the elementary principles together and then the secondaries in the months of April and May. Uh we focused on two themes the successes of our schools and then the challenges that we're facing as well. So we don't want we want to provide a little of both. Uh we'll continue with those themes this year as you will see in the presentations. I I
003want you to realize although this is a board meeting study session, but we want this to be informal. We want you to have as much interaction as you feel comfortable with with the principles as they present either during their presentations after or however you want. So very informal. Obviously that goes for the student representatives as well. Uh the other thing uh although there are three principles here representing three different buildings, I think that I hope that you will see that there's a lot of common work between the three of them. I I know that they have put practices in place to keep them connected. Uh they meet weekly uh if not in person definitely they have a a uh collaboration Zoom session every week to make sure that they're all doing similar things. uh they're
004connecting their teacher teams together across buildings. So I hope what you'll see today is some evidence that supports their work of not only their work in the building but the work that the three of them do together. With that turning it over to Hunter and he'll take you through a few slides and then we'll get right to the principles. Yeah. So I I don't have much for you guys today other than hopefully when you guys leave the session you'll be able to articulate the ways our elementary uh schools are meeting the Viking Promise. I took out I mean you guys have seen the Viking Promise. We've talked about how we're making adjustments to that um and how they're aligned u and then articulate the areas of strength and growth uh in all the schools. So
005that's something that each each principle will be talking about really focused on uh these are from the Viking promise. These are some foundational uh visuals we're using how we've become more aligned. This is how we visualize MTSS multi-ter systems of support in all of our buildings. Uh you can see tier one is what happens in classrooms every single day. Um we've also defined tier two as who needs target interventions and then tier three who needs really individualized supports. Um this is on both ends of the spectrum. So that's something that our as our principal will share some of their data uh of what both their their celebrations and their growth errors are uh and how that kind of ties to to keep this visual in your mind and also tied to our our CSL our
006P plc CSL uh process. So, we've done a lot of work over the past few years around standards and getting more aligned. And um the the the the beauty of having all three today is usually in LMS you would see a K through five kind of scope um because we have different buildings at different levels. Uh we're starting to become more and more aligned. So hopefully you'll see some of the the you'll hear standards, priority standards and some of that work coming through in both the celebrations and also some of the growth areas in the buildings. Okay. So, with that, I'm going to pass it over to Arena. All right. Good morning, everybody. So glad to see you all. I'm so glad you're all here, and I'm excited to share all the great things that
007are happening at Robert Linds. Uh we do set the foundation for our students, and our goal is always to close that gap so that way when they go over to JCP, they uh continue their learning. So, I'm going to share the progress on some of the things that we've been doing this year. Uh, one of our priority goal this year, which was also last year, is for 80% of our prek and our kinder students to know their letter sounds. And like always, you're pro probably wondering, well, why arena? Why did you guys pick a reading goal and why is it letter sounds? One of the reasons we picked the reading goal this year again is because I did talk to Colton Monty at the high school and I said, hey, Colton, if I could close
008the gap on one thing for you, what would that be? and he said, "Area, if you can close the gap on reading, that would be amazing because it's really hard when students progress through the grade levels uh when they get to high school to teach them reading at a fifth grade level because we're not trained to do that." I said, "Great." The other thing is when you look at state data and you look at high school data or you look at the upper grades, your reading and math data is going to be really similar. You're never going to really see the math data go much higher than your reading data because you need that reading comprehension. So, that's why we picked this goal. So when our we said 80%. So when our kids came in
009in the fall, this is what our kinder data looked like and uh by February when our goal was due and this is an end of the year standard. So if our kids know their letter sounds, they can do reading. And so that's the next skill because the next skill skill goes into blending and phrasing and things like that. So when we did our data, it was 86% of our kids uh knew their letter sounds, which is an end of the year goal. But right now on the English side, only four students don't know their letter sounds. And it doesn't mean they don't know all their letter sounds. It just means they might not know some of them. And for our duel, because we want to make sure we're closing the achievement gap for our dual
010students as well, we keep uh data on our kids. We keep data on our Native American migrant population, although our num end number is not that high. And so this was uh duel in February. And as of April when we looked at our data, all of our dual students know their letter sounds. And I'm sorry, are we testing letter sounds in English? So they're not na or anything. Uh so in duel it's in Spanish. In Okay, so they're using Spanish alphabet. Okay, you got it. Great question. So for duel, everything's going to be in Spanish because we're the 8020% model. And the 20% when they do teach uh English, it's going to be more English language development than a core subject. Uh so all of them let me think then for our preschool students in
011February uh their standard goes only up to 10 letter sounds. So by the end of the year they have to know 10 letter sounds. So we had of our four-year-olds 66% of our four-year-olds that knew their letter sounds and 40% of our three-year-olds that knew their letter sounds. So with preschool we're going to continue with this goal because it's an end of the year goal. But with our kinder students, what we had to do is develop a new priority goal. And so now we're going to go to having our kinder students in on the English side doing CVC words. So that's going to be a goal for them. Explain what CVC is. So CVC is having like a consonant uh vowel consonant words. So cat, matt, sat. So it's just that beginning of blending and
012reading. And so that's almost going into a first grade reading standard now. And then for our duel, because the way reading progresses for duel, it's way different than how English progresses. Their next skill is blending two syllable uh two syllable sounds. So like mama, papa, tata, I don't know. I think those were not at all real words. But anyways, you get the point. So when we say 65% the reason we lowered the standard from the 80% is because really it's going into a first grade reading standard. And so last year when we did that we were able to meet it and we know we can. So we're excited to see where we can take our student. And this is where our baseline data is right now for uh the blending and for the two syllables.
013So you can already see they have like a strong foundation already from what they're doing. Uh these are some of the things that we do to make sure that you know our uh reading goal uh comes to life and our kids learn. Uh we do have 45 minutes of reading interventions where every uh teacher in the school uh gets an extra support staff for 45 minutes. So students are spending about 30 minutes with an adult uh at their reading level learning those skills. Uh the other thing we do during their uh 45m minute reading intervention time we do integrate uh technology um we have um apps like for i ready that um help with their reading skills um starfall some of the other apps that I can think of that they do use uh because
014we do want to expose them to technology because as they progress through uh grade levels they're going to be using technology and then we do a lot of celebrations um and that really goes around you know we're a community. Uh we come around this goal and you want to make sure that uh kids know it feels good to achieve a goal and to keep doing that and to motivate them. And so that's why we do a lot of celebrations when we do meet our goals. These are just some of the pictures from our celebrations. If you follow us on Facebook, you'd see a lot of them. Um our second goal uh that we're really excited about is our PBIS goal. So, uh, when we looked at our data from last year to this year, one
015of our, uh, big areas that we needed to focus on, um, because when we look at the data, we break it down by, uh, type of behavior, uh, area that the behavior is happening. We saw that physical aggression even last year was our highest area because kids are still learning how to get along. They're still learning coping skills and, uh, problem solving skills. um and you know their way to communicate sometimes is to push, to shove, to bite and things like that. So we got to teach them those skills. So that was our highest one. So we set our goal uh to decrease it from last year. It was 117 and our goal was 95 and we actually got it down to 51 this year. So we were super excited. And this is how our
016PBIS team uh meets uh uh by monthly and we look at the data, we analyze it, and we set new goals. So right now what we're doing is because we were able to uh decrease this goal, now we're looking at our data again to see is it going to be physical aggression? Is it going to be an area? What are we going to do next? This is just more numbers for you guys to look at when you have time. And these are just some of the things that we do uh to help uh with our PBIS data and decreasing our physical aggression. Some of other things that we do. So our celebrations are even though I don't talk about math um it is something we do keep uh data on uh even in math our
017data is great and reading our data is great. We did reduce our discipline referrals. Um there was a climate survey climate survey done on our building and 83% of our staff said that they do feel supported by admin. So we're really happy that that's going on. And then we do have our admin intern in here. And one of my favorite things about my job is not only growing students but also growing teachers. And so I'm really excited to have Missy here and she's doing a great job. Um some of the challenges uh of course when our kids go to I Ready to take the test uh that is one of our challenge because they're still learning how to drag and click and uh how to use their fine motor skills to do all of the
018things that the testing requires. So that's something that is challenging for us. Doesn't mean they can't do it. we just have to teach them how to do it. Uh we did have almost all new preschool staff this year. So we had to onboard all of them and so we did a lot of trainings and just to get them part of our culture and part of our building. Uh we did see a decline in our kinder enrollment last year and this year um when I look at the data to compare of how many kids are enrolling from last year to this year it's slightly lower. So last year about this time for example we were at about 65 kids that were already new enrolled. Right now we're at at about 50 and then we get a
019new group of students every single year. So we got to figure out where they're at and where to take them. And for future planning next year, super excited to let you know that we are uh adding um I put self-contained classroom. You guys won't that's it's a supported learning classroom. Sorry, every district calls it different and I just had that stuck in my head, but it's a supported learning classroom that we're adding to our building next year. Any questions? What's that mean? Supported learning. Yeah. Uh, so it's our kids who don't um go into the gened classroom right away um just because they just need more support. So they need the smaller setting, smaller staff to student ratio. It's supported learning classroom and they have it currently at JCP. So what we're doing now instead
020of setting our kinder students who uh go to a supported learning classroom, we're keeping them here. So they're not necessarily um they don't have any disabilities per se, just they're behind it would be significant significant oneonone, twoonone, threeonone, very small group. And so we've had the kindergarters housed at John Campbell over the last three years. Um and that's just kind of a yearbyear depending on the number of students. and we happen to have a big bubble coming into kindergarten next year with still um like a first and second graders. So having them in the same space just doesn't make sense. So we're opening a class here. Well, they want to jump camp. Can I ask a question about the um transition for the prek from sort of certificated to uh classified staff? How's that going?
