001I'd like to call the meeting to order. Uh, will you please stand for the pledge? >> Ready, begin. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll do roll call. Mr. Shy, will you start? >> Mike Shy, >> Matthew Patinsky, >> Amy Carney, Karen Warner, >> and Donna Lewis. All board members are present. Uh, I would like to ask for uh I make a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Need a second. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I'd like to explain my vote. Yep. Um, I had asked several times for the second reads of policies, JJ and to be on tonight's board
002agenda as action items, but I was denied. Policy BEDB states that action items are part of special meetings. And you can see that to be true on tonight's agenda. Yet, no uh items are listed. One year ago, at this exact same meeting, there were five action items, one of which was a second read and approval of board policy. Therefore, I'm voting no on the approval of this agenda tonight. >> Thank you. Thank you for the explanation. All right. The governing board may convene an executive session pursuant to ARS 38431.03A3 03 A3 and A4 for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and providing direction to the attorney for the public body regarding litigation strategies and an update regarding social media adolescent addiction personal injury product liability uh Scottsdale Unified School District versus uh Meta Platforms Incorporated.
003The governing board may convene an executive session pursuant to ARS 3843103A3 and A4 for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and providing direction to the attorney for the public body regarding a potential settlement settlement of pending litigation regarding Stoka versus Scottsdale Unified School District. So at this time we will adjourn to We need a motion to adjourn to executive session. I need a second. >> Um I move or a second. >> Give me a second. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? >> I I And it passes unanimously. We'll be back shortly. Or so I hope. testing. One, two, three. >> All right. Uh, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the executive session. I need a second. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I passes unanimously. Uh, we'll now re
004reconvene the regular meeting and we'll do item six, action item. Uh we are uh I'll make a motion to authorize the attorneys for the public body to dismiss litigation in California State Court 23 STCV14795 frontjCCP 5255 and refile complaint in federal disc district court in California 42-m3047-ygr MDL30 3047. Need a second. >> I'll second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Uh, all those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. It passes unanimously. Uh, and then now action 6B. I make a motion to approve the settlement in Stoka versus uh Scottsdale Unified School District as discussed. Need a second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. All those in favor say I. >> I. unanimous passage. All right, Dr. Mensel, the superintendent comments. >> Oh, good evening of the school year. We
005are excited about students coming to school every day ready to learn, grateful for our teachers and our staff who make it possible every day, and especially appreciative of our facility service team that make sure that the air conditioning is working when the or well above 100 degrees. So, thank you to the SUSD employees for a good start to the school year. >> Thank you. >> Well, I'm too very excited. I too am very excited about this uh this set of discussion items. Uh so, we'll start with uh a the mandatory reporter training. >> Madam President, members of the governing board, um I'd like to provide some training for you regarding mandatory reporting responsibilities. I want to thank Senator Warner as she was an important part of bringing forward the changes to the law related to
006this. And so the purpose today uh will be to go over if we have less technical difficulties that would be great, wouldn't it? All right. Um but we want what I my purpose today is to talk to you today about what the law requires with respect to mandatory reporting. Um, and then to review your responsibilities as governing board members. I'm going to go to the front. >> Thank you, Dr. Bachna. All right. So, again, our our goal today is to give you the new responsibilities with respect to mandatory reporting. um discuss coordination with your local public agencies and then respond to your questions. All right, here we go. You have a reporting obligation as a mandatory reporter and the law has changed to signify that governing board members are now listed statutory mandatory reporters. So,
007if any of the five of you form a reasonable belief that a minor is or has been the victim of physical injury, abuse, child abuse, a reportable offense, or neglect, that's when your obligation kicks in. Um, I had I've been doing this presentation quite a bit and I had somebody ask me, why is child abuse and abuse listed? Isn't that the same thing? And, um, the reason for that is that those are both different statutory definitions in the criminal code. Reportable offense is a term of art in the relevant statute 30 uh 133620 is basically any of the allegations of sex crimes against children. So that's what reportable offense means which would include sexual assault, molestation, child prostitution, the items that are listed on the screen and in the backup materials. The reporting requirement kicks
008in if you believe that a child has been the subject or the victim of a non-acal physical injury. Examples of physical injuries would include um any type of exposure, sex acts, neglect is also um a requirement that you report to the authorities. Lack of proper medical care exposing the child to uh dangerous things. Physical injury has a low bar definition under the law. It is the causing of a bruise by intentional means, pressure sores, burns, bleeding, and of course more serious injuries as well. Your obligation is twofold as governing board members. One is to report to local law enforcement, the department of um child safety andor tribal authorities. And then the second, if the individual is a certificated individual, is to report to the state board of education. The timing is that you shall immediately
009report. It is the mandatory reporter, the individual who forms the belief or gets the information that has the duty. It's insufficient to tell the supervisor or to tell the superintendent or to tell the board president, you are the one who holds the duty. Um, our law enforcement parties, uh, Josh Freriedman and I have met with all of the law enforcement partners that support Scottdale Unified and they all ask that reports be done immediately. that information has been passed on to your administrators during the training that occurred prior to the start of school and um down the line into the schools and it'll be reiterated this Thursday with your administrators at the all admin meeting reporting to the state board. The requisite statute is 15514. Um it's required for both certified and classified staff if you
010believe that they are the perpetrators of the harm. Um, if you have to report a certificated staff member to law enforcement, you likely also have to report them to the state board. Um, and you have to report acts of unprofessional or immoral conduct um, prior to accepting a resignation of a certificated individual. A person who furnishes the report has statutory immunity unless the um, person acted with malice or they're the actual perpetrator of the crime. There are criminal penalties. They differ. Class one misdemeanor for failing to report child abuse. Class six felony for failing to report any of the sex crimes that we discussed. This is the legislation uh that we've started discussing at the beginning of my presentation. Senate Bill 1437, which has become chapter 40 in the laws. It will amend the two
011statutes that we're talking about. It changes how mandatory reporters can make reports and how students can be interviewed. So, I'm going to go through the legislative changes that will be effective on September 26th. While they'll be effective on September 26 and Scottdale Unified, uh we have been training staff on these new procedures so that they were consistent throughout the school year. The reporting to a school resource officer or a school safety officer will not satisfy a mandatory reporter statutory obligation. The law also changes the scope of inquiry for SRO's and SSO and it adds substitute teachers and as the reason for our presence today governing board members as mandatory reporters. Um this is the actual language in the statute and it's repeated in both the title 13 statute and the title 15 statute. This is
012the limitation from the Senate bill that um restricts what the law enforcement officer is to do if they receive the report. And then this is the information that the law enforcement the inquiry the law enforcement officer can carry out. Part of the purpose of this law, as I understand it, was to refer law enforcement back to the mandatory um multid-disciplinary protocol for the investigation of child abuse that is required of every county under um title 8 in uh ARS 8817. So that those protocol we'll review a little bit further in the presentation. Again, we met with all three jurisdictions and their their ask to the district was that reports be made to dispatch and to the school resource officer at the same time so there can be coordination. Um the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has
013advised that the SRO and the mandatory reporter if they're if it's possible make contact at the same time to dispatch because this law has also added an element for their school resource officers to make reports to the law enforcement agencies. And uh Maropa County Attorney's Office also recommends getting the report number and taking notes regarding who your co who the contact is at dispatch. The multi-disiplinary protocol that I discussed um were developed in Maricopa County in 1994. It was revised most recently in 2016. It's over 225 pages. About eight pages apply to school protocols and they will need to be updated after this uh legislation. I hope that that will occur in Maricopa County. Um Maropa counties are more current than other school other counties that I observed or reviewed. These protocol are all on
014the um Department of Child Safety's website if you're interested in looking at them, but um there's also a link to the Maropa counties in this presentation. They limit how school personnel can interview students and so governing board members would have the same limitation if you are approached or h receive information directly. Um the purpose of the multi-disiplinary protocol are to limit the number of times that a student is interviewed. There are very good reasons for doing that. We don't want to retroatize the child. Um, also there's a concern that if the child has to repeat the story a number of times that facts will get missed or changed and that uh affects the prosecution of these crimes. In interviewing staff should only ask the following questions and again this would apply to board members as
015well. What happened? Who did it? Where were you when it happened? When? Um you may as board members and your staff may intercept voluntary disclosures from children. So this doesn't require you to stop a child from um explaining what has happened to that child. Um personnel are are um they are instructed to write down exactly the words the children use. If they receive verifiable information from a third party, they're not to re-examine the child. Um, so if the a third party, for instance, if a parent comes to the school and says, "I've learned this about my child's best friend." They're not to interview the best friend. They're to call the authorities. And all information needs to be maintained separately. Um, coordination with law enforcement. Your staff will take direction from law enforcement. Law enforcement may
016take students to advocacy centers such as child for forensic interviews, which are a part of the county protocol. Um the protocol indicate that law enforcement shall inform the family although your staff will ask if they have permission to do so and they will maintain c custodial documentation if a child is removed from your campuses. These are the resources that I discussed. the school protocols start on page 58 of the multid-disciplinary protocol and then state law requires that the um that mandatory training be created and I've included the link that is on the Arizona Department of uh child safety's website regarding that training and that's the training that I wanted to provide to the five of you >> Dr. So this is written related to our obligations presumably when a student is involved and involves the
017school and SRO's and so on. Our responsibilities are independent of the school. Correct. If we were a church, synagogue, a sporting event, are we a mandatory reporter in all aspects of our life or only in the context of the schools? >> So the statute was amended to include governing board members. I will tell you that under the statute, even parents have a legal obligation to be mandatory reporters. So my advice to you if you do receive what you believe is a reasonable belief that harms occurring is to report even if it is outside of what you would consider your scope and duties as a board member. >> And then we would use our judgment about whether to involve the schools or not based on its relevance. If someone was a student at PV schools, we
018would not involve Scottsdale SRO's. We would >> I agree with that. >> And that brings up an important part point, Dr. Patinsky, which is the local law enforcement that you do involve is going to be the law enforcement of the area in which you believe the crime may or may not have occurred. So for instance, if you received information as a board member that children while they were on a school field trip in Prescuit uh engaged in behaviors that require a mandatory report, it would be the Prescuit uh police department that would be called. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Seeing no other questions. Thank you, Jennifer. >> Thank you. and I hope that you enjoy your discussion this evening about wildly important goals and student data. So, thank you very much. I'm going
019to excuse myself. >> Have a good night. >> That moves us to information discussion items B, assessments, past data, present data, and future focus. >> President Lewis, I would first like to begin by thanking our team for putting together the presentation, and we look forward to the dialogue. Leah Mitchell would normally be here in person to present, but she has the the high honor of escorting her son to his first year at the University of Kentucky. So, I believe she's in the cloud and she is going to kick off our presentation before we turn it over to Dr. Bachna. Are you there, Leah? >> Sure. And can you guys hear me? Okay, >> we can hear you. Thank you. >> Excellent. Well, good evening governing board members, uh, Dr. Lewis, Vice President Shi, and all
020members of the board, Dr. Miss Wagner and all audience members. Um, I am excited to be joining you this evening from the Commonwealth of Kentucky and looking forward to channeling all my nervous mom energy towards this excellent work that we have in front of you. And so before I get kicked off with Dr. Bachna's data briefing, I just want to set the stage for what we're going to be up to for the next little bit. We're here to really review key data trends that will inform our progress. We're here to connect data insights with our wildly important goals and our key performance indicators and really focus on alignment and coherence across our schools, across the department, and within all of our district's priorities. You'll notice that today we're going to highlight some progress, some opportunities
021for improvement. And we're going to do that through the lens of our local assessments, state and federal measures, and really reflecting on the work of our strategic action teams over the past three years. So on the next slide, you will see that these teams, strategic initiative and action teams have been guiding our continuous improvement efforts. We've been laser focused on developing multi-ter systems of support in academics and behavior. Really leveraging innovation in teaching and learning to be future focused and also making sure we are attracting strong talent and retaining our excellent employees, building strategic partnerships and optimizing our learning resources for excellent experiences for all of our children. This year, our focus truly is their future and everything we can do to rally around as a school district and community to elevate excellence for our
022kids. I'm going to turn over to Dr. Bachna, who's going to dive into lots of our data, particularly a reflection on our progress with wildly important goals, how we are preparing students for state assessments, our most recent state assessment results, some of those preliminary letter grades, and then we're going to dive into part two of our discussion, which will be reflecting or I'm sorry, looking deeper into our refreshed strategic action plan, our wildly important goals um and key priority indicators for the upcoming year. So, Dr. Bachna, I think you are there and ready to take it away. >> I am. Thank you, Leah. So, let's get started. So, looking back, let's reflect on our wigs or wildly important goals from the 2425 school year. There we go. Um, so looking at our math week, that
023was the big one, one of the big ones last year. During the previous school year, it centered, we had a wig centered around mathematics, specifically how the aggregated cohort data for our third to seventh grade students during the prior school year compared to the performance of our fourth to eighth grade students in spring 2025. On the screen you can see in teal uh the performance of the third to seventh grade aggregate cohort for both the state and SUSD in spring 2024 is measured by the AASA or the state assessment achievement test. The bars in gold represent the results of the fourth to eighth grade cohort in spring 2025. Overall, we saw a slight decrease of 1.45 points in our math cohort data, but that doesn't tell the complete picture story. While our third to fourth
