001e sorry about that there we go we'll move on to um some necessary business here administrative business item number three second reading and adoption for a whole list of um uh policies starting with 5400 on personal leaves and uh ending with 5 12 retiring parental and family leaves and marital status so it's it's as we as we spoke about this at the last meeting it's a um retirement of our most current policies and a return to the policies of 2024 excuse me of 2020 um are there uh I guess I'll move that we uh adopt and retire the listed policies uh are there any questions or comments in addition to what we had last week one addition for the record of why we're doing it in a not a normal fashion with taking these policies
002at a um study session is that uh in order to be in compliance with Washington State and the office of civil rights we need to return evidence that the board has retired and then implemented the 2020 Title 9 policies we need to do that by the 20 4th of this month our next board meeting is not till the 27th so we didn't want to go out and try to seek an extension or anything like that um and so that's why they're before you today instead of uh our regular way of doing it at a regular board meting great thank you very much Kevin um and now I'm in back in my board do so um I can uh I'll move that we um adopt I'll read the PO these the numbers here 5400 3205 5011
003and we retire 5012 I think that covers all of them uh all those in favor of uh making those um adoptions and retiring signify with an i i all those opposed extensions all right great now we move on to uh the heart of our study session here which is a discussion on the Viking promise all right I'll get us going here and and you you worded it perfectly this is a discussion of the Viking promise please anybody in the audience or or any of you or any of our student reps uh this is the starting point of of work to update or revise it and this is the first step um it's been my experience that this is an area where the board holds a responsibility of establishing priorities for the school district um many
004school districts have all kinds of different words or titles for this type of work it could be considered their strategic plan it could be considered their long range plan in the ca School District it's been known as establishing the priorities for the school district so um Hunter is going to have a presentation for you but before we get into that I want to just have a couple of things that um I think are important to know we're starting the review of our current bking promise which are known as the priorities of the school district uh the board and the superintendent have a shared responsibility and whole and Sh and also have a shared accountability with this work um as Hunter will talk about he'll go through some historical things with tied to actually the Viking
005promise when it started why it started and so forth so I'm not going to get into that but this is one of those areas where the board decides the what and then the superintendent decides the how in in board responsibilities this is the key to all boards policy 10005 speaking to the key functions of the board there are um certain areas that the board holds responsibility on the first one is responsible governance um will I'm just taking part of what that says within the policy will Envision the future of the school district's educational program set the course for the S School District commitment to education excellence and equity for all students so what we're doing here is not specific to one student groups of students grade levels building levels but to all students in the
006school district so we have to think about it more more uh globally than just individual excuse me second creating conditions for student and staff success again to achieve the vision the board will establish a structure this is what is considered to be a structure by establishing this high expectations for student learning uh the belief that all students can learn and that each student learning can improve regardless of existing circumstances or resources and then I also highlighted the word accountability and and this is these things are what we look at or I look at from a district level when I I like to use the balcony term where I'm on a balcony I'm watching all the things going on down below me and what I'm looking for is are the is the work that we're doing
007tied to back to the priorities of the district and if I can say that then then what we've established is is going in the right direction if I can't see that work then we've got something wrong so this is this is important work it's not done all the time and it's not done exactly the same with all school districts um the last time Hunter will share with you was over the course of multiple years involving multiple uh constituent groups um and it can be done that way or it can be done in in the way that I think we're going to go through with it but you'll have a lot to say about that the second thing I want to share with you is is that some of my recommendations before we get into this
008uh the details of it and what we're thinking about is my recommendation would be that we keep the title of the Viking promise uh I think the word promise obviously is is a commitment that the school district has to its students and to our families so we're committing to something and then obviously the the idea of the Viking is an important part of our school district and uh the work in previous years by board and superintendent has has established the Viking to be at all levels uh and all W went all throughout the school district and all kinds of different uh parts of it not just the not just our high school as its mascot that's definitely not the case with this school district it is all over the place so my my recommendation would
009be to keep that and I I say that in that we want to keep it consistent and we don't want our stakeholders to think that the district is going in a completely different direction or a completely different initiative or something that is going to change substantially change the way that we do our work in our schools for our students I want the focus to be kept on what the district has been doing in the past but with some adjustments based on the newness and what what we have seen over the last six years and where we want where we believe needs to go in the future it if we were to make changes which I don't substantial changes it it would also affect many of our current systems our hiring practices our budgeting practices our
010policies and procedures that you've approved and implemented and then obviously the the amount of communication that we have tied to the Viking promise so what we're proposing and what I'm recommending is that the idea behind the Viking promise stays the title of the Viking promise stays and we may just think about as Viking promise 2.0 instead of going through a whole renaming of it again those are recommendations that that I have um those obviously are this is this is a partnership between the two of us so obviously uh I'm not just saying that this is the way that it's going to be but that would be something that I would recommend um with that I am going to turn it over to Hunter who is going to take you through a few short slides and
011Hunter and I have been working on this for really since the time that Hunter moved into his new position we've been thinking about when we're going to bring this to the to the board to start to get your input and so uh not every day but we've had multiple conversations over the course of the last few months about how we're going to do this and what do we think uh as leaders of the school district what do we think that it should uh look like and how should we adjust it and what would be our 2.0 so Hunter's going to take you through those slides after we get done with that obviously there'll be time within the slides and after the slides that that lots of questions can be asked about it and then after
012we get done with that then um we'd love to hear what you think uh I shared an email out with you about what would be your priorities uh we'd love to see how hear from those I shared an email out also with our student reps and let and obviously their voice would be important to hear not only currently but what they think about for the our the future so with that unless you have any questions right now I'm going to turn it over to Hunter for the students so we know how the Viking promise com through to the sap how much does that message or that terminology come down as students and does it start at the younger ages I think you guys have probably experienced the Viking problem since about fifth grade not mistaken
013fourth grade somewhere in that bpark so how much you I know even when Chris presents the budget we talk about commit to the Viking promise and every staff member kind of comes in here talks about that how much do the students feel and hear that terminology I think I've definitely heard the terminology and heard it talked about more since I've been at the high school compared to at the middle school um I mean I know it was still present at the middle school but I've definitely heard it talked about more more since I've been at the high school um I've heard like the title of like the Viking promise but um until like last week when Mr McKay emailed us I didn't really know what that like in inail I didn't really know um what
