001Good evening. Welcome to the regular board of education meeting for Monday, June 23rd, 2025. Kristen, can we do a roll call, please? Bridget here. Tracy here. Eric here. Mark will be joining us virtually shortly. Brian here. Ann is absent tonight and Aaron here. I'll verify that we have a form president of peace rise to the flag of the United States of America and to the standice for all. Brian, would you please read the schoolboard mission statement? Absolutely. Working together to ensure high levels of learning for all. Thank you. Kristen, could you verify that public notice was given? Public notice was given to the requesting news media. The agendas posted in school district buildings and on the district website. Are there any revisions to tonight's published agenda? There are no changes. Approval of tonight's agenda. Second.
002Motion by Tracy, seconded by Brian to publish or to approve the published agenda. All those in favor? I opposed. Thank you. Uh we have no requests for public input on tonight's published agenda. and we'll move into our first recognition item, which is always a lot of fun. U we have Zach and Luke here representing our uh coaches from the Alaska High School boys and girls track and field athletes and talk about our division one state track. Yeah. Um so we want to get started first by just saying thank you guys for um the football pit this year. Um so that was a really big um benefit for our program to have something new and safe for our kids. So just want to say thank you for that first um from both of us. But then
003from the girls side, it was awesome. Um our girls um really compete through a lot of adversity to really go through and um perform at a really high level. We had a number of medalists this year which was always super fun. Um we hear from one of them here in a moment. Um and we just saw like our girls battle um and fight through. Um a lot of them unc to really come out and make the best of the end of the their season. Um we ended up taking um you know 14th I think at the state meet as one of the smallest D1 schools. So I'm really proud of them and everything that they've been able to put forth for us. And our boys team had an awesome uh state meet. They we I
004think scored over double the amount of points that we were supposed to. Um, and part of that is from uh one of our young athletes here, uh, Wilder. He'll get a chance to talk to you in a little bit. Um, and so we we're really we were hopeful that we were going to score high. Um, and then everything just kind of started to unfold and our athletes started to form and we really feel like across the boys and girls, they really peaked at the right moment and to score 34 team points and to take fourth place on the boys side, we were really, really proud with their effort. So, we are absolutely excited. Um, we feel like things are rolling in the right direction and we're really excited for next year. You're going to come
005back, right? Yeah. Okay. We're we're really really pumped for that. So, we'll we'll turn it over to our athletes now if you want to talk about your first day experience. Both of them are freshman, so it's awesome to make the D1 state meet as it is. So, my name is Elen Gillis. I'm a I was a freshman and I did the 4x2 and 4x4. And my experience was um I started off with like just like warming up and stuff and it was really exciting because I was with like all upper classman and so just like being out of my comfort zone and talking to people is really nice and they're all super supportive of me. Like I'm like a little freshman so I know like nothing about this. So they're all like helping me and
006like just talking to me as it is. And then so prelimins we ended um with 10th place and which was really rough for us because you know you don't want to be last in like last place the finals but we pulled through and pulled off a sixth place. And then our 4x4 we also didn't think we're going to make finals but we pulled off another win which I split 15 which was really good. and then we So, my name is Wilder B. I'm also a freshman and I did high jump. And leading up to the meet, I guess it didn't really like come over me as being like nervous until I got there and I saw all the people. Um, I think it really helped me that it was the meet was close at WL
007so I kind of like knew my around and things like that. Um, it was really fun competing against mostly older guys besides one other freshman, but I beat him. I got third place overall, which was pretty good. Yeah, it was a lot of fun and there was a lot of people that were able to come watch. Thank you guys for everything. all the support that you guys give us um in all our academic and athletic endeavors. Thank you guys so much. You know, I think what's what's always so impressive is is not not just the like the results, but the way the teams are, you know, behaving, the sportsmanship that's demonstrated visibly and I know that all comes from behind the scenes from from coaching, from families, from uh from teamwork. So, really appreciate that
008as much as anything else is is just the spirit with which all of you represent on Alaska. [Applause] Okay, we'll move into recognition of some donations. We have two donations that we would like to recognize tonight. cost of a field trip approximately $250 for a summer school trip to campa. Thanks Jan. always, you know, so many different ways that and Mark, if you could go on mute, uh, but just in ways that that the community that the the school and and our students are consistently recognized in. So, thank you for that, J. We have nowformational discussion items and we'll start. Is Bridget here? Hi, Bridget. Talk about 2025 scholarships that are presented to our high school students. And uh following along, this is in enclosure 11. I think I say this every year, but the
009time from last year's visit to this year's visit seems to go quicker each year. But again, I think that um if you were in the field for graduation and saw those wonderful bleachers, I have to lead off the fact that it just feels like I'm in that fieldhouse again. So again, awesome stuff going on. Just a few things that I want to uh you know bring to everyone's attention in terms of just the the scholarship awards and summary um summary report would be um just a reminder that we do report out on three different categories of scholarships. Not just the scholarships that our OS scholarship committee um does uh take a look at criteria and then choose those um students for but we also have outside scholarships. some of those um outside agencies do use
010our um scholarship application. Um so students really have a one-stop shop. They can really apply for a lot of different scholarships by just doing that one application. And we also have outside agencies that have their own um that again like to come in and make sure that students receive their due recognition. Um the third type of scholarship would be any postsecary scholarships um that students would be accepting by attending that university. Um the latter of Those two are always self-reported. Um, so again, we would have students probably maybe even learning in June or July that they did name to a scholarship that aren't part of this report. And also, we have students that elect not to report those out of um just again uh their own um free will and and that's what again we
011would respect their wishes on that too. Um, a few years ago we talked a little bit about a pretty steep decline in some of the um scholarship areas. I can Looking at the last three years, we've seen a stabilization of those numbers. When we're looking at percentages of classes, um we're looking at about anywhere from 40 to 43% of the class applying for scholarships. And again, that percentage is lower than uh pre2020. Um but again, we've had a pretty significant shift um in that whole postsecary landscape. Um and that's nationwide. That's not just on Alaska. And so again, um that's continue to see stabiliz um with about a 12% drop in postsecary um enrollment immediately after graduation um from 2021 u in 2021 and again that's nationwide and we're creeping back up some are reporting
