001good morning everybody it is Wednesday March 5th this is a special meeting of the Darian Board of educations curriculum committee we are excited again to have some more members of our staff here to share their thoughts and ideas with us um we are going to talk about Play La learning as well as our K to3 literacy update so I will turn it good morning Dr Al I'll turn it over to Dr fedan you um we are joined today by a wonderful group of blpn kindergarten teachers who have helped to really lead the work of introducing play learning ccum writing playb learning assessing throughout play for instruction and also professional learning in our staff so um I'm really am excited to have them here and um they'll be able to share with you their firstand experiences
002with their students and with their cols inside classroom launching our playb learning efforts this year that are aligned to um our strategic plan so we also will as you mentioned have um an introduction to our continued work in the area of K3 literacy we have another teacher joining us for that amen for love thank you so thank you so much um this morning we're going to talk again about the why behind play based learning um we will have a chance and you actually to sneak peek to see some of our students in action we have a brief video to share with you um we're going to engage you as board members in a bit of an observation of instructional practice a little bit of a teaching and learning um moment uh with play based learning
003and action and we're going to talk a little bit about executive functions skills in the classroom and how we're seeing those implemented with our play based learning instruction um Whitney is going to talk a little bit about assessment how are we assessing for the standards and um actually Mary bestass is going to talk a little bit about curriculum collaboration the voice that you heard in the video um is Amanda and she will actually be able to talk with you not only about that video and what you saw there but a little bit about observing playbase in action um day in and day out and then we've also shared with the board some resources that we' hope you had a chance to look at if you haven't yet we'd encourage you to do so and then
004we'll be happy to answer any questions as we go thanks Julie for that all right the why behind playbase learning we've talked at length about the brain science and we do understand that this is an instructional pedagogy it is instructionally um very sound and developmentally appropriate science supports the development of um children's physical social emotional um well-being through play um we do address the standards We Begin planning with the standards in mind and the staff that is here will talk to you about their process of really engaging up in the curriculum conference room and like how we started with that as with a blank board and really what our brainstorming efforts were and they'll tell you I'm sure that we really did start with the standards also starting with the vision of The Graduate so
005we can't be thinking about Cel you Dr adley the vision of the graduate in high school in 11th and 12th grade even 9th it's too late when we think about those skills of communication and collaboration having empathy all of those things are things that you'll see the children actually practicing and demonstrating in our ELP um little brief video that we'll share with you and you know besides that we all have legislation in the state of Connecticut the legislation is really not the why for the work ultimately here in Darian Public Schools we know this is the right thing to do it's it's the way we want to introduce children to schooling um and so we're very proud of our efforts uh regardless of what the legislation is requiring and I would say that we've moved
006beyond the legisl this year the legislation does call for not only play based learning professional learning that's oriented to support play based learning in the district and again I think this staff um will demonstrate how we've as collective team have gone well beyond that the Strategic plan this year did call for us to develop a common definition of play-based learning and best practices we did that through engaging in research we did that through um looking at practices of in one another's classrooms looking at artifacts of the work we've talked about the importance of beginning the day with play um it's you know nothing nothing more important than having a child begin their day with a with a moment of success right so play allows for an entry point for every child regardless of where they
007are and beginning the day with success really helps them regulate for maybe the more challenging parts of their day that may come um as the day progresses in addition the Strategic Plan called for us to do some curriculum writing and so what we had committed to was a minimum of three scenarios or three units um that we would then Implement in the spring in prek and ELP and in kindergarten and so that work has happened and that work will actually be um in really short order implemented and embedded into edgey Planet we've written those scenarios and units in a ubd format so the stock um is very well familiar with that um the other thing that we've paid really close attention to is how will we assess student learning outcomes um you know we're never
008while we're approaching with um instruction with our Littles through play we're not losing of what those standards require because there are learning progressions and we want to make sure all of our children are ready to um meet and exceed those standards as they'll enter into kindergarten okay so observing play based learning and action so Julie has a tool for you um actually I think it will be Whitney right Whitney's going to be talking about assessment and some of her methods as as an early educator to in a really seamless way assess where her children are children in prek typically don't know they're being assessed and we want it that way and that's really the work of the teacher and so what we're going to do is engage you in using a tool as you watch
009the video we want this uh tool to help guide your observations this is Phil pop would you mind clicking on the tool so everyone at home can see what we're looking at okay thank you so what we'd like you to think about is just what do you notice what do you notice the students are learning you might comment on some things that you you see kids doing that would evidence problem solving creativity collaboration um what do you notice about how the students are learning maybe think about what surprises you are you seeing anything that would reflect teamwork are you thinking about the role of the teacher how students may be using resources and materials and then just some overall uh Reflections and Impressions and then our staff they're all um ready to talk with you
010about what they've observed actually in the video and we'll see see um I'm sure you'll notice some of the same things and I'm sure the staff will probably illuminate some things that you might not have even considered it's amazing um the amount of assessing that happens especially in PRK and K it is a nonstop feature of the classroom experience assessment is happening at at every moment when they're in the Line Walking to the bathroom you'll you'll hear teachers saying things like you know um who has um a letter you know B in their name who's there's constant the kids have no idea that it's happening they're really magicians so Mrs Philpot would you mind um starting our video it's on the next slide all right Amanda this is your room right here's the window right
011that's the window of our restaurant what should what shape should we draw in front of the window yeah rectang there's a rectangle table in front of our window Circle so let's draw a circle someone draw a circle in front who wants to draw the circle oh you both want to how should we solve that [Music] I'll and Tyler can do what what about we all together try it go how about I do no he said why don't we try all together what do you think [Music] perfect how many chairs can go to that table so what should we draw we should probably draw a symbol to show two chairs and look at where the chairs are chair yeah where are the chairs okay perfect that's a great idea so there's one can I do it
012oh wait I heard someone say can I do it Landon Landon stop I heard someone say can I do it that was kind I cared about his feeling yeah you did it's teamwork I paed in moment you did all right what table number is that one oh so what number should we write in the table perfect okay now who needs a turn drawing another table that's okay we can turn it this way and we'll know that that's one wait which table are we drawing next two okay wait where's hold on look at our look at our restaurant where's the other table come sit over here so you're looking at it perfect do it all together should we do it all together talk to your friend hey hey Adam andon can we do it all together
013let's take turns Landon stop and think your friends want to do it too we do all [Music] the H what number two that's a small table so we have that table and the round table next to it what number goes there nice work all right now what table do we have to draw okay wait stop and think what does the table look [Music] like wait hold on look at the table is it [Music] I know I know look Adam just went around and he did something it's a trapezoid it's a trapezoid he said he's showing you how to draw the lines okay let's try it wait I hear a friend talking Landing I do so I think saying I can write the number three okay so you draw the table maybe Adam draws the chairs
014and he writes the number three look at look at where we are table one table two where's Table Three is it on this side or this side there you go Ollie let's leton try it I you can ask your friends can I go table [Music] nice job and then we need to do the CH and then the numbers I'll the next TR I think your friend over here didn't have a turn to draw yet and he wanted to okay [Music] I'll do you need help drawing the number three that was enough okay nice work let me that was my thank you Amanda for bringing us into your classroom um we'll have Amanda will help us unpack uh what you've all seen and what I'm sure our prek teachers have seen our ELP teachers we do
015have um K two kindergarten s teachers sandwiched in the middle um but Whitney Mullins and Amanda mergan and Joanne Epstein at the end are all at ox and they'll unpack this with you and kind of I think also point out some of the standards and maybe some of the practice standards and and um parts of the work with our children that that would reflect more the VIS The Graduate and in the middle we have Mary Beth gasio and we also have thing one de Lansdale who is prepared again for read Across America not day but week so um Amanda will you help walk us through unpacking what what should we be noticing there yeah so in this video I think it's really important to see that we take this video as documentation of learning and
016evidence of learning and when you go back and you look at it and compare it to the Connecticut early learning standards you see that there's 14 standards that have been met um for either one or all of the students um from the beginning to the end of the video what I noticed as an educator is that some students are able to identify shapes and even more complex shapes um they're able to create a plan they draw the plan together they're working cooperatively they're problem solving they're turn taking they're advocating for themselves and for each other with the support of myself I'm the facilitator obviously because it was a complex part of our project um and it required a little bit more facilitation than say another play experience that they're engaged in um they have onetoone