014it meant um I only knew about social emotional learning and that was it not the rest of things I don't know if that's I think that's a really good question I think some of uh I would ask the students uh Power of we purp purpose and passion be the best you have you guys heard that terminology before I'm sure you've heard Mr Monty say that all the time right that's uh example of one part of the Viking promise that is kind of played out the student level that would be under the PBIS kind of pillar um because I this is such a broad uh kind of goal or visualization of what the work we've done it doesn't um we get a little more detailed when it gets to the student level that'd be I guess
015my kind of but great I that was a really good question um so I'm gonna you guys should have seen this graphic before this is the Viking promise you've probably seen it you probably dreamt about it uh at night um this is our main uh visualization of making meaning of the Viking promise it has what we have called called seven different pillars to it uh there's uh rigorous engaging classrooms that has been what we've called our Flagship pillar uh kind of our one that all the other pillars have touch points in uh because if we are being rigorous and engaging in our classrooms uh we're doing all the things underneath it that's why it's also um the the the tallest flag on this uh Vis visualization future ready uh family and Community engagement uh positive
016behavioral intervention supports otherwise known as PBIS uh and then at the bottom there is uh cultur responsive teaching social emotional learning and Trauma sensitive practices and underneath all of that is the goal of Viking promise um so this should not be new this is what our current um Viking promise is I'm going to walk you through a timeline of what we have uh done and what our proposed changes to the Viking promise for Viking promise 2.0 would be uh so from from my understanding I came to The District in 201920 so of this is be before my time but what uh this the liking promise really started with some uh data data Dives uh across the district and recognizing where's our where's our gaps at uh what what uh were we not doing all that
017well prek through through through High School uh and what it showed was there was a a gap for our students that were experiencing poverty U so there were some districtwide teams uh sent to some personal development of how to support uh District and students they're experiencing poverty because I think that would that has been a shift in our demographics from 20 years ago till now I think that's one of the data I I shared beginning of the year is we are majority uh majority of our students are living below the the poverty line um so in 201819 uh this is where the the viky promis is really being developed and starting to be implemented uh and it was launched in 201920 uh with emphasis on trauma formed to uh practices to support students in poverty
018we had seven different pillar teams so each team took one of the pillars of the Viking promise to Define more potentially set goals for each pillar and then in that year uh Co happened so all that work was put on hold um 2020 21 Co continued and we shifted we realized that uh as a district rigorous engaging classrooms has to be our priority Focus within all the pillars um and and what we started to find out was seven different areas to focus on is a is a lot to focus on uh and we we got that feedback from uh our teachers from our administrators as uh so during that year we had them set a goal for for two pillars it was called blue and gold School Improvement goals the blue was rigorous engaging classrooms
019and then each school had a choice of which uh other pillar they wanted to focus on as a building um that was one of the Seven Pillars of the Viking promise um from 200 21 to present we've continued to work on ringer gauging classrooms that is our that is uh always going to be the work within education is to make sure our instruction what's happening in the classroom is engaging for students and that it's rigorous that that what they're doing is important uh at that uh from from that time we've also begin to build multi systems uh multi multi-tiered systems of support otherwise known as mtss uh to help structure and filter some of the pillars in the Viking promise to to consolidate uh and not have seven different siloed uh work and then we
020we've gotten feedback on the Viking promise informally informally throughout the past few years and what we found what we continue to hear is seven is too much to uh it's initiative overload that's something that happens in education often the new thing comes um and and and and we're trying to not switch our Focus each year to year because that becomes uh overwhelming for our staff uh to try to implement stopped stopped there so from me as a superintendent obviously I wasn't here through this all the way through and when I when I came here I can remember Jeff at that time having con with conversations is that one of the expectations we have as a board is that you evaluate the biking promise and you determine how we're how we're going to move forward with
021it or how we're going to adjust it and so uh that didn't happen overnight obvious is now it's uh two and a half years later or three years later and I it took a long time to understand because of the seven different parts of the Viking promise and so what I did is really we we did is all jump into what we knew was the most important and that was what was going on in the and so as Hunter said our efforts in the last three years as we've been to called together has really been focused on how are we going to improve instruction how is the experience in that classroom going to be better than it has been in the past and what do we know that's going to be the best bang for
022the buck what's going to be the best for our students what is research based the best thing that we can do and that is pro instruction Pro the teaching of all teachers across the district that is going to be the best benefit for our students all of our work for the last few years has really put St not that we haven't thought about those other pillars and given attention to them but our work has been about improving the the the groundwork of what is important for students in their academic success and that is improving instruction so we've done lots of professional development about improving instruction we've been clear on what we expect for instruction we've established principal expectations around instruction we've gone through our principal training of what with regards to the instructional framework the
023evaluation the observation giving teachers feedback you know ensuring that our curriculum is appropriate making sure we're teaching to the standards taking out all the other things that are fun to teach maybe but not necessary so it it has uh there have been a lot of efforts I have to thank um Alicia for really focusing us on what we thought was the most important work that we could do now from that time I always knew that there was going to be a time that we got to this point thanks Kevin uh so here's what we after having this in place for seven years now what we feel like are needs to accomplish with with a rebranding or a viking promise 2.0 uh consolidate the Seven Pillars to limit the amount of initiative uh fatigue I say
024this with uh knowing that some because some of the pillars are there's there's over there's a lot of overlap and it's hard to do uh PBIS separately from self there's a lot of overlap in regards to behavior and emotions um and also trauma sensitive trauma informed practices that is more of a a strategies less than it is a a a goal that we could we can monitor uh we need to give Clarity to our district around what's the most important work that we're doing uh and set a vision and direction for the see of the school district for the next 5 years I I the Viking promise of How It's been implemented I think has been great but also after six seven years you kind of need a a refresh and and a new refinement
025of it so these are the needs of of what we're going to uh hopefully what we propose will accomplish these needs with that one with things we found out when we went out and started asking a lot of people questions about the B promise uh there was too much and so they couldn't they couldn't tell us what the seven were they couldn't remember what actually what we were supposed to be focusing on they could kind of explain it in what we were Hing for but they were unclear the people that we were counting on to know what should be happening with the Seven Pillars in the classroom per se and our administrator I they they we found out who it people don't even know what we're supposed to be doing because there's too much of
