001Good afternoon everyone. I'd like to call the April 14th, 2026 work session to order. It is 5:02 p.m. The members have an agenda before them. Is there a motion to adopt or amend? I'll second. Motion by Mrs. Hoy, second by Mr. McColl. In favor? Unanimous. Welcome everybody. If you're able, please join us for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you guys for joining us. We have several presentation items up today. First one is review of policy GAK1, criminal background check, with Mr. Derek Hershey, who's a regular here. Mr. Hershey, it's good to see your arms in better condition. We're good? Can you
002hear me okay? My arms are always in good condition. I think. Uh good to see you guys. Uh we are continuing to make our way through the G policies, and this week uh this month we're talking about policy GAK, which is for criminal background checks. Um so this policy was reviewed by our legal counsel. Revisions were made to remove what we would refer to as unnecessary and redundant language, uh while maintaining our safeguards. Um also at the bottom, we wanted to make sure this was not just a superintendent, but also the designee um could put these in place, and we have a um process that we have put in place with criminal background background checks that includes an audit from the GBI every 2 years. Um and we run that through our department, uh through
003the HR department. And so, um wanted to put this out there, and um see if you guys had any questions about any of the changes that were recommended, and then um uh allow Dr. Young to put this out for 30 days uh to be reviewed. I do have one question. Yes, sir. So, what's the logic behind scratching this for the first time that they're employed, they'll get uh what So, would a rehire not be subjected to that? That That was part of the redundancy, because if we hire you for the first time, let's say we hire you today, and then next year you quit, um and then you come back to work for us, we're going to fingerprint you again. Um so, it's not just the first time. Um it's we're Unless every time you
004get hired Every time you get hired, you're going to get a background check. Okay, so it's basically Correct. >> employed, period. Yes. Okay. So, we say when doesn't when does a background check become bad? The moment it's printed. Um it's not bad, but it's outdated, because anything can happen between then. Got it. We want to continue that process of background check. Okay. Questions? Chris. All right. We will set this on the table for a 30-day public input period, and um see you in a month. Sounds good. Thanks. All right. Next up is Lead Academy program update with Ms. Terry North. Welcome. Hi. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Give me just a second. Our condolences, Terry, on another Duke Blue Devil collapse in March Madness. You would bring that up now. >> Nah.
005Thank you. Just want you know we all feel for you up here. >> [laughter] >> I have faith. I have faith in Coach Shire, so. So, good evening, and I'm Terry North, and I'm a member of the school district's uh leadership development team, and I'm here this evening to talk with you about one of our leadership development uh programs called the Lead Academy. So, Lead Academy is designed to provide certified school members, such as teachers, counselors, grad coaches, MTSS coordinators, and others, and district-based staff members with tools and resources to enhance their leadership skills and abilities. Selection into the program is based upon submittal of an application and a five-part selection process, which includes a principal or supervisor recommendation. As you know, one of the goals of the district's strategic plan is building and developing
006individual staff capacity. Lead Academy is not just uh for preparing educators to become principals or assistant principals. That's a goal for some members, but for others, it's not, at least well, not while they're in the academy. It is more about providing an opportunity and support for those who wish to serve in a formal or informal leadership capacity through a variety of school and district roles that we have. We also have another lead program called Lead AAs, and that's for first-year assistant administrators who have never gone through our Lead Academy or the forerunner to Lead, which was Aspiring Leaders. It is a condensed version of a Lead Academy, but because they're really living it every day as the as a first-year AA. Each monthly day-long session, and we have 10 of those throughout the year, and
007they start in August, uh focuses on one of the four the first four tenets of the leadership profile. We don't focus so much on the last tenant, Develops Leaders, uh because they're working on developing themselves as leaders. However, throughout the course of the program, we do we do discuss some of the of our activities and discussions that might be useful to them if they're mentoring someone who has uh an interest in leadership. So, we do that some throughout, too. So, at each session, cohort members participate in a variety of professional learning activities, including hearing from and seeing school-wide, school-level, and district-level uh leaders model excellent leadership that helps ensure their students and staff thrive, to breaking uh down and analyzing the leader profile, to building a network of professional colleagues uh throughout the district, and
008to participating in activities to gain profess uh practical leadership experiences. I will tell you one of the favorite of all three cohorts, they beg for more, uh thus far, is when we invite school leaders, such as principals, our AAs, or instructional coaches, uh from the uh schools in the district, uh to share what I call school world scenarios, things that have happened to them, situations they have faced, um and then they give Lead members the opportunity to problem-solve how they would handle those situations. They don't tell them how they would do it first. That's part of the discussion later on. They let them sit in whatever chair it might be. So, this next slide is a compilation of the graduates from our first two Leadership Academy cohorts, and what we know as of now for