017correspondence they're looking at the number um on the table and they're connecting it to um their plan on the floor that they're writing they're also seeing that okay if table one needs two chairs table one on the map has to have two chairs and they're counting how many chairs are at that table um they have spatial awareness they're looking at left and right they're looking at in real time what the room looks like and trying to um represent that on paper um you could see one of the students has um the ability to express himself and regulate himself in terms of pausing taking that time to reflect on what he was doing in relation to his peers they were able to identify numerals they were able to write numerals they're working on their fine motor
018skills um they're having conversations with adults with their peers and they um there's a standard that works on or that looks at how children work cooperatively together and you could see that that was just a five minute snippet but they're working up to 15 minutes um in this specific scenario and then you can see the symbolic representation of them creating a floor plan so that when a you know a customer comes to the restaurant and ask to be seated at a table they have a map to show you like this is what's available um and I think as we get through the presentation I'll show like the progression and the progress and the process of their learning but it's really truly incredible to see that in five minutes this is how much is occurring in
019a Early Childhood classroom Amanda can you give us a really high level overview of um it wasn't just reflecting the chairs and the classroom what was your connection to the community and the larger scenario that you and the group were working on yes so um I guess I can go back to that now um the initial project began because students were talking about grocery stores and restaurants and they said where does food come from they're asking where does food come from and they said the grocery store and it was interesting to see that they couldn't make the connection it's said well food has to come somewhere from somewhere before a grocery store so we got into farming and food groups and we um reviewed all the food groups we um connected with the cafeteria at
020Ox Ridge we brought in all the ingredients to make different foods we cooked them in um the cafeteria or I brought them home at the end of the day so that students can enjoy them the next day they're trying different foods they're learning about different cultures um we've made Pizza Pasta um we've made guacamole we've made dumplings we have just explored all these different cultures we've read books we've watched videos and then we've had um the uh I believe it was the manager of a postc corner Pizza came in and she really walked us through how to run a restaurant how um a host stand should be set up what the roles are of a customer of a um Hostess a buser a waiter a waitress how many chefs are allowed in a kitchen and
021from that our students have you know been changing what their plans are throughout the day based on all the new information they're learning um as we introduce more books as we introduce more videos as we bring in more people into our classroom um and so right now we have Rico set up in our classroom and we have Shake Shack and they're building the menus for them they're writing the signs that um correspond with whatever restaurants open that day they're switching out the food in the kitchen based on um what's available on the menu and we'll see where it goes I'm hoping we can try to open up the restaurant to parents so that they can come in and enjoy some fresh food but we'll see where we end up can you share with us a
022little bit about the tier three vocabulary especially I know with the pasta that your students were interested in making it was far beyond noodles yes um yes you can't limit a vocabulary with preschoolers we made fetuccini we met um oretti we made Cavatelli um we shaped it we made it from scratch I preserved it and we brought it home and cooked it and then was able to enjoy it the next day um it's really important that as we learn all these complex language we talked about proteins we talked about carbohydrates like students just absorb this information and carry it through them and you know they'll be sitting one day eating their lunch and they'll be like I have a protein I have a vegetable I have a fruit um and one thing that was really
023interesting is we debunked a lot of myths of what's a fruit and a vegetable and students were bringing home that knowledge to their parents and they were like no that's not right that's definitely a fruit and that's definitely a vegetable and they're like no we learned in class today um it's actually not a fruit um so we had talked as a team that when you're working with three four five year olds there's really no limit to the vocabulary that you're exposing them to because they really carry it on through their conversations and the rest of their learning so board members um Amanda was talking about all of the standards that were hit do just you have a general reaction of what you saw what you were noticing and then you know Amanda kind of helping
024us unpack that I think at that at the high level what struck out to me was a your patience so and early educate early educator is you know a special kind of person so thank you for that um and what I also noticed the movement and I think that's really important in the in a younger child and a younger student just being able to to move and be around and in the the kinesthetic piece of it is is really important um I could say more but I open to you um I I the vision of The Graduate is what jumps out at me because all of the different skills and interactions that are happening here in this play kind of scenario are developing those kinds of skills at that very early age so you know
025it's the creativity curiosity Independence collaboration empathy like every single kind of thing that to the extent that you can start to introduce that in a very natural way I I personally and my kids had monori kind of um prek and and love that kind of experience but I think your brain wiring at that very early age can carry through to Future years so I think this is excellent um that was awesome it makes me want to go like sub and be in the classroom again that was so much fun um I I appreciate how you guys are doing so much at the same time it's incredible and I love that you are not um forcing any limitations on the kids opening up that vocabulary seeing where it can go that's amazing um there was a
026lot of like obvious examples of collaboration and things in there but you know I thought it was so interesting too how the personalities work together and it wasn't about making them the same right it was allowing them to be but even Beyond you know someone like noticing about kindness and noticing about manners I felt that you were really facilitating self-awareness right when when the one student said like I care about their feelings like it actually gave them a chance to say like I'm showing you that I care about your feelings and if I didn't do that I would be showing you that I don't and um I think that you know you could probably come back and do some of that work in this room too it's a lifelong skill so thank you for that
027I don't have a ton to that I thought it was great um I would just say like whatever we can do as a board to help support the play-based learning efforts and whether that's resources or I don't know whatever you can think of just let us know so that we can we can do that thank you for that you know so as they say learning is messy and the patience that an early educator has um and the resistance to want to clean up and do for the kids if you go into Amanda's room you will literally see like a functioning restaurant it's not that a functioning restaurant like with a door and they have built a structure um so it's all built in J by the kids so I think Amanda you're going to talk
028with us a little bit more about um the executive functioning skills that you're working on as you're working on those academic standards and the kind of the the bigger um you know vision of The Graduate kind of comp competencies that are those lifelong skills that kiddos will need to carry with them into College and Career and postsecondary can you walk us through that a little bit he make you mind if I just two seconds that was just too good not to talk about it if you don't mind just um that's a we window into the complexity of the work and the magic actually that happens between curriculum students and teachers right and um I would also say around a particular task right because many ways task predicts performance of kids right and it's amazing what
029those kids can do right and it's also sort of like what a there's a there's a there's an aspect where our youngest kids with our our skilled teachers can actually work better together than our older kids um when we say that they can't do certain things in in the groups and stuff well they can it actually we kind of it's a we figment of Education you can lose that as you go up through uh The Wonder of it all or through the through the grav type thing but I also want to mentioned the um the ownership for the ownership for learning transfers to the kids early in the grade levels and that's a consistent thing that we have to do and if you don't mind me also saying I'm off it because you heard Manda
030talking about all all the types of it there are seal and and Dei things in that lesson I won't get into it all that's not the purpose of today's lesson but it's embedded in there and and what they're actually doing but super job thank I just want to comment particularly on that magic and the um uh the students ownership for learning thank you thank you thank you um yes so from an executive functioning standpoint I think when I think about all of our students because there are students with IPS there are students with 504s there are typically developing students in my classroom um we have a plan as a classroom of this is what we're working on in the moment and we have a plan as a class but then we have individual plans for
031CH for children based on their needs and so um on any other occasion there might be a three-step plan for another student um so they can be they can outline what's going to happen first what's going to happen second what's going to happen third to keep them attending to the task at hand um in this specific scenario you heard me say stop and think a lot for um our friends and I think that's a huge piece of before I'm going to go do something I need to inhibit my impulse I need to stop I need to think about what's happening what others are doing around me um so that you know the experience can be successful and then we talk about like entry points for every student and their students who may come in for
032a little bit do something and a little something is enough for them and then they leave they go engage in another activity and then they come back and so I think it's really about being flexible we're trying to build cognitive flexibility of amongst our Learners so we need to mirror that for them and let them be flexible in the way that they want to come in and out um and to the extent that they can attend to these larger um play based you know projects that we're working on so can I ask a question so I love that you were invested in that project like 100% 100% of your attention was on those four students right what were the other students doing in your classroom and how do you handle that and so you were
033talking about kids going in and out of activities if if Landon wanted to get up and leave that would he would that be fine like talk a little bit about what what the rest of your room is doing I think as a team talk about there's a time in place there's times when we're working on goals and objectives and that might not be an opportunity where he is allowed to he or anyone in the classrooms allowed to leave it's a have to and we're working on it because that's an intended area of need that we have to focus on um but other times they are allowed to EB and flow throughout the Learning Centers um sometimes in The Literacy Center um during that time someone might be working on the menu for the restaurant in