021And one of the things I noticed was there was a difference in um number of referrals from 3K last year to this year. Is that people still kind of feeling things out knowing what's right to send up and what's what's not writing up? So our new staff are doing incredible. So they're not certified teachers, but a lot of them are still getting their degree in teaching. So they have really great skills. Um we've been very impressed. We've done a lot of trainings with them and they've picked on quickly. They've just adapted really well. It's been phenomenal. And we have a new cohort coming in into the preschool. You know, like we said, it's new students coming in. And so that new cohort, it's so different than this year's cohort. I tell Amanda every year, you're
022going to be so excited with the new cohort that we're sending you because they're just different kids. And so you did see the difference. For example, in our kindergarten students, they were increasing our referrals last year when they were in preschool. Whereas in preschool this year, it's declined. It's just a different cohort of students. Arena, you talked about an additional I think you said 30 minutes of intervention time. Can you that is for reading, but that is not the only reading instruction that that is specific to those students needs. Can you explain a little bit there? Yeah, so we do 45 minutes of targeted in intervention time, which is kind of your tier 2 and your tier three combined. So what Hunter was showing you, there's tier one, which is your core instruction. So you
023do your core curriculum and you teach that and we do that for 45 minutes a day our core curriculum which is your phonics phmic awareness all of your reading foundational skills that you do and then you transition into that 45 minutes and you split up kids based on their skills. So some kids might still be working on phmic awareness. So they're going to be working in a group with the teacher on their phmic awareness. Some kids are working on their letter sounds. So they're going to be in a group working on their letter sounds. So for that 45 minutes, it's targeted reading and intervention on what they're missing out on the core. And sometimes it's frontloading, sometimes it's filling in gaps. So frontloading would be like, all right, our next lesson for reading is going
024to be teaching the letter N. Well, in that small group, I might be doing a lot of uh letter N activity. So that way when we get to the main lesson, which is our core lesson, they know how to participate and engage in that lesson. filling the gaps might be I've already taught the lesson and now I need to go back and just reinforce it, reinforce it, reinforce it. So there's different things that they do within those 45 minutes. So mean all all learners, you got it. The lowest children that are struggling, but also the students that are are way exceeding what is expected of them. Well, they're getting the support that. Yeah. And so another of the challenge that we've encountered because our kids are going higher and higher and further and further in
025the academics. So one of the things we've encountered, we don't have passage reading fluency in our curriculum because that's really a first grade thing. So we've had to come together as a staff do trainings and put together materials so our kids can access this higher learning because we weren't prepared for it. Not that we weren't prepared for it, it's just we hadn't taken our kids that far. So now the challenge is how do we get these materials so our kids can move on even further. So even our high kids are getting the next steps. You got it. It's a good problem to have. And that's kind of what because we do vertical teaming. So the last vertical teaming we had with the cohort we sent over from last year, we were problem solving. This was
026like back in February. you know, these kids are here and they're higher than we've ever had them. How do we get them even higher? So, it's definitely a great problem to have. Another question. Oh man, you guys are easy. Thank you. That's okay. All right, John Campbell. So, um, one of the really great things about the last couple of years is it feels like we have really good momentum. So, there's not a lot of new. It's just been getting better at what we're already doing. So, that's been a really good feeling because we know we're doing good things. We just there's nothing new and we're not unwrapping something like let's try this. It's like we know these things work so let's just get better at them. So, that's been really nice. So these are some
027of the things that I had highlighted last year and I know there's a lot of the same people at the table so I didn't want to go into it but I did want to remind because it really does build on on the highlights from this year. Um so our student voice strategies last year we were super excited about that. Really making sure that our classrooms were um using strategies to make sure we're hearing from all of our students. Um using our Viking leader program uh to find out what kids want to see in their school. um what's going well at our school, what don't you like, what do you want to see for Viking swag, um how should we run the kindness um campaigns, things like that. Um and then they have we we still
028use like our pride tickets, our Viking Pride tickets, and they get to use those to go to the store. And we like to have the store be experiencebased. So, use your teacher's chair, get the principal's chair, have lunch with the principal, um bring your slippers for the day, things like that that they can experience versus tangible, and they get a say in the things that they want to earn that way. And then our CSL work, which is really the heart of what we do, those teams um for the last three years have made sure they have agreed upon structures, they've identified those priority standards, they have common assessments and rubrics. um they their goals are aligned to the building goals which are aligned to the district goals. Um and they really collaborate around those four
029questions um have ongoing data cycles um and they really work together to understand their learning progressions. So our accomplishments this year is that our master schedule is really designed to support all of those learners like Ireina was talking about. We have our core instruction intervention and then we have an individualized. So for core instruction there's like 45 minutes uninterrupted in each block throughout the day. It's at different times but every classroom has that embedded so that the every kid gets that core instruction. And then we have schoolwide um interventions. So there at the top where it says 12:45 to 1:15, that's just a snippet that at that time in our master schedule, everybody in the school is working on math exactly what they where they need it. So go is growth opportunity. So everyone gets
030a chance to start where they are and grow um no matter what level they are. And then during those times, we use all of our resources. So every para, every adult is at the table working with kids on their math goals. And then the same for reading. And then individualized is what we call triple dip. So it's a a third opportunity for kids to get instruction right where they are. And it's very intentional um and it's working on exactly what they need to um make growth and hopefully eventually catch up. Um so uh and then our CSL supports all of those. So our teams are working on how they teach the core, how they assess what they're teaching in core. They work on what do kids need for interventions. They do eight minute protocols where
031they can dig in and get advice from their teammates on what might work with this kiddo or what this kiddo might need. Um and then they they do data cycles around all of those. And we we and our fourth cycle um is here. So, um, so, so building on, if you look on the left, um, that that CSL work that I talked about, we have those student voice strategies. Now, we're embedding them in our pacing guides and our daily lessons. So, it just becomes what we do. So, when teachers get out their plans for this week, they know that this is a way that I can um, get student voice and hear the voices of all of our students. Um, they have a common place to collect their instructional data. um and they monitor and
032guarantee the achievements of the priority standards. So we really have been working on identifying the priority standards and having a common way to assess them. But how do we ensure that kids are leaving with those skills? So teams have to be able to look at that data and say the way we're doing this is working or wait but we might need to change things and look at this a little differently. Um, so if you look in the center there, that's the data for a writing a first grade writing priority standard. Um, so where you see the red nine, that's nine students scored a zero onformational writing. 19 students scored a one. 30 scored a two, so they're almost there. And 171 students scored a three. So this team can look at this data and say
03375% of our kids are getting it. What my We're doing we're doing pretty well. That's that's that's getting close to that 80 85%. But what can we do differently for those 30 kids that are almost there and then what holes do we need to fill for those other kids? So you've identified those priority standards, but now you're saying, "Hey, we know for sure they have them or we have to do something differently." So that's been really exciting to see this year. Um, and then if you look over to the right on the bottom, that's where we monitor individualized. So we can see student by student who's growing, who's not, what do they need, and that's also how we identify what groups they will go into. So we group them by like skill, and then they'll
034work together for those six weeks on on those skills. And then um we've also identified a core four, which I'll get to on the next slide, um that I'm super excited about. And then staff retention. Um, for the last I think three or four years I've had to hire a special education teacher and this year all of them are staying. Well, we still have a few months but so far all of them are staying. So, just to have um all the people in the right places and to be able to have the same team um for consecutive years really helps to be able to do the work that we're doing and maintain that momentum. Question. I know that was a lot questions about that. So that if you go especially during the times that are
035go times, it is uh it is controlled chaos from an onlooker that doesn't understand what's going on. You see all these first and second graders just all over the place and then all of a sudden it's just like magic. They're in the right place. they're doing what they're supposed to be doing and they're they're whether it's math or literacy, it's just it's almost incredible how within a very quick time span they the routines that have been established the the teaching that's gone on just to move from one location to another and then be ready to learn. Yeah, it's pretty incredible and it is it is good to see how individualized that becomes for groups, individual students and small groups. Yeah, the kids really like it. the the adults like it. Um you get to go
