001and I am present no an all right well we could go ahead and uh you yes go right ahead Okay so we've taken roll do we have a flag for Pledge yes give me a second all rise to the pledge pledge allegiance fled United States of America one nation and jce okay um so moving on next item is all the we have several informational items having to do with um meetings at the curriculum Council and then also the ulat results and English learner program so might as well begin with um the music executive summary thank you so um as you know the chesher curriculum council is made up of um representative teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade and every five years um we have a schedule whereby a department will do a self evaluation of
002their curriculum and Technology professional development the standards and they will update their goals and objectives over that fiveyear period of time and set those they do this work independently um within their departments k12 and then they present that information to the cheser curriculum Council the council met in December and heard from three departments one was music the other was library and the other was a program which is our English learner program and so tonight we have an executive summary of the music program and the um library media specialist program for you so you see we have some new faces to our meeting tonight we have with us John cuner who is our P2 department chair we also have D Odell Who currently this year working at DOD Middle School we've got Greg Bell who is
003at cheser high school and we have Lynn laclair from DD middle school so I will turn it over to John cuner the K12 department chair and he will provide you with um an overview of their presentation good evening everyone I'm GNA present my screen just give me one moment here all right is that coming up yes I just wanted to say John you are not a new face thanks uh I don't know if that's good or bad yeah all right can all of you see my screen I should have said faces new to the Monday night crew is what I should have said we're good John thank you all right thanks so uh I just wanted to uh introduce all of the members of the committee we have uh some were not able to join
004us this evening uh the CCC music subcommittee members uh are Greg Bell Nicole cgel Lyn lir Jamie Odell Rich sheski myself and our administrative liaison is Dan tardelli uh as you see on the screen mission statement is very important to all of us um as a department and focuses on preparing and inspiring our students for lifelong participation in music and this is how our students feel I'll play a couple of excerpts from this video I love because makes feel happy and calm let me try restarting this one more time hopefully this will work when under class may come in it makes a big difference to them to being adjusted to the school and then also we have a few moments in band where like everything just clicks and you feel connected to the music and
005to the people and that's really it's an amazing feeling and great feeling to be part of an ensemble like that because it's not just you doing that for yourself it's you contributing to this beautiful either show or concert with this group of people nice John you're on mute yeah I just muted that just to see if we could get a better audio signal was it slightly distorted on your end I'm assuming yes unfortunately we'll see if others will play um our presentation is organized by the artistic processes uh the framework for our national core art standards we will take you on a student Journey from kindergarten Garden through High School in the areas of creating performing connecting and responding for creating musicians conceive and develop new artistic ideas by improvising composing selecting and interpreting music
006and musical ideas in the early years of the musical classroom students are taught the foundational skills that we build upon each year some of these skills include differentiating between singing and speaking voices pitch relationships dance and creative movement call and response and simple written compositions [Music] chip good job and in the later years of Elementary music classroom students begin to use more staff notation and are introduced to instruments including recorder guitar or ukulele band string instruments and then students continue to improvise and compose simple pieces creating at the middle school here's an example using the program note [Music] flights sorry for that Distortion moving on to the middle school as well for Improv provation couple of excerpts not g to work so I think we're gonna have to move ahead unfortunately um I can share
007this with you so that uh you can take a look at it at your leisure I'm not sure what the lag is maybe it's because we're all on remotely I'm not sure um but uh let me continue ahead uh we do have a string orchestra performance of Carol of the Bells we'll give it one more try here see if this comes through and it's not and then the CHS vocal Jazz with a performance with a great improvisation which uh again we will share this with you so you can take a look at these videos for connecting musicians experience relationships among artistic ideas personal meaning and external context and being in an ensemble or class promotes leading and Following being a part of a team students connect with both themselves and others in this example we
008would hear a first grade class at Norton practicing African-American Spirituals music helps our students connect to the other other cultures as well as to community Through performances in their school and audiences outside of the school music involvement helps students to connect with their inner thoughts in this excerpt from the Star Wars theme sixth grade band students imagine what it's what is going on in the movie as they play the theme give this one try if not we'll skip ahead not going to happen tonight here are some Middle School examples of connecting with literature and historical events and also at the middle school examples for Community events the Memorial Day parade and the Veterans Day assembly uh the coral department at Chester High School connected with the drama Department's presentation of antigon in M Munich the