024grade cohort exhibited no change in math performance year-over-year. Our fourth to fifth grade cohort demonstrated an increase of 4% between percentage points over the time period. The biggest decline in performance was between fifth and sixth grade where the students were went from a 60% passing rate to a 51% passing rate during the last school year. The final two cohorts which were sixth to seventh and seventh to eighth each decline by a modest one percentage point in percent passing over the same time period. That large drop in math performance between fifth and sixth grades was the biggest impact on our cohort achievement overall in math last year. Arizona also experienced a dip in cohort performance for the same time period at a greater magnitude than our own than of 2.4 percentage points. Looking on our second
025uh wildly important goal centered on our attendance rates, specifically our overall attendance rate. We aim to increase our average daily attendance for most of the school year from 92.69 to 93% over the school year. We did see an increase, but not quite to 93%. Instead, we ended last school year at an attendance rate of 92.73%. This is represented in teal on the screen, the top bar, the gold on the screen exhibits the average daily attendance of Arizona students through the 100th day of school during the past three school years. Overall, SUSD started and finished higher than the state averages. SUSD's higher rate of attendance indicates our parents value attendance. Finally, we had a wildly important goal centered on enrollment. This goal was focused on increasing the cohort enrollment of prior year kindergarten through 11th graders
026by the 100th day of school which was January 21st, 2025. The base number for this comparison is reflected in the top table where enrollment on the last day of school in 2024 was 18,475. We met this goal with a first to 12th grade enrollment on January 21st of 18,800 students. This amounted to gain of 1.76% and met the goal of 1%. For this year's context, we had 18,15 students in kindergarten through 11th grades on May 22nd, the last day of school this past spring. Yesterday's enrollment for the same cohort, was 18,469, which is slightly greater than a 2% increase from the last day of school last year. Moving on to the next section of our presentation. Let's talk about the distance. Can I ask a question? I'm sorry. Yes. >> Um so just want to
027make sure I understand on the cohorts. Um if we think about sort of six to seventh that is looking at um it's not holding students constant. Correct. It's not saying for all students who were in sixth grade last year, let's look at how they performed in seventh grade. It's look at sixth grade last year, look at seventh grade this year. >> No, it's actually the true that the same kids >> student and new students and drop students are not adjusting. >> They're not adjusted. You're right. >> They are not adjusted. >> It's all the students. We look at our sixth grade one year and seventh grade the next. It's not >> different population. >> They could be slightly different. The majority are the same, but there are slightly some kids come in and some And
028then yeah, so that's the spirit of the question. Any reason to believe particularly >> years that have building changes that the change in population isffect meaningful? >> It's a good question. We'd have to go back and look at that. Dr. Stevenson's in the audience. She could help us look at that and look at if we just look at 100% at the true ID numbers over time and see if it's if there's any variance based on students that come in or out because we do know from historical analysis of our data, we do better with our students that have been with us longer. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Do you know what the anticipated amount of graduates have this year to the December graduates? >> Gosh. Anticipated. It's hugely what? Would you say anything, Dr. Sakos?
029We go. Um it's a combination of some of our uh seniors taking an extra semester to graduate from um their school and students that are graduating early um to begin their next adventures. >> I think we had wait maybe 40 this year. I forget exact numbers. Is that the ballpark? So that's a good question. I'm not sure. I can tell you at this date. Okay. Um, so we're going to talk a bit about the assessments that we give our students within the district that are not, you know, state required that show us where they are academically and how those results correlate to the required state assessments. Nothing replaces the impact of the classroom, teacher, family, and student efficacy on student achievement. But the work presented here tonight is just meant to highlight the tools we
030have available to systematically monitor student progress so that our educators can meet the needs of students as early as possible within the school year. All right, so there's a lot going on this slide. Um, last year we introduced a new assessment program called across all schools and most grade levels. These assessments were given predominantly in math, but many students took the ELA tests as well. The assessments are computer adaptive. So as students progress through the test, the content is modified for them based on how they do. The goal with all assessments is a smart score of 80. While students can achieve higher than 80 points or earn higher than 80 points, the assessments are leveled in such a way that once you achieve that score of 80, they are considered to have mastered the content.
031What you see on the screen are students scale scores by grade level along the y axis. For example, looking at the chart on the left, the top line is eighth grade performance on ELA and IXL over time at the beginning of the school year in August, students in eighth grade were approximately at a 700 scale score or seventh grade level, which means makes sense as they had just started 8th grade. As you follow along the x- axis during each month of the school year, you can see that line progressively increase until it ends slightly above 800 or eighth grade level in uh in April in ELA. Um the same logic apply to the chart on the right, which is our math performance by grade level over time. Looking at the top right, top line on
032this chart on the right hand side, you can see that our eighth graders last year started out under a midyear sixth grade level in math. Over the school year, their average achievement increased up to an early seventh grade level, which was progress, but not enough to be considered on grade level in math at the end of eighth grade. Of note, our incoming eighth grade class this year is starting this school year higher than their peers did in the prior year, eighth year's eighth grade math class. They ended the last year early on grade level for seventh grade in math as measured by LL. Also of note, our incoming middle schoolers are starting ahead of last year's sixth grade class. >> Um your last comment that the incoming eighth graders who are the grade seven line
033on here from last year are starting at a higher level. I know we haven't been through this for two years, but Does I or is there evidence that where somewhere a student ended at last year is kind of where they're going to start at this year? So if they ended in at the end of seventh grade math they were at 700. When they start eighth grade math math they're probably going to start at 700. Is that the expectation or >> That's a good question. Um I'm not >> so so we we do a beginning of year assessment and so we'll we'll be able to answer those questions in a couple of weeks and and that that will help us calibrate, right? So we would hope but we also know there's something that uh people talk
034about in terms of summer learning loss and and so what's reflected in the the data will tell us whether or not there was a dip in what students remembered from when they ended last school year to coming into this year. Not knowing the ex uh system, I'm curious if there's smoothing done between the grade levels because to to address Mr. Shi's point, if there's smoothing, there's still an assumption of norming that's separate per grade level, >> right? And and the comp and we we did our own like uh Dr. which you're going to see later in the presentation, did her own analysis of our ISL scores with our AASA, but the company's also taken our our data from our AASA and are making their own calibrations to make it even more predictive of how they'll
035do on the state assessments at the end of the school year. >> Well, and that's what makes me curious. Where is that official benchmark between six and seven, excuse me, if it's a continuum a continuous continuum versus this grade level, that grade level? So, >> exactly. I don't know how they do it, but I'd let them know that eventually >> can take that question back to them. Absolutely. >> Let's find out. >> I just wanted to point out and there's more coming on this, but to me the really important takeaway from this is that we have data points all throughout the year, >> right? >> So, um there's an interesting balance, right, in how much screen time for the kids versus the benefit of it. You want to find the right kind of balance. Very
036cognizant of that, you know, as we all are. The benefit of this is that we know at any point in time where the student is which lets us know if they are on track or off track. So a lot of my impetus is intervention. What can we do? What actions can we take? Um and if all you do is take a midterm and a final, it's very hard. The teachers in the classroom know, right? They're great. They know the kids. Um, but from a broader standpoint, having, you know, intrerm scores is really, really valuable to us. So, I'm glad we're doing this. And I hope that that balance of screen time versus the benefit we get is a net benefit. >> And I don't want to assume this, but I I am assuming it's the
037at least at 70 or 80% aligned with the state um when we decided to purchase this one. >> Is that later? Okay. and they actually have our curriculum in their system as well as our standards in their system. So as the students assess, the teachers can actually see where they're where they're on track for our Arizona standards or not on track and assign subsequent uh work in the system but also instruction in the class >> at the concept and strand level. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay. Uh Dr. Dr. Stevenson spent time this summer comparing studentl performance to subsequent AASA performance and found that results strongly correlated to math performance on all on ASASA at all grade levels. Um in this chart you are seeing the average scale scores associated with students scoring proficient on
038the state assessment by grade level. For example, in third grade the average scale score associated with scoring proficient on AASA was 388 which translates translates to a student nearing the end of eth of third grade. Um, technically third grade eight or nine months in. You can see the same information in other grade levels. A student in eighth grade who scores the equivalent of seventh grade in seven months or 769 onl was likely to score proficient on the eighth grade AASA in math. Within EXL, teachers can look at the Arizona standards that students are mastering or struggling with and assign those same students explicit practice with the skills associated with those standards. In addition to differentiating classroom instruction, instructional time as needed, like I just said, um we saw last year that schools who placed a
039higher emphasis on tracking I'm sorry, tracking scores and growth who dug in and utilized the resource resource with greater fidelity demonstrated higher success on the AASA at the end of the school year. um these schools are models that should be emulated elsewhere. >> So this gets a little bit to what uh governing board member Shy raised about how helpful it is to have the kind of dynamic measures. Can you talk a little more about schooltoschool consistency in engaging in exactly that practice? Um just colloquially I've just know which some of the schools there the people that have we've been talking to some of the data people that have reached out to us at the campus sites and have had us out like in my office Dr. Samson talks to them and works with them consistently
040on looking at their results and bringing that work back to the PLC. So um we found there's people that just dive in are constantly contacting us and asking for help and we kind of see that reflected in some of their scores. >> Okay. So it's not a question of whether some schools are ading schools aren't and doing it every month. That basic level of implementation is consistent. >> The >> it's more about do they go to that next level >> and you know try to gain some interventions >> and we we grew into the roll out of last year. So I would say that in the first half of last year there was a lot of inconsistency and then somewhere around December that shifted and we saw far more consistency across all schools as people
041understood what the district expectation was. >> So not to overthink this but just to make sure I understand. So going back then to the prior slide nine is some of the trending reflective of school population participation differences? In other words, is this the same group of people over time or are we seeing maybe three schools are feeding the month one and seven schools? >> It's the majority of students. When we get into some of the other later slides, I actually have end counts on here and we can tell because we had an expectation that students in certain grade levels had to take at least a assessment three times a year. what you're seeing for the nuances of the monthly checks are when they what we call they call it stepping into the arena and they
042would spend five or 10 minutes once a week on on the skills and every time they did so their their scores got a little bit reset and they got a little bit more of a grade level setting. So um some schools the students were in the arena every day or every couple days. The middle schools were really using it through their advisory time where they'd have that period at once is it every day I think. Yeah. To to go in and do this. So it just depended on how the schools utilized it. I know for example next door at Mojave they were like they had you know signs on the walls of what they were doing and they were showing pro progress across all grade levels and kind of competing with each other which really
043became powerful and the usage of and everybody wants to get on it and work with it. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Um can you elaborate on that? I'll call it a chain of command but when I and I was fortunate enough to talk with Dr. Bach and Dr. Anna um on some of this a week or so ago um and drilled into that what do you do with the information I have this list um what's the chain of command from you to a assistant soup to a principal to a teacher or right to the teacher can you just tell us what that because that's that sort of accountability that needs to be really important of who can act on it can you describe that for us please >> I think Leah wants to jump
044in I can see your face >> yes I am happy to jump in thank you so much Um really great questions and I think that to Dr. Mensel's point and to Dr. Bach Bachna's point um year one implementation we saw believability grow uh we saw systems begin to grow and those in concert with the previous three years work um around multi-ter systems of support in academics really are leading us to a great place for this upcoming year where we have this very precise data and schools have really strong systems of support. So we would set of course at the teacher level our teachers have ongoing um daily access to dashboards where they are able to see those essential standards lessons deploy uh assignments align to curriculum textbooks and student needs. They then should roll up
045that practice and information to their professional learning communities. And those professional learning communities are spending time really looking at student performance in groups as well as standards and strands to see any retach that is necessary. Our school leaders are regularly meeting with those professional learning communities to track the individual goals of the teachers, the grade levels, and overall alignment towards the school's goals. Our awesome assistant soups of elementary and secondary also prioritize conversations with school leaders around those multi-ter systems of support, how we will implement and really leveraging the data. But I would say since we were together oh just a couple months ago at our administrative conference people really got a sneak peek into endofear ASA and the correlation to you could just see the energy and enthusiasm really grow. We also saw that
046when we saw all teachers um on July 30th during pre-planning. And so it really is a coherent multi-ter system of support starting with our teachers and then hopefully providing them and our students systems of support all the way through. >> Thank you for that. Um with the teachers, it's sounding like that is the primary. I hear you say the teachers are looking at the LL data directly and obviously they're the ones who can take action. They look at the 28 students in their fifth grade math class and they know who's above the line, who's below the line. Um is that the sort of first line of defense of this? And if so, you know, how does DCMS and Anastasia taking more action? Is it because their teachers are more focused or have been trained better?
