001today. So, let's start off with 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, liberty and justice for all. >> Right. Roll call. >> Si. >> Yep. Mark. >> Yeah. >> Deb is here. >> Adam here. >> Cara >> here. Punk >> here. >> Yep. Amy >> here. >> Uh, public notice. >> Yes. >> Perfect. Thank you. Uh, mission statement. >> Mission statement of the Gaker Chapel School District is learning for all, learning for life. >> So, on to our consent agenda. This is um from our Thursday committee of the whole meeting. We have our Cougar minutes, the financial report, and our personnel updates. Um, want to recognize um, we have another big-time retiree coming up next
002year, Mr. Rick Schmidt, 34 years. So, the myth, the man, and the legend. So, congratulations. >> So, with that, I would take an approval of the consent agenda. >> So, move second. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. >> Public comments. There are none. So, we'll go on to correspondence. >> Nothing. >> All right. Um, staff and student rec recognition. >> I do have something. >> Okay. All right. >> I was on uh phone with Linda Huggden from the food pantry and she just just couldn't say enough nice things about our staff and our administrators for supporting the food pantry, all the drives that you do. Um, she says, "It makes such a huge, huge difference." And just wanted to thank all of you. Publicly
003asked if I would please bring it up at a board meeting. >> And I got a couple. So, let's I've got a wide paint brush here. Um, I'd like to recognize Etric Elementary for their special schoolwide deer. Correct me if I'm wrong, deer. It's drop everything in Read. So, a fun fun way to get kids reading. Um, I'm going to step on Mr. Schmidt. Athletics are getting into full swing. We have our dance team, boys and girls wrestling, avalanche hockey, and our OHA get swim team is kicked off. Uh the high school Jerry Awards. I'm not too familiar with those, but it's recognition of high school music plays and >> musicals. >> So they come here and they come and they adjudicate and give feedback and then give nominations. >> Okay. We had um we
004have five nominations from sister act. We have three for outstanding lead performance, one for outstanding supporting performance and two for spirit award. And finally, I just want to recognize the high school skills USA team members who assisted with the steam road show for our districtwide kindergarters. Anybody else? I don't have a specific one and probably all of our buildings can speak to this, but it's sickness season and so when we're underst staffed and don't have coverage, uh just a shout out to like my entire staff with being good about like I can give up my prep and I can go out and do this recess duty and like everyone covering when somebody's gone >> is the season. All right. So, with that, we are on to administrative reports. And it looks like it is the
005school report card. What we've been waiting for. >> All right. Um, you're going to hear from all of the admin team. I'm going to start things out and give you some information. Then they're all going to get up and speak about their own building or areas because they do all of the hard work there. Uh, and just before we start, I just a reminder, we talk a lot about this, but I just like to keep it in your uh in your ears. I've got lots of papers in front of you. I shared lots of resources. You may want to look at them. You may not, but they're there for you. Uh, it's a lot of information that we get and get through. So, I wanted to share that with you. So, you have at your
006fingertips. You have the slides there, too. It's easier if you look at them. A big old packet with all of the school report cards, the full report card. You can dig into all that data if you want. there at your fingertips. Um, but what I do want to say is is this year we're not exactly we're not comparing it's like apples to oranges, but I would say apples to oranges. I say like red delicious and Honey Crisp because as we talked before um DPI changed that threshold for what would be proficient or meeting expectations. But then you can read in one of those packets how they balance that in the equation for the report card, how they move some things. Uh but just want to be fully aware as we talk about things we know
007that there was some movement. We still compare. But a lot of what we're going to talk about tonight is going to be what we saw in this year's report card came out of last spring and how uh we as an admin team are reacting and what we're doing to help uh meet our mission uh learning for all learning for life. Um so you're not going to see a lot of trend stuff. I'll show you a few things tonight and then some of that nitty-gritty the the math and those equations and all those pieces. Um it's in there. I'm not going to spend time I'd rather I spend time talking about what we're doing right here with our kids. So, let's uh get into this a little bit. This is just some basic. These are things
008you know, but I feel like it's also my job to share with you. Every uh public school in the state receives a report card. Ours was released November 11th. We saw it about a month before that. We had a chance to look it over and see if there were any errors. Um Mr. Oliver, I hope you're not going to talk about it. We did. We challenged the attendance, the graduation rate for the high school. Uh we were correct. We made some corrections there. So that that improved from what we originally saw uh to what was released on the 11th, which was the day after the last board meeting, which is why you're hearing from us in December. Report cards are publicly available for anyone to see for any school district. So they're on the website.