009Sophie schol story exploring the role people their Agee played during the h cost with pieces like inscription of Hope by Z Randall Stroop and also investigated the role people can play to provide change with songs like hope for resolution which celebrates the partnership of Mandela and D clerk in South Africa programmatic band pieces like inchon that the symphonic band performed Chronicles the battle of the same name from the Korean War giving students the opportunity to explore the emotional significance these events played in human history performances at elim Park and at the public library have allowed students to see how their musical contributions can benefit the community they live in and collaborate with other students like seniors for seniors Club to achieve a common goal responding musicians understand and evaluate how the Arts convey meaning on
010this slide you can see a response about a student's perception of how practicing at home contributed to his to this band member's experience and also a chart that describes the level at which students feel they are given opportunities to respond middle school and high school students respond and reflect on their own peer performances using Google forms and class discussions the video below shows two students interacting with each other uh giving feedback about the performance that they just gave very thoughtful feedback from our students to each other uh do and CHS students have the opportunity to select music for their winter and spring concerts based off of skill level and curricular goals and here are some exceptional responses for a listening assignment and repertoire selection assignments at the middle school level performing the process of realizing
011artistic ideas and work through interpretation and and presentation at the elementary level music students are provided with multiple opportunities to perform both in their class and for their school Community they explore performances through song dance and beginner instruments such as recorder and orph instruments and later through Coral Ensemble string and band ensembles and Technology such as smart music I would play this but this is uh this is a video of students performing with smart music in a string on Ensemble and this next slide uh you would have seen um students performing at Norton a first grade concert and you can see um some of the other photos performing at the elementary level continuing on at the middle school we have several ensembles students can participate in at do and here are some of the examples
012of in-class performances at DOD middle school and that's actually a video of the orchestra in the dod Middle School B Orchestra room and at the community music thrives in community settings here is an example of seventh and 8th grade students carolling at elim Park this past December and at the high school level after a comprehensive music education at the elementary and middle school level this is our goal and let's see if we have any success unfortunately not and then this would have been an excerpt of the CHS marching Ram band which I'm sure many of you have seen and heard before social emotional learning in music uh the following are some of the way social emotional learning takes place in music classes and ensembles and Music Learning involves the use of kinesthetic linguistic spatial inter
013and intrapersonal musical expressive and mathematical functions all being exercised concurrently and looking back again at the artistic processes of Performing creating responding and connecting we see that the active music making requires students to deploy complex thinking skills to be successful the graphs above show that most of our elementary students are comfortable in their in our classes most students believe that their individual growth as well as their growth as a group matters to us this is taken from our survey results this data represents an average of the two grades who took the same survey for all three of these statements 87 to 90% of students agreed or strongly agreed at the high school level I try my best in music Ensemble classes because music is important to me all agree with 60% strongly agreeing I have
014used complex thinking skills in my music ensembles and classes all agree with more than 80% agreeing or strongly agreeing and I have opportunities to feel successful in my music Ensemble classes 98.2% agree moving on to our what will be and our five-year goal regarding curriculum standards and uni guides the curriculum document will be fully aligned with the national core art standards by 2023 organized in a shared Google Drive drive with all grade levels strands and courses represented including units lessons resources assessments and exemplars all containing a complex thinking component social emotional learning strategy and a CPS performance standard under text resources and Technology we recommend continuing the process of replacing School instruments remedy acoustical treatments in rehearsal spaces to address unsafe High decibel levels expand online resources replacing textbooks and investing in a computer lab
015at Treasure high school for use by students enrolled in general music and Performing ensembles with regards to instructional strategies expand opportunities for elementary course to meet during the school day meet quarterly as a full music department faculty to accomplish specific goals expand small group instructions so that all instrumentalists have access to small group lessons grades 5 through 12 expand interdisciplinary connections and expand opportunities for adaptive music instruction especially at the high school level for assessments we will develop and refine our K12 common assessments corresponding with all of our curricular units develop formalized processes to analyze and act on the assessment data provide opportunities for feedback use electronic resources to assist in continuous ly revise common assessments to improve student outcomes regarding professional learning again meet as a K12 Department quarterly effectively utilize plc's to drive