026it there's too much of it and I think it overlapped so much that it was um using to people which then again gave us the reason okay we're just going to focus on what's the most important of all those and that is what's going on yeah so here's our proposed changes to go from Seven Pillars of the Viking promise list on the left uh to four pillars and the the pillars that we were proposing three of them uh are will remain the same and one is uh new uh so rigorous engaging classrooms continues would continue to be our Focus uh family and Community engagement what we have uh engaging our families in ongoing um discussions uh not just for the nights for the family nights at the schools but more ongoing uh showing up to
027the events we do have uh and those relationships at the school level uh continues to be a growth area for our district uh Future Ready I think Jeff Cochran has come and spoke about some of the work within our CTE programs that this has been one that has been a lot of attention and focus and a lot of uh thing I some of the things we're we're really leading the the way on across the state is within this pillar and the new pillar that we're recommending is to consolidate the the the four the bottom into what we would call just student experience um and I'm G I'll talk more about this uh and kind of what this means here in just a second so again this is our our proposal is to go from seven
028to four um and with the new one being uh student experience being our fourth pillar our new pillar uh I basically GNA repeat myself right now so uh the the new pillar of student experience um is to encapsulate the work with PBIS seal trauma sensitive and culture responsive teaching into one uh and also student voice uh is something that has gotten a lot of traction hearing from our students what their experiences have been as they've come through our system I think has been one of the biggest things to help move move our system forward um and we have different ways that we've done that and I'll I'll speak to that more but that's why we we had a hard time deciding what do we name this um because I think this would this would encapsulate
029Behavior this would encapsulate uh safety um all that really land so we were trying to figure out what would we name this and really that that land lands under how are students experiencing their time uh when they're with us prek through 12 uh in regards to if they're how they're how safe they're feeling what behavior is like in school both both expected and unexpected uh now I'm going to walk you really quickly through the work that we've done for the pillars that we are proposing to keep and talk a little bit more about student experience so rigor engaging classroom is the work we have done initially when this was launched uh to to have good instruction you have to have uh solid relationships between the student and teacher students and students within the classroom that
030was the work that kind of kicked off The Viking promise uh we then built out out our mtss structures specifically our uh tier 2 so our students that might be missing uh some some learning are a little bit behind how can we quickly get them back up to to to grade level that's been a lot of their work of building our our systems both when when students need support how do they get it and how do they get out of it when they don't need it any longer um tier one instruction has been our Focus so tier one is what happens in the classroom every single day what happens schoolwide uh and so on the the top is really how our admin team started to visualize uh rig engaging classrooms in the Viking promise and
031at the bottom is our work that we started uh three years ago of going back what what we notice in what we notice in rigorous engaging classrooms is that uh our CSL what's known as professional learning communities PLC so our csls on Wednesday is we needed to go back to um making sure those teams are looking uh uh looking at the standards what are students supposed to know how do we know when they learned it what do we do when they haven't learned it what do they've do they've already mastered it so that was the work uh that that chart at the bottom that we've uh focused on a few years ago to get our teams all back to making sure we're standards focused orsl that was another another eye openening experience in that we
032found out that they were all over the place because of the seven different initiatives so you had certain PC groups thinking that they should focus on this and then we had another group thinking they should focus on this well we weren't even within the building we were not going the same direction so what we did here is get everybody going the same direction really with what the teaching the instructional part the standards were the ensuring that our assessments are common the use of data all the stuff that we should be doing at plcs instead of getting sidetracked on the other pillars was really how we we brought that back together and it has it has not all been easy work because some of the groups didn't want to change they enjoyed what they were doing
033of looking at uh other things that what we thought was not shouldn't be the focus but like anything it takes a little time to get people past it to get them more uh moving in the same direction and and it has been very helpful example of that is that we have sometimes when when when great when teams meet they only meet with their team but now we've pushed them to not only meet with their team but why don't we meet with the team below you and the team above you so that sometimes also goes between buildings so we've had great success especially in the elementary of our kindergarten teachers we in with our first grade teachers and our second grade obviously they work together with the first grade the same building also our second grade
034teachers working with our third grade teachers so we haven't let the barriers of an actual School building stop us and that that wasn't something that we really pushed a lot it just kind of happened that they F found it was of a great benefit to them to start looking about what's what's what's happening below and what's happening to the next which been very productive yeah and the CSL work the the term that our teachers use often that we use as a district is guaranteed and viable when a student leaves this grade level what is something that we're guarantee that all students um have exposure to and have learned when they leave this and this the CSL uh work is is how that how that happens if we don't have that collaboration time then uh what
035eventually happens is people start to do what they think is most important and one classroom might might have learned one standard and another one might have prioritized another one and we have kids then with with different um with with different learnings as they go through the other reason why we're proposing to keep this uh is uh in Washington state we are having new standards priority standards uh given to us uh supposedly this year we're still waiting to find those out both in ela Math and Science um typically what uh prior priority standards have been determined by the districts uh the OSI is saying now that we are going to give uh priority standards for all schools to make it more guaranteed and viable across the state um we don't necessarily know uh what we've been
036told is that the standards aren't going to change drastically but uh we need to have this process and structure and this be our rigorous engaging classrooms continue to be our Focus be with those changes coming up um so any questions on rigorous engaging classrooms and the work we've done okay I'll I'll say this probably a couple of times or maybe I'll say it now and it'll apply to others the the the collapse ing of it into larger uh categories especially for public facing uh information take so much of the jargon out of it and that's I think that was my number one goal for the Viking promise is to make it something that's the public can understand immediately by looking at it and I know what rigorous and engaging classrooms look like or I think
037I do uh much more than I know what CSL or tier one or mtss is absolutely and that's what that was our hope with uh adding student experiences right that right there that makes more sense than traum sensitive practices because that's that's I don't if I'm not in education I don't necessarily know what that means right uh Future Ready I I'll go through this one quickly the work we started with was the portrait of a graduate uh we had a pillar team that was focusing on this it was really more technology focused when this started off but what what this has really led to is the expansion of our CTE offerings and the expansion of college and high school offerings and and on the right is is uh uh what what makes it difficult at
038the secondary level when we have more offerings and more choices is it's hard it's harder to have collaboration so we've developed a future ready rubric to say what are the Future Ready skills regardless of content area that our students need as they exit our system um so that way it's not a a a and metal shop comparing um uh they're they're able to have a common ground to say our this is what our students are getting uh are understanding here's a St whether they're not understanding this is what we need to focus on more holistically maybe some terminology too in this that makes yeah so actually there's been some work done there too so a project lead the way is is how we within our specialists at the elementary level so our Specialists being our
