001and there is another motion out of closed yes I move that the school board recommend to the Virginia Board of Education that the license of employee a be revoked second moved by Mr alcaro seconded by uh Dr aov could we have a roll call vote on that as well Dr berin yes Miss o for yes Mr Paige yes Dr aov yes Mr alaro yes chair Lee yes so moved okay thank you very much um now we'll have a roll call let's start with Mr Holden Ross Holden Schoolboard attorney Daffy Kaiser assistant superintendent Rebecca Berlin whiteall Jon o Al Caro at large Kate aov Jack J District Judy Lee rri District gram page Miller District Ellen Osborne Scottsville District opal Kendall student representative Matthew HW superintendent CLA Kaiser assistant superintendent Chandra Hayes assistant superintendent Christine Thompson
002Clerk of the board okay great thank you so much now let's stand for the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance the United States of America stands na [Music] indivisible next we have our moment of silence uh tonight I'd like to remember Mike mountjoy who was a teacher in our division most recently at Lakeside thank you next we have approval of the agenda do I have a motion for that I move we approve tonight's agenda second move my Miss Osborne seconded by Mr alaro um all in favor say I I I I any opposed all right motion carries uh next we have approval of the consent agenda does would someone like to make a motion revolving Char Le I would like to pull the proposed FY 25 CIP P request for brief discussion okay moov by Dr aov
003uh with the consent agenda with 4.4 pulled we need a second for that we need a second for I'll second that okay seconded by Dr Berlin um so we'll have discussion on that yes um I would like to suggest to my colleagues on the board that we reconsider the order of the long range planning advisory committees recommendations specifically to move up the elevator additions which have been on the CIP for at least the past 3 years and perhaps longer I think there are real safety issues involved and also move up the special education facility Renovations moving them up at least up above six with land acquisition for the Western feeder pattern and additionally um to the degree that the elevator additions uh line up with the proposed modernization at the high school middle and elementary
004schools to fold that into those budgets I agree with with that and uh I also uh want to say that uh for the renovations as a whole and this is just using the $20 million number for the middle schools that was uh the number last year we still Rose by over $1 million uh in terms of Renovations needed uh this year uh versus last year and so we've we've gone from 104.6 million asked for last year to 115.2 it's like paying off a credit card you know doing the minimum uh payment every month um there are a lot of reasons why this this particular these particular uh renovation projects need more funding and I request that of the Board of Supervisors when their their staff is looking into um Monies to be dedicated this helps
005with jobs in the in the Community Pride uh in teachers the workers the students and the parents uh this is important because at a rate of three $2.8 million a year this is still going to take 38 years to get it done this should be done at $10 million a year and get it done in 13 years uh I strongly support Dr aov Mr Al Carlo's um comments uh to me um this is such a a critical crisis RIS for us as a School Division um when I and as I said during the the presentation I'm I'm going to continue saying this the fact that my son went here was born went here and will graduated college and potentially grad school in the time before we build another school um is abysmal um and this
006is something that I think this board um going forward is going to continue to push for um and it's not about it's it's about the new builds and it's also about the significant Renovations that our schools need just to keep our kids safe um as a former special education teacher the fact that um the Board of Supervisors has not um pushed forward our um elevator Renovations uh which is an absolute safety issue and an ADA issue um I do not want to be on the board when there is an emergency and we cannot get a child a parent or a teacher down a set of stairs because there's no avail elevator um and I think we need to continue to keep this at the front of our mind um and how are we going to
007continue to work as a school system in partnership with our Board of Supervisors and um in partnership with the state to continue to think about how do we bring more money here um because as Mr alaro said like we are paying off an unbelievable amount of debt um because we have not put enough money towards our physical billing buildings in the last 25 years and we need to do better for our kids and for our teachers and for our families I have a comment also I agree with what um Dr a and Mr ELO has said about um moving the items up in the rankings but I also have another comment related to the front cover of the booklet um I know that we in the County sort of really pride ourselves on our diversity
008and equity and our anti-racism policy and when you look at the picture on the cover that picture does not represent the diversity of our student body and I think that anything that we put out as a department any type of literature that would have pictures I think should really represent the true picture of how diverse our student body is so I think that really needs some adjustment and again I really commend the longrange planning committee but that's one item that really sort of was glaring to me the picture that's on the front cover um Maya and rosin do you have enough from these points to work with for that okay thank you uh thank you very much uh Dr aov Mr alaro and Dr V I also very strongly agree with those recommendations and the
009fact that we really need more at this time so do we change the motion and withdraw 4.4 yes until the next meeting um for review for review yes so we'll withdraw that for review at our next meeting y okay so sorry could you do that ad I move that we approve the consent agenda with the acception of item 4.4 which will we will be presented at we on the consent agenda next month second next meeting second which is next month uh all those in favor say I I I um any opposed nope motion carries thank you very much um now we have announcements Dr I did uh I did earlier today I did ask uh Dr Kaiser if she could just give the board a quick uh recap of the community information session we hosted
010last night about reframing the narrative sure thank you Dr hos and good evening chair Lee and school board members um last evening we held our second Community information session for the uh 2023 24 Academic Year featuring our reframing The Narrative curriculum uh the community information session featured key contributors to the program development as well as current practitioners who spoke about the value this initiative has brought to our students and teachers um our panelists uh for the evening included uh Dr jari Harris associate professor of educational psychology from kenesa State University Mr Ed Brooks Alamar County local government and program coordinator for yansy school Community Center Miss Cara Canada Chief Executive Officer of Virginia tribal education Consortium Mr car Carrie candidate State tribal education partner partnership step uh project coordinator Virginia tribal education Consortium Miss neie
011Mitten lead coach for K12 social studies and project manager for the reframing The Narrative initiative and Miss Kate Gary elementary teacher and diversity resource teacher from bris Wood Elementary School the panelist discussed the initial partnership with uh James Madison's mpar and how we received the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation strengthening systems Grant to fund um an initiative known as reframing The Narrative an inclusive and whole truth teaching of the history of our nation Commonwealth and local communities with the goal of preparing students for democracy and citizenship in our increasingly diverse Society Miss Neely shared how groups of K12 teachers have partnered with public history community and higher education Partners to learn whole truth and inclusive history and Civics content to build Educators capacity to teach through inquiry Miss Mitten also shared the data showing the power
012that inquiry design paired with reframing the narrative has had on student performance additionally Miss Kate Gary Illustrated how reframing increases rigor teaches students to build their literacy skills and think critically about the world through lesson plans and student artifacts um our panelists also included the Virginia tribal education Consortium or VC an acps Community partner that supports and is governed under the seven federally recognized Sovereign tribes VC is dedicated to the empowerment betterment and ultimate success of native Youth and tribal citizens in Virginia by helping to facilitate educational opportunities Career Training and ensuring accessibility to Accurate historical and current information on Virginia Indians Cara and Carrie candid shared how teaching an accurate account of History can create an understanding of our past but also a deeper connection of History um can create an understanding uh of
013our past and also a deeper connection to current events I'm Ed Brook shared how powerful reframing The Narrative is for students to learn about their local history and how historical events impact our community today Mr Brooks also emphasized yansy School community center's commitment to Heritage and history through sharing the accomplishments of the incredible individuals of the African-American community in esmont with the support of Our Community Partners collaboration and other School Division Visions across the state and the commitment and focus within our division on reframing the narrative the inquiry based lessons support and increase students knowledge their knowledge base facilitate critical thinking inferencing and the use of primary sources allowing students to make conclusions for themselves the student outcomes that were shared speaks to the effectiveness of this approach in world history across all high schools
014over 91% of our students earn verified credit through this process in world history one across all high schools 90% of our students earned verified credit through this process at monachello high school specifically teachers Clos their achievement Gap with multilingual Learners or English Learners through this process this means that our multilingual Learners perform just as well as all of our learners being an English learner is no longer a predictive factor for Student Success and we have had our monachello high school social studies and English learner Department chairs engage in professional learning with all of our secondary Social Studies teachers the social studies cat or content area team is being trained in sheltered instruction observation protocol or scop which is a method for teaching mult multilingual Learners so they can help support teachers at all schools in
015this approach this type of study promotes critical deep thinking that not only AIDS students assessments but also generates great life skills that will serve students well beyond K12 education we would like to thank all of the content experts for developing the reframing The Narrative Miss mitten's leadership and the dedicated teachers that Embrace this engaging approach approach to instruction thank you thank you um I did want to make one announcement I made this at the um interviews for the Rio Schoolboard member vacancy I just wanted to give a another outline of the timeline so we had the interviews on October 19th um today we're having our scheduled work session which is not involved in that uh on no November 9th we'll have our scheduled business meeting which will also include a public hearing to receive input
016on the candidates um and then December 14th we will announce the we'll make our decision and announce the appointment and then January 11th 2024 will be the first meeting with a new member for everyone marking their calendars at home so that was my only announcement any other board member announcements nope okay next we have public comment Ellen Osborne all right we invite and actively seek The public's input in matters relevant to Schoolboard governance and provide time in our business meetings to hear from our residents and community members during public comment we expect respectful and on-topic comments disruptive behavior from speakers or from members of the public in attendance will not be tolerated anyone who willfully disrupts this meeting in a manner that prevents or interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting may be ejected