016positive change provide professional development opportunities related to our curricular goals as well as integrating technology fostering creativity and Independent Learning as well as increased complex thinking and social emotional learning and finally some additional considerations installing music computer lab at CHS which was previously mentioned revising Ensemble expectations to be gender non-specific and inclusive Implement adaptive and unified music programs at all levels work with facilities Department to update rehearsal and learning spaces with attention to acoustical treatments and enhanced technology as mentioned previously as well at this point if you have any questions I'd be happy to take those as well as I know Greg is on the call and Lynn and Jamie as well Ann has a question so take it away thanks uh first of all I wish the links had worked and um I'm hopeful
017that you will send that around to us because um I really would like to listen to all of the all of the pieces that you had in there my question is were you using the notation programs um before all of the remote prior to all of the remote learning that we're doing yes uh we were we were using smart music at the middle school um and at the high school to a limited degree but uh now we've we've um gone even more um in into that program U at the high school level than we have before um strings are now using it on a regular basis um really the Middle School um Lynn and Jamie I'll let you speak to that well I Ann I think you specifically talked about notation software and um note
018flight which is what you saw a presentation from Lind class from um is actually a composition software that is used starting in elementary school I know that um at least three of the elementary schools use it um starting as early as fourth grade to be honest with you and they've been uh using that for almost four years now I think this would be the fourth year that they would be using note flight um and Lynn's been using it much longer than that um I know that smart music has been used at the middle school for this is going on 11 years am I right Lynn at least at least 11 yeah thank you Tony do you had a question yeah I just want to say thank you Je team it's it's an awesome presentation I
019always look forward to seeing the videos every year I Echo an sentiment I definitely want to see the links and um be more happy to share on social media we always love to see the positive vibes coming from our our future musicians um John you you had listed in one of the slides a music Lab at the high school and I'm sure Ann's probably thinking this too and and I both on SMC and as you know the mization committee is looking at all our schools and future plans and expansion Etc would you if in a perfect world would you also expand some type of music lab to the other schools Middle School maybe elementary schools because that might be something that you know as that plan moves forward and we get into the actual programming
020what comes out of it might be something to consider for a future yeah absolutely absolutely if there is uh space uh available and oh was that a premium absolutely and um yeah how we looked at it at the high school was uh for students in not only Theory classes but also Ensemble classes to learn more about music theory and notation and and composition improvisation and so on by having that lab environment and perhaps uh it being manned by um our faculty uh when when we're able to do that similar to what other departments are doing at the high school that's great well again thank you John I appreciate the the uh the showcasing again it's always one of my favorite parts of the school year thanks and do do you have another question your I
021don't know if your hands still up nope I forgot to lower it there thank you and you all covered my questions I was going to ask about you know how this would fit in with the modernization have they reached out to you have you been able to provide them feedback is it um you know especially bringing some of these Labs down to the lower levels I have not spoken to this specifically uh this was uh as a result of our our review process um and uh we're just now looking at this uh for for an eventual fiveyear implementation if it's possible to do that so okay that would be our next steps yeah I was just gonna say I do commend you it's um quite an uh a robust program and um I just am
022impressed with the the fact that you're engaging these kids in composition in performance so early and um it's get them over their fears get them over their hurdles and and get them producing I think it's wonderful so thank you do you all have any questions for us could I um build off of the question or off of what both faith and Tony were saying about those uh music labs are are they big space Hogs or are can they be relatively small spaces yeah it might even be possible to have it in an existing space that's um already set up um for another department um if there is a classroom available that we could share that space which is what we've what we've done in the past um we just would have to have enough time
023um allocated to that for students to be able to come down um you I think we're talking probably um a half a dozen to a dozen at the most um stations Greg I don't know what you think about that probably a dozen at the most um and um you know some of this can be accomplished with Chromebooks right now in the meantime but um there are a lot of um programs out there especially with sound editing and music technology and when we get into notation software that we really have to have that installed on on a desktop that's not something that can be done all over the web um exclusively as you heard uh tonight with with our recordings I probably should have uploaded those YouTube in advance we would have been able to play
024those so thank you um well I think we've we've covered that thank you you guys for the presentation and we look forward to um getting your um you're sending out the links so that I I listened in on the meeting where you guys presented I don't know if you knew that I was in the background so I heard them and they more in their glory and they were very very good so um thanks thank you um next up is the um Library uh executive summary great thank you very much I'll take that and John I might need to have you stop presenting so I can all right can you see the um presentation yes of course my you may just want to present screen in your in your side deck present that screen there's a