039stem teachers uh computer lab I mean that's not what they're it's called anymore but uh has been some of those uh kind of precursors to before middle school and high school that that teach those kind of Future Ready skills um but then also these Future Ready the Future Ready rubric was developed by our district leadership team um that would be K through 12 it would be a rubric that we could include potentially in our report cards to say these are Future Ready skills for kindergarten for third grade uh that students could be assessed on and parents could have feedback and given to them um there was one other point I was going to make that just left my mind but um this is more it is there is more kind of meaty work with the
040future ready at the secondary level but it does uh all the kind of foundational work happens in elementary for this the other part of this that uh why we propose to keep this is uh the use of AI is something that we need to be ready and to uh not only address but uh decide on how we Embrace or do not Embrace AI use um so our district lead leadership team that wasn't going to be my point our district leadership team is representative of um people from across all the staff from across all buildings of different roles and they have been really the ones to kind of Monitor and set goals for the Viking promise for for the buildings um another reason why consolidating makes sense um they are going to be grappling with actually
041next next week uh what's our district kind of procedure and policy for teaching AI um and how the kind of uh use uh the reality is kids are using AI currently uh every single day and it's going to be part of their lives so we need to have uh some type of plan to um to to teach when and how and what's the most responsible use of of AI so this would be another reason why we would keep the Future Ready pillar um to expand the CT work but then also as AI becomes more and more part of our worlds how how does that play out in the K through2 system so are you guys seeing that uh students are using AI to actually do their assignments that's some yeah so teachers are seeing and
042so our teachers are saying we need to have a structure like it's kind of the Wild West right now like there's no rules around it um and and uh getting aligned on this is what because if one teacher allows it another one doesn't from the student experience and maybe you guys could talk about that uh that's confusing to kids right yeah um so having um we actually went to an AI uh conference uh about a month ago with a team from from the district to to learn more about and what districts are are doing they're kind of developing like a placem to say you know this is how you can use it for this class or this assignment um you know free reign to do research or uh you can only use it in this
043regard or this is not allowed this is not AI is not allowed for for this type of assignment I think our our teachers so kind of like our green light yellow light red light um is one uh structure that a district uh the presented is using and it seems to be effective so we need to provide our staff some type of structure like that and then how to how to teach students to use it effectively and responsibly but yes students are using it and just like any technology younger Generations are way quicker at learning it and finding ways around it so I I think saying uh and not just me but think our team feels saying Banning it is is not realistic we're going to be just chasing our Tales at all times kids are
044going to figure out workarounds if we just say it's it's not allowed so uh our district leadership team will be grappling with that and and and how we um what is our procedure our policy for this good questions family community engagement uh this is one that we've put more work into the last few years um and this again is is District we had a pillar team initially but uh all of our pillar teams were operating in silos and so it was just that that model of the Viking promise didn't really make sense of rolling it out uh we've had Title One and kind of our school nights and uh those are generally attended not the title one nights but our school nights where there's something student friendly uh student experiences are attended but when we
045put on um parent events for just information very poorly attended so I this is an area I think we can continue to grow in I we've made some adjustments Kevin sit you know sit down with the superintendent or whatever you call I don't can't what you call it those uh we used to do kind of information nights here we would get two people oftentimes it was a one board member uh and so having more figuring out what do families actually want uh in regards to getting information to them we've um we've grown our family services department as our needs have changed uh with our mcken ventos population uh continuing to rise we've increased our family service department they're an amazing team so um and then we've implemented uh we've gotten feedback from our parent community
046and that's what's on the right here we used to have what was known as the Panorama survey uh it had a it had a climate uh survey that we' sent out but what we found is the questions that were kind of pre-canned from Panorama didn't really weren't really addressing asking the questions that I think our parents wanted to give feedback on so we then pivoted to qual Trix which is not a survey plat it's a survey platform but it doesn't come with questions and we develop questions based off of what families and our our students and our staff were say we wanted to hear from so we we have twice a year we give out a climate survey to three stakeholder groups our students our staff and our families that ask them questions around uh
047harassment intimidation bullying school safety uh the the school to parent or student relationships um and and just their their General experience in school so that is and we've gotten more and more as we've uh more and more uh participation in those surveys um and the last one so student experience um again I've I've said this probably four or five times it encapsulates all the other work we were doing into one I think it's more uh easily understood for our community um we can use some of our qualitative data student stories and and those surveys that we talked about kind of all into one we could set goals around school safety and school behavior um and and kind of put that under the umbrella of student experiences uh and then again the what I have found
048as we've done a lot of student Voice work hearing from our students when you give students something meaningful to talk about they blow you away and they have really good insights into what is actually happening uh because as adults I think we we think we know what's happening uh for our students but students will tell you and they're honest and so that has been uh humbling and also really inspiring to hear our students step up and say this has been my lived experience uh in this district and it's helped us uh shift our focus in some areas so that that was a little longer than I thought I was going to talk but uh questions comments I'm gonna add something to student experience I think we all know that from a student's perspective um their
049education and what happens in the classroom is only part of their educational experience is uh for are for here the amount of other things that they're tied to that are part of their overall experience is important to our school district to their parents and to our community whether that is being involved in a club and organization being involved in an area where they can compete against other students and schools uh whether that's an academic based competition whether that's an athletic based competition whether that's field trips all those all those other things that we value as a school district and our Community Values are part of a student experience and we didn't we didn't find anywhere where we could say that that's important to us we didn't we didn't find it in our Viking promise that
050that was part of what we want our students to experience because we know that's important to all of them each of the each of the four right here think about what they're involved in and that is not unusual for our students to have something else that they're involved in where they're learning just not in a classroom so we wanted to identify something that encapsulates that that brought that to the table that that is part of what's important in our school district that's a priority offering opportunities for our students to learn outside of what goes on in that classroom how we say that we don't we came up with student experience that doesn't mean it has to be that way but we think that because the work that we've been doing to get more of our
051students perspective have them speak to things have them feel like their voice matters and that it's not being done to them it's being their experiences done together I don't know how that works but I feel like that's a huge priority for our district and we need to identify it with our priorities in the Viking promise right uh comments or questions from the board for uh uh hunter or uh Kevin or Chris we first initiated the Viking promise kind of one of the concepts that I think maybe Co Tri us up on was presentation of this ship with the pillars then you're going to be able to like click on and they the pillar would open up it was going to be very like graphic and interactive and interactive for the more so for the public