047I want to focus in on the kind of where the rubber meets the road. >> Yeah, great question. Thank you so much. And I of course invite anyone else to weigh in as well. Um, but it really yeah, it is it is with those teachers observing the the performance of their children. But it really is that next step with their grade level teams identifying do we have groups of students who need intervention who need enrichment >> and then leveraging that instructional time within the school day. >> Um some people have what I need time or when uh sword time really targeted blocks of intervention. And what we found was some people had pre uh previous experience with Il so they uh were able to build their systems more rapidly. Others really used um and leverage
048the leaderboard to create schoolwide competitions and gain enthusiasm. We just saw different ideas surface over the course of the first semester and then those really started to spread. We have some great partners at IXL who also would bring throughout the year with training different ideas and different options and as schools really coalesed around those um we saw different traction begin. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I just had a question on uh how is it easy is it for parents uh to access these results and be looking at how their children are doing. >> That is a great question too. Um parents obviously through their students account could see ongoing progress throughout their daily interactions and stepping into the arena. Also at meaningful conference points and reporting points. There are great student reports that teachers
049have access to and can provide to parents. So, I would anticipate right as we finish this first beginning of the year diagnostic window that there will be many parent conversations demonstrating here's where our achievement is, areas that we want to continue to focus and grow. Um, but having access for our families to assessment information is definitely a priority. >> Okay. So, can parents currently go on their child's device and look at where they're at? What >> Yeah. >> Yes. Okay. >> Through clever. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Do we have any survey data and if we don't it can it can wait uh on teachers um perceptions of the relevance and meaning of this data uh as opposed to it being done for the district. >> And if you don't have it, it's
050just a question to ask later. >> I I think it's a great question. I don't think we have any specific survey data. What I can tell you is that over the course of the year, we noticed um a slow to grow in some of our high schools. >> Um so a little bit of hesitancy to engage students in for wide variety of reasons. Um so our math coaches and our rep Katie went to each and every high school and met with the teachers. And what we found over time was a variety of reasons that were slowing some of our implementation. A large part was a believability around alignment. Um, and so we are feeling really positive about some of the efforts from last year. Some other worries were really around will we have this tool
051year-over-year? Is it something that's going away? Um, so thank you again to all of you for approving a multi-year opportunity. Um, and then others were just barriers that we needed to help problem solve around schedules. Um, stepping into the arena took longer than we anticipated. So, some of those types of things were what our high school teachers really surfaced as barriers to full implementation. >> Dr. Anna's gonna add to that. >> Hi. Um, I'm not used to speaking with all of you, so thank you very much for allowing me to speak. Um, I do gather the information also to add to the district dashboard. But there is a wealth of information for the teachers for EXL and they do dive into it. I was at Anastasi all day today going grade level to grade level
052PLC's as the teachers were saying what can I do to even get more out of this? They definitely see the value and I already have two other schools that have booked time with me to do the same thing. So the teachers discovered, you know, as they were going through the how good it was for them and also time wise for the elementary using that wind time and things like that, they found out it's not something that, oh, it's taking up a huge block of time, they're able to use it in little chunks and see that improvement. So about 10 minutes a week is basically what they need to keep that score current and be able to what's going on to get that diagnostic and I even learned from teachers today where they're saying oh with
053the new essential standards this is what I'm doing and this is how I'm assigning work and to help the student perform it so they're already having these deep conversations and we're only a couple weeks weeks into school and also the other thing um on that one graph you notice there isn't anything for ELA in the early grades because originally that wasn't the focus but the word started spreading and they asked for Wow. >> So the teachers are asking to use it. >> I just want the teachers to know that assessment in instruction are one and the same and that assessment is not a side judgment or sumitive evaluation and that it's strictly just a part. Our master teachers know that it's just a tool for guidance. And so the the comfort of of growing in
054the believability is so important uh to make time for it as an instructional tool. not as a a fear of judgment. So that's my my goal in the question and they are seeing that and I'm glad to hear you say that the teachers are looking at it as this is how I can see where my students are and how I can grow them to be the best individuals and help them not as oh my gosh you know this is going to reflect poorly. It's meeting your students where you are knowing as much information and then applying that information for students and that's what I saw today in action. >> Thank you. All right, Dr. >> Okay, so um Anna's done a great job with the kind of putting these these these plots together for us.
055Um so the next few slides present the same information for different tests and grade levels. So I'm going to take the time to explain what to expect here and then move more quickly through the rest um in the interest of time. As I mentioned earlier, the scale scores on respond to the grade level and month equivalence of a student. For example, a student who has a scale score of I onl of 320 indicates the second month of third grade in terms of achievement. The three and the 300 representing the grade level and the two representing the month of the school year. The color bands on the chart on the screen now represent where students are in grade level bands. Red is two or more years below grade level as measured by. Yellow is up to
056one year below grade level. green is at grade level and the light blue is one year or more above grade level. Looking back at our scores in August of 2024, the first time that SUSD broadly administered these math assessments, um Dr. Stevenson was able to run a regression formula between student scores and their subsequent AASA scores to determine the probability that students would pass the state assessment. What you see here is the results of that an analysis for third grade math. The tipping point between likelihood to pass AASA as measured in August of 2024 and likelihood to fail was between roughly the 200 and 250 score on range on. So early to mid second grade achievement level. This makes sense because these kids we don't expect our students that are starting third grade to have
057already mastered all the content of third grade. Um now that we have done done the work in establishing this probability modeling we'll be able to tell after the results of our current month, the August 2025 AXL testing, which students are on track to pass AASA by the end of the school year and which are not and adjust instructional practices accordingly to meet the needs of all of our students. Um, differentiation is going to really be key. We have some students that are going to need more support to rise to the grade level expectations, but we also have other students that are uh knocking out of the park that are going to need acceleration as well. I'm looking the same trends in fourth and fifth grade math. You can see that the likelihood of passing AASA
058at the end of the school year is circled on the charts. Students starting fourth grade at about a mid third grade level is measured by AXL were on track in math. Students starting fifth grade at an early fourth grade level were also on track. Turning over to secondary, looking at the middle school, um we had enough data to evaluate both math and ELA scores with students in the early to mid fifth grade range on likely to pass the math ASA at the end of the school year and students in the mid fifth grade range on the ELA test more likely to pass the ELA aa. Um we do see um some consistency with Dr. Mensel asked us earlier about uh K8 schools, the difference K8 schools and elementary schools because we we knew we have
059that dip between fifth and sixth grades. And we are seeing that our students at the K8 schools, they don't have as much of a dip between fifth and sixth grades as our kids that are moving from school to school. So, we can say with some assurances that um that movement between schools does seem to be something going on with our students feeling comfortable and doing as much success as they have when they go from elementary to middle. Um, looking at seventh grade math and ELA, you see the same data presented with the scale score averages associated with the possibility of passing. And then eighth grade math and ELA, the same thing. Um, looking at how this kind of plays out, questions or >> just on the S-curves here, just pointing out again this is this
060is given the scores at the beginning of the year. what is the probability they're going to pass the state assessment at the end of the year. So again, information we know ahead of time like is so valuable in this and >> obviously it gets down to the individual. This isn't just an aggregate prediction, right? >> This gets down to those because we know where those tipping points are. And so it's just really nice to have this and you know want to make sure we do our best to act on it. I'd also like to build a little bit more on what governing board member Carney was talking about because I think parents are such a critical stakeholder for these data and talking and I would imagine that talking to parents about probabilities is something that
061requires professional development. >> Right? >> I don't know that a typical teacher would may feel comfortable saying to a parent little you know Jane or Johnny now has an x% chance of passing. That seems a little >> um you know that's the flip side of seeing the future is it scary to see the future. >> Um but yet it's really important right to to drive motivation and to drive engagement. >> And as I understand it a lot of our >> um parent teacher conferences especially in middle school and even in the upper grades of elementary school are on an exception basis. So we don't do it for everybody, but if you want one, you ask for one, unless you are really, you know, have a student who we need to talk to you about, which
062probably aren't the bubble kids where engagement could make a difference. So I just think governing board member Carney's raised a really big idea and an important idea that um you know that is probably an import that is an important part of our strategy preparing teachers and then also rethinking our conferencing policy so that we have the opportunity to talk to not just low achieving kids or super high achieving kids but the kids in the middle as well. If I could jump in on that and just say thank you so much to member Carney and to Dr. Patinsky for bringing parent the forefront. I couldn't agree more. A couple of ways I hope that we will start to see that um that we're closing that gap in communication between what's happening at schools and what our
063families really know. Um, one is having our students set goals and be really focused on their progress with ISL. We saw in some of our schools last year where students really built vocabulary, built their own goals and were really connected with those goals at a regular frequency which could translate really into strong parent conversations. So I think that one is really important is connecting families into those goal setting conversations. Also, Dr. Dr. Bachna and her team are working really hard to load our students assessment history both on the state assessment and local assessments into our student information system in Synergy so that each of you with a child could look up their parent view progress and really see how have they done in years past, how are they doing right now. But I also really
064appreciate the guidance and the suggestions to further support our teachers in having those conversations and being able to really explain what the data is saying and what it means. And we are in the development stages of some conference scripts or or protocols that further set them up for those October conferences. So going back to the PLC's when I think about targeting students who are going to need that growth help that intensive growth help are we using tiered interventions and strategies for specific concept development uh to assure maybe that the 36% probability of passing or the 57% probability of passing increases. >> So I'm asking about interventions Yeah, >> re really the benefit for us on the work of the strategic action teams the past few years is they have developed clear protocols, some flow maps
065and identified supplementary materials that further support that intervention, remediation and enrichment. Yeah, I think throughout the year I'd like to hear more about that uh just in terms of that instructional bang for the buck as far as interventions and tiered services for students who are and Dr. Pensky used the word bubble kids. I think there's some questions about, oh, if we just focus on the bubble kids, are we ethically concerned, you know, with all the kids? And of course, we want all the kids, but there's a huge gain when bubble kids, as you're putting it, make a chunk of move for the whole aggregate to go up. So, I would hope and we get to talk about that more at another time as far as that inter interdependency of of assessment with instruction. So, thank
066you. I just I want to kind of get that out there as we talk about that. Yeah. And at the risk of being repetitive, to me the big thing that your comment sort of was there's several dimensions to it, but the big aha for me is by finally now having this kind of within school year dynamic information about student performance. It changes the kind of conversations we can have with parents and yet our structure for having conversation with parents is not I think universal. Um and so that was the chain of thought that I was having in my head depending on the grade level. Um, and even in elementary school, my personal experience was there was often a disincentive like I mean if you really want one, ask for one, but if I don't tell
067you, you know, that your child has issues, then you're good kind of thing. And so that was the big aha is we now have tools to make those conversations um productive. And so are we thinking through the policy there? >> And I I would just to to build on that, I think there are ways to think about how we use all of the tools at our disposal. So parent teacher conferences are a point in time. They're on a calendar and that may be too late or too early depending on how things are unfolding over the course of the year. But we have many other channels of communication. So teachers can use parent square to communicate with individual students and their parents. we can put on uh professional development, maybe record a webinar that parents can
