May 19, 2026 Jefferson County Schools Board of Ed LSIC Meeting

001Good evening. Welcome to Jefferson County Board of Education LSIC meeting on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. If you please join for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America to the stand, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening, Miss Schaefer. Good evening. Um, if you wouldn't mind just leaving a few minutes at the end for questions, that would be terrific. And also, Miss Bratton is joining us online. So, >> hello. >> Yes, we plan to go quickly and any questions ask us if you need. So, uh, good evening. Um, this is the Paige Jackson LSIC. It's not everyone tonight. There were several that couldn't make it, but tonight we have with us Miss Sher Shaver. She is a prek teacher at Paige Jackson for the past three

002years. We have Priscilla Rod, our admin in residency. Amanda Bennett, she is a kindergarten teacher. Kelsey Bellers is first grade. So, they were able to join us this evening. We had several hands though in the pot that were helping us with this presentation and giving input um including parents and members at large. >> Oh, I Oh, I got a clicker. >> Yeah, we got a clicker. >> Look at me. I'm fancy. your advanced be the uh right button, right arrow. >> There it goes. Okay. All right. So, here are my folks. Um Sarah Anderson Riyles is a parent of a kindergarten student. Mercedes K teaches second grade. She's not here this evening. Um Amanda Harvey is a parent. Jeff Hines is a parent. Melissa Hines is a parent member at large. And Mr. Rally is

003our service person representative. Um she was sick today. All right. So, we're going to kick started with who we serve. Um, we actually have increased since this number. 398 is who we were serving, but we're now serving 405. Um, as you can see, the majority of our population is Caucasian, but I do want to note that our Hispanic population is increasing. There were 39 students that were identified as Hispanic in the fall of 25 with six of them on a level one, 23 on a level um three, and one on a level two. So what that means for us is we're trying to provide services for many of our students that are coming in that are just learning the um English language. So that's what we service. You can see our poverty rate. Um we

004have several students that are living in hotels. We have a lot of needs for our students that come to us. Um we just looked at our homeless population of teacher of students that are doubled up. Um so we provide lots of different things to those students. Um our counselor is integral to that. She packs a clothing clothing closet for them. Um we reach out to see what other kind of supports our students might need that are living um maybe in a hotel or doubled up not by choice but by financial um hardship. All right, so let's dig into the data. So this was our fall data. What's exciting about this time of the year is we now have our spring data. So if you look at our kindergarten students on the Ames web for the

005reading for the literacy starting in kindergarten we had 34.2% below grade level uh we had 39.9% make great meet grade level standard and we had 27.0 um at above grade level. Now before I go into the next piece of data know that in kindergarten they only have to recognize one letter and two letter sounds on as web. when they get to the end it increases significantly. So when we look at what they did in the spring we had 30.3 students identified in the bottom cortile we had 56.9 on grade level and we had 12.8% jump up to above standard. When we were looking at our data um the past couple weeks and looking at our goals per grade level, we met our grade level goals for uh kindergarten, which was in letter, word, sound, fluency,

006and that's what makes up the majority of that composite score for literacy. When you look at first grade um and second grade, the majority of the score is based on their oral reading fluency, which means if they don't come out of kindergarten starting to look at that nonsense word fluency and blending words together, when they come into first grade, they're going to struggle because they really need to be having a lot of words per minute. By the end of first grade, so when we started first grade, we had 28% below benchmark, 45% meeting the benchmark, and 27% above the benchmark. And in the spring we had 35.2 below. We had 56.8 at grade level and 8% above. So we shifted a little. We had more kids some more kids fall into that um at risk,

007but we also look at how much they need. And so we don't always hang our hat and my teachers hear this all the time. We don't hang our hat on that composite score. we really look at that progress monitoring piece to see if they're making progress to close their achievement gap and look if they're closing that um rate of improvement. So that's really really important to us. And when we look at our students in grade one, the majority made the nonsense word fluency that were in that bottom cile. They met that goal and most of our students are at grade level very beginning some of them but they are starting on oral reading fluency on grade level. So we are looking promising as we start into next year. For grade two, we had 25.6% below

008grade level at the start of the year. 52.8% met the benchmark and 21.5.6% were um above the benchmark. And in the spring we were at 25.6 still in that um below 69.6 six in the on and um for spring in both first and uh second we had um 8% be at the um above mark. So we were pretty excited about that. Again, it all hangs on that oral reading fluency. The other piece that we added in second grade is reading comprehension. And while we would expect that to go up because they had the option for a readaloud, it did not. It did not help those scores go up. Um, so we're looking at, and you'll see later in the presentation, um, what I kind of attribute some of this to. So that's our literacy. Our

009math is, um, amazing. So this was the lowest our kids have ever started in math. We had a lot of work to do. What we're noticing in kindergarten is when they're coming in, they're getting exposed to numbers through apps and things like that that parents think that are great, but it eliminates the ability for them to actually think for themselves. They're actually memorizing numbers. They're memorizing and wrote counting. They don't have to think because the app might say one and show it like a little chip one one chip and they're not having to think that that is one. So when we're asking them to do this it's a little bit more difficult. When we looked at our scores for kindergarten one of the areas that we were really really weak in was that number naming

010fluency. Being able to name those numbers in out of order in a timely fashion. So when they started they were at 23.4 in that below benchmark. The kids on benchmark were 45.0 and then the above were 31.5. When we ended our spring, we only had 11.1% below grade level. 64.2% were on grade level and we um went down just a little bit in our above grade level to 24.8%. Again, I look at that and the benchmark does get high harder. When you look at grade 1, we were working more on as we kind of shift gears. second semester, our students did not have math back fluency for one digit or two-digit numbers. So, we kind of threw out what we were doing and said, "Let's focus on what really matters right now." And you're going

011to hear about that in a little bit. But, um, one of the things that we looked at was the pacing guide and some of the skills that they get year after year after year. For example, shapes. And they already know it. So why not do a pre-assessment, see what they already know, and towards the end of the year, do some morning activities that um check that box, make sure they know it, and then spend the more majority of your time on this number since especially the math at fluency. All right. So in first grade, we went down to 20.8% that were in the below level. 66.4.4% is where we were in the middle and 12.8% in the above. And grade two, finally we looked at one of the things that was really hard for our

012students was the quantitative um no sorry um triads, the number comparison fluency triads. And when we look at that um what we realized is the way the assessment was asking the questions, we were not teaching our students to look. So for example, if they were looking at numbers such as 35, 40, and 42, and you had to pick the greatest number, they were in a triangle. So what did they always think? Or they had to pick the middle number. what they always think is to pick the number at the top of the triangle. It's in the middle of the other two. So, we kind of worked on that and we made a lot of growth there. Um, 27.2 below in the fall to 21.6 in the spring, 52 in on grade level in the fall

013to 65.6 and 12.8 um in the above in the sorry in the spring. I said fall but in the spring. All right, Miss Rod's up to talk about this. >> No, so I am here to share an overview of our attend attendance incentive program this year. The Paige Jackson attendance team hit the ground running. Um, we had full of energy, ideas, and dedication was really having the second administrator allowed us to have more energy to put to it this year. We decided we wanted to truly celebrate students showing up to school as grade levels, as classes, and as individuals. To that end, we used fantastic flags, morning announcements, award certificates, and assemblies. We implemented incentives every nine weeks with classroom and grade level competitions to win extra recesses, pajama days, showand tells, and more. We

014heard cheers of winning classes up and down the hallway. Um, they were really excited about it. Our first for our first and last nine weeks, we also had a highly decorated prize cart to reward individual students with weekly perfect attendance that included no tardies or early dismissals. For supportive interventions, we diligently worked and communicated with families who struggled with both tardies and product attendance, holding attendance sacks, and having regular check-ins with those families and those students. We came up with creative motivators such as having certain students help with our morning announcements to try to get them there on time and have something to do first thing when they came into the school. They could also some of our students we had them so they could check out a sensory item if they were on time

015and they could check it back in at the end of the day. Um so last year Paige Jackson chronic Paige Jackson's chronic absentee rate stood at 16.8% at the end of the year. This year where we are right now, our chronic absentee rate is at 11.5. So we've had over a 5% drop in our chron chronic absenteeism. Um which means our students are learning more, they are socializing more, they are eating more regular meals and they are benefiting from all the supports we are trying to provide for them. So we are very proud of the improvement and all the huge effort that came from the entire staff and this department. Hey, what are we doing to improve spellers? >> What are we doing to improve? We have both reading and math. And I'm going to

016go ahead and start with math. For math, we're taking a deep dive into data. Well, excuse me. We took a deep dive into data for this uh second semester. We identified weak skills across the board and realigned our pacing guide to reflect emphasis on the weak areas. We used OG math for intensive intervention and success maker for our targeted intervention. We increased progress monitoring to every six session and both targeted and intensive to monitor those individual trends and students. Piloting in multiensory math across all grade levels with Mrs. Ra teaching strategies and modeling lessons and having teachers participating in those hands-on trainings weekly after school. Teachers did choose to participate and we had at least one per grade level. moving away from direct instruction with Envision Math and moving more into like those smaller groups