009this year's uh cohort three, who have been appointed to some type of leadership position within our schools or at the district office. Leadership growth looks different for everyone. For some, it takes time and a variety of experiences to build their confidence and skills needed to step into a leadership role. For others, timing matters, especially when balancing family responsibilities and other commitments. In addition, many school-based leadership roles have limited openings, sometimes only one, since we work hard to retain good leaders. Promotions are all often about timing in addition to um readiness. So, I've asked two Lead Academy graduates uh to join me this evening to briefly share their Lead Academy experience. The first you'll hear from is Elizabeth Hickey, who is a member of our first cohort. And after Elizabeth, we'll ask Cameron Stevenson, who is
010a member of our second-year cohort, to come and share a little bit about their experience. So, Elizabeth. Yes, sir. Is that better? Okay. Um so, as Terry said, my name is Elizabeth Hickey. I'm currently the assistant administrator at Kelly Mill Elementary. Um and I want to start by giving her a shout-out, because she's the best. She knows I would do anything for her, which is one of the reasons why I'm here today. Um, one of the experiences that I learned the most from and definitely enjoyed the most is exactly what Terry said, which is those school world scenarios. We had the opportunity to have the leaders from across the district at the district level at schools, various places to come speak to us and then we had the opportunity to reflect on those and figure
011out how we would approach that. That was so helpful because I cannot tell you how many of those exact scenarios I have now had to process in my current position. Um, and so without that reflection period, I don't know that I would have known the right steps to take. Um, so I was challenged and forced to think differently with those opportunities. We were also with that given the opportunity to network with district leaders as well as among ourselves. And that cohort, we still to this day in those three years have just grown and been able to celebrate each other as we have gotten experiences or life experiences. And so that's been a really neat part of the program as well. Um, so I began to understand that leadership is definitely not about having all of
012the answers. In fact, a lot of the times you never do figure out what the right answer is, but it's more about how we show up for each other. It's about listening and building trust. And trust is a piece that I learned through Lead Academy is a huge core value of mine. The title that you hold is not nearly as important as the space that you create for other people. And that collaboration and growth with both staff members and students is what we need to move our schools forward. That shift has had a direct impact on my own leadership. Since Lead, I've been a classroom teacher, MTSS coordinator, assistant administrator, and now transitioning to assistant principal next school year. I've become much more intentional about slowing down, listening first, realizing that when teachers feel heard
013and feel supported, they're much more willing to be open and curious and try new things, which is ultimately going to lead to better outcomes for our students. As a result, I now approach my leadership differently as a developing leader. Instead of stepping in immediately to fix challenges, I'm focusing on asking questions, partnering with teachers, working alongside teachers to find those solutions, and being more mindful about the relationship piece, which I think is why it's the first tenant of our leadership profile. And Lead has not only strengthened my leadership skills, but also just shaped the mindset that I bring to work every day. I'm grateful to be part of our district who values growing leaders at every level, and I look forward to continuing to support the program, Lead Academy, as well as finding other ways
014to grow myself. Thank you. You guys hear me good? Perfect. Um, I'm Cameron Stevenson, so I'm the graduation coach at Lambert High School. Um, next year I'll be an assistant administrator there. I've been in the district since 2021. Um, before here I was at East East Forsyth the entire time. Um, for me, um, Lead Academy, the most important thing that it did for me is like show me opportunity, right? Not just the opportunity that um, Terry and everybody that invested in the program poured into me, but also like to know that different opportunities throughout the district. Um, I think in my short time in the district before I went to Lead Academy, knowing what's outside of your school's bubble is hard to do when we have so many schools and so many opportunities, so many
015different things that makes the school system run. So really the district leaders, but also as Elizabeth was talking about earlier, how the school leaders really came in and poured into us, I know it helped me grow a lot, not just as a leader, but also my awareness of what is going on within the district. I think even more important than that though, um, what Terry's program that she's put together really does is like show a mirror up to myself as a leader as well. So really thinking through what leadership means to me and then how I can like take action in that as I embrace these new roles that I'm coming through. Um, so ultimately, I would say that Terry's opportunity as far as what she's poured into us, but also given us the ability