012about a 2.5% increase. So again um that being said uh there's lots of different opportunities for kids. Um if you take a look at the awards section of the report you will notice that we had over students that were recognized that last day of school on the last day of seniors to school. Um, and I thought that was pretty significant. Um, in 2024, we started to recognize students who were enrolled in apprenticeships, mentorships, and also receiving any industry certifications. Again, those are another, you know, different doors that have opened um after 2020 that again are allowing our students to get that hands-on work experience and to get those um industry credentials um at the high school um itself and our our instructors are teaching those. Um I was curious this year because I was a
013little overwhelmed when I saw the certificates coming in that I was going to have to make, but I thought it was really cool as well. 57% of our class um of the class of 2025 was recognized on their last day of school. That's a significant number. And so I I again kudos to to everybody for really taking a look at you know those academic athletic um arts um and again those industry um awards for students. Um so basically that kind of summarizes a few key points from that report. Um, again, forformational purposes. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Um, but otherwise, it's kind of been business as usual the last couple years. Well, this is always one of my favorite like end of year reports like, you know, it's it's
014always impressive to see, you know, and I look forward to having you come back every year just because, you know, I always know it's there's there's good news embedded in there. A lot of hard work goes into supporting all the students from staff around the district. But you know the focal point and the coordination that he provides is really essential that we'll move into building projects update us. Further focused entirely. And then we're almost done. Excuse me. Hammer is almost done with exterior brick progress and the last three rows of bleachers were added on to the north end of the gym in preparation for some renovations with the bleachers for later this summer. But a lot of projects happening and thankfully a lot of demo is done which means the renovation start. Hello everyone. Welcome
015back to the an Alaska Middle School for another community update. Chris and I are excited to show you the progress here as we entered the last leg of the project, the final phase of the project. We have a lot going on between interior demolition, site improvements, and the start of uh buildback. So, there's a lot to cover. Let's hop in and see what we got going on. All right, we're here on the east side of the building. As you can see, we got the main entrance to the uh building in the background. Uh we got the uh binder course sawed out to put our islands in. We put the binder course in as a temporary parking lot for the last year's school year. So, we're just getting the islands put in now and then we'll
016be putting the final lift of asphalt in. As we pan around here, you can see what's been our our construction staging area here for the classroom edition is now getting graded out. Uh we got some top soil going in the islands and just getting a a jump on exterior improvements as we begin the summer. All right, so we're here in the bike storage area on segment F. From the last update, we had dens glass just getting finished up. Since then, we've got the air barrier on and uh we have set panels going on. They look really sharp. Uh Interstate roofing is doing a great job on the install. Moving on to the south side of the building, you can see we are currently in the process of working on the bus drop off. This is
017along Quincy Street. So, getting form work done for exterior concrete paving and sidewalks uh in preparation for asphalt going in for the the new bus drop off lane. All right. I apologize for the noise in here. So, we're over in segment C. Uh this is the final phase of the project. What will be uh at the end of the day will be the staff lounges, the tech head department, and then the boys and girls club areas. As you can see from the beginning of the shot, we have exterior framing going on. So, we're we're just completing demo on the interiors and getting buildback on the exterior wall completed. Uh, but Strut's been going to town here the past couple weeks since we completed asbestous abatement. Uh, getting everything gutted and demoed out. As you can
018see, we've had around behind us here. You can see we got hangle working on underground plumbing. Uh, saw cutings done. So, uh, just a lot of work taking place in this area. as our final leg of the uh interior interior renovation. All right, just giving you another uh look here of the interior demo we have going on in segment C. Uh what you're looking at specifically is uh Shrups demoing the old uh locker room area. Just on the other side of the the backho there uh is part of the locker rooms and then on the other side will be the Boys and Girls Club. So that'll become a corridor when it's all said and done. All right, we're up on the north side of the site here. Uh, one of the pushes we've been trying
019to make here the past couple months is getting our exterior concrete paving in place uh for Minnesota Wisconsin playground to come and start installing the playground equipment. As you can see, they're making good progress. Um, making good progress here on the north side of the site. So, up on the north side of the site, we're looking at the exterior of segment A. If you remember from our last update, we were just working on installing the uh architectural metal panels. that's been completed uh here since our last update. Uh and then we kind of will venture into uh segment A interior. Uh specifically, this is going to be the orchestra orchestra room when it's all said and done. But as you can see, we got drywall up. We got taping and sanding going on. So, uh
020making progress here up in segment A while we're waiting for demo in segment C to be completed and build back started. All right. Well, that'll do it for this month's community update. We appreciate everybody tuning in and seeing the progress as it unfolds here at the an Alaska Middle School. Uh we just want to take a moment to thank all of our trade partners, our foremen that are out here leading the charge on site and Chris Anderson for for really keeping everything moving at a at a steady pace uh and keeping us on track to to turn over a high quality building here uh at the end of this summer. Uh we appreciate the partnership with the school district as always and we appreciate the partnership with Vantage Architects. Uh we've had a great team
021here throughout the project and we're really looking forward to a strong finish and turn over to the an Alaska community. So so long for now. We'll have uh further updates as we move through the summer. Thanks. So I I don't have too much to add. That was a pretty thorough uh update. A lot going on. I think Oh, I was just going to say the the part where they're demoing it's unrecognizable. It's crazy how unrecognizable it is. That was all. Anybody have questions for Jared or item 13 which is an update on pillar one. So I will take over for district and then I will pass it over to Kelly and then wrap things up and then each of our buildings will present their progress too. So we're reflecting on our annual goals and progress
022rel related to our strategic plan. Um, and we'll start with looking at ELA and reading achievement, the highlighted portion. As I was looking through today, the number was incorrect, so I corrected it. I apologize. There's another correction that was made on the next slide as well. I wanted to bring our attention to that. Of course, going through it, I'm like, Um but when we look at ELA as a whole this year um our outcomes improved um in all rights when we look at student growth percentile rank we look at the way STAR progressed through the year as a prediction and then of the actual performance on the state assessment which we have much earlier than we had in the past. Usually we have to wait till middle of July or August to get that information.