017like Mrs. Schaefer had mentioned with shapes. We know the shapes. We've talked about that. We did a preassessment. Let's talk more about some math fact fluency. Having weekly grade level team meetings where all grades discuss math strategies. having second grade data team meetings, incorporate the West Virginia GSA weaknesses and um integrating those West Virginia GSA test questions into their daily math for second grade only. And then using skills analys using the skills analysis tool in second grade and the individual student profile in kindergarten and first grade to diagnose student deficits and this is for math. We also have for our reading continuing with our win for 30 minutes four times a week using the youth live the University of Florida literacy institute curriculum using our interventionist and our librarians for intensive intervention uh using fluency

018binders con excuse me constantly monitoring progress monitoring data having weekly grade level team meetings as well to discuss to discuss the reading as well as the math um and then also having our librarian assistant and teaching knowledge curricul and Kit she enjoys soon. >> And that is that. Thank you. >> All right. So, when we started talking about requests for support, um I want to take this time to say thank you because the first two things I had up there I got um I am looking to hire an assistant principal for this school year and we're following a new model for second grade for intervention where we'll have interventionists in second grade. What we would like to do academically is realign the K2 standards and pacing to include spiral review of skills. We've gotten away

019from that preassessments and autonomy to adjust pace when it makes sense. Um when we look at the K2 pacing guide for math, for example, um we'd like to go back to being able to touch on those standards that um students come in more um more knowledgeable in. For example, I gave the shapes. they come in a lot of time being able to recognize shapes. So, making sure there's spiral reviews for that. Also, for um kindergarten, that spiral review is integral for when you get to teen numbers with place value. A lot of times you start with the um singledigit numbers and then when you get to double digit, it's difficult. So, we kind of need to go back and constantly touch on those single-digit numbers. Most teachers do, but we need to really look at

020that pacing guide for math. Um as far as reading, it doesn't um it's not much different. As I went into number two, um I know that we're looking at doing youthly for more of a curriculum next year and that's an idea that's coming out which I agree with because what we're doing right now with CKLA skills and youthly it's a little bit redundant. If we were able to use the youthly curriculum, teach it to its fidelity, which means it's not really meant for 30 minutes, it's meant for longer, we would have time to also integrate some fluency and comprehension. and we really need some sort of a curriculum or something to follow. So when you look at what we've done with CKLA, knowledge is great. It offers it offers opportunities for increasing vocabulary, but it

021doesn't offer opportunities for reading fluency. It offers minimal for reading comprehension, which are two areas that we're struggling with. And the opportunities to embed writing. We need to get back to those writing benchmarks again and what each uh grade level needs to be able to accomplish before they hit that GSA. um writing has kind of gone by the wayside. I know you fly does great with like the handwriting skills, but really getting in there and making these kids write um it's a really really difficult skill. So, those are the things that we'd like to look at and support. Um I'm doing a lot of research on how to integrate that fluency and comprehension, not just in opportunities through fluency binders, um because those do work. the binders that they get passed out to them and

022they're able to go and read um and then also they have opportunities to cold read where we see how many words per minute they're increasing. They're great, but um a lot of times we're just not getting those deep level um questions for comprehension. We're doing a lot of text dependent questioning um facilities. I think I do this one too. Yes. Sorry, I had to figure out who this is me. Um, we really need a restroom rehab. We really appreciate Joel Joel Silver for working on our restroom, doing a lot of construction to figure out where the sewage odor comes from, but it's bad. Um, we have it weekly. Um, some days we have to go in, we have to flush the traps in the floor. Um, there the restrooms are very old. They have plumbing

023that often stops working. Um, so we would like a look at how we can improve the restrooms. The other piece of this is with 400 students and moving students around, we do not have kindergarten classrooms that will have restrooms anymore. We have 405 students and I know building a bathroom is not something that we want to talk about, but we have 405 little children using the restrooms in our building and we only have 14 stalls for for girls and we only have two, seven, nine stalls for boys. So, we just were um and with little ones, you have to take them on group bathroom breaks a lot of the time to teach them the strategy and then also so that you don't have kids intermingling in the bathroom and you have chaos. Um the second

024piece is something I keep asking for, especially with everything going on. My cameras are dying a slow death. Um they I can't always access them. They're burned out. I don't know where they came from. I've said this since I got there six 10 years ago. I've been the county six years 10 years ago. um we can't access what we need to see. I I I can't see anything on my cameras. So, um we have about four cameras working right now. It's not helping us for safety. It's an antiquated system and it looks like a VCR when you go in to try and rewind and look. >> Um at Page Jackson, we do a lot to incorporate families. Um some well 11 things that we do. We uh have families eat lunch with their student. They

025can show their support at our PBIS which is our positive behavioral intervention and supports awards that we have each nine weeks. You can attend a volunteer training um actually that is needed to attend to be able to volunteer during school school hours. Um we had a math night and a reading night. Um attend class activities and parties. attend a trunk or treat that we had uh help in classes, help on field trips, help add our PB PBIS reward incentives. We also have one of those every nine weeks. The kids have to get 80% or higher of positive behavior and we have a little thing like a hay ride or a glow party. Uh staff the book fair, we have two uh each year and then also to become a path volunteer. Um we currently have

026five and that could have changed since this time but um when about probably in March we had currently five from our school counselor Mrs. Dval. >> You forgot your big family engagement that you put together. >> Oh my goodness. I did we do a spring fling every year. Thank you, Mrs. Schaer. This is our third year. Mrs. Johnson and I do a spring fling which seems to go pretty well. Um it's a little carnival activity. We have raffle baskets. Families um enjoy it. We shut it down about 6:30. Mrs. Schaefer calls the raffles. Um from what I've heard, they enjoy it and we plan on keep going. Thank you. I can't believe I forgot that. >> I can't believe we did either, but you know. >> Well, teacher and me, that'll athletics and wellness. >>

027All right. So, for athletics and wellness, um I know we're in elementary school, so we don't have big huge sports teams, but Miss Dudley uses a ton of games and lessons and stretching through the kids. Um teaching those modeling games and working together for our kinders and our first and second graders. Um Mrs. Dubal also does a lot with Red Ribbon Week and promoting a healthy lifestyle and saying no to drugs. Um, we also have the walking trail which needs a little upkeep, but um, we have the outdoor classrooms that get utilized a lot. We have the walking trail that we do nature walks on and we use all of those outdoor spaces such as the science, the math, the mud kitchen. We have a garden that is currently growing some vegetables so that by

028the end of the school year, hopefully in the next 7 to 8 days, they'll have some lettuce and some other vegetables that they're going to make. Um the cafeteria is going to make a salad for the kids with their own vegetables. So, there's a labyrinth, there's an art painting wall, a butterfly garden, um where the kids go out and catch butterflies, and we have little nets and things for them to look at a little closer with. And then there's a big reading space that the library and other classrooms use quite often. >> All right. Um for Pride, we do do PBIS awards assemblies. We give away awards to students who work for them. Um our reward incentives are our biggest thing that we do for our students that we don't expect them to be perfect.

02980% they have multiple opportunities to and a rubric goes out the very first week of school how they can do that. Of course, we have field day and here's where we mentioned it, the spring play. Um, so we have lots of things we're proud of at Page. >> So, um, these are the things that we want to thank you all for. All of the things you do to support our school. Um, every decision that has to be made at the board of education level is never it's never an easy one, but it's always in the students best interest, and I know that's why you all are here. Um, we've enjoyed wonderful after uh school activities. my staff makes that happen. That's not something that I can make happen. I have to depend on my staff

030for um the extra effort in our front office versus parents coming in for lunch and sign assigned uh on assigned days of the week. Remembering who's coming in, if they're a past partner, where do they go so they feel welcome when they walk in? Making sure their classroom wherever they're going is equipped. Um the staff's flexibility to meet the everchanging needs of our parents. And we've learned that there are a lot of different ways that we may have to bend or pivot. So, we make sure that parents know that we have their best interest at heart. Um, and then communication and support as well as staff and administration that are easily accessible to parents are things that I'm appreciative for. >> So, thank you. >> Bishop, come where they are on camera. Uh Rick is

031uh getting um updated quotes and we anticipate be able to again the replacement and the eight schools that remain in some page >> page is one of the eight. >> Thank you so >> and then we've also had started to have some conversation about part of the issue at Paige is they need uh public water and sewer which has to come from Augustine all the way up the hill to the school. Uh, so that's going to be a cost project, but it's one that we'd have in kind of on it's in between the middle and the front or the back and front burn. It's kind of in the middle of the stove. >> Yeah, >> we anticipate that's probably going to be somewhere in the neighborhood, but almost two. >> And then how's it going