016to reflect and pour into ourselves, um, it's really made me ready for the roles that I'm coming on now. Um, and I think that's like as we're sitting in like interviews on this on one end of the table or as we're interviewing other people, I think we talk about people being ready all the time, right? Like, oh, they're good, but are they ready for this new jump, right? And I know for a fact that I would not have been ready for my jump to grad coach if it wasn't for the Lead program. And I would also go as far to say that I don't think I'd be ready for this next jump into the AA role if it wasn't for the Lead program as well because when you go into these new roles, especially when
017you're the young one and you're the new one, the big you're going to take a lot, right? Like that's your really your job. You're really trying to learn from everybody, you're asking questions, so you're doing a lot of taking. But Lead also gave me enough confidence, gave me enough answers to the questions to where I can give some too, right? So I'm not just on the I'm not just dead weight on the team or I'm not just the guy that's learning, but I can I can contribute as well as grow with my teammates as well. And I just know that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't go through um, this training. So I was super grateful for it, grateful for Terry, but it's a great program. Thank you. So we've also invited this evening
018Dr. Aaron Archambeau, uh, who's the principal at West as you all know, to share with you a principal's perspective, uh, of the program as he's had several staff members go Excuse me, go through Lead Academy. So Aaron. Good evening, everyone. Um, when Terry asked me about a month ago to come and speak about Lead Academy, I jumped at the opportunity. Um, since this Lead Academy's kind of formed from Aspiring Leaders into Lead Academy now, I've been involved in several different aspects, um, from the principal lens. I've been involved in the interview committee, reading the documents, everything along those lines, presenting to the group, been involved in different ways. From the principal's perspective, I think the biggest thing that we gain from this program is the ability to help our staff members develop in a way
019that we probably couldn't do within our building. Um, when you become a principal, one of the things that our charge is is that 10 and 5 of the leader profile is develop other leaders. And when you're a first year principal, you've never really had that charge before. You've developed teachers, right? And you've you've held them become [clears throat] better instructors or better educators, but developing true leaders that can step into these administrative roles or these support roles of the district office, never really had that. So when you're in that principal role and you have a program like Lead Academy that you know they're getting exposure to all kinds of things that they're not getting in their bubble in their classroom or bubble in in your school building itself, um, not only are they getting exposure
020to these scenarios that Terry and and Cameron and Elizabeth were referencing, but they're getting exposure to people around the district that they don't normally interact with. You know, high school teacher that's only taught at West for the first 10 years of their career, that's their bubble. Now they're in a cohort with elementary teachers, middle teachers, middle school teachers, other high school teachers in other communities. They're in there with district office folks. So not only are they networking and and learning other people in the district, but now they're their little scope that they thought of before, it's it's broadening, right? They're getting different perspectives. So when you talk about a scenario, you're talking about a certain topic, it's not just theirs. They're listening and they're learning. So you don't really have that ability as a principal
021in your building to do that all the time because again, you still have to do the things. You still have to get the stuff done. A lot of us schools have these leadership programs built within our school that we're trying to develop people, but it's kind of limited to what we can do. So as a principal, when I have people come and speak to me about aspirations, the first thing I bring up is Lead Academy. And when that information comes out, I know the people in my building that are interested in it and I go speak with them or an AP goes and speaks to them and says, "Hey, this is something that you need to look into and this is something that you need to apply for because we think it'd be a really
022good program for you." Um, and and we've reaped the benefits, honestly. I mean, we've had, like Terry mentioned, we've had several of our staff members that have gone through the program. And the biggest benefit is it's not just for people who want to become APs and principals. We've had people become ETCs. We've had people become instructional coaches, AAs, a variety of things because it doesn't matter what title you have. We're all leaders, right? But it's just developing them as leaders so wherever whatever their path takes them, um, you know, again, I've reaped a lot of the benefit from this program and I can't speak highly of it. So from my perspective, it's an amazing program. Terry does a phenomenal job and you can see all the difference from the people that when they first start
023in that program to when they exit that program and and just how much they've grown. So, um, as a principal, I can't thank Terry enough for all that she does for the program and for the participants and I can't thank you guys enough for allowing us this district to have a program like that to continue to pour into our people and develop that bench we need for all these positions. So, thank you guys and thank you, Terry. So to wrap up, um, I'm a lover of quotes. Anybody who knows me knows they're going to get a quote. So I have one for you this evening. The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises
024them up as leaders, and continually develops them. And can't thank you guys enough, the board here, for allowing us this opportunity to share this evening. Thank you, all board members, for investing in programs like our Lead Academy. And thank you, Dr. Young and Dr. Lowe, for always supporting these programs and supporting our Lead Academy. Can always count on them for that. So, thank you, and we'll answer any questions if you have any. Well, I don't have a question, just a couple comments. First, congratulations, Ms. Hickey, Mr. Stevenson, on your promotions. You guys are going to do fantastic. And Terry, I just like to offer up myself, Mr. McCall, and Mr. Grimes, if you need uh volunteers to demonstrate what not to do in the Okay. We can Trisha will probably do okay cuz she used
025to be a teacher, but the three of us can be a good specimens for what not to do. >> of what not to do. >> [laughter] >> You're on my docket. Appreciate you. >> Thanks, guys. Thank you again. All right, next up, Ms. Sarah Taylor, overview of student services. She brought the whole gang. They did a dry run of this in 17 minutes and 37 seconds, so we'll see. Maybe not starting. Okay. That's okay, Terry. >> [laughter] >> All right. So, good afternoon, members of our board and Dr. Young. Thank you for allowing our leadership team to share an update on how student services department is fulfilling our commitment to ensuring that every student in Forsyth County Schools is safe, connected, and thriving. I want to introduce our our presenters this afternoon. We have Amy
026Chain, who is our director of federal programs in student services. Cara Hudspeth, director of special education. Kristen DeBonus, who is our coordinator of special education. And then Lori Rogaski, our assistant director in student services. They are a phenomenal team, and I'm very lucky to be working alongside them. This presentation is going to highlight the progress and the data for the 2025-2026 school year. Our core philosophy in our department is working is to center around our ensuring that every learner can excel and reach their full potential by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to succeed. Our work is deeply rooted in our board's vision, primarily focused around the goal two, the learner experience. We advocate for a direct alignment between the Forsyth County Schools learner profile, our strategic plans, and our individual school improvement
027plans. Within our strategic plan, we primarily focus on two areas. Um area A, increasing student achievement and growth, which we are working toward a 3% increase in achievement and growth and closing the gap as measured by the content mastery in the progress in the progress in CCRPI. Area B, increasing student engagement. We are currently using tools and strategies that will help increase that cognitive engagement. So, to achieve these goals, we utilize what we call the multi-tiered systems of support, or what you may have heard as MTSS. This is our data-driven framework designed to align academics, social, and behavior supports for every student. So, the key components of the system, as you can kind of see in the circle in the middle, we look at what the data-based decision-making process, comprehensive assessments, professional learning, and coaching.
028The tiered supports we are delivered are typically in three tiers. We have tier one, which is that universal tier, that support for all students, which is the heavy work um that our teaching and learning department does. In tier two, we have targeted support for small group or students that need maybe some additional support. And then that tier three, that that where students need individualized support, when a student needs a high level of intense support. And as you see on the right, um we try not to say that our students are tiered, but the level of support that they might need in the different areas are what's tiered. So, a student might be doing just uh well with their communication skills at that tier one level. However, their reading fluency may need some more intense level
029of instruction. So, our goal is to provide the right support at the right time for every student to ensure total wellness and academic growth. Now, I'm going to turn over Lori Rogaski. Good evening. Um I'm Lori Rogaski, and tonight I want to share how our academic supports, our early intervention program, our remedial education, and English learner program help ensure that our students can successfully access grade level um learning. So, our goal is simple. When students struggle, the system responds early and intentionally, so every learner learner can stay connected to grade level learning. That support system begins in elementary school, where our early intervention program helps identify and address learning needs before gaps get larger. The early intervention program provides targeted supports for students who are at risk of not meeting grade level expectations in reading
030or math. And by using um I-Ready data, our early intervention teachers identify specific skill gaps, and then apply evidence-based intervention strategies supported through district professional learning, on-site modeling, coaching, and collaboration. On this slide, um we're highlighting some of the examples of our tier two and tier three literacy intervention, the different tiers that um Ms. uh Taylor just talked about. So, these are all grounded in structured literacy. They're aligned to the science of reading, um just meaning that they are evidence-based, explicit, systematic, and targeted to the student's need. Um and of course, progress monitored. To help interpret the data, um we're looking at the rate of improvement, which reflects how much progress students are making week to week during an intervention. So, the 1.0 would be represent a typical growth, but for our students, they are