017by the chair individuals Andor organizations wishing to speak during public comment must sign in with the clerk sign up is available online beginning 9:00 a.m. on the Monday of the meeting week until 3:30 p.m. on the day of the meeting public testimony guidelines are as follows speakers should adhere to the following protocol state your name and address or your voting district address comments to the school board as a whole limit comments to those matters that are relevant to school board governance or School Division operations give written statements and other supporting material to the clerk if you're unable to complete the presentation in the time allotted a copy of supporting materials will be provided to school board members 3 minutes will be allowed for each presenter to speak a commenter will be required to discontinue their
018comments after 3 minutes a colorcoded light system is used to time presentations the yellow light means the speaker is 2 minutes into the presentation and the red light means the speaker is at the 3 minute limit of the presentation and must wrap up in order to maintain respect for all points of view the school board requests no clapping booing or any other audible form of support or nonsupport be used if members of the public wish to show their support for a speaker they may stand or raise their hands when multiple comments on the same topic have been presented the chair May request additional comments on the topic be limited to those who have new information to present debate and dialogue with the school board are not allowed use of the projection system is reserved for
019staff scheduled agenda item presentations only and tonight we have one speaker Mr Paul McCarter definitely not my first time here uh my name is Paul mcarter I am with uh live in the scotsville district uh I came here to speak um regarding the extension of Dr host's contract that was um a surprise to everybody uh in the public because it wasn't um there was no public decorse or public input actually you know what um I have a whole write up here to talk about how like surprised people were that this announcement uh didn't include any public input wasn't at a public forum wasn't on the agenda and was just kind of announced at a meeting like this that there wasn't a lot of people to attend um but to be honest with you it wasn't
020a surprise at all it's pretty much how you guys work um you have these little Flyers around that say get involved give us your input at the beginning uh Miss Osborne said that you know we welcome public input no no you don't you welcome people who agree with you if you agree with you your opinion will be heard if not you have no interest in talking to it you you love to send out surveys if the surveys don't return the answer you want nobody ever hears about the survey ever again it disappears if it's about a subject that you don't think you're going to get the answer that you want no surveys happen this isn't an attack on Dr hos congratulations Dr hos if I was gifted a 2-year extension with a pay raise after
021not performing my job uh I would take it in a heartbeat it's not his fault it's your fault Miss Berlin made a comment about how there hasn't been a school built in 20 years that's amazing no it's not you guys don't do your job you don't listen to public input most of you run unopposed Miss Osborne's running unopposed I I apologize to scotsville District that won't happen again there there is just nothing that makes the community feel it's worth it to come talk to you all why all we asked for a thousand people signed a petition all we asked for is that you did some due diligence before you handed out an extension that's it just do some due diligence you love send out surveys there wasn't a single one that said do you feel
022like acps is in the right direction do you feel like the superintendent is doing his job none there were no focused groups you were told that people were afraid because of fear of retaliation what was the response chairman Lee sent me a link to the human resources person said he'll pass this to anybody who feels like like there you know there's a thirat of retaliation how about take that as an input and give a forum for people to be able to do stuff to where they don't have to fear that their jobs at risk but no you don't you sit here you don't do your job you don't build our schools when we need to you don't teach our kids to read you extend people without any input and you'll just keep doing it and
023so I don't know why anybody comes up here and talks maybe that's why I'm the only one here thank you okay thanks very much um next we have uh school board and superintendent business so I just wanted U just kind of look at at the weekly check-in I wanted to let you know about something we do that uh Dr ereri helps me with which has turned out to be I think a lot of fun for people um I had Mark leech generate a a list a random list of students all over the school system and make sure that he uh added weight for diversity so that you know you'd have variety of backgrounds pop up once a week uh in the weekly check-in we put when we send it out we uh have the student
024name and then we ask people to be the first person to email Eric irisari to let them know that they know that student because our mission statement says that we will know every student and so we have the students name um and it's within minutes typically of when the the check-in goes out that we get an an email from a staff member it could be a counselor it could be a teacher um last week we we you we sent out um one asking for someone to identify Maxton papus and uh he in fact is a second grader at um cros Elementary School and his teacher just within like maybe I think Eric said it was in like 13 minutes and this the checkin usually goes out at 6:30 in the morning um emailed him and
025said I know him he's a second grader at cro he's one of the wonderful second graders at cro he recently got a greatl looking haircut and to me I mean that's knowing students when when a student comes into school and you can see that they've got a haircut or maybe you know they a different backpack or something like that you you you know that kid and so every week we do that and what happens then is um what I tell what I tell what I say in the check-in is if you identify the student ple we're going to get you to talk with the student and have them tell you a book they would like to have and then that person gets to give them the book whatever book they want and then Eric uh
026actually started um an account with uh Rana apparel to to like do on demand um printing for for us so that we have alal County Public Schools and office of community engagement um swag like you know hats and and things like that so what the staff member then gets and we don't mention that in the check-in but what they get is opportunity to order something from Rana so Eric's made it a lot of fun and um what it really makes me proud that our our teachers our uh principles our custodians everybody knows the kids so well that they can they can pinpoint um that child and one time we had one this year and there was several people that identified the student who was a high school student and there was an elementary teacher that
027identified two elementary teachers from when they were in elementary school a middle school teacher that knew remembered the student and then of course their their current High School uh the other thing I just really want to thank um Baker Butler for a great visit on Tuesday day uh we're talking tonight we'll talk a little bit about uh the Bell weather report and choosing a new reading curriculum talked about some of the things we're doing this year to shore up being a reader including uh the ufly uh curriculum approach and I got to see that in action at Baker Butler the students having fun with it the teachers really being energetic and and working really hard so I want to give a shout out to Baker Butler and thank them for for a great visit um
028that was what I wanted to mention tonight so thank you thank you Dr H um any business from school board members okay thank you uh next we have our School Division work session first we have framework for adult learning Megan wood instructional coaching model Craig Domer and quarterly assessments Dallas Height good evening board members Pat mlin assistant superintendent for strategic planning and I'm just uh really excited about the work session that we've put together for you tonight as Miss Lee uh stated our first part is going to be an update on some of the key projects that are moving forward from the Bell weather recommendations uh to give you an idea of where those stand and how we're uh moving those forward and making an impact already and then the second half of the work
029session is going to be uh you all engaging in some work that's going to help us move one of those uh ideas forward uh around our theory of change so I'm going to turn things over to Jamie gner uh and I hope you have a a fruitful session tonight good evening and welcome to the work session my name is Jamie gner director of Special Projects program evaluation and Department Improvement all right so here's our I apologize Jamie while you're pulling that up um our screens aren't working are you working okay I didn't know few that apologies for the interruption you're good keep going okay here's our agenda for tonight we're going to talk through this status board which has been posted um on the instructional audit page on the website Miss Megan wood will talk
030about the framework for adult learning which B weather calls unified vision for adult learning uh Mr dmer will talk about the instructional coaching model DR McLaughlin will come back to talk quarterly assessments and then Mr dommer will talk Algebra 1 again uh we'll take a quick break and come back for our work session so tonight's session is aligned with our vision and Mission and our theory of change will end with our mission statement when we create it and our values and strategic goals help drive this work as well so we've created a status board that lists all of the actions we're taking um by recommendation as previously stated these projects vary in scope and size the status board will be posted on our website it has been posted on our website so this is just
031one page um I picked it because it was the smallest not because it has lots of checks on it but on each of the pages at the top it has the actual recommendation from the bellweather report and then in blue bold is the project so this one is instructional walks next to it in black is the status of the project it's in progress and then the time frame which this one will be annual underneath lists the different project components and then if there is a checkbox it means that the task has been completed so there are some several projects there's about 15 slides in total that give all the updates um and so you can see all the way to the right the timeline for completion for each of the components so let's take a
032dive into our first project which was B weather's recommendation for a unified vision for adult learning and Miss Megan wood director of professional learning will present our ideas on where to start thank you Miss gner good evening members of the board I want to thank you for the opportunity to share with you updates to our progress in addressing the Bell weather's recommendations specifically related to adult learning and professional learning in acps as you know Bel weather recommended that we develop a strategic approach to ensuring that our staff has the Knowledge and Skills to meet the needs of all students in order to move this work forward B weather's key initiative to develop a unified vision for adult learning serves as a springboard to what will become a more expansive and intensive review and Redevelopment of
033what professional learning is and can be an acps for both instructional staff as well as support staff however for the purpose of tonight's presentation I will focus on providing an overview of this process and discuss our near-term steps in creating a strategic approach to professional learning for instructional staff including teachers administrators teaching assistants counselors Ed workers and other instructional staff our intent will be to mirror this work for the support staff as well you know why it's St moving oh there we go there we go Linda darling Hammond best captures the importance of effective professional learning by identifying two important outcomes the learning will result in change to teacher practice and it will positively impact student learning it is through this lens that we have embarked on our study and recommendations for what professional learning
034should look like in I'm County thus directly relating to our mission and ending the predictive value of race class gender and special capacities of our students of our children's Success Through high quality teaching and learning the first part of this process includes creating a framework for professional learning and acps similar to the framework for Quality learning this framework will be the foundation of our philosophy and structure of professional learning and will be grounded in research and evidence-based practices this list provides an overview of some of the resources resources we are using to support the development of this framework the Carnegie study learning forward EAB and the learning policy Institute all utiliz findings from evidence-based practices in adult and professional learning it's important to note that this is not a comprehensive list but a starting point