023It's helpful I think to have it earlier part of our reflection. Um it reflects the impact of the action steps we we uh pursued this year. Uh literacy initiatives including um we had coaching happening. We had pilots of new materials um andic support for our readers. So when we look ELA achievement for our students who are in grades four, five, or star or students who are in grades three, eight for um forward. And then we also can reflect on early literacy where our goal was to reduce the percentage of kindergarten through third grade students who were scoring at the 25th percentile or below and we reduced that as a district by 9% which we're very proud of. Um we have noticed that there as we move into math as well that there's a mismatch between
024the forward and the star predictors and so that's something that I think maybe star hasn't really caught up to the new benchmarks that the state has created. Um, so I think going forward something that we could consider is writing our goal around forward and still using star as that important leading indicator um throughout the year. STAR helps us know what to do on a daytoday basis kind of like the post throughout the year and forward is kind of the final portrait of the year as a whole. something that we've been talking about. Um, going ahead to math, there's the correction. So, math did go down on the forward by five percentage points, but STAR predicted a higher percent. That's what I'm talking about. There's this there's this mismatch and I think we would want it
025to be a little bit closer to um to actual proficiency. Uh, we are at 65% proficiency on the forward which does exceed where we wanted to be with regard to star math. And again, we reflect on the targeted PD for teachers that we um very well received this year and saw incredible instructional moves happening across the board in our elementary schools and in our middle school. And there's just there's a lot to celebrate. Um instructional observation and then really like honing in. We had a great meeting at the end of the year. We really want to hone in on more focused tier 2 and tier three interventions in the area of math. We have um absolutely built an incredible system in reading that we can use to kind of inform our work in math. We
026also both in reading and in math look at our m maintenance of at least 95% of students um in grades 9 through 11 passing all their core ELA and their core math courses and um you can kind of see where we were at the end of last year that were a little bit higher at the end of this year um for math and um just one percentage point lower than we were all absolutely maintaining that above 95% um of students. The next area that we look at are ELA and math growth. So we look at our students who are um by the state there's a target group a new target group of students every single year. Um that's the bottom 25th percent of the class. So it just goes the lowest performing student on the
027ELA portion, lowest performing student on the math portion of our um of our state assessments and perhaps 25%. And we um have a very ambitious goal with regard to our students who are in the target group. We want 100% of them to be growing at that student growth percentile of 66 or higher, which is above average growth. He did not Um, but I should say and and we recognize that 70% of our students are now average or above average growth. It's not where we want to be. And that's part of like that tier two and tier three interventions piece. Um, growing that it is an ambitious goal, but we know that it's super important to know that our students who require the most that we're focusing on growth more than anything and how we can
028meet their needs so that they can continue their learning. Um so I think that that is kind of the first the goals around implementing our equable multi systems for social for quite a while. Um, and I think our action steps this second semester really gave us some movement in being able to maybe even put some closure to some of these goals that we had set out to do. Um, one of the areas was implementing the resilient learner program and hired resilient learner interventions this year. Our goal was to measure impact. It's difficult to measure impact. Um there's some fluidity to the students that are served and so some of our numbers it's hard to actually and maybe that's an opportunity for us to grow and to learn more. It's like how are we tracking that
029maybe a little bit closer especially around the tier 2 intervention because there is some um maybe in the moment tier 2 that happens that might not have gotten into our d some of our data when you see in the larger report isn't maybe as accurate as it could be. So, we could do a better job. But I think the whole purpose of that was really to are we getting a return on our investment in adding these positions and creating this program and the overwhelming results are and this has really been a good addition especially at the elementary level. Middle school has had a teacher in that position. So, we had a little bit of guidance there. what it would look like at school level. But that's been extremely beneficial and a big celebration part of
030our our whole system that I think we really done a nice job of for many students. Um, one of the other the other excellent steps we focused on um this whole year and continue to do it is um creating the alternative elementary alternative program for handful of our most needy special. We are moving along with that. We have a teacher hired. Um we are finalizing our renovation plan. Um and as we possibly can with the intent that we will be up and running by the beginning of school year. So that's our goal. even if we have to do a plan B to start knowing that um that we it will all be done eventually. Yep. Yep. Exciting. Um the other thing that we worked on this semester was really articulating all of the levels of
031our system. We go from universal tier one, tier two, and then tier three and all the different pieces to that. It's articulate in writing a plan like that because it's constantly changing and as we get better at at providing interventions or adding things or taking things away that we didn't find value in that will constantly change that articulation in that document. So we do have a lot of things in place. It's really exciting when you do sit down and look at all of it. Um, how many pieces we have put in place across the district. But that that is a thing that it's hard to say we're done. I mean, we're done to reflect where we're at right now, but that is a constantly evolving document. Um, and then the other I think the other
032big celebration and one of our our goals and action steps was about we provide or we have all students take an SEAL screener. You remember students um a very quick screener, but they're rated quickly in a level of low risk um some low and high. And we really focus on making sure that any student that is rated or rates themselves in that high risk range that our problem solving teams at our building match those students up with the necessary supports that they need. And again, I think this has been systematized in our our system where we match 100% of those students and maybe even more students. Maybe they didn't come up on the sabers as our screening tool, but we know through the problem solving process that there are students who need certain resources and
033having that's really it's not about the screener as much as it is about making students all are connected with those supports that they need so that their needs are met academically, social, emotionally, mental health, whatever that may be, and that we're talking about the outcomes of of that process. Also, the next goal that I will speak around is our attendance goal. Um, if you recall, we've come a long way in this. Um I looked back I believe our baseline data was like 79% um of students that so our goal is to increase the percentage of students with under 10% of absences to 90%. a little wordy, but basically we're shooting for more kids in school more often. And we, even though it looks like we're pretty steady and maybe plateaued across here, what sometimes I