034blocks they might be building a restaurant um on a smaller scale in art they might be creating um some of the symbolic representation of what's in the classroom they were making pasta with Play-Doh to add to the kitchen um that's kind of um how we have everyone engaged and obviously we're lucky as preschoolers a preschool teachers we have Paras there supporting um and they're in different centers with another group of kids working on similar goals within the center that they've chosen thank you one follow-up question um just about how the uh topic was developed so the restaurant was that something that that you had chosen to be part of the curriculum or was that something that was student driven that they had wanted to talk about completely student driven so at the beginning of the
035school year um we open up all the centers freely and I observe and I just kind of take note of what are they building in blocks what is the conversation and dramatic play um those two areas usually lend itself to what their interests are sometimes Math and Science depending on the materials they're using um but like I said they were talking about they were playing grocery store a lot in the dramatic play area and they were exploring food and you know taking the food home um and that's when we kind of started asking those questions of like well where does the food come from before it gets to the grocery store and then they were answering those questions and then when it came time to start really diving into a project the options were um
036to play family or to build like a house and discuss family and providing food for your family to build a grocery store or a restaurant and they all had voted on restaurant um given that it is very student um driven how do you ensure that between multiple classrooms um where students might have very different interests that the teachers are trained and can ensure that the students in all of those different classrooms rooms achieve the learning objectives if one is developing restaurant and another one might be doing a police station or I I'm just interested from a training and kind of scaling perspective and how you actually ensure that happens so I think um Whitney will talk a little bit about this as well but given any kind of project that you're doing the standards are
037observed we have a documentation tool that we use um and what we'll do is we'll sit with a clipboard we have sticky notes we're observing where we have a standard in mind or we're just you know anecdotally taking notes and then when we go back and we look at the standards we see okay which where where have they met those standards and then we put them into our documentation tool and if I may may I jump in real quick I just have some and also to the collaboration piece to make sure that each classroom is working on those specific ideas and plans you spend a lot of time together just make making sure that we are all doing the best that we can to ensure that those standards are get to put into place and
038it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work to do together to make sure that that happens across the classrooms thank you both that so the so the standards are the floor not the ceiling and the standards don't change they also the Connecticut Els there's a crosswalk between the Connecticut elds The Early Learning developmental standards and the the kindergarden standards so our staff is working um really closely together not only ELP um as Joan was saying but the connection to kindergarten as well and um there's just so much research around student choice and you know student Choice really lends itself to autonomy and relevance in learning and there's you know evidence that when students are motivated to learn they're more deeply engaged and then you know learning is more meaningful and
039learning is is just more Rich so it's a really important part of the recipe and um I that was a great transition Amanda to Whitney who is um really passionate about assessment and has very complicated um means and methods each teacher kind of develops pretty much her own um what she's comfortable with recordkeeping but everything is always aligned to the standards so that's something That Remains the Same and sort of just to answer that before iump into my system can you put down sorry just yeah that better yeah okay um I think that this video could have been anything it could have been a doctor's office it could have been a ball study and you still would have seen all of those standards being met so I think it's not as important that we're all
040invested in the same project right you're still going to find ways to get all of these standards into that um but so my system we use um we assess using the CT dots which is basically the standards put into an assessment form so this entire book is all of our standards which covers cognition social emotional um math science literacy communication motor all the things so um in my classroom we target two per week so that's not that we're limited to observing those things but we at least have a focus or a lens for that week that we're really focusing on this specific thing so for example this week my class is focusing on initiation and motivation which is a cognitive Strand and science practices so every each every teacher has a clipboard we walk around
041all day long with our clipboards there's a little cheat sheet here just sort of examples of where we're going the things we might write down what we're observing and then um it just kind of looks like this so each child and then progression one progression two um and we'll just take our notes and our observations that way so we happen to see you know so and so um return to a topic from the day prior you know was interested in this came back with a new question went into a center and this was observed right that's an example of their initiation and their motivation for that project and we'll just note that and then it gets filed every child has a tab and it just gets filed under the standards um so that we can
042see their progression across time so you know I'll have observations from early in the marking period and the midm marking period and the end of the marking period so then when it comes time to report I can place them correctly on the continuo um and make their preschool report card just um question then how do we um as we move toward kindergarten play based learning how do you ensure then that it is continuing to advance in terms of the necessary standards from play I mean do you have examples of any of that as we're rolling that out so Julie saying perfect transition to play based learning so um with regard to curriculum and during our professional learning day in January actually many of the people right here were engaged in a fishbowl activity where they
043talked about the actual planning of a scenario or a play based learning unit and they actually had all of the colleagues all the other ELP and K teachers around them watching them do a brainstorm session of how they actually developed that unit so that we could bring kind of that thinking to light for all of our colleagues I think Mary Bethy are going to talk us through a little bit how we approach that kind of planning yeah sure um we came together and collaborated pretty closely with our preschool colleagues who have some great experience as they've spoken about and thinking about how we can make that happen in kindergarten so we came together and looked at the standards first and we thought about not only the standards but also some of our curriculum that's already
044in place and how we can think about a scenario that would carry over both right we've got these standards that we have to meet and then we're looking at some of the in place curriculum units already we found a strong correlation with our social studies and science units as far as scenario building would go um and then as as important to our preschool friends and they shared with us right we're thinking about kid centered decision making so as a team we thought about well what are some of the common interests that kindergarteners Express during those units of study so we chose for example um forces and motion so often things like roller coasters or amusement parks come up things like Fairgrounds or um farm equipment like they all sort of come together with some of
045the current resources that we have but the discussions that spark from some of that explicit teaching that we do around forces of motion um so we've decided to build a scenario around roller coasters thinking that that was probably where our kids would go and if they didn't we have um using our ubd design we had some flexible outcomes at the end that you could lead your class in a different way if roller coasters or amusement parks didn't spark that interest um but we scaffolded our curriculum to support that scenario um going through it um we took a look at what our current resources were what some of the vocabulary that might come out and then we thought about okay if we're building that roller coaster as our group or we're building an amusement park how
046are we going to get there what learning activities would support that growth and how are we going to assess the kids and a lot of it comes through like what he said the observation of what the kids are doing so right now my kiddos are thinking about what part of the roller coaster they're going to build and I'm observing things like who's sounding Out words who has space between their words on the menu that they're building um what sounds are they using are the high frequency words there so all of the literacy standards math standards I had kids measuring how taller roller coaster was going to be so um we have all of these standards that are happening and being met throughout um and then during the process we considered um the resources that we
047currently have and what other ones we might do and we had some suggestions for teachers about if standards aren't being met then what kind of explicit instruction you need to to support the kids so my question is so the play based learning obviously I mean I feel is very important and I'm to Amy's Point like the legislation is not the why but it's you know it's a great support right when we we hear a lot that the curriculum is getting more rigorous at a at an early age how do you balance that and how how are you thinking about that so one of the things that um you asked Whitney was about what are the rest of the class what's the rest of the class doing um so when we're looking at the standards and
048we're observing kiddos and which standards are being met we're thinking about that's being met for Whitney but I want to work with Amanda more on that um these I'm finding that the play a scenarios are so engaging right the kids are working that frees me up a little bit too so I'm maybe working or focusing with a group on something I might be able to pull a small group during that time and use the roller coaster idea to focus on um and extension activity for kids that are ready or a support activity that um provides more for kids who are struggling in a certain area I think it provides us a little bit more freedom actually to think about what our kids need and how we can um like um Amanda was saying or maybe