035for us throughout these key throughout these resources key themes have emerged regarding best practices and characteristics of high quality professional learning that result in impacting student outcomes these themes include learning experiences that are designed to be content specific engage participants in active learning be collaborative model effective practice include coaching and expert support provide time for feedback and reflection and be sustained over time as we think about designing and implementing a comprehensive framework for professional learning for our staff it will be important to make sure that we incorporate these characteristics into our approach we've identified the following as our current near-term steps to building a systematic approach to adult learning in acps in alignment with the bellweather recommendations to solicit more feedback from stakeholders we feel that it's important to gather more data about needs specifically
036related to professional learning as a result our initial steps include developing and engaging with a professional learning steering committee as well as developing A needs assessment to be administered in the next couple of weeks to all instructional staff we will use this information gathered from both these feedback me mechanisms to draft develop and finalize the framework for professional learning once the framework is completed we will then begin to build out logic models tied to the framework based on our initial research we anticipate that these will be some of the major components of our strategic approach to professional learning once we have received feedback and recommendations from our instructional staff we will finalize the plan and begin to develop logic models around the identified components you will notice that one of our strategic approaches to professional
037learning includes the instructional Co instructional coaching moving instructural coaching under professional learning is one way we have begun to reimagine this model B weather's recommendations regarding the coaching model included aligning practices between equity Specialists ltis and instructional coaches Shifting the coaching model from an OP approach to one that positions instructional coaching as part of the the comprehensive system of adult learning and targeting support for schools and teachers at this time I would like to invite Mr Craig Domer to share more about the reframing of our instructional coaching model thank you thank you I'm Craig doer director of instruction for tiered supports um over my career in acps I've been a teacher a lead coach principal um and now director of instruction I'd like to thank Dr Hayes and Miss wood for uh letting me participate
038in leading uh this work around redesigning our coaching model uh the Bell weather recommendation as Miss Wood alluded to are to reimagine the coaching model to target support um in schools and teachers that need it most and to position it as part of our systematic approach to adult learning it's discussed in root causes two and four um in the Bel weather report something that's clear in the report is that Bel weather does value instructional coaching um as is clear in the professional development research as well uh anenberg did a metaanalysis and a report on instruction coaching in January of 2022 um and they had three key findings um that evidence strongly suggests a well-designed instructional coaching program improves teacher practice and student outcomes coaching programs that incorporate essential features of high quality professional development are
039more likely to improve that practice and novice teachers who receive coaching are more likely to improve student outcomes and stay in the teaching profession this graphic was shared with you in this spring on our work session on instructional coaching you'll see the acps mission statement as well as the coaching model Mission and the underlying um practices um that feed that mission as you read through these things you'll see that they align to coaching and professional development best practices and our mission statement at Alro County Public Schools I think a lot of the tenants and underlying principles of our current coaching model are aligned with best practices and with student outcomes in mind however some of our practices policies and protocols around the coaching model may not have adapted with the growing gaps in student achievement
040and do not necessarily give us the outcomes that we want which brings us to how we're thinking about redesigning the model listed now are kind of eight design elements that coaching models um across the country use to try and Target their model to achieve the outcomes that a school division would want it's kind of Within These design elements in addition to some others we will gather feedback from stakeholders and complete in-depth research analysis to make sure that our model is aligned with best practice one major area of these design elements is the assignment of coaches um some models use permanent assignment and others rotate coaches among schools um and after several years uh some models put coaches in one school and our model currently puts coaches in three schools um some models are School managed
041versus centrally managed and our model um kind of distributes coaches based on number of teachers versus differentiated support uh which was recommended by B weather we currently hire internal candidates only other models use external and internal there's a design element around pedagogical generalist versus a Content expert whether your model prioritizes that novice support or veteran support and implementation and whether teachers working with coaches is more voluntary or mandatory our goals over the next couple of months is to get increased stakeholder feedback we're going to conduct structured sessions with principls coaches lead coaches and teachers we feel that Bel weather did a nice job Gathering feedback and providing recommendations but uh based on I think public comment and interest around the coaching model more people want their voices heard H we are also gathering information from
042other school divisions on how they design their coaching models and their job embedded professional development models and I just wanted to close tonight with something we're kind of keeping in mind about why it's important uh the redesign of this coaching model will Empower acps Educators to change and better their practices in order to impact student learning at this point I'm going to turn it over to Dr mclin thanks Craig uh board members as you know one of the root causes of gaps and student achievement that was identified by bellweather was that instructional tasks did not consistently reflect the level of rigor required by so testing and a key strategy for addressing this root cause was to increase the frequency and utility a formative assessments including common instructional tasks to inform both student need and adult
043instructional practice so to align our practice with this strategy the division has developed and is currently implementing a quarterly interim assessment model division-wide quarterly interim assessments provide data on student learning at manageable intervals so that instructional and instructional leadership adjustments can be made they're administered at the end of the first three quarters of the school year to all students in math excuse me reading science reading and Science in grades 3 through 8 and also for select High School courses the quarterly assessments are aligned to division pacing guides and assess all standards that have been scheduled to be taught to students at the end of each quarter as schools review the results of the quarterly assessments we encourage them to look at the results standard by standard uh so they can gauge areas of relative strength
044and relative weakness for their students with this data they can tap into the power of the professional learning community ities to learn from each other and to adjust instruction based on the needs of their students and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how thankful I am to our teams from instruction and from strategic planning for getting these quarterly assessments up and running in a very short amount of time this work began this summer with updating our pacing guides uh to ensure that our courses are in full alignment with so standards and blueprints the instructional team then built the quarterly assessments that mapped out uh that Ma to our pace and guides and our first window for quarterly assessments just closed this afternoon next week we'll begin conversations with principles about how they can assess
045and use these results with their staff to adapt instruction and this is the first time that I can remember since I've been in the division that we've had consistent quarterly assessments across the school system and I think it's going to go far in helping us to meet our goals so I thank you for your time tonight and I'm going to hand things back to Craig to discuss the work that's taking place uh in regard to our Algebra 1 courses thank you Dr mlin uh I'm talking about Algebra 1 tonight I really would like to highlight Miss Melissa Mitchum lead coach for mathematics um and Dr Dallas hit who is our director of strategic planning they've been really I think leading this work but they both were unable to join us tonight so the recommendation from
046B weather around Algebra 1 was to invest in high quality instruction C materials um and to improve our current middle school students Algebra 1 skills uh with an focus on 9th grade algebra 1 at the time the report was written those students were um in 8th grade and we are focusing on them in ninth grade um this year additionally we're focusing on our secondary math curriculum and our system of RTI supports um starting in the summer we assembled a design team of high school algebra 1 teachers that represent all of our high schools um as well as some central office stakeholders and parents with our goal to identify changes in instructional practices including our intervention strategies uh to support the students in Algebra 1 the team meets monthly to work on strategies uh to see
047how students are doing um in addition to the division level PLC meetings so U division level PLC meets five or six times a year and this group is additionally meeting monthly uh to review data and to come up with uh interventions for those students in Algebra 1 one of the first things that the team did was identify a need for a diagnostic tool to identify gaps and skills and knowledge essential to success in Al one which was also a recommendation in the Bell weather report uh we are currently um vetting and piloting some intervention tools um that provide adaptive practice differentiated instruction and actionable data reports um at the dplc on Monday uh the algebra 1 teachers will be discussing the interim quarterly assessment data from quarter 1 and making plans on how to retach
048any misst standers in Quarter Two in addition a cohort from the alra one design team are involved with the UVA partnership for leaders in education at Darden and we will be meeting in November to engage in some design thinking around a system change plan around Algebra 1 Readiness uh that group kind of broadened the the question just from Algebra 1 to providing Equitable access to rigorous mathematics for our students to ensure Readiness for success in Algebra 1 no matter when students take it I think that concludes our kind of quick updates on these four key initiatives and we'll open it to questions I have one for you right away um I know B weather says invest in high quality materials are the intervention tools that you're talking about with algebra is that what you're talking
049about or or is there another layer of the intervention tools are kind of our uh shortterm right a solution to help support those students right now that design team um both across the high schools and the smaller cohort um is also looking into kind of high quality instructional materials and curriculum um to review and adopt moving forward so that would be for the next school year yes probably okay no there will be some changes to the math standards there are some changes that are coming this spring and so our current plan is to do that work next school year with an adoption for math the following year is that correct Chandra okay when when you say changes those are VOE changes to math standards that would affect our decision on that's correct I'm unclear about