052and stuff so you know that'd be something that kind of ever get to that point um and then also I guess some of the student experience I think is great I didn't realize how some of those crossover and stuff ended up becoming for the end user product um but just within even like student experience you know is this a time to kind of are we really going to continue to 100% lead in pis or if this is going to be interactive also with is there a portion of that pillar that opens up it talk about discipline I know that's kind of a word that gets BCT reviews and stuff but I think that might also put a little bit confidence into parents that doesn't work yeah that's a really good question and um that was
053something we actually grappled with we didn't want to call it something that just led to we think think of just discipline um but Behavior falls under this right and so if there is behavior that is unsafe safety falls under this um this could be something where we can set goals for and and kind of explain more give more clarity to to our families but we wanted to be more uh positively stated so so we don't just jump to discipline um but that is I mean that's something from our communities uh from our community and and I think we've heard from you guys is is uh we need to make sure we are clear uh and consistent in regards to responding to behavior that is concerning to our parents and to our students uh and and
054so that's what that's why we landed on stent experience because we felt like discipline and behavior can fall underneath this uh in regards to like the interactive that that the the pillar teams is where that was intentionally supposed to happen but we've it was all we're all saying the same thing like so we're going to link the same it's it didn't make sense and then Co happened and all that stuff just kind of uh had to had to stop so well it is one of the things that I thought of the word mapping we use that at at ybc quite a bit seems like there's two ways you could think of it here with this program one is how do you map each of these sub things under each pillar like youal could sit on
055top of all of it right in in one in one regard um uh and safety could sit on all of it in one regard so figuring out how when I click on a button as Jamie was saying what's going to be underneath that I'm I'm interested to see how that progresses and what those thoughts are the other one is that at at ybc we have course level outcomes program level outcomes institutional level outcomes so we map from course to from my English 101 class to The English Department to the to the um College's goals or outcomes and uh there is um how do we I think one of the questions going forward is how do we push this uh from the ground up uh or from the this building out so that the power of
056we uh is clear to students and how it connects to the Viking promise because I think there's there's each building has its own goals and it's not always obvious to me how those and maybe to students I think probably especially to students how those connect to the big map y I I think the the nice thing of going from seven to four is we we could set goals for each one um because they are uh more discreet in regards to what they're focusing on uh and then also within each one we could we could set a a discipline goal to reduce the amount of discipline in each school we could set goals around PB and how how often we're reinforcing what is expected Behavior we could set uh School goals for in regards to safety
057and their students uh perception of their safety to increase that um so that's uh that's I think something that we would would need to start if this is something that we feel like we're to move forward with that's the next steps is okay how now these are our four areas how do we know if we're if we're getting better at them and we're doing them well that's exactly what I was going to say I was just like we rigorous and engaging means something different to every single person how do we measure that student experience it's much less important what we call it how do we measure it because what gets measured gets managed can can we use some of the look fors that we had established before for measuring that or do you feel like
058there's a a we need to go back and look at those I think for the other for the three pillars are staying uh the the look fors would stay on the same and we would we could set goals for those for this one we would need to develop uh look fors into we would need to start with Define student experience how do we Define that um and have that be not just uh this is a presentation I think Kevin and I just collaborated on uh I don't want this to be the McKay system uh promise this need to it would need to be more perspectives uh defining what student experience means and then setting goals based off of that so that's really if we get the green light to kind of say yeah this is
059this makes sense then that would be the next steps we would do um and and probably getting ready for that at the end of this year but really kicking off next year to have a clear like here's our four areas and this is what this means and this is how we're going to uh kind of uh uh raate ourselves for Success moving forward just want to talk a little bit about uh discipline um we use that as punishment I think an equivalent word and I think it's a lot broader than that and I'd like to see discipline return to The District in regards to deadlines um Behavior expectations attendance expectations things like that I think that if we if we expect our kids for example with my girls uh I'm getting to the tell end
060of their experience here in CA they can turn in their assignments at the very last day and when you when they go off to college professors are going to have deadlines unless this has changed in the last 25 years but they're not going to get the liberty of turning an assignment late or taking a test late or making up a test and I think by allowing kids to just kind of do things on their own timeline we're not teaching them discipline and it's been my experience when you exercise discipline in one area of your life it starts to bleed over into other areas um and I'm not one to talk because my kids are tardy a lot um but I think we should expect our kids to be on time to school and to their
061classes and that they should be attending their classes state law may not say that we have to do that but I think that in in areas where we can exceed state law and it would be beneficial to our student to to our students we should do that and we should uh maybe look to districts that are exceeding in academics and things like that see what they're doing that's successful and try to implement those into into our school district here I'll just add to that I think I I have kind of mixed opinions about um at our school they call it a like a path to Redemption how do you how do you get back if you've fallen behind and um I think it I think it there's some benefit to having that but I I
062was thinking about what you said about what happens after they leave here as being part of the Future Ready question and I I think somebody used the other couple weeks ago the word durable skills and I just have hung on to that so much that that including starting in elementary school when you talk about future ready um being on time uh turning your work in when it's when it's due being motivated and resilient are the two that I talk about a lot in my classes so those that that might be a way to kind of I don't know if it's discipline or durable skills but that seems like an important function as well yeah and you know I I I think we've heard from our students um there's a balance right we we can't be
063so rigid that uh we can't that we don't take in in consideration when something happens Happ in a student life that has prevented them because they missed the deadline at the same time uh we've heard from students that no we kind of we want the clarity around like this is due when it's due uh and that's some of the work that uh that we need to continue to kind of get more clear on um in regards to like deadlines and attendance is another issue in in and of itself um what we're finding is uh our students who are chronically absent um are are chronically like it's it's a small portion but they are missing a ton of so it's it's a different it's not I wouldn't say it's a schoolwide or districtwide issue it is
064for a small group of students that are just missing you know out of 120 days they've missed 115 right super concerning uh and we're going through all the kind of the the legal steps that we're required to by law as a district um uh but it's also not being effective um and that's not just the SEAL issue that is crime absenteeism um is an issue across the whole nation right now um so I I think that that could be some of the work and when you say the word I when I said we need to Define what student experience is defining what discipline is because when I say discipline that is uh formal School discipline is removal from school right so suspensions U from in school and above uh so out of school to longterm