049Julie or Amy the entry point for each kid is different so I can use that design to help me meet the needs of everyone so do you envision your classroom management changing as you would do this more or no like will it will it be more Center based than it was in the past um that's an interesting question you know I think when we're building these scenarios and the kids are picking the part of the roller Co or Amusement part that they want to build to me it's a little it's not so much like I've assigned you that Center but more that that's what you're interested in and then thinking about what standards are met within that work does that answer the question yeah I'm just I'm more thinking about honestly with the Staffing of
050a class yeah it's the the behavior piece is a great question there's a lot of research about why you start the day with play and you know my earlier comments of when children find that they're meeting with success it's easier for them to take on more challenging parts of their learning and you typically don't have behavioral incidents during play right um so it's it's just you know when kids and it's because of the engagement piece and I would say um the engagement actually you able to bring kids to deeper levels of learning when they're engaged because of that regulation piece and because they're naturally curious and they're not fighting against something right that they perceive um is not at their Readiness level so I think I I think that's an interesting point Mary about that
051it does kind of free probably free the teacher up a bit that is interesting yeah it's more like the facilitation and the opportunity for me to think about what each um group or kiddo needs yeah I just have a question about just I guess it's really geared towards standards versus deran curriculum and it's sounds like sounds like there's a few different I'm not exactly sure like where the standard specifically are coming from are like State Standards it sounds like there's C CT dots is some place where it's coming from and how are we taking those standards sound like you're you're actually already doing some of this with talking with early uh Early Learning early Educators across the district and I don't know augmenting those standards figuring out like how that's going to be dialed in
052for Daran or specific to Daran for what we're doing in our curriculum I'm just interested in like one versus the other are we really just relying on the standards or are we really creating our own framework in der end that's our curriculum and that becomes the standard so um with regard to the standards they're National and state standards and I think one of the important things to consider with standards is that there are learning progressions and so I think one way we would kind of respond to that question with regard to darianne and we have students that are really high performing is not only focusing on the standards for that grade level but what comes before and what comes after and really not only focusing on the entry point for all learners but making sure
053that there's open access for them to move beyond the standards and that that is something that maybe is um more unique to Gary yeah I think you used the phrase before that the standards of the floor not the ceiling is there um are we planning to expand this to other grades in elementary school at all where it might be feasible for instance science or Interactive Learning opportunities even up to fifth grade I could see that there might be ways to really have this increased engagement and reduced behavioral problems because kids are so interested and curious I would love to see what happen all the way through there's research around how adults how adults actually engageed with their work devb you look like you're so eager to see it so so we were as kindergarten teachers
054we were really overwhelmed when we listened to ELP and we were like how are we going to do this in a kindergarten classroom how is this going to work work um so we kind of just we were given the freedom to to play with it and see what we can come up with and it was actually pretty amazing uh the administration's been really great about giving us that flexibility to to take those chances and try things and um you know you'll see like in the kindergarten classrooms we've done things that you know we hadn't planned you know like there was a picture that was just up there where my kids just had a toy and they just started building stuff and it was going towards W math and they were they were building these big
055giant structures and and and stuff like that and they started talking about that and then at one point my kindergarteners had talked about gingerbread houses because it was around January and I they wanted to make a gingerbread house and I said okay let's let's do it and so I had staff boxes and all sorts of stuff like that and um I gave them one rule the gingerbread house they built or two rules they had to do it together it had to be one and a kindergartener had to be able to stand inside of it and so that was there that was the the two rules they had to follow so then what I did was I asked the fifth grade teachers if during their Wind Block I could have one fifth grader from each class
056come down and they were our job foreman and they were given four kindergarteners four or five kindergarteners and they had to introduce themselves get to know their kindergarteners the kindergarteners each day had to explain where they were in the building of the gingerbread house and how they were going to what they needed to do and what the rules were and all of that and then the they had to work together so it was interesting to see the fifth graders come down and try and figure out wow you know like we're the leaders we're in charge how are we going to work with these kindergarteners and we have to work as a group and in the beginning you could see that they were shy and they were kind of quiet and then after a while they
057really started to get into it they started to really work together and they built an enormous as you'll see behind you there the gingerbread house and then you know we started to look at you know how can we we wrote about the gingerbread house so every day we were writing about what did you do how did you build the gingerbread house what did you do that day and then we started to decide at the end they wanted to make we you'll see the the structure started to fall so they started to learn about the weight of things and how they had to reinforce things and you know it was just it was a lot of stuff going on and then they just started to um put the candy on the gingerbread house so they had
058to make the candy so I brought in just random things that they had to make the candy with it to make the candy how they were going to get it on then they were doing for math they were figuring out patterns so they had to figure out the pattern the candy had to go on in a pattern that was one of the rules so they figured out the pattern and then they tried to figure out well where's the middle of the pattern to get it onto the gingerbread it was just so much stuff going on for math for science for reading for because they read about the gingerbread houses did some research and and then you know putting it all together and then working with the fifth graders and working with each other I think
059your your point is well taken the the interdisciplinary nature of this playl learning right you can have math you can have literacy you can have science it's all encompassing um and I think for a for a early Elementary classroom that's really important because you do get the engagement and it's not you're moving from math and then 20 minutes later you like it's it's just not how the world not yeah and because our teachers know the standards they are comfortable with I don't have to do this lesson in the math program these kids are getting the skill from just this authentic experience the interdisciplinary nature of just what you're seeing in this Photograph um with the science standards that are pulled in the literacy standards I mean you can really clearly write what this child how
060this child has labeled this sign you know early early on in the year in kindergarten so back to Robin's question like I see this oh sorry Char Rob's question your question about how does this happen K through 12 or K through 12 plus it's really the premise of Project based learning and if you remember the chair person at in previous curriculum meetings speaking about practice based learning it also includes Universal Design for Learning meeting students where they are think of stem projects or steam projects so it really is the basis and the foundation of all basically project Baseline yeah I was G to piak that up yeah in this particular example of the kindergarten roller coaster you know we have some forces in motion you know um that match specific deran curriculum but designed from
061the standards and this is well beyond what they're expected to do in kindergarten like exploring actually push and pull is really the basis of it but there's lots more going on here and these boys actually did their own research to figure out how they could make their roller coaster go faster and they explored different ramps and inclines um and then when we talked about like assessing and thinking about how can we make sure other standards are being met that top little sign means a bunch right there for literacy that we you know assessment without them knowing right M the the scenarios that we developed can you just share with us what the three are across some prek and K in K it's the roller coaster that I spoke about in science and then we're um
062in for um the timeline at the end of year um and thinking about past present future we're going to do a museum nice so ELP has actually developed four um buildings pets containers remember the fourth buildings P containers or maybe we only did three we did one all together and then day we did two more I'm sorry that's it three and there um everyone prek ELP and kindergarten will Implement um we're again um entering we're ahead of really where the legislation is um I'm really so proud of the group and really the leadership of the staff um and really deeply researching the why of this and the how um with keeping an eye on the standard so that's been really really powerful work um Joanne talked about collaboration before and I just I I can't
063say enough so much of our work in education and our Learning Happens together when the kids aren't with us which is um it can be a problem right like we need to have our staff seeing practice and action while the kids are there and so it's really wonderful that our staff here has opened their doors to one another I do believe with the roller coaster unit um the classes are each kind of taking a little bit of a different angle and I think they're talking about how to bring the classes together to experience um what their colleagues have done across the different um kindergarten classrooms um but the opportunity to really share and learn from one from one another is the best professional learning um so I want to express my gratitude to this team
064for that so a timeline of our work again um you'll see here it's not meant for you to be able to read this but just this little IM image is and then I see kti might have a question this little image is just a picture of what stage one looks like um so that will be uploaded uh for everybody to see um with the units that were just mentioned the scenarios that were just uh developed in edge of planet um phase one was really around the professional learning really thinking about our shared definition of what do we mean by play based learning and a play based learning c um Continuum phase two is really the collaboration especially of this team and working together and developing the units um and then phase three is that kind