068know how to access the system and what kinds of questions they should be asking about where their child is and how they can provide support. So, I think we should be looking at a dynamic relationship, not just fixed points in time on the calendar to be able to accomplish what you just mentioned. the um communicating that um in my work in doing predictive modeling and communicating one thing that has come up at uh repeatedly in research is the where am I versus everybody else right the you are here whenever we did any visualizations that's the one that everyone went to and you've got to balance it you don't want you know kids as you know in a horse race against each other but here's the the general general population and here's where your child is
069is really salient and people react to that. Again, the ethics and making sure you know you're not giving information that can cause harm in any way. Um, but having the data that's consistently shown to be what people first tend towards because it's understandable. It's like, you know, there's a bunch of people here and here's where my dot is on this graph. >> Well, what excites me about this data is it's very aligned to the philosophy of a J curve, very growthbased. uh and not just static in time. So for all of these partnership conversations for parents and kids alike, I love uh what you said Leia about uh kids being focusing on their own goal setting because that that's hugely powerful. It's great. >> I could attest as a parent, a Mojave parent in fact,
070um who was very much competitive when it came to the roll out of and so were the teachers and even the way the PTA supported it. So, and parents would donate gift cards and the kids would see their numbers improve and had a chance to earn, you know, potentially extra credit here and there, but very much, at least in my experience, the teachers were engaged, having the conversation, talking about what the opportunity was for the student to identify maybe an area of weakness and an additional area to focus on. And then the assignment would be specific to my else because it was based on what she needed versus what somebody else needed. So that was the real opportunity for her to hone in on something that was maybe a foundational skill that had been missed
071or forgotten and then to be able to loop back around and then she could see where maybe it was 580 and now it's in the 600s and I'm in sixth grade and oh this makes sense now. And so I think for the student too, they could see that number grow and um and so it was really sort of neat to see the way she engaged, but then also the way it was presented to me as a parent. Um and that was all through parent square and just like sort of weekly newsletter updates and um that would go to the student too. So she would know what I was also reading and what the expectation was that was communicated to both the student and the parent. >> What a great example of as partners. Thank you.
072>> Yeah, it was cool for me to look over her shoulder and then I better understood all of this. Go ahead. >> Horizons, are we there? >> No, there we go. Okay. All right. Moving on to high school. Let's take a minute to talk about the ACT practice tests that are provided by a thirdparty vendor called Horizon and administered to our students through the online testing platform School City. These practice tests are available to our freshman, sophomores, and juniors at no cost to our families. And we we encourage and kind of require our high schools to utilize this resource. Um, some key points about the practice ACT tests. We require that schools give them twice yearly in grades 9 through 11 as a district benchmark. They allow students to practice questions aligned to content in
073the format of the ACT. A great aspect of these tests is that we are able to load the results into where the program assigns a skill plan to students based on the student practice test performance. What you're seeing on this slide is the number of practice ACT tests a student takes correlated with their average ACT scores on each of the four subject areas: English, reading, math, and science. The average ACT scores, which are out of 36 in each content area, are higher among students who take more of the practice tests. Students who take five or six practice ACT tests with us over the course of their high school experience are doing better than their peers when they take the ACT. ACT scores correspond to a college readiness benchmark where students are 75% likely to achieve
074a C or better in their first year college courses based on these benchmarks. That score for English is an 18, for reading and math it's a 22. And for science it's a 23. Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to share uh with my colleagues on the board uh and the district leadership as well as the community in general that I was recently um added to ACT's board of directors. So, as far as I know, ACT does not have a commercial relationship with the district. Anything we do is through the state. And obviously if if that were ever to change, I would recuse myself from any votes related to that. Um but hopefully but in the spirit of transparency, I wanted to since we're talking about ACT, you mentioned that I now uh
075looking at our uh Horizon ACT practice test participation by subject. This is kind of just participation rates could be a little bit better. Some key points about the practice test. We would require the schools to give them twice yearly in grades 9 through 11 as a district benchmark. Um, and I'm on the wrong notes. Let's chip it over. Here are participation rates for the ACT practice test. Let's start over. We saw lower participation rates among the 11th graders last year that we that we were wanting to see. We'd like to see those improve this year. Given that what we're seeing with the correlation between ACT performance and this this practice. So, um, we could get we can even get better than, you know, the 70s and 80s%. especially 11th grade right before they take the
076actual ACT. And so they have two opportunities this year to take the practice test before they get to the ACT, which they'll take on approximately April 2nd. >> Question on that. Seems odd that the participation is lower in the 11th grade. You would think as it got closer they'd be a little more incented, motivated to take it. Um, as you get into 11th grade, you've got competing priorities with AP test, AP classes, and other things where, you know, this isn't quite as much of a focus for your uh, it might not be as much of a focus. Maybe Dr. Sus, do you want to >> And I know there's no stakes, right? There's no grade on it. It's a it's a low stakes, no stakes kind of thing, which I understand, but that's Thanks for
077the distracted make sense. Well, if you if you took it as a sophomore because you were ambitious and you had a really good score, you probably don't want to take it another time uh because that score will be shown to wherever you're applying for college admissions. So, a lot of competing factors that come into play. >> Practice test scores will be >> well, not the practice test, but so if you've already taken it and you have a good score on the ACT, why would you need to take the practice test because you're not planning on sitting for the other? So, there's a lot of different components, but I I agree with Dr. Bach. we can increase the percentage and we see that the more the students become familiar with the way the test flows. It's
078a time test. ASA is not what the questions look like. They perform better because they're prepared for what they're going to experience. >> Okay. State assessment report, state assessment results. So, we get two main uh components of state assessment results. We focus more on the proficiency because that's what comes out first. But we also end up getting scores from our state about student growth. So I'm going to talk a bit about proficiency and then we're going to talk about looking at our growth percentiles. And growth again, proficiency is a measure of academic achievement for the student. Growth is a comparison of academic peers. Um so let's look at our results in this context. Uh first before we get into too detailed into this, the key points here, um we're using information in this presentation from
079um a state that they give us with all of our student information. Uh it's draft data right now. It's not completely final. So today I won't be able to share with you public results comparison to other districts. I won't be able to share with you like charter districts because none of this is um out yet from the state level. Uh that comes out uh sometime in September October. So we have a little bit few more weeks before it's all public. Um the proficiency levels in the this presentation are based on the full academic year students in this file that we analyzed. um which is going to vary a tiny bit from the data I sent you all in May, which was every student that took the test. So, you'll see a couple percentage points up
080or down. It's not a real big significant number. But if you're curious why the numbers on this presentation don't exactly match what was on that five-year trend PDF you got from me, that's why um when the state analyzes our data for the student for accountability purposes for for the school letter grades, they only look at our full academic year students. And that means it's the students that started the school year within the first 10 days of the school year and stayed at that school throughout the testing window. Um, our schools don't have a ton of transiency, but some do. And so they they really limit the the population of the students that were with the with the school the whole time so that the schools don't feel penalized for students that came in in March
081and then took the test with them. Um, looking so going from that, um, let's look at our proficiency scores first. Here we see our AASA performance on English language arts broken out by the four proficiency levels per performance levels. The levels in teal or blue are considered not proficient. Uh the gold are proficient results. You can see that the percentage of each category varies by grade level and year-over-year. On this slide, you are seeing two years worth of performance side by side. These are unique cohorts of students. For example, in spring 2024, uh 62% of our students were proficient on the third grade AASA ELA test. That's the combined numbers in those yellow teal bars. Um in spring 2025, 60% of our students in third grade tested as proficient on the English language arts. We
082did see a slight dip in English language arts scores in some elementary grade levels last year, which can be attributed in part to the first year of CLA implementation. Um 59% of our year's eighth graders scored as proficient on the ELA assessment. So that was the final column at the right. Um moving on to our high school performance, looking at our ACT uh Aspire and ACT. Um ACT Aspire is kind of the redheads redheaded stepchild. We don't do a lot with the data. It's a test that's required by the state, but they don't give us a lot of information about it. we just have it as like a bonus point in the student letter grade, school letter grades. Um, it's an older version of the test. It's actually uh been kind of sunseted by the
083ACT program. So, but this still the state requirement still adopted for the next two years. Um, it gives us some information though. It kind of does give us a little bit of anticipation of how students will do on the ACT. In spring 2025, 57% of our students score is proficient or on track on this assessment in English. That was grade nine. In grade 11, 61% of our students scored as proficient on the ACT. Looking at our math performance on AASA, uh you can see that in spring 2025, 67 67% of our fourth graders and our fifth graders actually both scored as proficient on the ASA. Again, I'm adding the numbers in the yellow bars. Uh this number declined in our middle school population where 53% of sixth grade, 52% of seventh grade, and 50% of
084eighth graders scored as proficient. Most grade levels did see a decrease in the percentage of students scoring the lowest category, which is minimally proficient, those dark blue at the bottom, and an increase in the percentage of students scoring in the highest category, which is the dark gold at the top. So that was a good trend, less minimally proficient and more highly proficient. We still want overall though the proficiency levels to be bigger, better the um what's the hypothesis on such a big big drop going from grade five to grade six? >> So I have a the research shows that changing buildings in particular uh there's a there's a dip in achievement >> across the board. is not just it's it's you generally will see a dip and the size of the dip can vary but
085it's that transition from elementary to middle school and that that shift a lot of moving parts and pieces as kids um in in terms of their development some are are growing faster than others and so you get a lot of changes going on at one time and so that's why we're focused really on how we can provide support in that transition and that's why I asked Dr. Baka and Dr. about the what are we seeing at the K8 level because you don't have that transition between a building to a standalone middle school with six through eight students and we see that there's less of a dip there not that there's none but there's less of a dip and so just gives us an an area to focus our attention on in terms of how can
086we support students in that transition in a way that mitigates what we see as a historical dip you know the challenge here is >> go ahead Leah >> sorry can I add into that >> I would agree agree with um the hypothesis about building changes. I would also say that unique to the state of Arizona in mathematics, the sixth grade math standards are all brand new for those students. Whereas in previous grades, you may have um had finishing up standards mastery from fourth to fifth or from third to fourth. These are entirely new concepts in standards. And so what we find in a hypothesis is that there may be a good amount of reteing that happens which may slow down grade level instruction and access to to grade level expectations. But that is also just
087a different point in mathematics in Arizona is that all of those standards are brand new and are not as connected to the um coherence from the previous grade. Are our sixth graders taught in um separate units by separate content specialists more high school like or are they with their a full teacher full day? I just don't know. >> They are sixth graders across our schools travel um from an ELA teacher to a math teacher, science, social studies and then electives. So it is more uh traditional in a secondary design than it was in design >> in elementary. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I would just say though the I wouldn't use the word dip because that's persistent, right? It doesn't recover once if you look at the at least you know looking at these numbers,
088right? It is a drop not a dip. Dip sort of implies a one time we'll make it up and this is persistent which obviously has you know ongoing impact. I I think that's that's a good point and that's why um it gets high level of focus for our team as we're thinking about we have to we have to change that because the the recovery period is not what you would hope to see you know after they spend a couple of years in middle school. Um looking at our math uh ACT Aspire and ACT performance, um our scores on the ACT Aspire math did did show a decrease last spring. Uh but our ACT math scores among our 11th graders remain steady with approximately 52% demonstrating proficiency as defined by AD. Uh the reason we have