036to another space, another classroom. It's a nice break in the afternoon. We get all the most of the core done in the morning and is really dedicated to intervention. So it works really well. All right. So our core four are um just four things that we've agreed upon in to have in every classroom. So I don't know if you guys remember but last year I talked about the big five which were like five behavioral strategies that we have in every classroom. So this is uh more for academics. So um our teams at the beginning of the year came together and we said um that every classroom student voice is going to be the prominent voice in the classroom. And then we have four agreed upon strategies that we use and we've studied and we've practiced.
037We've gone on um learning walks. We've recorded teachers doing that strategy so others can see and learn from it. So those are the four of that. Uh student goal setting and reflection. So Ireina talked about I Ready. So that um character is Flory and um it's a character from I Ready. So when the kids are doing their I Ready um lessons or their assessments um they see him they play her it I don't know orange guy Lory um in the their lesson. So um I already contacted me and said hey do you want to have Lori come and visit? And I'm like yeah that'd be great. And I l literally needed crowd control. These kids went crazy. And then we had some middle schoolers there and they were like why do you make my lesson
038so hard? because they didn't so they weren't as excited to see the kids really liked that and it's just it was just another way to say like hey when these things come around and and having the go time really helps them understand like when I do my benchmark assessment or when I do my lessons I have to show um my teachers what I know so that I could get placed in just the right spot for my learning because if I speed through my assessment and it shows that I'm kinder level but I can really read at a first grade level, then my go time's going to be pretty boring. I'm going to know everything. And they start to recognize recognize that, excuse me. Um, and then on the right, those are some little punch tickets.
039So, um, the kiddos in blue will know that they have those skills to accomplish in the blue level. And when they've accomplished those skills, they get to uh read a text. And if they're fluent and can comprehend, they can move to the next level. So it really helps kids see like this is what I'm working on. This is what I've accomplished. This is where I'm going next and this is what I need to complete to move to the next level. So it makes it very visual and excited exciting for them and they get a chance to reflect. Um and then the third one is dictation. So dictation really started in uh some of our dual classrooms. Dictato and Sarah's third grade team actually really took it under their wing and and kind of became the
040experts at they're probably in their third year of really having a full year of pacing around Dictato. So they became the trainer of the trainers um for our school kind of the experts for our district gold K5. Um and so we had a team of teachers from Don Campbell go and get train trained by the third grade team. Um and then they came back and trained our staff and we decided we're going to do it. We're going to commit to it. Every classroom is going to do dictation. So this is a second grade um dictation sample. On the left was the beginning of the year and on the right is now um this time of the year. So you can see that that you know the writing is closer you know sitting on the lines
041better. um the letters are smaller and then when they circle a word that's where they say this week I'm going to work that's my goal I'm going to work on that word this week during my opportunities to practice and by the end of the week I want to be able to get that word correctly or this punctuation correctly whatever it is it's so individualized as soon as they complete their first day and correct with the teacher so that's been really exciting and that the kids know what to expect it's the same thing on Monday it's the same thing on Tuesday and then the teacher it's the teachers love it too because one they see growth like every week from Monday to Friday and kids and two it's routine it's it's not a lot of prep
042it's not a lot of um gathering materials it's it's just this is what we do and this is the routine so it's really nice add to that and the reason why we went with dictation what what our admin were seeing mornings when literally would start but there was a lot of worksheets being done. A lot of kind of just the old school traditional spelling lists. Okay, we're going to just try to memorize words. Dictation um allows for spelling practice, but also allows for conventions. I mean, they can have different focuses throughout the week. Yeah. Uh and it's just a much more effective strategy than just giving a worksheet to a kid. Say, "Hey, this is our going to be our warm-up for the day." Um and kids get really excited for it, too, much more
043than they would than just writing out a a spelling list. and they just need a notebook, right? And I tell my teachers, I goes with number four, like limited worksheets. I don't want you at the coffee machine making copies. Like, I want you collaborating with your neighbor. I want you like, well, how are you going to engage students because we know that um students need to be engaged to learn? And a lot of times worksheets aren't the way to do that. And so, we've agreed that there is a time and a place for a worksheet. Um, but we're being really intentional on how we decide to use those. So, we actually have kind of a checklist of ask yourself this before you copy this worksheet and put it in front of kids. And everybody's agreed
044that that's how we're going to address worksheets. So, that's been that's our fourth of our core and we'll just we'll continue this um next year and just continue to get better at it. All right. So, this is just a snippet of our um core data. So um the top is our reading I ready from for first and second grade from fall to winter. And so our red is going to be our most uh at risk. Um so for like second grade we had 44% coming in. And red means two or more years below grade level. Um and so we reduced that down to 29 while our green bar also grew from 19 to 35. Um and then in first grade the same. our green is getting larger while our red is reducing. Um, and then
045the same for math. Reading always seems to um have more growth than math. I feel like reading is just a lot more cut and dry for teachers. They feel a lot more comfortable with there's less variability than with math, but we continue to um dive into our math and our math interventions and how we close that gap as well. Um, so I'm super excited to see uh spring because you see even a bigger jump in spring because there's just a lot of magic that happens between January and May. And then um for behavior referrals, we have 849 referrals up to this point this year coming from 162 of our students. So really 81% of our kids are doing what they're supposed to do um when they're supposed to do it. And then the other 19
046need a little bit more support um that we're providing through um you know seal interventions, small groups, check-in, checkout, things like that. And then you'll have your handful of kids that need a lot of support um that we have behavior support plans for and things like that. Okay. So what are the challenges? So, closing the gap for those students that are coming in far behind. So, again, back to that red bar. Um, this was our beginning of the year for John Campbell, first and second grade combined. We have 30% coming in two or more grade levels behind, 54% one grade level behind, and 15% on. So that red bar could mean um you know like in kindergarten when they come and they're red they could be up to three or four years behind depending on
047what exposure they've had um to vocabulary, language development, things like that. So the gap is is could be really large for some of those kids. Um and so that's where we really uh focus um on with our school improvement planning goal is we want to do we want kids to make what we call accelerated growth. So accelerated growth is we can't close the gap if kids are just making a year's worth of growth in a year's worth of time. And so they have to make more than a year, sometimes two years, three years to catch up. Um and so this is how we're monitoring our accelerated growth. So on the left you can see that's a group of uh nine or 10 kids that scored one grade level below in the fall and then we
048did a check in the winter and you can see that they've jumped a level or two um in I ready. So we're making we need those kids to get from one grade level to below to mid or above grade level or beyond to meet that goal of accelerated growth. And at our halfway mark, we had about 41% um there that had made their accelerated growth already. And our goal is 80. So, and then um again, what makes that challenging is just planning for the those learners at at those varying levels. Like Irena talked about, some are reading passages, some are still learning FMIC awareness. So, um, digging in, finding out what kids need, how do we address those needs at all of those different levels within our classrooms, in our interventions, um, and in our
049triple dips. I I don't Can I stop you for a second? As we get closer to the end of school, uh, what sort of things I'm thinking about the transition from kinder to, uh, JCP and from JCP to SIS. Uh what sort of things do you do to prepare students for the summer slump? Is there any do we have any program? I know I don't mean necessarily that they're coming to school or anything. You send them off into summer with certain goals for them or Yeah. So like our for I can speak for first grade and second grade at the end of the year we send um you know progress reports of how kids are doing on the standards and then every single time we do a progress report there's a a space for ways
050to help at home and the teachers really um work together to find ways to help at home that that parents can do easily. Counting in the car like things like that that you don't need a lot of materials and they don't take a lot of time but they go a long ways. Um, so we always do that and then we do like with our second to third grade, we take them on a field trip up to CIS, get them excited about being big third graders, things like that. Um, and then the teachers are constantly talking about like we're doing this because this is what's next in your learning. And a lot of times in at this time in second grade, it's this is what you're going to need to be successful in third grade. Do