034think it doesn't always reflect are the efforts that have gone into making sure that we are targeting the students that are not in our 88% and making sure we're connecting with other community resources and um meeting with families, trying to take away barriers to attendance. A couple of things that probably impacted our results this year or that we've been thinking about. One thing is if you recall, we revised the attendance policy for the elementary level just this year and it made it maybe more I don't want to say punitive but maybe more of a consequence to be absent from school at the elementary level. The difference where we we differentiated a truency versus a tardy and we made that tighter and that may have impacted this result um and maybe we'll see if we continue
035to to collect this data which I would assume we would maybe we'll see that actually have a positive impact um in the future. The other thing we've talked about is we have always historically included prek attendance in this data. PreK is not compulsory age parents. There's really not a whole lot of leverage around the attendance and the attendance policy that we can other than promoting good habits and you know starting young but really prek is like if we were to take the prek dependence out of that would it make a difference in our overall and maybe we should focus more on those like compulsory. That's just something something for us. And then I'm going to pass the charts over to Kelly and she's going to talk about the student engagement. I'll be referencing the student
036survey. As you can see from our data, I think one of the major things highlighted that our highest average for elementary, middle school, and high school was that students are feeling safe in our schools, which is just something from this data um as well as the fact that students feel their teachers care about them and have high expectations for them. So really here um you can kind of see some connection between the um elementary and middle school data where it says one of our lower average tours and one of the things that interface with learning is um students following the rules or distracting behaviors in class when we had listening sessions with the students at the elementary school. So we went around and spoke with them um Dr. and I did we talked a little
037bit about um just what are some of those behaviors? And you can see just from some of those discussion themes in the data that it's not major behaviors, it's more minor things like tapping pencils or um students flirting out in class. Those are the types of rules or behaviors that tend to be distracting in the classroom at the high school. You can see some connections that um that work life balance that we know even as adults is something that we continue to learn how to manage and work around. Um, so that's something that high school students are beginning to learn as they become seniors and are involved in so many great things that our schools. Um, I think that was something that was really highlighted in the listening sessions that maybe didn't come across in
038the data that I put in there, but the students just spoke a lot about all of the fantastic opportunities we provide and how they want to be involved in so many things that it does just make it hard to balance those pieces. Um, one thing I wanted to make note of is the participation status of Eagle Bluff. We did confirm with all of the fifth grade teachers that they gave the survey to all of their students, but you'll notice a lower participation rate. We're not sure where the error li then that would data we would have students take it twice. So we left it with a lower participation rate for Eagle Buff. Um this is the first year that we have cohort data. So just noticing that data there. We have our fifth grade group
039or our eighth grade group took it as fifth graders in 2022 and it's the first time we have data that we can compare the same group of students to how they build it out versus eth graders. And then um as I said, you know, our the key takeaway really is our students are feeling safe and respected and cared for by the staff in our building, which is really um a wonderful celebration. And it's just highlighted by a cult as we were leaving the high school senior listening session. One of the high school students, um I actually had her as a fifth grade student. It was pretty neat to hear her say. She just said that she's so grateful to be a part of the school district of an Alaska. highlighted how wonderful teachers and classes
040and students and programs are. What do you have for me? A little bit clarifying when you were talking about the distracting behaviors that were reported by students. Is that elementary and the middle school? It was Um, both of them reported the same thing. And then the other question on your numbers, I just wanted to confirm that I'm reading it correctly. Are we spring on the actual I think that data are going to be looking at the data retreat. So that would be something really great question. I know when we were sitting in the eighth grade uh listening session was there and just was telling the eighth graders about the differences that the previous class had made and the changes that they had made over the course of the year about changes that were talked about
041in her question about adding extra snacks they said they were hungry in the previous year but I would how we could share that more before I It was a wide variety. We did ask students to share specific examples. So sometimes it would be during group the teacher would you know be teaching and a student may shout out an answer whereas other times um students are working really loudly when they're working in partnerships or small groups or during a quiet independent work time or fidgeting something. So it was really a very wide scale question. I'm curious how those focus groups are selected. How the students chose to participate. And then we don't want to get I'm going to share about achievement. As you heard from Our goals were written around predicted as it has in the
042past as the state contin about wheat moving forward. um forward data that we're sharing specific districtc from the beginning of this year is that the star reading portion includes in four and five. So that one is a little bit different and I'm going to share just our seen from our data but then also just a reminder that our guiding our data retreat and we'll work on actionable steps that we can make on our proficiency went down a bit in the northern And this is something that we're continuing that we're going to be implementing. We are looking ahead to that consistency in our instruction and our rigor across the district. And we're hopeful that that will help. We've had a lot of volatility in our course where we have one grade that's that's not focus. For
043example, my at the forward was 47% but my third grade was levels where we might focus on As far as our math achievement, that one is third grade and our math proficiency went down a bit at so a little bit of volatility there and some of that is contining to work on our professional development with Sharon and with our math resource support. We focused heavily this year on the daily practices engagement and fluency around math and next year we're going to be focusing around the success for students. So for teachers know that instruction So that's something instructional and then for our excuse me our growth as shared this group is kind of a little groups forward in order to show the growth. are not included in this and um the measured using that indicator and
044again it'll be interesting to see how that matches with the target group forwards and the students don't have any ideation the best way to measure this or not. Um but what we saw like shared we didn't quite get to where we wanted to go but we had some pretty nice% or more of them at that gap but we'll continue to work in our as shared earlier and this can be a pretty I just shared specifically one leveler. I didn't I didn't say all of them. They're in the I think they're in the I thought something implementing the building instruction which starts at kindergarten and We have all definitely noticed an increase in our students ability when they have that instruction to be able to read morely and improve their writing. So that's something that I'm
045very instruction. next year when they come on board forward they'll have two and a half years of that instruction so it'll be about I think it currently in fourth and fifth grade they did not have that instruction and the instruction they received in early literacy was virtual That is a really good area that we screens and then there are specific grade kindergarten fluency or better word fluency reading fluency. And then from there we identif Our action steps are similar at each of our buildings around the staff. What that looks like to outline specific and then collaborate and review the outcomes of that assessments. Um through our students were provided targeted and instruction are needed to track their growth on assessment windows. They were provided with practice at the end of the year. process around this
