001Ask me a question at the end. >> It's just too bad that the that that became a law because it took some flexibility away. trailers. No kind of Friday. >> Yeah. I hear that table. that describes his entire high school. Because there right You got it this time, huh? >> Yeah. >> Taking off my hand at all. >> Question is, can you get it back on? inside the zone. >> I was still there. >> She was going to be here. All right, folks. It's 6:30. Let's uh call this meeting to order and we can do the pledge of 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. >> Roll call. >> Cindy. Mark. >> Deb.
002>> Adam. >> Kira. >> Punk. >> Todd. Amy here proof of public. Yes. Would you be the one to do the mission statement? >> Sure. >> All right. >> The mission statement for the electrical school district. Learning for all, learning for life. >> Thank you. Um item six, consent agenda. Uh we need the approval of the minutes and the approval of the financial reports which were presented last Thursday and personnel improvements with some resations that was make a motion for the consent agenda. >> Sarah >> second by Cindy. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. Motion carries. Public comments we have none. correspondence, right? >> Um, staff and student recognition. Um, I just have a couple things. I'd like to recognize the wrestling team for conference champs. Uh, congratulations Pete and
003your team. The dance team made it to state. And then um uh last one is recognizing um I had an opportunity of attending the last home meet I believe it was the wrestling team and the pep band did a co-op pep band with Melrose that they played at the home wrestling meet. So >> which is really neat. So >> anybody else? All right. Well, hearing none, we'll continue on. Uh, administrative reports. Um, February 2026, administrative reports, AGR update, >> Mr. Ruth, >> that's me, >> all right. Um, so twice a year we present to the board um, as part of our responsibility as DPI um, on AGR and how we use AR funds. And tonight, I'm just going to focus on two spots. uh not to give too much away, but I'm going to talk
004about the work they do in tier two and tier three and then give you a little taste of um Ames Webb, which is part of the act 20 uh because they're very involved in that. So, let's uh let's just dig in. Um to start with, I just I want to say as I was working on this and I look at our our pillars, um AG, I've connected with every pillar. So, student growth obviously these are our people who are trying to move and close some gaps uh and create quality achievement scores. exceptional staff. These are some of our best staff. They are they're licensed with a 16 or 17 with the reading. Um a lot of times they're our leaders who help other teachers learn what they can do in their classroom. So definitely exceptional
005staff. These are also um our our interventionists and our AGR um are the community partnerships. Last Wednesday, Trenolo had a day where they invited the community in to read to students and it was those AGR folks who were setting that up. in a couple months we'll do literacy night and those will be the people there. So they're making a great connection community and then just that financial and operational steward uh stewardship. Uh we're just we're being conscious of how we're spending that money that funding that we get from the state. So I just thought I'd share that with you that we kind of have a all four tonight as I talk about it. So what is AGR? We talked about it before. It's achievement gap reduction. Some of you have been around a while remember
006SAGE which was to help lower class sizes. This kind of grew out of that. uh we've had we've utilized AGR for 10 years in this district and it's really about closing gaps. Um and and that is how we use it at GE. Um and as you can see so it interchangeable we say AGR I'm trying to say interventionist more AGR not so much as the description of the noun but as as interventionist because these people are intervening they're stepping in. They're helping students grow um they're they're catching students up. So we use AGR funds, achieve a achievement gap reduction funds, but they're really interventionist and we really have eight and a half people who do this work in the district. So at ETR, it's a half a position kind of shared between two people. It's
007very interesting. Yo, and Triple both have three people. Middle school has an interventionist, the high school has an interventionist. Not going to talk about middle and high school because the AGR funding is really only through third grade. It's a K through three program. So, we have these uh and they help our students close gaps. But tonight, I'm I'm not going to share about building specifically about elementary. Um so, how our funds are used, I mentioned that in these in these elementary positions, these interventions positions, thought it'd be interesting for you to know. Uh there's that number at the bottom. $241,000 is what's allocated to our district this year. That funds uh as I was talking with Mr. It goes towards the salaries of those individuals. We use funds for those positions. I'll show you in
008a second some requirements for that. All right. So DPI says to us, we'll give you AGR funds, but you have to do one or more of these three things. We'll list on the side. You can use it for maintain smaller class sizes. I do know other districts who do use it to keep the class sizes lower. Uh when we started this program, we did that a little bit. we did utilize AGR funds but now it's it's specifically with our interventionist. Um the second one is the one where we really focus our work on and that's that onetoone and small group tutoring uh working working in the interventions. Uh in reading or math our focus overall for the most part is reading although we do some math interventions here and there. Looking at the elementary administrators
009we'd like to do more math. We talk about it. We know we need to do some math intervention. Right now our focus has been on reading because that is the building block. Um and then the other one is offer coaching for teachers. So helping improve small group instructions and teaching practice. We haven't done a lot of that. What we're finding now though as we've trained our teachers in letters and all of our interventionists are trained in letters. They are becoming our leaders. They are going into classrooms. They're sharing some skills. They're sharing things they've learned. Uh and they continue to be that for us. So indirectly we are doing that. We do know our staff works best for each other, but for the most part, um, it's that it's that middle one, the one-on-one and