032to what is the inter intervention pieces that will change for them? I know they mentioned you fly and success maker, but what are we doing? Is it county again next year? I can't remember. >> Ready? Okay. So, the elementary schools will move that will be the same. >> I Ready? Yes. They'll have the access to the uh complete suite for I Ready, which includes the benchmark assessments and those kinds of things. >> So, how that impacts us is right now we use youth live for our win groups. We'll actually use the data from I Ready to split the kids up. The like for example, Miss Fellers doesn't just have her kids. We split them up into even smaller groups and we use the teacher toolbox to print out lessons that are aligned directly to where

033the school the students deficits are because we're going to use the youthly as our curriculum if that's still. >> So, how do you feel like um like if there's one thing that you feel like you would want to change K to 2 to be able to meet that third grade reading standard? What what do you think that might be? like as a schoolwide system like just thinking outside the box, what kinds of things would you guys like to do? >> We have to get back to our stand teaching our standards and standards based teaching instead of a curriculum first and foremost. Um we need to look at our standards. We need to um not necessarily unpack them, but look at those key words and focus on exactly what funological awareness we're we're very knowledgeable in

034that. Our teachers can speak to that. They know what they're looking for. We need to go back to those standards because that is huge kindergarten, but also getting them to that reading piece and understanding what has to happen in first grade. We just did this with math. We need to do it again with reading. So, we navigated CLA. I'm not going to bash the program. It was exactly what we needed to get our teachers talking about reading, talking about that funological awareness, giving them a systematic like approach, explicit approach. But now we're seeing that with that comes you always like excel somewhere in fall. And what I've noticed um since I've been a principal is that our comprehension and our fluency is falling because we're focusing so hard on these kids sounding out the words

035that what happens when they hit second grade is they're still robotically reading. >> So do you feel like you have what you need for this summer to prepare so that in the fall you guys are going to hit the ground? >> I do. I do because I feel like what we've done is we've looked at what we've been doing and this year was glaring that it's it's starting to fall apart. um a lot of our um students are leaving us reading fluently, but not to the point of being able to read and comprehend what they're going to be asked to do on the GSA. So, moving into the summer, that's my focus is to look at those standards, get something ready for my teachers to roll out the first part of August to say, "Hey

036guys, let's look and let's attack these and bite them off a little bite at a time so we can make sure we have these set stop points." Um I used to do with my staff and I kind of got away from it. We used to do a road mapap activity and we're like, you know, you're headed to Disney, but you're not going to make it there. You got to do some road stops along the way. Um, you got to go to the bathroom. Can you get something to eat here? And we need to go back to that those stopping and those checking points, especially when it comes to where they are and being able to read and especially comprehension. And what ties into that is that writing piece. That writing piece makes you think about

037what you read. Asking some of those questions and asking them to respond to them. the more open-ended questions that aren't quite as >> the only other thing I would say or just ask because to your point when you talked about the um things in kindergarten that they don't know if it's possible to maybe survey our K to2 teachers, funnel that up to the principles and get the top three from every building of what we are missing at that kindergarten level that we then funnel down to all of our own preschools to say, "Hey, this is what we're seeing." And so we make sure we're streamlined at the preschool level. >> It's an awesome talking to parents because a lot of parents come in, they're like, "My child knows all their letters." That's awesome. Yeah. >>

038But they don't because they're not recognizing lower upper and what we start with is sounds. >> I have some questions. >> Miss Ogden, that was exactly I'm sorry. Um, Donna Joy, Miss Ogden, that was exactly what I was going to say as far as um prek. Um, I know that the state says that, you know, our prek can't um I guess can't do papers or something like that, but it would seem like to me that it's a big help if the children can start learning their letters and sounding out um their letters and numbers and different things at the prek level versus waiting until they get in kindergarten because it seems like they've missed a whole year of what they could really too that potential that they have. But um >> first, Miss Sherry Shaver,

039she's um been a godsend for the time she's been with us and unfortunately she may be moving, but I want to let her speak on prek because she and I have this conversation a lot. >> Let me speak to Okay. Um just so you guys know because you guys don't know me. This is only my third year here, but this is my um 32nd year in early childhood. So or basically I have done education of some kind since my son who's 32 was um a babe. So um so let me speak to that question that you had because I came in out of state. This is state number six for me to teach in. So I come in with this wealth of knowledge about all these other ways of doing it. I was um I'm

040actually supportive of the no worksheets. However, um I feel like sometimes we um we we get a little over excited about the no worksheets. Like I want my students so so you guys know where I'm coming from as a pre-K teacher. I want my students to go out knowing every single letter and I do focus on capital. Although I am learning now talking to all of the kindergarten teachers. I should I'm doing that backwards. Um, I'm going to change that. But working on letter recognition and my goal is a minimum of 10 sounds when they leave my classroom. Um, we're only supposed to count to 10. That is so so low. >> Um, if you if we count to 20 at least three times a day as we stand in line. Um, and so now

041my kids we we count off now and so they go through and they help each other for the kids who don't know it because I'm also special ed. So I have students who who can't count and do those things. Um, I think you can do letters in a thousand different ways. We go outside and we gather sticks and we create letters with sticks. We go outside and we go, "Oh, look at the bee. What does he say?" Oh, what sound do you hear? Oh, you know, so we talk about sounds, we talk about letters, we talk about it in real world experiences, we do shapes, we do um patterns. Patterns is huge. Um we talked this year a lot. This my class was really into rhyming. And so my students can tell you whether a

042word rhymes or not. And I'd say at least half of my kids can tell you whether a word rhymes or not walking out of my classroom. >> Piggy back on that real quick. If we can get more kids in pre-k, and I know our time is probably running out. If we can get more kids in prek and to have these experiences, some of the things that we're teaching in kindergarten, which our kindergarten can attest to, is our students are coming in with no concepts of print. They're not opening a book. They're not they're not understanding the front and the back. They're not understanding the way words go because we're we are in an age of things popping up on a screen. So, I'm sorry I didn't interrupt you, but we do have someone who who

043goes around does these formative assessments with the kids and make sure she's integrating some of these skills with them. But, um, we do have a lot of kids coming in. So, even if they could leave kindergarten with those minimal sounds, if they had more exposure to print, which I see her doing in her room a lot, they have to see books. She's asking them questions. She asked me to come in and then she's like, "And make sure when you're reading this book, you have to stop and you have to ask them questions. We read the little red pen yesterday. you have to go back and ask them these questions of what did they read. Um so she has a plan of what's in place. Dr. Joy, I'm so sorry. >> Yeah. Um the first thing

044are you not required to be a part of the science of reading um initiative? >> We are. >> Okay. I just haven't heard anything related to that. And so is there a certain curriculum because you said you want to focus on standards versus curriculum. Does the state provide a curriculum for and is there a concern there? >> So I'm sorry we didn't I didn't use the science of reading by name but by the programs that I was explaining those are all parts of the science of reading. So all of that basic funological awareness what I talked about the data that LWSF that letter word sound fluency where our composite is based that's all part of the science of reading. Um, is there a curriculum? We do use the University of Florida and the CKLA skills

045that they use currently are aligned to the science of reading. What I would look like would like to look at though is what do the standards say about funological awareness? How do we integrate what we know about the science of reading, which is how students acquire the skills in order of how to be literate and read fluently, and then marry the two? Because we're missing some pieces. We're focusing so hard on that. My my other question has to do with the benchmarks. So the fall benchmark is that what they come in with? >> Yes. >> Okay. So we don't really know. We don't see here the improvement or the gap. I I calculated it looks like there was slight improvement in math >> across the board. Um I couldn't catch your numbers fast enough for

046the reading. is um so my question is um was there improvement in reading? >> So when you look at the composite score >> yes there was improvement but the composite scores didn't show a vast improvement because for first and second grade it's all based on oral reading fluency which is how many words they can read per minute with no errors. So um it's really hard but what we looked at was those skills that led up to that for what most of our gains but no you are correct you saw it correctly there was not a lot of gain between fall and spring in reading there was a lot more gain in math >> so and what what's the reason that you had some extra help with math you said you focused >> we focus second

047semester on math a lot more I think the reading is just we're trying to push together too many um skills gaps I think we're trying to like rush kids through acquiring those skills to get them to that oral reading fluency and if the grade level before can focus on specific skills to get them to where they need to be by the time they hit the next grade level. Not necessarily on grade level, but we're closing the gap a little bit more. Our gaps are really wide. >> My last question is about the English language learners and the levels one, two, and three. >> What do they mean? >> Level one means they're basically non-English speaking. So, they're coming in with very limited English skills. Level two, they're about there. They're they're using the language. They

048still require a lot of support. Level three means they're on indirect services, which means they've acquired enough to be independent in a classroom. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> I hate to shoot you out of >> No, absolutely. I go to a band concert. >> There you go. >> The last one, by the way, >> I'll get my Kleenex. Thank you guys so much. Have a wonder. still >> make the other just see those same. >> Good evening. >> Ready. >> We're ready whenever you are. If you could plead a little time at the end for questions, that would be terrific. >> We'll do. Thank you very much for having us this evening. I'd like to introduce our committee members. Of course, I'm Chris Walter, the principal, the Dr. Christie with us here this evening.