065to expulsion that is how when I say when we say discipline within education that's what discipline means I I so I but I also discipline in layman's terms means just you know being being uh consistent and structured and follow following through right so I think we need to Define what all that means under this pillar uh to call it that um so that way we can then set goals and and provide Clarity and process and procedures for our buildings so that way students understand it's interesting that the student voice part that you said that's informed so us quite a bit on what's happened I think back to Natalie Keller's uh final presentation as a a a student board representative where she talked about the issue of rigor uh and and one of the issues was
066I think you know these this sort of when is this due kind of question um really came from the students uh as you said a minute ago there that's just and I I think our students have said of this uh group as well have talked about um that's a I guess a challenge uh some confusion some clarity there yeah and I don't mean to say that we shouldn't look at exceptions I think though exceptions are easier to manage if you have rules in place um absolutely yeah right other comments or questions appreciate the condensing of the information I I I like that you brought it down to four and in the spirit of answering your email you know I actually got online and I was like what are other districts doing what did we do
067in the past you know and there's so much jargon and all the buzzwords and but what I actually wrote down was students first student well-being so I was really happy to see that that was the fourth point that you had listed um because it does encompass I mean it's why we're here so yeah rigorous and engaging classrooms are important but students first that's why we're that's why we exist so you know feeling you know student well-being feeling safe and supported so it kind of it encompasses everything that you that you've talked about and pointed out you know student voice we can measure that with those climate surveys we can we can do those more often or less often we can tailor those to the information that we need to get so I appreciate that you
068brought that up um and student empowerment so this is it's their education we need to know what they need and to the disciplined and being the being disciplined moments I that thank you um from a student perspective in my opinion I think that the district has kind of um given students a way out as far as like holding themselves accountable for communication so a student might not intend to turn something in late but and they want to go talk to their teacher about it but they're like oh I don't have to because I can turn it in whenever I want and I think that in college or I mean even like anywhere in your future there will be time times when you're not able to meet the deadline but communication is a big part of
069advocating for yourself and U making sure that everyone in the picture understands what's going on and I feel like how our district is handling like turning in late assignments and stuff we're not really holding students accountable to do that and start practicing that because I hear from even some of my friends are like oh I I don't want to go talk to them because I don't have to and it's like that's really important as a student and as a person to be able to be successful in society and that kind of lines up with what we've heard from students in the past the one cave I will say to that is our students are also being successful once they do move on from us so um I think it needs to be a b like
070figure out some bounds and Clarity around uh so it's not a moving Target um and so kids feel like they have uh Clarity around when things are due and um but we also our students are doing well once they leave us too so uh to I I guess I'm saying I don't want it to swing too far where it's too rigid where there's not flexibility um for but I think our staff would like that too having some more clear guidelines around what is our rules here around turning stuff in and just communication can work around ex this stuff but if do March 13th blow it off allow to in June 1st that's not right but if laen had an issue or grasping the concept but I want to fin it or whatever that's a big
071deal and advocating for yourself is a great term because in life that is a big great you remember what we released or what we replaced what what was prior to Viking promise seems there was something I was going to ask you that question a long ago yeah this is that's right oh yeah we've only been bking K through 12 just prior to the okay yeah your one before it was 2016 to 19 and it was a one-pager with a circle with four different things in it and so I I I may have attached it to one of the emails but it was if you take what that was that's on one end of the spectrum and then you see what the Viking promise is that's on the completely other end of the spectrum with regards
072to establishing District priorities Claire um I was wondering if you guys had like a plan um of how to kind of promote this almost like rebranding like not only just to staff but like if you were planning on sending out to parents and like students as well just to kind of inform them yes uh on my last four next steps um before we put it into action we got to figure obviously this is a time to figure out what it is but yes there will be a communication plan that will go uh will be produced on how we get it to the different stakeholder groups to our students to our families to our Community as a whole which uh and a lot of work that I have been doing it it's I'm working with a
073lot more community members than I would say that I've worked with with parents in my work and Outreach so I know that they are a valuable audience um and they care greatly about our school so we've got to figure out a way to include them as well um our staff too that was if we look back probably if we had a redo I I think that may be an area where we weren't real successful in communicating what the priorities of the district were to our employees uh because they were all over the place on what way we were going four I think having four and communicating four will be a lot easier to do that with especially to uh our students and when we clear up what the language is to make it more easier
074to understand what we're prioritizing that will be helpful as well well the the Viking promise is filled with uh uh things that are used in very high level education courses uh or they're from research uh or they're from you know the the brightest people in the educational world and we call educational ease they're full of acronyms which the the regular people don't that aren't involved in education don't know about and so we've got work to clean up there but yes we will have to have a communication plan rebranding plan because if you look around there's a big poster right there to your right on the bulletin board that's would be that's in some way shape or form that's going to be changed so we will have to have a massive uh rebranding communication plan to
075get the information out does that answer your question there CLA I think for me the two things that I really um would like to see our academics and I know you've uh included that in the plan um and one of the things related to that is reducing the burden on teachers in the classroom I know that there are a lot of different things that have been implemented in the district over the last decade maybe a little bit longer that is that takes time and resources within the classroom that are not necessarily related to teaching and I really feel like the teachers are experts in their subjects they are teaching those subjects because they're passionate about them and so whatever we can do to get their focus into just that it would benefit not only our
076teachers I think their happiness would increase but it also would be beneficial to the students um so if they're constantly dealing with with problems in the classroom with unreleased students with uh technology um distractions things like that that's taking instruction time away from their core subject and I don't think that we can provide a rigorous environment when those types of distractions are are continual in the classroom so anything that we can do to re reduce the burden on teachers in the classroom I think would help with that um and I already talked about discipline um and then I guess related to that um I've been critical of the CTE program um College in the classroom not as critical because I um I like the way that's structured but I wouldn't be as critical of CTE
077if I felt like at the younger grades they were getting um the fund they were really good at the fundamentals so for example part of the reason I got involved in the school board is because I was looking at the homework that my kids were doing uh at John Campbell and sis and I just remember from when I was a kid it was not the same the expectations were not as high as when I was growing up and um for example multiplication tables I know we don't like to do Drilling and things like that but um there are a lot of kids that are real proficient in math by the time they're in fifth or sixth grade and it's really hard if you don't have those basics in reading and writing and math um to