010small group that we really utilize their interventions. So, you've seen this before, but I think it's good to share. There's it's uh there's three tiers. So, when I talk about tier two and tier three, they're at the top of the pyramid. So, that bottom green is is everybody. The tier one instruction we give in the classroom, everybody gets that, no matter who you are. And that should cover about 80% of students. And then we go to tier two. That's the next step. It's a smaller group, maybe 15% of students. Uh they're at risk. We need to do an intervention. We're hoping to maybe fix some things or fill some gaps and then get them back. So they just need the tier one. And that tier three is where it gets very intense. We're identifying sometimes
011that's what leads us to um a referral for special education. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes we do an intensive tier three and we work our way back down to build some skills. So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about tier 2 and tier three supports that our interventionists are providing. So just by the numbers I think numbers speak a lot of the times um in grades kindergarten through five. This is the number of students who receive either a tier 2 or a tier three intervention from one of our interventions. We also currently um kind of metric 52. You can see how it it divides out. And this is the interesting it's it's it's a beauty and it's a beast of our district. So each building has its own personality, its own needs. Sometimes
012we've tried to make everybody be the same. And then we find out that doesn't work because buildings have different needs. You can see kindergarten right now 22 kids are receiving intervention, early intervention. We're getting in there. We're trying to fill close some gaps. That's what that building needs. You look at Trent, they have grade three with 13. Okay, that's where their building feels that need that whole. That's what our data is telling us. So, um, this kind of tells a story about the individuality of our tree buildings and how we do things similar, but at the same times, we give buildings permission to do the work that they need to do, be in the places they need to be. And I'd say when I started as principal 10 years ago, we'd set a schedule for
013AGR and we would keep that for a semester or a year. We wouldn't change. We're like, you're in that classroom because that's where we decided. That's not how it is anymore. Uh, these people, it's fluid. If they work with a group of kids, maybe they'll have them a whole year, but sometimes we'll get some things going. Oh, okay. We don't need the sport there. We're going to go somewhere else. Uh their schedules can change based on what the data is is saying. So, uh kudos to our administrators who are watching that closely and helping those teachers navigate that. So, those are the numbers. uh you know about aboutund little over 120 which if we have about 650 kids in our K through five that is about 80 80% of our students are responding to tier
014one our tier 2 we're kind of on track for what that model looks like so I'm take it a step further so meeting I meet with our interventionist from the elementary once a month we have a meeting during our collaboration time and I said I really want to dig into our data what does it look like how are the students you work with in a tier and a tier tier two and a tier three intervention responding compared to their peers. So, uh student growth percentile is something that we use, we utilize. We want students to be at a 50 SGP. So, that for us means they're going where they need to go. And I pulled up three examples, one from each school. Uh the first column is the students who are in a tier 2
015or tier three intervention in that building. And then the other one, the class SGP is what that whole grade in that building has for a super percentile. Now in a girl 65s, which is great. It's above the 50. So overall as a as a class, those classes are performing well. They're growing like we want. And then you can see these these um students who are receiving those interventions are growing at a higher rate than their peers. And and we want to see that because we know we have gaps to close. So, we want to see our students and interventions growing more than their their peers. Um, and that's happening again. Now, there's some other data and I don't want to get too far in the weed with you tonight because I want to dig into
016a little more. We have some areas we're like, oh, it's not as is not as positive as this and maybe we need to go back and look at it. What can we do different uh how can we work with that? These are some of our successes here of what we're seeing in this intervention. Our hope is work with these students, we build the skills they need, we fill the gaps, and they don't need the tier two intervention. All right. So, this blends into act 20. You I pulled this slide again. It's a repeat, but I I like it there. It's in your packets. You can read about it. the whole work of ACT 20 uh and that the fact that if a student uh scores below the 25th percentile on our Ames web plus assessments
017that they require personalized reading point and this is where our district was set up in a great place with our interventionist positions when this law rolled out and I meet monthly with other curriculum directors in our SET and and they'll talk about how they weren't ready to respond. They didn't have the people they needed to come in and help with these interventions. A lot of them gave them to classroom teachers and we'll figure it out. Write a plan for your students. We didn't have to do that. We had a team. We had these interventionists who were qualified teachers uh who had that skill of vocabulary comprehension that could help build these plans and help implement some of them alongside the teachers. So, uh we're in a great place for that. So, there's the reading plan.