051you still do a walk to library or have a librarian come and talk about summer reading programs? Do you guys do we don't know if we went last year, but we definitely went the year before. I'm not sure. They usually go to the library and then King Scoop and Circle back. Yeah. Yeah. Transition meetings because we have multiple transitions in elementary or tier one. I will have teachers come from the beginning grade level. Second grade teachers will come meet with third grade teachers and say, "Hey, here's our group of students. Here's where they're at. Here's the skill prior to the standards we feel like they really have grasp. Here's the ones that I would focus on at the beginning of the year that they didn't quite master as a whole group. They also do that
052for tier two. Here's our here's our bas our skill levels that we have set up for interventions and where those numbers are at. So that way this those receiving school can set up interventions that way. And then we also have tier three transition meetings where it's individual students to say this student really needs X Y or Z to be successful. And we do those and those transitions work really well in our elementary. Little little more difficult to do elementary going to middle school because it's a it's a different system, right? You have six periods you're you're going to and but we still we still do those transitions. I'm glad to hear that there's parent involvement. So that's who's teaching in the summer, right? If they're able to. Yeah, we have the same thing at CIS
053as well. So our progress report looks identical to ACPs. So they have the same information. Yeah. Same with ours at parent teacher conferences uh for the that we just had um our teachers send home resources with our families that they can continue the learning uh through the summer. So they'll give them like flashc cards for letters, numbers, um vocabulary, things like that, you know, reading at home for 20 minutes with your child and going through that. And with the summer slump, you know, when you do come back a lot of times because once a kid knows how to read, they know how to read, right? It's just reminding them and going back to that. So once you practice it again, they really you start seeing the data kind of like um Amanda said, you see
054it double, you see it triple because they're coming back to where they were because you're not going to forget those skills and then you're going to see the data double. Another thing that we did uh we've done the last couple of years that's been really cool is we've used some of our like family engagement funds um to buy books and kids get to do book shopping. They go home with three three or four books of their choice for the summer. So that's been for them to keep. So that's been really a good opportunity as well. Um so future planning uh hiring and onboarding a new uh JC uh assistant principles. So we have interviews tomorrow. We have six candidates. So we're super excited about that. Um continue professional development to improve that core instruction, how
055we intervene and um how we individualize again to um address the challenge, right? We need to continue to do that. And then um that continued collaboration with our K5 principal group on vertical alignment. Um when when Ireina was talking about kids that are blending, they don't have a first grade teacher to readily have a hallway conversation or this kid's already doing this. So we have to plan um intentional ways for our teachers to have those vertical conversations. So this year we had two ver uh vertical CSLs where kindergarten first grade teachers came together and second and third and they um designed an agenda and had some topics that they worked through that they wanted to know that would help them with um where they were with their um in their pacing and and what they
056know about kids or what they wanted to know about kids. Um as well as family engagement. So this year we've had um three f well we have a third one on the docket but two two family engagement nights that we that are K5 and each building hosts and we invite all of those kids. So I think that really helps families of not having to pick and choose which one you want to go to if there's too many. Um but really showing that we are aligned and we want um you know we want to help our families be able to um have their kids schools be connected depending on which one they are in questions. So, might be doing the math right, but I think K2 right now is the first group of kids that have
057no disruption throughout the whole time with CO. Is that probably correct? Third graders. The third graders are the last ones that So, do we see any differences there just generically or holistically with kids and coming in and not having to support the same way with discipline and stuff like that? Yeah. So, um, the third grade group that Sarah has, it was the that big bubble of kids that we really f saw a lot of impact with social skills. Um, many other things. Um, just they have very intense needs and need a lot of support. Um, this year is a way different environment with that cohort not there. So, it's it it's drastically different with the kids that um and Ireina I think it says the same about the new poor cohort. They're going to be
058just as incredible as the one we sent last year and the preschoolers. And not that that group of third graders like we still made academic gains. We still focused on the right things which I know um Sarah is too. It just makes it a little bit more difficult with like um you know I think I mentioned it last year the behav 85% of kids are doing what they're supposed to but that 15% are very loud and very disruptive and it takes a lot and so it doesn't feel um it doesn't always feel like you're doing the right work even though you are. Um, but yes, it's a way different in terms of behavioral response at my school this year than it has the last two years. Thank you. Um so we've worked really hard on
059like they talked about earlier but we have vertically aligned um in terms of everything from from how we do things systematically with our walkthroughs. They call theirs go time I think you call it go time as well. Um we call ours walk twos and so we have a walk to read. We have a walk to math. Um we keep uh the the systems are the same. So I'm not going to go into it the same way just because I would probably be repeating the same information. So, if you at any time want to stop and say, "Tell me how it works at your building." I'm more than happy to answer that. But really, it is everything that Amanda described. Like, I could probably say the same thing verbatim um in terms of how it works
060at our building as well. So, might not I might not be as long as maybe Amanda did, but just know that if you do want to ask questions, I can definitely share. Um what's going well? Uh I so over the past this is my third year um at CIS as principal. I was there as AP for three years before that. But I think just having that consistency we're seeing a huge shift this year in our culture. Um I couldn't we couldn't have made the changes that we want to make or that we have this year or even looking in the future last year or the year before. We wouldn't have had the staff buy in. We didn't have trust built. Um, we've spent a lot of time working through having hard conversations and how to
061treat one another. Our adults are modeling what it means to have respect with one another. Um, also with kids and we've seen a dramatic turnaround in our culture. And so that is something that I can say I'm very proud of. I love going to work and doing what I'm doing. Um, I think my staff would say the same thing if you walked in and talked to them. Uh it's just a different feeling that we have in the building that I hadn't experienced before. So we are very collaborative. We're consistent with our practices. Um when we do have things that arise that are are issues that we need to work through, people are going to each other and talking through them and figuring out how to problem solve. So um that's really exciting to see. That's
062probably one of I think the biggest highlights because really it is the foundation of everything else that you're going to do moving forward. And so while we know that we've been working on other things and whether that's academic systems or behavior systems, we um we have a bit a different buy in now and people are seeing the benefits from it. So that's really really cool to see. Um academically at CIS, we've been our school improvement um goals have really been centered around students who are two or more years behind. And so while we are working on academics on both sides of the spectrum, we've been really focusing on what are we doing on core um and what are we making sure that our our staff are all aligned and that we know exactly what our
063standards are, how to teach them and um how to reach students on both sides of the spectrum in order to make sure that we are helping students who are are below but also extending those students who are above. Um, but we've also had some some PD um with um a gal by the name of Shelley Moore and she's really um big on inclusive practices and she does teach from the outside in. So making sure that you're providing supports from the lowest to the highest but you do not have a classroom full of third graders who are all just on grade level. That's not how it works. You have kids along the whole entire spectrum. And so what she's done um in terms of teaching and supporting our core learning is how are we reading meeting
064the needs of of kids across your entire classroom. Um so we have this year just really been focusing on students are two years behind so that way we can really close that gap. Um so for you'll see here for third, fourth and fifth. Um, these are students who are making like for third grade that math is 78% of our students who are two or more years behind have already made at least one years of growth. And like Amanda was saying, you have to make more than a year's growth each year in order for them to catch up. Um, over half of all of our students have made at least one year of growth for those students. So, um those percentages there in each grade level are just showing you that that's um the percentage of
065students who have made at least one year's growth who are two or more years behind at that point in three quarters or half the year. Yeah. Yeah. So, we still have learning to do. Um so we're hoping to get there but we do um we've been the systems that we've put into place our walkthroughs and the things that the ways that we are trying to reach them and the strategies that we're using within even our core it is showing that it is closing that gap. Um we're not there yet and we know that but we we're going to continue to refine those. Something that we are working on um even for our WP twos is um we've worked really hard in core to create common unit plans and assessments and rubrics to make sure that