049Miss Ellour, the parent is with us this evening. Miss Gallahan, cacteria manager. Miss Leonard, special education teacher. Mr. Martin over there, our custodian, Miss Slover, our counselor >> year. >> So, we're what's that? >> Of the year. Of the year. >> Um, like to look at our demographics from last year. We are 60% or were 60% Caucasian. Our second largest population 21% Hispanic or Latino. 10% of the multi-ra 6% African-American and 3% Asian. Our non low SCES with the low SCES last year was 70 to30 ratio. Year before that 68 to 32. Looking at our ELA data there, if you looks at our our third grade data, we're 50% proficient, 46% proficient at fourth, and 46% proficient at fifth. You trend that data from the year before, we're 41% moving up to 46. Uh 45

050moving up to 46 also in fifth grade. Looking at our mathematics, we knew that our third grade just from looking at some of the early tests ended there, strong mathematic group for us in third grade at 56% mastery. Um 33% fourth grade and 39% at fifth. Trending that data, it was still a 5% decrease from third to fourth. Uh trending that data from fourth to fifth would increase. our science uh we were 5% below the county 1% below or 1% sorry above the state and 2% below what we were the previous year. Our attendance our attendance is pretty good at Wright County 9% chronically absent and of course we are 95% of our daily attendance rate both of which were higher than the county average. Uh some of our strategies for improvement, of course, Starbase

051has always been good to us. A lot of hands-on experience when we go up there working in the STEM area, of course, looking a heavy focus on our WVTSS and both reading and mathematics. One thing that we did do for this school year, I know we're talking about last year's data, but we did go back to a departmentalization where before we had a couple teachers teaching two blocks of math, couple teachers teaching in two blocks of uh reading. Uh we had not done this since CO when we separated them out for the purpose of keeping kids isolated as best as possible and um we just saw a decline in our scores and we just really haven't seen that uptick since and one of the things we have not brought back was the departmentalization and you

052got to try something. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over and over. Uh, so we do have this year at fifth grade two of our teachers teaching a dual block of math, two of our teachers teaching a dual block of ELA, and one of our teachers teaching both. Thought process behind that is, you know, if you're passionate about something like mathematics, then you're going to spend a lot more time, researching it, going to trainings for it, um, creating lessons that are more engaging. Same thing with reading. And so that's why we went back to that. Next year we will go back to that for fourth grade as well. Uh we do have the we're talking about last year's data, but we also were able to add three interventionists in third grade which

053is extremely helpful. We can get those kids as soon as possible what we call daily intervention. If you didn't understand it yesterday, you're in a small group tomorrow. You know, you didn't understand it today, you may be in a small group the next day. We also have what we call documented intervention, which is the kids that do walk to intervention for the purpose of uh targeting weaknesses based upon benchmarks. uh requests for support. Uh we need training in an appropriate differentiated intervention programs and benchmarking methods. Even though we were able to bring in seasoned veterans um as our interventionist, collaboration was a little little slow at first. I mean, it was kind of it kind of shocked me. I thought we just kind of hit the ground running. And of course, you're going with people

054that have um pretty much been running their own classroom for years. and now they have to work together to run a classroom or to push into a small group or pull kids to a different area of the building in order to make things work. So, those are areas that we need assistance with. Window project, I know we keep talking about that. Everybody's like, didn't we finish that window project? We did. Uh, but when we did that window project, there were five windows that were off the street and two in the back uh that were not included somehow in the bid for the windows before. We also had some windows that we had marked for bid. We walked with them to have them bid but somehow did not end up in the bid from the company.

055So I'd say we have 15 total J probably >> I say so >> not counting the large arch windows and things like that in the auditorium. So we're looking at about 15 and not counting the small decorative rectangular windows above the um main entrances of the building. So, we're still on the window project. Uh, family engagement. Some of the things that we're proud about, well, we're proud about all that family engagement area, but some things that, um, we're really glad to have the PTO that's still active. It's tough to have an active PPO anymore. People are so busy. We like the bring your parent to PE day. That's something a little bit different. We hear take your child to work day, but we do the bring your parent to PE day. and our LSIC is

056still active as you can see our our members this evening with us. Um our athletics and wellness of course one of the things that we're very proud about is our past volunteers who have an active past participation working with students that have some just some needs of um you know needing another adult to talk to in the building just to play a game with look forward to to hopefully improve the attendance rate. So we're proud about that along with all the other things there. pride. We're We're definitely uh our music program. We have a lot of opportunities with the all state chorus. Um after school band, we have or ensemble. We are also very proud about not to be a little competitive about our math field day team. Our math field day team is something

057we like to really work hard with every year and we see the results from that work and the kids give up a lot of their additional and free time to to put in the extra uh effort to do well with that. K kids meeting this this afternoon out in the community doing things to to um help us be a better neighbor to everybody in our community. Of course, talent show. We try to give a lot of those opportunities for the kids above and beyond just the classroom uh efforts. And of course, we're appreciative of the flooring. Uh we were just talking about that outside. We're still in the process of rolling over some of the flooring. And I know we're going to get two rooms upstairs in the main office this year in very bad

058shape needed. And of course our V sonic boards. We were one of the first schools to have the boards. APU helped us out to get the smart boards years ago. And of course when you're the first one to get something, you're the first one to have that stuff go bad. And they've been really good about when we need something, it's been provided. And uh we don't wait very long for those type of things. So we're very appreciative of any type of techniques. We had one computer break today and Hector was in the door before the end of the day. So, that was that was a nice thing to have. So, any questions for us? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, you seem to have a large Hispanic population. I'm wondering um >> from the ELLL program.

059How many or what percentage might be level one, level two? I just wonder if that's impacting your test scores. And >> it could. We have 25 students total. Um, of those ones and twos, we're probably looking at a third uh on the split there. Could it affect our scores? Possibly. Um, but there's a lot of things that affect our scores. You know, we have a high special ed. >> I was going to ask about that, Nick. >> We have a high special ed population and >> um so that that could affect our scores. um as you get older and the grade levels the the opportunity for you have kids in special education because they've been through the intervention they've been through all those things so your your level level of eligibility increases >> what percent

060of special education students do you have or >> we're running probably around uh like I said last year we're still between our ELLL our um uh special education population 504 for SAT plans and intervention plans were at 58%. >> 58 >> again this year and that's pretty standard. Uh it will move up and down to 53 and then we'll come to the next benchmark. We're still back at about 58. So when you look at all of our kids that are receiving any type of additional services, we're looking at 58% right now. >> Um my my last question is about your request for training and benchmarks. >> Anything? Yeah. anytime we get a new type of benchmark system, which I think we may be looking at this year, we need some assistance with um informing our

061teacher how to use that system, how to use that to improve instruction. Um like I said, collaborative practices. We we've now had our interventions working in the classrooms. Um so they need some some help with just some collaborative teaching techniques. So it's not always I teach, you teach or you teach, I assist, those type of things. How can we work together to get the most um instructionally out of all >> our teaching co-eing model that never worked correct? >> Um I I don't know maybe it's improved >> and and we do we still have there's times that and then our rooms are small. It's a hundred-y old building and so when you're looking at two groups going on at once and maybe some of those kids in that room have a difficult time with their

062attention and you have two people instructing other kids working independently which isn't totally silent. Sometimes you do have to say, "I'm taking these six. I'll be back." You know, and kind of move out with them because and then they just slowly move back in. I'm like, "Grab four more. Let's go. You're going with me now." type of thing. So, but that takes practice as well. You know, that when somebody leaves now, I've got to take over the rest of the group and what are the kids working on independently while I'm working with my group as well. So, we've gotten a lot better, but I thought at the beginning of the year it was just going to be like this seamless thing that we're throwing educated um uh I guess seasoned veterans into the classroom and

063that would be not an issue. But it was definitely some and what are my parameters? I'm walking into someone's room that might have been there for 24 years and now I'm a stranger to that classroom as well. It's not it's not easy. >> And Dr. Joy to address the question about benchmarks, >> Mr. Walter and I've talked how many times about u I ready and he's provided a wealth of information back to me about how things didn't go well the first time and one of those was the training piece. >> Right. >> So we've already had an initial training for staff. Yes. Uh that was done in March >> and then Mrs. Hillman and I met yesterday with the I Ready folks by Zoom with a a full scale implementation plan for as we go

