001[Music] But then we do that. [Music] There you go. Yeah. testing. Just making sure you can hear me. This is Carmen Bratz. Thank you. Please. Let's see. I saw it. Yeah. Thank you. [Music] Okay. The first I'm ready whenever you guys are. [Music] To the flag of the United States of America to the Republic and liberty and justice for [Music] All right, we have some special guests this evening from the Department of Ed who are going to be giving us some training this evening on the balance scorecard. >> That's your cue. Whenever you're ready, sir. I can barely hear. Is that better? >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Soon as we get the next slide up here, we'll uh get started. [Music] Uh, while they're getting that loaded there, I'll go ahead and introduce myself.
002My name is Jeff Kelly. I'm assistant superintendent over the accountability office for the West Virginia Department of Education. Uh, that house is three offices. uh one of which is the accountability office as well as uh our leadership and our uh assessment offices. I have with me uh this evening our director of the accountability office which is Alex Kryer. uh she uh does a lot of our field work and and is the expert I would say uh regarding policy 2322 which I'm going to cover tonight. I'm going to try to break this down into uh basically 30 minutes at from 30,000 ft on the 41 slides that I just gave you. Uh those are not all 41 content slides. Some of them are headers. Uh but I'm going to try to stay at uh 30,000 feet
003on those and then I'm g try to devote about 15 minutes to methodology page which is in our for on our uh website which explains uh which explains how the scores are calculated for the respective areas of the accountability model. Um, and I'm going to show you how to get to that. Uh, it's a page I visit oft even though I feel like I've probably been there a thousand times. So, if we can get started with this portion. >> That's all right. Uh so policy 2322 is what um what accountability model sort of follows and it's its purpose is to ensure uh each county board We'll see if that helps. Thank you. Uh is to ensure that each county board provides a thorough and efficient education uh for its students. We have a county status
004review and determination uh which is based on multiple measures. You'll see through this process that we have the balance scorecard indicators. I hope you guys are at least somewhat familiar with those as well as the operational effectiveness indicators. Uh this policy was last revised in June uh by the West Virginia Board of Education June of 24 that is and uh became effective July of 24. So uh next slide please. They'll get to that next slide here in just a second, but I'll go ahead and start talking about it. The West Virginia code 182E or-2-5 establishes a school system approval. state board uh does this annually uh and reviews information that's submitted from our various offices uh to assess how counties are doing uh in the areas identified throughout here. Next slide. So the primary roles
005of our office um roles and responsibility that is accompanying this process. Uh you'll hear Miss Priner say this quite often is quality assurance. Uh she preaches that within our office and of course within the counties when we visit. Also, this allows us to notify counties of their accountability identification using score count scorecard data uh notify counties of their annual count accountability designations which I believe are in October if I'm not mistaken. So what you'll see happen in August is our assessment office will bring about the data from the assessment last year's assessment and then accompanying that uh later on in October you'll hear Miss Kryer at state board meeting uh talk about the accountability designations. Our office also conducts special circumstance reviews. They coordinate state of emergency um and immediate interventions as directed by the
006West Virginia Board of Education. Of course, we recommend county approval status and we recognize counties as well when they're going well. Uh next slide. We have uh the two of us as well as three other team men team members in our accountability office. Uh Dr. Mural, Angela Erling, and Tammy Barney. You might recognize Dr. Mural's name because she uh assists with your all's um assessment, your self assessment each year, and she's the point person for that and takes your all's calls and questions whenever you have. Next slide, please. Uh much of what we do is based on the West Virginia standards for effective schools. And I'm not going to read all of those, but you'll hear uh most of our offices speak at length about those when they uh visit your county uh to assist
007or to support. And obviously uh much of that is around safe and uh supportive schools and obviously uh quality education for our students and counties. Next slide, please. So, we're going to get into the accountability system here so we can move on. Uh, in the balance or uh slide two, uh, as far as the WBAS, what it is is a comprehensive system of measurements that define school expectations for continuous improvement. And that's a item that we strive for in all of our counties, our continuous improvement. We hope that counties look at this data and this model at the end of each year uh to assess where they are and obviously use that information to plan to improve upon their academic programs moving forward. Next slide. Actually, two slides. One more, please. So, we get into