089proficiency scores for ACT on math and ELA is because they're defined by the state department in order to uh evaluate all the schools in the state. Um looking at this final slide on student ACT performance before we move on to a discussion of student growth. Uh let's look at how our scores compare to the state in the nation. In both English and math, uh Scottsdale is consistently outperforming the state and national trends. In addition, in the national trend in scores is in a decline while Scottsdale scores are increasing. uh ACD national comparisons aren't available yet for this current 2025. I think they'll probably be out this fall, but it will be interesting to see where the trend line ends up when they are available. Also point is that in Arizona, we're testing all of the
090students because it's required by the state, whereas the nation, not every state requires it. So some of this can be the nation national scores are reflective more of students that want to take the test than students that have to take the test. So to that point, it's more we look better in that capacity because we're not picking which students take the test. We're actually testing all of our students. Looking at student growth percentiles. Okay, so student growth. Um just to back up, this is talking about uh state accountability and how schools uh end up with their school letter grades. Uh student growth is a big part of how our schools are evaluated in the state accountability system. 50% of a of a K8's school letter grade, so all of our elementary and all of our
091middle, and 20% of a high school's letter grade are based on student growth. These growth percentiles are calculated by comparing students across the state who started at the same point in achievement as measured by one of the state assessments to their performance the subsequent school year. Each student is assigned a percentile rank from 1 to 99 based on how they perform in comparison to their peers. What you see on the screen is how the categorizes growth percentiles. Students who have SGPS or student growth percentiles of 1 to 33 are considered to have demonstrated low growth during the school year. Those with a score of 35 to 66 are considered to show average growth and those students in the 67th percentile and higher are considered a high growth. For a state accountability letter grade, schools are
092awarded the most credit or points for students who demonstrate average or high growth during the school year. By putting a stronger emphasis on student growth than proficiency, the state accountability uh model better levels the playing field across all schools so to speak. So students may not have as students may not achieve a proficient score on the state test, they may not get to that proficiency level, but if they are just demonstrating growth towards proficiency and that mark, the accountability model rewards the school for their strides in student progress. So looking at this next slide shows two years worth of growth percentiles for our students in English language arts. The 33rd percentile again marks the difference between low growth and average or high growth. Um our high schoolers have shown exceptional growth over the past two
093school years on as measured by the ACT. Um as a next step, we'd like to see low growth numbers further reduced at all grade levels and higher growth increased. Looking at our math scores, our growth increased in most grade levels during the 24-2 school year, likely due to our emphasis on math as a wig. Sixth grade is an area of concern, which we've brought up repeatedly throughout this presentation for growth, as well as overhaul cohort performance, which we mentioned earlier. It will be good to have again this year so we can see to continue continue to make strides in math achievement in particular. I this is a really good one to point out like you said Dr. the the you look at the pairs that drop from 24 to 25 in grade four in grade
094five. But because we had this focus, because it was a wig, because we used, we saw that difference. And so this is a great exemplar of us saying focusing on this area, seeing a results that change from 24 to 25. It's just nice to see it show up in this fashion. >> Okay. student letter grade mod state sorry state letterg grade models. Um briefly I want to touch on the state lettergrade model. Elementary and middle schools are like I said evaluated on one model. The high schools have their own model. In the K8 model 80% of a school's letter grade is based on AA performance AASA performance. 30% on their proficiency on that test and 50% for growth. So think about it. the whole school year you're teaching all these kids and it comes down
095to like four or five days of testing in April and if they have a good day or a bad day because it's all based on their proficiency and their growth. Um the remaining 25 20% of a of a K8 uh school letter grade is based on a zela results which is our test for English language learners. And then there are a variety of acceleration measures such as our demographic student performance improvement and reduction in chronic absenteeism that contribute to the 10% component that's considered acceleration readiness. Um so that's K8 for high school. The school letter grade is more diversified with 20% based on college and career readiness measures such as dual enrollment participation and grades. Your CTE program completions go into that high school grade. Um, and AP AP scores go into the high school
096uh, letter grade as well. 20% of a high school letter grade is based on graduation rates, 10% on a scores, and 30% on student proficiency on ACT, and finally 20% on student growth. The table on the right shows the corresponding points out of a 100 that relate to the letter grade as of last year. This year's cut scores have not been voted on yet by the state board of education. That'll come in September. This is all across the state, right? So now this is looking just at us. Um based on the prior year cut scores for school letter grades and modeling of our data done by AD and um Dr. Seamson, we expect 28 of our 30 schools to earn A's and B B B B B B B B B B B B B
097B B B B B B B B's this fall so long as the cut scores do not change. Of those, 73% would be A's. The predicted letter grade for the district at this time is also an A. Sever several of our schools are on the cusp of a higher grade letter grade and as the data is not finalized at the moment, there's a small potential for change in the final results. >> Do you have a sense of how that compares with other districts? >> Uh not too much. Just I think uh I not I don't right now because I don't see anybody else's data but are at this point in time. So yeah. looking finally at let's bringing this lengthy presentation down with a few more points. So okay uh we kind of briefly touched
098on bubble students earlier that talked a little bit about this Dr. Simpson has analyzed our data in depth and work with our data dashboard vendor P school which we have what we call who knew it or unified insights. It's a data dashboard that's available to all of our uh teachers and administrators and everybody in our in our district. Um in there we have developed filters wherein our teachers and administrators can identify exactly who among their student populations is within one or two points of achieving proficiency. This information in connection with our other student achievement data lets us keep an eye on the students that fall into what we call a bubble around the past fail marks on AASA. All the students on this slide were close to passing or close to failing AASA last year.
099By knowing who these students are now within our own campuses, we can intervene earlier ahead of the next state testing in the spring. Okay. Early literacy This slide depicts our AASA performance over time just in third grade. This is third grade ELA. You can see the percentage of students not scoring as proficient is increasing year-over-year. We do recognize that some of this is due to the implementation dip of the new curriculum, but it's something we need to keep on our radar as we move forward. We have found that our fast bridge assessments are a good not great correlated predictor of AASA performance and we may need to look at other measures for better prediction measure methods. and and the reason why we can't use instead of fastbridge is that it's not yet approved by the
100state with respect to move on reading. So if the state ever approves that then we might be able to have a singular tool that we've already identified is better aligned and correlated with um AASA results. And looking at finally let's take a minute to look at the student achievement of our students who take advanced math and eth grade. I know it says algebra 1 here, but this actually is talking about our students that only take algebra 1 in eighth grade, but might be taking other advanced math courses during middle school. Oops, went too far. The bar chart on this slide depicts the percentage of students performing in each of the proficiency categories on the AASA last spring by the type of math they completed during the school year. We find that our advanced math students
101perform better on the AASA math test. Even our students who might earn a failing mark in their advanced math class tend to outperform their on-grade level math peers. Um, completing algebra 1 prior to high school allows students more opportunities to take other classes in high school and prepares them for advanced coursework. As we we will be discussing as will be discussed next, increasing the number of students taking advanced math in eighth grade could lead to greater achievement levels in high school and beyond. Like when we had talked earlier on that slide, the advanced math is about 20% of the eighth graders and the ongrade is about 80%. >> I think that's about Yes. >> So 20% of the eighth graders take advanced math and of those who take it, 96% are proficient on ASA. And
102then for the other 80% of the students, only 33% are proficient. >> You've been asking all questions all along, but I don't if you have any others. >> I just want to try to see if I can summarize this for my own head. One of the pleasures after joining the board meeting was receiving my first email that was I think 10 paragraphs long and generated by AI and basically saying all the ways in which Scottsdale is a terrible district when it comes to academic achievement and a big center of that is our proficiency scores. So, kind of starting there, while yes, we naturally want to be proud and talk about, you know, we're towards the top of Arizona, you know, and look for those things that position us well, I think we all would acknowledge
103that we have many grades, if not most grades, where there is a serious academic proficiency challenge that we are working to meet as a district. Um, that is though only part of the story. Um the other part of the story as I take away from what you've presented is we have a strategy for improving a proficiency centers around not exclusively around and that takes time. I think this will be relevant when we talk about do we want to set you know single-year objectives or multi-year objectives. It takes time. You have to license it. You have to adopt it. Schools have to start to buy in. you know teachers have to start to buy in. You have more professional development. So it takes time to really understand with fidelity whether these you know whether these strategies
104are working. The early signs are positive. The best measure of that is the growth that we see in student learning and that was that sort of 33% kind of uh threshold. So that's kind of my takeaway. Would that be I know there's no such thing as cliffnotes anymore because again you have AI um but would that likely be what chat GPT might summarize this presentation to >> Yes, I think you're on the right track and I will say as someone who talks to we a lot of us talk to our peers other school districts. I mean our other districts are comparing to us and seeing what they can do better. I mean our peers in Deer Valley talk to us, our peers in Chandler, our peers in Paris Valley, we're all we're all talking to
105each other and learning from each other. So we are we are very competitive with our our districts around us. >> Thank you. >> Um from a teachers perspective because that's where again a lot of the rubber meets the road and you know I see TJ back there. Um what's the communication like? What's the take from the teacher? Because what I want to avoid is we do something as a board, you know, without that kind of input and, you know, you guys in the cabinet walk that all the time and have the communication. We don't because we're kind of that distance. And so from a teachers perspective and using this, you know, or just in general, um, what's the kind of feedback I've taken? >> So we we do get feedback. uh I have an opportunity
106to meet monthly with the executive committee members from SEA and talk about some of the issues and so the assessment calendar is something that comes up as a as a question and a concern about how frequently are assessing versus how much time we're spending on instruction and so it's finding the right balance with respect to that. So I think you've heard Dr. Anna talk about um uh hunger for how we can utilize the data to inform instruction. teachers really want to spend the bulk of their time doing the the practice of teaching rather than just assessing. And so it's finding the right balance there. And and that's where we want to make sure that we're not over assessing, but we're gathering enough data to make informed instructional decisions and and that feedback loop with our
107teachers is really important. >> Thank you. >> One question I have is, is the state still sending these out to parents? The Is that still >> they don't physically get sent to parents. They're sent to the schools because it's too expensive to send them, but the schools are instructed to send them home with the with the families in the few first few weeks of school. So, yes. >> But we're still we are still doing that. Okay. >> And we're loading the scores of those into parent view right now. So, those scores will be available. It won't be the detailed report you have there, but it'll show their overall scores and proficiency level within parent view when you walk in. >> Okay. because I think yeah I think it's vital that we get even if we
108can recreate something like this I think a hard copy going home um is I mean you know I love getting this in the mail because I'm like oh really you know um so I think it's something that we could up our game and you know get a hard copy to parents um because not everyone is getting on that parent view or logging in um especially if it's students that we we want to team with the parent to absolutely >> up their academics. So I I would just encourage us to look into doing that. >> Sure. >> Really great job. Thank you so much for all that you did to prepare for us to have an engaging study session today where we both learned and reflected values that we want to see embedded and that we
109hear are embedded. So thank you so very much. All right, we will now move on to item 8 C. Thank you, Leia. Have fun in Kentucky. >> She's She's still on. Leah is gonna What is it? Midnight for you. >> Leah's gonna Yes. Well, it will be soon. >> Yeah. >> Um in 15 minutes for her. >> Okay. I thought we were going to give you a chance to get back to >> She she's gonna kind of introduce this topic. And then what we're going to really want is to engage the board in the the uh discussion about what's proposed, what's here, and and uh where do we want to land because that's going to drive a lot of our additional detailed planning going forward. >> Great. >> So Leah, you're up. >> Awesome. Well,
110and I believe that they are going to adjust um the slide so you are also able to see the refreshed Scottsdale Unified strategic plan. Um, and so a huge shout out to Dr. Bakna and her team and truly our teachers, our leaders, um our ed services and district leaders and then cabinet over the course of the past three months, we have been looking at our data, problem solving, looking at research, looking at evidence, and really analyzing our practices over the past three years with our strategic plan. What we're bringing forward for your consideration this evening are those revisions. So I'm going to step through really each tab of our strategic plan just giving a highlevel overview and orientation and then once I'm done we'll leave it to you guys uh to guide us uh around