050the intervention tools is that something that you guys have created or found or can you speak a little bit more about that sure we are um investigating Publishers intervention tools um so right now some of the middle schools use Alex math or have started using Alex uh so we are uh the algebra 1 teachers are reviewing that material um as well as um waggle from hmh Publishers um and uh matthia uh is another program as well so that they are kind of reviewing um those three programs we are also um interested in the state programs coming down for um High all in Virginia high-intensity tutoring thank you I have uh one one question that's a broad question in terms of process if I might and that is that in the original Belle weather document it
051talked as you did here Mr Domer about uh high quality um instructional materials and in there it talked about how we had a lot of the high quality instructional materials and then the further it went in to the report it's it kept saying and buy purchase high quality instructional materials and what I my question is is what has been our process for determining what highquality uh instructional materials to buy in the past and what is it that that bellweather is recommending that we do that's different because otherwise it sounds like it's just kind of the same thing so I would I I'll just weigh in with one comment and I think that's a great question jonno um I I think I alluded before that uh like you take being a reader for example um that
052that did not go through uh the kind of selection process that that bellweather recommended what it went through was kind of an older way of doing things which is appropriate for some things and maybe not appropriate for others but often you don't realize it till till later when you start to evaluate it um being a reader what the division many years ago I think when my children were in elementary school they started to use a product by collaborative classroom called being a writer it was very popular and um teachers liked it kind of spread around to different elementary schools and it's it's effective um and then uh we didn't at that point we didn't have a a reading curriculum and so there was a lot of conversation about adopting that and so there were schools
053I think Stone Robinson was well I know Stone Robinson was using um being a reader and the teachers there were experiencing success with it they they liked using it it was it's a good program and it was based on more of a balanced diet of um literacy so not just phonics not a great not a huge emphasis on Phonics phonics are part of it and it is evidence-based curriculum so it's not that it was a ineffective curriculum it's just not as effective in terms of what we now know in the intervening years about the science of reading and the importance of phonics very early and and a lot of repetition with that so that that just kind of spread around the county the board never approved it the board never saw it um it just
054spread and there are many many things that just kind of can do that um we are trying to become more disciplined and at the same time get greater input from our Educators around the county before making these big decisions and also making it in such a way that you can harness all of the professional learning at one time uh have um the power of scaling up so that everybody can be doing the same thing at the same time and learn alongside each other and learn with each other and that's the difference that you you see in the Bell weather recommendations what what it basically is saying is be be intentional do the work up front evaluate get input from every person that's probably going to use it and then um make the decision to do
055it and build in the professional development up front before you do the implementation takes a lot more discipline it's more modern but in the long run it will be more impactful and the perfect storm here is that the state also mandated that we um you draw from one well of state approved curriculum and I think that's that's very positive for us because it Narrows the choices down to uh phonics based instructional programs that have really been well vetted at the state level so you you have that uniformity then and and we're not trying to look at a big broad array of of items to choose and the the Committees right now the the committee is down is starting to narrow it down to a couple of choices but we can have greater confidence in that
056because there's been input from all the schools and we started with a small list from the state thank you it's a good explanation of the process I appreciate that yes sir I have a question about um the algebra 1 program I know that um in the past there's been a problem with some of our minority students being able to enroll in algebra one at a certain grade level and so um with what we are doing now will that be addressing that problem problem go so so the the immediate uh problem that was being addressed this year the one that we had the the time to turn around the quickest was our n9th grade curriculum we our 9th grade algebra 1 course we don't see that disparity in nth grade because we've got a lot of
057kids who haven't taken Algebra 1 uh when they're in Middle School uh kind of Second Step uh and if you look at the status board that uh jimie alluded to at the beginning uh it'll have some more steps outlined about how are we going to address getting more um uh representative portions of our population into Algebra 1 before they come out of 8th grade so that they're not in Algebra 1 when they get to the ninth grade and so that's uh kind of a bigger lift uh it's going to take a little bit more time for us to get there and develop strategies you may remember bellweather talking about things like summer Bridge camps uh to take kids who might not who might need a little bit of extra support before they go into Algebra
0581 uh to give them that support in the summer so that they're ready to go uh when they hit the ground uh in that class in the fall um so that is in there you can see that in the status board with some some timelines around it uh and that'll be coming within the next uh couple of school years okay or then another question related to the um instructional coaches I know when we had the workshop in the spring it was um voluntary and so is has that changed is there some way that if we see a teacher that really needs work that it becomes a mandatory um process instead of being volunteer for um instructional coaching Services I would say that if a principal sees a teacher that they feel um would need some
059kind of plan of improvement we've always made that coaching mandatory as part of those plans um as far as uh principes directing coaches in school buildings to work with um teachers uh that I think is part of what we're considering for the redesign I think that we um have heard from principles loud and clear that they would like more contact with coaches and be able to um work have coaches more invested in school visions and I think in general we're kind of supportive of that idea as we go through uh we'll probably have a more in-depth um or several um presentations on coaching as we get the feedback and and put things into redesign there are lots of um I would say that coaches currently spend a lot of time around novice teachers we have
060more novice and provisionally licensed teachers in this division currently than we did when the model was designed um and so some of that is about capacity of time um but I do know that this year we are working with principles the lead coaches are working with principles that if they feel that a teacher or a PLC needs support uh we are prioritizing being able to get a coach into those rooms and into that PLC okay or then my last question is about the CRT um program is that still being incorporated into everything else that we're doing that's not being pushed to the side in any way right that that's correct we still have an expectation that all of our teachers in the division uh get either a full certification or a micro credential within 3
061years of being hired or 5 years of when uh when we set that expectation at our next board meeting we will be presenting the state of the division which has some data uh embedded in that as to as the progress we're making toward meeting that goal okay thanks I would also just quickly add that that is one process Improvement around coaching that we've made this year um Miss Wood and Miss MIT Mitchell and Mr Todd um Who oversee the learning technology integration Specialists the coaches um and the equity Specialists have been having joint meetings with those groups um once a month in order to kind of align their practice uh for the bellweather report and also to be able to make all of those coaches kind of familiar with CRT and how to coach teachers
062for it uh so that it's more streamlined uh to work on instructional best practices within the kind of Realm of CRT thanks I have a question about um Can the professional learning kind of work um uh I spent a bunch of time last night looking at the um uh schedule and choices for both divisional staff and for instructional staff I was just super excited to see you know one of the concerns we had heard from many teachers and staff members is there just aren't enough choices and so it definitely seemed like there are a lot of choices as well as a lot of things very specific on concerns that we've brought up like science of reading and multiple levels depending kind of where you're sitting so really excited to see that um just what kind
063of feedback after that day happens kind of a week from Monday or Monday actually um or do you get surveys or because I think as you're kind of thinking about this longer term some of the feedback that you'll be getting from this day right at the beginning I think can help so I'm just curious how it's almost like you're on these two parallel paths that I know you're you're trying to to bring together so just love to hear a little bit more about how you kind of get feedback after the fact yeah so what we're uh in I would say within the next week the needs assessment that I mentioned earlier is going to go out and that's more of a 30,000 foot view on PD um and then we'll use that to narrow um
064getting more feedback back so we'll use that to kind of narrow and get more targeted specific feedback after events after we do professional learning we do have we do survey um the staff and ask what they found was effective what they would like more on um you know all of the logistical things so we do get specific feedback about events one of the things that we um are looking to utilize soon is is that our professional learning management system has the opportunity to automatically send out surveys once courses are completed and so we're going to look at um we're currently in the process of getting training on that system so that we can make sure that we're really consistent in soliciting feedback one of the things I think we have room to grow in and
065I'm wrestling around with a bunch of different people is how we like 3 weeks to 6 weeks later ask how is that impacting your practice now and where do you need you know like we do the immediate feedback but then there's also that follow-up feedback about six weeks out that we need to start looking at collecting too that's great yeah um and the other question I have is about the um the formative testing and we're we're only doing that in kind of grades and courses for which we are that the students would be taking an so is that true or not true true and let me like I'll hold with because what I'm think I'm I'm continuing to wrestle with as I know we all are these middle schoolers and high schoolers who aren't reading
066and so we might be talking about two separate things one is like we'll be getting better assessments on them once we kind of are able to implement some of this High targeted um intensive tutoring but is there any or you know do these two paths come together or is one about kind of so tests and reading would come in something else because I continue to worry about these kids who you know based on their so scores and reading but they're not going to be read they're at a grade level that reading is no longer tested so we don't know where they're sitting and what progress they're making or not so reading's tested in every grade 3rd through 8th so so all through our middle schools and then we have while 11th grade is our um
067is our official reading year right when they take an so test we do have reading tests developed for 9th and 10 10th grade as well so that we can see where students are so it was uh I I hesitated to put up the list of the high schools because they're so uh uh diverse we've got math tests all the way up through calculus uh for uh for kids with quarterly assessments but we don't have there's such diversity of classes at the high school level we don't have every single class uh that takes quarterly assessments but to your point absolutely uh you know we want to to do that one of the things that that I where we don't have common quarterly assessments is in our k through2 grades and so we look at uh we