066everybody is aligned and we know exactly what is expected. Um what we're doing is we're now doing that for our walkthroughs as well. And so it's not just going to be teachers trying to fill materials and figure out what they should be doing, but we have very systematic ways for for teachers to say, "Hey, when I'm teaching these skills, this is exactly what I need to do in order to get them there." And so we are working with our unit plans and assessments um with our walkthroughs as well. So Taran that that's an unusual percentage because as we were saying earlier reading often outpaces math testing. Is that are are our math numbers doing better than reading there because they're starting so much further behind in math or there that's a lower skill that they're
067able to catch up or is it something that you're doing at the building that you think is extra successful? I think we're being more intentional around the things that we're teaching within math and reading or with our WP twos for sure. Um I it was actually surprising to me too because our our reading scores have always been higher and so that was exciting to see that what we're doing is we are being very we're a lot more intentional on what we're doing within walk. So it's they're not just going into a class getting on a computer or just taking those 30 minutes to play games. It is very intentional. they are making sure that they are working on specific skills and we've worked really hard to break down the skills and the different um the
068progression of learning so that way they are moving from skill to skill to fill the holes that they have. And so um while that's it it is exciting to see that what we are doing is working we know that we can get better and we're still refining those processes. All right. So, um, while this is an area of growth for us, I'm going to celebrate first the things that we are seeing within behavior. Um, what you're going to see on the very top image is last year's numbers for third, fourth, and fifth. But what I wanted to celebrate is just looking at, um, the difference that our third graders from last year who are now fourth graders and our fourth graders from fifth graders, um, the difference in the referrals that they've had. And so
069while we can see that third grade this year um takes the cake in terms of all the referrals that we see um what we do want to celebrate is the fact that there are things within our PBIS system that we do see working um and we're continuing to refine that as well. But we see a lot of growth with our fourth and fifth graders. We see some things that um there are some concerns as well that we have identified. there's holes in things that we didn't um I think we we didn't really see last year and so we're just continuing to figure out what are we going to do next and we're always looking with that next lens of um what are our next steps to improve our systems. So the third to fourth graders
070did they go up in first a little bit? They did go up a little bit. Yeah. Um you had actually changed the uh number of lines on the bottom one the third graders in scale. Yeah. Yes. Yes. our third graders are are quite high. Um numbers are a little off of fourth, but um for for this year and that's why I mean like we're seeing some things in some fourth graders that we didn't typically even see last year. Um and I think we we really had to step back and take a look at what do we how is our system even set up to begin with and what is working but what is not working and then what changes do we need to make moving forward. So we know it's not just a third grade
071issue. We know that that's our heaviest group right now. Um, but we also know that there are things that we can improve for fourth and fifth grade, too. One thing we have seen with this third grade cohort that's come through and both starting at Lince and JCP is it really demanded that the systems change u and improve and I would say I mean having seeing it at both schools previously, I think your guys' systems are both much further along in regards to responding to and improving behavior over time. Um, and like the holes that show up are because you you have students with so much need. You're like, "Okay, we we didn't realize that this was something we needed." Um, and it's hard to really predict what those are until they're testing the limits of
072of what you have in place. I don't know. It was a blessing. Yeah. It's a right a blessing in disguise because it really did because right now the holes in our system, we're still doing the same thing as we did last year, but we're not doing it as much. So the holes don't become as or the the need to be so consistent because if you have your response team going all different ways and I'm going to respond to Hunter today but Sarah's going tomorrow, we have to be doing exactly the same thing when we respond to Hunter's behavior or um he's or the teacher's going to say when Amanda comes like he doesn't have to do this but when Sarah comes he does. So I want Sarah like we can't have that. It has to
073be the same person comes and the same thing happens. So that was a way for us to really be able to shore up that response system. I think as you have more grade levels and you have more staff, it becomes that much more vital that it is consistent and and CIS is, you know, three times the size as Lint. So it's uh it's taking uh not longer but just it's more complex system to make sure that everyone is going in the same direction uh in regards to supporting behavior. And we've also had new staff. I mean we had a new PBIS person in the middle of last year. We added another one in the middle of this year and then all of our classified staff that we have within our behavior team. It's been um
074we only have one person that started the same at the beginning of the year. So when you're talking about having to train everybody on what your systems are to be consistent, how to respond, how to make sure that we're retaching um and really to know our system well, that's and I'll talk about I mean that's that's part of our challenge is that we haven't had that consistency and so it's constantly retraining and here's how we do this and so and people getting used to it because it's it's I will say probably one of the hardest jobs in the building is when you're constantly running um and trying to make sure that you're meeting the needs of all of our kids with a high group of needs. So then with that much disruption in classrooms, I
075assume that then you get parents complaints about kids that are disruptive to their children and then you explain to them continuing this PBIS process that parents say, well maybe PBS PBIS isn't working. Where's the discipline at? And how do you kind of address that with parents? And then even within the building, do we start thinking PBS works a lot of the time, but with this situation, maybe it becomes more of a discipline type situation. We've done that more this year than we ever have. I mean, I I think in the first we had more suspensions or referrals or discipline than we had like in the first probably two weeks than I had ever as an admin ever in all five six years. Um so we it's we are doing a lot more um and we
076are making sure that we're trying to make sure at all times that it is not disruptive. So we still have our systems where if it is a disruption we do take kids out of the classroom and they do have to earn their way back. It is not something where we just say okay fine you get to go back. Um there is a system and a process and if they aren't ready to go back we're not going to just put them back in the classroom. But when you have it happening, often you do hear parents say like why is this happening? Um but there it's a response system that we have and we we still do it. I think uh regards to what what has been happened this year in support of of the need adding
077that extra PBS intervention is that really can be more of a a smaller environment extended reset. We call it reset where um students are have shown consistently they're they're disruptive unsafe potentially they're in a more like a smaller environment with lots of behavioral support and and and teaching before they transition back to what would be their home room genetic class. Uh and that's something that is uh has been effective for some of our students that have been the highest uh kind of most concerning behaviors. Uh and the the problem with that is we don't want that to just be a dumping ground for any kid that has you know for so we still need a system in order for it to access to make sure that we are uh using that for students that have
078the highest need that need that that level of reinforcement not just because it's easier just to send a kid away. Uh, but that has been something that we had in mid year that I think has started to take root and has helped. And I think regardless of who the cohort is or what the group of students is, the the kids are relationship dependent. Like they want to connect with adults. They want that relationship. And this cohort especially is so relationship dependent. And so that jump from a new school from second grade to third grade in a brand new school where they don't know anybody. Um so you're navigating that in that first two, three, four weeks while they're exploding. So it's such a um balancing game to be able to show the kiddos that you
079do care about them, they can trust you, but it takes time. add one more thing on this is that it's unusual from my position to to hear about the number of suspensions at at an elementary grade level. And we've we've had them and we've had we've had them where we've gone and exceeded the number of days legally you can have children suspended within a gradient period. And that becomes problematic on the other end. uh when we have parents who are demanding back into school because they know legally they can't be out of school anymore. So it is a catch22 situation but um when all else when you've done everything else most of the time that works with kids you don't have to exclude them or suspend them. But this year has presented us uh lots
080of uh times where we've had to had to take that action against students of the age that you would not expect to have to suspend. So probably even having those parents upset about how long their kids been expelled or suspended is helpful because then maybe it's being taken care of because now you've disrupted parents life a little bit too and that's where it probably has to get to once in a while. I mean we see it on both sides of the spectrum. You get parents who are really upset because you have such disruptions. You also get the parents who are really upset that their kids are suspended. Um, and that's can be really hard to I mean we have we have meetings with families saying like why is my kid out and what are you