009And just a good reminder, um sometimes we look at the the forward or the the school report card as like a test. It's our assessment and it's it's not a little bit yes, but not because you can see report cards are also have nonassessed things. We talked about attendance. We talk about grant absentes and graduation rates. All things you've heard us talk about. Um this year, um there's a little more of the course and program data, which is interesting to see how many kids are involved in music, how many kids are involved in dual credit, so you can compare ourselves to the state. That gives us good information. It's not based on a test. Uh it's it's just information that's been gathered. Third grade reading, that's that's kind of a new one I'm going to
010talk a little later. And then this is due to certain state and local law violations, things that have happened on uh campus. And if you look in there, you can see it. Um I believe I didn't get an answer today. I was hoping for one. If we give a ticket for truency, that appears on there as well. Um which which we have correct. We have given tickets for truency. So and then it's multi-year data. This year it's this year uh this past year and the year before. So back to 22. And then this year it's weighted a little more heavily. You can go way in depth in there if you want to. I'm just not going to tonight for the sake of time and your attention. Um so report card data is is goes to
011DPI um like forward sends it right to them and then we also take a snapshot cat's involved in that. They take a snapshot in the spring of our graduation rates and some of those things and they use that to compile it. Um and that information is available to you too if you wish to. So what's new? it was the updates. Um, achievement uh weighs heavier now than growth. Uh, you'll see some of that as a data we share that third grade reading. Every district had to report how many students are proficient uh in reading or meeting or proficient in reading. Uh, that ties in with that app 20 law and then we talked about those law enforcement numbers on campus. That's new on there. haven't seen that before. Um, and then the score ranging is
012new and I have a graphic that'll just give you a picture of that. So, here's that. So, last year's on the top. That should maybe look familiar. Your minimum score for fails meets u significantly. It seems they moved that bar slightly. You notice to exceeding that four stars now 71. It was a 70 in the past. This is all part of equations that they went through the work. And sometimes we wonder like who does all the math on this? Like who I found out when I was at CISA actually that I know one of the people in high school is one of the people who does some of this work and digs into the math and has minimum math degrees. So I do know those people do exist in real life. But you can see
013that there's a slight adjustment there just a little more to go up to that next level in each one of those. Sharing that with you for information. Also just reminding you uh only students who are with us the full academic year count. So if moves in in February, takes the uh forward exam, their data doesn't count any good that full year. And our data pulls from forward from that preac, which are freshman and sophomores complete. Um the ACT with writing, which is our juniors, and then the DM. Uh and we've talked a little bit about that. That's for some of our students with IPS 1% of the population or less. >> Um who just that that is the assessment. and then that snapshot where they come in and they look at our data, our attendance
014uh and all those pieces and they take a they pull that data. So that's how it all goes together and the report card is for every district in the state. So what's our big picture and you can see this on the front page of it. There are four areas and you're probably going to hear about some of these tonight from the folks over here. Um achievement, how well are we doing? Growth, where are we moving to? um our target group outcomes. So, they help identify our lowest uh 25th percent of our students. They're the ones who are saying, "All right, school, we need to do some work with these kids. You need to move them. They need to move." Um not every school has a target group. Uh you'll see on ours does not have
015that target group just because of the size of the school. So, there's just not enough data there. So, when their um PI is on there, if you look at their report card, it just has three section, but they know I know but I'm not stealing thunder. They know who their lowest 25th are. They know who they need to work with on there even though that doesn't work. Then on track to graduation, which includes that third grade reading, eighth grade math, absent graduation. So last year, this is what ours looked like as a district. This is a district book. And we knew we knew for us achievement. We always want to work on achievement. We want our students achieving. We knew growth gets us to achievement. Um and and our target group, we knew we had
016work to do in the target group. on track to graduation's fairly we did fairly well on that. So I'm gonna there's that last year. Here's a comparison. I said I was going to do many of them. So this is this year. So we took a look at this. Um and we're going to talk a little more in depth on that bottom right hand one because we did very well on some of those. Uh actually all of those uh in that bottom right on graduation. Our achievement as a district was above the state average. Uh, and our growth was right in there a little below the state average in ELA, which which is why we have a goal set for ELA as an admin team. And then our math was slightly above growth. And then that
017target group, what we can claim in that target group, lower left is graduation rate. 100% of our kids in that target group are graduated. And that's great. Uh, absenteeism is a little higher with our our target group. And you can see that achievement um our kids in that target they're achieving, which is why they're in the target group, which is why we know we need to focus on them, which is why they do all the things that they do every day of their focus. So, that's kind of the big picture, the big four that you'll see on there that we really dig into. There's a lot more data, but this is a great starting point. Um, one thing I do want to share new this year was how many of your students are um at
018grade level uh proficient or meeting um within our CE. someone else can have this data for me. And I I just think this speaks to the work that we've been doing as a district. Credit goes to people well before me. When we came back after the closure in 2020, Terry Fa said to us, "We need to be doing phonics and communicative awareness. We're missing it. We are not doing it. Our kids are struggling." And I remember saying to Terry, "We're trying to open up the school, Terry. Like, what are you thinking?" And she said, "This is what we need to do." And we did it. This is we're seeing the results now because we have had kids go through there and we were ahead of the curve I think in the area um when act
01920 came and they said to schools all right phonics community awareness and okay we'll start doing that now we had already been doing it for several years uh and so I think that's why we that's one of the reasons we see this number we also have great educators uh we constantly looking at our data but um we were we were ahead of the curve uh with with implementing this So when that 20 came, it wasn't as much of a push for us. So within our CISA, uh that's where we stand. So congratulations. I I give credit to Terry Font. When I see her when she's subbing, I'm going to tell her that again. Um and credit to all of our staff for that. This is a round of appl I I know most of the