068we look at things like vs uh which is a you know a new reading assessment that the state rolled out this year to tell us where kids are and what they need and again I think the the power of our quarterly assessments the way that they are currently written is that they are uh uh absolutely aligned to our standards and teachers when they uh parse out that data are really going to be looking not so much at what percentage of my kids got to pass on this or what percentage of my kids got a fail but looking at my class as a whole which standards are we strong in and which ones are we weaker in is is there a standard around comprehension of non-fiction uh that is in there that I see man the
069whole class regardless of whether they passed or not didn't do well on that that's where I know I've got a focus but then they can also get down to the individual student level and and develop an individual plan uh that can be complemented by things like high-intensity tutoring um based on some of those results thanks um two quick questions uh one may be for Megan wood um I I know I should know this and I think I possibly did once um what are the specific requirements that we have for teachers taking professional development classes and I know we do require something about CRT but are there requirements in terms of content or requirements in terms of number of credits per year um yes no yeah the state requires um and they've just shifted to and
070Claire you can correct me if I'm wrong they've just shifted to 10 years um to get a recertification but in those 10 years you have to earn a certain number of recertification points and it used to be 180 and it's 360 now right um and so the points are earned by hours you have to engage in 5 hours of professional learning in a content in order to receive to begin to receive points for it um the district does have some required professional uh development um activities we expect people to do for example responsive classroom and developmental designs um there culturally responsive teaching obviously is one of the um in-house things that we've developed but there are required um professional learning that teachers do have to engage in as well okay thank you for refreshing rebooted
071just now if I could add to that one of the things that we also recognize is as we do roll out different uh new and different curriculum curricula uh that it is important that we have standardized and required professional learning so like at whatever point we do you know elect or select a new uh reading program obviously we would be doing required professional development around that to make sure that our our teachers had the tools necessary to be successful and I guess this one may be for Mr dmer um I know you had a lot of you know generalist versus content specific um dichotomies or gradients it it I can't remember did you talk about whether we have the right ratio given all the formative assessments and all the things that are going on uh
072what do we have like 23 I think 24 I think we're staff for 24 we actually have 20 or 21 um currently that's been the same the whole time I've been on the V it has been the same um and less than the model was originally designed for but um I do think uh that is something we're considering um but we don't want to exactly land on a number until we decide on some of those Design Elements right what kind of support are we expecting coaches uh to be able to give to teachers in buildings and across the division right or do we want them going to every PLC do we want them in every classroom helping us Implement uh curricula and job embedded or um curricula and guaranteed viable curriculum and whenever those standards
073when we did this whenever it was implemented we didn't have Seal Co we didn't have LTI we didn't have some of the other supports as cor so so we're kind of looking at a broad picture of that but um in general I will say right like most most of our coaches time is taken up with the support that we've guaranteed to novices um so I think as we as we think about um the shifting of maybe that priority versus how many coaches and teachers we have I think that the conversation for um more instructional coaches in order to achieve our goals might be on the table thank you thoughts or questions I have a question um when I took Algebra 1 I was part of a pilot program where we had Algebra 1 class every
074day of the week um for the first semester and then after the first semester and the second semester we switched to every other day which was the norm I was wondering do you have any information about like was that program successful or effective and if so would it be relevant to addressing that issue with enrollment in Algebra 1 at the middle school level that's a great question I'm unaware of the data of that pilot um but I think that's something that our design team um would love to look at um but I do think even in things like high-intensity tutoring like what that schedule looks like to help students be successful in now one is something that we're we're looking at I found it really helpful because it was my first time taking like an
075every other day math class and that adjustment was really helpful for me thank you one last question sorry on the formative assessment data I mean it's formative assessment right so it's for kind of teachers to use right because I know the question is going to come up from parents from the public um from the school board about is there anything in that from that formative assessment data that would be shared um and there's so much of it obviously like to show where we are on track off track I think to the extent that any classroom assessment is shared uh you know teachers would be sharing it in the same way right so if I if I took a a unit one test in Algebra 1 uh then uh then students would see the results from
076that parents would be able to see the results from that they'd be able to have some conversation with the teacher around that uh I don't know that we've got any formal processes for any of those that are there uh but I think that uh that for the most part parents should be able to see uh results that are um that are there particularly at the secondary level you know it gets a little uh I'll have to dig a Little Deeper for the elementary level because we just don't have some of the same reporting capabilities that we do through say the parent portal uh that CHS folks those um those results that would be great I think a followup kind of answer kind of on that process because I'm sure that's going to come up as
077we go forward thanks and and teachers can see how a child did on in the elementary I guess you can look this up too how um can look back and see what issues a child had in in certain areas or because I I have heard that some teachers can't access previous year's test results and things like that and they they don't they're kind of going and blind so is the is the question will they be able to see how they did on the results of this this quarter's assessment right or previous is are the results so so we don't so this is the first year we've we've had a first quarter assessment um that's here teachers can certainly access students prior year so results uh so problematic in third grade because they they haven't taken
078one but that's why we have a growth testing now at the beginning of the year from the state so teachers would see that uh and they can see where um where students are as a starting point uh through their growth testing through the previous year's s sols and then they can then they can do a really deep dive into uh these assessments one of the major differences between looking at the so results and looking at the quarterly results is that teachers can't see the questions uh on any of the state mandated testing they can see the strand of so that it's related to but they don't know why the student might have gotten it wrong was there a distraction answer in there that everyone uh picked was the question worded in a way that might
079have been confusing to students and that's some of the work that our teachers are doing now to go back in and and kind of validate these assessments too hey if if 80% of our class got this question wrong was there something wrong with the question or did we really just not do a uh an adequate job of instructing that standard with the kids okay I just want to make sure that the teachers have access to the information they need on each student to see if they've had issues in the past or yes they access through the uh through the school testing coordinator can get teachers any of that um past uh so information absolutely have the well I I know that we had the presentation on June 8th from bellweather and this is kind of
080the first followup to it how much exposure have the teachers had to what's what's being proposed and what the thought pattern is for moving forward Ward together as a as an overall School Division what kind of exposure have they had to it now I would say most of that is coming from the individual projects that are on there so take for example the algebra 1 team that uh that Craig was talking about uh he has representatives from all of our high schools uh who are Algebra 1 teachers working together to uh to give input and to solve this problem when we look at the ELA um adoption that uh that Dr Hayes is leading there are dozens uh yeah we have a a teacher represented from every Elementary School a um El teacher represented special
081education teachers represented um from each school we have five School administrators and then we have Community Partners so there's a representation from every Elementary School within the division and uh for instructional coaches that project um at our upcoming uh Making Connections teachers will have the opportunity to weigh in we'll do a protocol a process to get information from them them um we'll also do the same thing with principles um to get information and then also with our league coaches to get feedback so each uh different a variety of stakeholders are involved with each Project based on their their um connection to the project and if you if you recall also jonno that at the end of the year last year when we received the Bell weather report we ensured that every teacher in the division
082uh got to hear that presentation prior to leaving for the summer uh so they heard that and now we're in the implementation phase where uh where it's and and one of the things that was lab and clear from Bell weather is this is a team effort right and and we've got to involve lots of folks so again looking at the status board that Jamie put together you should be able to see how we're engaging uh with stakeholders around all of those different elements of it great thank you um one thing I know Patrick you and I have talked about but I just wanted to mention for everyone listening just in case there's any um any part that's unclear the format of assessments are not a part of the grades those that those kids are getting
083for that subject or they some High School courses have chosen to make them a summative assessment as well and if they do that then they then the uh assessment falls under the same protocols we use for our grading kids get a chance if they didn't do as well as they hoped on that they get a chance to uh to get some support from the teacher and get a second chance uh at that uh so for the most part um they are they are not usually you don't say formative and summative in the same sentence fortive is if it and put it away never it then that's ative assessment if you use it uh even if there's sometimes a grade attached to it but if you use the data that's in there to inform your instruction
084and to make changes to uh help your students get stronger uh at the standards then it becomes a formative assessment okay so then with the first take be the formative data that's the data that we're having folks look at where were they on their first attempt uh with this and when when they come to the second quarter assessments they're going to be cumulative they're going to cover all of the standards that were there so if we have a standard that uh students didn't perform as well as we hoped we'll be able to see at the end of the second quarter whether we've gotten better in that strand okay thank you and then um the second thing was about uh in the instructional coaching model which I really appreciated seeing these axes I think these are
085really clear uh and I also appreciate the more disciplined approach that we're having with getting important stakeholder feedback I just didn't uh is there a timeline for that I apologize if I missed it no we didn't put a timeline in but we are uh we're meeting with principles next week um lead coaches next week instructional coaches um towards the second week of November and we're doing all the teacher um sessions and teacher feedback in the beginning of November um and then we're going to get to work pretty quickly in coming up with some some kind of design and suggestions that kind of will go along with the budget cycle um and then we'll kind of iterate the design and get feedback um on that as we go forward okay great thank you very much so