111where you would like in the conversation to go. So, first up, what you'll see are our systems draft wildly important goals. I think based on the data we just looked at, you can see that some of our actions, strategies, and initiatives, in order for them to fully be realized and impact with students, we may need what more than one year. And so, you will also see that both of the wildly important goals that have been drafted are drafted for 2030 goals with more annual indicators along the way. So, we'll come back to those wildly important goals, but I want to step you over to academic excellence. And within academic excellence, you will see some of our key priority indicators from previous strategic plans. We've doubled down on the ones that Dr. Bachna highlighted in the
112data are really important points for our focus, our initiatives and our efforts. We want in this goal area to increase student proficiency in literacy, math, science, college readiness benchmarks and really lifting our students access to industry certifications and college level coursework. When you step to that next goal area of talented and qualified professionals, what you'll notice is a continued focus on seeking ways to have superior compensation packages, but we are going to double down on the effort to eradicate contract services from Scottsdale Unified School District. So, we've made significant positive progress with special education teachers, par profofessionals, um, and special service providers. This year, we will be focusing many of those same efforts on eliminating specialized transportation contractors. In uh support of some of our academic efforts in mathematics, we also in the talented and
113qualified professionals area really want to focus on making sure each one of our math classes is taught by an appropriately certified teacher who has access to excellent professional learning. When you jump to the next climate and culture, you'll notice that we brought forward a friend from a previous strategic plan, which is community engagement. We'll really be focusing on reducing chronic absenteeism, making sure our students feel safe um and are making positive choices at school, and also making sure we are focusing our efforts on engaging families and parents in all of our conversations and efforts both in school and out of school and leveraging those community partnerships for great opportunities for our students. I'm almost done with the overview and then we'll dig in. But next up is optimized resources. This is where you're going to
114see our continued focus on increasing student enrollment. uh making sure that our school classrooms are increasing in their per pupil spending and that we have a really solid 10-year capital plan that is built on feedback and creating a situation where we're maximizing all of the learning environments in Scottsdale. Last, but certainly not least, considering our focus is their future, you're going to see captured here some of the big work we are doing to leverage artificial intelligence to rethink and reexamine our instructional models to empower our teachers and students with the tools that are being developed as we speak. and making sure we're building really thoughtful learning progression starting all the way in kindergarten with computer science, artificial intelligence, AI literacy, digital literacy, and those types of things. Also really important that we're continuing our efforts
115with innovation and we have great innovation grants happening, great projects and really trying to codify those with annual events that celebrate the spirit of innovation that is alive and well in Scottsdale. So, with that overview, I'm going to take you back to the wildly important goals and see where you may want to start the next part of our conversation. >> So, that really means you want to start with math or enrollment. >> I'll say enrollment because it's a little more compact, I think, if that's okay. It's a place to start. Um the one thing on the metric is the denominator. Uh how easy slash accurate is it to know if we say our capture rates going from 52% 58%. Um do we need to do demographic study every year to get that accurate denominator to
116measure that properly? >> So we have the the old demographic study but we actually are doing one this year. We should have the report on that in November. Uh so the 52% came from the prior. Uh we'll be able to check whether or not that number has held or if it's shifted so we could modify this if we needed to after that study comes in. And I don't think we have to do it every year but I think we should do it every two or three years to say okay given where we were where are we now with respect to that demographic study. We're going to know some of the enrollment trends, but to get that specific level of capture rate, that's something that we can replicate a few times in this in this cycle
117instead of doing it every year because it's about a $15,000 15,000 for the demographic study. >> How did we choose 58%. >> Like why improve six points versus four versus nine versus two? So, so um I would say this one was was trying to set something that was what we believed attainable but still a stretch. So, if you look at our our challenges over time in the in the current environment, not only with respect to 15 years of declining enrollment, but the capture rate, you know, could still be something that's outside of that. We have increasing competition. We have more charters, more choice with universal ESAs, parents being able to use that for homeschools. There are a lot of different options and choices that parents can make. And so our work to be able to
118claw back from a capture rate perspective uh is is a heavy lift. And so we wanted it to be something that we thought was stretch but also achievable. >> I'll obviously be signaling my judgment of this, but why do you think this is achievable? I mean, this is a massive swing. Five years can seem like forever and it can encourage you to kind of start to think, you know, beyond the near-term gravity. But given the trend which has only been down or flat, why would we think in five years we could all of a sudden, you know, especially with some of these structural changes around I mean literally families are being paid $7,000 to not go to public schools in that environment. This seems like a very aggressive goal and and it and it may
119be. Uh we also didn't want to come to the board with something that seemed like it was under ambitious. And the truth of the matter is that to a person around our cabinet table, everyone believes that Scottsdale should be the premier choice for any family that chooses to live in Scottsdale. We we bring in a large number, 20ome percent of our enrollment is our families choosing Scottsdale from neighboring public school districts. And so we believe there's a compelling educational offering for not only our families but those in surrounding communities. Uh we are committed to doing the work to identify the reasons why parents are making other choices. And we know that we won't get to 100% won't get to 75%. But to be able to move from just over 50% to something that's closer to
12060 was something that we thought was um aspirational. And we're all committed to being able to tell the SUSD story. What's the delta been the last couple of years? I know enrollment we've seen that dropping 2% but for capture rate has it been dropping by a point a year or do we know just what the trend has been? >> I'm trying to remember and and I really don't want to um say a number that's not quite right, but I don't think the capture rate has shifted as as dramatically as the overall enrollment rate. So I I think when you look at our and and I'm interpreting this as capture rate of our school age kids that live within our boundaries because the the other number when you add in the school of choice numbers then
121we're over 70% total but this is really about the families living in Scottsdale making this their choice um I don't know that I've seen it higher than 55% in the last five years so I think it's been a slower rate of decline but I have to go back and check the demographic study >> thank Is there um a thought about modifying the uh the target of 58%. >> Yeah, I mean this is I think we should set goals that are stretch but they should if we're going to ask people to to engage in blood, sweat, and tears, we should be setting goals that we believe are achievable. And candidly, I think you as the leader of the district should be able to look people in the eye and answer the question I asked you. >>
122Yeah. with with some foundation for people to then obviously want to you know we don't want blood, sweat and tears but um so I think we should I think we should have a goal that is based on physics that people can kind of see understand is going to be really tough but also believe because the rest of the world isn't sitting still right this isn't just about whether we're getting better >> um every share we're gaining someone else is losing. So, do we think basis is all of a sudden going to become less compelling? Do we think, you know, great hearts is going to become less compelling? Do we think, you know, that more families choosing to um, you know, educate their own kids at home using various scholarships is going to become any less
123compelling. So, it's a really tough environment. if we were, you know, part of what I kind of wanted to think through is setting a goal where we would be stemming where we'd be offsetting the population decline through capture rate gain. So if we can find a way to minimize the budget impact as a basis of of setting the target, but even that isn't really grounded in the physics of capture rate. But it, you know, at least it gives people a sense of if we're able to accomplish this, we can move from a place of declining operating budget to standstill operating budget by replacing fewer families with being the first choice of more families. But gosh, I would be depressed to think that we could move it, you know, beyond 55% over the course of >>
124in that period of time. >> So, so I think that's fair. I would I would ask a different question because if if the goal is is um to address the decline in enrollment capture rate is is one strategy, right? those who live here, but uh it's not irrelevant when we bring in students from neighboring communities that are also uh available. So, um >> yeah. So I wonder if if it's too narrowly focused on only capture rate here because the the the and I recognize that if you're going to think state policy then there's a different conversation but if you're thinking about SUSD and that that um the economic impact of declining enrollment there are two ways to stabilize it. One increase the capture rate of those who live here or grow the number of students
125who are choosing SUSD from from neighboring communities. And so that's not reflected here because when we had the retreat, we talked more about capital. >> Yeah. And I don't I mean Yes. And I don't believe that. I believe where we landed in the retreat in terms of because it's our taxpayers. It's going to be our folks voting on bond overrides, you know, so our employers. So I liked that we were focusing on capture rate and not um I also it would also be though worth a debate. I mean it's certainly a plausible way to look at it to set our enrollment goal as about funding as opposed to being the district of choice. I personally would want it to be the district of choice. >> I I do too. And and I actually um as
126as much as I like an aspirational goal point well taken in terms of what we can accomplish between now and 2030 in the policy environment, some of the things that we're seeing. If it was 55, I'd still want to blow past it. But I I do know that it's it's a heavy lift. I think that's that's fair. I mean you yourself explained in a prior board meeting I think it was the last study session. I mean a lot of these kids are already in the district right I mean the physics of this five years is still >> right >> you know half of you know the full journey that kids that are starting in kindergarten. So the ability to really bend this in five years even five years I think is more limited than we
127might otherwise like to believe. >> Hearing too about the frame of the goal relative to right sizing the district as a goal and I speak financially as much as anything else. Uh I I I love the sound of the goal. I believe we can aspire to the goal. I appreciate the the bend and the and the nature of the difficulty and likelihood and trajectory and the physics of it. Uh I'm just wondering about reframing it relative to finances and right sizing. And I I don't know if that's too big of a shift from where we are because I think we do need to build on multiple years for big goals like these. Uh but I just don't know how we're going to afford it. Well, I think I think part of the right sizing part
128is is captured maybe not in the in the wildly important goal, but in looking at the optimized resources um when we start talking about what is our capital plan over the next couple of years, but in in addition to that looking at what is the right size for our district and I think that'll be a big conversation that ends up happening a little bit later this fall. Um so I mean I think there's two parts to it. I think there's the fact that we do need to we need to as many kids as we can. Our school, I mean, I would like them to be our kids because I think we have great schools. Um, but we need to capture as many kids as we can, either from our own neighborhoods or from our neighboring
129neighborhoods. But the second part of that too is that we also have to be taking a critical look at what is the right size for our district as enrollment across the nation is declining and districts are making these really tough decisions. And I think about the burden of who has the ownership for this goal and I I look to you Christine like, "Oh yeah, you're the one." And that's not fair. Um it's all of us in terms of how we speak about ourselves and how do we all own um our pride and our shared desire for the kids who are lucky enough to get us. So I I don't quite know that how that blossoms out, but I think that's part of the conversation that needs to emerge is it's not a marketing strategy or
130it's or it's not just flyers on a doororknob, you know, it's >> well, yeah, we've done those things. I think what's what's brilliant about this as a wildly important goal is that every person in the organization contributes to meeting, right? how we talk about ourselves. If the book that we've been talking about in terms of unreasonable hospitality, how are we taking our service to the next level? How are we elevating excellence every day? How are we meeting the needs of kids and families across all segments of our community? So, there is a role for everyone. The bus driver who greets the kid in the morning, if they're Oscar the grouch, it's very different than if they're super friendly, know every kid by name, and are high-fiving them when they get on the bus. So, it's
131those kinds of things that contribute to the culture and climate that make people want to be here. We won't be the choice for everyone. We know that. But we want to be the the choice for the the majority of people. And so, I do think that that there's a there there. Um, and I do think that we have to wrestle with some other issues of of whether or not all of the options we provide our families water down some of what we can do and if we need to be streamlined there or what's going to make us the most compelling choice is to have all of those options. I think that's on the table for discussion and I can make an argument both ways. >> Yeah, I just wanted to put that context around it.