008the indicators. And have you guys visited our or visited the page to us uh view your your balance scorec card? I'm assuming you have but so you've seen that uh snapshot the various uh indicators. Um but the indicators of performance used to measure and establish methods for collecting the annual reporting of data uh include academic achievement and academic progress. That's your growth indicator. your graduation rates, uh your English uh language proficiency progress based on the results of your ELP uh and English learners uh students in grades 3 through 81. Uh and then student success which is calculated on attendance behavior on track to graduate postsecary achievement within each of the programmatic levels. Next slide please. Uh important of note here there are some factors uh which uh dictate who is included in these calculations. System
009requirements include full acade academic year. You'll hear frequently folks talk about FA full academic year is those are students that are enrolled for at least 135 days in a specific school or county. Of course, we have a lot of students that move about. So, that is a factor when calculating your uh balance scorecard. Were they present for that one 135 days? Also, minimum cell sizes. In many of our smaller counties, we may have cell sizes of students even in grade levels where there are less than 20 students in a particular subgroup. uh programmatic levels. School classifications are based on the highest grade level. So if you have a six through eight, that's a middle school or designated middle school. But also if you have a K through eight, they are generally designated a middle school
010as well. Particip participation rate uh for all faith students and uh each subgroup uh is set at 95%. Next slide please. Can you guys stop me at any point if you have any clarifying questions here as we go through the the 30,000 foot piece? Um slide. So when you get to uh the balance fourth card which each of you have indicated you'll notice there are those colors of green, blue, yellow and red. And as most would uh discern there green means good. Uh red is usually an area that needs attention. Of course uh then the two areas in between yellow and blue. So you should get a pretty good picture when you land. And we're going to go to the to the landing page here uh in a little bit of where you stand just
011based on those colors in the various areas set forth in the balance scorecard. So county support and accountability. You'll see that we have three stages here. Stage one, this would be your onwatch ident identifier or identification. This is when a county uh has one or more indicators that do not meet standard. And you'll see some county responsibilities over there that counties are expected to diagnose and build structures to facilitate countywide improvement. Uh review your strategic plan and then monitor progress moving forward. And we as a department will provide technical assistance on that front. So, for example, if you have uh an area in which you're on watch, for example, such as special ed, our special ed department um would provide assistance in uh helping you build those structures uh the strategic plan and monitoring progress.
012Stage two, support identification. This is any indicator that does not meet standards and does not show improvement for two consecutive years. Uh again, you go back to your strategic plan, you monitor progress, and then we step up our support uh as well as we'll provide technical assistance as determined necessary by the department uh or at the request of county leadership. And then we get to stage three. This is when we get to intensive support identification. This is when any indicator that does not meet standard and does not show improvement for three consecutive years. Uh at this juncture we would adjust the strategic plan based on the lack of improvement in stage two. Again we would monitor progress. You would report that progress to the West Virginia Department of Education quarterly to our office. uh we
013would then uh continue to provide te technical support, monitor that progress and we would make annual recommendations to the state board including nonapproval status based on lack of progress. So, as you can see, um there's a there's a process in place, and it doesn't uh occur overnight, where we try to identify deficiencies and provide support to prevent counties and schools getting to that third consecutive year uh of of concerns. >> I do have a question. Sure. >> Can you provide a couple examples of the level of technical assistance for stage two versus stage three that you guys provide? Oh. Um, >> in general, >> the most common types of >> I'm thinking about uh we might provide training uh PD uh to a county and I mentioned special ed earlier. Our special ed folks travel
014a lot to counties and do professional developments uh maybe with special ed directors or special ed staff, teachers uh especially on the side of compliance. That's where you get dinged a lot on special ed. uh to intensify that. Um we might require for example uh the superintendent to bring in somebody a specialist from outside the county to provide support and be on the ground boots on the ground uh maybe more frequently and provide more intensive support. I think that would be a example of where that would escalate a little bit. And I'll say this, most of those most of those situations are very unique. Uh they're similar but different from county to county. I think you've probably seen we've had a great deal of involvement in counties across the state. Some of them are similar