025bar over my hold on just a second sure there we go is that better okay great um I'm pleased to share on behalf of our library media specialist uh a summary of their five-year evaluation um it's a relatively small department so the subcommittee is the entire department so from the elementary schools carollyn maab Barbara gay Wier Kim Grabowski Karen Zed off and Jennifer istus uh Kristen Shanley at the middle school and Ann wellp at the high school uh as you take a look at the mission statement that uh our library media specialist crafted updated mission statement uh I want you to notice that it really is the intersection of our Chester strategic goals complex thinking social emotional learning are embedded in here our chesher performance standards and our American Association of school librarian standards which
026we'll talk a little bit more about as we move along so they tried to embed as as much as that overlap uh among those important strategic initiatives in their mission statement uh it's important to note that uh our we have a K12 Library um curriculum library classes are for our k for all students are for kindergart through fifth grade they meet 45 minutes once every 4day rotation on a typical year we also have uh a research uh class primarily for grade seven our sixth grade students take Spanish where this previously was slotted for library and our eighth grade students don't have a dedicated um don't have a dedicated researcher or Library class um although those are classes we still serve as our library media Specialists to a tremendous amount uh to support teachers with their
027classroom collections uh research questions circulating books um they they all are responsible for coordinating our summer reading programs and providing spaces for our school community activities we'll share just a little bit about that with you as we go forward our our CCC process has both a look backward over the previous five years what was uh as well as a look forward to what will be and when we looked back at some of the goals over the past five years a lot of it really had to do with aligning the curriculum to uh the common cor State Standards at the time making sure there was good vertical alignment meaning what students did in fourth grade built naturally on what they did in third grade and so on and so forth um and really also uh looking
028for students to uh own their own learner own their own learning personaliz learning through some authentic research so that was um a good portion of the what was and and some accommodations and things that they achieved during that time uh were to write units that were fully align to the Common Core State Standards uh and including rubrics and assessments that match those at the elementary level um getting the middle school and high school C curriculum coordinated all in one spot on Google Drive and again having those align to um Common Core State Standards additionally I want to point out in some of the research findings from the group one of the things that was um came out as a theme in each of the categories where they assessed was the importance of uh the Librarians
029Library meting Specialists having time to collaborate with one another as a department which can be challenging on our schedules and again a relatively small department and also with um the teachers and each the buildings the the things that they found to be really ful for students outside of um outside of Library classes specifically really take a high amount of collaboration so where that happened they they really felt like they made strides uh in addition to that being a small Department the opportunities to have professional development really specific to what's happening in terms of best practice for library media specialist was important to some of the work that they were doing so on their Reflections on what was those were some of the themes that that uh came out as as we look forward to uh
030what will be one of the things that happened over uh the five years of this evaluation cycle was American School American Association for school librarians aasl which is a mouthful for me to get out each time uh updated their standards and um one of the things that our library media specialist found valuable I see high value in relative to the stand standards is um they really contain a strong overlap not only for important things that are part of Common Core State Standards but things that are important to our ngss standards our social studies framework and all the kinds of 21st century skills that you'll see in our tester performance standards so one of the things that will will be highlighted in our curriculum review process is really um aligning some of the work to these
031standards because they represent a really good crossover of some of the big ticket items that are going to be important for our students across the content areas so this really um moving forward is going to become an important frame for us and this is just another another lens on that and I'll point out two quick examples uh of where this overlap happens using evidence uh you if you look for using evidence you will find that as a really important part of our Common Core state standard you'll definitely see that in our science standards and our social studies standards it also is embedded in our performance standards so if we're referencing back and our library media instruction and the collaboration that they're doing with teachers focuses on provide having opportunities for stud for students to use
032evidence in meaningful ways and provide evidence you can see that that cuts through um and overlaps quite a few standards similar similarly um the there's a whole category on collaboration collaboration is a key part of our performance standards so this really does provide a good anchor for us and our library Mia specials for shaping out their curriculum and the next iterations of the curriculum over the next five years uh in fact these are some samples of some of the goals that they'll be tending to in different categories and the categories again are related to curriculum it's related to teaching and learning it's Rel to assessment it's related to resources and these are some uh select goals from each of those categories all that relate all that relate to the shift to the aasl standards again