018I mentioned that 25 lowest 25th percentile. I'll give you some data on that. So, in the fall, I showed you the column on the left. These were the our numbers of reading plans and you see that does not apply for kindergarten they started they would have had everything there but um last fall fall of 2025 that that first column is how many students graduated from a plan from the spring so we're celebrating that we have students who we've done work with we've done interventions they no longer need the plan now they may not be where their peers are um but they moved out of the 25th percentile s continue to work intervention but we're moving them in the right direction. And then we had the next column in the fall, which was how we began
019planning. So these are students who um weren't before, but but they haven't been growing where where we want them to be. And so we created these plans. We jumped into that right side. And then in January, we did the assessing all again with Ames web uh and reshuffled things. And we have the column of students graduated from the plan. So from fall September to January, those students grew. Uh they didn't require that personalized reading plan anymore, although they may still be receiving intervention. I want to point out the zero for fourth grade. There's a slide coming up. Uh there are two ways for a fourth grader to move off a reading plan and the DI is still working on this, but these are the rules we're following. It's uh scoring scoring proficient on the forward
020exam at the end of fourth grade year. So we we don't know like that's going to be in March that we take that assessment and then we'll get the results at the end of May. Uh another one is to have a meeting with the family and the stakeholders and make a decision. Does the student do still need a plan or not? In some cases we're doing that. Uh Mrs. Sal I've talked about because other directors have done this. If the student has an IP to mold that together uh and have that as one plan probably you're doing the same thing. she um and then we have this final column and these are students who are beginning plans in the winter. Um we're starting plan uh 75 students there. Our numbers comparative to uh other districts
021we're right in there. Um other districts are seeing the same thing. Fourth, sorry, second grade being an area where we see a fair amount of plans for us this year to third grade. um in those fourth graders and as we talk about it we think more work we do with science of reading more we get that early intervention hopefully we see those upper grades have less that's our goal all right so third to fourth grade um from what we understand from the state is is they continue with the reading plan until they are proficient and we have some great things in place so that's right from the DPI but uh we're writing to support kids um summer school options Mr. Bo is working on summer school options and and some options online too that kids
022can do. We have a lot of things in place. Um and then having those AG intervention supports have been crucial continue to work with these students in fourth grade build their skills. So as we move through it might mean a student goes to fifth grade and has a plan. We'll continue to work with that student. Our goal is we're going to get them where they need to be. All right. All right. So, what are we going to do? What does this mean? As we work with our interventionists, four things that I kind of I believe came to the surface is we want to support in all of our tiers. Tier two and tier three I talked about tonight, but our interventionists are also working in that tier one um in in the classroom and that
023instruction and what that looks like and how they can support that uh collaboration, getting the team together and just and people talking about what are you doing in your building and what's working. Oh, and and your students struggle there. Maybe I can use that same tool just that that learning together. We're going to continue to make data div driven decisions. We look at our data. We'll analyze it and and move forward with our support where we see the data tells us and we'll respond accordingly. And then long term I I tell the the interventionist this makes them nervous sometimes like we want you to work yourself out of a job. We want to be doing so well that students we don't have many students need a tier two and a tier three support. in that
024phase that that lowest level that tier one we're doing great instruction um that that they don't need they don't need that intervention piece basically work ourselves out of the job so that's our dream we're always going to have students who need support there that's kind of where we're headed um I'll be back again probably in the summer and I'll I'll give you the end of this year data from AGR um this is something that that I do and then I upload code to DPI. They take our reports uh and they take some data from the administrators and that sets us up for another year. >> Okay, that was a lot. Anyone have any questions for me? Anyone stump me? I'll just ask the principal if I don't have the answer. They're my only friend. >>
025A lot of good things. >> So, what do you think or will you see as the programs to follow? Yeah, you're from 4K Next. I'm not going to steal any of their thunder because because they're wonderful people. I I I think all the things we're doing in 4K setting kids up to be ready for learners in kindergarten. I think the work our principles do in their buildings for that early intervention and when we we don't wait. It used to be like we wait for kids like, "Oh, they're going to get it. They're going to get it. They're going to get it." Sometimes they just get it and we waste the time. So now we're we're super reactive when kids aren't where they need to be and we respond. I think we're going to see that
026data through the upper grades. There's be less support because we're helping >> you think you recognize students maybe in 4K that is that too early. >> I would say that yes, I'm looking at that in 4K you sometimes have idea this this student might need a little extra help might need to be ready when they get into kindergarten. I think actually as I look at our principles, some of them have plans like we know this is what we're going to have to do in kindergarten to be ready to respond. >> Um most of our students are we're kind of past that postco phase that we went through. Um are we seeing less students than we did then or are we kind of running similar numbers? I think we're seeing less that are needing that intensive
027intervention. We've had all these kids in elementary now have been going to school. Now we get kids who move in come from different situations. We have to respond to them individually. But our students, I'd say that we're seeing come through. We don't see that slide or whatever you want to call that so much. We do. We're identifying our gaps. We're going to find where we as a district can do better to to do some things earlier. But I would say most of that elementary has a reason. >> All right. >> 4K is next. Is that right? >> All right. Uh, all day 4K presentation. Pressure is on. >> All right. So, we're here to talk about Olay 4K. Um, this is our first year doing full day 4K. So, we thought it'd be a great