015and some of them are different. So we try to spend some time with the folks at the county level to make sure that we're building the right supports for that scenario. So it's not a cookie cutter cookie cutter approach. Um, so if there are issues, uh, try to build that around what what we're seeing both in the data, what what our superintendent are telling us, uh, in regards to what they think is needed as well, as well as what our our offices are seeing when they visit. Uh, county operational effectiveness. Next slide, please. Um, so these are the in indicators of efficiency uh where we use uh the appropriate divisions within the department. For example, finance. They'll monitor as well how you're doing on that front again to ensure uh that you're being efficient and
016that you're using your resources uh appropriately. Uh counties are designated as meets requirements or needs assistance in 11 indicators. Uh the designations are determined using using an evaluation of records, reports and other documents uh regarding quality uh education and compliance with statutes, policies and state approved standards. Next slide, please. And you'll see those 11 indicators here. Uh career tech, child nutrition, facilities, um federal programs, finance pro personnel. I skipped facilities there, my apologies. special ed, as I mentioned before, data collections, transportation, universal prek, and of course, county board effectiveness, education member effectiveness. Those are the 11 areas under our county operational effectiveness indicators. Next slide. Uh so any needs assistance identification in a county's annual profile requires uh the development of an action plan by county leadership with assistance from the department. You implement the
017plan. Then we monitor that progress to see that you're going in the right direction. After plan implementation, the department makes recommendations to the state board based on that progress. And you'll often hear when we have counties that are coming before our state board uh that they are to come back usually uh in a period of time that's often six months in our intervention in state of emergency situations but sometimes they'll require that more frequently. And what the state board wants to hear in those instances is that there there's a plan in place that it is being executed and that um uh progress is being made. uh were very aware that sometimes when you have concerns that rise to that level uh that the the issue did not come into play overnight and the cures uh
018are not executed overnight as well. So we're very conscientious to give you all time or counties time uh to execute a plan uh toward that progress and not flip a switch and expect it to be fixed overnight. Next slide, please. One more. Thank you. So, um again, part of the uh accountability offic's uh responsibilities, uh is assessing situations where there are extraordinary circumstances. This case, we're speaking about a state of emergency. We've had a couple of these here recently. I'm sure you've read about the paper. These are items that do not rise to the level of an immediate intervention uh but are cause enough for concern that our state board feels like there needs to be some elevated attention to the situation. Again, this is reference to code here again 18-2E-5. Uh extraordinary circumstances include
019but are not limited to uh misappropriation fund or misappropriation of funds uh misuse of funds, falsification of reports, failure to submit code uh violations, policy violations. You'll hear us talk a lot uh and our superintendents will when they call about something, we first thing we'll say is what does the code say? What does the policy say? What does your county policy say? We usually try to start from there and see where that takes us because that we if we do just that we'll solve a lot of our problems. Um of course uh unhealthy or unsafe conditions uh are something that would rise to this level as well state of emergency. Next slide please. Uh also school's failure to provide a high quality or equal education opportunities for students. Obviously that's why we're there teaching and
020learning. So if if we're failing in that aspect in a system or in a school, we're going to get involved. efficiencies in leadership, uh defiance of law or policy. Again, you'll see there willful neglect of duty, CBM, board governance, uh and county superintendent operational relations may divert from uh efforts to focus on accountability for student achievement. Again, teaching and learning and achievement is why we're here. Uh so if the relationship or the function of the superintendent andor board is somehow uh standing as a barrier to that uh that's something we're going to take notice of pretty quickly. Uh new as of last year failure of the board members to fulfill their statutory training requirements uh and any training prescribed by the department or the state board. uh that that's something that came uh into the
021policy in last year that has been added. Next slide, please. And I want to but before I move on from that, I want to say that uh schoolboard association's done a fantastic job on that front collectively, the board members and the leadership there uh and making sure that not only those opportunities exist, but that that everybody has an opportunity to get there and get that taken care of. So uh my hats off to them. Again, when a state of emergency occurs, you see this uh as you did earlier, corrective action plan. Um our department will provide recommendations to the state board within at least 60 or by 60 days to correct the deficiencies. Um the board will review and approve as appropriate the corrective action plan. Once approved, the county has six months to implement