078learn advanced concepts once they get older and so if we could somehow find a way to to make um those Basics or at the lower grades it would be a lot easier for me to look at a CTE program and be like I can see why we're doing that because you can take those Basics and then apply them through a CT type program so that's just another comment and then the other thing um just at the state tournament uh basketball tournament Lyndon is there every year their band is borderline obnoxious but they're amazing um their basketball teams are there every year they excel in a lot of other places and it's because the culture in that community and and this was from a a coach conference last year the culture in their Community is everyone
079is vested in the schools and what goes on there and I went to school here in the 80s and 90s and it's not significantly different now um I don't feel like ca is one of those communities or Royal City for example really rallies around that football team and how do we build something like that here in CA because we have I think we've got a great District we have teachers and administrators who care there's no doubt about that in my mind we have parents who care but I feel like we're not all together in that desire to really make CA a great place and so how do we get that kind of involvement and so that's where the um reaching out to the community that parental involvement could really help with that culture issue in
080AC in academics and in sports and so anyway that's that's kind of my input and feedback thanks Derek other comments or questions more from the students so talk about our yeah okay I kind of I have a lot to say so just going to preface with that um and I have been thinking about it for quite a while since I got the email to start um like looking more into it and kind of looking it looking from a different perspective um I didn't know necessarily how to say it because I didn't want to sound entitled because I am very fortunate um in my life and I do recognize that but I feel like the at least Viking promise 1.0 has it represents great things when you look at it on paper but when I see
081it in the schools it kind of seems a little bit need-based in my opinion um which is frustrating because I I drew a little Spectrum there's a line and there's a low end and a high end and this is the spectrum of opportunity and there's dots on the spectrum that represent the efforts from the Viking promise and there's a lot of dots on the low end and then as you get up to the higher end the dots slowly get farther apart because um I feel like what what is happening with this is that it's there's a lot of effort going towards kids who really really need it but not as much effort going towards kids who don't necessarily need it as much and I feel like that kind of is a little bit of a
082flawed system because um I think it would be more effective um to represent the it says the goal one of the goals is a personalized learning experience um and that does look different for each child so I see how that could be difficult but I think a more effective way to approach this within the district is to make sure that the amount of effort going towards each child is the same rather than a bunch of effort towards those who really need it and then those who don't need it as much getting less of that um and I do think that it's kind of un I I see the effort it's to make it as equal as possible for all students but that's I mean it's unrealistic to do that um we can try as hard
083as we can but there's too many aspects going into it like there's 's home life there's people learning in completely different ways so it's just unrealistic to try and equalize that experience for everyone but what we can do is equalize the amount of effort that goes towards each student and that's that's what I wanted to try and get across I hope that makes sense kind of got a little bit jumbled up but is that is there any questions about that I think sorry Lauren um I actually would agree with that um and I I really have a problem with the word Equity there I think um but you're right I would replace it with equality but then what happens is that the kids who need the extra don't get it under equality right and so
084how do we balance equity and equality and I think that the school district should be providing equal opportunity to everybody um but I think the equity portion on of that leads to the problem that you're describing where there there are small groups of people that get all the attention and the majority get ignored and I think we should find a better balance in that I agree yeah I I like the balance what like how you described it as balance because it's hard with the equity inequality and then also the personalized experience it's hard to kind of match that and I I as a student I don't know how to solve that problem but I thought maybe if I brought it to your guys' attention attention you might be able to brainstorm something and try and
085figure it out Joe I appreciate that perspective Lauren I and I I definitely agree with you there I going back to my chief concern with all of this is how do we measure it right and how do we measure the success of our students after they leave our school district in our current structure what I think what you're getting at Lauren is we're doing we're putting a most of our effort into to reverting to the mean almost a little bit right where the kids on the higher end where the kids like yourself that are extracurricular Sports and they're you know come from good family lives and they've got sport of of everything and they're and they're living well and and trying hard um it feels like we're not putting as much effort into like let's
086make our our best kids even better it's let's make our kids that are struggling average and I think that overall like we continue those efforts we're going to continue to produce average outputs right and I think that's dangerous because in in in real life and even in college there's there are spectrums there's people that are opthalmologists and there's people that are I bought coffee from this morning at the gas station right and that's there's Nordstrom Rack and there's Grocery Outlet right and there's there's that's part of capitalism there are people that need to go buy 99 cent loves of bread on discount there's people that spend $7 for Dave's Killer Bread there's right and that's that's okay that's part of capitalism there's going to be spectrums like that but I think if we continue our
087effort to revert to the mean in a sense that's what we're going to have I like that perspective and the analogy I'm I love analogies because it helps me understand things better so um I was trying to figure out a way to say in a that we can't sacrifice pushing the top people further by waiting for the lower people to catch up I was trying to figure out a way to say that without sounding super entitled but well super right it's [Music] not okay and then my last thing that I wanted to say was for the new draft of the biking promise I like that um student enrichment has become a big part of it because I didn't really see a lot of it on this one in as far as like the wording goes
088great other questions or comments Lauren the the question you asked is the million-dollar question in education I think is uh how did there's this famous graphic of of students getting what they need when they need it which is equity and in one of the versions of the graphic a student's not getting anything uh and so I think that's a that's a really difficult thing and and you could hear it even in the way that you were saying it there's all these students that have all this need and we're spending a lot of time meeting that needs there's a logic to that right as Derek was saying that that makes some sense is that the students with the most needs are going to get the most help but um there is this big challenge I I
089think earlier was what do we do with students that aren't getting it and what do we do with students that are getting it all the time or get it right away and the students that get it right away that's a that's a population that is is um it's often easy just to say you're on your own with that so I think I think you're bringing up the good points all right next steps yes so uh I'm glad we're ected here because I wrote down some things I didn't write them I typed them in obviously yesterday as I Was preparing for today and and some of the things that you've mentioned are now we're connected there so here's what we need to do next we need to figure out and I think we have a direction
090about the priorities and combine what you have shared combine what you have all shared and combine what Hunter and I have shared and get them connected right so that's kind of our next step and that's why taken a lot of notes and if you have notes for us that would be greatly appreciative or if you have comments after email those to us because now we're going to take all of that and try to figure out a way to combine them together that's our first next step and then I I've heard and I wrote down provide detail if needed to the priorities and I think there's obviously a need for detail uh many of you brought up what you thought were going to happen with the Viking ship is that you touched on something and then