065of continued collaboration in professional learning and supporting the implementation of the units for the remainder of of the school year and the um last thing um before I think Katie does have a question is something that I think is a really important goal for us to continue to strive toward next year as an ELP andk staff is making our learning visible and so it's really important um Amanda was talking about you know the tier three vocabulary before making really clear and visible for the kids and our colleagues and families what are the actual standards that we're addressing within a unit and how do we know that the kids are actually demonstrating those how do we make the teaching and the learning really evident and visible and um I'm sure if you have any questions about
066this is one example of the unit that Amanda was talking before about the unit of study food it's really powerful for kids to see their work displayed and also to see pictures of themselves engaging in the work that really prompts their reflection um and you know expand their cognition and thinking about their learning their metacogn metac cognition and learning ktie you have a question thank you yes um one comment on this visibility piece and then what we were talking about before too and um fully recognizing I'm not telling you guys anything you don't know but I do think it's important just to not at the board table we talk a lot about the importance of having students with different abilities and skills in the same classroom and we talk about differentiation and I did just
067want to highlight um how much we're seeing of that in this right like even that picture of the boys working on the roller coaster you can just see how naturally one person is like I'll make the sign right and it's it's a really good um example of how students can feel confident in the skills that they have and they can work together without it always being a competition about you know who's at a certain point versus who's not so I just wanted to thank you for embedding those things and and recognizing how important they are um regarding the collaboration and the um professional development that comes I am curious about how um just from the Practical logistical Point how and what opportunities do you have for the El teachers to then talk to the kindergarten
068teachers and the kindergarten teachers to then talk to the first grade teachers and then the kindergarten teachers at oxridge to be able to talk to token and hinley and so on so how how does that work I know for me I just run over the time and I'm just like I have a question or let's talk about this um but I think on a broader uh level that was something we probably have to you know consciously plan for and we've been talking a lot that a lot about that with Amy and Julie about you know how ELP can um talk more with kindergarten in terms of planning and things like that and figuring out when times we can be able to have the opportunities to come together and meet because that's the thing right we
069always want to be in our classrooms right it's really hard for us to get out of our classrooms you know when but when we're given a chance like to make sure that that time is embedded for us to meet and do all that really hard work together and share yes and we've used our three District professional learning days for those opportunities um and we have some other built-in curriculum times like little half hours over the course of the year um so whenever we can and we love to have teachers getting out there and observing because that's like just seeing it is so powerful I just said two parts of that also Katie the first part is I'm sorry Laura family could not be here today but she also worked with Amy and they do training
070to they to all of their colleagues here both teachers and other staff at classrooms and related service providers over the year and I cannot go back to ka's point also about learning about project learning what you really observed in these today because it's really a precursor to high level skills so what you really observed today in terms of lessons and looking at academics I know Greg that comes up often you saw a physics lesson a geometry lesson an algebra lesson um you also saw high level skills of recalling information when one of the students in Amanda's class um cited a trapezoid Which means that child learned about trapezoid in a prior lesson was able to apply it to the lesson that you observed you also observed it in terms of geometry when um when they
071were to be able to reproduce those so they could do the shapes of both trapezoid rectangle and circle I believe and amazingly for pre-algebra skills you saw a child know how to plot something okay and what they were pre- plotting was when they had to put the chair in a place that was somehow related to where the table was and that's what plotting is so what you observed were high level academic skills that um that children do and they were met where they were so talking about Universal Design for Learning children because of the play-based activity or Project based learning could really show you what they know based on what that skill was in those three areas of instruction so not to mention oral language uh speaking listening um vocabulary development writing all of those
072things as well this um you know we we always could use more professional learning time there's you know unbalance you really don't want to pull staff really for professional learning when kids are in session I believe other than to get them into classrooms where kids are teach where kids are learning so that they can see that in real time this team is built different they're um their commitment to the work I can't tell you how many times throughout this year they've met early early early in the morning um and come together because they're passionate and professional and they want to continue to grow their capacity and their expertise and they believe in one another um there are many mornings that we would be you know well before an hour before the kids coming into school
073over an oxridge planning together um and I'm really grateful for their commitment to that I've learned a lot from them I just want to be cognizant of time we're almost at nine o'clock and we have another agenda item but I just to this point of uh making our learning visible can you talk a little bit about how you educate parents about play bled learning yeah and and you know how academic it actually is so I can start from the food unit of study I think this one is particularly unique because I don't usually send out a permission form or like um kind of a scope and sequence or kind of what you would say a mini mini explanation of why we're doing this work but because it was food related and we had to get
074the permission from the nurses and everything um I kind of put together why this is important and why we're going to do this work um so I sent out an email to parents basically stating the standards that we would be kind of meeting throughout this study um I talked about the importance of how food you know should be accessible to everyone and if not how can we get it to be accessible to everyone we talked about different I was talking about the importance of exploring different cultures um the importance of understanding the roles of all the people in the food industry and just kind of giving parents the understanding of why I wanted to do this based on the students needs and what they wanted to do and then I from there opened it up
075to parents so if they had anyone that they were related to in the food industry that would like to come into the classroom if they had any experience of being a chef or wanting to cook and then inviting parents in to come make food with us and we've had those experiences as well and then through that every day I send home a daily to update the the parents on what is happening in the classroom um so that they can see the progression of the students work and their learning and then we have parents in every week for mystery reader birthdays and I think this speaks to them a lot because they can see like while they get the dailies they can really see it pinpointed like from the very beginning all the way to where
076we are right now and we're not even done I mean the bulletin board's full but we haven't even finished um and so just to speak to this a little bit the beginning is like the web of like food and what students thought about food then it was like um it's talking about their favorite types of foods um there's you can see that there's charts showing that they were weighing fruits and vegetables so that was and then the standard for math um is attached to that then you can see um there's different charts of where the food comes from and students I I find them all the time in the hallway just standing there like looking at everything and you see from other students in the program and then they go back to their classrooms and
077they share the information that they saw on the board and that's another like entry point of maybe a student in their classroom isn't really open to talking or exploring certain things but they just saw that and now they're bringing that into their classroom and that's their way of you know beginning a conversation um and then as you go across the door um you can see that there's journal entries of children drawing the representations of what they think about the food unit so far um how the food has been made there's examples of menus and ingredients and recipes um there's pictures of the process of them making the pasta of making the pizza um students also have been bringing in Foods they've asked their parents can I bring in this food to try with my peers
078um and it's really helped with students who have food aversions like they're bringing in all these different kinds of foods the amount of emails that I get from parents saying my child tried this I can't believe they even held this food like it's just exposed them to so many different experiences and honestly I feel the parents are heavily involved in this specific unit thanks and just quickly I I in terms of also keeping parents kind of apprised and engaged the roller coaster and the amusement park project in particular have you thought about having kind of an open house with inviting the parents into the classroom to see what the Children built having the children be able to present it because that is a huge kind of not only a communication opportunity for children but to
079allow the parents to see what and all the different scopes of things that you're touching on I thought would be a great opportunity and kindergarten as well yeah we've talked about that for sure and in our Museum as well or somehow displaying or taking a photograph or even um a video of you um when we create our Museum like what's your exhibit going to be how might you share it and I also think a point that Amanda made which happens kindergarten too kindergarteners are the best reporters um and so thinking about we asked at the beginning of the unit gave a little explanation of why and then ask for supplies right anything that you recyclable materials or you know things that they we could use and at closing Circle for example at the end of
080the day I might say to my kiddo think about what you brought in and how did you or or a friend use that tell your parents what you use the yogurt container for today um and I think the carryover of vocabulary speaks for itself s when kids are mentioning um the vocabulary outside of school like I built a ramp with or the incline or things like that that are carrying over um and I have kiddos who think about it clearly all night um I think they're like us they wake up in the middle of the night with the roller coaster idea and they come running in in the morning when are we working on roller coaster I thought of something yesterday that would make my the car go faster or um we had a big