020people who are curriculum directors in our other districts, everybody has the things they're working on. So, I don't put this up here to like point out someone else, but just that we've done some great work and and once in a while we can say to ourselves, hey, good job. All right. Uh, again, this is one that this is one just for your knowledge. I I said that each, you know, we had a change last year, but since 2018, this is what our final number on the report card looked like. Um, back in and then in 201920, you don't see one. We didn't have a report card for that year. So, that's blank. But this is just kind of how it has gone just for your awareness. those you just don't remember that exact number you
021see we're at chasing that 80 show you that in a second too because I'm going to compare to our neighbors again um just in our area because I get asked this question a lot well how are we doing compared to everybody around us well here's how we're doing um slightly higher than than some of our neighbors and then home and westm at the bottom I guess in my mind those are the ones I'm chasing and chasing that at least 80 um and kind of see what they're doing uh to to attain some of those scores. So, um we're we're we're sitting well, but we know that there's work we can do and there's no we know there's places that we can go with this. So, all right. And then as our district as a whole,
022I'm just going to share with you some of our celebrations and areas of focus. And we're going to invite these people up to talk because they know their buildings, they know their areas, and they're doing really hard work. So, uh, districtwide achievement, well, it isn't quite where we want it yet, was, uh, at the same or higher than 70.5% of districts in the state. So, we're in that top third. Uh, we know though if our mission is learning for all, learning for life, we want 100%. So, we'll start there. I showed you this in the beginning with the um, on track to graduation. Our third grade ELA score was 75.9 this year. The state average was 64.7. That tells us our third graders are getting the education they need to get. We're continue doing that
023good work. And the same thing goes for the math score, which Pete may be talking about. Sorry, Pete, if I jump on that, too. 86.6 state average 69.3. That shows us that instruction is happening is good. It's outperforming the state average, which is what we like to see where we need to grow. Um, we know our growth needs to grow. We know when we grow, we'll have better achievements. Uh, and we know that target group growth and achievement scores need to increase. We and that's something we go after. That's something we talk about in our data. We drive right down to the the names and the groups and who it is and what we can do and what we're doing for individual students. So, we talk about that. I'm not afraid of it because I
024know that the work that they're doing, it's not just a number. It's faces and it's names they're working with. Um, one other thing, uh, areas of low growth. We know we can focus on students who need more support, but we also know they'll say it's low growth if a kid is where they need to be. If they're a fourth grader performing at the fourth grade level, the state will say, "Well, that's fine, but if they plateau, you should still be growing those kids." So, we're looking at what do we do to enrich? What do we do to keep pushing further for those kids who have plateaued? They're at grade level. We're happy about that, but we can believe in further. So, that's something we talk about as well. All right, enough from me. We're going
025to get some of these face up here. We're going to go in a strange order because of the concert tonight. So, um, some parents of kids who are in band are going to go first and we're going to send them on their way and then Pete's going to go because he needs to be there. So, we're going to start with the middle school and then we're going to jump around. So, all yours >> hard work for this. >> Um, yeah. So, middle school, just give you a quick snapshot. Uh, went up about five and a half points. I think last year 72.2. So, saw some increases. Highlight. Uh Sam talked a little bit about our math growth. So the state average is 66. I see our math growth 81.2. It's well above the state average.
026And our achievement as well. The state average is 68.4 and middle school is 81.2. If you look back like three years ago, we're at 65. We've seen some really big increases in our math growth. We really dug in a lot of data. That math team's really going after that. That's really nice work there. Um other thing we're really proud of is our attendance. We know they're not in the seats. We can't educate. that became really big after coming back from COVID. So, we've done a lot of promoting and and attendance awards, those types of things. We've really seen our attendance decrease. So, you go back to 2021 22, we were at 25.3% of our students were considered chronic absentee, right? A fourth of our kids were were hitting that stage 8%. So, that's last year.
027So, that I mean, we've really dropped that rate. Another one that goes in there is economically disadvantaged students. So, students that probably need to be in there more than more than anybody. That same period was 47%. This year we're down, I guess. Last year, we're down to 21.4. Attendance data is a year behind because they pull it at the end of the year. So, as you're looking for that track, it's at 23 24 is what we're looking at. But that's something we keep constantly targeting, working with students, using our pupil services team to to call home, see how we can help kids getting get into school, those types of things. So, that's something we're really proud of. Um things we're going to work on this year is just some of the ELA. We're just slightly
028grew below the state average in growth. So 66 was our um our average and the or the state average and 64.1 was our growth. Our ELA scores are above the state average um but not as high as we'd like to and we'd like to outrow that state average. So the question is what are we going to do about that? Because our teachers are working their tails off. Everybody's working really hard. Just working smarter. Dug into a few things. Vocabulary was our lowest area across all three grade levels. We're really targeting vocabulary. We're coming up with plans uh vocabulary words for each unit, working with kids on those vocabulary. We're actually going to be presenting in January to our staff about strategies for all teachers how to work on vocabulary in all subject areas. And then
029writing is a big one. Um so writing on the forward assessment. They've added a different component last year. So there's a more higher percentage of writing on the forward assessment. And so we're working on utilizing forward assessments. the rubrics they use at a state level, we're bringing them back and using in our classroom and talking to the kids about how they can get better at their writing scores, how to how to adjust those, right? So, kind of just a real quick snapshot of the middle school. Any questions for me? Thanks, guys. All right, next up, special education. >> All right, so one thing I kind of wanted to highlight there at the top right or top left here is the population. So you can see we have an increase in our students with IEPs couple
030years ago 12% to 12.3 to 13.5%. So when we take into account the growth the achievement we are looking at an increased sers of IEPs too within the district and right down below that we're looking at the percentage of those meeting or advanced and what you can see our trend is also increasing with those students um in both ELA and math from 10% up to 19.3% and then in math from 2122 to 10% to 23.5 so almost doubling it or more than doubling it in those last couple years for students with IEPs and feel Um then we look at the growth. So this is a part of the IEP or sorry part of the report card um of students with IEPs. Ideally we want to see a 3.0 or higher in terms of that growth.