022the recommendations to correct And then of course what we look for when those counties come back to present to the state board is that progress toward a better situation or corrective measures. If a county uh does not show that progress during that six-month period, uh it can lead to one or more of the following interventions. Can limit the authority of the board. Declare the office of the county superintendent vacant. Declare positions of personnel who serve at the will and pleasure of the county superintendent to be vacant. Fill those vacancies. They can take any direct action necessary to correct the extraordinary circumstances. So there are are a set of uh well really uh broad options there for the state board when these situations arise. Also, a county superintendent may remove the principal of a low performing
023school who exhibits deficiencies in leadership. And again, you'll see there at the very bottom of that slide that the department or the board of education can issue non-approval status to a county. Next slide. So again just another way to to see this in front of you guys state of emergency process WVDE provides uh state board within 60 days those recommendations board then reviews and approves the plan then the county has that six months uh to show progress on those fronts. Next slide. And this is uh the terminology again that director Kroner uses quite frequently here. Uh that state of emergencies are basically a probationary period to allow counties and schools, superintendent, central office staff to address these issues um in a six-month period. Um, and you'll often see uh well, when we get to those
024those sixmonth updates, basically there are three things that can occur. County can have the state of emergency lifted or removed. Uh, it can be extended usually for another six-month period. uh you'll see that frequently especially when that progress has been shown or um if not uh if not then the state board shall intervene. I think that's an important piece to the state of emergencies. uh if in that window a county does not show that progress there's not an option for our state board at that juncture. They are required by law says they shall intervene in the operation of school system. That's obviously something we try to avoid but unfortunately um it happens at times. Next slide. So now what I just spoke about immediate intervention says the state board may intervene immediately in the operation
025of the county board of education when the determination is made that decisive action is required. These are usually cases when our state board just doesn't feel like they they can wait any longer or uh wait on a a lesser type of intervention. They feel like something has to happen now. And so what you see there the bullets county fails to act on statutory obligation which would interrupt day-to-day operations of the county. We'll hear that quite frequently in our interventions. We talk about the day-to-day operations and something is failing badly there. Uh the conditions uh precedent to intervention exists uh and delaying the intervention would not be in the best interest of students. Um and you'll often hear that come out in the reports if intervention is recommended. Uh that the students are somehow uh their
026education uh it's being uh inhibited in some way that they can't receive the teaching and or teaching that they they deserve. Also, the conditions precedent to intervention exist in the West Virginia Board of Education had previously intervened in the county and completed the inter intervention within the preceding five years, which wouldn't apply to you guys at this juncture. stays that way. Um, yes. Oh, I'm sorry. On on the final piece, uh, the conditions precedent to intervention exist and the WVBE, the board of ed, state board of education had previously interveneed in the county. That's not occurred here with you guys in the last five years. So, like the Yeah, to my knowledge, Jefferson's never been an intervention county. At least not not my lifetime that I recall. So, next slide. All right. Uh, with the
027immediate intervention, the state board shall determine the required corrective action county board of education in accordance with that same code. Of course, those interventions may include again limiting the authority of the board. Those same things, the declaration of the superintendent's office vacant, other positions within the office, they can fill those vacancies and take any other action necessary. We've seen those things happen uh past two years. And in these cases, the state board shall issue non-approval status until acceptable progress is demonstrated. special circumstance review. So this is something uh usually when a concern uh has come to light and this can be initiated by the state superintendent who will then uh inform the West Virginia Board of Education of the circumstances and they'll usually ask our team to uh spearhead a review uh of the county