046summer. I think it's all together right instruction. The other thing that was really teachers online. Yes, I think you know when we do our rounding when we ask But I do want to learn more about large. So yeah. So then I will take um this final segment for elementary terms of our atrisisk attendance and student as was mentioned before we did our students. Um, I would just clarify in the fall. And then in terms of attendance, um, there was a mention of possibly policy difference there. We did all see a little bit of a dip in the percent of students absant make sure that And then finally engagement already survey and sort of a little bit of volatility maybe from year to year to group on that but we will keep an eye on trends
047that looks I don't know if any impact on this or not but but I do know one of the things too I was wondering We did make a pretty concerted effort to highlight themes. I think all of our students um I wonder if that was happening. Um so either way it's good information involved in that. I think that's really positive through our school. So we keep watching those quick question if they arrive more than 20 minutes later. So, have you had the experience of a parent saying, "Well, my kid actually speaking from having that experience." And I only bring it up because I worry that starting at 10:30. So instruction helped have the conversations in help. I know. All All right. Quick fun fact related to those student groups. I'm told that at some student
048running a couple years ago, the kids asked for a new school. So, I guess we follow through. Yes, we're working on it. So, middle school, they were asking for that when I was Yeah. So, starting with ELA achievement, uh, we were pleasantly surprised with the forward results. You know, for our ELA teachers, this year was pretty chaotic to be honest, as we were trying to sample three different curriculums and try to piece it all together. And um a lot of days they were just trying to know what they were working on that day. And so, um the star didn't move too much, but the forward definitely went up. So, very pleasantly surprised with that. And we feel very positive with the unanimous choice kind of came to our teachers. in terms of the curriculum moving
049forward. And so we've got some training scheduled in August and really looking forward to diving into that help us grading policies and all sorts of other fun ELA stuff. So that's that's exciting. Um a little surprised with the math as well. You can see our our actual scores went down. The star the predicted score kind of stayed the same throughout the year. This was a big surprise to us because our road for um continue to jump up dramatically. The percentage of students meeting or achieving their individual growth goal is at about 7% schoolwide is about double what it was two years ago. And so our internal growth data is kind of off its charts. And so this was a bit of a shock to us. So we'll continue to take time back and see what
050we can figure out. A couple of things on the horizon though that we have been working on this year in preparation for next year are our math intervention process and our math acceleration process. We've done a lot of work this year packing those things and preparing for next year. And just a quick fact about some of those changes this year. At the beginning of the year, we only had nine sixth graders that were accelerated in math in some way. And this next year, because of some of the changes we're making to the offering we have 37 to start the year. And now I think that we could have had something similar last year. It's just a process of getting it started because there's a number of students that were in regular sixth grade math to
051start this year that are going to be challenged next year in seventh. But after a bunch of conversations and reflection on the process, we wanted to challenge more students. So hopefully that'll help with continuing to see progress both in growth and in the actual achievement moving forward for the growth of the target group. Um the numbers that you see on the screen are just the percentage of students in the above average. I apologize I didn't have the combined but economy it's 65% average or above average for ELA. That's the whole school combined and math is a little over 70% of students are at their average above average what I was saying both our internal growth scores are really great and that's that's just the the target group. So the target group is kind of mirroring
052school as a whole percentage of students that are achieving average. Again, unfortunately math didn't translate to the actual achievement forward, but still we we can access a report that breaks down by standard. How many how many questions For example, standard seven that's not label but standard seven there were two questions this year whereas the year before there may have been zero and the year before that may have been one and so we'll we can break that down as well as I believe a depth of knowledge one two or three how many questions are at what level basically so we get a little bit of a report breaking that down but we don't see the actual questions Yeah, that's that's a great question. Those reports um they are very informative, but EPI does tend to change
053a little bit year to year which standards they focus in on just they don't want us teaching to the test for obvious reasons, right? And so it does vary a little bit. You're welcome. So the next slides go for making sure that 100% of our students identified as high risk are connected resources. We have a fantastic team middle school and they are able to do that. And we kind of reflected from the first from the fall to the spring in trying to make sure that we have a plan which we now do so that if students are absent on the day that we take that we make sure that they make that up. want to make sure we're not missing anybody. We're kind of following that after that initial connection with resources. Make sure that
054um our attendance uh good progress there with attendance this year. We now have 90% of students attending 90% of the time or more. So we saw a decrease in the percentage of students who were absent that benchmark. In addition, our teams did a lot of great work a couple weeks ago wrap up reflection session and specific one focus on a little more next year. A lot of times we realize in reflection a lot of times we're focused on the kids who are missing days and days and days but a lot of times those kids have some really extenduating circumstances. So, one thing we're still going to track that those students, but something else that we're try to layer on to our systems next year with the target racking up class that means you're in the
055building but just not in class. So, there really should be no excuse. So, finally, the student engagement tour unfortunately went down just a little bit. So, we've done some work and Similar to what Kelly shared before in terms of the things that are highest student behaviors and the those types of things that we're continuing to focus on and we're going to spend a lot of time in our August trying to figure out what's next there. But one thing that we do know for sure is that we're hoping will help this area that we had with the change to our schedule. One thing is that home from the very beginning of the day to during the day. In addition to that, we're getting some training on the on the specific curriculum that we use. Home is
056our core SDL instructional period and we realized that staff turnover about half of our staff did not have the training on how to deliver that training for the whole staff in August and moving that to a little bit later in the morning when more especially middle school students. Um, and hopefully that'll have a positive impact on that students. We have so far we're going to Perfect. Look at that. I don't think it was even planned. We uh our our first bill is focusing on students from achievement standpoint pass from a ELA standpoint and map standpoint. This is one our guiding coalition will be looking at this summer to say is there a different better way that we can measure I suspect we're going to stay in that 92 to 95% range and we've refined symptoms.