031Um you also need a cell size of 20 or more in your building in order to get this score. So where you see just growth for middle school, growth for high school, growth for the district, it's because elementary buildings didn't have a cell size of 20 or more to get the students with disability growth score. Our students at these buildings, we do have more than 20. Um so in the middle school when you look at their 2425 for ELA growth in um growth in math, we see that our students with disabilities had a 3.2. So that is above the 3.0 um ideal score and the 3.2 2 with the arrow showed that we actually achieved a higher growth score than students without disabilities. Um so you can see that ELA trend of students with disabilities
032has been consistent above three at the middle school and above students without disabilities. So just really showing that our specialized instruction um provided special education is really targeting that and showing that accelerated growth for our students. In math, we are at a 3.5 with a down arrow, which shows that although we're above that ideal score of 3.0, we were lower than students without disabilities. So, it's actually a 3.9. So, a lot of growth that Mr. Peterson had talked about with math. We're seeing that, but a 3.5 is still a very, very excellent amount of growth for students with disabilities. And that there's a trend there of 4.1 the past couple years, too. So that math in the middle school is also reflected of those with disabilities as well. Um our high school tells a little
033different story. So we need to work on growth at the high school level and Mr. Oliver will probably talk about that a little bit too. We can see our students with disabilities in both ELA and math are growing at that 3.0 ideal rate and are growing slower than our students without disabilities. So, we want to make sure we're still targeting um those students with disabilities, without disabilities in ELA and math and making sure we're hitting that target group, showing that accelerated growth. We look at our district there. You kind of see a combination of those two stories. So, together here, so our ELA and math, um 2.8 for ELA, so really, really close to that three, but lower than students without disabilities and 3.2 in math for growth. There's no arrow there because that is
034actually the same score as students without disabilities. So there so we're growing as much of students with disabilities and without the area of math districtwide. And you can see there's a positive trend there. So celebrations want to continue to advance um our students across the board between meeting and advanced and math. Um we have had that we want to keep going with that. We have a lot of really really great growth of students with disabilities compared to those without. We want to focus on that growth and continued improvement to close that gap. Then we have a slide here on our students. Um we in our district we call it ML or multilingual learners. On our report card you'll see English learners. So I wanted to make that language consistent there. So we can see um
035our population trend the last couple years 1.9 to 2.3 to 2.7 this last school year. So we also have an increase in our ML population. um our students here meeting in advance. You can see another wonderful trend from 21 up to the most recent school year in ELA 11.1 all the way up to 17.9. So we're in a really great trajectory there as well. Math 11.1 up to 23.5. So we're really hitting that targeted area, the targeted growth for those students in those different populations or marginalized populations and really showing um advancement there. We do want to continue to increase those standards and also to continue to grow. You will not see growth on this because again we didn't have cell size of 20 in any building. So we also don't have a growth score
036in this area. All right. And I believe Gailsville is next. All right. So for Gailsville, our big celebration is just high scores in the area of growth. So we're at a 74.6 compared to the state average of 65.6 and specifically in our value added student groups. So those target groups that we were talking about, we're seeing great growth of that population as well, which is an area we really focus. When we talk about where we're going to focus on improvement, we are still working on ELA achievement. So we're at uh 58.2 22 and 23 24. Now we're up to 61.5, but of course we want to see much higher than that. So in terms of what we're doing, we're really focusing on early intervention and homeschool connections. Homeschool connections is really a full elementary effort.