028opportunity to talk the word a little bit about what that's been looking like for us here at G these last six months and answer some of the questions that you might have at this point. So, our four pay staff, we have Brena here from Etric and here from Gailville and then we also have Megan Tim who's a Gailsville elementary teacher as well. Britney Giri, Shirley Hirs, and Kylie Martin are three 4K teachers at Treble Elementary. And then Joy Ranny is our district early childhood specialed teacher. So she also works with the special education students in that 4K level. These are our teaching staff for 4K this current school year. So some of our vision with early childhood we're working on focusing on building that lifelong successful foundation at a very early young level um to
029work on their social emotional development, cognitive development, focusing on helping them develop those critical thinking, problem solving skills, those social interactions that build the foundation to become lifelong learners going forward. We want to look at researchbased practices. When you talk a little bit about curriculum, some of our behavior intervention, we're looking at research. When we're implementing these, even at a 4K level, we want to make sure that we're providing that first foundational experience here at GT for them to drive, excel, grow, excel, and thrive here. All right. Now, the big why why full day? What's the big deal of that? We've heard a lot of districts going there recently. I feel like there's been a lot of them in our area. So, it's great that we started it kind of before some others. Um the
030big why is that getting every academic right getting having more time with the kids to be able to really go deeper with some things than we could ever do before. Um we've add we've all added a math time which we've never had like an actual 15inut math time set aside. It's always kind of just been sprinkled in or some small groups. So, I've enjoyed actually having that this year. That's been really great. Um, having the social the social part is huge of the why getting those kids here longer. Um, also full day. I can speak to my own experience having so I have three-year-old twins and we are in the homeman district, but we are going to be open and rolling here next year. >> So, I mean that's that that personally saved our family
031like $20,000 in daycare. So, that that's a huge expense for my family and when we had we have an older child and then the twins were a surprise for us. So like that's something that we didn't expect going forward and so it's an awesome opportunity for my kiddos to be able to have school full day. I think they'll be ready for it. They turn four March they'll be really excited and yeah looking forward to having that. It's just nice as a mom to be a parent and I'm comfortable and excited about having for them to experience it. Um, again with the parent support, you know, that's just nice working with families to have that pressure. And it also opens up more spots in daycare because we know daycare is so difficult, especially in the rural
032areas to find daycare. So then with the four, you know, four-year-olds not coming to daycare, it opens up more. So this is just a cute little chart about our hours increasing. So last year we only had them for three hours. And to be honest with you, it wasn't even a full 3 hours for two hours for 10 minutes. But now it's seven. So that's four hours. over a year. That's 820 that we get to spend time with them and work on their social emotional their social skills. Those academics that lead into all those wonderful act 20 things. Um so those extended hours just really enhance the social emotional growth and achievement. So these are two examples of our schedule. Mine mine's the lame really white one. I didn't know I I would have added more
033color. It's okay. Um so um and then Lisa's is on the left. Correct. Um so I just want to emphasize last year when we had them for two hours I dropped. I knew I was going to do that. >> They came in and we would do morning meeting. We would do centers for an hour. Our Hagerty, which I will we will talk about in a little bit as well. Um we had snack recess and then they went home. That was basically our whole day with them. Had like one opportunity for like a lesson or a large group. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Like and it was so hard because I would do Heggerity and then I'd maybe read a story after and they sat longer than I really wanted them to. So, it's nice to be
034able to split that up now to have a 10-minute lesson out and then play for a while and move and then now have a little lesson. Go to recess. Now, we're going to have a math lesson, >> especially at the beginning of the year. You know, they're they're little. They're adjusting. Um, so I just want to emphasize now we have a full day with them. Um, so all those pieces are still sprinkled in, but like Lisa said, now you can spread it out. You can make them shorter amounts of time so they can focus better and they can get your message. So my um I love my schedule. Just throwing that out there for future reference. I love it. Um, so we start our morning with our morning meeting which is really cool with all
035day. They get a 30 minute special. Um they have three that they rotate through um throughout the week. Um we don't have specials at the same specials because of all those wonderful things. We do 15 minutes of hydr um like Lisa said, we get to do a math activity basically every day with them. Something I really like to do with my kids, we do fine motor activities every day and it's a structured time and when you come in my room, you know that's what we're doing at that time. But with it being all day, it's also balanced. You know, they're they're little humans. They're adjusting to the school. They have a 60 minute rest period in the afternoon. Mine's a little different. Over half my kids nap. I know that's not the same for the
036I had six I had six resting today. Like full-blown we laid down and they were they were asleep. So that and that's something that a lot of parents were worried about and have been very happy about that we do. Um I also want to emphasize in my afternoon we have an hour of centers where we rotate but then we also have kind of like a 30 minute after rest time too where we get to pull small groups and we get to focus on those academic needs or social needs that some might need more help with so I don't know if you um a lot of the basic safe things that Brena has in her day is in my day do um I guess I don't >> yeah but we do a lot of different activities