031we're trying to close gaps. So, we want to see more than typical growth. So, in the schools that are listed um for the different interventions, I've listed the names of the intervention, if it's direct instruction, what grade levels it might apply to, and then that targeted areas. So, with that, we can see um that the improvement is ranging from either 1.4 all the way to 1.82, indicating that students are responding positively to the supports and making the accelerated progress that they need to close gaps. If students are not are falling below that 1.0, we would move them into a more intense tiered intervention. So, by identifying needs early and strengthening intervention instruction, this work supports our district priority of increasing student achievement and growth while preventing gaps from widening over time. But as students move
032into middle school, learning needs evolve, so but our commitment for targeted support remains the same. And that leads us to our remedial education program. Um this program supports middle school students who are performing below grade level. With the I-Ready assessments now fully implemented across middle schools, teachers can identify math and literacy gaps earlier and use data to target um instruction. For example, um I-Ready data identified students in middle school that had significant phonics gaps. And in response, we were able to um secure Title IV funding to purchase and implement phonics for reading across all of our middle schools, providing systematic direct instruction intervention to strengthen foundational skills. After just 12 weeks of implementation, we saw a 4% decrease in the number of students identified with specific with significant phonics gaps on the spring I-Ready diagnostic,
033moving from 12% to 8%. Um so, at the secondary level, this targeted support strengthens student engagement and helps keep students on track for graduation, um directly improve supporting achievement and long-term learner success. Which leads us on the continuum to our next program, which focuses on students who are developing English while accessing grade level content, our ESOL program. The English for speakers of other languages, or ESOL, is Georgia's state-funded language instruction program designed to support kindergarten through 12th grade students identified as English learners. Um the goal is to help students build the academic English needed to fully access grade level learning. In Forsyth County, our English learner population reflects a diverse and global community, with students representing 83 countries of birth and speaking 70 different languages, um primary home languages. And this diversity highlights both the
034need for strong language supports and the importance of ensuring access to rigorous instruction for all students. While language development takes time, the data shows strong progress. Our ESOL exit rate is 17.8% compared to the state average of 9.9. When a student exits ESOL uh from the English learner program, it means they have met state-mandated proficiency benchmarks and are formally exited from um language instruction services. We are also very excited to see steady increases in our graduation rates for English learners, rising from 80% in 2023 to more than 85% in 2025. And you can see the comparison to where we are in uh as a state of Georgia and how Forsyth County is doing. So, ultimately, the growth we are seeing among our English learners reflect how targeted language support expands across um access to grade-level
035learning and advances the board's goal of improving achievement outcomes for all student groups. So, together, all of these work under our MTSS, our multi-tiered system of supports, and collectively support our district strategic priority of strengthening achievement, supporting engagement, and ensuring every student has access to meaningful learning experiences. With that, I would like to transition to Amy Chang, our director of student services and federal programs. All right, good evening. So, for federal programs, we use the consolidated application process to communicate to the Georgia Department of Education how our district will strategically use federal funding to address the identified needs in our comprehensive needs assessment annually and to support the goals outlined in our consolidated LEA improvement plan, which is also called the CLIP. Through the CNA process, we analyze multiple sources of data to identify our
036highest priority needs for FY26 or fiscal year 26, which just means this school year. The key needs identified were increasing student achievement, strengthening recruitment, retention, and professional learning for educators, expanding family engagement opportunities, and addressing students' behavioral needs. These identified needs directly inform the development of our FY26 CLIP goals. As a result, the district has established measurable targets, including increasing achievement with the closing gaps of the on the CCRPI component, improving and maintaining our school climate star ratings, and continuing to recruit and retain our high-quality staff here. For fiscal year 26, these were the funded programs that we actually support within our department. For Title I Part A, that provides funding for economically disadvantaged programs and identified schools. Title I Part C supports the education of children who live in families of agricultural workers who
037transition or move frequently for income. Title II Part A supports professional learning for teachers and leaders and provides funds for recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and leaders. Title III Part A is supplemental funds for English learners and their teachers and their families. Title IV Part A supports a well-rounded education as well as student supports. And the grant is a competitive grant that we apply for every 3 years, and it helps to support our students who are identified as homeless. And IDEA supports our students with disabilities. I just wanted to highlight some of the um federally funded supports that our classrooms and our teachers receive. We have tutoring for eligible students during the school day, family engagement opportunities, academic interventions for eligible students, professional development opportunities for teachers and leaders, induction programs for new teachers.