037So we did a lot of work with attendance last year. This year um we also did technology last year. This year we're really focusing on vocabulary instruction at home and just like general things that you can do in terms of language with your from a very young age so that we're doing things in both spaces. Um, specifically at Gailsville Elementary, we're narrowing down our focus to vocabulary. So, similar to the middle school, um, last year we focused in on ELA. So our PLC team work, our individual grade level collaboratives that meet with me, our guiding coalition work, it's all focused around vocabulary instruction and strategies, which we're tying in with the letters work that you've really invested in our staff. So that's one of our big lifts. Um, when I do observations, I'm doing them
038in ELA. We're having conversations around ELA. they're peer observing one another within the building or even in other buildings or other schools in the area of ELA. So, we're just making sure that we hyperfocus on that area. Yes, we're growing. We're happy with our growth, but we need that achievement to go up even more. We've done a lot of work there. We do, like Sam alluded to, equate it down to numbers. So, each team has their spreadsheet of target groups. So those students that are falling below the 50th percentile all the way from 4K all the way up. We actually have students specifically identified so teachers know who are they narrowing in on above and beyond what they're doing for everybody else and what does that instruction look like in just trying to have really
039focused conversations on that. And then we're also working on adjusting our tier one instruction which again is a whole um elementary endeavor I guess I would say. Um Sam's leading the work on that, but that is a big piece of what we all know that we're working on. So part of picking that newurric curriculum and Sam has done a really good job of making sure that we're going slow to pick the absolute best thing and really get all of those different stakeholders unique one that only has three um on our pie. But some good things from us that we had an increase in our overall score this year which helps us to continue to maintain our rating of significantly exceeds expectation. Along with that overall score we also increased in our ELA and math achievement.
040And for all of those that put us above the state average. Um we are hopefully attributing that to our tier one. We work through great bands. Um, maybe we only have one teacher during our PLC time. My teachers meet from K through two and three through five to try to have that vertical alignment and more teachers at the table to discuss some teaching strategies um for how they're using or what they're doing in their tier one instruction. So, and then also we have our sore time for tier 2 where we're working to reteach any standards or skills that haven't been met during that tier one instruction as well. And we meet roughly every six weeks to look at those sore groups as well. So, they can be flexible and just meet the students where they're
041at and what they need. Um, for our area for focus on improvement, our big one was the student growth in ELA. We have really great achievement but um our ELA growth was an area that we would still like to improve upon. Our math growth is fabulous. It is at 100 but our ELA is a little bit behind that. So we are looking into yes our target group like Sam had said that is our building goal but then also now since this data came out as well we're thinking about how can we challenge our students as well. We have that high achievement. So also thinking about our our students plateauing as well and do we need to continue to challenge and to push them. So through our staff meetings we have looked into some different um
042differentiation tools that way we can still continue to focus on our target groups but also see where can we push and challenge our students that are in that higher group as well. >> All right. So Temple is also celebrating an increase in our overall score. So in the 23 24 school year, we had a score of 66.9 which has increased to the score of 71.9 or 71.6 pushing us into the exceeding expectations category which is absolutely wonderful to see. Specifically um highlighting our target group outcomes. So our target group outcome score went from 51.2 to 60.7. And to see a jump like that in one year is pretty phenomenal. Particularly looking at that target group out outcomes achievement score. So when you look at a target group is the bottom 25th percentile of your students.
043And we moved so that initial score was 34.6 who were achieving grade level proficiency. Moving that to a score of 46.5 in just one school year is again something to be really proud of. um thinking about that growth for all students is where we're struggling. So the growth score has actually dropped in the last school year overall. So although we were growing students who were in the target group substantially we're looking at the entirety the entire grade three through five population at Treno we're struggling to grow those students. So, while we'll continue to work on that and focus on those target groups, also preparing to create that tier one change, what we're finding is our students are already at or above grade level. So, to figure out a way when a student hits that at
044or above grade level category, now how do we push for rigor? Kind of what Dan was talking about right at the beginning. So that's where we're looking at for our whole tier one approach for our whole group lessons as well here at Trunko Elementary. So we're proud of what we're doing. Still time to grow. >> Can I ask a question now? >> Yeah. >> Um and maybe this is kind of directed to everybody. We used to have an extremely strong, gifted, and talented program at G. Where has that gone with having to focus so much on these standards and ELA? Where has that gone? Because I've I've noticed some things like even in my own family that are a little concerning for those kids that are above grade level. >> So, we do still have
045a gifted and talented program that we offer various opportunities throughout the entire school year to different grade levels and they travel to different school districts for those opportunities as well. Um, I think that that's definitely a place where we're contin we had the highest report card in the conference. Um, we actually put it on the slideshow for our our schoolwide celebration. And ironically, before the end of the day, several other schools already knew who the scores were. So, our kids had taken pictures of of our bragging slideshow and shared it to their friends or parents that worked in other districts. So, that did catch a little bit of heat from some principles, but it is something to brag about. um graduation rates that Sam had mentioned um 100% with our target group 99.1. This goes
046back um three years. We I I won't take any credit. Sam worked really hard with the DPI for the last two years trying to correct that um graduation rate. We we were much lower um the last couple years and we just knew that wasn't possible and we had some coding issues um in Power School for some of our graduates. So that corrected that problem. So that brought us up to that 99.1 overall graduation rate. Um our ELA scores and growth went from in 2022 to 2023 we're at a 41.3. Our overall score for our report credit back then was uh 58. So ELA scores went from 41 up to 66 this past year. Um we so that 66 is actually the state average for um high schools in the state of match that. What do