037within like our my morning I have two center times, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. And in the morning is my time to try to pull some smaller groups or work one-on-one with kiddos. And then the afternoon my center time is right after rest, which is wonderful because if I do have a couple kids who sleep, I don't have to wake them and they can continue sleeping. And it's crazy how they're still sleeping on everybody's playing. But then it's great because they can get that if they need it and then if they don't they're awake and so I really like having my schedule kind of like that after rest time. I do not not have as many sleep. But it it depends on your group of kiddos. You could have a group
038of kids that really need it and don't. It's I think it's valid that it's still there. We shortened mine up a little bit because it's got to go based on your class and it's not happening. It's not happening. So but It's wonderful that it's there. I worked really hard on my schedule this year of making it being like, "Okay, we're sitting, we're not. We're sitting, we're not." You know, I took that really openly made my schedule. And yeah, it's really great to be able to have more time to be able to like dig deeper and work with those kiddos. And in the afternoon, my um center time too is I've been really trying to work on more of those social emotional skills where I'm going to engage with the kids in play to try to
039they're not sharing or hey, what solution can we use if we're we're having a problem and kind of working through some of those things and then in the morning. But it's also kind of great because if I don't finish something in the morning, I got the afternoon. So, It's been wonderful. You know, we all know four pairs love crafts and more time for their their hallway crafts and all those wonderful things, >> right? And the what's wonderful too was we have flexible options for our kiddos. There is that half day um option because we know full day could be a lot. I as a mom whose kids are in daycare, the full day thing like I didn't bat an eye at that. My kids are away from me all day. But for a parent whose
040kiddo has been home with them and never been away from them, oh dang. Absolutely. That's a lot. So, it's nice that we do have that half day as an option if those families just feel like that's not enough. And we've been very open to letting families increase time and we'll kind of talk about that a little bit if needed. So, know that that option is also there. We've had um some definitely definitely use that. day. But yeah, here are the numbers on how many sessions we have and how many half and full. But so 91% are full day. So that's the majority of our students are here a full day. So Brennan just has one. Um I have one and Megan has one at Gailsville and then in Trunko there are five. Then we also
041have four students that are at Head Start as well. So they'll be they have a like 4K is included in start as well and then they'll go for kindergarten. >> Yes, there you go. >> So you can see the majority of the students even though we offer that half day option are choosing to come full days. Um there have not been too many that have chosen to transition to full days at this point. But in talking with the teachers, that'll be an ongoing conversation at our spring um February conferences to talk about starting to increase some of that time to work on the lunch recess routine, kind of start to build some of that academic stamina for a full day for next year as a kindergartener. Okay. So, I guess we could separate um in
042three categories kind of what we focus on in 4K. So our big one and I think every 4K teacher will tell you our big component is that social emotional developmental piece of it. So with all day we've been able to like Lisa said have those structured times to our day to really focus on it. So we talk a lot about expressing and recognizing our emotions being problem solvers. Uh with our specials they get to have wellness have wellness second two times a week excuse me. That's when our guidance counselors come to our classrooms and they have a structured lesson. Again, bonus, they use second step. Uh you'll notice there's a pyramid model on there as well. Something we use. I'll let Lisa talk about that in a little bit because she's our team leader for
043that. So then for language and literacy, we're building the foundation, you know, for all those lifelong learnings. So we introduce letters and letter sounds. We work really really hard on learning our names and writing our names independently and recognizing the letters of our names. Um it's really fun to see them start to recognize their peers names as well. That's been happening a lot recently too. >> Um and then he so heard you might have heard us talking about that is something that was kind of a non-negotiable for us. Uh it's the foundation of it's phmic awareness. So, it's the ability to hear and identify and manipulate the individual sounds and words. So, I call them word games with my our kids and they're just little mini activities we do. It takes roughly 10 to 15
044minutes depending on the activity. Um, and it's as simple as uh cat without the sound what's left. So, just simple things like that. And then math, you've been getting to do little lessons. So counting 1 to 20 I was going to say 120 was the first great thing that would have been a lot identifying numbers to 10 shapes patterns all those wonderful foundation skills >> you want to talk about pyramid model >> so then pyramid model is something that we just started implementing last year right so Brena and myself and surely the three of us because then the other two at that point teachers in trouble weren't here yet. And along with our paras got trained prior to last school year, think back. And then um and now we're making sure new staff is being
045trained on that too. But what pyramid model is, it's a framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children's healthy social and emotional development. Um somebody kind of said it's in a way it's sort of for young children. So it's like specifically early childhood recommended. And with pyramid model, we're learning how to identify and manage behaviors, feelings, make friends, follow directions, um some of those basic skills for just school. So that's kind of a little bit about pyramid. As Brena mentioned, yes, I'm on the like model leadership, I guess, if you will. And Joy Ranny, she's our early childhood teacher. She is like actually heading on it. She's the one who brought it up with the idea. We started that. She is doing an amazing job with that. Our um Head Start teacher um and right
046in Gail here um used to work for Pyramid Model. So Rachel, she's wonderful. Um and so she's continued to work with us still even though she's not technically working anymore, you will. But so it's great that we had that continued and we're really spending a lot of time being trained cuz um I think it was like three full days worth of training. So I think we were trained like a day during the school year then two summer days. So staff this year are just being trained like kind of smaller chunks at a time. But I think it's definitely worthwhile. It's something that all three schools are all on the same page with like because that's obviously tricky with buildings and needs, but we have some of those. Make sure we're all doing so staffing structure.