091the detail came right so I and now with uh the the fourth I I think that there's a need to really clarify what that means so I have that down uh Sarah establish measures and establish measures of accountability how are we going to measure it what are we going to use to measure how are we going to hold oursel accountable to it so that that has to be established as well and and I as I looked back um through a lot of the work with the Viking promise they actually had some measures identified that everybody thought were appropriate to use as measures uh they used identified uh kindergarten Readiness as a measure they used third grade uh reading scores as a measure uh they used uh algebra middle school students algebra ready um ninth grade
092on track graduation all those are measur me that we can go back to and look at those do those continue to connect because those were those two were identified um all the way back in 18 and 19 uh we've got to have a plan on how we're going to implement it and that's the communication part of that as well um we've got to figure out our communication plan and then we're going to figure out how we're going to put it into action with all of our different stakeholder groups but there's a lot of work that's got to go on till that very first uh implementation and putting it into action so what I again I'm going to go back to what I what I think we need to do next is that we need to
093get our comp our priority our priorities between the three groups triangulated into one and then provide start providing some detail and start providing uh some ideas on how we're going to measure and hold oursel accountable we get all that done and we get agreement on that then we can start to plan for implementation communicate and put into action I don't want to get ahead of us as we start to focus all of our time on how we're going to communicate this when we really don't even know what we're actually going to communicate so with that any last ideas let me just kind of uh from the board's perspective uh rigorous and engaging classrooms family and Community involvement Future Ready student experience from the from the uh aerial view from the I think at Tom Landry
094and the the tower for Cowboys uh practices are we we feel like that's we're moving in the right direction uh collapsing it from s to 4 maybe call you know we'll worry about the details of what we call it and stuff but yeah I totally agree with that yeah yeah that's exciting yeah um Kevin real quick uh and I know you you decide on the how but one thing that's kind of been on my mind as I thought about this is that how do we measure that and um I know we've got away from standard standardized testing to a large degree but I think there's a lot of research behind the Act and the SAT tests and um their ability to dict or to um to um determine success at college or predict success in
095college and if there's a way for the school district to host those tests here and I would be in favor of the district finding a way to fund as many students in high school to take those tests and then we could use that data um as one metric that's that's something where I think money would be really well spent it's expensive to study for and and they're expensive to pay for for a lot of parents and if we could remove that burden it would benefit the district by providing some metrics and also um give students opportunity not force it on them but I would encourage as many students as possible to get one of those two tests any anything last here um one idea that I had while you were talking about um well I
096mean Claire kind of brought up how are we going to put this out once it's finalized um and a lot of teachers that I've talked to about different like different policies that have been implemented and different things like that they've kind of expressed to me how it seems like it's just been kind of like shoved down their throat and they don't even know what it means really so I feel like a good way to approach that especially in the high school um would be to because this is coming from our teachers this the students are receiving this format of I don't know even how to phrase this they're receiving this from our teachers and if our teachers don't know what it means then it's not going to do what we're intending for it to do
097um so an idea that I had was in whatever meeting that is had to express this to the teachers or to staff members that instead of just telling them what it is there could be ideas on how to represent it in different ways because each teacher is different I think that the cool thing about being a teacher is that you kind of have your own own way of expression towards these students and um I think just finding or even just brainstorming different ways of how to represent this in the classroom and then sharing that with the teachers to help them gain a deeper understanding would be beneficial to the whole intention of the project that's another million-dollar question I think uh but also I think that that we intentionally tried to not give too much
098detail on this because we haven't gotten a lot of perspectives on developing it um and our next steps is when we Define the different pillar especially the new one that is it includes students it includes staff and includes our our community and so that way then it's again it's not just a one person this is what we're doing now Thou shalt do that it is it's bought in from multiple people um or different like Parts uh different groups so that's a really good point and that's that's really the that's the hard work right how do we how do we get everyone to buy into this uh and feel like yeah this is this is the most important work for our district and I'm all in and I would encourage too that when we get to
099that point after all this work is done and it I say it's the August meeting with the all staff I know last year you brought students in to speak at that and maybe rolling out this this new fourth pillar would be best done by the student voice at least really heavily involved in that pie of it I guess one final thought would be once we establish the goals and the metrics to measure those goals then we maybe use the cls's or the plc's as these stage Gates where it's like we establish these goals and instead of revisiting it in five years we revisit it every five weeks or three months or whatever we decide so then it's just it's processual and it's not a here's this new introduction eat it if you want it it's
100like we're going to come back every couple weeks and make sure you're cleaning your plate um you know just accountability are you hungry You' mentioned in food like an machine the Met metaphor machine won't turn off right now all right the deadlines that I'm not getting or if it's like it's a lot of different things but you also have to determine the perspective between these honor classes and then general education classes because when you're in an honors class of course you're going to be more prepared for college but when you're in general education um because I've been in like I've been in like science classes that like aren't honors classes and what I've learned in those classes like you dive but you don't dive deeply if that makes sense like you kind of just get
101very surface level and if all of the general classes are like that then they're not able to like dissect U college text they won't be able to dissect um anything that has anything deeper than surface level if that makes sense so it's also a huge accountability aspect is how do you go from little to no accountability in high school um whether that's accountability with your AI if you're using AI to complete assignments rather than using AI as an academic tool to help you gain ideas um especially if you don't have accountability with deadlines if you're going to skip the deadline because teachers aren't going to enforce it then you're not going to be ready for college and even that with like communication if you're not going to like Lauren said if you're not going to
102communicate how are you going to be ready for college to be able to communicate with professors who have little to no tolerance um for lack of communication lack of deadlines and I just feel as though right now there's a lot of students that are not feeling very prepared for college um that I've talked to at least and even in Prior years um my sister who went to college she felt very unprepared for college when she first went um and yeah it's just kind of difficult to kind of gauge where you want to be especially if you're planning on attending like a public or private Institute like it's just if you're planning on going to a college you don't know how rigorous it is until you actually get there great thank you Charlie okay uh thank
103you Hunter very much uh for uh this presentation um I think uh we're looking forward to the detail part and measurement part and communication part that all comes next but I think we're off on a a good start for sure uh we're on board Communications now does anybody have anything that they want to add for board Communications okay um no need for an executive session and I believe we are adjourned for