047we need to focus on? Um math. You know, we we have shown growth in those areas, but again, that same average of 66. So, we're we're just below that um state average of a 56.5 with the state average being 66. So, um definitely areas to improve on. I will say our staff um these last couple years has been really buying into it very strong. Um noting the importance of not only the report card but everything that goes into that report card, all those assessments and showing the the students um not only the the some keys of how to take those tests, but more important in why we want those students to do well on those assessments. high school kids, it's sometimes challenging to convince a student to really try um on an assessment that they've
048taken. You know, they took it as a freshman, they took as a sophomore, now you want me to do it again, another three-hour test as a junior. It's not always the easiest sell in the world, but our staff have done really a remarkable job and our kids are stepping up. The the excitement when we showed them that we had the highest report card in the conference was it was really cool. I mean, they were cheering for themselves. That was exciting for for our students >> questions. Sorry. Um but we we've been talking about the report card since August or in October. Um and and one of the things I noticed, so 10, this is my 10th year in the district and the conversations we had 10 years ago, nine years ago about the report card
049was pretty much us looking at going, "Okay, we can do some work and moving on." And we sat in a room together the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we dug into our data. Everybody was sharing what they were finding and I go and meet with these principles and leaders and they say, "Okay, so I was looking at this. Let's talk about it." They're using this data as one point to help them know if what they're doing is the right work and where they need to go. They're also using other places. This isn't the only thing. They're using Ames data at the elementary. They're using their STAR data. Uh pulling in lots of things, triangulating data, uh and making sure that that the work that they're having their staff doing is the right work. And it's it's
050fantastic to be a part of this. And that's why I wanted them to talk because they're the ones every day doing doing the really hard work. Um the other thing I want to say before you can throw some questions my way and I'll they have all escaped now. So now the questions are um is that uh last spring I shared we shared some data on Ames web the elementary school and Mr. Olson had said, "Well, what do you need from us from the board?" And that's how I said, "Support. Just just keep supporting us. We just keep, you know, have our backs and and keep helping us do the good work." And and I still feel that way. The piece I add to it after reflecting on the work we've done this fall with some
051of this data, uh, the other word I use is teamwork. Um, I've seen our group gel in the last two years in the work that we're trying to do and where we're trying to go for kids in this laser focus on our mission and our just there like we are not taking there are things we celebrate on here and go that's good but we can do better and that's and and we'd like you to join that team and you guys get around together as your team that you're behind that as well and you're laser focused and and we're just collecting together. I want us to be the district everybody else wants to be. I want to look at us and say, "What are you doing?" And and what I've learned in this job is that
052it's it's us, your team, and our team, our team together pushing and helping and and following the path so our staff can do good work and our students can learn. So that would be my thing to you. it would be keep keep giving us that support and you guys team uh together and we'll be team will be one one big team that everybody would want to be. So that's mine from last spring. So questions in general or questions you want to throw back at the few of us that are still in the room? >> Impressive. >> I've been here I've been here a few years and this is the most impressive >> thing I've seen. Everybody, >> everyone from Michelle down should be commended and hopefully this gets out to the public and our neighboring
053schools and maybe our population will go up a little bit. Impressive. >> I'd like to firstly congratulate you guys. You guys have done a marvelous job. Um, you've Sam and I have gone down this road many times and and some of the rest of the administrators have heard me grind out of this before and and I've stopped preaching a little bit. So, uh, now I'm in the choir and again like what you had made a comment about Mr. What can we do to as a board? What can we do to um help facilitate the good work you've done? Now, here's the problem. Now that you've done this and you've done this extra achievement, you know where I'm going with this. Now, I expect more. I would like to see the whole district the whole district
054as it exceeds or significantly exceeds five star the whole district with you >> and I want as you had said I want everybody else in this area to live rentree for us to live rent free in their minds as to what we're up to. So Michelle and the whole team, most you guys are not here and that's fine. They don't want to listen to me anyway anymore, but you've done a marvelous job and I think you should graduate. >> What do you think the impact of the 4K on? >> Oh, that's a great question. The impact of 4K um >> Okay, great. So, so, um, I was meeting with some kindergarten teachers and they said maybe the biggest benefit of kids being in Cal Day will be that they'll learn about school and routines and
055when they get to kindergarten, they are ready to learn because they they've gotten into this environment and and they know what's going on. So, maybe not as much the academic piece of 4K, but the fact that we're bringing together into the school community and they know what it means and they to get up as a group and go to the bathroom and to walk down the hallway. just building some of those skills of being together and then they're ready to be learned. Way to go, kindergarten. Off they go. Did I steal? I'm seeing >> learner characteristics. Smiling and nodding. >> Learn character >> and then >> the assessment is it twice here. >> So the forward be once that's in the spring um and the ACT would be in the spring. So it's one snapshot.
056That's the other thing we we are very cautious like this is one moment in time. This is the kids depending on what they effort they want to make. Jamie talked more about that at the high school which is why we then pull some of our other data, our in-house data, what our teachers are seeing to bring that together. >> Yeah. And I don't want to discount the results at all, but I think there's a bigger picture here to remember is that there's more just >> that what I mean what we offer these kids and I think we do a really really good job of you know when you I always say when you go to a job interview, they never ask you what your test scores were. They said, "How do you handle this problem?"