047Um, as we talked about, you saw the teachers that were listed on there. So, every classroom's got a teacher. Every 4K classroom also has a paraprofessional that is considered a classroom paraprofessional. So, general education 4K parah. And then on top of that, we also have some classrooms based on student needs that might also have a special education para. So depending on the classroom, there could be up to three adults, sometimes four if we have a speech and language therapist or an occupational therapist or early childhood teacher also supporting in that classroom depending on students IEP needs. So based on our ratios, there's about between 15 to 17 kids in our 4K classrooms. We could have anywhere from two to four adults in a room depending on the given time of the day and the student
048needs that the IEP dictates for. So between staffing, specialists, aids, teachers, um, and the ratios there, we have a good amount of adult support for these students in our 4K setting. The professional development, our 4K teachers are included included in our inservice days, our pyramid model that Lisa Bron just talked about a little bit with that. Um Joy does a lot of coaching in our 4K classrooms and she also has to look at the fidelity of the implementation of pyramid model. So she has to come in and observe and determine like are they following this pyramid model with accuracy. So there are fidelity checks with that and then she gives feedback too. >> So she's kind of like an internal coach. Rachel is more of like an external coach I would kind of say. Um
049and she we're all we meet monthly for the pyramid model for the coaching with that too. But it's an attempt to continue to develop our current teachers who have already had it now on our leadership team and all of our new 4K teachers and paras are getting that training in smaller increments. So like about a 2:30 to 4 training time six times throughout the years. They go through modules and they have discussions based on that. So really trying to hone in on that professional development of our young teachers here at that level. Um so 4K is not exempt from act 20 demands as well. So they only need to test with ASWE in fall and then in spring. They are not required by the state to administer Ames web in winter. So this is the
050data that 4K had to complete um through as testing its initial sound. So when I look at all of our 4K data, 94%age of our students were meeting that ASU national norm benchmark in the fall. We'll know in spring to see did that number go up? Did that go down? How do we have that as a comparison? And then Hor also has to test with letter names and letter sound fluencies. So there'll be additional assessments they'll have to take into as well. Um as a district we do do other assessments. They talked about the Hegrity assessments. We also do different letter sounds, letter naming, um counting, colors, numbers, shapes, things like that, too. So there's more of that district specific data that we present to parents at conferences, but we also have to conduct that
051um standardsbased universal screening at the 4K level under act 20. Um then we do family outreach. So we've got three different uh family outreach sessions here. So fallit orchards, winter with gingerbread housem, and then in spring we do a family picnic at Cans Park. um part of 4K is that we have to do outreach hours, a certain amount of outreach hours um in order to get the point 6 FTE funding for our 4K students. So even though they come full day, we only can get that 6 FTE and part of that requirement is still our outreach events. So those been really popular, really well attended. Um so we've kept those going forward with our 4K program this school year. We also do outreach packets monthly too. We send home like packets of different activities and
052things that families can take home and work on like as they want. >> We've also been sending home an extra one as like a snow day packet >> just in case. >> Yeah. >> So, some of our parent feedback here, parents really appreciate the nurturing environment for the kids and we've gotten really positive feedback on the full day option and rest time as well. Um, some areas to continue to look at is how we communicate with our families. So, we started to expand that a little bit more like our birth to five night we have tomorrow night. We revamped our 4K open house registration nights a little bit too to try to open that more to communication, parent feedback, conversation, and paperwork form filling out. We tried to switch that up a little bit this
053year, too. Um, and then we started to make it a little bit more well known about the half day option for families. So it wasn't I don't think as many parents knew that that was an option going into the school year. So we were a little bit more intentional at registration this year that this is an option and the parents were asking questions. We talked about what that would look like that it wouldn't have to be a commit to half day at the beginning of the year and stay half day. We can build those transitions in throughout the year. So we had a lot of conversations about that too. Um, some things that we're going to look at going forward is following up with those families that didn't have any schooling or formal daycare before