081discussion about the size of the cars and should they fit humans or should they fit stuffed animals it so then we had a discussion about um proportion so I think some of those vocabulary and taking the opportunity to really encourage the kids to share that with their parents and is really powerful Yeah we actually embedded in the in the thing that we did as well so like for the past present and future we invited parents we have a letter that we put in there that if teachers wanted to use they could send home to parents asking parents you know we're talking about the past is there something that you have that you would like your child to put in the museum you know so maybe they have like an old cell phone or maybe they
082have you know a rotary phone or you know we always have some sort of junk at our house that we could say was from the past that the kids may not know how to use so we offer the parents to send in something like that for the past for the present for the future you know that kind of stuff so they have that involvement in kindergarten it looks a little bit different than preschool because ours are shorter and more compact so sometimes our things like one of our things we did went home as a book so we put all of the things they did together put a cover on it stapled it and sent it home so the parents could then see the progression of what they went through for our Thanksgiving Day Parade and
083making their balloons and having a parade so we put that all together with pictures and their work so that they can see the progression of how that went just in that one week project time so it's a little bit different than preschool because it's not quite as stretched out it long well thank you all this is such a fun way to start our mornings so I very much appreciate being here time to go play thank you very much you see you all soon um this is um next we transition to PK uh to K3 literacy and we have Devon Tiani here to join us um and this is a really um one most we'll talk about is we're approaching um a recommendation and want to talk about how decision will be made and um Devon
084will be able to share a little bit more about the process and her experience in that um and so this is again just a quick update we had a core review team meeting uh February 266 it was the first was canceled delay opening but really recently and that was a a productive session so we'll all be able to share with you the details of that thank you guys I it's a tough act to follow literacy is also fun it is and Incredibly important and Devon has been on our core review team since last year so she's very engaged in this whole process she's also as a third grade teacher at Royal she's also piloting into reading um so we are very grateful for her to be here she also has an author visit at 9:30
085so hopefully we'll this will be um quick but we wanted to talk about our partnership with um the state as well as tntp which we talked about last time just give you an update about our core review share some some student writing as part of that and then as Amy said talk about our next steps and our timeline so um Dr adley and Dr fedan and I met with the state again on February 3D and just gave them an update on where we were with the pilot and our core review team we invited them to join um our meeting Unfortunately they were unable to but they did acknowledge our effort and our process and said that you know really they understand that we are are putting so much time and effort into this probably more
086than than many districts um as far as we talked about the new teacher project partnership and that opportunity to have an outside organization uh when we had a followup with meeting with them we really determined that although it would be nice to have that outside perspective we have been really working hard to build trust and build capacity within our own organization and we felt like we had the capacity and we didn't want to ER that trust by bringing somebody into our classrooms um for that level of of observation at this time so our core review team meeting um we began the day with setting the stage and I think and Devon can speak to this as well you know that as you know this is very emotional teaching is so personal and there's a lot
087of different opinions so we've really worked hard on coming together as a group working together being collaborative being um respectful of all voices um because it is it is um you know um a a very um important and thoughtful process we talked to the team about the decision making process and the timeline as well because they have had such a huge investment of of their time and thought into this so we started out by um the teachers who are piloting into reading we have them meet in small groups with the rest of our core review team as we said there's about 20 plus members and we used um an evaluation tool that was based on what the state used last year but we didn't at the time that we were reviewing materials we didn't have
088any experience so we wanted the teachers to go back and revisit that tool now that they've had experience and that was really helpful um and and then we looked at evidence of actual student learning and growth because we said you know we want to put the students in this so we reviewed our as web data our current winter data and we reviewed um our writing data we all of our teachers did um on demand and an on demand is just a writing sample without any teacher instruction to see what kids are applying independently we were very pleased to find that regardless of the materials that we were using um our our kids were performing well and they were and there was we really couldn't see any differences which just confirms that it's the quality of
089the teacher really um regardless of the materials after that in the afternoon and Kristen colonies our 612 department chair joined us for this we Revisited um our evaluation tool where we looked at what are those things that we have identified as best practices and we Revisited that and we talked about um the strengths and and the challenges with um any tool that we're using so our big takeaways really overall positive feedback from from into reading across the board um we looked at and this is just an example of two specific areas inter reading we love that the vocabulary piece we love that it includes the parts of speech the words are text specific so the kids are revisiting in word love we talked about that it was highly engaging the gestures and the games that
090were included um were were a real strength and it did not include the parts of speech in writing we talked about the grammar piece and into reading that's really a strength in the new TC units we talked about the small group instructional plans so again no matter no matter what there's there's you know strengths and and areas of of growth for all we talked about how our continued professional learning needs to focus on instructional practice versus any kind of materials and we did acknowledge that there is a challenge with um growing teacher capacity with without having coaches and having limited professional learning time and this is just a sample again because we really want to put the students in front of this so we put in these samples and we wanted to just collaborate also
091we have five elementary schools do we all agree on we looked at a striving writer an average writer and a and a high writer so this is just um examples in first grade for winter are we clear about our expectations and this is just a typical across all of our five schools child is writing across Pages some illustrations you can see spaces between the words um and and there will be no you know every no matter what you look at when you look at student writing everybody has even in an average piece there's some students that are stronger in organization or elaboration or conventions this was a second grade sample and just so you can see the trajectory too of how the writing increases this child has more labels in their pictures a little more
092elaboration what was the length of this on demand do you know how the time generally the children have 45 minutes like one period with no instruction and it's sort of a you know we've done a lot of narrative writing show me all you can know few reminders so this is third grade so just again this was really the the the important for us to just put students into our our work and then we talked about our decisionmaking process with the team we talked about two important dates May 7th is when we're going to come to the curriculum committee with um a a you know a recommendation and then May 13th to the full board for discussion we are pulling a subgroup of our core review team so it's administrators and teachers across all five schools
093we're reviewing oral feedback so we're doing focus groups also at each school we sent out a survey it's very comprehensive we have notes from um all of our core review team meetings we're looking at that feedback written feedback we're looking at our student data we're going back to the selection criteria um based on the science of reading and best practices that that grounded our work when we began this last year and that that subgroup will analyze that information synthesize it and we're going to use a decision-making uh protocol to come to consensus and this is our timeline laid out I think that you have seen this I think we shared this at our last meeting um so I don't know Devon if you have anything to add to this or you have questions so oh
094sorry go ahead go ahead um something that stuck out to me when you were talking about um your big takeaways um the writing piece and this was something that was mentioned before previous meetings that that it was tricky with inter reading to differentiate and do the small group instruction and how are you finding ways to whe you personally or those of you that are a larger group that are that are piloting are you finding ways to be able to differentiate better than than in the previously in the year yeah I think one of the big things that came out from a lot of the pilot teachers was that the more that we've had an opportunity to access the tool and we have had some development with um hmh as well well like I know third
095grade we just met with them yesterday and as we've gotten more comfortable with that there's a lot of ways that we've been able to integrate that um certainly within the small group um during our wi time and other opportunities um so we have really been able to do that as we've gotten more comfortable with the tool okay excellent thank you good that's great to hear thank you just following up on that can you speak a little bit too to your impressions on having I remember from past discussions that um a lot of teachers had mentioned how inter reading really had a plethora of resources had really a lot and then that was part of that you know understanding what was there and getting comfortable that you're speaking of right is getting familiar can you speak
096to how um how having one program that has all of this integrated and not that it's not a lot to learn but the difference between this idea of the compendium you know I I remember you know even like 10 years ago being struck by like the long list of resources that Daran used in literacy can you just talk to that from a teacher perspective about you know kind of having one or few number versus like a long list and how that impacts your planning yeah I mean it's definitely easy to access in terms of um everything is in our you know guide or there's so many different things that they taught us you can get to in three clicks or less um you know in terms of small group instruction or if you're looking for
097um you know something that you want to do more in depth that you can search for that and I think you know there's a learning curve with everything um and so that as we've gotten the opportunity to be more educated on that it is nice um that everything is really coming together in terms of you know I can speak for third grade right now for the module that we're in we are doing some learning about animal survival so it's a non-fiction reading unit and students are picking an animal and doing research about it and then it's tying in with our science units so we don't get to do as many pool play based things but after listening this morning maybe we can try to integrate um so it's all there sort of in terms of