057And I think we do as a staff and as teachers, you know, we do a really good job of that. And that can't you can't put on a screen and give a percent. So >> any other questions? Everyone looks like happy campers also. >> Yes, >> that means you're enjoying your work >> and our staff sees data that reflects their work. They feel good about their work. >> Good stuff. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Sam. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to Mr. Schmiden. Fall activities updates. kind of feeds into a little bit of what they're talking about with, you know, what you said earlier is giving kids opportunities to be more well-rounded and stuff. And I've got a lot of different things that I'm not going to I've got a
058lot of pages, so I'm not going to waste a lot of your time. I have a concert to get to as well, but on the athletic side, there's just a couple of things. Um, obviously our sports are uh some of the areas are starting to improve and get better, but I want to recognize Andrew and Batista and make it to the state tournament in our cross country. And our girls swimmers, we had seven swimmers from GE and the our uh OHA get swim team had their most successful season ever where they uh won every event that they went to with the sections. We didn't have any GE kids go to state, but we did have some members of that of that team. Um, on the uh co-curriculars would feed into making kids more well-rounded. There's
059just a couple. We got a lot of really wonderful things. Please take the time to read it, but there's one in particular I want to point out, the FFA. Um, one of the things John did this uh this fall is a thank a farmer. and we had um 175 snack bags for local farmers and I happened to be in uh in my office and we had a GE grad Paul Hstead call um one of the uh two of the students went to uh Peach Baron Camp and presented and we got a phone call. I happened to be in uh Cheryl and I were in there talking and he happened to call us and he just was so impressed being a former GRD living in Black River. Um that just kind of says to making our
060students more well-rounded and teaching them more than just the academics with all our different things. Lots of different things. Please take the time to read it. I do. Um I know that last month Todd mentioned our our uh Smiley over here, our our musical director. Um 1,400 individuals um showed up for our for for our uh our our drama and um they did a you know, as you could see in what we talked about last month, they did a wonderful job. We also had our focal point out of blue in our choirs. um we have 26 total in that who did lots of different things out in the community. And that's the one thing when you read through some of these you're going to see the community involvement um that has really spread out out
061through the entire thing. Um again um our OSA has really taken ground and and moving forward with our um health occupation students of America fund. Um I think Mr. ours has really taken a liking to to that and has gone out. But the two things at the end of this I really want to point out this fall we had 130 out of our 380 students in a sport. So that's 34% of our student population were involved in a fall sport. So that's pretty pretty cool. In addition to that, we had 424 participants in our co-curricular activities. not including the sports, that's just our co-curricular activities. Many we had students involved in many different things. So that really attests to what we're doing for our kids more than just the academics. We're helping them more wellrounded,
062giving them opportunities to get exposed to lots of different things. There are so many good clubs I didn't mention in here. Um, but please take the time to read it because our uh advisors do deserve that recognition and a pat on the back from from um all of us from the board on down for all the really great work they're doing. I just picked out a couple of cool ones, but uh everybody's doing a wonderful job on that. So, when you think of 424 participants in all of our co-curriculars for this fall and that number is going to go up because there's a number of them that were starting after the Thanksgiving break when I had all this to our forensics and some of the others. So, when you take a look at this, I
063think you'll be impressed with a lot of things that they're doing. >> Any questions on that part because I got one more part. >> I just have a comment. It's kind of a selfish comment. I want to thank you for spearheading the boy swim team. >> Uh, initially it started with one and the team is up to five. >> Uh, six. Five or six. >> Five or six. Yeah. >> So, yeah. >> So, another opportunity for for those out there. >> So far so good. Um, this weekend will be our last winter sport to start their competition as gymnastics. Everybody else is off and running. Gymnastics will be this this uh this Saturday. Um, you want me to go right into the next one? Uh, the next one is our co-ops. Uh we co-op wrestling
064with Melrose Muro for boys and girls. This is a two-year renewal, so we're up at the end of this year. So I'm just asking if we can continue um that relationship with Melmen. Our numbers fluctuate. I think last year Melrose was more than us. This year we're more than Melrose. Um that co-op is a good co-op because it allows us to fill out all our weight classes. We have 14 weight classes. If we didn't co-op, we wouldn't fill them all. And so that that really helps. Um it does help with our numbers and the interest in peing a test. We had a JV tournament at no this past weekend that we sponsored. We got also at no the second co-op um will be um kind of thrown out there as an adjustment. We haven't had
065anybody from CFC over the past four or five years. I think my first year was the last time we had one. Um, we're looking at dropping CFC. I've already been in contact with their with their AD. Um, and we're also considering dropping the Merles Maduro because we've had Arcadia that has reached out to us to potentially join. My concern with keeping everybody is it would bump us up a division in our athletes. That's not fair to our athletes and our athletes are first priority. um we want to give other kids opportunities but um so this is something that is kind of in the works. I've talked been via email talked to some of the ads CFC understands um the thing that I've also relayed to them is this is for next year each year we
066have to do a gymnastics renewal. So next year if it's just let's say Arcadia G or Arcadia GT moment we can address it or whoever's in this position next year will address it. Maybe somebody wants to be at or it brings somebody back. Um even though they might not be the co-op. Let's say CFC has a girl next year that wants to compete. She can come compete with us and she can compete with us JB but she could compete at the varsity. So we can still house the opportunity for kids to come. They just can't be up our scale. So since I put this out there, we have just uh one more thing we want to follow up with and that's um making sure that our numbers stay below that division one level having conversation
067with Melrose about maybe not being co-op next year because we have nobody from Melrose or from CFC this year. And like I said, past four years we have had or five years we've had no Yes. >> Questions on that? >> Look for a motion to >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, I would take a motion to two-parter to renew renewal of the boys and girls wrestling co-op with Mel Rose Muro and also adjust the gymnastic co-op for the 2026 2027 season. >> Motion by second. in favor signify by saying I >> I >> opposed. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um unfinished business does not look like we have any. >> Okay. New business. Approval of the 2627 school year count. Now, are we looking for approval or are we looking to
068>> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, we do need a motion on the 2627 school year or school calendar. So, that's there. Um, one thing to note on there, um, the March 26th in service is a half day in service. You'll see that's very nicely positioned right before spring break. So, teachers would all be done at noon that day. Um, but we are expecting another half day in August because we are getting a new um, student information system. Um, we're going from power school to infinite campus and we'll be asking our teachers to come in and do a half day of training on that new CIS in August. So, that balances out their full 190day contract. So, that's the only thing that's unusual in that um calendar. I did just toss the 2728 in there just
069for your eyes only. We're not going to approve that tonight. Just showing you that we're trying to always be working two years out. um just to be planning, helping parents to know if we're going to be having spring breaks, things like that. But at this point, we're just looking for uh approval on the 2627 calendar, unless you guys have some questions about that. >> So move >> second. >> Okay. So Mark uh motion to approve the recommended 2627 by Mark, second by Cindy. All those in favor signify by saying I >> opposed. Looks like we have a 2627 schedule. New high school courses. >> So your curriculum committee did look at these. I guess I can let you guys speak if if you want to make any comments. Um there are two courses. one is
070a uh history not history a >> social studies history philosophy class. >> Um and the other is a course that allows um students to learn about being really an educator and getting tech credit at the same time. Be an introduction to >> intro to education practices. >> So is that through Western then? Is that how that >> one of our teachers would teach it but they would get western credit? >> Oh, western credit. Okay. Okay. >> But you use the western approves your syllabus. >> Any discussion on the courses? >> Okay. With that, I'd take a motion to approve the new high school courses since. There's no question to approve that. Second, >> Sarah. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Same motion. We have a couple new classes. >> All
071right. >> Uh, high school science club overnight field trip. >> Yeah. So, this came up um after all of our other approvals. Science club is going to be heading to Chicago overnight, going to a couple of museums there. Um and again per board um policy um they need your approval to do that trip out of state and overnight. So >> move second. >> All right. So we have a motion to approve the high school four night field trip by punk. Second by Mark. All those in favor signify by saying I >> opposed. All right. Yourself was delegate for January 21st. All I need to know if there is anybody that's going to the con convention. Um if if we have anybody going, I haven't heard anything, but if somebody has suddenly changed their mind, um
072I would ask that they be a delegate. >> Is there any of that happening? It's okay if there's not. >> Yeah. >> Where is it at? >> And I guess in the future, every year, this is the one in Milwaukee. It's always in January and it's always the worst possible time of year for weather. Um, and it's very difficult for any of you with the job because it runs you usually leave Tuesday night and you don't get back till Friday afternoon. It's it's a huge commitment. >> Um, not that people can't come and go, but it's it's it's really a tough one to get to. Now, it's the best one for members because it's all really geared to you. There's so much of it about being a great board member. Um, but if that's something
073that down the road you're interested in, we really want to plan way in advance. >> When if we decide if somebody decides they would like to go, when do you when is the deadline to let you know? >> Well, in the future, really should let me know like in September, October, so we can actually get a hotel room that's close by. Otherwise, you're walking even further. >> Okay. >> In Milwaukee. But I just, you know, I have to throw this out here every year just in case. But if down the road anybody starts to become interested, just let me know and I'll make sure we get a decent hotel. We want it to be a positive. >> All right. So there's nothing there. >> All right. Uh community reports. We had our community the whole
074and curriculum. Yep. So that was courses in that um review dates for future meetings. So, we do have a special meeting on Thursday, December 18th to discuss the possible referendum. I don't know if it was communicated to the entire board, but we are going to be changing the procedure on how that meeting will look. Uh we're going to start with um uh a set amount of time for public comments, have the board discussion, and then allow a set amount of time for questions from also the public that will be directed towards to Michelle or Carrie >> or the board. Okay. Um, Thursday, January 8th, we have committee of the whole and Monday, January 12th, we have a regular board meeting and that will include a close session for the district administrator evaluation. >> Put that
075in there as a nice little reminder since you guys all have the session. >> Okay. So, with that, I would take an adjournment. >> All right, Cindy. Second by Mark. All those in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> You have amazing cookies from our guest. >> Check that out. >> Please take a cookie or two with you on your way. They look amazing. >> Redeem themselves. >> No sugar. As we know, >> you're trying to Is that what you said? >> I fail miserably at that one. >> Miserably. >> Really? And then I'm going to go >> and get