033you'll see that theme towards the bottom here of the collaboration with the Librarians and the grade level colleagues being a really important part of their work going forward outside of those uh aasl standards uh some of the work that they continue to see being valuable and important to their uh curriculum writing work oh one is one is this is not a bad time to stop and note that um they have spent a good deal of time working on digital citizenship which was very important pre pandemic it's been extremely important during this time where we have just made such a shift to using online resources and venues like Google meet to interact um that actually has span kind of the end of the previous CCC it's was included in this CCC cycle but honestly we've done
034a good deal of the curriculum work on that end already um but again you'll see on what will be the value of the library un Specialists uh collaborating with one another and collaborating with teachers to look for those spots to integrate their curriculum uh is really important one of the challenges that you'll see coming up is um there are spots like the sixth grade um where we don't have a library class like 8th grade where we don't have a library class like high school where the that instruction happens in collaboration primarily with the social studies and English departments but it all takes the library media Specialists collaborating with teachers and finding those opportunities um to to make that integration happen that's part of the work that will be upcoming some of the challenges that they
035have to overcome uh in addition to that um again that that finding that time to collaborate they found Great Value and good work when they've had those opportunities and we'll be seeking out ways for them to do that on a more regular basis on an increasing basis over the next five years and I'll leave you with just a few um few pictures that I think represent some of the shifts that are already happening along this run already represent some of the shifts to uh new standards um and I want you to think about the library as as we go through these as primarily a quiet place where you might do reading and as you look at these pictures from the high school the middle school and Elementary School consider really the changes in our library
036program over the past five years and will certainly continue over the next five years really to be the shift from a quiet place where reading may happen that'll still be there but also to an active hub for learning and that's really the shifts that you're making in this example you see some um Gatherings of of high school monthly salons and that's um part of the library being a hub for other school-based community activities at the middle school level you'll see both um some book clubs and some maker space work that opportunity in those standards to create build design thinking are all embedded in those new standards already happening at Dot and also at our elementary level um again those those ideas of collaborating problem solving using the design thinking process and the library simply looks
037looks like a different place that it may have 15 or 20 years ago and I Contin I think that it'll continue to do so and really be uh when our programs are working at their best a really active hub for learning it's a brief summary of the presentation that our library meia Specialists gave um back towards the end of November or beginning of December and I'll take any questions you have anyone have anything so um I'm gonna ask the modernization question Kevin and I don't know if you feel comfortable asking this or not it clearly the modern library is or the library of old has changed in um and you you hit that hit on that um what are you hearing about space requirements um equipment needs um all of that that should um you
038know and how will it affect or uh be incorporated into that modernization plan yeah so in terms of the modernization work um you know that's I think I think if you were to ask me kind of what's going to be important going forward for these spaces first of all our library media centers are serving multiple purposes yes they have classes of 25 students there at a time for some core instructions so the space needs to um be able to accommodate that setup you see that the active learning and collaboration for students is important so the ability for students to be meeting in groups um with a lot of materials is going to be important you'll also see the library as a place where um community and events are happening School community events are happening so
039if you took think to the uh High School uh salons monthly salons those are larger groups of students so a space that's flexible enough to be able to um move from a setup that's going to accommodate a class that needs to collaborate to a a larger um group that flexibility space is going to be important um one of the things that was certainly part of the report that I didn't necessarily highlight uh tonight was the ongoing evolution of Technology the library media specialist role in helping be a point of contact to help teachers uh learn that technology help students learn that technology so a place that can adapt to that evolving technology uh as it comes is is also I would say important those are all kind of anchors into how our library media centers
040are used so you need to have that flexibility of the space and ability to kind of adapt over time and it needs to be big enough to to be the Hub The Learning Hub that um it's intended to be I have another one if unless you guys have Ann or Tony go ahead Ann yeah I'm just wondering and I'm thinking out loud here but along with what you were saying Faith about um the school modernization and and when we go to um modernize some of these school buildings if not all of them over the years um do we know if libraries in newer Schools are they uh sort of central to the building if you were building a new school would the library be sort of the heart yeah the heart and anybody can answer