057We've tried to catch things earlier with anything but catching things earlier works but I don't know what we're going to see change here. This is really important from a standpoint of moving graduation but capturing achievement probably not at this point so that one piece with the achievement that you ask question very useful for our high school team is that when we do this celebration of learning date 91 fall we can see by specific student this was a specific question this was the choice we can see across the grade that's been very insightful because sometimes all the times when our teams look at the data they'll say why did 60% of kids choose this option what in this question is tricky what do they have right so that has been really useful for us uh from
058a social emotional learning standpoint. Um if you saw the scorecard, you see that we had colored that yellow from a standpoint of from an impact. Our challenge was we were trying to really correlate not did we match every kid high intervention, but was it successful or not? What was that impact? You heard Lori mentioned earlier the challenge of that impact. We tried to do that looking at data. We tried to do that looking at data. Um we didn't see a correlation in any way, shape or form to really show what the impact was. And I guess the other buildings would students in a high risk aren't always the students you would think would be in high risk. And so there students maybe who are in the top 5% of the class who are very heavily
059involved students who are not. And so that's one that again we're still struggling to identify what is the impact but what's the impact of that from the current portion. Um you can see a substantial increase. I think if we went back to 202122 you would see there were approximately four or five students with credentials up to 71 this year with maintaining as well as growing the assistant child care which did a fabulous job with um and continuing to we expect that number to grow next year also because we have students that earn credentials the sophomores who will now graduate next year will have that and it's not just the senior year piece of that by the way we found out last week that for all of the students in the class of We are in
060approximately $680 for that. We anticipate earnings somewhere in that neighborhood for the 71 student. Um yeah, found A lot of lot of health. terms of student engagement. You'll see we've had a pretty big jump this year. Uh even our numbers of sports, music, our clubs increase the addition of engage allowed students to find opportunities that they enjoy. So kudos to our staff for buying into this extra thanks to did undertaking a lot of things there and a lot of puzzle putting together to get everybody in there. So, uh we're very happy with that number and obviously want to continue to see it improve and we'll continue to look at ways that we can find reach out to those other 20% to hopefully find something for them to be interested in and involved in as well.
061The last piece student. We wanted to be more girls. You know, Eric asked a question earlier. How do you come back? We had some great information from 9th responded to those unfortunately that wasn't survey. So for example, one of the most popular ones among seniors having a different door open that's not a question but if it was I'm answer one of the things that our guiding coalition talked about in April or March when we first saw the results we talked imping achievement like three years ago we said we're going to improve achievement by doing this specifically and this we haven't specifically said we're going to increase our license by doing this specific thing so we've narrow it down down to two or three areas and now one in August meeting again we would expect to
062lead We linked in the updated cards out and then open it up for questions. I think um I've heard over and over like when we as we move forward, it's about deepening our commitment to what's working and adjusting refining the things where we're not seeing the impact that we want to. And you heard I think almost every single principal talk about the summer work, the importance of that guiding coalition getting together, diving in, knowing what to grab and put, you know, before that team of committed leaders in each of our buildings forward, what our next steps are going to be to reach our goals. beginning two things. What do you learn? aren't as afraid to do that Even though the other thing is not the best cabinet working together work this This is what makes
063the difference. On top of that, they're doing all the stuff in the district on a minuteby minute basis as well. So, I just appreciate the improvement in mind. Thanks, It's important to look at the work as well together. Thank you all. Sorry. because Um, and I I reflect on where we were three years ago as we were really like digging ourselves out. It was it was a difficult time. Um, virtual learning works for some but it doesn't work it doesn't work for all. And that I mean that was where we were many of our students that what you're referring to some of those earliest those earliest years of learning the foundational aspects of math and and I look at like now our commitment going forward even before act 20 we were training our teachers through
064OG. We knew that that was that early intervention and early best instructional practices and universal learning for all was going to be how we bounce back. And I think what we're seeing now is bounce back and what's not represented and Ben alluded to it. um the growth of of our students in both reading and math using I mean star doesn't do some things well but it does it does uh help us know where growth is happening and where it's not and then we can dig into why with web and our diagnostic assessments I feel like our system as far as like what what our assessments are telling us our students need has never been better and and I think that we're going to see a continuation of improvement over time. I don't know if that
065answered your question. I have a real quick question for Jason. You had mentioned the excellent numbers of student engagement. I'm just curious um was there a certain area that grew more club, music, athletics? Um I would say the main that we usually focused on those three you just mentioned grow. I do think our music program is starting to fully recover again from the So that's increasing the number one increase now policies. Before I hand it over to Roger, I'm gonna ask, are there any requests to separate consideration? Tracy second to remove policies 11:30, 3230, and 4230 from first reading considerations. Any questions or comments? All those in favor? All right. Another crazy work. The first communication All of them are required and recommend. This is a new thing for me. 22. I do want to
066make sure located in regard to college. Moving on to access market. not recommended. The reason for that is that we have policy 2464. used to that rewrite question about that program. What about students who may exhibit their skills? to be challenged as well. Those are struggling when we might need other Not there. pretty small. reason I'm ask all put together. Here's a list of top 10 questions. Just give them a little extra heads up. 513 open enrollment program. I believe the part of the revision had to do with um If a school board determined there was no space available for the next school year that even if we had applications say for special education that we still go through the process of making sure that we look at that look at the IEPs look at
067the needs and really make a decision for student not just a blanket statement that says we don't have any space available. We do that now. Um, but we do we we do not I do not recall I don't think we've ever had no space available in any program. And so it's always what's in that and then looking at what was approved by the board and then I believe that primarily correct. Yeah. Um adding this to the policy doesn't change our practice because we are already doing this. So it it actually matches what we're already doing. Um we have all staff trained in that medication um administration and then our nurses go around and both inhalers. And so it's just kind of one of those things like we are doing. This is because the language of
068the team here is in another I don't know if it's in the one that we just looked at the medication administration or one of the other ones that that governs health services but it was recommending it because the language is already There's also support for those 561. financial point that not every situation at every level. required. I have a quick question for you. I just don't know what it means. It says language. Thank you. qualify for help. You don't have technology. All right, last page. two things. One is we do not participate The other thing in that policy reaches a certain thresh that would mean that they don't level increase. But we are every any questions that either Collect what that related to that as well. Make sure that our policy question gets the gift