064into next year introducing different pieces of that at different times. Once teachers get comfortable with one piece then we'll introduce the next piece. So that's in the works. A lot of that came from Mr. Walter's uh experience. We'll say he's been around a long time but experiment and so >> not any smarter. I go in his office and plop down as I do with all the principles of what you this is what I'm thinking. What are you thinking about? So he's provided a lot of information back to me about implementation, how things didn't go well previously. Correct. >> Well, you seem to be doing a good job with all your challenges. >> It's a it's a good building. It's it's a it's have a lot of people there that really care and that's a big

065difference. You know, you have people that want to see their kids succeed. They they want the building succeed. So, um, it's like I said 20 years ago, I'm a very small part of of a well machine and and they work well together and like I said, it's just a matter of what can we do to tweak it and like I said, we do I mean there are a lot of challenges, there's no doubt about it, but probably no more challenges than there are in other buildings as well. Some of them have, I'm sure, a lot more challenges than we do. So, do we do you feel like we have that? I know you said we're going to kind of get that out as we roll out throughout the year, but I'm wondering like do we

066have anything that will be, you know, automated as people are waiting for that training to happen so that we can we can jump on that immediately >> as part of so there will be to get some dates back, final lesson dates, but there's also a um set sets of videos and training videos that that teachers could look at if they chose to do that. The training that we're working on right now is the inperson piece. >> Um, and that'll we'll even have a session in July for administrators. >> So, it's interventionists and coaches are part of administrators and classroom teachers. >> Thank you. >> Hopefully someday you'll come back with something a little more creative than Windows because Mr. Mark >> Well, we would love a full refurb of the cafeteria. needed. >> I won't

067say it, but I need >> I mean, I know Dr. Christie and Mr. Martin have been on this committee since I was on it back in like 2008, I think it was, if my math was correct. >> Pillars and windows >> and it was windows at that point still. So, >> yeah, >> there's a lot of windows in that building. >> Big windows. Expensive windows like some of the when we first started, there were windows that come out of the box. >> Yeah. It was a safety issue then. Now it's more of a >> more of a there's old definitely help with the heating in the air. Definitely help not to have a bat here and there >> those type of things, but not any type of safety issues. So if you >> Well, option

068B is cafeteria. Let's stick with windows. >> There you go. >> I'm sorry. It's pretty bad. Really bad. Come down and look. Well, I can tell you. Come down and look. Kids shouldn't have to look at some of that stuff that they're saying to eat. It's not good. >> The cafeteria room itself, you know, when you think about it's just dirty and cringy. It's >> could use new sound reducing tile, could use a new floor, >> but when you're doing it, it's one of those things that you know, you want to do it right. You want to do it the whole way. There's only so many options you can do with a seven foot ceiling. I mean, when I can stand there and touch it, it's >> not real high. >> So, >> thank you

069very much for being Thank you. Appreciate >> it. 11 minutes early. >> Impressive. >> There we go. That's from >> Dr. Bishop for instance when the state comes and when they were helping at ransom would they be able to um do some training I got the impression that if it's more to do with co-eing that that was a bigger or part of the concern is I part of what he was referencing is this so instead of having the class routine pass they brought in three interventionist for third grade >> and It was just kind of figuring out how that best worked, how to schedule the students. Um, so I think that was part of it. >> So they're not doing it this year. >> They need to learn how to >> they just need to

070>> make the best use of each person. >> And um, last year a small change. So I said fill those positions. >> Yeah. >> It's it's basis. So >> actually you have a person in there that takes the uh well the teachers want their classroom and they have I've seen it work. >> Do you guys want to pop in your >> All right. Good evening. Are you ready? I feel free to start. >> Start. >> Hello everybody. >> Good evening. >> Hello. We'll get started here with our LSIC presentation for Wellwood Middle School. Uh I'll start with just introducing our team. committee. So, we have Mrs. Moss, principal. Mr. Richley is behind me here, assistant principal. Uh, Mr. Deanna, the other assistant principal. Uh, Mrs. Cartis, one of our special education teachers, is not with

071us tonight, but she is part of the team. Um, Jeff Caesar, you all know, uh, former safety officer, now the chief of police for Ransom. Um Britney Crocker is a staff member of ours and also a parent of a current student of ours just for this year and then she goes to high school. Uh Miss uh Bould Miss Hston parent, Miss Masterson just finished her master's degree. So really happy and proud of her for that. Uh we have Colleen Parrot Parrot. A parent uh the rising star of Jefferson County, Mr. Petri over there. >> Um there's also our >> finished >> who also just finished his master's degree. Just got back from graduation out in Denver and was also our teacher of the year for Wildwood Middle School last year. Uh so he's awesome. Uh

072we have Miss Raz, parent, and then Tommy Van Ballet, member at large for short and Mr. short as well. You guys know through the robotics program course. Um, so I'm just going to couple pages of demographics self-explanatory. We are at 466 as far as our student count currently, but when this presentation was created, that's where we were. So we definitely >> say 466. >> 466. Yes, ma'am. Yep. There's our low SCES and non low SCES get into testing. Where's >> Moss? Thank you. >> Yep. >> So, one of our focuses last year um was to really get kids bought into the concept of testing. Uh, one of the things that we did as a building is we had um data meetings with our kids onetoone uh four times a year to talk to them about

073their current test scores, where they needed to go, what we were doing, um, how they were feeling about things. And um, it paid dividends in our focus on mathematics and you'll be able to see that. Um, I do know that uh, testing is almost finished now and that we've moved this late. Um, but I've already been very happy in some of my pre-est results for my kids that we pre-est because um, if they're chronically absent from school when we wait so long to the end of the year to test, I sneak them in early so that we don't have to make up and that we have good percentages of test rates. Um, so our focus overall was math. We did have growth in English language arts. Um, small growth um, from the previous year, but

074we really had a lot of focus on math. It was one of the things we just honed in on um, throughout the duration of the school year last year. Um you can see that paid great results in um what we did in one year and with our students um we were actually able to celebrate with them at the end of the year and 301 of our students move their scores up. So out of the 427 that we tested 301 of those students moved scores up. It doesn't mean that they changed proficiency level but they increased their scores. Um and it was quite a humbling moment to listen to our kids. We put a slideshow up for them to celebrate and we started with one little person and went to two and by the time they

075got to like 25 counting aloud um the the power in that room was profound about the number of kids uh that increased their test scores. So uh we just had a celebration kickoff to English language arts um right before they took writing assessment and the kids got a sheet of paper from their teachers that told them how far they needed to go to meet mastery. Um, and when I met with kids, for example, we would tell them, hey, listen, we need two more sentences on that writing assessment, or can we use one more quote, or listen, when you're doing math, we need to answer four more questions. And teachers responded this year. They heard them before they were taking their writing assessment of Miss said, "I need to write two more sentences and I'll be

076up there." And it just changed the culture. Um, so this year we've met with students onetoone six different times um to talk to them about their scores and see their benchmarks and and we were very proud. Um, I was very humbled by the growth. Um, but the spirit in the building was significant and we're looking forward to the next two days of testing. Um, you can look at science. Um, we had a brand new teacher in our eighth grade science last year. Um, while test scores are embargoed, uh, we look much better already this year. So, I'm very happy about what those are looking like. Um, currently when it comes to testing absence information, send us information. >> Absolutely. Good evening. So, our attendance rates are already better this year than they were last year.

077And last year was better than the year before. Each year that that we've all been together at Wildwood, we've seen a dramatic drop in our chronic attendance rates. So, last year we ended the school year at at 18%. Um, this is as of December 2025, but last school year we ended at 18.6%. Year before we were actually 21%. So we dropped from 21 to 18 last year. As of December, we were already at 15% chronically absent and as of day 170, which was last week, we were at 15.2%. So we are basically hovering right where we were in December, we haven't lost any steam. And I feel like with our last seven days of school, we're going to finish really strong. So we've seen over a 3% drop from the end of last year to

078the end of this year in our total rates. And we're very excited about this constant progress we've seen. We do a lot. We do a lot of incentives with our students. We make a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of contact with our families to hammer home the importance of attendance. We have a gigantic carnival that we're taking all the kids to San Michaels next Wednesday to celebrate attendance for the school year. They've been earning tickets for the past nine weeks. And all of those tickets go to a gigantic amount of different activities. If I named them all off, we'd be here for the next 30 minutes just me naming the activities. So, we're excited about our carnival and we're super excited about what we continue to do with our attendance.