038We pay for a second AP exam for economically disadvantaged students. We have Title I supplemental resources and supports, mental health services for eligible students, and instructional coaching supports with which we focus on student engagement in the classrooms um of teachers with English learners. Our English learner um instructional coaches were actually deployed out into schools where the schools had incorporated them into their action steps in their district continuous improvement plans. So, here are just some um highlights of data that we wanted to show for student services for this school year. We are continuing to collect effectiveness data for all state and federal funding programs and will continue to collect that data toward the end of the school year to make sure that we are effectively using these funds. Um we had 951 referrals for our school
039psychologists, which were initial evaluations and reevaluations this school year. Our EL coaches provide coaching uh weekly to about 220 teachers. There are approximately 2,996 students being served in EIP. Our EL coaches have provided professional learning sessions to about 1,292 staff members. We have approximately 114 ESOL students that are we're serving receiving um English language acquisition tutoring, which is supplemental to the ESOL program. There are currently about 713 students being served in REP classrooms in both the middle and high school levels. Um 3,266 students are being served in ESOL. And then um the last data point is actually in collaboration with teaching and learning um that Tier 1 instruction, but um with we had about 5,499 students that were identified as about two or more grade levels below on the fall benchmark, and 50% 57% of
040those students have um improved at least one grade level so far. So, with that, I will turn it over to the director of special education, my colleague Cara Hutsell. Um REP is the program that um it's remedial education program, the middle school and high school um remedial education that Lori talked about earlier. Good evening. Good to see everybody. So, I'm just going to give an overview of our special education department, and then I'm going to have Kristen come up and talk about some exciting academic programs that we are currently doing. So, within special education, these are all of our areas of focus, and I'm again going to do just a brief overview, and then we're going to dive into the area of instruction and intervention, but you can see we work on student advocacy, accessibility,
041educational programming, Section 504, and then dispute resolution and compliance within our department. >> Cara, well, go back [clears throat] to that. Well, I know your focus is on instruction. Where do you end up spending most of your time these days? We make time for all of them, Dr. Young. Well, you rehearsed that. That was good. >> [laughter] >> Well, I did. Um A lot of time on compliance, perhaps? >> We you know, we do live, unfortunately, in that reactive zone sometimes, just with all the new um AI tools [clears throat] and things that that are out there for um external people to to utilize, but we do make sure that we're allocating as much time to the proactive um fun areas that we like to spend our time in, which are instruction and intervention. But
042yes, we are definitely um feeling some of those increases. So, back to my uh regularly scheduled presentation here. So, in the area of instruction and intervention, we just listed some of the training categories that we've been able to provide to school staff this year. So, we do that in a variety of different ways. We have scheduled professional learning days where we get the teachers, um which we love, but then we also have schools just contact us to do personalized learning for schools based on their school improvement plan, which is great, too. Um so, those are just areas of instruction. For compliance, as you can see, although our overall population is is declining, we're not seeing that in special education or 504. So, we're seeing a continual increase with our students with disabilities and our students
043with 504 plans um at this point. From our office, one of our main uh responsibilities is to support school teams during IEP meetings. So, you can see we've seen a a significant increase in the support that we've had to provide as well uh for IEP meetings at the facilitator level, and then I support, as well as the assistant directors, um you know, over 100 cases right now of attending the IEP meetings and and navigating those. For 504, we have just over 3,000 students who are on a 504 plan. So, that is students who require a level of accommodation, um but they're not demonstrating the need for specially designed instruction like our students in special education would be. So, we provide trainings to our 504 coordinators. Every school designates someone to be their 504 coordinator, so
044we meet with them five times a year to just ensure that we are compliant and then talk through different scenarios for 504. As far as accessibility, that's really where our related services, so think speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, um all of those different services, assistive technology. Um and then instructional coaching. We're very excited. Next year, we've done some um reorganization within the department, and we are going to be pushing out a new framework for our instructional coaches with a focus of engagement. So, we're going to just be very systematic when we're going into the classrooms of our expectations and then our expectations for follow-up from the teachers as well. Um up in in your right corner, educational programming, we are supporting 292 specialized instruction programs across the district. So, those are all of our programs
045I talked to you guys about before um where students require that small group specialized uh support. This year, we have implemented our program refresh, which has gone very well, where we have rebranded, and we have new resources for teachers, and we're getting a lot of great feedback from that. We we're tweaking along the way as well. And then student advocacy, um thank you to the the board and partially to a grant from um Department of Education, we do have a parent mentor on staff now. And for those of you who know families or maybe you are a family with a student with um with special needs, you know how cumbersome that process can be for applying for different waivers and different um avenues for community resource. So, our parent mentor has been able to complete