081doing at school to help them still and so I I think parents are a challenge too I think and just trying to balance that. It doesn't mean that we're not helping them but to see both sides of the spectrum. We get it on both sides. Like they're happy they're upset that they're upset that you know kids are still at school. So it's it's I don't suppose you can tell that or ask the parents what are you doing at home to change your child's behavior because that's really where it starts. We do and that's why you know suspensions they typically don't work because especially out of school because we have we have no control oftentimes. I mean the idea would be this might be disruptive for parents and maybe this will be a wakeup call. It's
082typically not what we see when we see the comeback. We see behavior uh not improve. Kids are on Xbox, right? We run into and that's that's really how why we've set up our response systems to be more functionally based because if I'm a student and school's hard and I don't like school and I do something, I get to go home, it's more likely I'm gonna if I keep on doing that, I keep on getting to go home, I'm going to reinforce that behavior, right? And so we really tried to have uh out of school suspensions be our last stop because we found it just it's not doesn't change behavior. We've had to use it more this year um really with this cohort. We used it more than at first and second grade and at kindergarten
083too than we have with this cohort just when it's be uh the safety when safety's um compromised. Are are there patterns with the kids who are having discipline issues? Are they widespread or are they limited to a small group? Would you say in general? Bigger group this year than I think normal. Usually it's not this many in one cohort. Um I think this this third grade group is abnormally large compared to either like a rough percentage like 10% of the kids are are getting in consistent trouble. Is it 75% of the kids who are causing you know just Oh yeah. No, I would say it's it's still a small number and it's nothing we haven't seen. Every grade level has the behaviors we see in third grade. It's just um every student who who's who
084who strugg struggles at a much higher level than in past I wouldn't say it's 10 even 10%. We can pull our data and it'll say like you have 900 referrals for this grade level, but they're coming from 40 kids. So we can break down and see the percentage of which kids, you know, back at my slide that said 81% of kids were doing what they're supposed to do that that was doing that math and saying the referrals are coming from this many kids. The rest they're getting it they're following our PBIS expectation. So our data can show exactly what percentage of which number of kids in third grade they're coming from. And I would say like if the extended reset what we have that alternate learning environment where we do have them where they have
085to earn their way back into class. I think we've had um maybe eight of them eight kids um that have gone through that. So it's not um and those are our extreme but they cause pretty significant disruptions. Yeah. And traditionally probably 30 40 years ago when I was going to school those kids would go into a self-contained type environment. At least some of those kids I'm aware of would probably be in a different type of classroom. Maybe not in the genet. I don't know where they went because kids didn't behave like that like when I was in school. So I don't know where they went or where they were. I don't know. And a lot of them do not have academic challenge challenges. You'd be surpris I mean they are some of I mean they're
086doing just fine academically. As for as much disruption as they create, they are learning which is crazy. Um, and some of them are lower. Don't get me wrong, they're not all performing high academically, but um, it's not that they are per it's not an academic issue, which is I would say total, you know, total students that have consistent need in this grade level around 20, right? Uh, so 20 total students out of 280 or however many in this cohort just in third grade. In third grade, yeah. Uh and and there's more students that have had a referral, but you know, referrals are just for when there's a mistake that's happened. Most majority of our students don't have a referral at all, right? They're just angels. We have some students that have made a mistake once
087or twice throughout the year, but the response happened and they haven't had any mistakes since, but we have about probably 15 to 20 students that consistently struggle with their behavior in this cohort. U so it's not a super high number. It's just again the intensity of it. Yeah. and they can get a referral for maybe they've had multiple reminders, they've had um you know stepped out of class and had a conversation, they might still be disruptive if they're continuing that you know and it might just be that they're talking to their neighbor. So there's different reasons that they could get a referral. It's not always um and so that's why sometimes it can be deceiving like oh they have so many referrals but it also could be what's happening looks different depending on the type
088of referral that they're getting. And the other thing too is they've made a lot of growth. Okay. But just because of the intensity that they came in with, it took all of kindergarten, all of first grade, and they made these milestones in all of those. And then they have a little bit of a setback with that big transition again, like I said, from second to third grade, but they have made growth. And some of the kids that we were responding to, she's never responded to. So different. Yeah. So they've made a lot of growth, too. And I think that's, you know, because of our systems and our consistency. uh that we've had even across buildings. Um so then uh that just kind of goes back into our challenges, right? I mean that that's kind of
089the that's been our conversation, but we we do see an increased intensity. So that's something um the bullying concerns have been more this year than we've really had. And so instead of just waiting, we're really trying to figure out how do we how are we more proactive? we don't want to just wait for things to come and then react to them. And so we partnered with ESD to go through like a bullying anti-bullying campaign. And um they came in, we had classroom lessons for every single one of our classes. We had a lunch um group happen where they came to lunch twice with every single grade level. They promoted anti-bullying. Um they talked about what it means um and how to be more preventative, how to to support being kind. Um they also we put
090on a parent night and had families come in where we got to present, but then they also got to ask questions as well. Um this is something that it's not just going to be a oneanddone. We know that it's important to be aware about it and and continue those conversations. So, we're going to be uh doing something like that every year where we just continually talk about it and are really promoting kindness and anti-bullying. We're also going to be um uh we're looking at having like an anti-bullying week even within our teachers and how do we have um teaching on what that looks like for a whole week within um our classrooms as well. So not just a one or two and not really relying on ESC to come do that, but how are we
091training up our staff to make sure that we're supporting that? So this is a as as challenging as this year has been in regards to bullying and HIV and all those things, it it has made us look systematically at what we're going to do different. And so I think what Sarah's just said is that that transition from JCP to CIS, we need to put some measures in place that become part of our yearly systems that we're going to have an emphasis on on bullying at that building every year. And um our hope is that becomes just a place where the the focus is. Not that we're not going to think about it at the other two, but that is going to be a real focus at that area. And hopefully that will will not only
092support the kids at CIS, but as they move forward into the middle school as well. I think we see it more dramatically. I think like developmentally you see kids change from like the second to to third grade um drastically. You see that in other buildings too that are K5. It's just we have more of a microscope because it's a different building and you can see different behaviors at one building and they're like why are they acting this way at at this you know at CIS there's a dramatic difference in the developmental age and what they're doing during these years. And so um we know that but we also then need to address it and say how are we supporting in different ways too. What we're seeing is really there are cases of bullying don't get
093me wrong. I mean when it is there is definite bullying gets investigated and determined it is and but there is uh what more often than not is a lot of very unkind behavior between kids. uh treating each other just poorly, just doing things that you would just look at like why would why would they say that to that other child? So, it we've got a lot of work to do, not only on making sure that our students don't treat each other that way, but really in education to to our to our families as well, is that not everything is bullying, but we're seeing a lot of very unkind behavior. And that unkind behavior is being learned someplace. And families when they don't understand, that's when it becomes really hard for them. Yeah. Because when they
094say, "Well, my kid was called the name um and they're being bullied now." Well, that's that's the difference between being unkind and bullying. If it's repeated behavior, then yes, and it's targeted, then yes, that's bullying. But a oneoff when their kid was unkind to them, is not. But then they see that as you're not doing anything, you're not. And so then they immediately go to that HIV when it's not necessarily bullying. And that's where it could be really hard with families. So we want to educate them on just it doesn't mean that it's okay. there's still consequences, but it may not be um labeled as bullying. Um so, it's important that we let them know what that looks like, too. Um for academic supports, I think um you know, for us, just making sure we
095have that vertical alignment. It's really hard to do that in a building the way that our building is is set up in the first place. We have one hallway per grade level right now. Um and our teachers will tell you if you ask them who teaches fourth grade, they can't tell you. They don't know them. um as well. We see everybody in in staff meetings and things like that, but all the collaboration happens within their one hallway. Um and so that's been something that they've talked about a lot is like I don't really know other staff members. We do um a lot of work during we meet every other week for staff PD and we have them trying to sit with different groups which is really challenging for them because they like their people and