079So, thank you. >> So, next slide once we get there. Have the other way. So, the other direction >> going the other way. >> There we go. So, WBTSS, you all are familiar with that. It is um our intervention program in the state of West Virginia. What's really nice about it is that it's really open-ended. What's maybe not so nice about it is that it's really open-ended. Um which can be uh a negative and a positive in my opinion. But in our school, we do all kinds of things when it comes to um our interventions. One of the things we've done the last couple years that I'm I'm kind of sad will be going away next year, but is an activity we call stop and read. So every minute or every every day, excuse me,

080for 10 minutes, the entire school stops and reads. Um, and myself, Mrs. Moss, Mr. Ridgely, we offer um a book reading to the students through Microsoft Teams. Um, so this year we read the Giver series. So we read um The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and now we're finishing with the the Sun. Um, so that's been really great. Um that's where we do our our jazz band, history bowl, math field day, um robotics. Um and something we started last year and we continued this year was our math intervention. Um so we targeted students that were either on the cusp of failing math or order semester for the year. Um and we pulled them in to get extra help and work on math. Um and we know there's a lot of reasons why students struggle in in

081school, particularly with math. some of that does lend itself to attendance. Um well, you have gaps in learning and it kind of impounds on itself, but we've seen a lot of progress with that. Um so those are just some of the things that we do with WBTSS. I don't know if Miss Masterson, anybody else wanted to add anything about WBTSS. >> Um >> no, I think you cover we're good. um support inside of the school that we're asking for. Um throughout WBTSS, our students do have data notebooks. Uh they keep track of their attendance every month. Um they keep track of their WBGSA scores at interims. They fill out a sheet. Um and it goes along with their Alex program. So it's also a scratch book for when they're working through math. Um it's pretty

082intense uh package that we put together. We actually did it via Teams this year. Um I had 430 students watching that. So pacing that with no child in front of me was difficult, but we made it through. Um so our students do use those. Um they will be continued to be used next year. Um so we're asking for just a small amount of funding um to put those folders together for the students. Additionally, um we're just going to continue to advocate for a fully revamped uh camera system inside of the building. Um we respect and acknowledge that there is a process and a timeline that that goes through, but facilities wise that's kind of our other ask. Um we are very uh comfortable and used to um our derata systems that are in special education

083room and looking forward to having those eventually updated throughout the entire building. When it comes to um a facilities request, um we have uh Miss Mastersonson is my ticket taker for most events at Wildwood Middle School. Um we do have two athletic fields out back that are used very often and um there is a lot of moving parts to manage that for our own football games or soccer games or lacrosse things that are happening on the back field because it is an open space. Um so we have people who are very adamant that they want to park right up on that grass line. So then we have a safety barrier because I can't manage who's in a car and what's going on in the car at the same time as when we're out on a

084field. Um not asking for an entire fence around the entire property. Um there's just where the asphalt meets the grass um at the back of the school is what we're looking to maybe have um some conversations about with a gate where the concrete goes down to the bleachers. Um so just not asking again for all the fields to be to be fenced in or just fencing in the football field, just a barrier so that we have a safe entrance, a safe exit, a standpoint so we know where people are coming in and out of and have a little bit of crowd control. Um, family engagement. I have a couple of staff parents here. Um, but Miss Crocker said that she would speak a little bit about this and then, um, if anybody else wants to

085talk about any of the other family engagement. >> So, family engagement, um, they have back to school night and it's where the kids come back, they get to walk around. We have, is it spaghetti? We've had spaghetti supper. Some spaghetti supper and stuff. >> Um, October parent engagement night. I remember last year like the kids got to dress up in Halloween costumes and go door to door for candy and everything. Um scheduling. >> Yes, for upcoming kids. Okay, that's >> and then we got PTO activities and everything like that. >> Yeah. Anything else? >> You did great. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> When it comes to athletics and wellness, we have a number of students who participate multiport. Um, we take a lot of pride in the ability for our students to be student athletes.

086So, they are definitely students first. Um, there's a lot of showcase availability and I know that the board will recognizing those things shortly. Um, so you will see a number of MAC participants and state record holders um from uh from Wildwood when you have an opportunity coming soon. Um, Pride Minister has information about that and this would be the slide that does have a video and the center one is a video. Yeah. Good evening everybody. Excuse me. Wildwood Middle School is a place that shows pride in what we do more than any other. We offer many public-f facing school programs such as our FFA chapter chorus and award-winning band program that all serve our school community as well as Jefferson County Schools at St. Paul. This includes appearances, showings, and performances at the Jefferson County

087Fair, local parades, Harper's Fairy light show, as well as in our building for Red Ribbon Week. Um, and we the band performed um during the pep assemblies that we had for that athletic game and national anthem performances. our school-based jazz cafe fundraiser where we saw five out of six secondary schools in our county. Um they came to our school to perform. Uh recently we had students take part in math field day and history bowl events. The Wildwood band performed in Charleston at this year's or as this year's WVMEA state honor band. And our new robotics team had an unforgettable experience at the VEX World Robotics Championships in St. Louis. Within the school year, Wildwood also hosts many schoolwide events such as our month-long winter Olympics that we conducted in February. Um during this each teacher

088and the students that they have um they represent a country and we take part in a lot of fun events and it makes the kids and the teachers excited to come to school every day. Um this is in addition to staff for student games that we host really quarterly in our building as well. Also on this slide um you will see a glimpse into the amazing support and morale building activities that our staff receives from our administrators. Um these include and definitely are not limited to snack attacks where they come doortodoor with snacks. Uh Mr. Deanna's Elf on the Shelf where he was placed somewhere new in the building. My personal favorite was the one on top of the building, but this one was terrifying for most of the kids ying them down the hallway

089that day like, "No, no, don't go that way. Go this way." Yeah, it was it was very fun. Um, and then the lucky classroom visits from our get out of school early crew or goose for short. Uh, for short. Um, very jealous I did not get a visit from Goose, but that's okay. And we have a video for that one. >> It does have sound, but that's okay if it doesn't if it's not there. >> So, for teachers who um hadn't missed a certain number of days, we gooseed them and administration found coverage and they got two out they got two class periods at the end of the day out early. We happened to play bye bye bye and had a good time with them around the month of December. So, it was a good

090time. Some of them struggled to understand they were actually getting to leave early. Well, I have no we already took care of it. Like we had been in the room earlier to see what their plans were so that we could cover that for them so they didn't have to think about leaving something behind. >> Was Mr. Willis the first one? >> No, he was towards the end. >> Okay. >> Um >> very deserving Mr. Willis. Yeah. Um but yeah, thank you everybody. our robotics program was was spoken about and uh this was yeah so another appreciation that wasn't added to this because robotics wasn't here the first time when we were getting this ready in February um is for the board and the district support and sending our robotics team to world um it was

091quite an event to plan uh it was it was we all got a degree in travel agency I think when we were trying to do that in 24 hours but a couple other appreciations we'd like to extend to you um we appreciate and very much use the communities of schools program. It is a great uh resource for our students um particularly kids who have a very high need of specific things. Um I appreciate the support in helping me get out of the red for our transition camp. Um at the beginning of the year this year um we had a lot of students in our LEAP program that needed some additional support and they were very much willing to help me um so that I had instructional funds for the rest of the school year. Um

092we very much appreciated the support of our LEAP program that we have a registered behavior technician on site every day. to the staff members here in my program every day and it is a great resource and we have seen great growth in our students and I've learned a lot from not only that resource but have have seen um that you know the importance of not only giving them their curriculum but being able to work through behaviors and seeing changes in our students and it is a great benefit um in having that program inside of our school but having that staff member on campus and then um in addition I know that it's a levy that will was passed and will be happening in July but we appreciate the district support and getting us an SSO

093a little bit early. Um, beyond the last two in the last incident that happened on campus and it was great to have him on the phone. Uh, he was excellent and it was quite a learning experience to learn about questions and see that magic happen. Um, it is as a as a building principal. it. There's a relief of the person that it's not just me at the top worrying about safety all the time and the doors are always double checked and I have someone who has much more experience about safety and law enforcement that I can go to or bounce ideas off of or he notices something and so he's really become part of our staff knows our kids. We had to learn how to fist bump real quick instead of giving hugs every morning.