04629 applications for families to uh support those community resource needs. And she's had well over 110 parent meetings just helping them navigate the various systems um that they they have to navigate there. >> [clears throat] >> Yes, sir. >> [snorts] >> 690 classes. Mhm. Obviously, those are just about every school. But I I think it's also a very heavy personnel lift, correct? I mean, that's uh each class probably has at least two, if not three, people assigned to them. Would that be fair to say? Yes. So, typically you will you will the minimum would be one teacher and one paraprofessional, but depending on student needs and then numbers, we have We don't really go by a formula because we want to make sure that we're individualizing those decisions. So, I feel like our human resources
047department and and the board, you guys are very um good at allowing us to do that. But yeah, minimum would be one teacher, one para. Many of them are going to be one teacher, two paras. And then support weekly from somebody in our office as well regarding instruction, behavior, those pieces. Okay, [snorts] so now I would like to introduce Kristine DeBonus. She is our coordinator of academic programs within special education, and she's going to talk to you a little bit about uh instruction and intervention. You want to talk about the SDIs? Oh, yes. One more slide for me. So, when we talk about instruction and intervention, uh we get this question a lot. Why do you have to have such a variety of different programs and um you know, why does everything have to look
048so different in in special education? And it's really our legal obligation. It's It's known as specially designed instruction. So, if you think about the student's individualized education plan, it's that I, that individualized part. So, we are required to to find research-based interventions paired with that special education highly qualified teacher to provide that intervention, and then we have to monitor that progress. So, as soon as we have data to suggest that that intervention is not working to promote progress, then we've got to look at something different as an IEP team. So, that's really um the why behind all of the different variations of instruction and intervention. Good evening. Sure. So, we're going to start with the um structural literacy interventions that we have in place. And um and again, we listed them in a chart. So,
049um one of the ones that we have is MindPlay, and it's a computer-based intervention. Um and with all of our computer-based interventions, we also couple it with direct instruction. We never want to say, "Oh, a student's going to be doing this entire intervention on a computer." Um so, we always make sure that we're going to take that information. We're going to use technology to our advantage. They're going to help us analyze exactly where the student is. But then, we value that the teacher is the one that's going to move the needle for our students. They are going to be the ones that are in front of the students that can actually help um educate them and also tie in that SDI, that specially designed instruction that Cara just mentioned. Um with MindPlay, um the average
050um growth for our district is 0.80 grade levels. But I wanted to put um point out that Poolesville Elementary has made notable growth with 1.8 grade levels. So, that's great to see. Um SPIRE is our next um intervention that we use, and that's all direct instruction. It comes in a kit. The expected growth for that is 1.5 years. And um Coming Elementary has really embraced this program. They've used it with uh many of their special education students. And of those students, 45% made 50% or more of typical growth according to the i-Ready diagnostic, which that just tells us that the intervention is working. It's carrying over once we do our universal um screening. i-Ready is another intervention. It gives again, we use it for our universal screening, but we also have a personalized instruction um
051piece to it. Typical growth for that is 57% and then I wanted to highlight Johns Creek Elementary who's at 215% um growth according to that second diagnostic that was completed. DreamBox Reading is an intervention we use more in the secondary level. It um moves from that learning to read to reading to learn. Um so, it focuses a lot on comprehension and vocabulary. So, it's usually our middle school and high school students that we use that. Um again, 1.2 years is um our average growth for the district, but Forsyth Central has uh made phenomenal growth with three with 3.6 years. And [clears throat] then last but not least, we have Wilson. And Wilson is typically used in the tier three, um but if as students qualify for special education, we want to make sure that they
052continue with that intervention. We don't want to just change something because they've now qualified for a new service. Um so, if Wilson is working for them, then we would continue that um even when they go into special education. And again, this is all in the alignment of the science of reading. And so, to finish that off, we have our writing program, which is Step Up to Writing, and it's grades kindergarten through 12th grade. It offers a lot of strategies, things that they can do in any setting um across special education. And it's nice because it follows them all the way through their career. So, by the time they get to high school, they're writing these longer essays, they can use those strategies that they've learned throughout the um throughout the years in school. Um moving
053on to math. Um so, math we want to look at kind of how we look at that um that that instruction. And so, we really use that concrete, representational, abstract progression. So, how do I take these big concepts and narrow it down? Um for students, we look at those fact fluency routines, um looking at scaffolds for the problem-solving, um offering visual supports when needed, um skill deficit versus performance deficit. Um oftentimes we see, "Well, okay, they're doing it on here, but then they're still getting a you know, an F in math. So, what's going on?" of looking at what is that deficit that they're really looking at and focusing on that. Um looking at any small group or tiered intervention. The ways we ensure growth is we just make sure that's always aligned to the