086it looks like whatever that new model is will kick in for 24 yes but not possibly before that I think that if we um have some Capac we would um we have talked about in the spring trying to play around um at a couple of schools um with how that might work okay great all right thank you all very much so thank you and I think we had um uh next scheduled a quick break for the board uh before uh Jamie comes back up to take you through the rest of the the working part of the work session so is that still the desire of the board to take a quick break sounds great to me all right so we'll see you back at 8 oh sorry 7:55 thank [Music] you e did get so
087nice but if you need iice for all right good evening again this portion of the evening is our work session around the Belle weather recommendation to develop a theory of change document so before we begin I do just want to orient you to the process that we'll use and what you will do tonight so this will be an initial step in developing our document in order to develop the acps theory of change we will gather input throughout the month of October and into November we held two Zoom sessions for all stakeholders um and a few of you came so thank you and we will hold sessions for teachers and other staff on November 6th during our um annual professional development day making connections um and we'll get board input tonight after that a small team
088will synthesize a feedback and draft a theory of change we will review the document internally in December with the goal of providing the theory of change to the community by this spring we'll have other opportunities for the community to interact with the draft and also importantly to provide feedback about where that draft is meeting expectations and where we still have work to do this will help us as we continually refine our systems and structures to be a school system who centers the instructional core at the same time we will relaunch our strategic plan with the Incorporated bellweather strategies and any updates made after creating this theory of change and then annually thereafter acps staff will make time to review and update the Strategic plan as well as the theory of change so how do we
089get here as you know bellweather prepared four reports outlining the experiences of our students of color with 15 themes and five root causes three root causes were related to the instructional core while two root causes were related to systems and structures the fourth root cause is why we are here tonight Bel weather said that one of the systemic root causes is that acps does not have a unifying theory of change linking interventions to student outcomes or to restate bellweather suggested that for every role both at schools and at central office it may be unclear how their actions Drive outcomes for students later on tonight you'll have the opportunity to review the exact themes in slides 9 through 11 in the Bell weather report we did receive some praise for a lot of the work we're
090doing however in simpler terms bellweather says that acps stakeholders shared with him the following changes challenges unclear Communications and expectations from division leadership sometimes means that we do not all have the same understanding for our desired outcomes stakeholders feel there are too many initiatives sometimes competing priorities bellweather suggested that some teachers or principles may not be clear on how they should complete a task or initiative and there are challenges with access to time or resources to complete projects and underlying all of this is attention between central office and the schools thus Bel weather recommended that we develop a theory of change document tonight let's not get too hung up on what a theory of change is or what else it can be called what bellweather is suggesting is that we need to have Clarity in
091our roles and how we work together um and actually looking at the instructional model is a good example of that about expectations and the work that they're supposed to do we'll talk about what teachers most important tasks are and what principles most most important tasks are that will help us to focus our work and also to make decisions based on this logic then we can continue to make changes to our systems and structures to support the logic this was a systemic root cause about what we can change structurally so the document will create a shared understanding of how we work together to achieve student outcomes then we can use it to check how we're doing developing the theory of change is the first step in continuing to identify places for us to improve so some
092of us still keep in touch with aesa um I don't know if I still have to pay her but I have called her a few times um I asked her when you made this recommendation how do you use this as an accountability tool um we heard that in the work sessions we had um people were asking that before then and she said the theory of change serves as a shared understanding of how the work gets done and specifically how different entities across the organization work together to drive a common outcome in Charlotte mecklinburg Schools which is the sample that they provided us the theory of change served as a tool for Designing work for example when we designed the roll out of highquality instruction materials the theory of change made it clear whose role it
093was to establish the vision versus whose job it was to create conditions for schools to do the work and it provided a framework against which to have conversations when the work wasn't being executed according to plan so what is a theory of change it's informed by root causes the logic shows how you think you will get from one place to the next if you take a look at your whole logic chain you can see where you might need to look at places to change and get better and this is the first thing that I always do for program evaluations and so it helps to sort out which processes could be improved and which are working as they're supposed to so sometimes it comes in a visual form like a lot pro model sometimes it's in
094a written form or an if then statement which is what ours will look like staff does this work when project planning or submitting a proposal for consideration in the budget so you've seen it in those forms so bellweather gave us our root causes and we have where we want to go with the acps mission statement so let's do an easier example to get a shared understanding all right so your theory of change should be informed by your root causes in the first example I made an assumption that I'm not getting up early enough but this didn't help me get to work on time because my root causes were that I stayed up too late and that I hit traffic therefore I wrote out a more detailed logic chain to say if I set a bedtime
095for myself and if I set my alarm then I will get up earlier and if I get up earlier then I will check my Google Maps for traffic and if I can pick the best route to to work then I will get to work on time and there are a lot of places in there to check the logic and make improvements so we have root causes that bellweather provided us and here's our goal which is the acps mission statement working together as a team we will end the predicted value of race class gender and special capacities for our children's Success Through high quality teaching and learning for all we have a theory of action for how we will accomplish this work it is our strategic plan and we've updated it with the Bell weather recommendations
096we never unpacked this Clause working together as a team and we'll start some of that tonight how do we work together as a team to end the predictive value of race Clash gender and special capacities for our children's success to build relationships with families and and students and to know every student so bellweather suggested in their reports that a she acps should create a document internally um but our strategic plan is inclusive of all stakeholders including family and we did gather input before making our draft and we'll continue to do that um here's an example of a finished product from a division in North Carolina so you can see what we're doing and what we're not doing so their logic goes a little something like this I'm not going to read everything in the small
097print but if the school board does these things and if the superintendent and central office leaders do these things then principal can do these other things so that every teacher can prepare all students and we will see our students achieve succeed and Thrive um and they use this as a framework in conjunction with their strategic plan so they have this document a strategic plan and then their portrait of a learner all right so let's get to work we will move down to your speed dating tables um there's some packets down here with some pens but basically we'll have three rounds and these are the same questions we are using with other stakeholders um they're parallel in form so you've got some you had some reading materials and they're also attached to these packets down here
098um so we can take a few minutes to refresh if you need it or we can just jump right into the first question that's refresh okay we'll take about five minutes all right and then we'll start round one with the first question which for you as a student it's the same parallel structure so as a student Schoolboard member what are the most important things you can do what do you need from us to make it happen and how will you engage other students okay does anyone have any questions how do we arrange around the table any any way you want okay you sit across from one person so between each question I'm will ask you um when we're done for you to record your responses on the sheet so when you open up your packets
099you'll have the questions written on there um and also some room on the paper and I'll collect these back from you so I can have all of your responses individually um and I'll try to take some notes while you talk to I think the cross talk is going to be harder I don't think but it has to be public [Music] okay we should actually table this F so [Music] this they on Wheels but our chair is so basically the structure will be like you guys will talk across from it's speed dating I've never done it but you know it's a cool thing to do these days um you'll talk across and then we'll rotate the second question so in your packets you should just a little paragraph summarizing the research and then if you want
100to review um the Bell weather slides those are the last thing and actually slide 11 I think is the most important one the last one that's all about the system stuff you've got the first question when I was briefing you there's some more Matt you'll be talking to each other um Ellen and Cas will'll be talking to each other across around question one which is as a school board member one of the most important things that can do to end the research one that I pull that you probably already looked at it's from Washington it had really good you know the five key to each other back so that's a good everybody on this side will stay in the same place Judy come down here joh seat everybody else will slide down so you've got
101a new part for the second question uh and after each one you'll have a couple minutes to record record so if you don't feel like recording while you're talking you'll have some time for that yes so they ready for question one are they reading I think they're taking five minut you have any questions okay are we reading should I start okay so the first question is as a school board member or a student School Board member what are the most important things that you can do to end the predictive value of race class gender and special capacities for our children success let's say um bring up issues that okay one thing I think I could do as a school board member would yeah I I guess I'm trying to figure out is there think about
102the program we are advising may like say be address and to make sure that that program is being implemented make sure that it's being implemented so that the kids can receive benefits that would be one like we which is based on the strategy which we all believe in how do show our right show show what we want to do oury our budget decisions um almost in the middle of that shift people our talent Dev did a lot talking like thinking out loud right so of like ESP from home that you're like I'm thinking about it for myself you see my product but you don't see my process and I do wonder some of our coms like we can make that tie through like okay I'm choosing to fun like put them and supporting programs more
103students schol add because most of those things that would helped gied students could really help all students you know if it's implemented in a certain way and most of the gifted program things were really like enrichment things so by having all students be enriching all kids that's a good one because your point is yes we do these things but not high expect it might not be apparent why I'm to question we always tie it back to like okaying guess another one that would be almost related to that is um having more student and parent input on certain classes like oural especially change now but some others times if guance counsel that's not saying doing a good job some into class and that could end up with that class not being very diverse was if we