098that or the grammar component that Julie mentioned that there's specific grammar skills that we've taught that then we're having them look for in the writing um so it's not all these different pieces so it is you know cohesive in that it's certainly still overwhelming there's a lot of things um you know we learned things as yesterday that I didn't know how to find um so I wouldn't say that it's like Presto and it's all there but it certainly is in one place that you can three collects or less get to um I have just a couple questions um one is it looks like based on this presentation that seems like there's more consensus around positive feedback versus I think when we listened to the teachers there was a bit more mixed consensus that's one question
099just a bit more color there and then the second one is I think during the last curriculum meeting when we talked about this topic um I raised the idea that it would be really helpful to have like here are the core areas of of our of this program effectively whether it be vocabulary phonics grammar what have you how does this program work versus the alternatives on a simple page just like a comparison strengths weaknesses for each one of those it be really helpful for us to be able to see that I don't know when we're be able to get that but that was a request that I had and specifically like for things that may address other areas that we may perceive as weaknesses for example that we're addressing through special education like dyslexia does
100this address that how does it address that I think that that's a critical part of our decision-making process as it relates to inter reading versus whereever the Alternatives I I think in terms of the components of reading and we can reshare that but we we did we are teaching all of the compos we are teaching the science of reading we're teaching pheic awareness phonics we're doing that currently through our compendium or this in terms of special education and that specialized instruction those students are receiving core instruction but they're receiving more they require specialized instruction so they are receiving something Above and Beyond The Core Curriculum so regardless of the program that and perhaps Shirley can speak to that I would just add um and I think we talk about many of our students who do
101have dyslexic behaviors are require special design instruction have that in their special education program I think the question that Greg was presenting is that in into reading um because of the resources and because of some of the um opportunities teachers have to really look at differentiation and which materials to use that it does afford to meet students where they are in in a very very um specific manner would that be fair to say yeah I mean I I can speak you do that anyway you do that anyway I'm not I'm saying regardless of the program you do that anyway right but I I think what Greg is asking is within inter reading are there opportunities in terms of the artifacts or the materials that give you um at a glance opportunities to differentiate for children
102in a different way like like we we know that there's I don't know the extent of it because I haven't looked at the specific numbers but we know that there's a big component of our special education program that is geared toward dyslexia and so I'm just using that as an example but is into reading a potential maybe not comprehensive solution to some of that which will reduce our need for this special education or are we going to have to spend the money on into reading and then in addition to that come up with a separate solution to the to the dyslexia Problem whatever it is so I'll I'll I'll take that one first okay and I and I think I mentioned this at at a prior board meeting also Greg that one cannot predict of
103a reading program that's going to change um instructional methodology or that's going to say you can't say yes this is going to change the um the high incidence of children with reading differences that we have one can say that this program and to Julie's Point like other programs we've had has the components that require in good instruction in teaching reading which include phology morphology orthography and the different aspects to it I think the idea that this particular program might be very systematic and allow teachers one let's just say one repository of where to find the information versus looking at different areas in some of the other programs but the components of good instruction are present in both of them Devon can you speak a little bit about the spiral nature yeah so one of the
104things that um comes up into inter reading is that it the skills do spiral so I'm just going to take for example author's purpose which is something that we C in third grade um you know we introduced it in the beginning of the year um in one of our lessons and then it does come back and you know timing and pacing is always something that you are worried about as a teacher and when we met with um hmh yesterday they were reminding us that you know the last two units that they do um are kind of um where you're like looking at the genre and that because of the Spiral nature that if you are not say finishing Unit 10 um that it's not like that's your author's purpose unit those things have been coming
105up um and so you can see that students in the beginning are like author's purpose I'm not sure really what that is and now that we've introduced it and they've had more opportunities you're seeing more students pick up on that and master it so um especially with language Learners um if you have them I would say that that can be helpful because you're not just getting that skill not that we would teach it one time before in isolation but that I do think that this vir nature gives um additional opportunity for those um I can say that in terms of not specific for dyslexia but there is um notes on basically every lesson for supporting language Learners um which I know that at Royal we have had an influx of more students that um are
106multilanguage Learners so that has been helpful um you know just in terms of that but not specific to dyslexia in regardless a programmer students with dyslexia need a lot more explicit instruction and a lot more practice they and regardless of the program they have a lot of opportunities to practice in decodable text um they have a lot more opportunities to have that explicit and systematic um instruction repeated in small group and feedback from teachers so I I would say that that piece is is program agnostic but that specialized instruction that's needed is provided by the special educator do you ktie first find thank you um so I think that Greg's point is a really good one about um a side-by-side comparison I think that's really important and I know you guys have done that before
107where there was a lot of detail um but not even so much that it's an explanation of each curriculum but really that like at a glance comparison would be really helpful because that's essentially kind of where our end point is we need to make a decision in the future um I also just want to comment a little bit about um this conversation about how the program serves all of our Learners and I um will say that I have been certainly um very happy that the state was looking towards the science of reading and very happy to hear on the reports back from our teachers about looking at ways that we can improve the the the resources that are amazing teachers are bringing to apply to all students we had talked earlier about you know kind
108of this metaphor of having um a general Leed classroom playing soccer and then special education instruction playing basketball and how difficult that is so to Greg's point I do think that it's really important for us to focus on you know what is the content of the resources again that are amazing teachers know how to teach our students but what is the content of that and how accessible is it to all students right so when we are doing things like um you know the parts of the words and the phonological components and that really system static science of reading that is having both our gened and our special ed teach um you know instruction they're playing the same Sport and it's more accessible to them in that classroom so that it's not over their head when
109they're in the gened and they can they can really get that extra instruction that the dyslexic kids need we know they need additional repetition we know that they need additional that right that's where special education comes in to Greg's point about general education integration is that they're still doing the same thing and that those are skills that benefit every single kid regardless of whether you're reading above or below grade level and I think that's really the point that we want to get to with our curriculum is what is going to be best for all kids recognizing that some kids are always going to need to go a little faster and some kids are always going to need additional repetition um so I really hope that we can continue that conversation about you know which program
110is really giving us what we need um in in all those areas so to the point of the side by side I'm just looking at the the evaluation tool that you used I mean that's basically what you were doing is there a way to syn synthesize that into a more simple way um you know taking everybody's responses to that so I was also going to lean into Greg's comments a little bit and um uh I just we one your observation are things seem to be crystallizing to me but I think that's a fair comment um however it's not a it's not a affirmation that the decision has been made because it hasn't been made uh nor do I want to put a staff member or any administrators to suggest that a decision has been made
111because it hasn't um and that group has to come together but I do think it's fair and reasonable uh to do some sort of comparison as part of that evaluation process I mean as part of the recommendation to come to this uh committee subcommittee we should have that as part of it and and that is actually that's what we're doing with that evaluation tool and synthesizing all of that that's that's like I think it could be as simple as one page a table here are the different components here's rank one through five literally just a number multiple columns for the different options and then notes on the side for clarification that's it yeah that's that's um but the work again like Julie said that the core the subgroup will be doing as they look at
112data from across our more than a year process um in kind of examining our own resources and and now with the pilot and I think Katie just said I think you put your finger on it exactly which is different than the way I said it before the better way of framing this up says completely said differently is rather than saying do we not need special certain components of special education anymore we should be thinking of this as if this is not addressing 25% of making up a number of the general population then how is it the right program whether that those that population is dyslexic or otherwise they're still part of the general population and if this reading program is not addressing them then isn't it by definition insufficient so so I love that you
113said that because students that receive special education services are general education students and never lose that Des designation so we're always thinking first within the core and then how to get kids there and move kids Beyond so that's it's a great point but but I think am mean I hear the question also and it is something that the team is looking at to your point Greg and Katie which is if we're will there be a a lower referral rate for the need of special education if our program in General Ed is meeting the needs of all Learners I think that's the question you're asking for to look at and we're looking at that also and on our team that we're also presenting on May 13th of the special education and the questions of referral that's