028and the circumstances that are existing or at least perceived to be existing. Uh this may include reviews of counties and schools andor schools uh usually on-site reviews. We'll look at management of uh central office processes for example. uh but it's usually director Kryer that will build that review and then draw from various offices in our uh in our construct to assist. So again, back to special ed, if there was a special ed issue in the county, we would work directly with Sheila Pzel's office in the department and design a plan to go in and assess and then support. Also, a county superintendent or a local board um by board action at a public meeting may request a special circumstance review. We've had this where either a superintendent or board me members have reached out about
029a concern and we try to support them in in those scenarios. Uh, of course, the request must include specific circumstances that would warrant such for review. Any findings are to be reported within 45 days of the review. Next slide. One more. Next slide. Thank you. Uh again, our county board of education members, um we want to make local board agendas and minutes public on the county web page. Uh we monitor that. I'll frequently our offices are all right there together. I'll frequently have Miss Crowner or other team members come in and discuss with me items that are on your all's board agendas as they review those before the board meeting. Um, in collaboration with the superintendent, we want you all to ensure that agendas include discussions of school performance, student outcomes, or academics with local
030board goals and actions to improve student achievement well-being. We hope that you all make that a point to have those items constantly and consistently on your agendas because that's ultimately why we're here. Teaching and learning is our primary um charge. So that should be something that you all as a board are not only interested in but that you're receiving information from the superintendent, central office staff, uh schoolbased staff, um about how those things uh are going uh in your county and schools. Uh if any county indicator is identified as support or in intensive support under the WVAS, the leadership team, the county leadership team should present plans or shall present plans, not should, shall present plans uh and progress for correcting deficits and the West Virginia balance scorecard indicators of achievement, student success, and of
031course those operational effectiveness indicators. So, back to my original statement from the get-go, all of this data comes in, we we certify all this data, you get your snapshots of of where you are, and then that should guide um your plans moving forward, and you should be having discussions about and uh Superintendent Bishop should be making you all aware of those plans to correct these items. Next slide, please. Okay, CBM continues. Again, you guys are going to assess your annual performance using the statutoily required CBM self-appraisal. That's where I missed or mentioned Dr. mural earlier. Uh that self appraisal tool is available. Uh not only that you just complete it, but that you make it available to the public and then you also use it to do a little bit of a self assessment to
032see where you guys are and what uh what plans you can put in place to improve upon moving forward. Uh again, the summary of the evaluation shall be posted county's web page and remain posted for the entirety of the year until you do it again. Should hold annual meetings with the school, local school improvement council of each school deemed low performing. I know some counties still do all schools. I don't know if you all do, but you're only required now through law to do the ones that are deemed low performing. But that's also an opportunity for you guys uh as a board to hear from your schools and what are their plans to uh address uh their deficiency and of or deficiencies and then of course to uh continue their successes. You report those LSIC
033meeting details to the department by September 1 uh for the previous school year. uh you'll you'll be receiving those uh notifications here shortly to remind you to make sure that you do so. Um also adopt and implement a policy that provides for parent family uh business and community involvement. I'm sure you guys have that in place. Next slide. also continued with the board shall receive training related to boardsmanship, governance, effectiveness, fiscal management, school performance issues. Uh new as of again last year, uh training shall be provided between the date of the election and the beginning of the member's term of office. Again, I want to give a pat on the back to the schoolboard association. and they've done a great job uh in providing that to you all. Also, as requested by the state superintendent,
034uh the West Virginia Board of Ed may require additional training. They deem beneficial in assisting boards. So if we have um I guess an example, if we kind of have a a rogue uh board member who um seems to be operating in a manner that flies in the face of policy or code that might be something that rises to the level of additional training. many of the cases where we've had to intervene uh in county systems, you'll see that part of the the corrective actions is additional training for board members. That's pretty common. Also new last year, failure to attend and complete the orientation training, annual training or training required by the WVBE without good cause constitutes neglective duty as outlined in West Virginia code. Again, board members have done pretty pretty well on that