104represent the values of the community champion every joke yeah I was very I was interested in how simple that if was and that seems like it simp simple yeah um right so I think and maybe even the way that we um that's what we do we're just child then as you're saying like being more transparent about decision making and um because how one time once you entered that track that was it there wouldn't be a way to sort of and so that could end up really sort of uh sidetracking or tracking certain kids I I think on that Vision I think we're using the vision of the Strategic plan however I do wonder if we should have some kind of additional conversation like when I read that this is what I mean you say what
105I like like we could all be interpreting something like that a little bit differently and it might be worth us having another conversation about like what does it mean to me in terms of just to make sure all aligned right right and that's um we might always we almost knew where those culturally responsive teaching that would be really important to and that could even in a way sometimes overlap what you're saying about the U you know F force or certain programs that students would be designed to to have well I might think about that but not the kids on fire four plans but like right so like what would we you think about that yeah I think that um yeah we don't do the quiet Parts out loud or the I think and I think
106that's helpful for us as a board and I think that's helpful for I think so too get more input from the community about what the community thinks we should be doing to uh make sure that all of our students are achiev this is the next question but in a way I also I know we could do a whole lot of surveys but maybe just trying to get more Community involved the cabinet than others like kind of that like having similar conversations like that about like okay you know okay going to put this of information collecting is at least from a student perspective is going to be way more effective than a survey um just from a student perspective if somebody told me like if I was in my home room class hey they're making us
107take for I wonder this is yeah I think it would be I think circumstances around when I started like I think we didn't do a lot of the we did not things we probably my gosh I didn't no yeah so I think we should be what are the things that we the time that we take I know there's the public meeting thing that we have to figure out about kind of things right yes okay what are the most important things that I can do to help students achieve in acps so and maybe so it's the funding but then also showing take about 10 more seconds to wrap up okay maybe in a way even been having more um programs in the community that would be starting in the school but like overlapping into the community
108in some way like some of the things that might students might do for their projects having those projects involved in the community now that you had your speed conversation make sure you take just a couple minutes um to write down everything you were thinking's an overi okay oh yeah so can she just write for both of us or do you want us to write for both of us um as long as it's on somebody's paper the ideas that you were capturing okay not sure whether mine is legible to anybody except for myself so what we're going to do I'll wait for to finish instead of keep talking okay so I'm have this back row move cuz you guys are scored up here okay who's staying this roow stay everybody rotate so we okay okay okay
109yes thanks Rebecca oh your penmanship is so much better I'm just so do we stay with the same question we go question from my superintendent oh yeah yeah okay okay okay all right hope very good spe dating with you okay all right welcome gr right thank you all right so um just one thing to add in case this helps some of the discussion um on our smaller team there's um a parent and she was talking about when we make our document on the back having like a rubric because in all these conversations when we get input a teacher or a principal or a family member will say I really want to um be engaged by my teacher in this way and they give specific examples so I think if you have one of some of
110those broad ideas like I want to engage with my community or we're going to set the vision having some of the like specific examples we can create a rubric to hold ourselves accountable on the back with some examples so our second question is you talked about all of these things that you need to do and you work very closely with us and the superintendent so what do you need from the superintendent and the central office staff to make this happen I feel like we should go over the things we talked about just a little bit because that gives us information about what are we talking about here good idea so so we talked about gifted versus Talent Development programs um and that shift in making all to programs more accessible um we talked about more
111stakeholder input special education we talked about support implementing 54 plans and enforcing that implementation that's a problem we intervie try to find out what we can do they have like more personto person interviews or surveying instead of you know like online or then we talked about great that you read yours because I didn't have any of those making sure that um I mean we process as a school board member our job is RA issues say for example that may the teach we advocate for money that's a lot of what we do we try to sell what we're doing to the the CRT trading we pass concrete policies some practics that kids are develop in those some classes sharing them with the community if you're going to increase the number number of instructional coaches what is
112the impact of that they develop projects and so Shar oversight and ask questions of division leaders hire the right people um okay one thing I can um communicate with the public better that's always been difficult um about test results we've held I've held dozens of community forums and have two people show up you know I mean um Comm Foster Community engagement to increase make and then approve 30 party third party evaluations of how do not just judge you know measuring that what you would say yeah the Bell weather was clean and unated anyway that's not saying that he doesn't do that anyway yeah it's just something we need yeah right first of I think I think okay and there needs to be a better onboarding process for the student representative I absolutely agree with you
113I mean I've been saying that for a long time but I haven't acted I I think it really so I think the superintendent central office staff need to I mean there's two key reasons to have student Representatives one is to expose student Representatives good local government policym but the other is to be a conduit for information about what students are thinking um but what we do is publish the agenda and if you don't understand anything on there why is this an issue again you know but maybe also we'll do better like more from them more actually we're going to have to be on board you know we always talk about the surveys and I guess a lot of people are fed up with surveys but still maybe more it'll be the new bio and it'll
114also be the new atge the new at large suggest recommendation and I want to know that they've done the disciplined work of getting feedback from stakeholders right yeah yeah yeah right yeah so maybe more feedback or more details on feedback from stakeholders um I want timely Candor from superintendent um about issues that arise uh with staff and and Matt does a good job of letting us know if there's a problem but um may even uh some suggested broad updates things like if there's a certain maybe more suggestions about things still available you know students school board members could par not getting it from the board maybe just coming to us sometimes with more cabinet meetings to work and that was useful because there's a whole lot of issues that never get brought up at the
115school board meetings um like going back to student representative I like always having theef you yeah I mean what you what we should have done is make sure you were familiar with the B weather report why we had it why we did it um what was unusual about it what was unusual about it is that it was shared in public just rather than being a quiet diagnostic that you talk to with your doctor and um a lot of but there's a lot of history with a lot of this um that you shouldn't have you can't participate as well yeah the comments you do make are great actually op but but she would be armed and dangerous if you knew more more about what we were doing um um I think I mean a lot I
116think support I think the school board although former the superintendent works for the school board like as part of your being included in his school walks um makes it easier School participation I also think in terms of emails that we're sending I think they could be clearer and more um more focused more I want to be able to see the subject line and know what we're talking about because I think that I don't know that would be still for Community but um I think we do get Communications about everything but um maybe sometimes like for instance when we found out about the bus scheduling was already a done day you know we didn't find about it in the fance so maybe sometimes just finding out about something timely before it actually has hit the fan
117you know like in advance to give us some chance to prepare and get ready for certain things maybe timely information sharing yeah going gambling okay so take take another minute or two and just I have my mother writing down your all of your thoughts for that question I know okay we got all right is this legic yeah we W need sharing with you I used to be a high school English teacher I can read it all okay I promise you take okay yes that's yeah clear data from superintendent okay all right I think that says good okay good um Leon yeah good Leon yeah yeah yeah more details on feedback from stakeholders details on programs for work thinking about um what's that record good we no thinking about you were just bragging Jamie I know
118I know I know I know but she's she's done she's done a good job real transparency and um timely implementation right okay yeah information sharing right Ely information yeah okay okay very I'll figure I'll figure it out I'll figure it out yeah yeah that is information chap oh yours is good see onboarding student reps and schoolb members timely updates participation and cabinet meetings support Schoolboard participation and school walks okay clear email yeah that's great handwriting okay you should see mine look at this this is oh that is really nice I know right all really nice all right so I go to where Rebecca is you are going to stand up you're going to stand up and you're going to go where um Dr Rin is and everybody's going to rotate down one okay you guys
119are stuck like blue it's nice because we're too TI we're too tight okay how can I engage my magisterial district stakeholders to best represent theud that is the hardest thing it's very very hard it is what's the last question all right how can I engage we have a the change it's going complete complete a circle and so all of the other stakeholders we kind of ask like one up and one down um and so for you all you know your circle is your stakeholders because you represent your District so how can you engage your magisterial District stakeholders so that you can best represent the students in your District um and for you it could be the same question or other students so for you Dr it could be any stakeholders if it's asking about just
120representing the students in the district well they're all in one place so like one thing um Patrick and some of the other staff they they went to a National Conference it's called Ed leader 21 and like they they were doing some stuff around Human Resources because you know our work forces are really unstable right now but I'm I'm and so one of the things that we learned like as a takeaway and we've been talking about is how to have like large group meetings where you invite people in and they just basically come to a meeting and there's really no agenda you don't you don't like do a bunch of Powerpoints and stuff but you uh basically are there to to maybe share a couple things that that the school system is working on that they
121need to know about but then the rest of it is just feedback just allowing people to criticize or ask questions or do whatever and responding to them not in a defensive way but articulating right and clarifying and listening and saying well we can change you know there's things we can change we'll take that back to the drawing board so I was brainstorming over the past few days and what we're going to what we're going to try is doing that on on work days because the teachers will already be at work I've gone to P if you said something like people be the cabinet which is like the staff that's here pick like four places to go and then you know put out Communications weeks in advance we'll have coffee and donuts and it'll be during