114something that um Amy and Julie and myself and Scott and some other members are on our committee looking at um some of the questions to answer that too and I think that goes back to the professional learning piece too right and how do you how do you ensure that the general education teachers are are knowledgeable about you know the needs of the kids that may need some more support so um I agree with all of that and just in terms of what poten I would hope that we would get that kind of a side-by-side comparison in the next curriculum meeting that I guess that has or not I I honestly I'm because my sense is that that would become part of the full recommend recommendation package okay to that point though I think it would
115be helpful in that kind of a side-by-side comparison to also highlight where you know a compendium versus into read reading might have additional add-on opportunities or resources available that could meet the additional needs to you know potentially better serve all of our general education students in areas such as the femic awareness or the um I don't know what Orton Gillingham actually does but all of those kinds of skills that currently only are given if you're in a schedul special education kind of context so does into reading in the in the list of resources that additional resources that it has have that additional ability for us to access more in-depth tools if we need to to also benefit our general education students in their literacy efforts that that could end up allowing us to better educate
116you know our students that we do reduce referrals into special education that's a question did you have a 9:30 stop sorry well I would love to see the authors if you had any more specific questions for me um I would love to be able to you know see learning live is there just anything that you wanted to share like that that you've learned that we haven't heard yet before you leave no I mean I think it's been really informative um you know being on the team and looking at all these different tools um you know third grade is obviously not the Crux of the into science you know like the learning to read um you know so I certainly defer that to you know the younger teachers in terms of that the younger grade teachers
117um but it's I think we really have been thoughtful in terms of looking at different things and I think you know we are really trying to get Ina input from all of the teachers um you know just with such an important thing so I think that Julie and Amy have really been making sure that I know other districts maybe haven't been involving the teachers as much and I can say that the teachers really do feel like we are getting information and I thank them for that opportunity as AOS to you know you guys and other people just making a decision and sort of passing it down so I you know speak for my colleagues on that good thanks thank and and I just will can I just add one thing no matter no matter what
118both of these every resource that we're using no matter what is is vetted there is nothing that replaces a high highly trained highly qualified teacher both of the either any of these resources it's it's how the teacher is teaching it's that teacher practice I just want to be uh also note something um specific about this the timing of this request Katie as you mentioned from the state actually was it provided a nice opportunity actually and I would say a needed opportunity in our district I've been consistent about this um this is also an outcome I'll just be honest of the equity uh committee that did their work this is identifying uh a curriculum and resources and programs that are going to support yes our special education students or some of our special education students uh
119as well as the general population there's no greater Foundation than early reading for kids and that's what we took out of the activy report actually for our population of students so I'm not going to be apologetic about that I think it's a positive thing um and it's it's a good it's a good foundation uh for all our children but yes also for our special services and our children in receiving those services so the first part is if we can't get our reading program right that's problem right for for everybody um so uh it did it was coincidental of timing um we we looked at it as an opportunity and it's also also an outcome of that report to say we do need to to look at that and this this brings us to where we
120are now and it's just add not only looking at um general education and special populations um it's also thinking about our preschool as you just heard right from our first presentation our preschool through grade 12 Continuum so our work isn't done only with K3 but that's the most critical foundational part to get right and then what we need to do is think about where are the gaps that maybe some of our kids that have that are in the upper grades right how do we Circle back and Shore that up and also how do we that's why you know Kristen has been involved and will continue to be involved how do we again make sure that that articulation is really smooth for kids EXA as they move through the grades because in many ways an education
121is like you know kindergarten grade one two three learning is not as neat and linear as that you have kids that are like Leap Frogs ahead and a little bit behind and then all of a sudden I always say it's like when you have your own little kids and they're in shoes and you think you have a thumb and there's plenty of room and then they've outgrown them that's how learning is with children so our continuum has to be really clear and crisp all the way up through grade 12 thank you for that oh gosh I just a quick follow up on the on the side by-side stuff um appreciate that it may not be final by the next curriculum committee meeting but I I would strongly encourage you not to bury the lead as
122it relates to what that looks like before it goes to the full board and is voted on so I would say like the sooner we can even if it's a draft where it's like hey this is draft of what we're it's still in progress work in progress I would say like so that we can start asking questions about it yeah I can appreciate that and I would also say um the fact that we've talked with the board multiple times a month at the court you know the curriculum committee meetings the full board meetings that our staff has been in and will continue to come in Beyond this process because after a decision's made the implementation is going to be really where the you know the rubber meets the road so there should certainly wouldn't be
123a bearing of of the um lead there shouldn't be in any of our work but again something to be proud of I think as an Administration and a board together is the fact that we've had really vibrant discussion for more than a year now about this and we're committed to continuing that I think to Greg explain it's important that the nine board members know what's happening like the four of us are very in tune of this and if you know hopefully everyone's been paying attention but the more documentation there is about you know what that will be like a very clear like here's how we're looking at the two like in all the different facets versus having to read through 18 different presentations with a lot of information a ton of content I don't I
124just can't I don't know if the other board members are all going through that and digging through and piercing it together so like something that's very simple would be helpful yeah absolutely we'll work toward that just just on that note though we did have a very that lengthy when all the teachers were talking about their experience piloting into reading but I we haven't really had that same level of detail on the new I think the new units of um the teachers College new unit and word love so this is kind of where a side by-side comparison would be very helpful because I feel like I have more knowledge right now about the strengths and weaknesses of into reading based on that extensive you know teacher panel that talked to us um I think in December
125or whenever it was about how the pilot was going but on the flip side of that I don't really have as much understanding of the you know the strengths and weaknesses of the the alternative um so that would be be really helpful um I I think it would be helpful for probably all of us to review some of that too because there there was the presentation on the units of study and word love and I think it's um it's good it's good to go back um especially because we asked so much of our teachers to come here um Amy I just wanted to say thank you so much for talking about the the three through 12 and the Beyond this part because it's so important and um and also just to um say Kristen thank
126you for coming here the fact that you're here really shows that that commitment to that and I hope that you know at a future curriculum committee when we're talking about this um and certainly hopefully it's planned for you know when we make the decision and we rule out that you can really be at the table and part of that conversation because it's really important to know like what are we seeing right now in Middle School what are we seeing in high school you know what are the deficits and we do have deficits and that doesn't mean that anyone did anything wrong or that there's blame for it it just means that it's an area that we can improve on um you know what are our current students doing you know in the high school are
127they are they still focused on content and a little weak on grammar yes they are um you know so how so how do we help with that right um so thank you Amy I think that's just vital for us to to not just it's great to improve things but we also have an obligation to the students who didn't get the new program then I just wanted to tie one last thing back together too which was you know this concept of we need to choose a program that is going to serve our general education students every single one of our students as best we can right and then also how do we also tie that program to students who need a bit more right a bit more above and a bit more you know support and
128I'd love to have that conversation um where one we have you know thank you Shirley also for being part of this and I'd love to hear you know hopefully some of your um staff can join us at the table as well to talk about how they're seeing some of the kids that they um have additional instruction with and how the piloting programs are working for them how that's going would be amazing and additionally how might we revamp as we're revamping our general Ed curriculum how might we also look at um exploring and evolving our special education as well we've talked at this table about new canan's model and the literacy Academy and you know bringing some of those people inh house with you know OG fellows and really developing the strengths of all of our
129staff both Jed and special education and I mean me that's that's the goal right that's where we're going to be really excited about what we can offer our kids in darianne and the success in the gains that they can make so I hope that that's all part of the continued conversation and thank you all so much this is very exciting to me I could talk about it all day even though I know this meeting was probably supposed to end 40 minutes ago um I think it's a good place to end if we all right sounds good um public comment good morning if anybody in person or online would like to part participate in public comment please approach the podium or use the raised hand icon please state your name and address for the record and
130note that you have up to three minutes to comment we have no