069right now. Part of the question is when holiday is representation. end of the year. But it's a difficult artificially low dollar amount. Now I have accept Thanks. There's any other questions or individual comments feel free to reach out to the committee members and committee I remember how full those meetings. Mark and we have action items related to item 15 which is policy 541. This is on the agenda. to approve policy1. Are there any questions? All those in favorable again to the committee and thank you for your work on that. And next solutions here we have three school districters. It's been something that looking structure for years now. At the same time, it's very nice to be able to help us deploy the extra hands. contract even there's no auto renew right and but then there's
070also a 60day written notice we're not renewing Okay. I would Second by the dependable solutions contract for the 202526 school year out questions. All those in favor? Next up, we have Jared for second reading on the 256 high school student. No changes, but one clarification on page 17 with the possibility of random testing. If you approve the handbook tonight with this, you are not saying you can move forward with this. What this means is that there's possibility for us to move forward as a district. Those steps involve working with our legal council with our liability coverage. Um we've reached out already to other high schools who have done this and the purpose in every way, shape or form is not to catch kids. The purpose is to help kids make the right decisions and simply
071put prevent. It's kind of like the police officer being in a visible spot on traffic versus speed off the highway. Um and if you think about it, if if 95% of the kids are doing the right say 700 kids that leaves about 35. And so when you think about wanting to make good choices, this is what this is about. If you approve this moving forward, what we would be doing is working first off with Ben Barton coming in to make sure he's on board. But then from there from a board level, I would anticipate policy 5771 coming to you for hospital revision. That's one dealing with random testing. Random testing specifically would be for alcohol. There is no other for anything else beyond that any other talific I should also mention we're specifically looking at
072this from a dance standpoint not from not from other school activities Second by second by Bridget to approve the 2025 26 high school student handbook included in enclosure 17. Any questions? All those in favor? Thank you all for your work. And now we turn to Janet for the 2024 budget amendment. The document projected on the screen right now is the instruction that gives the detail but the document that's on the screen right now you're only seeing those that have changes And then looking at the cover at this time of year like we're basically looking at the end of the yearendicated areas that we areending less than we anticipated basically doing Bottom line, the bottom line is not changing. It's just categories in the areas that we are more expending the budget that we purchased and
073then also in other support services and is consulting. And both with this one, we have taken the move to move towards a new student information system because when we have that we are comfortable with what are we going to do different of this takes time and so we need to do it right and take the time to get our staff on board. But we've had expenditures here with consultants helping us with our current information systems. And then you can see there's a small transfer is our co-op fund. So just at the end of the year for all of those where we have got that looking gift areaing those up with our gift for the year. And then looking at our adjustment there, we've had that we're taking action to make sure, you know, hopefully not
074repeated in the future. And we've had more off district for special education students. And you know, we just approved And then you see a significant increase in helping us out. So we feel like having programs that have more regular class environment. And this is, you know, in your mission statement, you talk about all this truly. So, we're excited to see, you know, how that plays out moving forward. Looking at the rest of them, they're really pretty minor adjustments. 39 just increasing therefore additional interest that we have earned. And expend some expenditures and costing and then finally we talked about that earlier that the detail behind it the first attachment that's on the screen all of the numbers rows and columns numbers questions for Motion by Tracy. Second by Bridget to approve the 25 a closure
075amendment. Are there any further questions? Thank you for your work on that and we'll stay with you. Let's talk about the 202526 preliminary budget. on the screen is thection on the preliminary budget again recommended for also the first attachment I'm not going to go through that presentation unless you would like me to it is so preliminary the new state budget is starting in a little over a week and We have no idea. I mean, they said it's kind of like the way that it works in school districts. Our fiscal year starts on July 1. Hopefully by July or so that I can get it ready for you. We know that we've got a state budget. We don't know that. the governor's talent finance. So hopefully that changes and um we get closer to a more
076supportive budget for students. But we'll see where it ends up. What we'll be doing on October 27th is when we will adopt our original budget for prep. So then on September 22, we'll be asking you to have a preliminary updated preliminary budget to take to the budget. And again, at time we won't have our student enrollment numbers. We won't have equalized value. So it'll still be titled one more thing. Um the budget presented tonight is a conservative budget. So we estimated revenue coming in very conservatively with our state less than we had this year but look at a year that district coming and then trying to be somewhat generous on what we think we seconded by Brian. to approve the preliminary 2025 26 budget as detailed by just approving the one document the enclosure 19
07720256. Yes. We'll move to for a discussion on our curricular resource adoption for happy news. What happy news? Finally. No, not I was going to say finally. It has been a year. a year of like pilots and trying things out and um like this is an integral part of our strategic plan and it is not easy to do something different than the rest of your team at times. But both of the all the companies we worked with said over and over and I think I've mentioned this the professionalism and dedication of our staff does not go unnoticed and they're like we've never worked with school district where teachers are like diving in and they're excited and they're committed and they're asking questions and they're trying it out. So that's just like a huge celebration and
078it's great to finally bring it to you all as far as recommendation is concerned. So we're bringing um the purchase and adoption of a new curricular resource for grades K8. Um the request we bring this before the board for two reasons. First is the cost exceeds $100,000 and um also constitutes the adoption of instructional resource which requires board approval for district policy. Um so what's included in the purchase? Um for grades three through eight, this includes six years of student consumables, full digital access for teachers and students and all necessary teacher and classroom materials needed to um in grade two. We're starting one year of student consumables and student digital access in order to evaluate the need for that in the long term because when students are younger, we don't put they're not on their
079computers as much and and we do that intentionally. It's about exposure. Um, it doesn't mean that they that teachers won't have access to these things to be able to print and hand out, but what we want to assess is do we need in grades K2 all of the students that come with the program. We want to be fiscally responsible and responsive to what's needed at that level. It does include six years of teacher access and all the classroom all the same classroom materials as the other. Um, it includes professional development. So, of um the purchase in each quote is dedicated to ongoing professional development which includes launch training for each program um inerson coaching and then other training and support they call different things depending on the company. or um things like that throughout the
080school year which we have scheduled on professional development uh days. The inerson coaching piece has been like a really critical ask of our speakers. They want to see it model. They want to um have somebody who's an expert in the buildings with students that can share that. So that was really important part of um our back and forth. Um so then we at the curriculum selection and policy alignment. So the adoption process followed the district policy and selection guidelines including we looked at suitability for students and that's why pilots are so critically important. Um and we did that in every grade K through eight. Uh teachers then used the standards based rubric. We used it at the beginning of the process. at the end of the process to gauge um that suitability and grade level