096everybody likes to be comfortable. Um but they it's been really hard to figure out how are we how are we building that vertical system. So that way we're working together collectively as a whole 35 and not just so isolated into one grade level. Um and then I think we've we've just been really working on that PD support or how are we being inclusive? How are we teaching from the outside in? That's been something that we've spent a lot of time on this year. Um but then I think that the one thing that we're really thinking of is it's we want to expand that like I was telling you earlier for our walk to making sure that we are doing that across um all levels of learning throughout the building. So um that's just been finding
097the time I guess would be the biggest challenge is making sure that we have time for that vertical planning and then time for them to have that that time to collaborate uh for future planning. um we are really looking at the data that we're collecting uh really trying to be very specific and targeted around the students and where they're at and then what we're going to do next. And so we have um students who right now we have teachers who are collecting data and we have what we call data central and we keep pretty much anything and everything from priority standards, what they're teaching in core classrooms, um what they're teaching in walkthroughs. So we can track exactly what a kid is doing, what they're learning, um track their assessments. We have everything linked in
098there. So it is a one-stop shop of being able to identify where students are at any given time. But one thing that we are looking ahead at is um having students track their progress as well. They do this when they go through and they have rubrics and they know where they're at. But we want to have them start tracking it on a regular basis where they can see exactly this is where I'm at. This is what I know I need to do next. So if they are ready, we can make sure that they can move ahead. We can extend their learning or they know exactly what they need to do to be able to be proficient. So um we're going to be more systematic on how we do that. And this is going to be
099something that kids are tracking um every single week. And then we're going to be sending this home to families every single month um starting next year. So we've been working through that system um to make sure that how can we make sure that it's um easy for kids to access, that it's not cumbersome and they can't do it, but then um sending it home to families. So you have ex you know exactly where your kid is at with their priority standards at any time that you want to. So um we want to make sure that that's more communication is going to be better in the long run. Um again just kind of hitting that bullying awareness and prevention. We're going to continue that work. Um and then uh really looking at enhancing our supports making
100sure that um again even through um when they are going through small groups for kindness or friendship issues or whatever that might look like we're going to be tracking that data as well to say is this working is it not working to say do we need to make changes do we not? So the more that we know what is working and not we can adjust. Um, one of the biggest changes I think talking about transitions, especially for this third grade, is we know that um, there are some things that are not working and what are we going to do about it? And sometimes we have to take a look at how our systems are built and is this contributing to this or is it hindering some things? I think even just how we vertically align
101as a building and how isolated it can feel when they're in different hallways and our building is big and if you don't go in a certain wing, you don't ever see those people. And so what we um were noticing is that we had uh we need more recess support out. Um right now we have six lunches and six recesses. Um so that really spreads thin the amount of support that we can have and supervision out at recess. It's not really conducive to the needs of our students. And so we had to look at that and say what can we do different within our master schedule. um looking at our behavior needs uh just making sure that we are providing that time for specific teaching around but um right now our pride team can't keep up
102and we have so many things going on and trying to separate kids who need to be separated from. Um it's a lot for everybody to keep up with. Um having behaviors in one hallway is really hard because you can't separate kids. So, like if you have safety plans or anything else like that, if they're out at lunch, recess, it's it's a little stack of papers that we're trying to keep track of of like they can't be around each other and there's certain kids that cannot mix. So, um and it's really hard to create flexibility when you can't create mentors from kids who are older and then having younger kids because they never they know their cra their paths never mix. And so, um, logistically, um, knowing next year as many kids as we have to
103separate within that third grade cohort going up to fourth grade, we would have to add more sections of of classrooms, which means more teachers in a hallway, which means where are we going to put everybody because right now we are pretty at max capacity in the classrooms that we have. So figuring out where we would even put them in the first place was a logistical challenge. Um, and then just really thinking through um, how we're building that community within newer staff, veteran staff, how we're learning from one another and making sure that that's a a good mix because right now we have a really great veteran staff in third grade but not a lot in fourth and fifth. Um, we had a lot of new teachers. And so just trying to mix up and making
104sure that we're vertically aligning was really important. So, one thing that we're going to do to address all of these um is that we are going to move to a mixed hallway within each hallway. So, third, fourth, and fifth graders will all be in every single hallway. Um each one we're going to call them houses. So, it'll be house one, two, and three. And as you know, um just that transition for our third graders is so hard. Going to a different hallway is like going to a new school for them. and we know that this is not going to be sustainable if we keep doing this for the over and over with them. Um so mixing them is really going to promote that peer mentorship. We've tried to do it this year where we've um
105had some fifth graders who might be at recess. Maybe we can pull some third graders and build those relationships and mentorship so that way they can learn about appropriate behavior and what it's like to be with an older kid. Uh but there it means that we would be pulling them from gore or pulling them from some instruction and that's not fair. So this way um they would be able to we' be able to build that mentorship um really build a vertical collaboration amongst our teachers so that way we can have that third fourth fifth they can ask questions. We can really make sure that what students are learning in third grade that we're preparing them for that fourth grade and so forth. Um building those relationships with students and staff. We know that this group
106is very relational. Um and so if we can keep them in a hallway for three years that would be amazing. Well, two years after next year, right? But if we can keep them in that hallway that they are in for the next few years just to promote those relationships to get them um knowing who they're with in one hallway versus moving every single year. That's our goal. It doesn't mean that we don't have the ability. I think that gives us the flexibility if we need to move kids from one hallway to another. We have that um in order to separate some kids. But it's going to give us three different lunches to separate kids now instead of just two. It's also going to give us three different hallways where they wouldn't ever interact at all
107throughout their day and we don't have that now. Um, any questions on that? I have a question. Yeah. Does that mean that the staff are also moving? So, there will be like third grade teachers, fourth and fifth, so they can also um like meet each other more. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yep. So, you'll have a mix of third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers in every hallway. That's what the vertical collaboration that's what that makes him. And JCP doesn't have that kind where you've got I mean your building is a little bit Yeah. built differently, right? There's more chances to interact. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. So the first graders are on the first floor and then second graders are on the second floor, but they're stacked. So you just down the stairway and you can have access to
108a first grade. And the way you're always I mean there's are kind of set up where it's four on the on the yellow hallway. There's four or five teachers in the blue and green. So it's it's segmented better physically than and you guys seen this. It's one straight hallway all the way down. It feels more congested than JCP does and a long way to go to talk to somebody. Yeah. So how long would you expect to see changes from this program? Exactly. I mean I think there's going to be hiccups with anything and we're not going to know until we necessarily get in it. I I would expect that we would see things different even just from the beginning of the year. Um just in terms of how we're separating kids um even from our
109staff perspective of how we can support kids in a different way. Um even through PBIS and through uh just the support staff that we have. Um I think the supervision immediately you're going to have instead of having three people out at recess we can have six. And so it's more eyes on on you know we have a really large playground as it is and so three people trying to span everything that's going on is really hard. So we're able to go to three lunches instead of six now which is going to create utilize and maximize our resources. So I think we're going to see a big impact. It's been it's a big change and we've been working I mean we've been planning this now for for a month and a half but that's been talking
110to maintenance talking to tech. There's a lot of changes. Um, meeting with our building leadership team to really kind of get them to understand the why and get them to buy in. I couldn't do this last year or even definitely not the year before. But I think that this is a testament to our culture too of saying they they get it and they see what's happening too and they're like it it it does make sense to them once we went through the process. They're able to see the why and it makes sense. How do the teachers feel about it? They're I mean that's they're bought it now. I mean it the change is hard because it's changed. They feel um they're having to move classrooms. They're having to move away from their comfort zone, right?