041it doesn't have to be Kevin well I'm not sure which of the buildings are who saw some of the modernized buildings on the tours but I'm just thinking of Berlin high school and how that is a really central part to the rest of the school and there's a lot of meeting spaces off of there and a virtual reality room off of there and it it really is the heart I'm not sure if physically it's in the center um but it it definitely is the Hub that's just one school that that comes to mind right away as you know sort of being the lifeblood to the rest of the building well I was gonna say Ann and your to your point um you know you think of what a library is to a town and how
042um it's not just a place to read quietly all the time it's not the place to go get shushed or anything else anymore it very much becomes the community center so um is that a similar thing that we need to consider as we're building these these and renovating our schools I don't know I don't know if the school library is a different animal from yeah for from a programmatic standpoint a good Library Media Center in my mind should be um should be an active Hub of the school it really should be a few a few years ago we went um we were going to redo the the high school library as best as we could um before Ann got in there and we um went to visit some schools around different states even Massachusetts Rhode
043Island and it's exactly what you were talking about kind of the vision that we wanted to see moving forward for the library and we did the best we could with the space we had but that's exactly what it should be that whether it's in the center or not kind of the Hub of everything so um some practical questions um first of all so Kevin just so I make sure I understand this by going with the aasl standards over the Connecticut common core standards we are essentially ramping up our game s yeah I I would say they're more comprehensive inclusive I think the common cor state standards were 100% appropriate to Anchor um the program in before because there's a lot of shifts that happened when they shifted to the Common Core this these standards really
044capitalize on the overlap of all our big sets of standards and the skills that we want students to do so um ramping up our game might be one way to say it I might also characteriz is really capitalizing on on the intersection of all those things yeah and and would say what's happening in our programs currently is is reflective a lot of what's what's captured in those standards so um certainly some of the shifts that have already happened in the library uh media programming already aligned to this and it's it's a certainly a more natural fit and I think they did a really good job on this update of being conscious of all those things so there they're pretty well written from that standpoint okay and then and one last one what have we lost
045by I know Marlin you've expressed concern about um the just the loss of the instruction time in the Middle School um especially you know they go K through five with Library instruction and then it almost completely drops off in six and then they pick it's an elective but um what do we lose by doing by that and how do we fix it if it's a if you feel it is a substantial loss for the kids and their in their Library instruction I think some of what came out in in the research findings some spots are pretty concrete like digital citizenship um you know we've got a spot for that on the curriculum K5 there's not a defined spot for who's teaching that in in sixth grade so so that's something that we have to work
046on in some of the bigger picture items on on what we lose you know a lot the answer is the work that um library media Specialists are are talking about doing and have done with integrating their work and collaborating with a social studies teacher because the overlap between those those skill set and that curriculum are pretty um pretty significant same thing with science same thing with English um but we don't necessarily have the structures well set up for that collaboration overlap that's those are some of the hurdles that we have to jump over the next five years so you know all marene speak to kind of loss of program but we kind of know that to get at at these skills it's going to take the collaboration and the integration of this work rather than
047a separate class um finding the ways to do that is the challenge that's ahead of this group given schedules and FTE and you know things like you know you're aware of of the elective schedules that at the middle school those are just hard things to to kind of navigate and overcome but it's worthwhile to do okay thanks I don't know if you want to add on to that at all or I think you said it perfectly great okay um well thank you that was good um so um item C is the grade six old set results yeah and I I think I'm on I think I'm on deck for the next few so so I'm going to give a update on um the fall administration of our olat the Otis linen School ability test um
048if you've been on this committee for a little while you've seen these updates um one in the fall for sixth grade one in the spring for third grade uh just a background this assessment really measures um analytic and thinking skills aligned to academic success we use this primarily right now to support uh decisions around individual students needs for either increased rigor and enrichment or additional learning support uh if you were to look at this background statement from a few years ago you would see that there were a few more things listed it was um a primary uh consideration for things like math placement at dot for for gifted and talented identification um and while this assessment uh still is used in those areas they've kind has shifted from being a primary measure for um those
049considerations to a secondary measure for those considerations so um you know we'll talk about that a little bit it certainly has been used over time uh to provide a different lens with which to consider students and and their performance as a whole um so I'll come back to that towards the end of this uh and I guess I'm not presenting the whole thing sorry about that this is a fiveyear kind of running tally of the results and you can see that for the last three years um our olad score has has remained consistent at uh 98 and this is uh the the type of scale where 100 is considered a nationally normed average plus or minus kind of 15 percentage points so um for the last three years our allat score for sixth grade has