054coming into 4K to reach out to those families to see if they feel like they're developmentally ready for a full day of 4K and offer or explain a little bit more about that half day and then in the works of trying to expand that to full day option. So, just reaching out a little bit more between now and February into the beginning of the school year with those families. Um again the engage in activities very well attended. Our most recent one gingerbread we had over 200 families 200 people um RSVP that they would come. So we have about 90ish 4K students but then some were bringing one or two other adults family members special people in their lives with them. So a very successful event um and all of our events have been continued to
055be so a great transition here with that. Um, going forward, some things that we're going to look at doing again, talking with those families and reminding them about the options between half day and full day, what that could look like, helping them decipher between what maybe is best for their child going forward next year. Um, we are going to be offering a 4K jump start in the July summer school session. So, you may have started to see that advertised out with our summer school information. So, in that three-week July session, we just usually have done jump start to kindergarten the second and third week. Now in that first week for three days we're going to offer just a jump start to 4K still at Gailsville but for these kids who are coming into 4K and
056based on that attendance we will start to develop classroom assignments after that jump start day after we've seen them figure out kind of maybe some kids that mesh well that we can pair them up well up well if they'll advance socially or maybe some behaviors that we want to spread out a little bit to really address with our full intention there. We want to look at more movement and play and then possibly adding a PE special rotation. So right now we have music, we have LMC, the library time and we have wellness. So one thing a part of that movements and play is getting the kids up and out a little bit more. So looking to see how can we use some other specials um based on our shared staff if it's possible just starting
057to explore schedules to see what that would look like to give 4K um some PE opportunities. Right now we've got students that are getting OT and PT and even our physical therapist has said okay do we have PE and we don't have PE right now for 4K. So in some ways we're intervening at a very high level like at a special education level for gross motor skills that we could be working on and we're at that tier one introductory foundational level but we don't have P. So just something for us to continue to explore if we can make that work on a staff. um some upcoming events for 4K. We just had those registration days. Um we are about 80 or so 4K kids pre-registered going into next year. So this is very similar to
058where we were at this time last year. And then numbers start to continue to trickle in between now and August. So we're on par for where we are right now. Um but kind of one of those situations where we'll continue to look at those registrations and then staff according to those numbers. Um 4K will have a openhouse registration event at Head Start tomorrow night. So they have kids who are currently in their three-year-old program. Some are choosing to stay there for their 4K program, but it's also another opportunity to register for any other 4K students that might want to go to Head Start. We still count those students. So those are still get 4K students. We will have a Bright Beginnings family affair tomorrow night at Gailsville Elementary for any district-wide child 0 to 5
059years old. We started this last year. We had an event in each of our elementary buildings and it was grant funded through the BK5K grant. This year we do not have that grant. So the district is looking at continuing this, but that's why we're moving it down to just one site right now since it will be district funded. Um we have around 100 or so children, family members registered, pre-registered, signed up to be there tomorrow night. So, we have different stations that are aligned to ways to parent, developmental needs, toilet training, routines, um healthy eating, screen time. We'll talk about our developmental screener, 4K registration, gross motor play, sensory, so many different options tomorrow night. Um so, we're really looking forward to bringing some of our early families into the district tomorrow. again talking about
0604K registration and then also our child development screening date that will be for children where parents want have an idea of having them screen for any developmental needs concerns strengths and that'll be February 26 and then we have one last outreach event that'll be at Cans Park in Gailville in May at 11 o'clock so kind of a still full spring for us here in 4K so thank you for your support we understand it was a big financial commitment to move to full day 4K. Um, but it's been a very great transition as we work this through this year and staffing and support and we hope to continue to see the benefits, reap the benefits of the academic growth that we're providing now with our students as they get older. Thank you again for your support.