094So, we're teaching some of those skills. Um, but it has been great and so thank you very much and um to the voters who approved the levy, we very much appreciate that because it is a great resource. um in our building. So, thank you for the time this evening. I don't know if you have any questions for me or for our staff to circle back to. Yes. >> Well, first I wanted to commend you with um great improvement in your academics and also um you appear to have a very strong cohesive uh administrative team which unless you're good actors I just feel >> we like each other. I think that goes a long way to make it a positive atmosphere for your staff and students. Um the the football uh the stadium or the your

095your the yard. I've heard a lot of complaints about animals being able to access the fields and uh especially when there's sporting events, kids from other schools. it's just hard to manage with so many different populations. So um uh the other thing the folders I think that's an outstanding idea um because it teaches students about ownership and they can see you know concretely their scores or you know where how they're progressing and um it's not some abstract thing that appears every nine weeks on a report card but so I think you're doing an amazing job with great ideas and hopefully Dr. Bishop will help you out. >> Yeah. So, I I'm very blessed. I have a great um I have great staff. I have excellent kids. Um and I really think that we are all

096in it for the right reason. We have a big part for kids and a big part to just make them good citizens in general. Um and have a high level of respect and they have a lot high level of respect for themselves and I couldn't be more proud of the team that we have and the staff that I have on my campus. Um, it's a hard job, but it's made easy every day by the support that I have from them. So, thank you for recognizing that and seeing that this evening. I appreciate that. I just say thank you having, you know, been at Wildwood and seeing all the changes and whatnot over the years. It's always been a strong school, but um I do agree, you know, you definitely between the data driven piece of

097your um the way you look at at things and the way they can manage the school. Um it is definitely top-notch and I love how there are so many kids um that seem to avail themselves to the athletics and to the arts and but yet are just great academically as well. So you do a great job that speaks to your whole team and and frankly, you know, hiring a team that all works well and there's something to be said about that as well. So I definitely appreciate it. Thank you. >> And going above and beyond for your staff, not just your students. I think that's impressive. So you know, and if you ever want to goose the board through we did talk about that and I did not happen to have a goose at the

098meeting, so I could not have let you out early that day. I'm sorry. So we >> Oh, it would be something >> known for something's in our building. So >> in the middle of public comments, we could just say you're good. We got you. >> All right. Well, team, thank you guys. I know we've got a busy day tomorrow with testing. So, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for having us. >> And I don't think we got a chance to say thank you, you know, as much to to Major for that. um just what a great job and take frankly just taking kids that far away and just all that that happened. Thank you to Dr. Bishop and every single person up here that helped to make that happen as well and

099just exciting to see those kids so excited about that and learning things that definitely are the future for them. >> Thank you very much. all the time you put in. I mean, it can't happen. >> 24 hours. >> Just real quickly, there are three of us out here that each of our laptop passing that card back and forth to each other, each doing their own task trying to get that thing done in 24 hours. But thank you all. I mean, it would not have happened without the support of of everybody here. So, um, the kids had a great time. Met people from all over the world. Um, it was a great experience. Well, and in order for kids to be able to do any of those activities all the way up to your high school,

100you have to have uh an administrator and you have to have teachers and you have to have volunteers that are willing to go places with students and give them those experiences. So, it doesn't come lightly and just, you know, thank you for all the time you put in to do that because it's exciting. >> Thank you. You guys have a good rest of your evening. >> I know, right? There you go. Maybe it won't be during lacrosse season and I'll get a ticket for that. miss three games or I was in there. >> Thank you guys. Thank you. >> Good evening, Mr. Sh. >> We're starting 9 minutes early, so you can either have 39 minutes or you can go home minutes early. that one. >> I'm actually going to go back to the school.

101So, >> yeah. Either way, um, you guys ready? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Um, thanks for, uh, having us finally. Uh, it's been, uh, you know, May is is tough, so we're we're missing some folks tonight. Um, there's just a lot of stuff happening at the high school. And, um, like I said, my son right now is playing baseball, so I'm going to try to get back there as soon as I can after we're done here. Um, but I wanted to thank the folks that are listed in a membership. Uh, particularly here tonight, we have Brandy Darrison, uh, Maya Brown, uh, Whitney Jenkins, and, uh, Barbara Zing. And I think some other folks are going to be coming in. Hey, and Mr. Badin. Hello, sir. Um, um, so just go through the slides here. Um,

102it's right here. this. >> Oh, you have it. Okay. >> Um, so just to go through uh just the demographics and then we'll um I'm going to kind of talk about all these together if that's okay. The next slide um low SCES um rate that we have at Washington. the next one. And then so the next the next couple slides are our test scores. Um 25 compare 24 25 um you know stayed the same in reading. Uh we dropped a little bit in math, dropped a little bit in science from the previous year. Um and then I'm going to talk a little bit about those here in a second, but um if you could just go to the next one. Um the chronically absent rate that we have at Washington actually has even improved this

103year. So we're pretty happy with that. We've done a lot to uh to work on on that. Um so um if you could go to the next slide and talk about the test. So strategy for improvement uh after we looked at the uh the test scores for last year kind of dug into some data and um some things that we've done at Washington is we try to the best we can to have the smaller class sizes in the uh the freshman math math one or algebra one. Um, and we use warm-ups uh for College Board resources like Alex. Um, our math teachers are really, really great about staying after school and tutoring our students. I think pretty much every day there's tutoring available. Um, and we use some of our intervention funding um for those

104uh teachers to stick around and do that for our students and the students take advantage of it. Um, so that's a that's a great thing for us. reading. Uh we started a new thing, a new program this year using Quill. Um and it's the same thing. It warms up using college resources. But one of the cool things about Quill this year is it was new and we were we were able to see 11% growth with those students this year. And when we talked to the folks at Quill, they were saying that if you see a double digit um growth uh in especially in the first year, it's it's pretty it's awesome. So, we're pretty excited about what that's going to do for us um at Washington. But, um I also wanted to and I can

105I don't have copies of these, but I'm willing to provide them for you guys. Um we had a teacher at our school, Miss McGyvern, who shared this data with us. And so, when you look at test scores, um you compare the students in 24 that took the test and then you compare a different group of students in 25 that took the test. It's a completely different group of students. So I wanted to know, well, if we compared apples to apples, how did we do? So we took the fall of 23, which is when the students were sophomores, and the spring of 25, which is when they were juniors. So PSAT when they're sophomores, SAT when they're juniors. So the same group of kids. So we had a 48 point increase. average. This is their average

106score, a 48 point increase in their average score. And it even breaks down into, if you guys are interested in seeing this, it even breaks down into the subsections of the test like information and idea scores, craft and structure scores, like how they do all that expression of ideas. And you can see it's graphed out, so you can see what's improved. Um, and every the good news is everything is in has moved to the right. So the the scores have gotten better um as we went through the years, well really a year and a half I guess. Uh and then standard English convention scores, the math scores with the same group of kids uh went up 29 points on average. And it's the same thing. Um it breaks it down into subcategories like algebra, um

107advanced mathematics, uh geometry, trigonometry, um all of those kind of things. I'm happy to share this with you, but what it shows what it showed us is there actually is growth from their sophomore and their junior year if you compare apples to apples. So, um with that data with looking at these improvements um that we're trying to make the strategies anyway um we feel like we're in a pretty good place moving forward. Um something else that we started this year with our teachers um we do it at the beginning of the day uh we have a home room and part of that home room is we started we had time set aside for teachers that have PLC's and uh that was with our instructional coach Mr. Moody and on the weeks that he's not there

108um they have uh departmental planning they'll have departmental meetings and it's really to kind of uh oh math comes to mind thing sitting there but to take all the math to teachers and they kind of align their their you know the curriculum so they know what's going on in each classroom and that's important to do that um you know expanding that it would be great to do that with um you know incoming students and I know that's something that has been discussed to uh do that with um you know bring in the eighth grade teachers. Uh with that um we also um have some pretty cool things happening with uh dual enrollment um which leads to I think some of the improvements that we're trying to put in place helps these kids. Um we have

10962 next year we're going to have 62 additional students doing dual enrollment at Washington. Um, so there are this year there are 36 that do our in-house English 101 102. Uh, next year there's going to be 63. Um, we had 10 WVU math students this year, which by the way they averaged an 88% in college TRIG WB math. So that was pretty impressive. I think they every kid in there got an A except one and he was close. So that was pretty impressive. uh stat. So that's that's college that's college TRIG. It's run through WVU. Uh it's a great thing. Uh Shepard, we had 58 this year. We're gonna have 84 students that go there next year. Um Blue Ridge is about the same. So we're excited about where we're going academically. Um all of

110those programs that um we have that we can offer kids um has been um has been a blessing. And you know, thankfully students take advantage of that. And we had just today we had our senior awards banquet or ceremony at the school and uh we gave out 1.7 they earned $1.7 million worth of scholarships and awards today. So we're pretty excited for uh for the future. Uh go to the next slide, please. Something else that we've done is um flexible credit recovery options. Uh so expand options beyond certain classes uh gives latitude to address at risk students and uh we really kind of dive we we dove into this this year by looking at mostly ninth graders um ninth and tth graders to see kind of where they are. That's kind of where we started

111and we really used this to our advantage with our options pathways and um I think we had um about a hundred students at some point that were going in and out of this to try to get those to catch those at risk students early to catch them catch them up to where we need them to be. So that's been very beneficial for us. Um we also had this job fair on here and that's something that actually Miss Fable did. Um she does a dream big summit which is part of FCCLA there and she kind of has some job some mock job interviews that she does through that. So we're hoping to grow that. Next please. No that's should have done that. Um so I need to kind of maybe give you some insight on that.