050been 98 that's either been the 47th or 48th percentile nationally um you know I know questions came up last year in terms of why that shift from just over 100 to just under 100 and I don't know if we have a solid answer for that because our our student performance overall um really has gone up over time and this isn't relative to our curriculum this is kind of the um ability on these thinking skills that are assessed through through this assessment one note for this year this is a an assessment that does not have uh an option for remote Administration so this is inperson Administration only we did offer um a safe from a health standpoint space for any of our remote students to come in to take this assessment uh it was not required
051for for them to do so we did not have um very many if any students take us up on that so the number of students tested is actually lower than than our total sixth graded enrollment um primarily due to remote students who did not take the assessment and or a few cases of students who were um in a quarantine during the testing period we had about a two week window for for this assessment so again um as a measure to indicate kind of what are are bringing to the table in terms of aptitude relative these to these analytical skills and it's broken down both verbal and nonverbal and there's not a significant difference between those two scores um when you break it down we've had pretty consistent performance over the last couple years um one
052note for sixth grade this is the breakdown by quartile in an ideally perfectly normal curve you would see 25% in all of these uh for sixth grade historically we have have not had um that even distribution we tend to get that in third grade but not in sixth grade uh and uh this year the uh students in the highest percentile that has been about 12 to 13 to 14% over the last few years that did dip down to nine I don't have a grand answer for why that's the case I do suspect some of it had to do with just the scenario that we're in right now and um in terms of of covid and testing and you know it's not too difficult to have one or two test questions not answered correctly for for
053a scored to dip a little bit so um I don't have a grand answer the analysis doesn't show anything that that gives us a real big hint of why um that's not an even split um it's not vastly different than it has been the last few years but that highest core tile did go down a little bit so in terms of moving forward uh on this uh assessment it is one um because we have um over the time that this assessment has been administered really developed a lot of different lenses and assessments and ways to uh consider how students are performing and where they are it is one that will continue review um its its use and administration over time not anything that that either Marl and I are willing to make a definitive statement
054on tonight but um as we have other ways to really have a good understanding of where students are and different lenses to which with which to view their performance and knowing that we have used this a little bit less over the years it is something that we'll consider whether we continue to minister in future years but that's uh the report as it stands do I have any questions okay um thank you um and then uh last but not least an overview of the English learner program yes so the overview of the English learner program from a CCC standpoint I think we're going to do next month this is on here just to give a little bit of update uh relative to uh the last links uh testing that's the state uh assessment that we give
055to our engos Corners that window opens on January 4th as it does each year it's usually January through beginning of March window uh this year uh it is January through the end of March uh March 31st they essentially added a month to be able to minister this assessment um and if you recall it assesses four areas listening speaking reading and writing um of note for this year there are procedures as there will be for other state administered um assessments for this to be done uh remotely so we are not beginning with our um on a typical year um we do not start right at the beginning of the window we usually have enough time to assess our students if we begin towards the end of January we're usually done um by the time we get
056to kind of president day uh this year um we are going to start a little bit earlier than we normally do because we know that um with students moving in and out on the situation we just want to make sure we have enough time to assess all the students um after the first couple weeks of iners administration we will start um doing the online admin Administration which uh is essentially a one-on-one Administration in a Google meet like this with some procedures to make sure that the test Administration is is secure so um that the people who will be uh administering that assessments kind of a range of people um are rams Pat Castle Chris at the elementary level um some of our literacy support tutors at the elementary level and uh High School level as
057well um as they get uh as they get into this you know we're going to keep an eye on on how that remote Administration goes because I think it will also give us some insight into some of our other state assessments that will be coming up like the ngss and ASPC but that testing Windows opened uh it's one month longer than it typically would be and um we'll begin sometime this week we did the training for all those people last week I know that's why I was braying it those soon we did the training so that everybody's up to speed on all the protocols for ministering both in person and remotely so just a brief update on the last links testing for our e students great thank you any questions or feedback on that okay
058well that brings us to the end of our agenda so um thank you every body for being here and um do I have a motion to close motion to adjourn the meeting um second I'll second that all right all in favor hi hi