111They don't even like sitting in different seats in ED meetings, let alone trying to move entire classrooms and hallways. So, um but the amount of support that we have had and them saying like we get it, we totally understand the why. And although it's hard because we're leaving our people, they realize that that's a that's an adult comfort issue versus what's best for kids and best for our building overall. And so I would say they're in um and they're bought in and they they support it. Will that change any of the trans amount of time you'll need for transitions between I don't know walkthroughs or specialties or Good question. No. Um so we're going to do mixed grade level walkthroughs as well. Um, so I did call other people brought questions and said, "What does
112this look like for third and fifth graders to be mixed together and what about, you know, when they're go to the bathroom together or if they are at lunches together? What does that look like?" So, um, I called around to different schools in around the valley just who have K5 buildings. As you know, like our building is just different. Nobody else does it like we do. And so, I wanted to get a perspective from people who have K5 buildings and their kids are mixed already. Um overwhelmingly the people that I called said like we don't we don't see behavior issues when third I mean third and mixed they go to the bathrooms they don't have any other option right because they have one building and they have they have maybe three bathrooms and so your
113kids they have one upstairs and two downstairs their kids have to figure out and and mix going to places like that. Um, we're also going to see, I think, when you have a a big group of, say, even fourth and fifth graders, not even taking this third grade cohort. When you have everybody all mixed, they're trying to impress their friends or they're try, you know, they're they're feeding off of each other more than they normally would. How we would reconfigure it, we would only have two, three max in each hallway from each grade level. And so like when you only have three classrooms of fifth graders, you're not even g we're not going to see the behaviors in fifth grade that we do now because they're not going to be doing the same things together
114and we can separate them. So when you have higher groups all together, it makes it more challenging, especially when you can when you group all those behaviors together. We do it at first and second grade. Last I think this year was our first year mixing and it's a world of difference because you have those peer models even one year. The second graders knew how to go through the lunch line. The new from kindergarten, they have those peers to watch when it was all Well, Ireina lives it with all kindergarteners like they don't have anyone to look to that's done it before. Yeah. And so it it's helpful to have them mixed with their older peers. Yeah. And the reason we I mean originally when it was 567 at CIS4 before we did the reconfiguration across
115all of our buildings, they were mixed hallways. They had five, six, seven in every hallway. The reason that we went to single hallways is because we we taught by teams. And so like when I first started, I was an ELA teacher. I there were only three fifth grade ELA teachers in the whole building because there was an ELA, a math, and a science. And that team kids just rotated between those teachers. So you couldn't split up fifth grade ELA teachers or else you' just have one in each hallway, right? I mean, so it really we went to that one grade level hallway because of how our system was built. It's just not conducive to what we're doing now and it's not the best model for our kids. I think uh changes like this are at
116times needed under certain circumstances and I think changes like this also is you're going to find those who um are all in full support think it's a great idea. You're going to find those that don't really have a opinion one way or another and then you're going to find those that are going to be critical of it. And I think that we're going to see that within our teaching staff, our support staff, um whatever whatever people that are employed at that building and I think we're also going to see that amongst our parents as well. I think there's going to be uh some parents I'm not sure the size of the group. we'll we'll start the communication strategies with that that are going to especially if they have children that have already been in cyst
117for a couple of years and now this look to look different to them. So we we expect that um but I do think there's enough potential benefit in this change for kids not as much for maybe not for adults but for kids I think the benefit is there that's worth worth the try and see what happens. What I've told Sarah is that this is a this is a significant change. What I don't want to see is just a flip-flop back and forth and back and forth. And this may not we may not after one year have all of our questions answered. We may have identified some areas that uh again are going well, but we also may have identified some things that are challenging. But we're gonna unless it's just a complete train wreck, which
118I don't expect, we're gonna stick with this. uh because I don't think one year would do it do it would be a disservice to just try it one year. I mean this this was not a decision that we took lightly. We know that it's a big change and we know that things take time to work through as well. And so and and there's not a perfect model. Um, and so there's going to be things that maybe worked better if it if it was like one grade level, but then um, you know, we're going to have to work through that and figure out all the hiccups and bumps of things because it is new. But I think that we have a great staff who are willing to try and to work through things and and do
119things a different way. I've seen them try things this year that they would have never tried last year. um just because they're seeing some benefits of things. Even our I will tell you that moving to generalist was not a popular decision by any at all, but some of our biggest uh naysayers and said this is the worst idea ever this year have said like this is the best thing we could have ever done. She was like I love it. This is a great change. So it's hard in the moment but I think overall I think it's a really good thing. So part of it we worked through it which you mentioned that a challenge of supervision and and um at lunches and at recess that was becoming an economic issue as well because we were
120having to continue to staff at such high levels for that the the campus in general because of the way it's made up and because of the playground because all the different spaces and having all those kids out there in both the cafeteria and lunch we were just having to add staff you know, all the time in order to try to get appropriate levels of supervision and and economically we just had to draw a line like, hey, we got to look at something else. And so I know Cretz and Sarah spent a lot of time, you know, trying to figure out how can we reduce lunches, which would reduce recesses, which would which would potentially reduce the amount of staff that we would have to add. And that may have spurred some thinking that we just
121can't keep throwing a whole bunch of resources. Although it's it's worthy resources and people, there's got to be a limit to it or we're not going to be able to support it. And our building is not built for it was not an elementary building. So there's a lot of different ways that we have to exit the building. Um it's there's a lot of people that it takes in order to make sure that we are safe and getting kids home or even to and from transition. So, it's a lot. All right, we are what, a couple minutes away in perfect timing. Nice job. I don't I thank you the three of you. Nice job. I hope you came away obviously with learning some things as part of this, but seeing being in the same room together
122and listening to them, I hope you came away with one of our our goals for learning that at that Hunter and I talked about is is the commonality between the three and the work that they're doing together is very important. I also want you to pick up on one thing that Amanda said and this is part of what I have tried to to do is focus on what's important and focus on teaching and learning and focus on academic and focus on supports for kids and not bring anything new to the table that takes our focus away with that. And uh that's not to that just I hope shows you as the board and student reps that that this is not just individual people doing individual things. The the five of us uh six of us
123do a lot of work together but the whole three-year process that we've taken here is really about getting better at what we know is the most important thing to do. And I I'm hopefully you'll see the emphasis on academics and the emphasis now on on supporting our students and their behavior needs. This is really what our ultimate focus is. And we're not we're not going off there. I'm guaranteeing you again and I tell this to the principles every year. We don't have a new initiative. There is no new initiative next year. We're not going to go through a bunch of training. We're not going to spend a bunch money on a new curriculum. We are going to get better at what we know is already the most important thing and that's teaching and learning and
124supporting our students. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Great. Thank you very much. We really appreciate all the preparation you put into this, the work uh that you put in all throughout the school year. For sure. Thank you again, Arena, for uh allowing us to come into your school. Um we we uh hopefully we'll have some uh visits to your school here coming up this spring. Uh I don't think we have an executive session today, so we will adjourn the meeting. Uh, great. Great. What were you doing? Every sport that was possible at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh. Red. We haven't done any other level without water. Yeah. They are the old three times. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Oh, cool. Sorry. Have a good time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Sarah.
125Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. was on. Good. [Music] Thanks, Dan. We're going