061>> Any questions for us? >> I have a question. >> Yeah. Do you have a breakdown of the expressed interest in the enrollment of each of the schools at this or each of the elementary schools? >> How many are like pre-registered right now >> in each building? >> Yeah. >> Yep. Um I believe there's 15 intric in 38 in Gailsville. 34 It looks like 4K is off to a good start. >> Yeah, >> thanks. Thanks to you folks. I really >> I really like your energy and your knowledge. >> Also, when I come over for lunch in Etric, now I don't have to go home for a nap. >> I can fall asleep if I go with dark green shades. curl up in a corner. It's right. >> It was hard at first. >> I
062just picture ahead to the first kindergarten how these students now are going to be prepared >> so much more. You know, there's hopefully going to be less tears, less separation anxiety. >> But that's okay. Yes. Yeah. >> Yep. Absolutely. >> Yeah. Sounds like a win-win. >> Yes. We're quo routine based when you're looking at just walking in the hallways, lining up, going to this room, going to lunch, going to recess, getting dressed, getting undressed. So, they have that many more opportunities to practice that every single day with multiple recesses, going to different classroom areas, specials, and lunch and recess, too. Do you foresee like a transition day? >> We've walked around and like said hello to our kindergarten teachers before. >> Yeah, definitely. And then if they sign up for summer school too, um that
063really helps to the jump start to kindergarten that every year. So, and then >> so um it's a little different obviously in Etric, you know, one classroom, but we do an ABC countdown. These visit kindergarten and they go out with Mrs. Ellison for a couple depending on >> what's going on that day. So, we try but yeah, >> I just had a question in regards to your schedule. I know Brena, you were saying, you know, I love my schedule. Let's not change it. >> I know. I know that. >> But but as I was kind of like looking at the different schedules and Lisa commenting on, you know, your kids don't nap, >> but looking at how different your afternoon schedules are. >> Like you, Brena, you eat lunch way earlier. >> Um, a full
064hour earlier. Your snack is spaced further apart. Lisa's is really tight together for snack and lunch. And then you go straight to nap, le none of the kids nap. >> Yeah. But you have recess and you have centers and you have reading, you have all that stuff in between which probably wear the kids out. So then they sleep. So I was just kind of curious how you decided >> what schedules to do and what's working and what are you going to see wanting to change for >> Yeah. Well, building are a lot easier in Gailsville just because we have a lot more recesses and lunches to kind of figure out. So first it's like okay when's lunch going to be and then I and when are recess and then I just kind of >> some
065of it is a staffing like when you're looking at pair professionals who are covering lunch and recess um and just the capacity that could be held in a lunchroom. So I think that's kind of what you mean with like it's like okay that there's one section versus that has 15 16 17 kids in it versus okay kindergarten in Gailville is going to have 40 kids. So, how many more kids can you also put into that lunchroom where maybe you could get more grades in a lunch band in Etric versus Gatesville or even Tremple when there's three sections of 4K? >> You just see it would be pretty hard to get kids to settle down immediately after going off to lunch. And >> that a little bit with like some kind of like movement isolation things
066after that transition out. >> Yeah. Usually when we come in, we'll do like a movement activity to get some wiggles out and then like a calming one or read a story or maybe watch a little something for a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, ladies. >> All right. Thank you. So, we are on to unfinished business. uh capital projects improvement plan. We had a good discussion Thursday, kind of came up with a general idea of what we're looking at. Um we will be meeting the 19th at Trump Elementary just to get some final questions answered, do a quick tour of the school, and hopefully by March we'll have the everything finalized and ready to go. else want to comment on that? >> Can you fill me in after the meeting? >> Oh, yeah. >>
067On Thursday. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was at the reading conference. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, >> so we'll talk after the meeting. >> Um, new business. Looks like we have nothing on new business. Uh, committee reports. We did have our capital projectment uh along with our committee the whole last last week. Um, other than that, I don't believe there's any committees. Uh, future dates, Thursday, February 19th, we have our special board meeting at Trump Elementary over the final special meeting for the capital improvement project plan. Thursday, February 26 at 5:30 p.m., we have a compensation meeting. Thursday, March 5th, committee the whole at 6:30. March 9th, which is a Monday, the regular board meeting. And then Thursday, March 26 at 6 PM is certified negotiation which is being rescheduled. >> Yeah. So those of
068you are on um I was just asked today if we could there's a conflict for several of the teachers um that tend to work with negotiations. So we'll work on rescheduling that. I'll get back to parent teacher conferences just live and it is a little confusing because all of our building levels have their conf but we'll figure it out >> and then if you could just get who is on which committee. >> Yes, I will send that out to everybody. So get that reminder that'll come up probably in your update this week. So, um, one other thing I'm just going to bring up, um, in scheduling our meetings, um, we do have that book that we need to have a discussion and make a decision on for the curricular in our curriculum. Um, that's been
069questioned and, um, just wondering if what would be a meeting where the board probably should talk about this. What meeting would you like to have that discussion or do you want to schedule something that could be done at a regular meeting? It could be done at that might be too soon. Your February 19th meeting >> committee of the whole in March >> committee of the whole you can't make decisions. So we can't vote at those meeting >> regular meeting for sure. I think >> regular meeting special meeting. >> Yeah, because I mean I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of discussion administrators. So >> the protocol we have a special meeting before the committee as a whole or no >> a special meeting before committee as a whole like at 6 o'
070>> up to the board we can't be >> I don't think it's going to be a whole lot of discussion. Do you think that we could just do it at the board meeting? >> Are we going to have any other huge topics come March? You might have your referendum. >> Would you elaborate before? >> I don't. >> I just didn't know how full the board meeting would be. >> Have that referendum. >> Yeah. Will that be a big discussion or will that be hard to hard to say on? >> Are we allowing public comment? >> There's always public comment at a regular >> but I didn't know interaction. Well, if the book discussion is at a regular meeting, there isn't >> that probably would be appropriate because board's really just making decision based on all
071the information >> you've been given >> and it's one parent. It's not a community. I vote that too. >> We'll put that on the March agenda. Thank you for that input. >> And all right, that I would take a motion to adjurnn. >> Move to second. >> Second by all those in favor signify by saying I. I >> I oppos carries. >> Wish your husband well. >> I wish your husband well. >> Thank you. >> He's home to my daughter who's a nurse. You know, he uh before the heart