081rigor as well as engagement and alignment with grade level standards. Then we really dive into freedom from bias and we use um we have a district bias checklist and um really when we look at amplify CKLA is the K5 program my perspectives by SAS is um is the 68 program uh the PKLA's most recent edition so the third edition the one that we're adopting has advised to remove or adjust previously controversial units. It's been acknowledged there are some controversial units in the first and second editions that are not present in the third edition which is wonderful. Um and uh CKLA looking at that first developmentally appropriate the materials are tailored for young learners with age appropriate language uh diverse representation and culturally culturally responsive topics. And then for as far as educator feedback um in
082local pilot reviews, no bias concerns were raised by K5 staff during evaluation. Um when we were looking at inclusivity and fairness across the board from my perspectives that the 6 program um it meets expectations for text quality, for knowledge building, for usability and includes support for all learners. Um The program itself is actually structured around an antibbias framework. Um, and it uses that as um to frame in taking perspectives um as as students are working through that program and that literature. When we look at teacher insights and considerations, uh teachers commented on the rich diversity of text and noted that my perspective supports meaningful conversations about identity and justice. And then the newest version that we're adopting includes more contemporary and relevant text and improved platform. So both of these programs, we're getting the newest
083version. we're getting the most updated version um and the one that that our teachers are um have experienced and are excited about. Um for curriculum alignment resources um we look across the board they align to our essential ELA standards and they're designed to build a strong coherent foundation literacy that spans across um when we look at the Again, kind of going back to the revision, um, we did notice that the third edition revised to remove those previously controversial units. Um, the selection process, I mentioned, we did use standards based rubrics. Uh, K5, we had one pilot teacher per grade level in each building, and they piloted both programs, including CKLA. In grades 68 all teachers piloted amplify in semester one and then additional programs being my perspectives and arts and letters were also explored during
084the second semester 6 day came with 100% uh unanimous consensus on them being in support of the my perspective of bringing that to you and then there was a clear consensus and direction as well. Then I'll just dive into the cost elements that are in our policy that we How will they work together? both programs are very aligned the standards that govern all of the instruction in every grade level. Um, DKLA is more of an elementary program when the middle school I I will say so the middle school the the other portion of PKLA it's called it's called Amplify CLA and it's just amplify ELA for middle school we piloted that for half of a year one of the things our teacher said was the amount of screen time that it involved middle school students
085and it was interesting as we were going through the pilot that not the experience of our CLA pilot teachers, but the middle school ELA teachers were like, they didn't feel good about it. They didn't feel good about how much kids were asked being asked to be on their screens, which was why we wanted to explore other options. My perspectives, they felt was the right balance. And so we look at CKLA, it's kind of like that foundational skills, the beginning, and then it it um it becomes a little bit more sophisticated in grade 3, five, and then my perspectives kind of takes it and allows literature andformational text to bloom from there. Um so what we've noticed is that there is a really wonderful continuity even though they're not the same program. And that to try
086to pick the same program for continuity sake might that we sacrifice some of the values that we have in the middle school as far as like how much could kids be on Chromebooks, how much will they be reading text in front of so lots of consideration that cost it feel. But I'm just curious since we're only doing one year of the K2 consumables. Do you have any idea roughly what that decide to add it in for year two, year three, what that look like. Um I can get the exact cost for you. I um I did not break that part down. Is it okay if I put that in? Um it will be I don't want to say without like really diving in and knowing for sure. Um but depending on what we decide to
087do um there will be an additional cost. It'll be less than what we're purchasing for the six years because it'll be a five year aer price, right? Like the price that's on the car in the in the lot, right? Um is 842,955. We in our strategic plan said that we anticipated spending up to $900,000. That's the beginning. Okay. So then the back and forth kind of starts. You do multiple years. You kind of like you're looking at what elements do we Um so all told for um for EKLA amplified it is going to be my computer. So it will be 390,69040. Amplify is also allowing us to split um some of the payment to just to alleviate where that's landing. So for anything we're receiving this year, training, materials, consumables, all of that that we
088will use next year, like the physical aspect of the program, we will pay we would pay this year $313,0005540. They are then allowing us to forward like the digital like the um the access for teachers access for students picked 77,136 to the next fiscal year to alleviate alleviate that impact a little bit um they were wonderful to work with for that purpose for CK or for my perspectives by SAVA the total cost is $162,280.31 um The total that we would be spending for both programs um over the course of two fiscal years is 552,970 which is a really favorable number and further away from $900,000 which is good. That's an okay thing and something to celebrate. Um so both programs we look durability. So that's the cost and then the materials are um fed digitally.
089Anytime there are updates, we get those updates, right? So these are um growing programs. They're continuously improving programs. Um so that kind of allows us some long-term sustainability as well. So that is that I think I touched on everything but if you have questions I'd be willing to dive in a little bit. Any cost per update? Cost per update like when they update is there for that? Um no like digitally they update all the time that gets automatically delivered. Like let's say we're purchasing the third edition. If in two years they come out with the fourth edition, it would there would be an additional cost to reup. But the um talking with the publisher for CLA and for us, they just made some really recent updates and so addition on the horizon because both of
090them are brand new. It could be. It could be. And I think, you know, when we get back around in the cycle of of looking at whether this is meeting our instructional needs and our goals, then we would start the process all over again. Um, and be able to see after six years, is this getting us the results that we're looking for? Is it meeting students needs? Is it allowing our teachers to do their students and um that will show in results and if it if it doesn't we go back to the drawing board after it's changed in six years um and we reassess I'll make a motion for the adoption of the ELA resources for grades at a cost,6904 and my perspectives for grades through a cost 62,280.31 motion from Bridget by Tracy to
091adopt the ELA resources for grades through a cost of $39,690 and my perspective through a cost of 162,28 We have any further questions name and a whole team of people. Are there any request to remove items from the personnel report for separate consideration? We're helping us Any questions? in favor. Are there any requests to remove items for separate consideration from the consent agenda? Brian favor, but u you know again I I reflect on like I've learned sitting well not sitting next to you that often here but but the interactions that we had I think the love that you um exemplify for this district uh and for the the work that this team does is just so apparent and every interaction that I've had with you just so thankful that you've been willing to come backend
092this time with just amazing to be able to work with you. Thank you very much for that. We have no further adjourned by Tracy to All those in. Thank you all.