035front. We had a few I think in year one, a handful that uh didn't didn't get there quite out of the gate, but I think we got them all there shortly thereafter. And the school board association for that and their attention to it. Next slide. Uh, County Board of Education staff have to develop and implement an Electric County strategic improvement plan by July 1st that is not longer than five years and includes the mission and goals of the county. Um, this is something that should be fairly prevalent in your discussions at board meetings. items within your strategic plan. Uh goals, how are you targeting improvement? [Music] Those should be things that are consistently uh brought to light here in board meetings so that you all as board members can be aware of the plan. Also,
036assemble a county leadership team. Use countywide data. We've talked about that to determine trends and priorities for improvement. Uh make recommendations for improvement. Ultimately assure all school leaders uh annual evaluation goals align to the strategic plan goals and balance scorecard. You guys set goals. This county and the superintendent and in turn the central office staff should have goals that feed that machine and our school-based administrators in like should have similar goals. Everybody should be singing the same song. Um so this process is to achieve that. So ultimately the goals that you all are setting for this county and the superintendent are finding their way down to the school level. Next slide. County board staff should meet with each principal at least every 60 days to review data and monitor progress. I'm just going to guess
037that Superintendent Bishop probably has at least monthly meetings with his uh school-based principles where they discuss all kinds of things uh education including the data that they're receiving uh obviously with or with uh House Bill 3035 and the beginning, middle, and end of year testing. Now, uh, we get great chunks of data, uh, three times a year that help us have these exact conversations and and discuss our progress. Um, also that staff, the central office staff should collaborate with parents, stakeholders, school staff, county staff, and school leadership teams. That's the exact same thing that previous slide talked about with you guys. There should be opportunities for those same groups of people u to be heard. >> Excuse me. You said we could ask questions at any time. I just don't want to run out of
038time. So I I have a few questions. >> Okay. >> Um I'm trying to understand where to find the attrition rates, teacher attrition rates. I see that you're responsible for personnel data. It lists the um percentage of certified teachers in different categories, but I'm not able to find attrition rates. Do you have that somewhere? >> I do not. Um I feel like I had this question I'm going to say about two months ago and we ran this back through Mr. Heman's office, I believe, and I can't remember off the top of my head what his response was, but I will go back to him and uh see what his response was at that time, and then I'll get that to the superintendent and he can share with you all. >> Okay. Um my other question,
039it's the same question that I asked several months ago when I called. Um it it's about the question was why aren't um why isn't behavior monitored or uh reported for secondary high school? So it's listed under elementary and middle school but not high school and I'm trying to understand why that is. Um, I was not here when they constructed uh this model, so I don't know the thought processes, but I was getting ready to turn it over to Director Crowner. >> Um, again, I as part of the ESSA plan, there are certain federal requirements for student success. And what is logical to me is that when you're looking at um you know the behavior part of that in elementary school that developmentally as they move on toward high school the focus becomes less on that
040behavior and more on um you know what are they going to do after graduation. So we start looking at the post-secary achievement and the on track to graduation um at the high school level just because of the developmental level of the student. Um, I would say that that's what the rationale was behind that. Um, and because there are multiple measures of student success that have to be reflected in the ESSA plan in order to meet the approval requirements. >> Okay. I I can understand that. I I just I know that at the secondary level there are um behaviors that interfere with learning and I I understand that the legislators have recently enacted some new laws to help teachers in classrooms with um discipline. Can you explain that in layman's terms exactly how that should look
041in a classroom? Well, if Mr. Mlanahan was here, I would defer to him and that's probably going to be a separate training and we can certainly arrange that. Um, I I was not prepared to speak to that specific code tonight. So I don't want to without my notes or a prepared set of items to discuss with you, but I can certainly um provide a little bit of information with the initial question back to the superintendent and then if you all would like we can arrange for Mr. Mlanahan to um visit and talk about discipline. Um, I will say this, um, the mechanisms for discipline, and I've been a teacher, I've been an assistant principal, a principal at the high school level. Those pieces have always been in play. Uh, it's a matter of building a