054um Georgia Standards of Excellence. We're looking at progress monitoring continually. Um we make data uh driven decisions, and then we adjust on that. So, we don't ever want to just say, "Oh, this is the program that we use that Miss Jones is using this grade level." We want to make sure that we're making decisions based on what the student's progress is. And then um looking at the intensity of the intervention, again, that goes with that specially designed instruction, SDI, that Cara mentioned. And then we still use the universal um benchmarks. We have a couple of supports in place, um i-Ready math, MindPlay math, and Vmath. And um and overall, just the teacher-led instruction drives math grow uh growth. Digital tools just reinforce. So, again, we never go to our teachers and say, "Here's a great
055easy intervention you want to use. You can just put the student on the program." We want to make sure that we know that the adults are the ones that will help make that um growth. So, social-emotional executive functioning. So, um what you guys have in front of you is from Axiom Learning, and this is for executive functioning. Sure. Um and it's just These are obviously very very small. In the classroom, they would be poster size or you would have, you know, students that they could have them in their binders. But this is just a tool to see some of the visual supports that these students can have. So, they've got the cognitive skills to be able to do it. It's just when they have a lot of information coming to them, how can they break
056it down and slow it down? Sometimes even adults, we use our own executive functioning methods. But Axiom Learning is something that will explicitly teach students. So, we just adopted it this year. So far, there's been almost 4,000 lessons submitted. And our leading schools for that are South Forsyth High School, Denmark High School, Hendricks Middle School, and DeSana Middle School. And again, we're only using that in the secondary level um for middle school and high school. And then Everyday Speech is another program that has been around for a very long time. Typically, our speech-language pathologists were using it. Um we saw a lot of value with teachers starting to use it. Now we have some counselors using it. Um this again goes kindergarten through 12th grade. Um again, with any of the social-emotional things, it's hard
057to look at that progress monitoring. So, um one thing we looked at was that spotlight behavior data that we that we record. Chestatee Elementary is one of our top users of Everyday Speech. So, by far, they're using it every single day across their building. And if I looked at the spotlight major behaviors from this time last year to this time this year, they have a decrease of 8.3%. Um other interventions that we have are um Social Detective Think Social. That's a lot for our students with autism to bring these really big ideas, these concepts, these emotions. How do I narrow it down? How do I really think through it? How can I you know, focus on those coping strategies? We use Five Against the Law, Zones of Regulation. And with all of our interventions for
058um any of the literacy, the math, social-emotional executive functioning, we have um a monthly meeting that we focus on interventions. And so, right now, we meet once a month and we're doing a cost-based and a performance-based analysis for them. So, we're constantly looking at it. We're looking at the research to make sure that it's um appropriate. We're making sure that we're spending funds how we need to spend funds. Not just this program's been in place for a long time. The teachers like it. You know, are we making progress with the students? And does that make sense? So, right now, we're focusing a lot on that social-emotional piece, and we're really trying to vet those out and see if it makes sense for us to continue with these versus others. And then how we measure impact.
059So, again, we've got the universal benchmarks that every student K through 8 does three times a year. Um if a student has an individualized education plan or IEP, they have progress reports four times a year. And then the students also receive an annual IEP, and that's where the school team and the family is charged with really developing present levels for those students, um determining what goals and objectives they need to work on. And then the team looks at what it how we going to do that. How what services are we going to put in place? What intervention do we need? What is that going to look like for that child? And then um overall, our intervention intervention progress, we ask the teachers to look at it monthly, and then at the district level we look
060at it quarterly across all the interventions. And then what does this mean for our district? Um we just make sure the interventions are aligned and evidence-based. That's our number one thing. Um we're trying to build internal capacity, so really building those teachers up through professional learning. Um we want to make sure our students are making measurable progress, and overall our work is not program-driven, but it's student outcome-driven. Do we have any further questions for our team? They They're a phenomenal team. I'm so lucky and blessed to work with each and one of each one of them, so couldn't be more proud. Questions? Do you guys not have any questions? Thank you guys. I appreciate it. All right. My My son came home one day and he's like he was little at you know, this is
061a few years ago. He's like, "Today I was in the red zone, but then I was able to go into the green zone." And I'm like, "Well, I kind of stay in the red zone, so I >> [laughter] >> I get it." Thank you guys. He's He's He's teaching me. All right. Next up is future agenda items. I think Mr. Grimes has a >> Yeah, I was um I wanted to make a suggestion maybe for next month. You know, we're getting ready to head into summer. I'm sure Matt's got a lot of big projects planned for the summer. And uh I heard through the I think I heard somebody talking I think West is getting might like I saw Dr. Schomburg here and I think West is getting a ton of work done over the
062summer. So maybe at our next work session we could give kind of an overview just of the big projects Matt you've got coming up and maybe the why behind them and we're going to be got HVAC projects and we'll save money in the long run. You know what I'm saying? Highlighting those kind of things. Matt, can you come tell us why we don't have any money? >> [laughter] >> All right, we'll get that added. All right, next up is executive session. Do I have a motion to enter executive session for personnel? I'll make a motion. Second. Motion by Mrs. Hoy, second by Mr. Grimes. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you guys. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys.