001Good. Um, good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is the construction support services committee. Uh, my name is Rob Traver. I'm the chair. It is 5:34 on August 23rd. Present. Did I say August? Excuse me. April 23rd, wrong a um present at meeting we had Albert Benahan Graalis and I don't see Mr. Woodson present at the moment. Um Sam, you'll give me a heads up if you see him pop up before me. Yes, sir. Please. Um and uh we have a full agenda and I'm going to add to the agenda. Correct. We can start with well let's uh first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes dated March 26 2025 moved by Mr. Males and seconded by me. Um, all in favor? I I that's approved. Add an item to the agenda. Um,
002a do I have a listing for this or do I want to make sure I guess it right? Brief correction. a a presentation and discussion for possible referral to the full board for the library refresh grant on sorryction SAR electronics library collection and second on that motion seconded by Mr. Benahan. Uh we'll add that to the agenda as the first item for discussion so that you can go home now. Um so the slide having added this item to the agenda. Miss Welsh, you're here for that too, right? Okay. So note that Miss F is here with us in person and Miss Welsh is here with us making a presentation on this I believe. and Teresa is gonna project this share the slide. All right. So, good evening. Um, as you mentioned, uh, my name is
003Lisa Baj. I am a librarian here at Bridgeport Public Schools at Park City Magnet School and I'm accompanied by Terresa Welch, also a librarian, um, working in, um, EST. I always get that mixed up. Um, we're both librarians and we're here representing um, our library refresh grant. It is a federal grant. The monies have already been allocated. So, we have the money. Um, this source that we are looking to subscribe to is called Sora and it is a digital library. Um and as part of the library refresh, we want to ensure that our students have access to reliable um resources that they have equitable access and for us to of course promote reading um and encouraging and uh championing for why reading is important. Um research as many of you may know is uh time
004spending reading positive positively impacts our uh students proficiency and as well as their achievement um goals. We have a long-term impact on reading um and there's a high correlation uh to achievement reading achievement and so economic status gender the found structure and even time spent on homework. So reading is super important. Um as we know sometimes our students may have um access to fewer books. Um so um there are certain areas where it's considered a library desert where students or families don't have access to books. So, this is one way for us as uh a school that advocates for libraries and literacy to ensure that our students have access to uh quality books and supporting their education as well. And just to hop in on there as well, one of the things that Lzette and
005I have been working with in conjunction with the IT department is working with Bridgeport Public Libraries to help remove some of those barriers as well. The librarians around the district do a fantastic job. A lot of them work with their local public library branch to get students library cards. And what we're moving towards is having a time we will be able to use the students ID as an actual library card. So what will be nice is um for any of you that remember having to bring your kids to the library to sign them up for their library card. You usually have to bring different forms of documentation, paperwork, and things like that. Many of the libraries that Lzette, myself and others have worked with have been really wonderful in terms of agreeing to by nature
006of in virtue of the student being in Bridgeport public schools, they've met the residency requirements and they've streamlined that process for us which has been wonderful. But now the next step is going to be using those um student IDs as actual library cards and that's something we're really excited to be moving forward with as well. So the next um next our our next point is um acknowledging or sharing out why digital reading is important. Um it's in it's essential in preparing our students. Um the increased digital reading. There's increased digital reading in colleges and careers. Uh standardized tests are moving more towards uh digital. Um and so now is the time for our students to build um and to keep a sustained uh their reading skills. Um digital gives us the power to deliver thousands
007of titles to our students instantly. So what we're specifically looking at is Sora. Uh Sora essentially is a digital collection of digital library. Um our students would be able to access um Sora through class link. So, it's part of our single sign on. They'll log in with their student uh credentials at mybps and the icon would be there for them to access um the this digital library collection. It's it'll be available on all of their devices. Our students have iPads as well as their um their laptops. So, they have access uh they'll be able to access it through both or all of the devices that we have using their sign and personal devices as well. Right. personal devices. So, um we can be on our cell phones, we can be able to use and read
008devices on uh read a book on there as well. So, um why digital with Sora? Uh one of the most important things is that it supports all of our learners. Um it helps supports our DLL learners, our struggling readers, students uh with uh disabilities, our emergent emerging uh emerging readers. Um our access facilitates access to the resources for our students as it's the uh books would be stored in the cloud. Our students have access uh 247. um they can be at home logging on and reading a book as well as being in school and having access to these ebooks as well. Um again supporting 21st century skills for our students preparing them for higher education as they progress through the grades. Um and in regards for our um benefit for us monetarily and saving in
009regards to stretching our budget um and allowing for students to have access to multiple um resources um we don't have to worry too much about damages or lost items or materials in regards to collection and borrowing the ebooks. uh some of the Sora features that we want to ensure uh to highlight um that students would be able to see staff as well uh that both our teachers and the librarians in our district um will be able to see reading statistics. There are achievement badges that badges that students will be able to to earn as they're reading through. We have multiple formats available as we mentioned uh offline access. So student might be online, they download the book, the book is on their device. So if they're somewhere where there's no Wi-Fi, that book is is
010there, right? We're we're at school, we download the the book while we're at the library and we're home and maybe we don't have Wi-Fi at home, we can still read our books because it's on our device, right? Um and the savings progress. So, I might start my book at school and then I uh I'm at home reading. I'm still going to be able to leave find where I left off in my reading essentially like bookmarks my ebook, right? Um and again highlighting that it's a single sign in because it's they have access through our class link. For any of you that are familiar with Overdrive, this is very um similar to that or Libby or other things that public libraries use as well. Um so part of the overdrive collection um and that students will
011have access to on our on the Sora platform is that they provide um a nocost collection that's often curated um by their digital content librarians. So there is like the Sora starter collection is a collection that's always there. Uh there are Spanish language titles. um we have books with the SEAL component. So this is a collection that is will be provided to us and there is no charge for this core um kind of starting collection. Uh let's see. So it's a fullervice digital platform. It you have independent reading. There will there are titles there that are curriculum titles. There are books for multi- language learners. There are several languages books available in several languages. There are professional titles that are also included in the collection and we also have titles that support special education. Um,
012typically the regular lenty period for a borrowed book is usually uh 3 weeks and um that's something that can be adjusted based on let's say if a a class is working on a project. So they might need that book for uh a little bit longer than that three-week borrowing time. That's something that the librarians can adjust the borrowing period so that they have that time for an extended uh that book for an extended amount of time and renew. Um so in how do we manage this collection? How do we um keep uh the books coming into this collection? So within Sora's platform is called marketplace and here is where um we choose the books that uh we want our students to have access to. Um we have as part of our collection the uh proposal
013that Sora has put together for us. Um, our students would have access to over 40 400 magazine titles. Um, 2100 over 2100 uh graphic novels, comic book uh not comic books like uh magazine comic books like graphic novels, right? And then it can also be not only like fiction but their non-fiction written in that graphic novel format which is tending to be uh something that students are like really it's popular right because we're able to grasp that content and understand in a way because of the way that the graphic novels are set up. So they'll have access to that. We have a cornerstone cornerstone biographies um that are um that will be available to our students as well as um highlighting like sports. So there might be uh biographies on athletes or just different sports,
014how to play those sports, the rules of those sports, history of those sports, that kind of thing. Um we also have in there they're called the phononics and decodables which are like the rookie readers, early readers. So our students will have access to those as well. And then we have the custom book selection. And so that's where um as a teen librarians are like okay we students are reading uh you know dork diaries diary of wimpy kid um all the um the goosebumps and uh wings of fire whatever it is that in this space is where those books are uh collected and and added to our uh platform for SAR. Um so that's in within there. Um a feature that we have is uh viewing insights where we'd be able to use this um for
015collection development. Like we can see where what are our students interests, what are they borrowing, how long are they on. Um and then we can decide on how we're going to manage the collection, what additional purchases would be made based on student use and interest. Um so we have those that data uh insight that's available to us as well. Um, and just to hop in, uh, Lette, do you want to talk a little bit about how myself, you and some of the other librarians, we've previewed this and from a navigation standpoint, it's very easy, um, for the students, for them to search by interest, to search for what things that they want to read. So, at our last presentation to the board, we talked about how important reading is. Lette mentioned it again at the
016beginning for those students to find the things that they want to read to encourage that reading behavior and grow it. This is a really easy platform to them for them to navigate and has a really wide swath of things for them to discover. So the next u uh piece uh is our overdrive support which is um Sora supports um our team in regards to collection development. One of um one of the uh features that is part of our um of our quote for Sora is that it includes uh teacher and um staff development. So that we have throughout every every year for the five-year duration of the subscription, we have professional development that's built in. So that that we typically that we would have um the beginning of the school year and those few that
017are spread throughout the months we'd be able to schedule professional development not only for the librarians but for all educators in our district on how they can use this encourage students to use it so on and so forth and as the grown-ups themselves use and have access to to e content as well. Um so professional development is uh provided within this and we have on Sora a team um and this here is the contact and there the list of the people that are um on board in regards to helping us in maintaining the collection training uh any content questions that we may have um any tech support that we may need they're wellrounded in regards to the support that they'll be able to uh provide Richmond public schools Um and this is um public library
018connect. This is something that Teresa had mentioned in the beginning in regards to Bridgeport public schools. um like uh several of our librarians have connected with the public libraries throughout Bridgeport um in maintaining a connection with the librarians and there's an even next step level where our students would be able to borrow ebooks directly from our platform connecting to the public library and borrow ebooks as well. that is down the line, but that's definitely something that is available and something that we're going to be working on making sure that students have access more access to good books. Um, and then that's the final Oh, I didn't say wait before I say that. So, um, I had provided to committee the total cost for this subscription for five years is $580,000. That's it. Beautiful. Um, and
019as I mentioned that includes magazines, graphic novels. Um, we have a core content of over 750 titles and then we have our custom book selection. Um, the the biggest piece is that year one because we're actually setting up the digital library and then it continues and supports and like managing and updating the collection throughout year three through five. I said this is also from the grant but has to be g specifically towards student library and books books and media for the students correct the same money we've been drawing from yes the dedicated pool has that pool been touched affected or anything like any of the craziness that's going on in this world no this this is specifically we've held true to the money's locked in there's nobody coming Nobody's got we have we have held
020true to um held true to the grant in that this is for our public school libraries. Well that that hasn't been the reason it's been taken away. So I just want to make sure that we're all we're still good. We have so I'm good. I have a more question about that but you finish what you wanted to. Um, so that was the the one piece was just that the cost is $580,000 for five years including our professional development for our library staff and and educators throughout our Bridge Public School District. And um, our last slide is our contact person. Christa has um, I've met with Christa um, that's our Sora representative and she's been great in regards to answering my questions and can I have an extension on uh, on the demo and I'm working
021on this. How do I change that? um how do I help the students find um so we really do have a supportive um group um and Christa has been awesome in um in helping uh getting this proposal together um and for me to present to you all this evening. Um let me put it let the record show that Mr. Medina has joined us at the meeting and saying was too small over there. Did I miss anyone that I need to I should note the superintendent is with us. Um, but I can't see. We'll show McKin then. Um, okay. Well, I haven't really gone through the rest of you, so I'm not trying to ignore the administrators. I realize in my haste to start the meeting, I didn't really do a full We didn't go around
022and introduce ourselves, but I figured everybody has business here when we get to it. But I out of respect to the superintendent, I decided I should recognize him. And once I was informed he was here, I didn't realize he was here. And I don't see any other board members. So, other than Dr. Saki who is our designated contact you know administrator to work with us. Uh I forgive you no disrespect. We'll we'll get to I just introduced him started by saying Mr. Mina is here. That was the whole point of my interruption. So let me finish my question on money which is how much do we have left in this grant? the total amount about um I can't I don't have that number. I can honestly I can get that number. Yeah. I'm just I
023and it comes from where? So this is specific to the library refresh point, right? That's the way the grant was was created, right? I understand it's dedicated this everything else. I'm not trying to pursue that. I'm not even trying to look to divert it to something else in the budget. I'm looking to see if it truly is secure. It is. That's my question. It's a It's a federal grant and this was something that we had applied for extensions on. In fact, um the spendown on this was supposed to be completed uh Lette by September, I believe. And we got September or this September. September. September. I'm sorry. This past September. No, we're Wait, wait, wait. The extension was already granted. We have to spend this money by September 2025. Excessive. So we have to spend
024the rest of it by this September according to the extension we got from the federal government. Yes. Correct. Okay. And we know we know in Connecticut already that extensions that were granted under the previous administration were taken back under the current administration. So that's why I'm asking these questions. That's all. Right. I'm not trying to shake anybody up. I'm not trying I just want to make sure that we we spend it before we lose it and that we don't lose it. um really truly is what I want to make sure because you know money's been pulled back. Yeah. From the federal government that was previously approved and you know that's out there that possibility remains as they dismantle the Department of Education. Um and money you know so I just that's why I'm asking. So
025I'm I'm trusting that we'll see you again this year. Absolutely. Good. Good. Great. have let me uh go to my fellow committee members. Thank you Mr. Trevor. Um thank you Miss Bucket. You know amazing presentation and I like it but I have a question because of it of the app. You know I did it. So when I'm trying to say this is my question this pro this program we have you know it's installed you know we have already guys show because I'm trying to look in the schools and I'm not going school show up. They say Brisport public school but another town and the name of the school we have another city. No I know I know but I want to be sure you know person. So we had a a trial which was specifically
026just so that um the library refresh team and uh could go in and see it through the platform of a student. Um and then we got to see a little bit of the administrative part of it. Um, but we I was able to go in and say I'm a high school student. Um, and then this is what's available and then I can switch it. So that admin part I have access to. However, when a student logs on with their credential, they're logging on based on like their profile. So if you're uh K3, this is what you have access to. High school of course has more, you know, access to other content. So it's leveled content. It's not it's not live because we're we don't have a subscription. What I was looking at and what we
027were able to use was on trial. Okay, that's fine. I just want to be sure you know that's trying. What's mean the number you have in your budget presentation? They say $19 $37. That's the students, right? Yeah. Okay. Be sure I see numbers in and get nervous. No, no, no. Thank you. But now I don't have no question, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Miss Man. Well, I'll piggy back on his question. That is not the correct total enrollment as of this day, right? Just want to make sure because I know that number somebody mentioned 197. Now we're thinking about 20. Okay. I don't know when this was made, but I Wait, I'm assuming that number was what what it was at the time of the submission and right that that was provided. Um yeah. So when
028you said September, Miss Via, September one, the end of September, do we know um is that deadline? Well, I was told September 2025. Okay, we'll get that make sure not beginning but the end and then what's the total thing to know and us what's the total money that we know? Correct. And we can always help each other out. Yeah. I just want to know how much is left and and you know the other question you already answered which is we're going to spend it this year. Yeah. As soon as we spend it the show we've locked it down and since it's dedicated we have to spend it on this. Well go ahead. So I see that there is a discount and that's already been applied to the final number. So for example in the all
029actress kids 750 plus titles for the five years it's 11,200 which will total 56,000 and it says there's a 20% discount. So when we look at this total before I do all the math later um that 580 representing of the discount rate of that 20%. I'm good. Thank you Mr. Creeper. Um here's the question I wanted to ask. um beyond the the specifics you have presented some amazing materials in front of us over the last few months and um it's like I have two two areas of question one is that um how is this different than the other stuff? I mean, other than the New York Times, which I understand is different, um, some of the other programs you've made have offered us all kinds of amazing choices and options with the kids, too. And
030so, I just was curious how would you explain to me and I was a teacher, um, what's the difference? Because I mean, these are amazing. And I I heard you mentioned I could keep track of what kids were reading. If this was the only program they were using, they would have read impact for me, but it's not the only program they're going to be using because I know we've bought other programs that have also been impressive. So, how how is this different? Why I know we've got the money and we're going to spend it and this looks like a good program and I trust your uh professional judgments. Um, my question Matt, but just you could give me a sort of lay person's explanation of what this adds to the to the portfolio we have
031of options to offer our kids. So, it's not a program in regards to like a curriculum program or anything like that. So, it's not that kind of a program and I don't mean it that way. Oh, okay. I just want to make sure. No, I mean uh you know the the the the uh the choices we're offering our teachers and students for reading. Yeah. Whether it's hard copy books and materials or uh you know digital um you've come in before and made other digital presentations beyond the times. Yeah. So this specifically for Sora these are ebooks. So this is expanding our our students access to electronic books on various uh subjects right so essentially the like the public library um of public schools right for if that makes sense um our other digital resources that
032we have for example if you think of encyclopedia encyclopedia the whole books that you so we have pebble go pebble go is geared for prek kinder through third grade let's say and think of encyclopedia that is like just right for that grade band um then we have and that supports research um and that's that grade band Sora covers a bigger grade band because now we have from kinder all the way through 12th grade and inclusive in there we have the additional supports that in that someone who might be a beginner reader has access to that. We might have there's level readers in regards to someone who might be in 12th grade but reading at a nth grade level will have access to books. They're just write books. Um so it's a matter of making sure
033like an expanse of our electronic resources um so that students have what they need to be successful to be good readers and all that good stuff. them. And if I could just add this um you know this is really providing an increased bandwidth width of things for our students to look into. So in terms of reading interest, this is digital things for them to be reading that's going to only further enhance the literacy curriculum. And again leaning into that digital literacy, this idea of how to navigate literacy in the world we live in. So things like um a lot of the people sitting around the table are going to be talking about the SATs and PSATs and digital assessments we've done. This will only further improve the student skills in that regard because it's going
034to help to teach them how to navigate those type of of programs, books, assessments, things of that nature. I understand all that. I I just was somewhat I without going back and looking at my notes as to what we've approved previously, it just seemed to me we had offered some pretty amazing digital choices in the past. Some of which I understood to be more textbooky. Um but some of which I understood to be non to be fiction. um and sort of the difference between that fiction and this fiction. Um that textbook and this non-fiction, you know, what's sort of how is this different than what we we've put out there? And you put out some pretty interesting stuff in the past. Um so I just, you know, it seems like, you know, I'm trying to
035understand the difference. amount that we don't need to get it done. We can always come and do like a comparison or something at the next I think that would be that would be worth it. We'll vote it to the full board but be for the full board. It would be useful to sort of list the things we've already purchased along with this so that we can sort of understand the choices we've made with the grant overall and how you know this adds or complements or expands or does what you all are talking about and I trust your judgment. I'm not questioning that. I'm just myself not quite following because it's just I learned this months ago over here. No. that and so Midi um I'm not sure who whether was here at the end um
036who created this numbers at the end the one that uh the the end which is actually uh budget proposal for the Brisb public schools 19,337 students um in the quote we know who created this who created this quote does Sora Sora represent him okay Um I gave them based on what the grants department um we have a per line allocation. So we're allocating for ebooks uh magazines because this incorporates magazines as well. Um that's that's what I was given as the per line item and that that number they worked based on that number. These are stored numbers. Stores. Yes. Yeah. So I want you guys to go back respectfully because when I do the math um for example it gives me the number. This is why I want to know who created it that we
037can says for year one is 11,200 year two XYZ right all the way to the five year that totals for example the line item all access kits to $56,000 for the five years and it reads fiveyear price locked and 20% discount when buying magazines and comics. So when I take 20% off that's 56,000 I get 44,800 and I did the same thing with the next line and the next seam down the next line which gives me a total of 564,040 but you guys are going to estimate here that they gave you guys of 580. So you want you to go back and make sure that they have their numbers right because going to this is saying that we're getting we're going to get 20% off. I understood your initial answer. So, let's be make sure
038I understood correctly that this number included a 20% discount, right? That's not another 20% to take off. Billy, well, this is why when I read the line, it's giving me that's why I asked who created this document price where they can't assume or respectfully unless it was done that way, which again, it could have been that that is included, but this says in. Um, so I want to make sure that we haven't made a decision whether we're going to include magazines or comics and you get a percentage off if you do magazines and comic. So this is with it. So that's the case. That's fine. I guess the different question I would ask based on what you is that my understanding is the 20% was built in. So that's here. If it's not, if the
03920% is only applied to additional purchases of magazine and comics, then that's a different and so we need that to be clarified. If the, you know, is there a discount built in to the price we have of 580,000 already built in that's suggested or is that just simply the sor price period? That's it. And then if somebody purchases magazines and comics in those three categories, uh, all access kids, 750 plus titles, cornerstone biographies, 172 titles, and cornerstone sports, 110 titles. I don't really see magazines and comics there, but the top two lines. I understand that. That's why I'm asking. I don't see it there, so I don't see why it would be listed there. Um, it would seem to me that if you're buying it would be in the top two items. what I was
040getting to. Um, so what does the 20% discount apply to? I guess do we get an additional discount or is that we don't talk for that, but they can check that you would get any clarification that when we do go to the forward and explain. Yeah. Yeah. Because uh I read it one way, Mr. Medina read it a different way and and clearly we need to make sure that we're reading it the right way. Um, we can definitely get that information and I've um spoken with my colleagues in it um and Lette, myself and them can work together to get the numbers to you and the comparison of all these products by Friday. Thank you. I said doctor. So, but again going back to my question on um you mentioned the reading statistics teachers can
041track who what their student use is. Does that go does that extend to some of the other programs we purchased or is that like this is only on the SAR stuff? So do we have similar uh uh um we have a similar option available with the other things that we purchased other than hard time as you know you can uh in in looking at data like usage say yeah we we have access to that. Okay. And then um um you mentioned 3 weeks borrowing time. Yeah. I guess I'm a little confused about what that is. These are ebooks. Are there only 10 ebooks and so if he takes three weeks and she takes, you know, there's there's none left when he gets to Willie, even though he wanted to read that one, too. Right. So
042like that that's one of the um with the ebook access. So we can have 20 people um borrowing and downloading the same book without uh getting like a hold notice or not available notice. Um because our district is so big the um the custom book selection that we have is so that we can have multiple copies out without having to have that wait I want this book and I can't because somebody else has it. But it won't extend beyond. I mean, there's is it unlimited uh checkouts, you're saying? Yeah. I mean, if there's a a new Wimpy Kid book that everybody wants to check out in the next week or right after the break or before the break because they're going to read over the break, thank God. Um uh you know, are they all
043going to be able to take it out or is it only a limited number they could take it out? it um it depends on um what we have available at that time that that that for example of a new release. Right. That's what I'm saying is we have to we have to go in and and purchase or add that to our subscription to have access to those. So like the collection gets managed that way just like we would have like at a bookstore that you get the books to borrow that. Does that make sense? So there's a limit there. There is a limit like so for example we I I can't imagine there'll be like a thousand copies of the same but if I can get the numbers in regards to but you and I
044both know next this week this week this yes this week because it's pork this week is is uh the book fair at at Blackoom I assume that's not the only place and so every kid's going in there and grilling over what they want to get and depending on what they have from their parents and they have bonus options and my class, they get a free uh coupon for something if they've been behaving with that certainty and as a reward, you know, they want to spend it. And if they're buying if there's a brand new whatever series, you know, I'm showing my age when I go to Limp Kid, you know. No, Limpy Kid is still hot. Yeah, I know. just saying it's it's been around a while, but I saw some new ones over the
045weekend that my granddaughter was giving as gifts, but uh there's just a if there's a hot new release and you know, I don't have the money to buy it, but oh my gosh, you know, maybe I can get it in service. Um you know, I used to buy them for my class library just so the kids could take them out, but I get one copy and then they'd have to like fight over who got it first. Um does this give us Yeah. And that's up, right? I'm taking notes to make sure that I can that I can address that. The other piece of it too is because of the connection with the public library. Um like if we don't have and they do the public library, they'd be able to borrow from the public library.
046So that's what that collaboration that connection public library. Yeah. Go public. We put that on record. We love Bridgeport Public Library. We're all for it and that's the reason. What's nice with the public library connection? Apologies. Sorry. Um, what's nice about the public library connection that we're working to build as well is the idea of interl loans. So, residents from Bridgeport, for those of you who are residents not familiar with this concept, you can borrow from other towns as well. So, if you're looking for that latest and greatest Wimpy Kid, um, Lzette and I can trade stories about, you know, trying to have as many copies as humanly possible and sewing them back together because they were so popular. But you can borrow from other towns as well. So, what's really nice is if we
047have a kiddo who really wants that wimpy kid and we have that connection through um Biblomation is the consortium in the state of Connecticut and maybe Eastston has a copy, Trumbull has a copy, Fairfield has a copy, they can actually ship that via CCAR to Bridgeport Public for us to get for that student. Um and I facilitated that for students at Beardsley when I was there. I know other librarians that have done that as well. So, it's really um you know that connection with the public library that our school librarians are working so hard to build is going to be a really important and valuable resource to have moving forward. And just to be clear, I I never developed my sewing skills, but duct tape works for me on most things. It does. Um are
048there any other questions? Yes, it's I don't know. at least you say something but I want to clarify if the student is out of town they give access you know to the to the website right yes sure as always our public school student they log on to their student student portal they have access to the resources list median n thank you okay um then um make a motion to approve and Um uh refer to the full board for the refresh grant of Sora digital library. So move seconded by me. All in favor? I I motion may pass and seconded. Seconded and pass. So thank you very much and subject we you know obviously in the board packet for Monday's meeting we would hope to see the clarification on the on the bill um and to
049the extent you can the clarification on limitations and would you like the comparison to become back or you want no no I just presented to the full board I'm comfortable that I think this is a worthwhile thing. I'm trusting your professional judgments and we'll let the full board decide on Monday, right? So other program just and then we Yeah. And then we want that comparative chart as to what we've already spent and move on and so you know we can ask intelligent questions about how's this the same or different than this one because right now I can't remember them all and I did not go back and research the minutes. This presentation they have in a package. Yes. Yes. and our back. Thank you. I asked to have it put in when I we were
050we were from just to be clear, we were given we were asked to put this to agenda and it wasn't clear that we were within the foyer limits. So instead of adding it to the agenda and find out that we had violated the foyer laws, we decided to add it to the agenda by a vote because this is a regularly scheduled meeting. So that's why we did it this way. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ley. Thank you, Miss Welsh. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you. And now, uh, can turn to the to the original agenda. We are on a discussion of black or African-American suspension rates and with more specific data as we discussed at the last meeting. So, thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion on suspension rates.
051all the data that we'll be discussing here has been uploaded or have these um items. We usually look or receive this date data on a daily basis. Um but we review them weekly and we deemer die quarterly provided is school level data did not request individual teacher data. uh should be addressed at the building level that would be this would be an an appropriate place to address that but this in collaboration with the building office staff. This is where you know anything that comes out of this discussion I think can then um you can follow up with the school team. Um the data was shared um all demographics and that specifically to black or African-American students. So as you look at your packet you see that um it does have um all demographics and I'm
052going to have um Dr. give us some of a deeper um dive into some of that data. type of discussion here. We we we have a question of of etiquette. Is it Dr. FGA or is it Dr. FGA Milo? Either Dr. This is Mr. Ben. And so we'll be correcting ourselves pronouncing it the right way and so we just want to be clear that I messed up Dr. Saku's name for a while. Um, but I want to make sure that we're getting names right. He's the same. I did. I think his name. Um, it is Dr. But I am my maro. I I can call Dr. You both part in this argument. These two Puerto Ricans having the argument with two Puerto Ricans. It's their culture. Cheryl as well. There we go. Thank you. That
053was nice of you. Thanks. Um, so you do keep me on my toes. Um, is what's the name of the file? Uh, it is called subcommittee. That sent to me. Absolutely. I apologize for that. One of the things I will say is all of our data is at the 417 most of it because that was right before vacation and we put this together for you. So just that you'll see that I have it off to um so thank you. I appreciate the time today. Um I did want to give us some background information as well. Um so if we go to the next slide, you'll see that this is currently as of 417 our ISS, OSS, and expulsions by grade. Um when we look closer at the expulsions, they are mostly in ninth grade with
05421 expulsions that have occurred in the ninth grade. Um with then seven in 10th, four in 11th and three in 12th grade. We had one in eight and three in seventh. So that's why you only see really the orange band on the ninth grade because they have the most. Um after that you see nth grade also has 426 OSS and ISFs. A little history. We looked at the state um trends for uh racial disparity uh and wanted to share with you that we actually are in tier one school right now. As of last year, we were a tier four in 2016 and 2017. And to kind of talk a little bit more about what that means, tier one is a low suspension rate and disproportionality. A tier four was consistently high suspension rates and most
055likely high disproportionality overall black or African-American or Hispanic Latino suspension rates were over 15% for two years or more. So we have made growth over the years um to a tier one and hoping to keep in that tier one for this year as well. So what is the standard for tier one? The is the over 15% tier four saying right and it's less than 50% for tier one and uh less than that for two tiers and this information can be found on ed site for the state. So next slide. This is the district suspension percentages and by race and ethnicity from 2019 four. Um you will see that our black and African-American students from 2019 2020 it was at 13.5%. And last year we end uh ended at 11.8. There hasn't been a great dip,
056but it has been a dip, which is what has also led to us being in that tier one category. Um, with our Hispanic and Latino Latino, of any raise, you will see we were at 8% in 2019 2020 and then last year we were at 6.4%. um granted 2020 2021 is low due to um pandemic and us being out of school at that time. Um so there has been uh change and progression over time and our objective is to continue that moving in the right direction over the next this year and yes if you go back to the slide we mentioned with the tier four that is higher that will be the number will be higher than 15% correct greater than 15% recent years in I'm sorry in two recent years So, two years in
057a row. Okay, that's what that means. When you say that I see three red with the T4 um tier four, which is 16, 17, 17, 18, 19, I mean 18 and 19. So that's I see three years there. Then I see two years is tier two. What does tier two represent? Tier two is consistently disportionality. not in tier four or three then either black or African-American or Hispanic Latino um risk is at less than two and then I see tier 1 22 23 like you said and 23 24 that we're tier one and it means it's lower than 15%. Yes. Low low suspension rates and disproportionality is what the state says. Yep. But you're saying, I just want to make sure I clarify because higher than 15% is uh tier 4. Tier one is under
05815%. Let me read that. I want to make sure I have it correct. That is correct. Okay. Because I'm seeing on the next sheet that you opened up the next one, the district suspension percentage and by race in the city, I seeing 2122. It is at 11.1. And when I and that's under 15, but then I'm seeing 2021 2122 as a tier two because you have to be out of that red for two years. You have to be out of the red tier for two years. But we are out of that red two year because you got 19 and 20 21 20 and 21 and that is 21 and 22. So red was 18 and 19. Go back on this sheet here. Correct. I'm just trying to follow you. Get trying to learn. So you
059said two years and I'm seeing one year here, one year here. I'm guessing the two years weren't counted because of maybe because of co Yeah. Um that's true. I'm not looking at I know I hear your question. And just looking at the numbers and thinking that you're looking at the 1920 2021 years, they were the numbers were at uh diminished because of co Yeah. And they do also include a um comparison to uh suspensions of white students and that is included in that information. I can send you the methodology sheet as well that explains this. um and that if you they divide the number the suspension rate by the number of white student suspensions as well. So I can send this methodology sheet to you. So I would just respectfully I would have loved to
060have seen is on the sheet before and to the chair to the chair um 16 and 17 18 and 19 we don't have it in here. So I would have loved to have seen that and then we can compare what we're looking at kind of like parallel because I don't have it. Uh so that's why you know I'll have more brushing because of that because I'm I'm not seeing the numbers when I see it here 19 to 20 23 to 24 on the second sheet we're always under 15 but it doesn't reflect over here. I can't see 16 17 18 and 19. Um, but for the sake of this discussion tonight, I would agree with Mr. Medina, it would be interesting to see a few more years before CO to see what the history was
061before CO since we have two maybe three statistically influenced years here by CO. um if we would want to see more but tonight's discussion is to focus on what we have already identified issue as an disproportionate suspension rate among one classification kids and this state taring Mr. Medina of uh 1234 is a different standard than what we're looking at to have our discussion. Our discussion is purely prompted by our review of our numbers where I'm, you know, comparing the percentage of suspensions of a particular group, especially black males. Um with regard to the percentage of black males in our district, we're not interested. state looks and does comparisons and you know black to white etc. And in our district um we don't have a lot of white fair and experience and yes it's probably still
062disproportionate and should be looked at. I'm not suggesting that but we're looking at what we see is clearly out of sync. It's not, you know, there's 5% white, we have 5% of the whites getting suspended, and there's 10% African-American, we have 10% getting suspended, you know, we have a disproportion, and that's what we're trying to look at tonight, try and figure out why that exists. So, while the historic numbers I I would be curious about, too. Yeah. Um and ju to just add both I think just the um at least for me for that slide number three is just showing that we are heading in the right direction right do we have more work to do of course right but we're heading in the right direction right that we've been doing for a couple of
063years and I get you I agree 100%. But when you're giving me data respectively through the chair, when you're giving me data that I'm looking at, then I look at the same page, but you drop some of the data that we're comparing almost together, then I can't see everything because you're missing six, you know, those here. But I understand what we're trying to do here today, but I just I'm learning. So I want to learn that I'm looking at it. I know that I can teach somebody else. I got to be able to speak with data. This is not your and and and when you say we're getting better, I'm curious in the way you see that this chart looking from 2019 2020. No, I'm not. I'm looking from 22 23 to 23 24 and
064there's an uptick. Yes, that's what I see. and you know it's could be a one-year uptick. I get that we don't have enough horistical data, but so I would hold judgment on patting ourselves on the back. Not I'm really not being critical of anybody here. I just I don't want to be us stating something that's, you know, not satisfactory because we want to look a little closer at um so and you're correct when we looked at the next um slide and you did ask about the regular versus distinct when we were meeting the last time. So the regular is how many kids are being have been suspended how many times but the distinct is one suspension. So that's those students have been suspended at one time. So that number is different than your top. Now
065do we know how many days? You went to this chart. The next page from that one, the next page, the regular. Oh, I see it. I see it's too seen it here. It's broken down by you. You lost me for a second, but I'm back. I didn't see that there's regular and distinct in these two things. Yeah. And then this is regular and distinct by ethnicity. I'll pause very there's a lot of numbers that did this quickly and didn't but what do you what did you conclude by doing that? I guess I would ask you. So you're pausing for us to look at it but why don't you explain what you learned by comparing it this way? So we definitely see that there's a discrepancy between the number of um is so I'm looking just
066right now under ISS black and African-American regular versus distinct we see that 389 students have been suspended right however that number when you look at the next line is double oh well I it's not almost double it's what when you say next line what are you referring to says 389 9 distinct students have you're looking at the port 70 next and then if I go up above to the regular oh okay gotS in ISS was 706 which tells us that there are a lot of repeats right um is what I see and of those repeats do we know do you understand what I'm ongoing. So, so like we have one child that's been suspended twice, but we have one child that's been suspended 15 times. Do we know sort of how that breaks out? Do
067we have a way of looking at that? So, just get the school. Am I asking that too? Okay, then when we get to the school level, we'll get back to that. What else just to clarify is to make sure we're on the same page. In terms of regula and the 706, those are the total number of days, right? Of times of time. So times we don't know how many days. That's a different question and a different data point. I was going to ask that question. So that's suspended sent in school for half a day. It counts as an incident. it's it's so that could be for five days, it could be for one day, it could be for an event when you're looking at the 706 or and the 389. This is just these are
068incidents or times. Yeah, I got you. How many days is a different question and a different data point here? I just got Okay, go ahead. Let me just for clarification and for again I'm trying to learn from me. I'm not gives me So and here you have a section that's called regular and distinct. Can you define what do you mean by that? is I really have no clue what you're saying as far as regular and what distinct. What does that mean? Distincted individual student as an individual. That means if I went around here, each person in the room had a suspension. Regular could mean that someone in that chair there has been suspended four times even though he's in that she's in that distinct. Got it. So these are individuals at the bottom meaning and
069then the other one is how many times it could be got 300 389 suspension individuals were suspended under distinct 76 suspensions were given up to because those individuals got suspended again for the sake of this bully medina may have been suspended twice Mr. Benahan may have been suspended three times Mr. train may have been suspended 10 times. It doesn't distinguish there. Exactly. And that was the question I was asking about there's a particularly you know one of these one of these multiple repeats in the regular is five students have repeated multiple times in fact the rest have been done once or twice individuals which we may get to that's how achieve continues right and then the other piece that's not in these numbers is that the person in chair one could have got in half
070a day the person in chair pair two might have three days and the person in pair three might have 10 days. This thing is just happen. That's good. That's all we want to know. Did it happen? That the only reason it happened because something causes it to happen. So that's good. Well, at some point we want to know if it's disproportionate too in terms of the severity of the discipline. We want to know if that's being meed out with any um inequities committee. I'm sorry Dr. Person go ahead. It's okay. Um so what you also have been given then and it is a lot of information. Um we have given you the sheets based on race, ethnicity, ELLL, SE and gender. Um and it is broken out by school. That's always being a package. But
071the package you received should have received one employ. So there's more. It's another section. Oh, there's more pages to this one. And it's broken out by school. So then start you'll get all the different schools. Um, and the number of Oh, so this front page is basically what you already showed us is just smaller. So that if we put it up on the screen, you wouldn't be able to read. Yeah. On the right hand side, it has you have additional information. um based on the what's on this so that is a lot of information it is I understood I heard your question and what I see among the board members of the day that we have in front of us for the rest of it's interesting what I see here um through the chair is
072when you look at uh this thing and then regular it's almost doubling up or the percentages in every race is almost kind of like you know kind of the same thing happening like for white is 73 but it is 4.71 it went up to 129 and regular which is at 8.32 it's almost doubling it's almost like it doubled you know when you look at the the percentage um see it yeah I do see it but it's not true with Hispanic and Latino um I mean, it went up. It goes from 3.24 to 5.27. Double would be over six. So, it's fine. But, it's almost looking at I see a still a higher pattern. That's my concern. Yes. And it does continue. Obviously, expulsion is the one thing that is different because those aren't individual repeats.
073But the OSS you'll see um 470 under distinct 791 in regular for your expulsion is 10 because you're only expelled one time. It has to be a year just so that there's an understanding of why that line looks the same across the board. Um but the OSS you can see um with the Hispanic and Latino population it went from 530 to 878. Uh the white population went from 81 to 127. Um our Asian population went from 815 when you look at regular 2139. So that increase does happen. isn't everything. These are all holy. Thank you. Yes. You I saw she held up this same information by school week. By school and then you know and these are going to be um but it's not I was about to ask you things are distinct. So these
074are just individuals. Yeah. Well, it's not the amount of time. So we don't know, right? It's just how many individuals have had an incident of at least one time. But if I took the first school we're still missing a page different something not yeah it starts with yes I know and the packet starts with play it's the other side aerospace Barnum. Yeah. But if I look at Barnum and Barnum, I can see pull this apart and we organize it. I'm going to do one person. So I didn't look at that. I just completed. No, no, no. I'm with you. Then you go to Yeah, I think you know she you know what that was like I got not realizing but but I think it's only like one and one more is have both you have
075suspensions and I was going to say one is is all distinct and one is yeah suspensions suspensions by race and distinct suspensions by raise it together fast by the way. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Um does this include um specialation, right? It does. Um if you look all the way and you'll have a total in the middle middle then you have ELLL sped and then you also have it broken out by genders and this one come off here but if you look at this first page where's the cover here look at this cover became this one cover see it's this thing was during the test on on the shortly the extended one. So we see what I think is as their district do we have? Do we have the numbers right now available as a district?
076I forget American was our percentage Hispanic was history on the first page. Yeah. In red total blown up page in red. The number but not the percent. Gotcha. I got the number. Perfect. That is the total envir. Yep. That's the total. Yeah. Then in the schools you'll see the same thing. total enrolled is in red in the Bob. Got you there. Thank you. So, back to Mr. Tahan's question. I mean, if you just kind of look across the publicly almost getting towards the end, it's where you see the spread and it should be on all the so that has we ended with total in the tiny print. After that comes the percentages. No, we ended with total percentages in the in the presentation to talk about and then but this has this has everything right
077which we looked at before. Any other questions gentlemen? You want to continue to lead us down your elucidation there? So, um yeah. So, when you look at um and we did look at a school like our um magnet schools, you will see that the numbers there are different and lower in some cases. Um, when you look at BASIC, you'll see that we have uh 36 students who have been in ISS for black and African-American at about 9.5%. Where our Hispanic and Latino population though they're having 56 students is 6.9%. Um, their OSS though is higher. So, we'll see that our OSS students are higher than our um our ISS students. And I did see that in certain schools and we can go through it closer which means that we do sometimes have and we talked
078about this last time too about students being sent out of school more often than being kept in school burden school suspension and you can see that at some of the elementaryaries as well. Um we do have other schools where their um overall totals are very low for their suspensions um and they are using their ISS for in a better capacity keeping their kids in school for the day. What's going on in those rooms are things that we're working on as um executive directors with each of our principles. We're doing professional learning. Um, we have met with the state to talk and look at these numbers as well and to say how do we start to do some of professional development on challenging behaviors, how we can deescalate in the classroom, how do we use tier
079one uh interventions in order to support our students in the classroom so that we're not getting to this place of ISS and OSS and of course expulsion. And so our executive directors have been working and speaking with the principles as well. Um, Anything you want to add to that? Some of these discrepancies between the ISS and OSS sometimes it was a function because our ISS this year was manned or had with long-term subservices. So that was a a district mandate with the Kelly service person to manage the ISS room. And for some schools like Abassik they were not having they they would didn't have an ISS person available so they resorted to which is accounts for some discrepancy between OSS and ISS right and when you look at a high school situation and I'm going
080to build and then go look at my middle school you'll see there is less such um I'll just go right underneath to that beardsly which is only a K six is Google you see less use of ISS and OSS because the little older people. They're trying to teach emotional regulation there. Um, you know, restored practice in there. The bassic has restored practice too to people working with those kids when they are in ISS. So, it all though is the school size um and the the grade levels as well. Better better for you to compare basketball and bar and the um in terms of they're both large schools. They're both the same neighborhood um and they're right next to each other and many ways and you can see significant difference and and and just to to
081clarify each building does have suspension like that was a focus that we we we actually visited every campus in the district look at the location and the space um and I think to to to Walmart's point that somebody was absent at the time, but they were able to fill the position at that specific time when a child was being um suspended. But as of start of the school year, each building had space and given um the staffing for that space and but not necessarily employee. No. No. What percentage were 100% Kelly? Yeah. Okay. Yes. The Where is the um what was the the position we just eliminated? How many schools had that? There were like 13, right? There are 11 positions that we have and then we do have a few more that are funded
082with um and our our work with CC catus but the 11 that we have at this point right and so what schools were they in they didn't work as in school suspension they work as restorative practice they many of them were former ISS right um in point but and next year the state is mand mandated that we have to have somebody in house to be in the ISS to staff an ISS from the always been the case unfortunately that's always been the case which obviously due to our that state law mandates that we have school suspension right what I said was what I said was that we have somebody that's on our pay board of ed not a Kelly so we're not going to be using Kelly people next that's what we that's always been
083the case but they you know through the meetings that we've that it was said that the state noticed that we didn't have it. They called our attention. We told them we have those restores practicing. They were like, "Okay, as long as you have through Kelly, but then they said we get we're fixing that." That's what we budget the mandate. It's always been the case but somebody felt yeah at that point and even now we are actually in the process of changing the structure which could probably be finished for next year. Yeah, I was about to say that what was always the case was that there was somebody who sat in that room. Um, and there's not somebody that sits in that room 20, you know, seven, but for the full time and we're not even
084going to get there next year. So we're going to have at Willie school sus in school suspension days on Monday and Tuesday at average school Wednesday because it's smaller school and at my school we're going to have it Thursday and Friday because it's bigger school or it may be Monday and Thursday and Tuesday and Friday for the bigger school and the location is still there but in terms of the go I do know which schools if you'd like to come. Yes. Um so we have had two at one ata one at one at Central one at Columbus. Uh, one at Curial. Yep. One at Fairchild Wheeler that page. That's no more elementary. Now I'm going to lose search how we learn the alphabet. The high school Yep. So, and do fair child wheeler. I got
085you one there. You said yes. Y um two at one at Johnson. He's going to his list. That's No, I'm putting in the number right there next to me. Yeah, I know. I see you. Go ahead. One at Reed. Yeah. And wanted to sell a t arrow what bio bio bio front page. This is all the ISS. These are they were at before. Yes. They're not staying right now. So, you know, that's where they are. Now, they weren't doing I said they would support the IS. Yeah. So, there is 12. I want I will double check on Reed. That's the only one because there may have been someone who and I'm not 100% sure that like went to a different position. Oh, that's right. But we had 12. Yes. on the show as well. Well,
086because my favorite was in the Dublin that too, but this is what was living. So, I know you I said 11 123 it was in that area actually what so yes to 12. You're saying that it was 12 and one changed jobs and when we did the layoff there were 11. Okay. Then we've eliminated the position. There were 11 positions, 11 currently filmed. Yeah. So the record only never um and then the the other point when I pointed to the high school it was not to um take on that aspect at all. You look at central and harding our ninth grade is really that we really need to focus and that's what I keep coming to and that's why I was looking at that. If you go to the very first slide we talked about
087that is where we're seeing high numbers and so is that transition between age 9 to grade three that we really need to all talk and focus about about how we're going to strengthen that. One of the things we have done and we're working with CT rides who is an organization that um talks about what the on track look like for high school um educating our students and helping support them to make sure that our students are on track through um nth grade. Right now, one of the things that we see happening is kids uh setting goals. And then we had some student led conferences this week where the students sat with their parent and the teacher to talk about their goals in class, how they're going to pass and do well between now and the
088end of the year, how attendance is part of that as well, and how behavior is part of that. And so, um we'll continue that work hopefully into next year with them. They actually also had a pizza pizza pizza for bees I think with trying to get to the ninth grader to understand and to celebrate bees better. And they're also doing studying and snacks for kids who have fallen behind to make up their work and to get some tutoring so that we track for 10th grade because we know by research that if they're on track for 10th grade should remain on track through graduation. Mike, I you know going back to just looking at BAS um just because you you came to not speak for any other reason um but looking at that number we had
08958 distinct um out of school and suspensions. I know these are actual suspensions as we said not number of days but do we know so that means that the 58 means 58 students received out of school suspension right 122 you're in the suspension I see 122 I see 58 distinct or I'm looking at black Africaname you're includ Not among distinct, right? That means 58 individuals. 58 individuals. That's what I said. I said three times. Individuals. Yes. Individuals were suspended. And then some of those individuals were suspended more than once. Which gets us to 122. Correct. Do we know how many of those individuals were suspended more than once? So you don't and I can work with data management. That was a conversation I was having with data management about how she figured that out. Please
090explain that as well. designed to be as it was said. Okay. So guys, I I'm apologize, but I want you to understand what what I'm getting at here. The point I'm trying to get at that she's barely looking at with data management, which is of those 58 individuals who got suspended. You know, if there were only two others that got suspended 30 times, well, that's relevant, right? Mhm. And five of them got suspended multiple times and the rest were just once. That's you know so that's what we trying to figure out. So 57 of them that I'm going to go extreme right for the 57 once learned the lesson correct and had performed themselves and got on student was after 5756 to 122 there was that yeah which is extreme but yes and I said
091yes. Yeah. No but that's the point I'm making. So if we can if we say that there's a handful uh and in my experience that's not off the wall. Um there should be a handful of students that are getting multiple suspensions and the rest are you know one maybe two and as the system works. So question is what are we not doing? What do we need to do? I guess I should say for those that are getting multiple suspensions to avoid getting to the eight individuals who were exper. And then if we just to look at another building, let's say um if we looked at Barnum above that, we looked at special ed, right? And we said, okay, there are seven students under suspension, but be distinct, there's seven there as well. So there that
092for I iss but 13 for OSS and well I'm only looking at the black or African-American because that's the topic right and so I'm looking at the tire right below because it's equally large and it had one of the restorative practice positions and I see that they had you know 31 31 out of school suspensions 19 individuals. So my suspicion is that there's a handful or less who are suspended multiple times versus and that's something we do need to zero in on. So perhaps at the next meeting we can take a look at you know so what that tells us about because that's really what we want to do is deal with those kids that are repeating offenders and and it does come around to wraparound services you know um working with those students making
093sure there's support in the building as well as outside of the building um so that we can help them stay in the building and get more educations and and help with whatever the root pause says you'll what right which gets back to because I want to be clear as I make this point that I'm not looking to put all the blame on the student we are looking to see if the system is failing the student i.e. We're not dealing with whether it's an administrator or a teacher or some other staff person who needs to do something else with that student to help them avoid that individual avoid repeated repeat incidents coming back to warrant out of school suspension. And I do think that that that is some of the work that the executive director So
094dive in deeper into some of this data um and that when they do see you know for for us and that's why you know when I started at evidence to be clear that you know we did not request individual like teacher datab but as we look at school data to your point we break it down a little bit more within a building principal and then they can work that level and figure out what's going on. And should we should we should and and and no disrespect but whoever is overseeing that group of schools is working with the administrator of the building administrators in the building to look at because you know as I said before in my experience you know especially with newer teachers that's one of the greatest challenges we have is classroom management
095and we want to work with teachers to provide them the skills they need to be able to manage um you know we're looking at a school that we know we have particular difficulties so I'm not trying to you know single it out but we we do want to sort of use that as an example of what we're trying to address which is you know do we need to provide support to the teachers do we need to provide support to the administrators who are failing to provide the support to the teacher you know what do we what what do we need to do to to make sure the system works for the child which is our ultimate goal And my heart goes out because, you know, my niece was one of those students. You know, she
096was very very getting in trouble all the time, suspended all the time. You know, she, you know, for example, she got her book that's filed and all her reports. When she got to another school, got her training to another school, the principal said, and the staff said, "Okay, that's you before. Let's get rid of that. This is you now. You're starting clean, straight, safe. Let's keep it that way. And she was motivated and I don't know what was going on in school. I don't know if it was the staff. I don't know what it was the students why she always getting in trouble or fired up. But her attitude completely changed and she did very good. The following year she following me about she said uh you know going to hat you know she went
097to school. But it was something that we were trying to figure out what's going on. Why is she getting so why is she getting in trouble right now? Why is she getting spent? We were trying to figure out as a family and now that I'm part of the board, I want to look at that because again, you know, I have teachers and principles that are, you know, they know how to vote to be there and all that stuff. I've been a student like that. My brother was always a student at Rosville School and, you know, had teachers grab them by the and lift them up. That's those day not 30, 40 years ago. Um, you know, a beautiful teacher that motivated you know, hey, we got to get this straight and I'm going to be
098here for you. Then you have other ones that are just, you know, they're being uh blacklisted or whatever. They're already being put and then and their pedestal say nope. Anything you do is going to be like goodbye, goodbye. You know, that turns into a discipline. Discipline turns into multiple multiple by turn into a suspension and it might be out of school because maybe we don't have the right people in place. I don't know. But it was an issue. It got fixed. So we want to make sure that every campus has the right people to make sure that we can um have a support for that student to don't be we can turn this around turn this around. You can make a a pivot we can and it shouldn't have to be in move from camp
099from one campus to another should try to do it in that campus and for us it was the campus that made the world of difference. Well yes I mean I'll Mr. B. Thank you, Mr. Ch. Um I might what Mina say sometime is depend what's going on with the student especially home because the education is start home but if that student they don't have a support home he will get maybe something in the school and you don't know how that staff is acting because like I said we're human they're not perfect sometimes that has some issues with that personal problem and they can be sick or something they sometime attack a student when not professional way and the student say okay I'm coming from home with stress and he uh you know that situation happens
100and that's one of the reason we had to figure out that what what is the problem in situation like that because I can tell you about experience when my son before where he was in New Haven West heaven he came to the school here from public school and he's here president it changed so much why because support care I'm here you're not alone you know stuff like that not because I'm always in this public school is the way the stand Mr. to find a way of principal in Korean school you know he cared and he said wow what a change you know stuff like that we had to figure out exactly where the problems come if the teacher has some issue you know problem person because like I said we're not human how that teacher
101or st say listen I have this issue I cannot handle with this you know what I can do communication if we don't have communication how we going to you know work you know to make very successful and help each other you know thank you Mr. Chair Dr. Avery. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I I I appreciate uh the three board members, uh Mr. Traver, Mr. Meda, and Mr. Ben. I think you guys make a very very valid point here. Uh and I think it's it's time, no one wants to hear the word accountability, you know, but the accountability is at the individual campus level. Uh and it's time for everybody to start talking about the accountability of everything that happens in a building. You know, be it teacher discipline, student discipline, you know, accountability,
102everything. We have to start bringing principles to these meetings here to justify the individual data sources that that these executive directors and directors are presenting to this board. Uh because they don't have the answers. those individual principles have the answers and they have to start owning their uh their data. Uh and so I think that's important. So I I appreciate what you three have have brought to light. I've been sitting here listening and I'm like no I gotta I gotta I gotta validate that. And for the executive directors and Mr. Saki and Dr. Feeta, it is trying for you guys to push back about what the data is telling you and what those principles need to own because they're not doing that. Everybody is tippy toeing around the conversation about how we need to support
103kids and teachers in that school environment. And so I would like to really I'm going to challenge you guys to to uh keep pushing and making sure that have them come in. If you have a a campus or two that's at the height of your data sources that you're presenting to the board, you bring those individuals in to have that conversation with the board so they can ask those questions. What are they doing? So again, I I appreciate you three. It's been I've been sitting listening and I and I like the conversation and we got to do a little bit more of that. It's time to do that right now. So, I appreciate you three for doing that. You need to challenge me that favor. You know who I am, how I am. I have
104something to add that for everybody. I just want to add on to what Dr. Avery is saying. One of the lifts we've had this year is that in our district, prior administrators, prior central office people, there was a one one swing, one issue, 10 days out of school suspension. That was the go-to and everybody was 10 day out of school, 10 day out of school. What we've been working with our principles this year that we have been active about is talk calling them and talking to them saying, "Listen, let's take a look at this. Do we need to have a child out of school for 10 days of out of school suspension? What is that child missing? Do they need 10 days to learn to borrow your word to learn a lesson to and can
105we not do other kinds of wraparound services? can bring them back early, give them counseling, provide restorative practice work with them or um discipline. Yeah, I spent 20 years as a labor negotiator on the idea of just cause and progressive discipline. It is the same concept. I I I do want to say as having been a teacher for 20 years too here at Bridgeport and seen it, I I had administrators who would always ask me, "What do you want?" And you know, I would I never asked somebody for 10 days. I never went there. It was I, you know, in school, out of school, if it got to that one day, two days, three days out of school. I can't ever remember asking for two weeks out of school. Um, you know, I'm sure it
106might have happened once or twice, but for the most part, you know, I had administrators who worked with me and and trusted, you know, you know, so what are you looking for? What do you want? So, there was a give and take in in my experience in that discussion, which should exist in all schools. You know, now I I you know, I I was an experienced teacher. There are new teachers that aren't going to know. And there you have to have an experienced administrator who is, you know, overseeing this. And when something jumps out, I mean, if you've got a report that says school X has had, you know, 15 10day suspensions, then that's that's a red flag for you, uh, right? To go see why am I having 15, you know, is it the
107teacher? Is it two or three new teachers that are overreacting or is it an administrator that's not like using the tools, the resources available? Now, in all of this, I say that the fight that we're currently engaged in to get more resources from the state is going to be critical in our ability to properly deal with these problems to be able to, you know, restore the restorative practice positions, to be able to add counselors and other mental health workers for interventions, to add academic tutors, is because some of these problems are because a child isn't doing well in school and they're acting out. Um Mr. Banahan referred to the children that are having problems outside of school. That's where the mental health support is going to be critical. So all that stuff so that we
108can intervene properly is is critical to our being able to do all this right. Um, and you know, it's one of the reflections of an underst staffed, underresourced school district that we we go the easy route too much and we got to call it. And that we should be doing is calling it when we see a pattern and somebody's using the easy route too quickly. Um but overall to be able to do the the better fuller more complete wholesome this you know because discipline is you know this is this is not Mr. Herman Mr. with the labor negotiator. Discipline is meant to be to teach you, you know, how to behave better. And the object of discipline is not to punish you. It is to show you the way to a better life. Um, and
109it is that is the point to make you a better student in this case to help you become a better student and to make sure that the administrators of the discipline be they teachers or administrators per se are doing it correctly. And that's what I would think, you know, Dr. Dr. Avery, between now and the end of the year, I would like to take a look at what we just talked about because we really have one meeting, maybe two left in the year. Um, and so I would like to take a look at that. you know how many of these repeat how many how many individuals are repeating in these categories and I don't think it applies because I look at a school like Beardsley and I'm seeing Beardsley and I'm going you know we
110really don't need to worry about Beersley they zero in school two out of school and no expulsions I'm not really worried about Beardsley uh it's the school where we identify a high um activity of suspension and in school out of school suspensions that we want to look at and analyze more closely. Um so um I would expect that to be the high schools all and then the prek schools where we have higher numbers uh that need to be looked at. Yes. And I'm just curious Was there a criteria applied to putting the restorative practice positions in below high schools? That was true. We probably came we came to to that some of them probably started off through or sometimes they've also switched their allocation uh numbers. So it could be a interventionist and interventionist turned
111into a restorative because as long as the numbers were because you know Marine had that's made by who? It was previous administrator. So it was the pre previous. Yeah, she said Martine right away. So I I understand but I wanted they was they in there. So, I want to make sure who the day was because I'm looking I I mean, just to give you an example, I I see Blackman and Battalia as equivalent schools. They they they they they go above and beyond second and third largest school in the city. They're the same prek to 8 range. So, and so I'm I'm not And then there are others that we, you know, I could look at prek to 8 as I go through this list and say, "Oh, huh. Isn't that interesting? They didn't get
112one. They did. Um, Mr. Traber, I can I I can pro I could probably bring some some context to that. It's my understanding when uh Superintendent Tastani was here, uh, he made that decision to move from the in school suspension piece into restorative practices opportunities. I'm not 100% clear as to how uh the campus was designated to uh apply these uh restorative practices uh individuals to the buildings. And so um u as we started looking at budgetary opportunities to to figure it out and needing some additional dollars to take care of the statemandated in school suspension piece. uh I felt the the need that we needed to have a more equitable you know opportunity to provide uh restorative practices uh solutions to to to campuses all campuses and so one of the things that I've
113I've I I've really pushed the uh executive directors and Dr. Saki's office is to uh when we start school up next year, restorative practices, you know, training is going to be provided to every single staff and administrator in this district in order to have an equitable way of being able to handle and utilize their skill set opportunities and the training that they get districtwide and we should see a huge impact in that. So again ma'am just listen to you with your your your request that is the extent of what I received uh when I started inquiring about that as well. Uh and I don't really know the rationale anyone around this table we're not we're not in that conversation. Uh and so and I I would point out Dr. Avery that the question has moved
114at this point. Um but it will be relevant if in fact we are fortunate enough to be able to restore some of those positions and as we look at going forward if we're able to provide additional interventionists and it was interesting that you then talked about that because it's always been my my my simplification that we want more academic intervention and more social intervention to deal with the problems. And so the ability to provide the needed resources at the needed schools so as to minimize these kinds of problems is what we so to the extent that we we look at that and think about that this spring in anticipation of the fall and we see where we end up on the budget um and what we have that would be helpful. Absolutely. I you make
115a great point and I think that's really where the data that you guys are requesting and we keeping at at the forefront of every single meeting that you guys have. That's going to give us the data that we need. So as we started bringing these positions back, we'll we'll have to hit the highest need, you know, campuses that are they're at the top of the list with that support and then we work our way down. And so, yeah, that is going to be important because we're I feel very confident that we're going to be able to bring some of these things back, but let's bring them back systemically to where it's going to give us the biggest impact for uh the investment that we're going to reinvest in uh moving forward. So, yes, sir. You
116want to go to this last sheet? I know we've the last sheet just is um the most up to date um and regular uh numbers for OSS ISS. So we haven't really been looking at those numbers. That's just broken down my school without the city. Brilliant. 2017. Oh, you got Okay. Yep. So, and and I think by looking at this, you know, I what we're missing here, uh, that immediately jumps at me is the the student population, you know, so's got two two 33 0. What's the population? You know, that's relevant. And so I look at them when I look at and and black I know I'm looking at two comparable schools uh with regard to the overall numbers. And so I I can and and that would be useful to if you could add
117that to this. Um but otherwise I think that aims us at looking at the schools where we think that it's you know needs to be more closely examined for next meeting. Um, I don't think we need to figure that out tonight. I think if you pick some percentage cut off that you want to use for where there seems to be a school that's got a disproportionate number that we want to look more closely and why that, you know, how many of those will repeat offenders versus not, you know, it would be useful for us to look more closely at because, you know, guide us further in this discussion, I think. And I I think going back to Dr. Avery to your point, you know, our goal, I think this spring is to focus on the
118issue and the questions we need to be looking at in the hopes of being ready in the fall one way or the other regardless of where we end up budgetarily um to deal with this problem because we have identified a problem that is real and that whether we have a lots of resources or less resources, we still have to deal with the problem. AB: Absolutely, sir. I think that you make a valid point. Any other questions? Nope. You all talk about what I've said. If you have questions, let me know and I can clarify and I'd like to revisit this at the next meeting looking more closely at perhaps a smaller number of samples to make sense. But I'm not trying I don't want to try to single out I that's what I'm not trying
119to do which is why you said we didn't bring in teacher. We don't I don't want to do that. I know, but I do want to look at the schools and you know what it tells us about the numbers and I don't know whether that's just zeroing in on these categories and where the the repeat you know number of suspensions how many of the individuals was that how many individuals said one suspension how many individuals had and just take a look at that question in school out of school um I think that that would that would show distinct in and of itself right it should so if we looked at 5 to 10 schools that had large numbers and how many were how many how many suspended kids had one, how many had two, how
120many had three, how many had more than and that would just tell us something like that work with data management let the record show that Mr. Woodson has joined us. Good evening, Mr. Woodson. Did you have any questions on this sir? I don't know when you came in because we were just wrapping up this part. Oh, good evening. No, no questions so far. Okay. Next meeting, sir. Look at the information. We'll continue to be continued at the next meeting. This this topic is being Yeah. Yeah. and and we noticed a problem with the black or African-American student males particularly that we wanted to zero in on. It tells us something if we looked at this data in other groups too where they're high numbers. The same information is relevant. But we're looking at that particular
121problem because we thought those numbers stood out in the previous report. We were looking at sped then you know um we presumably working on how to better deal with the sped. So hopefully we're addressing this issue in that, but we're also want to look at it in the nonsp. And so we will also get that that earlier data just to get a more historic look. Yes, I have it put into and I'm going to also add the methodology for the identifying district 81 major for you see. Great. Oh yes, that would be great. Sorry, but just for my own clarity that's our followup meeting here. Yes. Yes. This is a continuing discussion on committee in this committee department. There's no agenda item to be referred. It's a this item that they're discussing here. At some
122point if we decide there's action that we be a different discussion, correct? Y okay. And so our next is backso. Make sure we have the right paper. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Maybe I will start and then I'll I'll I'll have you know like to you know thank Mr. Lan and Mr. I think you know he's one and Mr. M you know we had a very good conversation um yesterday I know we had a very long vacation a few days off if you just yesterday that that at least you know from my thought and and Dr. Vega definitely gave us some some context um regarding you know how things has been done previously to the Pako convention specifically um and I think you know that was that was very helpful and very telling you know
123for us. I know that there were some adjustments made which all that you know um Cheryl get into but you know part of um the discussion was also howing a lot more in terms of getting input from um Mr. been hand when it comes to the actual planning process for this because he does have a breath of experience doing it and like I said some of the information that was shared um was not on my radar you know so um again thank you for that information that was extremely helpful um and then based on that we also came up with like a plan B so Dr. what you've shown. So um thank you again for the conversations yesterday. They were very um helpful in understanding um more about the whole process. Um before we talk
124about that as you know in the last meeting there was a request for an updated allocations um from the title one from all of the schools. um when we saw you the last time we talked about spending and having it spent by I believe today. Um and so you'll see here the parent involvement allocations for 24 2025. It's here. Um at this point the totals are um we have had over 88.2% for the elementary schools spent and the high schools are at 87. Um, we did have two schools that were at 0%. We have followed up with those two schools. So, if you see 821, uh, classical studies academy had a 0%. We did speak with them today. All of their invoices are in and that money I know. So, that is offering lessons at
125the beginning of the year. I know she didn't mess up on that is all in and being processed. Um, and then if you look at 8 8:16 Bridgeport Military Academy, we also spoke with them today. Four invoices went in today and we have three or four more going in tomorrow and their money is also being spent. So when you see that the 108 the 111s those who went over 100% the uh business office is speaking directly with those schools and with the the principles and the pack presidents to say you can only spend 100%. So you have to make sure that your number is exact. And so they'll be re um adjusting their invoices and things like that to make sure it says 100% not 108 or 111 uh percent. Um so at this point,
126do you have any questions about the parent involvement allocations? We all definitely called. I know the ED spoke with their principles. I know Miss Herren has spoken with several of the pack presidents following up and making sure that things are one properly. um filled out in the P10s and that they're also appropriate uh items for pack and that they'll be used for things in the future or that they are being used currently. Yes, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know I say that 108% 111% you know they go over um this is the one of the reason they need to be P10 form you have there your proof because when the P10 and I'm going to send you the form we're going to sit and talk about how they can because we're going to use
127the train it will be much better because when they can go the principal or the park president how much money got left and then you don't go over because I know they send send them invoice and then the grand office and you guys had to figure out how to get paid and they go back and forth. This is the reason the P is for this. So you there and then they print out and you have the total and you have it's in the record and before you do purchase I said let me see how much money I got left correct and then you don't have this issue. So what's going to happen when it's 108 111% is you know over 100 are they going to void or they going to the business office is calling
128the principal to have that conversation and so they'll either cover that extra $200 or they'll figure out not to adjust the school would have to or they'll have to adjust whatever they place the order they still doing this I don't know if they still doing this but some school they don't spend the whole money you use that from another school. Let's give a example black on school go over 120%. And basic let's give that give you can take whatever bas got left and cover. Maybe you can find out later possibilities for that and so because I know we do it before we can do it you know so they those the school they don't talk exactly we don't want the budget on the school we cover because you know budget tight so maybe the schools
129maybe need that money for something else for the teacher so you can use that yeah um and and so next year also help we'll be looking at the P10s as well right now we don't have access to them, but they'll be coming to our emails. So, we'll be able to follow up this evening. So, as you talked about at the past, something like the computer comes through, we can have a conversation about, you know, it's Yeah. And it's going to be for the secretary from school because the teacher can go for the pizza and say, "Hello, guys, you go over, you can, you know, before she send that forms to that. It's more easy for them." Absolutely. And I'm I'm still working on getting the answer to our question. So that's not clear. I'm just
130waiting for Mr. Woodson. Do you have any question on the uh parent allocation? No, not at this time. Thank you. Okay. So Mr. Bahan asked the question I wanted to ask about you can blackham which is under actually could you could use Blackam's money to balance out somebody else then slide the oil correct okay and I will um um now let me just stay with Blackman for a second because I want to make sure I understand they had a $10,000 uh beginning budget um year-to- date expended was 2147 um encumbered 3319 that to me adds up to 5,400 and change. What school you're at? Well, I haven't followed 10,000. So I'm I'm just Holy cow. I'm sure you know how 6,000 page started spend because there's no ending in form stack is well I didn't
131even get there yet. I'm I'm looking at year-to- date expended. I assume that means you you've cleared that and it's been approved. Yes. Encumbered means they put it in, but it hasn't been approved. But that's already 5,400 and change. 5,400 $60, $70. Y, you're right. Um, and then I have pending in form stack. I wanted to ask is that different than incumbent? Yeah. What is that? What is inform? Yeah, that's why this Let me finish my question. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you could use accent. No, it was getting different. So, can you No, I said that different. Can you then explain to me what pending inform is? Absolutely. So, that's the P10 that Mr. Redman is talking about. Um, so that's why this report takes a little bit longer to actually pull together because
132you have to go to three different places. Okay. So, first off, going back to our our 8 natures here, um, year-to- date expended, and then pending in forms back and encumbered, you know, it's like, so that's expended means they've spent it. Encumbered means it's been properly submitted and it's just pending final approval. And pending in formstack means it's recently submitted, so it hasn't begun. Correct. To go through that. Okay. So, we're in the right order of progression. And then available is after all that what's left. Okay. So if I add up those three I'm going to get the uh 6500. That's uh that's less 10. 6600. Yeah. Yeah. Well it it's 6500 compared to what is 3500 in the last column. So that's 10,000 right? 5500. The total is 66 1043. Those three numbers. All
133right. and the matches available. Yeah, you guys I talk very tangent. um yes one of the reason we continue submitting and and that that is something I've been using for so many years actually from the website school was open and this is the way I'm there and nobody can say oh you spend no let me go to my documents because that documents sending for the president and the principal from the school. Correct. So this to help people have it, you know, so when they do the the budget thing so they know how much money they and then the circuit they said, okay, let me see what was your last order for the B10 and it's more easy. So then your office and you you're going to go back and forth to the principal this is
134wrong. You know, like what happened right now? And I I understand what you're saying. We use the act the P not is what we use and we have to do the same thing. We'd have to keep it balanced ourselves. So I understand what you're saying and it's something else that we have to use in the training. Um the leaders had to know what is mean AR 100 a 200. This is something about custodian security because sometime they get confused who's paying who's going to cover who's going to do the points that the school the principal do the secretary. That's one of the thing I want for you so we can let you know. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes. Through the chair. Um so again I want to learn more but I know these things but
135I want for the public also. So encumbered. So we have a year-to-day expendit meaning that's already they already paid that it went through the P10 process. It went through whatever encumbered is going to be defined in a second. That's already done. Then you have encumbered that means what? This is more for the public and I to get solidify the definition. Yes. May I try the lay person's answer? Encumbered means the bill's been submitted but it hasn't been evade. I just wanted the bill's been put in. It's been put in the invoice has come in but we haven't paid them out yet. Where form stack is we've just started. We put our invoice in. We want approval. We want to order this. You get approved first and then you get your items in and you put
136your bill in and that goes into income. So send them from the form staff. Perfect. I want to challenge paid to your So I want to challenge you guys just like Dr. Avery had done. think of every single one that has a percentage that they went over they are spending the format mean their P10 hasn't been improved it's only in that stage and they're spending money that they don't even have so we need to hold them accountable now and I don't think it's fair to any campus to have to submit some of their money where they can do it they maybe have a plan to to give somebody that is being irres with all due respect to the word irrespons responsible because for example on I'm calling every single one out Barnum school has a
137pending right now of 4,76646 cents correct that is over 544 that they have that needs to be you know ratified they need to say that you submitted something as a P10 according to this that's unacceptable the other one I see here have in school an extra 2828 that's on a P10 right now that's bringing and them over by 170 that should be rectified and fixed. Uh the next one is Thomas Hooker $837 that is over budget by 232.86 286 that should be fixed. 26875 is where it says Ara that is 265 $268.75 P10 that is bringing them over 26570. You know the other one is 2500 that is parading magnet. I'm going to go get on that but they're only over by 37 $3728. That's that much of a big difference. uh $500 for Waltersville.
138They're exactly going over the budget with all due respect to the word on purpose because they already should know they already did all their budget already. That's $500 here. $2,154.78. John Winthro, they're going over by $479.78. Unacceptable. Uh the last one is uh SC school 681.75 cents. They're going over by $29687. Those are all because of their P10s. Nothing encumbered. Nothing has happened. So let's hold them accountable. Let's go to them and and and and we work with them. Not against them. We'll work with them. But I think Dr. Avery has uh um Dr. Avery, if I may for a second, I just want to Yes, sir. Um, am I reading this correctly though, just to make sure I understand? Um, and then I have a question, but I'll let Dr. Avery go first. In
139the totals for elementary schools and high schools, the available budget is 16,000 6686 for the um elementary schools. That means that's what's left despite the encumbered and the pending that we haven't spent. Is that correct? Correct. which is does that take into account the overages? Yes. Yes. The unspent money is actually higher if we looked at the schools that didn't spend theirs but they've already taken out the overages in that amount. So in a sense I'll be clear. We do want to educate each school the way you Albert explained earlier Mr. Vanahan explained and working on the forms, make sure we get our system down and your point is correct. We want to make sure nobody spends more than they're entitled to. They're doing us a favor this year because if we don't spend the
140money, it affects future allocations. Am I correct, John? That affects future allocations. Yes, indeed. Yes. that that that if we don't spend money the next year our allocated money would could be reduced because we're not using. So in effect those those schools that are spending more are doing us a favor right now because those that didn't spend their full budget or didn't spend their budget you know could affect our allocation in future years. So just to be clear about that while you want to talk to them about how to make sure they don't go over and I've already heard that discussed procedurally how we're going to fix that or work to improve that. Um this year in particular, ironically, they've done us a favor by spending more money than they were allocated because that money
141would otherwise be lost back to the Yeah. lost back to the pedest or the state. Um, so, okay, Dr. Angry, I'm sorry. Well, I I think it's it's important to understand, guys, we the system that we're using right now doesn't do a lot of those checks and balances where, you know, you you have you have an email going to a principal to say, hey, you have this money to spend. The principal put the requisition in the system, it goes to somebody else for approval. Uh, and there's no real checks and balances there. You hear form stack, you hear the P90, these are done manually and it's just really convoluting the whole process. I I do have to agree. We have to do good budgeting, guys. We're already under this under under the spotlight of are
142we using and spending the money the way we need to spend in the right categories, right? So, I'm not going to I'm not going to allow someone to not spend money and then somebody overspends money and she spends somebody. We we're not doing that. That's not something that we're going that's not good budgeting. That's just not good financing. You know, you got to hold people accountable for spending what they have. And at that point, these campuses have activity accounts that if they go over, they need to pay pay their overage, you know, and we keep it moving that way. That is what I'm going to request, you know, uh, Dr. Figga, to be able to do to make sure that we sum up. And the the campuses are not spending their money on parental involvement
143pieces. Guess what, guys? They're not impacting their parents. That is a leadership issue. And so we got to go back to accountability again. Come on. It's not that when I was trained as a principal, guys, it was me. It was my campus. I'm everything that went through my campus, I was held accountable for it. But it was me because I didn't want anybody to think differently of me because I'm the principal running that particular campus. And so that's what we got to get back to. We got to get these these individuals to say, "Hey, this is my campus. Everything that comes in and out is a reflection of me as the leader. Uh and when we do that, we will make magic in Bishop public schools, guys. That is what we have to be able
144to do. So again, I I like the conversation, but we have to streamline, my team has to streamline what we're doing and how we're doing the work. Uh, and so, uh, you guys hear me say it all the time, we got to be able to do a little bit more of the accountability side of it. And, and we're going to move that. It's it's a process, though. I mean, like I said, this they're working through a system that is is it's it's it's antiquated. We have to give them a little grace on it, but we still have to have a little bit of accountability as well. So, we're going to get it right. I love the conversations, and I think it's good to have these. And uh again you got you you it's just a
145process that we have to go through to to to make it right. So again thank you for uh the time Mr. Chair and and just to be clear my point was simply this year there is that unfortunate reality. I don't disagree with Mr. uh Medina or Mr. Benahandra Alice about and Dr. FGA about the setting up a system and what your point holding people accountable for making sure it gets spent. Um we need to do that. We need you know my attitude was last year we didn't do that well. Um this year again we repeated on this. This is a far better I think report than last year. Last year was really bad. Um, this is a vast improvement over last year, but we still know that we we are, as we've discussed already tonight.
146I I'm not trying to beat the that horse that we need to like now take another step on on an improvement because last year was really bad and this year it's better, but this was the result of a good last minute scramble in some ways. Um, and we want to not be scrambling next year. We want to be spending it throughout the year as should be in a constructive way with constructive parent uh involvement in every school. Yeah. Right. Using Mr. Benahan's wealth of knowledge and experience as well as Mr. Medina. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Um thank you Dr. for your for your information. I appreciate it. Um this is one of the reason that I say about the beat but we have to understand because you have any experience and I'm talking leader we
147have to pull all these leaders because when you say I want to be the pack president of president you represent the school you represent your parents you represent the staff you represent the students you represent your community I know they don't get paid for this as a as the board member too but when you get this position you have to take it seriously not because you want to get a title not because you want this tiger to have a put on your resume, you know, so they have to take it seriously because you're working with money, you're working with community, you're working with parents. Like I said, you represent that school. Someone of them they don't want to do the job. Some of them they want to do only have a title. Some of one
148they come one time in in in the school and the principal say move the back because I really have the communication for some of them. But we have to let them know listen you have this position. This is what this is your role. This is we that's why we got bylaws. What does me president? What does mean as president? What is your job? You have to do how you spend the money. You know, you don't do everything by yourself. You don't make like a doctor every the he had my board members. So he has it done with us. It's almost almost the same thing. So this is one of the reason about the fe so they don't have this issue and then you don't go back and forth asking the principle because I know the
149principal I said to the principal they are busy. They got so many thing that I'm gonna take out of my hand for them, you know. So for me have been another something else about the pack and PTSO president. For me it's not right. I know they have to communicate each other but let's have this big pack and PTSO leaders and not only president I'm talking the vice president and the secretary the three roles let them know what is your job. This is what you have to do. This is your um your obligation as a leader on school. This is not a game. But if you cannot do it, just step down and leave another person do it, you know. So it's not easy and nobody have go back and forth. This is one of the
150reason I'm doing P10 for so many years and you have the the amount. And one of the other thing that um the vendors that's why I send you email um early um when you get a chance it's not rush um because when they do action plans you have to check the vendors. Why the reason you know that's the vendor property we use for the parent you know are you order something is for the parents are you order something for the school for the staff when they don't supposed to you know um and some vendors like to abuse the the budget because they think coming from visual public school something you can buy for $2 they can put it $8 so I know experience for many vendors I know in the grand office is more over
15150,000 vendors But for me, when you get a chance, let them know they can vendor. We don't use it no more. They need it. Trying to put that list, you know, when you get a change, if you have somebody put, you know, put that list up because you still have that vendor there. Other thing, we have vendors, they don't want to do business with public school because they take forever to get paid for it. Um, and they're amazing vendors. I know I got vendors, they always say, "Yes, and they know they're going to get paid late." I said, "Mr. better I do it for you because I know you and I know I'm going to have my money but someone they say no am I going to get paid because they take forever and always
152I ask this question why they take forever to get paid when the money is there if it's something you ask for or you had to apply something I I didn't but when you know the money is there but it takes a forever to get you know to get paid any vendors any person come to speak you know anything it take forever to speak and that's not fair because if they do something good for for parents or for the for the school or for the student whatever workshop it's not fair to say you know pay some vendor they said I don't know I don't care just put it I know I'm going to get paid but it's not fair some of them we lose so many good good vendors just because that um and talk about
153check one of the the things is very important when you get in is the action plan the action plan is something that I like to sit down and go over and trust me when I and when I say I'm going to search I will search that vendor to see you know it was it was proper and you spend the money the way it is but like I said in the beginning we have to be sure these leaders when we do the work the training for them let them know what was mean this job are you ready to take it or not you know if you cannot take it you know respect your decision take it be sure another person they can take it because you're working with money because when hard for you don't spending
154the was supposed to be they checking I said well they don't need money we going to put less you know they they check everything that the last penny and when I see this over 110 100% of whatever this is one of the reason that I say is the queen that will help you 100% but we're going to sit down you know I'm going to show you so we can train all these leaders you know so we do better I know in some of them they're amazing some of them they say I don't have the time so if you don't have the just let another person because you know I know a school you know it's it's they do a lot of but I don't want to either be attacking too much the principles and assistant
155principal because I know they have the communication but when a leader have this job you need to be responsible if you cannot be responsible so don't take it because we don't want conflict we not have any issues like that thank you Mr. there. Thank you. Um let me just clude I think um with the following I I noticed you know the various ones that are at 50 60 70%. And you know it I want to know why and I'm not don't want to know why tonight. I'm just and I don't want to know why per se this year but we should be able to know. Somebody should know why. In every one of these instances, we should know why we didn't hit 100% or why we didn't hit the 95 to 100% in, you know,
156figure. Um, and um, you know, so I what I'm hearing is that in order to address this problem, Mr. B and you are going to be working before we get into next year on developing the systems that we need to make sure that we start the year. We know which presidents are coming back and which are good and functional um you know and where we need to provide more support. again goes back to this whole concept and help them out to make sure that they know what how to do and what to do and provide them the skills and resources you know and training they need to do their job and that you two are going to work on developing that because we used to have a separate committee for this but this is going
157to be sort of like a sub work and I'm relying on that you know just to so that we we're ready to hit the ground running at the start of the next year with all the stuff that we need to do so that we don't have a repeat. And one of the No, you go ahead. One of the things that we're working on and you've talked about is doing a path of the tree. Um that's what came out of that meeting yesterday. Um in the conversation about the package, how large it is. Um and we are looking into the funding um source for you. Uh but using that date of May 17th to meet with like you said the principles, the assistant principles. I'm sorry. My apologies. The president talk about the vice president secretary
158um to do some of this work including talking about what impeachment is and then talking about the action plans for next year so that they are prepared with the action plan before we even right before we finish this year and still having a breakfast and and a lunch together and working and then uh Go ahead. I'm I'm not I'm not holding the tights. Um nothing. Um and it's so they can know each other because sometimes to school they can work together let's say u bas high school next to curry and if you don't have this amount of sometime high school is a little tough to bring parents as experience but you know with anything I doing bas I work a month before and every day every day that's what sometime I got we go. So
159if you see high school, you know, when you high school kids, you know, come at work and you believe they can do something nice, you know, stuff like that and I agree with you and they can they can know each other. They have this situation. You have a vendor. Do you have a speaker? Well, somebody, you know, stuff like that communicate each other. They can know, you know, who who is who. You raised Mark, do you mind if I ask one question before? You raised a different question. Can you use the 23 2 4,000 left to do that training? What number you said? We have about we have Mr. Medina 16,686 and 7,248 unspent. If I No, if I can finish making my point, but you can or may not. Um um so we have
160approximately $24,000 um in unspent money and the question that I'm asking these two first if you if I may no problem is they'll give you we use the money for the kind of end of the year training that you were talking about and and quickly before the deadline encover it so that we are within the legally within the confines of using that money appropriately is what I'm asking. This money is for the school. I know the school will be have it done um soon, but we had the budget for the parent convention, right? That's money for the parent convention, right? It's the one you're going to use for three, you know, to have what the what student but this money cannot after the deadline. I mean, this money is just not spent if the school
161hasn't come submitted in Substack form stack. I mean, yeah, by now, you know, within the next day or two, they might submit, you know, yesterday, the day before, they might have submitted a few more, but one, you know, the deadline is about today. Tomorrow, when is the deadline? Thursday. It was this week. I think it's the end of this week. The end of this week. So, if it's not submitted by the end of this week, it becomes loss for the year. Can we take the loss for the year money before it gets lost and use it to do uh you know to enhance the training that you're talking about I believe and you correct me we can't it cannot be we cannot use money it has to be I'm not trying to do anything illegal
162anything wrong I want to make sure it's closure but if we can if we can do something like that we have this unspent money and the training you're talking about I understand the value and importance of it and if we have this 10 20,000 25,000 more that's left over whatever it ends up being can we submit an incumb an incumbrance that would say we're going to do a retreat with the returning officers before the end of the year to provide them addition not at the convention a day of training yeah where we have you know meals and yeah daycare if we need it or whatever that sort of find out verify for that. But I believe that happened had to be whatever money left they have a school had to do something you know uh
163whatever um I told you P10 make sure something is a workshop for the parent it's going to be situation that I know has some experience they cannot be using it but you can verify they cannot use it they were lost but I know either this week is the red deadline me and you we can work all the school or visit the school or have a meeting with them to see listen I want you to have a meeting um I need to have a meeting with you at this afternoon, this morning, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm free. So, we can go to the show to spend the month they can the money. I know about the training is the money for the parent convention, but I believe they don't use it like you said
164like we said, they're going to lose. Okay. But you can verify if they I apologize. Hi. Um, no, I was just going to add on to we're also going to be proactive in that in our May admin council meeting on our agenda with principles and letting them know the items that we want for them to turn in. So for instance on that list is who is your pack president and some of these questions that they're thinking about it at the end of this year which will tell you a nice you can um send it email let them know the principal listen I want you to date with your pack and psy because I have the list data some of them they're not living here the phone is changed the email is not working you know
165I'm like okay if you think that person is still in school you probably need to talk to them if they was not let's the type person they can so I don't want nobody to know my information so why you there for it I'm sorry but why you there for it not only because I know parent person you know they work I don't know I don't not like me almost I was every day in high school that's my home but some that they cannot because they working they do things like that so how the parent they will communicate with you how the principal will communicate with you I'm sorry and my other thing u u the charity and I know they was coming from you we supposed to have somebody else you requested to be here.
166I'll come you know she because I believe she's the one working with the leader stuff like that and this is the second time I believe she's not here so I wouldn't know what happened. Um I think um she had a a prime engagement for tonight. Um and then you know I think most of the questions that we were going to be discussing tonight we knew that we had the answers for those um but she had a prior engagement before. I'm I'm sorry and you know respect everybody decision of life but there was a request probably two weeks before we did not make I did not make that clear two weeks before I Dr. Saki was away last week. So by the time I caught up with him, it was Monday that I I emphas downstairs
167and everything, but our meeting start at least, you know, we can put in some weekend here. I think that you know in so far as we should conclude this discussion tonight but revisited as a sort of end of the year look as to where we're at um at the next meeting have her here too and know what she has they're looking what kind of training has been offered but we want to have a understanding of what's been done this year and what we need to work improve on this. We It is improvement that you presented, but we wanted to see and what else we need to do to to make sure that we're because you know Albert's says all the time and he's correct. You know, more parents that we have involved, the more parents
168that participate, the stronger our school district could be. And in light of the fight we're having right now for more resources from the state, if we had strong backs at every school, this certainly help us with situations like that too. So that that is one of the experiments. Um we have someone coming to talk also with them about advocacy and talking to how to support our schools and write our congressmen and and help support us in this this fight. So for that money so it's not the congress people who really need it right now we can talk about them while um sorry share um I have a former impact president that will contact you they have experience you know because we're part of the help guiding and giving you know how that you can communicate
169and work with your principal and with your oh absolutely like I said and I told you in the beginning I'm here to help you to support you know, so I'm telling you what to do because that's not my that's my job to help people work together with that, you know. I appreciate everything you're doing. Thank you for your time. Any final questions anywhere? Thank you very much. So again, I'm I'm noting that we're continuing on the suspension stuff. We're continuing on this at the next meeting just as an ongoing sort of review. Um and uh regardless of that then I'm moving on to the next item which is uh we did on the record want to note and thank you for having Mr. I know that his counterpart is not available because she's out. I
170want to be clear, we would had asked to have both math and lang presented. Um, but we were lucky to get that. Absolutely. I want to start with an overview just to give you some context. So, this was in your your package that you received. Um, I like to start with where were we at the beginning of the year or the end of last year 23 24 our math. This is the Smarter Balance testing for grades 3 through eight. Well, this is why it's here. Yeah. Was 20% for math was approximately 12%. These were students that these were students that performed uh at or met or exceeded standards. And when we compare that to where the u the the section below is the 2425 results and this now this year we did not do all
171of the IABS. We only we only had three sessions. And when you combine that and look at the results of the IABS that we did take, our ELA is coming in at 11% while math is coming in at 13. I'm going to Okay. Now, now you have B. So the in the blue is your 23. The very last column is your 23. I see 23 24 and I see 22 23. And then you go down below 6 to 199 and we went from 108 to 123. But I'm I'm going down below. Yeah, these are the 24 25 cumul cumulative to date as of 411. um the cumulative results from all the IEDs that we took and which is although it doesn't have all the content areas that a smarter balance assessment would have it does
172give us an indication on how our students are doing working towards grade level ELA we came in at 11% and math we came in at 13 13 and 11 that are at or above. Correct. That met or exceeded level three or four. Correct. The green the green color green equates to the final column is is the um above standards or the student that met the standard. The yellow is at or near the standard. Okay, that's what they Thank you. You know what I'm asking? I got this. So, it's actually then in let's stay with Matt since I'm talking to the math ma'am. Um, uh, I see 13% and 35%. We got to be just a little careful because Okay, because the the green one Mhm. although it's called above and by the way, I I
173actually made it bigger because I couldn't see it from my reading and couldn't see that thing. Yeah, thank you. You know, struggling with that. That's one down to um the wife over there. I couldn't I couldn't see it. Thank you. I was trying to So, so yeah. Yeah, I know. I was going What you see on the top is the egg. Okay. That was painted as the other one. And the egg pack is the the full tools. Thank you. I do have a magnet on glass cumulative and so that I think that point of miss Hughes is making is that you know we're making growth because the kids that ended last year at 12.3 are now unlevel taking unlevel tests because the the IABS the interim assessments are unlevel 13% of those kids are unlevel
174right now and 35% of them you look at at the bottom 35% of them in the yellow are are are are almost there are almost there. So, they're growing and that matches the other data that we had that I think you saw last time. I actually saw your videos uh and the and you know that data shows that that we're making growth while so this is another uh type of data that you used to triangulate. I call it triangulate because you can't when you go to the doctor you you you just don't take one blood test and say, "Oh, yeah, you have cancer." No, you have a a lot of different tests that predict that, right? So, same thing happens when it's structured. We have to see it with the full. Yeah. I just I
175want to make sure that I understand, you know, be clear. You know me. Yeah. I I am I am not a test believer. I don't care. Um and so I think there's a lot of flaws in standardized testing, but I want to make sure we're comparing apples and apples. I want to have an idea that you know we're looking at. And so when I see that in 23 24 we had 12.3% at or above you know which is what level three or four is right or exceeded. Yes. um what's the equivalent number so far in our diagnostic testing if you will in our anticipatory testing whatever you want to call it because we haven't gotten our so what are we seeing because what I see here says it's um uh 13% that's that succeeded and
176so that the yellow group of 35% if we get some of supposed to like a step up in the last few months then we will even exceed by an even greater amount what we did the previous year. Am I reading that correctly? Okay. So, but in language arts then my concern becomes that I'm seeing 11% correct at or above um and uh last year it was virtually 20 19.9% at or above. So where you know I you know now again we get 41% that are close. So if we uh you know get you know a quarter of the 41% we're about where we were last year. If we get more than that, then we're the expanded version of ELA even though it was said is true that the at or near there could there will
177be kids that can rise above and go into the green if you will to be exceeding. Yes. However, my experience in other schools and other districts is that when you look at your IABS, it's those students who have met the achievement standard. That's what the green is. Sorry, I want to make sure that we're all following you. I would just caution you when you're looking at that analysis so that when you look at ELA for instance and we're saying for the overall um that I bet 41 and 11 okay that I you know that and that entire 41 is not going to be I get that I I said if we get a quarter of that if we got half of that we would be um well above if we got a quarter of that
178we would be at and and my point is I've done studies on this in other schools looking at on when you do a full all the IABS over a year and then you compare on a student by student basis to the actual SA smarter balance results that it's those the only reliable at this point in the year is th those students that are in green even though you're you're right you can have students that rise into the green during the smarter balance it's not going to be a understand your point and so Then what you're saying is that um we are significantly below where we were last year. Yes. Because we order of getting the at near is realizable to me. Um but you're saying historically in your experience that's not likely to caution me
179with that. I understand. Um so you know you want to finish your math analysis before you went to the scar. So, so there just just so you bring you back to the last conversation on this. Uh, yeah, you have the interimm assessment block which is the IABS, right? And you also have the FABS which are the focus in your blocks. Now, these words in mouth are used interchangeably, but they they have slightly different means. Okay. Uh, an FIA has a very narrow set of standards. I say standards, I mean like like telling time, right? That could be one standard. And um you know and in and uh so you have typically one to three in those data but they they have deep deeper concepts they d deeper they might have questions that that touch upon
180um some some deeper areas within that tele for example or something. As an aside the IAB um will have content across different uh domain like a full domain. So you will have um for example in equations for example you might have and decimals and percentages all within that domain. So you have a broader um in math we've done we've done less of the IB than the FABs and the reason for that is because we match it to the book we use it as a you know as kids complete those chapters in the book we find something that they could assess so we can see where they are and then we can see where where can we use the what we call the wing block the what I need block the intervention time or the acceleration
181time okay to help those students move forward. That's one. Two, we we actually have the teacher look at with the students all the different mechanical parts, all the computer-based parts with the student because these assessments have, you know, the the um the IBS have the same type of of mechanical pieces of of um of computer-based pieces as the SBA. So, it will be like a practice for the SI. So, it's a plus for the students to know. And last but not least, we we we look we have the teachers look at the language. Why? Because um ESPAC uses some phrases that might not be used in the typical book. Although our book is pretty good with it, but it invites more practice. Okay. So, those are three things that we want. It goes back to
182teaching. But that's only um so so that's one. Uh and then and then last but not least, we have met with some administrators um with administrators and teachers to help do what we call error analysis. And the beauty about this program is that it allows you to see each of the questions in your class and it tells you, you know, like you have a list of students and it allows you to see, you know, who got that question right and wrong. you could see down the line, oh, question number one, you had, you know, 75% of the case gathered gathered correct, but question number two, only 10% had it correct. So, I'm going to I'm going to go to question number two and I'm going to, you know, share that with my students and then
183and then throughout the the week or throughout, you know, I'm going to have several of those type of questions to ensure that the students. So, in a way, this is not just a test that we give is my point. is actually a test that is going to help you in teaching the content to and to and to tie the book which is a very good book to the content that they will be assessed. So that basically what it is uh you could see the data straight ahead there and I will um you know I would uh you know miss Mr. Winom do you have any questions? No, not at this time. Mr. Medina. Um, no, but I thank you for using that word language. Um, me being in a uh a Latin and coming into
184the Border, that was one of my issues that I had because you use a certain word and I learned that word book. Then when I took a test, it said it differently with a different word and I didn't know what I was doing because word problems were my worst at math until I found that word problems were my worst. And I'm a mathematician. I classified myself as a mathematician as my other brother know you know and um but it was something that language was certain thing when you said it different I'm like well what am I supposed to do now I know how to do it but when thing and then that tool part that you guys share that word tool also to know that that data is coming back to know question number two
185only 10% why in the world why did that happen what was it and it might be that knowing the demographics of brush sport is big you know because just that alone can take the student out. You can sit him down and tell them remember we did this in class. This is the one that we sent in and boom that student would get the answer like that. But that was that was me. That was that student Mr. um Carer will write anything on the board. I wrote it in my notebook. If he wrote I love chocolate or cookies, I wrote my notebook. I love chocolate. He wrote, you know, because that words matter. I tied it into the assignment to to do the work. So I appreciate you using that. I think in knowing that that
186is a key part of it especially again with the demographics that we have in our city of you know Asia as second language and stuff is huge and I would like to know that to figure out we can if we have that such data to know you know by race how are they doing even by race in a sense because we can see how listen I I'm the one that goes crazy with teachers you know numbers matter so you can have this population doing great this doing not so great and that's going to affect the average you talk about average. That being said, I share this one and I believe this one is the same thing as you know the graph. So when I did the math at need at or near and the percentage
187of by grade I added it up and then I get a percentage from that it's giving me 40% but yet I'm seeing numbers here that's giving me 35% at the at need or at least when I did the math and did addition percentage it's giving me 14 and you guys giving me a data of 13 the other one is off by 5%. % according to my information and the others are the yellow and then the green is off by 1%. I could answer that absolutely when you fun fact this when you look at the aggregate the 2425 results that includes all of the IES or FIABs that people gave in math. Okay. Whereas when when we showed you this section, this was the quarter three results and they were very explicit. So for here got
188you. Okay. So that that would be your difference. But I I thought it would be of value to see that and and to your point using these IABS as tools as opposed to an assessment or mark. Yeah. But that using it as a tool, you're exposing our children to the language. you're being able to teach them that academic language that they may not be using in a classroom and and just the test taking skills because there's questions that say answer two questions or part A and part B and that's not something that our students are used to. So you need to give them that opportunity and make them alert in letting them know when this says you have two questions to answer in order to get it right you have to answer the two questions.
189You can't just go on to the next one or hit submit. and and that's the value in working in using the IABS and then being able to create so one of the things that we've done with our six schools is we were able to pay teachers I went in and I know Tito has done it as well in other schools we go in and we do um teacher education in how do you use this tool to create your small groups and then using this the problem how can you use that to teach the language, the the test taking skills, you know, other in addition to the content obviously. I appreciate as a bus driver, we always do that. I did the busing and in Bridgeport and the city bus and then we know with an
190accident or an incident we went back and visited the incident and the problem to fix it to get the right, you know, solution to what we could have done to correct it and get it bad. It's like that. Go back to it and find out why didn't you get it wrong, what was it, where did you, you know, so I appreciate that. that that does it's going to help student you know help me oh I'm sorry no in addition to that this year we also met with our principles you know the same like what they did with the teachers we also looked at the data and made sure that they understood that what they needed to go because at the end of the day they are the instructional leaders in that class in their building
191so they need to be more visible in the classroom supporting and modeling and providing that coaching that they need just because they can look at their own data and own their data. So we have been doing all three of us have been doing data along with us question but I want you to answer you had another comment first. I was just going to tie into what was saying that actually made that when you look at the data as a whole is more impactful because you could see correlation between it these assessments are so close together that is incredible. For example, the measures of academic progress, the MAP test, NWA MAP test we call it, we're in W4. Um that that that test called the MAP test, the measure of academic performance for math. And so
192that test what it shows it shows a a quadrant. And in the bottom quadrant, there are kids that are high achievers, but they didn't move. So we saw in some schools that there were kids in that quadrant that were high achievers that didn't move. Well, those are because you're focusing so much of your low kids that those kids did not move as much. So when we saw that in the data, we said that's an easy fix. We're going to make sure that we have enrichment tasks throughout and as an administrator, that administrator is going to take care of us taking a look to see what kind of enrichment tasks are done for those students that Yeah. And even though you're meeting with these kids that are that are low three times a week and these
193kids that are in the yellow, right, two times a week and the kids that are in the green, you're going to meet one time a week with that enrichment group and and you're going to set up um the computer program when we have those centers in in such a way that you target the three groups. So it's powerful. It's actually more work for the for the teacher to be honest, but it's more powerful because it's going to help everybody grow together. That is one of the things we've been saying that you know accountability index is the goat model right so we want to make sure that everyone is going. So sometimes in the classroom what happens is you're at or above you are not pushing that because you're pushing and that is what we saw
194and that was the discussion we were having with our principles as to how do we push this. So what can you do in your classrooms and what that small group is not just intervention we are talking about we want to push them with enrichment. So, we're making that owning their own data. No, no. I I'm just I'm extraordinarily biased about this stuff. I I I've spent years being told, you know, teach to the yellow ones because the more of those yellow ones we can get over the line into the green, the better our scores become. Um, and it's just not I mean, kids move at different rates, different ways. And I understand that it's useful and I would do the same thing. I see a particular question on the test that too high a group
195percentage and we'd spend some time looking at that. Um, you know, that's useful. Um, but we're still teaching to the test. We're not teaching the subject. And I understand the why. I'm not I'm not I'm just I have this. So, it's it affects my my you know, not what you're doing, not my judgment or anybody else. And I know it's what we're supposed to be doing, but it's just so wrong. So like can I can I give you another lens to look at it through? Yeah. If we look look at it through our instruction, right? Our our curriculum is based on standards that guides our curriculum, right? And this is based on the standards. So we're not teaching to the test, we're teaching to the standards. Yeah, I I understand the true or not. I'm
196not going to have the I'm not trying to have resurrect cut this gut debate, but the fact is and it's just I'm I'm expressing my own and I appreciate you know bias in this area. That's all. And so I I do understand what Mr. Promise was saying about using that to help guide and and review certain areas where you may want to make sure that you've improved it. Um you know, and you want to go back and revisit a lesson. Um and the question I had more generally was are we finding and are we allowing the teachers the time because remember the problem we had at the beginning of the year was that we were putting them on such a tight schedule they were not allowed to do and you know one of the problem
197you know beyond the logistical problem of when there's an outbreak of a cold or a flu and attendance is low or something else is going on and you miss you know and the lesson doesn't get you missed a third of the class covering significant area and you have to revisit it. Uh there's also this notion of you you look at a result, you see, oh here's an area where I want to go back and and revisit. Are we allowing teachers the time to go back and do that in our facing? Yes. One of the one of the initi and the the other useful information we get from this is it also helps inform us. Now we're look so for instance it's a great segue to ELA. when I look at ELA and I look at
198the the change from from the prior year and then I went in and we do the error analysis with our principles and we're looking at you know what where where is the missing link what's happening then we also and so for our kids in in from the literacy side it's those higher level higher order thinking for comprehension and and the and the critical skills that they need things to do so for this particular test specifically students had difficulty um identifying ideas to support opinions or identifying a main idea to support detail. Okay. So, so those are those are higher order thinking skills that that kids have to get to. But to your point, the other the other way the other thing that we're doing is we're taking a look at okay, let's take a look
199at our curriculum. And one of the things that we notice in our K6 ELA curriculum, actually K8, is we're not having that instructional focus. So what so now what we're doing as part of curriculum revisions, working with teachers and the directors this summer is now we're going in go back to these lessons and give them the focus so that we can focus on these higher order thinking skills. It's not just the lower level skill. if you need to do the lower level to get there, but to really make sure that our teachers are we're supporting them and saying, "Listen, this, you know, you've got it's like a continuum. We're going to start here now. We're going to build up and and and support that." So, that's it's ways for us to revise our thinking to
200your point on the pacing that we heard teachers loud and clear and we are doing away with day one, lesson one, day two, lesson two. And what we're doing is we're reviewing our scope and sequencing which is also has been off. We've got we're improving that. That's one another issue that we learned. And then this the the third thing is that we're giving them a range. Okay. We're covering all of the important significant focus areas before April break, right? Because testing starts next Monday. So we're doing it before April break. We're covering the the things for ne you know the the lesser focus for the grade level a you know from now to the end of year but that's our primary focus we're giving teachers a window so we're saying between now and octo midocctober
201we need to focus on this unit and then we're also in in interlaying what if IS or IABS are appropriate to give so that we can get have a closer touch point on where our kids stand because we didn't start this until December. So that's late. I recognize that when I asked my question. That's way too late. We should we should we need to move it up and do this throughout the year. Yes. So we are we learn you know we we learn things from this these results as well. And going to what Mr. Medina asked earlier, it's not simply a linguistic problem we have with the aspects. It's a cultural problem. Um, and do we still I mean is our you you mentioned the quality of the material that you think we're using now.
202Um, but there's still I mean I don't know how the materials I guess you know in math I can see it a little bit and line the charts becomes a little harder to address the cultural problem of testing. Well, when I've seen some of those questions that come in and it's like are you kidding me? you really expect these children to understand what that is asking and talking about. But if you frontload that in their realm of experience, right? But if you frontload that in in in your in your that conceptual understanding of what do these words mean? What what is the academic skill they need to do? Our kids will get there. So one of the things that we're doing for next year as well is we are phase two of our this year
203was tier one work with our teachers. Next year has been going to be differentiation. 50% of our students, we 30% of our students are multilingual learners, 20% are special ed. Every week we're meeting with the multilingual director and we're meeting with the special ed director and we're brainstorming ideas on how we can support our teachers because this year the content directors worked with our teachers, showing them what where in the resources you can go. We're going to kick it up a notch. We're going to actually put that location of the differentiation into the unit plans for them so that they don't have to go searching for it. Right? The second thing that we're going to do is also really giving them time during the back to school and talking about differentiation. Talking about how can
204I differentiate from my multilingual learners. Do I even know are they are they L1 for writing and reading or they L3? Those are very different instructional strategies that you're going to use with the student depending on whether they're lost link scores. Using their loss link scores to guide that differentiation process and same thing with our special ed students. The the beauty of having a book is resources to help you. I don't think we have that. Our books are what 5 years old. So we haven't had a book for math K8 or even K12 before that in about 15 years one solid book. So the beauty of having good resources solid resources that you when you want to differentiate there's different parts that you could take a look at and our book has stations. I mean
205it actually has too much you have to actually you know go through and pick and choose what you want. He has so much that you can see if you try to do everything go nuts. Um but but yeah, it's very powerful the resources that they have at hand now help process because we have a lot of needs. But it's still my point doesn't teach the cultural problems in this way. Yeah. And you know, if we want to reach our children, we're teaching where they're they are the concepts that we want to teach them whether it's just identifying the reasons why something happened and explaining that as answering or your math points using aspects of life that they experienced and understand. And when you get a question on an aspect, that's it has nothing to do
206with any reality you've ever experienced. That's that affects your ability to comprehend what you're really asked to do. And I don't know if that's gotten better or not, but it's it's been a problem in the past. I watched it and even some of the ones we use the the the tests during the year are asking questions that you know the kids are going but so we want to make sure that we're but you know again that at some point we want to make sure they're learning math and they're learning reading and and that's the whole thing you know what they might not be able to understand the background you know they don't have the background knowledge of saying talking about maybe skiing some place and they've never gone to that. However, what we're talking about
207is giving them the tools of just reading comprehension. So, they might not have that, you know, 2% or 5% of that skill, but then they will be able to utilize what they know just to uh answer the question, citing evidence and going back to it and doing that. And so that's all we can do because we can change what the ESPback you know uh content is going to the common the common core standards were created with the intent of created with the intent. So if instructed properly right created with the intent that stu you don't have to have background knowledge that you can learn the skill to read something and figure out use the tools within within the text to figure out what they're talking about and that and that's also part of the instruction.
208the the vast majority of the questions now um are are very much mathematical like they're not in the in the problem solving I mean the problem sense um that introduces different things that might be out of the realm of what they could do to give you an example one of the questions that kids had difficult time in third grade was when rounding to the nearest 10 what is the leaseole number that rounds to 840 and that's you really have to know the content to really answer that question. It's not like, oh, we're going to run to the nearest plan 840. We're going to go and look at the neighbor and you know, this is about thinking. This is not just about this is this is about applying and in the context of it is it's
209agnostic. Doesn't have any in that in that context. If you have a word problem, then you have a problem. If you have a word problem, you have a But that's not a point. No. Let me let me ask you um to shift to do you have something you want to add on language arts? No, I think you covered everything and then question. Well, no, I we we had we had identified student growth as an area that you raised at the last meeting that you wanted to emphasize. So I wondered if you had any final thoughts that you wanted to add about that because I want to continue that focus because to me that's the greatest focus is to what you know are our students growing um and how are we seeing that our year end
210benchmark which will also be given within the next couple weeks as well before the end of May will give us more of that information and then of course when we get the smarter balance results we'll see that as well in there. Yeah, I don't I that's why I you you particularly emphasized the importance of looking at growth versus the scores. And I don't disagree with that. I agree with that. And so I wanted to make sure that we were looking at that to begin to engage in that discussion. Um at this committee level and beyond. Um well, and that's what we did with our principles when we we met with our principles. We said, "Here's where your kids were at the beginning of the year. Here's the middle of the year. you know why is
211this grade not growing? we not seeing any evidence that let's say we look at um phonics why are you know why are these kids not moving along faster than we would expect them to be at the middle of the year why are they going back so those are the kinds of conversations and then our principles then in turn they go and they're doing their common planning time at their grade levels they would further explore that and then next year with our data teams we're going to kick it up a notch as well engage That lead me to my last sort of question in that area was as you do that sort of citywide you're able to identify areas that you're not doing well at and whether it's in math or language arts and then we're
212going to develop it what I was touching on today with the ELN comprehension and just not that's that's the It's a continuing problem and so the question is how do we deal with it? We have to do a better job in giving guidance to teachers within our curriculum. Right. I get that. Yes. Foundational skills because comprehension doesn't start in third grade. I get that. So we need to start with No, I I I don't disagree with you that if if if we start to get the additional resources that we want, if we start being able to do the interventions that we want, then the change will happen very slowly. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen because our kids are quite capable. Yes. We just aren't providing the opportunity and the and the
213support that are needed. We desperately need coaches in our schools. And you look at every every urban district in the state, whether it's Harford, New London, everyone as coaches where these coaches are doing targeted focus with their teachers. When Blackham finished second in the loan finding competition, whatever it's called years ago, we had one and a half three coaches and one math coach and um 1200 students and the first place school was Barnum School in Stratford which is about a quarter the size of Black and had three full-time reading tutors and three full-time reading coaches in and that's some workingclass blue collar suburb that's not out into the Gold Coast districts where they have even more distance. But that's that is what we what we all know we want to be able to do is
214when we identify a problem or a need whether it's emotionally socially or whether it's academically we can deal with it ASAP right and we do that then our children will start you know not falling behind in that kindergarten first second grade period that is so important foundationally and that you'll see Well, let's see even comprehension will come and we at the end of the year we'll present to you those those areas and those so we can actually look at growth. Yeah. I mean because that's really it it is children are growing. They may not show the test scores per se but there is that other growth that they do and they're growing within the band. You know what? Even at the red, we know there are students who didn't started at that and right they
215down by the red end of the yellow but now at the green end of the yellow and you're not seeing that in this chart. Yes, it doesn't show here but definitely when you that's why the accountability index at the big level that is what it will show and they think that is considered going back to the the growth question and I think you the map and I think it's to your point if it's clearer where you can actually monitor that grow three times. Yes. Yes. Um, and I think the hope is that we're going to be having that for as well come next year. So, at least math is as clear as we have. Oh, we don't. We still have another year. We can't do it. We get the money. Yes. You know as always
216I said you know I would never be tired to say this as a board members we community trust right same way we trust you guys you know better you guys do the best thing and good job try to do the best they can that's why we have to let another staff we're here to help you support you we know we the professional want to try to see what we can do to plan whatever we have to do to be sure you ready to give education to our kids we are not perfect we try the best we can you know as they've always It's okay and great communication is a great successful you know so this is something that I always say this you know we are like the the rules of the tree you know
217so friends and everything is our student the staff and everything so we are strong to be sure they know we strong we know the rules keep so as I said the community trust we trust you we can celebrate but thank you for everything you guys So amazing. Let me I absolutely agree with what man said. Um um let me ask though if we don't have that ability in math in language arts or ELA calling my age um the how are we measuring growth because at the last meeting you lit up about let's talk about growth right that's a more exciting discussion and I couldn't agree with more that is a more exciting discussion but how are we measuring ing that growth. So, so it may not if that's a longer discussion then I would want
218to continue that you know in a future meeting but we can do that in our next meeting. Yeah. I I really I understand I you know having seen I can see I I saw my kids make their progress but in reading you know how are we measuring it as a district and a teacher can see the growth in the classroom but how do we see it as a district through our benchmarks we have our K3 we do the digital so what is it we don't have then that you said well our our current benchmark that we're using for reading comprehension is not doesn't give you as much information as we as for instance the NWA the NWA really max out growth and and in in my opinion in my opinion I agree yeah so one
219of the things that we would like to do is to invest in NWA for a for ELA however that's another $150,000 and right now because we are cons, you know, we do have another year left in the products that we're using now. We want to finish that up and see, but we're not we're not in a position to spend money right now based on that. We know, but we can still measure. We're still measuring growth. Sure. Well, I I understand how a teacher is measuring growth. Well, I'm trying to figure out how the district's measuring it. Well, I mean, our school is measuring it. You know, that's so that would be worth looking at since we're going to have to do that again for another year. Yeah. what I what you have in mind is
220it's easy to see when uh Mr. planet says, "Well, we can measure the growth because we have this tool." You're saying, "We don't have this tool." So, we're developing we're developing we're developing our other tools um that are not that they're not they're not what we would like to have, but that's what we have. So, we're working. So, maybe we can spend a little time talking about that. Yeah, and we're going to use more IABS next year and time them evenly throughout the year so that we can use that as well and we can make a comparison across years when we do. Yes, that's a good thing we haven't had that data. Because what I you know what I would love to do is be able to show you in in this IAB these were
221the percentage of students that were well below right as compared to and and that that's one of the things that we did with our principles at the beginning of the year was they had growth action plans that they developed and we we look for each student where are they on the continuum and then how can we support them in their growth so that looking at all student we're not just singing out those cusp kids. We're not just looking at the kids that are already there or just focusing on the the well low standard kids that are performing at that level. We're looking at all our students. And for me guys, I'll tell you the truth like I told Dr. In Dr. Saki and Dr. F and everything, my benchmark when it comes to all this
222is those people that you guys are working with, those principles and those teachers that they know that they're getting that support from you guys. And I'm then I'm just like I'm back, you know, happy and enjoy because I mean we're all working together. That's that's where my benchmark is and that's where my passion for us to build those bridges with our staff and all the stuff that they know we're there. They need to they reach out, they get an answer, we go back and forth and we build this because I mean we're we have a lot of growing to do. We know this. We're a new board of members and everything and we want to have what we what the board and the administration and for that matter to the city and our principal that
223relationship that they have formed. We want to build on that that we want to build you know Dr. Abra is meeting with the principles as well Fridays in his individual groups that he's meeting with the focus groups as well. He's been meeting with us to Mr. Winston, do you have any final questions before we No, I'm good. Thank you. Well, I thank you all very much for your patience and and this, you know, I I apologize. I mean, we we had a full agenda. We didn't realize the the added item was going to add so much time. So they spent more time tonight than I would like to have for you know because I'm trying to get a solid reason why I said in the beginning starting earlier you said the mini goal bad for
224me I'm not but I do appreciate you all being here and engaging in the discussions so thank you for that and Sam and thank Thank you Sam. I'll take a motion to adjourn. Any other think I need to ask? Is there anything else? Okay, then I'll take the second that. All in favor? I thank you very much. Let's go. Second, sir. Thank