132I mean, there's a financial piece here for sure. There's an ownership piece here for sure. Uh and then it's a really cool number. I I kind of want to support it. I think dvtailing off what you said from the communications side, >> do you and your team have plans? Here's what we're doing for in district marketing and initiatives. Here's we do for out of district or is do you not slice it that way? >> So what we've done recently is sort of a multi-layered approach. And so what we'll really focus on is of course essentially anyone within driving distance that also has school age children. And so whether it's like secondary marketing or a specific program, the expansion of the math and science academy would be geared toward a demographic that's maybe a little bit
133older because it's it's Mojave Middle School whereas kindergarten enrollment roundup and um early learning opportunities excuse to households that have younger children. But we are taking more of a wide approach based on where we are drawing people. But then we'll layer on and do sort of additional blitzes, if you will, here in more of our neighborhoods and in our actual boundary, if that makes sense. And especially where we've seen it have an impact is as it relates to like the SUSD expo and some of the events that our schools hosted. Sorry, I'm just looking one way. um as it relates to how our schools have had um events, hosted events where they opened it up to the entire community. So we saw that at Desert Canyon, we saw that at PBLO where really they were
134able to invite more families to be able to feel what the community is and then see the celebration of learning. And that too was another strategy where it layers on and eventually we've seen them come back for a tour and then enroll. Just thinking of the odd structure of our boundaries, especially in the kind of Scottsdale corridor area. It's difficult. I mean, you wouldn't want to say, "I'm not going to talk to you because you're across the street, but I'm going to talk to you." So, it almost seems like targeting initiative, doing initiatives that target specifically on a number that would impact capture rate, like I'm going to focus more on trying to enroll students who are in our boundaries versus those who aren't. just gets challenging just with the nature of our geographic borders
135and almost seems like again we wouldn't want to exclude anybody. >> Certainly not. And so a lot of our marketing is zip codeentric and or targeting like geo fencing competition where we know that maybe some schools are closing or some schools are no longer offering a program that we do offer um or you know we're doing something new launching a new program fire science or something along those lines and then we're targeting certain other high schools certain other areas around there. Um, so that's where we've been really thoughtful and more so strategic with our digital marketing and then also with the expenditure because we want to make sure that we're spending wisely and able to track, you know, sort of the ROI at least on the engagement. And really where we've seen the greatest success
136in engagement is our eblasts because our story is so much more than like a quick social media post with a cute kid. Um, I mean that's great and it might capture somebody's attention, but where we've done email campaigns that tell a little bit more of the story and then have links to like school profile videos or even um the principal's bio and those kinds of things. That's where we've seen far greater engagement and like more tours scheduled as a result. And then as we learn where people are coming to us from touring, then we also sort of um geoence those areas as we recognize them as opportunities. I'm sort of on the fence with this because you know the capture rate is what we talked about is right school of choice for families in Scottsdale.
137Um but the old you get what you measure right and if this trickles down uh as a measure as a financial incentive right is there going to be the you know I really want to focus on these inboundary families because that's what we're measuring. Uh but so I'm torn again like I think it is a great measure uh for us but as a goal especially an aggressive goal sounds like there's a potential for being some misalignment. >> Yeah. I mean I I think at any given time as the strategic plan I think represents it's very comprehensive. We have to do a lot of things right and a lot of things are important. So this is really about singling out one, two, three really, really critical goals which I don't think necessarily come at the expense.
138You know, we we certainly want to grow our enrollments wherever we can find them. Um but at least clearly I feel strongly that increasingly being the first choice of our taxpaying families just everything flows from that in terms of all of the other ways in which you know the embrace of our community matters. So that's why I like it being on the capture rate. I also think it will have there's also a simplicity to measurement and some other things that I think are are beneficial. So my only you know feedback is I would do some modeling. I would think about in our experience which are the ages where families really consider schools and how large are those populations and even if we were able to materially fight, you know, make a step function improvement. How
139would that blend out overall? And I would guess it's probably not that substantial a move um even as it represents big improvements in the five-year period for the specific cohorts that are available to us to to make games within. >> Well, well, sort of I I want to I want to push a little bit more. did pull up the last demographic study. Uh so our inboundary in district service rate was 57%. So um we might be a little higher than the 52%. I'd have to we have to confirm that. So we might have the wrong starting point. the highest in since of our in district capture rate was 71% and if you look through the proliferation of other choices that have materialized since that point in time in terms of charter and private options and
140then ESAs that explains in part the the capture rate decline but I I think we should calibrate to the actual demographic study and then think about what's the what's the right number and Well, maybe there's a way to think about this wig that's that does both. Although to your point, Dr. Patinsky, there's the risk of of watering it down. But to yours, uh, Mr. Shy, is is that because in the demographic study, they show both. Here's the net enrollment population ratio and here is the in district service. The reason the net is important is because it gets to facility utilization and optimizing the use of those resources. Right? So, if we only capture inbound, would require us to close more buildings. We've just accelerated the the decline cycle. So maybe there's a way to couple
141the two so that we're focused on being the first choice for people who reside in Scottsdale. And we're setting an expectation for what that net enrollment population ratio is related to optimizing the use of district facilities. And and the analogy you used earlier, if we have football stadiums and basketballized crowds, that's a problem. But if we're And there's a different kind of energy there that's going to draw more. And we didn't give much thought to can we do both in the wig. We really focused on the capture rate is what we heard from the April retreat. But I'm just wondering out loud maybe there's a way to capture both without watering down the the importance because enrollment overall we don't want to create an unintended consequence of of focusing so solely on the capture rate
142internally. I don't know. It's just love feedback on >> and these can be intention. We know there are school communities for whom the capture rate is partly a function of open enrollment negatively correlated by which I mean the more that those local families feel like their neighborhood schools have been taken over by open enrollment from outside the district and even from within the district, the less connected they feel to that local school and potentially the more likely they are to choose a different school. So these things are hard and they sometimes come even attention to each other. >> What I've also discovered in our marketing efforts is that many of the families who are touring our schools are also currently enrolled with us. And so you have to imagine that if they're also considering other
143options for potentially that next jump, the middle school or looking ahead to high school, um it's as important that we be looking at our efforts as retention strategies as they are recruitment strategies. Certainly. And then um we're very good about reaching out to those families who who leave us not just with the exit survey of course, but then later sort of remarketing, letting them know um what's new. So when we have new programs that are being launched or something at a different school that might entice them, they left one, but we have 29 others. And so we want to make sure that they're aware of what else is available to them. Uh and so that's where we try to earn back, if you will, as well as um retain. Dr. Mensel, given your comments, I
144think given the headwinds, a sheer shift from negative to positive, I'm wrestling with like not putting a number on there, but just having both capture rate and enrollment increase year-over-year um is the positive trend we're looking for. Um, so just trying to kind of tail off of what you said. Again, you want to have a target, you want to have a goal, but I think just that straight shift might be part of some way. Again, nothing figure out tonight, but I think that could be. >> So, I just I sent the um the capture rate table 14 from the last demographic study so that you all have it to to look at and think a little bit more about. We'll do some same the same kind of review. The other that I would just uh
145bring up is the analysis that Cindy did because what we've seen and it's not just us. I talked to colleagues around the valley, graduating cohorts are much larger than incoming kindergarten classes. And so when you have a 700 kid delta between graduating seniors and incoming kindergarteners or 500, whatever the delta is, what what can we control? You know, the the number of kindergarteners first there's a a fixed number of those and And then if we're capturing 70% of those, that tells one part of the story. But when we grow between the the K11 number and the 112 number, that's a positive indicator. So it's but it doesn't solve all of our problems. So I think there's there are a lot of nuances to this. It's the right conversation because at the end of the day,
146it drives our economic engine and it tells a story about the confidence that the public feels in the public education system in our community. So, I think it's it's the we have to have a wig around enrollment. I just want to make sure that we are really thinking about what's the best way to frame I'm just going to uh ask any of the cabinet members if they have any follow-up questions from what they've heard before we go back to the drawing board. And what we'll try to do is put together a couple different options. The goal is to bring this to to the governing board for approval at our September meeting. That's the goal. If it's not perfect, it can always be tweaked. >> Great. I will say that I know each of us has
147been working with our teams. Um, some of us, whether it's IT or communications or transportation that doesn't always feel as connected to the academic goal or doesn't always feel as connected to the enrollment goal. We've been really working with them to help help everybody in the system see how they play a part in our success and especially in these two wildly important goals. Um, and so it's not just a marketing strategy or an academic excellence strategy, but certainly also customer service um, centric. And we're working with our administrators as soon as Thursday uh, rolling out sort of what that looks like moving forward too. And that's not just um, a a one hit that is sort of a a year-long strategy at least. And then something that really needs to be embedded in the culture
148is what is that best practice so that everybody is met with sort of that same SUSD standard. So that's something I know that we're working on all across the board. >> Well, we started with enrollment. So can we anything else from anybody else? So you want to go over to the academics wigs wig. >> So in in math uh I still believe this is the right one and we spent Because remember last year the wig really was looking at growth over those those cohorts three through eighth grade and in some places we made progress in fifth to sixth it was a nine point drop. Uh as we were looking at our data and thinking what's the most important lever that will drive systems change. We landed on um eighth grade advanced math algebra or other
149advanced math coursework. And and that data was highlighted earlier tonight by Cindy. said that our students who take algebra in eighth grade, they they 80% um 96% proficiency on AASA, even if they didn't get a passing grade in the algebra class, they do better on AASA than their their cohort. So, if we shift the bar uh to focus on algebra 1 or advanced math at 8th grade, that has an impact downstream and upstream because it opens up different opportunities for students when they go into high school. If you've mastered algebra, you get that credit, you you can get a higher level math in four years. Or if math's not your jam and you're able to get that credit out of the way, you can pursue some other area of interest that you otherwise might not
150have time for if algebra is what you're tackling as a freshman. So, we think that this has the potential to be a gamecher on the math achievement both downstream and upstream. And so, that's why you see the uh the wig framed the way it is. So, I really like the raise the bar aggressiveness of this. Um, I think it's great to raise expectations of the kids. So, directionally, I'm very much in favor. It's an interesting one because theoretically we could hit it next year. We could just automatically push kids into it. Um, uh, I'm not saying we would, but, you know, we have much more control over this lever than other ones. Um, question on what is the impact from a teacher standpoint that would change the makeup of our teachers who are qualified to
151want to teach advanced math. How big of a lift is that over a couple of years? >> You want to take it, Heather? >> I'm just thinking about the certification piece. >> Yeah, certainly we've we've spoken about that and that we do need to be ready for this. Um, as you said, Mr. Shy, I'm sure Lee is dying to weigh in on this as well. Um, we could push people into this, would not be with much success, right? Um, this goal, I would say, is is really very deceptive deceptively difficult because it involves systems change. Um, systems change around how our teachers really approach the the instruction of mathematics. Um, really having an appropriate teacher in the class That's kind of the easy part to be frankly honest. So, um it's really about teaching those