112So there was a fundraiser that was done and it was part of our jolly jamboree and it was to there were three teachers that were involved and uh the one that won was to bedazzle my head. So that's why it was like that. Um and I had to walk out in front of the whole students uh all the students. Uh so one of the infrastructures we really uh have noticed that we we would we need is we had we need some outdoor outdoor security cameras. Um they just um are finishing the auxiliary gym right now and they I didn't even realize they had they had done it yet but I happen to be looking on our camera system and those cameras are already active on the new part of the building. So the good news

113is it integrates with what we already have. Um, you know, it's just, uh, we could just use some help with that. Um, the old system that we have, uh, it's it's it's analog. Um, and all the new stuff is digital and when they install it, it just integrates right way. Well, like I said, I didn't even know they had installed it yet. I just happened to look on our security cameras one day and I noticed that I could see the gym. So, it was kind of nice. Family engagement. Excellent. Thank you. uh family engagement things like LSIC uh chaperoons uh there's a lot of stuff in high school that we use almost every night there's stuff happening um parent supported student events and activities um you know that's always the case there's typically always parents

114in our in our building um community resources and guest speakers like I said the dream big summit which uh Miss Fable did last week believe it was last week uh Um she had multiple guest speakers in there um through businesses in our community. Um you know we decorated families have decorated school grounds recognized seniors achievement and involvement in grant writing booster organizations. There's obviously that's a huge part of high school and then like today we had that award recognition ceremony. um athletic and wellness, you know, multiple um state attendees with uh sports teams. Um we had our uh our state champion girls. It's the first time we've won the state championship with uh girls wrestling this year, so we're pretty proud of them. We have a balanced participation in girls and boys in athletics. Um

115we're pretty happy with that. Multiple scholarships awarded for college athletics. Um we have attendance incentives, inclusion activities. Um we we started the botchi ball. Um you know the um that that's been really cool to do that to see those students uh participate in that. Um you pep rallies um which is why my head was bedazzled. Um follow all nutritional guidelines. Cafeteria passes health inspection. Uh participate in the kids pack program which is important. uh continue our community and schools program, which we're um this is our third or I'm sorry, this is our second year of doing that. And so that's been a um a really nice addition to have those folks in our building. Um we're actually in the process right now of um just through attrition, we're there's going to be two um new

116ones going to be there with us. So we're we're excited because we kind of have a handle on what the program really is. I was a little unsure at first just my knowledge of it but now that I know um I'm excited uh moving forward with that I think it's great. Uh we started our we restarted the blood drive this year uh and they are because we had such high participation they want they'd like to have two next year possible. Uh our pride uh there's there's a lot uh fine arts programs are strong. um our band, choir, art, theater, um they all are dance, they all have students participate in state level competitions or recognitions at the state and region. Uh the last couple years our band has been a state honor band. Uh this

117year they were uh a state honor group as well. It's called X Ensemble. Um it's like a small group that went down to do it. Um you know, business marketing certifications, I mean, there's there's many of those. academic successes, you know, the WB math that I talked about, math field day winners, uh many student organizations that are highly involved in the school. Um, you know, one that you guys may have seen uh out here recently, Patriot Pastries, uh, they go out and they do they did the, uh, teacher of the year banquet. They they brought some stuff out there. Um, NHS is involved. NTHS, they did that part of that green big summit. FFA is always in the community doing things. Um, if you haven't if you haven't been there yet, I would invite you

118next year to come to the Deck the Halls Jolly Jamberee and check it out. It's pretty cool. Um, Miss Nicholson uh kind of has led that for us and it's a it's a really cool thing. The kids the kids really enjoy it. I wasn't sure at first about it, but it's actually turned into a really cool thing. And something else we did this year and actually this is part of uh community and schools kind of took this over for us. Um you know we look at the surveys that we get every year. You know we do look at those and one of the things was you know if a student wasn't involved in like athletics or the arts or uh something like that but not sure what was there for them. So uh we instituted

119we just did it once a month for now. Uh we instituted a club day and so students could um you know if they had interest um you know they could uh join a club. We ran it for about 40 minutes or so um within the schedule and uh this was the first year we did that. I think it was pretty successful. Obviously there's the first time you do it. There's got to iron out some details but uh overall I think it was pretty well received. But I think that the students enjoyed it and so that's something that we would like to see grow at the school as well. Then our appreciation uh I want to thank you again for the restrooms at the baseball and softball field. They're using them as I speak. Um the

120auxiliary gym. Um if you I know that you guys come there for the meetings. Um they occasionally come grab me and ask me if I want to come look at stuff and uh so I of course I say yes. And uh it's absolutely beautiful. Um they came and installed or they started installing the way they put them today in the wait room. Um it's going to be um really nice. It it's much appreciated. I mean it's just um it's going to be a nice space to have for sure. So want to thank you for that. Uh the HVAC unit in Bh Hall is still good to go with that. So we definitely appreciate that especially on days like today. um efforts to retain and uh recruit retain teachers. Uh something that I've noticed this year,

121uh we haven't had a lot of job openings at Washington. Uh but the ones that we have had opening, we we've had a lot of certified applicants apply for those jobs and um that's that's a good thing to see. And um so, you know, that's hopefully moving in the right, keep moving in the right direction with that. Uh I I want to thank the teachers and the service personnel which use Washington to call her home. Uh board members who serve the community and uh just in general our community that's always been supportive of our school and just schools in general, not just our school and of course our dedicated students that worked hard to be successful. So I just want to thank them. Uh there's a couple others that I just I felt like I

122should recognize them here tonight. Um, I mentioned Miss McGyvern earlier with the the data that she pulled. Um, she was list she was named the uh WBCTM state teacher of the year for math and uh Julia Bibbons was named the early career teacher of the year and then we also had Miss Grantham who was a WVACT teacher of the year. So um we're pretty fortunate with the folks that I think that we have in our building. So thank you. And Mr. Williams, thank you for joining us this evening. He snuck in behind me. >> I have a couple comments. Um I think you you can't be any more positive. I'm just um very positive and I can tell that your staff appreciates your leadership. Um I I was going to say that high school math

123um especially in Jefferson County I feel like um gives a bad rap because uh students come generally unprepared from 8th grade. There's a huge skill gap between 8th grade or you know middle school math and then nth grade. And uh we need to really uh address those skill gaps earlier starting in seventh and eighth grade if we want to have greater success. Um I also think that once the students start uh taking the algebra one uh dipper 2 geometry track that the SAT scores will improve because like you were saying about comparing apples and oranges. I personally, I know Miss Zing disagrees, but I personally after teaching math for 38 years, every level, um, the SAT is heavy in geometry and basic algebra that a lot of kids never get the depth in going through

124that math one, math 2 sequence. Um, they don't nec they're not taught to connect the dots on a test. So um they really need to see those exact questions. That's just my experience, not lecturing, but um so I and I know that you had a really strong math department and every a lot of people left a few years a few years back and it seems like you're building back up again. >> Yeah, I would say I would say we're back to being pretty strong. Um everyone in there is certified. uh we have some really amazing teachers in there and that's one of the things I wanted I was curious what the data said because it does show that through the instruction at the school that it has gone up >> you know the the school

125so but yes >> did you find anything in the data where if you looked at one year and the next year even though you have two different groups of students that they were still missing the same pieces like did you >> um it kind of goes back to that a little bit there. You could see that like you can see that it it obviously which makes sense because of where they are in their uh in the math uh curriculum that the the like the trig numbers really got a lot better and the the upper level math stuff got a lot better. um some of the other and some of it can be that it's just kind of the where we are as well when they're juniors taking it may they may forget some of the

126stuff you know >> um but some of the earlier things is is where you can kind of see maybe not as not as much growth but the the the more advanced stuff you can see the the growth happen there. So with the math when you said you guys were doing smaller enrollments for the algebra one classes um what if you do smaller enrollments in algebra 1 what where are you going to move the other students? >> Well thank that's where dual enrollment helps. >> Okay >> because they're then they wouldn't be taking math at the school. >> So they'll do dual enrollment even for algebra one. >> No. So those all those students would be in our building and so we would just so we would add teachers to to make to do the best

127we can to accommodate that. Okay. >> And then what happens a lot of times as they get to juniors and seniors um they'll be taking math through dual enrollment. So then those students wouldn't be taking the math in in the in the building. And so what do you think my last question would be then um based on what you found with the data, what kind of changes are you going to make for next year from the data to make a difference to increase the school. >> Well, I think the focus is on the early like the algebra ones, the geometries or the math ones, math twos. I think that's where the focus and that's kind of why we wanted to do that. So there's more of a there's less there's a greater a smaller ratio

128of students to teacher. So that gives the teacher the more the opportunity to work with those students. Um because that's where we found it. If you looked at it, that's where we found it to be uh problematic. >> Thank you very much. Good luck to you, son. >> Thank you. And this officially wraps up the last meeting. >> So 7:14 journed. Thank