042discipline program uh that is fair uh, but also holds students accountable. Um, some places execute that better than others. Um, didn't have a lot. I've been been on discipline for 15 plus years. Uh, never really had a problem with discipline. U, I know that some of our counties and schools uh, are struggling on that front. Um, but some of the very things that I heard come up during the legislative sessions or during the legislative session, even the last two sessions, um, are things that could have already been dre addressed within the current construct. Um, so whether counties or schools were doing that, I can't speak to it. I know what my experience has been. Um, I hope that the new legislation is effective and benefits our schools and and um maybe helps some of our
043folks that were struggling, but from where I sat uh as an administrator at the school level, um I don't know that it would have changed much for the way we operate. >> Um >> I think you're Dr. Julia, I think you're speaking specific to Senate Bill 199. Yeah, >> primarily that addresses elementary behavior, the new pieces do and staff has been working on putting together a process by which we will implement Senate Bill 199 and we can share that with you at a future board meeting. >> Um, well, because there was the previous bill that allowed teachers to send a student out who was disruptive. >> Is that still in effect? And >> say that again. >> Is that still in effect or was that changed? is what in effect >> that policy that um
044last year that I think it was last year that was passed >> because the teachers aren't aware of it and um of how that looks in their classes. Well, I mean, I again, those are processes that I think the superintendent and again the school-based administrators are going to have to establish, you know, those protocols and procedures for what that's going to look like in their school. Uh, and I had those things in place. So, this isn't really new to me from where I'm sitting. I also add, I think it's tomorrow. I don't know if I'll be back in time. Um, but we're we're having an internal meeting on that exact code and it's finalizing the documentation, the guidance documentation that's going to go out to our superintendent who can then use it with their staffs,
045especially coming back to school here uh with their meetings with uh principles. So, um I imagine that I've got to know Superintendent Bishop fairly well over uh since his arrival here. I got a feeling that he'll have a plan in place and that that'll trickle down to the schools and they'll be be able to effectively implement the aspects of that new code. >> Um I guess this is my last question. Okay. I I believe that the federal government removed monies from I think title 2, three, and four and title three deals with um English language learners. Is that correct? >> I can't speak to that. um the ESL program. Is that correct? >> That's the rumor on the street. There is some discussion about that. We actually have a meeting tomorrow, 1:00. >> Okay. >>
046Dr. Eversoul has been uh boots on the ground in communication with uh federal program staff, but we do have a follow-up meeting tomorrow at 1:00 with Superintendent Blat, which will be done by teams where there we'll receive the latest update on federal funding. My concern is because in our county especially, we have a a a high percentage of English language learners and looking at the scorecard, uh, we need help and if we're losing money from the federal funds, I'm wondering how the state might help. >> Well, I'll I'll see what Superintendent Blat and our federal programs folks have to say tomorrow during that meeting. Um, obviously, it's a great concern. uh not just here in West Virginia, but it's going to affect all of us across the country. Um I don't have those answers immediately.
047Uh hopefully we'll get some good news. Crossing my fingers there, but we'll keep you posted and I'm sure that uh Superintendent uh Bishop will do so as well. >> That's all my questions. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Um we're kind of running out up against it here on time. Um so there were only a few slides left there, but I'm I'm wanting to jump over to the department website real quick. Um >> I'm sorry. Before you do that, I see that um Miss Lori Ogden had a question on the chat and she says, "What two areas do school systems score the lowest on and what can we do to improve those areas?" uh on the balance. Well, let's go to the balance scorecard and um I'll be able to show you. It's going to be
048right here in just a second. I have a uh gentleman in the back is going to switch me over to the the state website here. >> Oh, yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. Usually, usually the two uh I mean attendance says >> attendance has been the biggest problem. um good lord for some time now. We've made some strides there uh in our attendance numbers over the last uh couple years out of CO. Um also we usually see um some defi some deficiencies in math. Uh that's one that's pretty common in counties. I wanted to bring up the website here because our website's been uh recently redone. Uh, and I wanted to make sure that everybody u knew how to get to the scorecard. So, if you in the ribbon there, you'll see the data and school improvement