152changing those instructional mindsets and how we approach uh instruction in the classroom >> and sort of a correlary and I know Leah's had experience with this. What is the expected reaction from the parent side? Because we will be I'll use the word nudging more families to say hey we expect more out of kids. we're ready for the challenge. Are you ready for the challenge? We want to put your child in uh advanced math and algebra. Uh what's the feedback on that sort of expectation from parents? >> Great, great question. Um, I would say that the feedback from families is that they need to understand the why. And that's really our duty to provide them that background in education as to why algebra in 8th grade and what does that mean to my five-year-old, right? And
153so for us, it's really spending time in the elementary grade when we know children have some of the most protective and supportive factors. their parents are often still talking to them about their learning at home. They're really strong systems position. It's a safer place to take the risk with accelerated coursework earlier. often what you'll hear from parents in uh transitioning to middle school and from their previous fifth grade teachers of which I'm guilty is we do understand that it's a big transition emotionally socially for our children and so there are times that a parent might say I think you could do advanced math in sixth grade but you're already going to go through a big change and so we may lighten up the gap on the academics. And so shifting towards educating our elementary families
154with all the opportunities they have to accelerate early, partnering with EXL to build accelerated math skill plans that allow families and children to engage in accelerated math year round is really how we're hoping to bring families into the conversation earlier and trying to break all of the habits. break us all of the habits of talking about not being good at math. And so it really is and I hope you can see in some of the initiatives and strategies that a wraparound strategy with families, students, and teachers is really important. I would add that the abstract nature of algebra for many of our learners warrants a 2year year. Um, and I have seen information about algebra being taught over two years for the gains and the depth of the understanding as being a value. And that
155might be a creative way for us to look at it so we can just slow it down and get it deeper so that the passage rate even if it's sophomore year is real. Just a thought. Thank you so much for that thought, Dr. Lewis. I think there's a lot of prevailing research that will suggest some of what you're saying as a as an impactful strategy for students, especially when that learning is coupled with something highly engaging like um computer science fundamentals. I've seen great success with that. And so as we think about moving more children into advanced coursework in eighth grade, we also have to make sure we have engaging interventions and strong plans in place for kids who we know need longer. >> I kind of three quick reflections on this one. The first
156is it does seem of a different type than the enrollment one. The enrollment one is the goal is to grow en The goal isn't to like improve NPS because we then think that will increase enrollment. So it's like first order whereas this one seems a little more second order. The goal is to you know drive greater engagement and completion of algebra because we think that then will lead to something. So it did seem of a different kind of nature. Um the second is it it seemed a little disconnected from the strategy discussion where we've really invested in and we've said that gives us something super predictive of state proficiency and then we also know that for the community seeing progress on proficiency is an area of confidence building. So I was a little curious why
157we didn't build a wildly you know ambitious goal around you know more directly kind of connected to the strategy. And then the third, just a little bit of where I think governing board member Shy kind of went, although I'll take it a little more to an extreme. I don't love that it's something that we control so fully. We control grading. So you just create the potential of a perception of great inflation to get to the number and then we also you know control and I say that as someone who believes that AI is going to obliterate the integrity of assessments for several years before we get back onto any kind of firm footing. So it seems now so it's not even coming from a place of you know I don't believe that our you know
158that we're gonna have some cheating scandal where teachers are getting paid you know to give students better than C's um potentially I am saying something about our students um but I just think right now to be basing it off something that isn't more of an external assessment you know or something that's a little more robust to you our own control I think you know would be worth considering for that reason. So >> so I'll I'll start and then invite Leah or others to to jump in. We we had internal conversation first. I'll stick with math. When we talk about the review of our academic performance, math has been the area where we need to accelerate the most rapidly in order to ensure our students are prepared for what's next. whether it's science or whatever they
159want to do, math scores that are at the 50 to 55 percentile aren't good enough. And so we need to accelerate that. And actually, when you look at high school, the the trend declined even further. So I think math is the right goal. We spent some time thinking about is it that transition into middle school, so the sixth grade numbers that you don't ever recover from that drop, that's a concern. But when we're looking at the emerging data, algebra is the gatekeeper for higher level math success. And so I I feel strongly that it's the right wig. Is it the right measure for the wildly important goal? So I don't think there's magic in the C or better based on the data we have on eighth grade students taking algebra. What we see is that
160whether or not they got a C or better, they performed significantly higher on AASA than their uh other students in the in the class that did not have higher level math. And so when you raise the bar, you get higher levels of achievement. We have to ensure that we actually embrace this notion that kids can. We know they can. It's about how we structure the system to support their success. So I'm not wedded to the sea or better. I think if we don't shift the game to move our expectation to that middle school level, does middle school lose its relevance? Because that's where they fall off the table on math and we don't recover in high school. If they haven't mastered you, you have highly motivated kids that do really well in math and middle
161school. They're not the ones that we're concerned about in this sense, right? We're we're gonna they're going to fly. They find ways they do dual enrollment. They get high levels of math achievement. But so many more need to be proficient. And when they when they lose confidence as they move into middle school, they never regain it. And so that's why we thought eighth grade was the right lever because it's going to push down in the system in terms of what students need to know and be able to do. And it's going to take time to build that efficacy of our teachers that our kids can to build the efficacy of the kids that they can to help parents know that their kids can. Right? It's not just I'm good at math or not good at
162math, but we're going to create a system where people are confident that they can do this. So, I I like the wig. I'm not opposed to changing some of the language around that. I just think if we don't shift that, um it's hardwired into the system. Algebra is a ninth grade thing. Um and we need to hardwire it differently. That's something we have the ability to do. If we just did it unilaterally and said, "Okay, every eighth grader takes algebra." They'd fail out. They'd be frustrated. we'd have people bail out, then we'd have a hard time keeping middle school teachers because they would be frustrated. So, we need the time to build the the pipeline so the kids are prepared to be successful >> and and we're underprepared for um hands-on concrete understanding of these
163abstract concepts and that's part of the developmental needs of the children I will say who are learning these very formulaic algorithms >> that uh just fly right over their if they don't memorize the algorithm, that's when an eighth grader and a ninth grader, regardless of where they are, but developmentally really can't handle it. So that that re reapproach to learning algebra, I'll go back to take two years to learn it. Do a hands-on model, slow it down so that it can become more concretely understood. It's a very abstract uh curriculum. >> I think uh Dr. I I'm with you on the first order, second order comment, right? And that it's stiffened that way, but this sort of externality of the raising the bar. I mean, that to me has the potential to bleed beyond just
164the math class, right? So, the fact that we are expecting more of our kids, we're encouraging, right? the oh you know criticism honors classes that it's the same class with more reading the basis competition of oh you know they've got teachers that do this and they're expect like it does by pushing on this one lever I think has the opportunity to kind of raise that ocean across and that's a really good thing right we're probably already known for that oh at Scottsdale Scottsdale schools have got to be good high and then someone's expectations aren't met by that. So I think by raising I think that's really appealing to me to hear as a potential but still with room to wiggle the actual league itself. >> Yeah, I thought it was a very compelling answer. >>
165Yeah, >> thank you. >> It's possible. Could I weigh in just for a quick second? >> Of course. >> So appreciate all of the conversation and also agree with what Dr. Menel said about not being 100% married to the metric. Um because we also even as I type the words in the boxes like and or proficiency in eighth grade or completion of algebra. >> Yeah. I think part of our focus being their future is establishing a goal that really unlocks future opportunities for kids as opposed to a five-year goal that lands in a final destination spot of eighth grade proficiency. And so that really is trying to orient to the future so that our children when they are in high school can pursue the highest level math courses and as many of them that want
166to can. I would agree with you Dr. Lewis in that the abstract um reasoning >> kind of framing of algebra can be very very difficult. I think what we're finding is really strong content based instruction in grades two, three, and four is actually where the concrete and abstract learning of algebraic and algebraic thinking >> really start. And so some of our strategy focusing on elementary and coupling it with a large K12 math adoption >> is in service to strengthening that content knowledge >> so that over the next four to five years our students have stronger concrete and pictorial algebraic understanding so that when they get to that abstract algorithmic driven work it makes more sense to them in their brain. So, I'm I just am kind of sums uping all the comments and also saying
167that I'm not wedded to it has to be algebra by 8th grade, but I do want us to stay focused on locking opportunities. >> Yeah, >> Miss Carney, >> thank you. Um, obviously I'm all for raising the the bar as well, but one thing I think we are not talking about are our minority students and their actual uh proficiency levels are extremely low and we don't talk about that. Um when you're looking at MA um eighth grade math with the 2024 data and it's doesn't change much from year to year. um they have much lower numbers. Uh the Hispanic population only 27% of them are passing and 54% of them are at level one. Um which is minimally proficient, minimal understanding, highly likely to need support and that's throughout and I think we really need
168to look at that um and talk about that data. So my question is are you looking at that data? what are we doing, you know, for these students who are proficiently low, although we're saying they're proficient. Um, because there's just no way looking at this data that these students could be the students in eighth grade to be in algebra 1. >> Uh, thank you so much for elevating such an important point. I do think that having some of our most recent upgrades with EXL, but also with who knew it, which serves as our data dashboard, allowing us to see different student groups and their performance over time, will allow for us to have deeper systems of intervention and more systems of support. Something that the algebra strategy also supports is some of the breaking down
169of what might be manufactured barriers for students who historically may have not had access to advanced coursework. When we remove some of those barriers and provide those systems of support, we start to see some of those gaps really close. And I think in the academic excellence key priorities, you'll find that there is still a large focus on making sure we match those student groups with population and enrollment in advanced academics. So I I appreciate the conversation. Uh we will go back uh as a team to look at how we can uh revise, refine. What would be helpful for our team is as you go away from here and you think about it, chew about uh chew on it a little bit. uh any additional thoughts you have, insights or suggestions are welcome from all five
170governing board members. What we want to do is put together a final proposal that you feel reflects your voice uh reflects something that's aspirational but also achievable and that really is the right kind of lever to move our district forward. I to address Miss Carney's question. Absolutely. We look at the demographic data with an intention of ensuring that we're meeting kids where they are and helping to accelerate their learning. So that's our commitment across all demographics. And so um we want to make sure that we're focusing on the right work, doing it in the right way. And I I think this is a very helpful conversation. Um there's there's I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer. There's a how are we going to leverage our collective talents, the resources available and then
171hold ourselves accountable for results >> to um to give guidance to Dr. Mensel and cabinet on the math one since that's different in nature. I mean, it's, you know, actively raising the bar, nudging kids into this level. Regardless of the number, you know, if it's to 75%, it's to 60. Is any are any of my fellow board members opposed to having that measure of increasing the number of eighth graders taking algebra 1? Um, because I want to make sure that's known because if that's a deal breaker right there, I don't want you guys to go, you know, move the slider and come back. So I would just ask is anybody, you know, a deal breaker with having that regardless of what the number is. >> No, I was convinced. >> Thanks. >> Any other final
172comments from our board? I'd like to thank staff for the amazing amount of work that went into what is a trajectory of direction we're going. It was an outstanding evening of rich conversation on the very that we do come to this table. Uh with that, I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? I >> unanimous agreement.