049piece. Yeah. Click right there, please. And if you just come straight down to education data, and then scroll down, there's a couple various ways you can get there from here. You can go through the accountability system or you click on the Zoom data. uh either is going to get you there. And of course, this is our landing page for our balance scorecard. If you scroll down, you will see those attendance indicators over on the right side. Uh a lot of people uh look at this and think a lot of red is worse than a little red. It's a It's just a common mistake, but actually uh when you have a lot of red, you're getting ready to cross that line to the right and turn to yellow. It's the areas where you see little red
050that we have significant issues. Again, uh I wasn't here at the design phase of this, so don't kill the messenger. Um, so you see that attendance has been a significant problem and we've been talking to our superintendents and counties at great uh at great length about strategies and and I listen I take my hat off to our folks in the field, our practitioners out there uh that are literally going and visiting homes. um our our folks in the building who are picking up the phone and calling homes every morning to make sure the kids uh are okay and uh trying to get them to school. Um but attendance is by far our uh our biggest issue. And I want to make a point here. We went over this data. I think it was uh two
051Septeers ago. The the difference in students who are chronically absent, students who are generally present is about 14 and 18% respectively on our testing. Those kids that show up on a daily basis and uh benefit from teaching uh do pretty well. Uh those kids that are not in school uh are, you know, their proficiency rates are double digits behind those kids there. That's why the attendance factor is so important. If we can get the attendance piece uh moving in the right direction, all of those other pieces in the balance scorecard are going to benefit. So, uh we're pressing. We're putting a lot of resources in place both at the state level and at the county level. Uh so, my hats off to those folks. again uh again I mentioned there you see uh quite a
052bit of red in uh the mathematics side of things of course we know we have less and less certified math teachers so that's something that we're trying to work on as well um of great importance here on the left hand side you'll see a menu you can choose a school year and choose a district if you scroll down there there's a piece called methodology that's the book that you we shared with you guys and this lays out how everything is scored. Uh so whenever you see a red or you see a yellow and you're curious about that calculation, you can literally go to the methodology. It'll tell you how that's calculated. It'll give you examples of how it's calculated and you can see just how that works and how it has a resulting number. We
053can go back to the balance scorecard page. Go back. Yes. Um you'll also notice here u if you click on for example on track to graduate the bottom right hand corner it'll take you to the exact page of that methodology or the the exact methodology page where it discusses that item. Um, I was hoping to get into the guts of that a little bit more, but we're right up on six o'clock. So, I didn't think I was probably gonna get an extension, but I did want to make you all aware of that methodology page. It's something that's often overlooked. I think people get to the page with all the colors and uh they kind of stop there. I would get over there. Also, back on the um balance scorecard page, just above all those charts,
054you'll see that you can click and download the data set and you can do that for your county. And uh it'll give you the actual numbers. So, I think it download up for you up there. So, it'll populate those numbers for you. Um, and you can get a little better feel if you're a numbers person like I am, where where you stand, which helps you in your uh planning, in your goal setting when you want to improve by 2% or 4% or 6%. Um, I'll stop right there for now. probably crammed about a three hour or two hour session into about 58 minutes, 56 minutes and ask if there's any remaining questions or if you'd like me to continue. >> Any remaining questions? >> Well, Mr. Kelly, Miss Piner, I just want to thank you
055for being here this evening. And you know, as you mentioned, the Office of Accountability is not just for corrective actions and interventions, but it's also for support of continuous improvement with guidance and technical assistance. Um about four or five years ago, we actually requested a special circumstance review of our high school guidance because we realized that we had um you know some deficiencies and we wanted to adopt best practices and you guys were a great resource for us. So we appreciate that. >> That was actually uh before my time, but uh Miss Crryer was around and uh she she spoke at length uh about that process on our way up. And I will say um we would much prefer go that go that route and get up or get in a county uh on the
056front side of things so to speak provide support. Um and I say this to the superintendent. he reaches out sometimes and sometimes I reach out to him and uh but we try to work together to uh do what is best to benefit students and uh again if we can do that on the front side of things that is uh much much better for all of us. So but I thank you for your kind words. >> Thank you very much and you have a safe trip back to Charleston. So I know that's quite the drive >> at night. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you. [Music] >> Thank you.