122work time when the teachers don't have to do professional development and things like that but they won't have students either and so they could just come to these meetings so that's that's one thing we're going to try spaghetti dinner at the school so for me I think mean the biggest thing I do in the foundation we've been talking about maybe family night maybe you have majority of my time you know at the scho maybe you have you know computer literacy maybe you have adult literacy classes maybe you have talk ISS vouchers for something or other I don't know curricul something talked what do they say a lot of people don't know about it which is the big probably theg it's hard to represent J Graham and I went to the college day just awesome from
123my perspective not to like or anything but I think I'm doing a good job at alumni alumni getting people his and in college or out just out of college just talking about the experience and just like they had strategy your Strate your strategy really is to make take make every time that you're talking with one of your peers an opportunity to listen to them hear what their concerns are and then also try to share information in a way that they'll understand it and don't really Overlook any opportunity yeah another thing I was talking about with and if we could be a PA was from my perspective as a student I will even though I'm into politics and stuff I will always be more active and more engaged in giving better answers when I'm talking to
124someone face to face when I'm doing survey yeah yeah um and i' I mean I've gone to ER the the I felt so accom well you have too the community breakfast Center to engage with other organizations or other you know businesses in the I think that's important I think if we're really going ele andu I mean for me there's how old are you can you vote yet no I'm 1 there's how do you engage people who don't have kids in the school now I mean they may have they may have actually been in our schools how do you engage that that's like something I've had to learn to do too because I'm more of like a you know how people can be task oriented or people oriented most mostly I'm not super people oriented and
125so I've had to learn over time uh to basically if someone's talking to me even my even my wife right sometimes I go home she'll start talking to me and I start doing something else she's like she'll be like you're not every time I try to talk to you you walk away or you're doing something so I've had to learn just to kind of stop where I am sit down or look the person in the face and just really listen to what they're saying and and recognize that's like um a gift that that person's giving me that they will talk to me and communicate with me um yeah I mean but I mean I think in in the foundation we're talking about fundraising and you we have I talked to this fellow who was a
126fundraiser for UVA well he had a list of alumni you know and you know asking to that's a s that's a uh and um of course they're also you know much older than our alumni but I think we could do a much better [Music] job get the most information but I think for me I'm very interested in looking at the Lamb's Lane campus as not just a community school but a Community campus so if you did have a well so one strategy I do as well as every year I go out and visit every school about an hour and I know it doesn't sound like much but it's you know once a week for sure I get out to a school and I walk around with the principal I interact with teachers and staff that
127are at the school I interact with students um the problem with that the the positive of it is that I I do it gives me some reality like grounding things in reality and every week I write that Weekly check-in that I was talking about and I and it's a chance for me to celebrate this schools the downside of it is is it isting a wiet but not like a deep like it's not deep you know you so it's more about just showing a presence I guess but it would be interesting then to your point to think about like possibly scheduling some type of an assembly or something during the intervention period you know it' be interesting to see if students would show up when I was principal at Almar High School um during our intervention
128period I did something called student Senate and every every there were 99 classrooms at the school at that time and so big I can't even St it I know and every I had every intervention period send two students to the Senate so we had 180 kids there and they they were kids that were hanging out in the intervention period so typically they weren't like you know they were kids that were your regular kind of everyday kids and then I I would be there with the student council president and we would just talk about what was going on at the school and hear what their concerns were and we did it four times a year and it was it was great fun because for a lot of those kids they're like wait what am I doing
129here you know and I do think you I still think that sounds really effective oh yeah it was fun the kids were fun and we heard things it was like there was a student named James bour he was the first student council president I did that with he and he said you know this really is changing what I think about the end of the time for that round so take another minute or two to finish up your conversation and finish writing down your thoughts all right thanks for talking with me opal your see what patri was supposed to say formative assment but I actually I got assment can then there's high stakes [Music] assment I'll are I wasn't I teaching for you got it I took cop's notes it's okay so to wrap up our
130work session um we'll just spend a few minutes talking about what did you hear from each other that you want to share out with the group what's that are we're not going to go question by question we'll just whatever people want to talk about that came up while you were [Music] speaking so I could go first just but uh so I had the pleasure of meeting with jonno on the first question Ellen on the second and opal on the third on the first thing uh jonno had talked about the board setting uh bold expectations and then having accountability and recognition for for achieving them or achieving mile posts creating sustainability of things that work uh accountability for follow-through on goals and a simple Vision that can be communicated in ways that stakeholders would understand and
131being present in the work um Ellen really kind of boiled down the second question to uh ensuring that the superintendent and his staff Grant make sure that there's open access for the board to staff and uh interactions with staff and and information ultimately trust open and consistent communication and then follow through um and then being sure that the central staff supports all the staff and then when I talked with opal it was a really good conversation because I kept thinking about uh engaging as like big groups you know having big meetings big assemblies things like that her way of learning from stakeholders is really taking every top opportunity in having conversations with their peers to use that as an opportunity to listen deeply to what they're talking about and what their concerns are and then
132also when when appropriate you know offering information that would Empower them um with respect to question one and maybe that's the only one I'll answer um I mean I see the role of the School Board is um as Matt said one of oversight in setting expectations but it's also uh advocacy uh both to the community and to our colleagues On The Board of Supervisors it is working hard to get the finances in place that we can do what we want to do both in terms of creating learning spaces and supporting the Staffing that we need to get the work done um uh also hiring the right people I mean we don't have a big hiring window Dr HW but I mean setting um you know that's part of of developing the leadership to take any
133kind of strategies forward um and then I think uh work with the soup to engage third- party evaluations like we did with weather I think that's important to have a a fresh set of eyes on things now and then to make sure that we're we're in the right ballpark I'm going to jump to question three um one of the things Rebecca and I talked about is how to make it easy for parents to engage or stakeholders District stakeholders to engage because we know that a lot of parents are frankly exhausted working so what can we do to make it easy to communicate with us and to engage with them being present is one of them and in uh group in a question three also Jano and I talked about um maybe even uh organizing groups
134for parents so that the parents might be able to from each other gather information on how to help their students better or just uh s to just knowing each other they might be able to communicate better and work within the school better and and another part to that too was simply inviting parents to come who normally don't come uh to the schools so that they they let them know they're welcome that's something that Kate and I uh ran into when we did the uh um meetings in 17 or 18 and uh there were parents back time way back then and yeah and uh uh parents from certain Hispanic populations never went to the schools in their country so they didn't know that they would would be welcome or invited to come uh here and schools
135like uh the old kale school back in that era did a great job of welcoming in parents and it's continued through the Mountain View days and and uh um it's it's it's something the teachers enjoy it's something that the parents enjoy and the kids are thrilled I'll take a stab at at the third one too um I always like to think of our stakeholders as not just the families of our students but the broader Community because the broader Community is probably is the majority of the of the population in alol county and they're the ones who who approve the you know the tax increases and we really do have a job in engaging the Greater Community I mean I've gone to some of the um Community breakfasts I mean I think those are good I
136think we need to build on that and get more more folks showing up um you know when we have a specific ask like again in the way back time for the the school bond referendum we went around we went around and did the circuit you know with the real estate groups and the Kanas and the the uh rotary clubs and the senior center and went and talked to people about specific things and we got a great response uh We've not done that I've not done that or been a part of that I know um I think I think it's challenging enough sometimes just to find the time to go and visit our schools but I think I think that's important to do and we also talked a bit about engaging our alumni better because I
137think for a variety of reasons I'd like to do that just to get some feedback on if if we are measuring our complete success by how many kids we graduate I think 5 years out we might get different kinds of responses about how well we have in fact prepared citizens and workers and people but I also think they could be a great source of support uh too um anyway another thing that we talked about um with uh number three is some of the great work that's been going on in the schools to um better engage students like Hispanic Heritage Month um johon o Graham and I went to the college day um for that um so I think tapping into some of that great work and being a part of some of it um will
138help you know for us to understand a little bit and represent students who we are not hearing from as much and families ultimately um who we're not hearing from as much and importantly to balance influence um and representation so that we can hear and represent all of our students uh I was looking at this um the Charlotte mecklinburg if and then so that thing um and for the first question it says if the Charlotte meinburg Board of Education represents the values and priorities of community and secures needed funds provides necessary policy and advocates for all children which makes sense I think for any School Division and ours too so for the first question Rebecca and I were really talking about how we can do that um by increasing the transparency of our decision-making and really
139saying all the parts out loud when we have these discussions and having more robust discussions when we're talking about funding like does this really make sense to our goal um one thing reca Shar that I love is that she has that goal written down and then makes sure that every decision that she makes centers that is that correct yeah no another piece of that is your point is like this thinking out loud I think often times we you know because you know the hours get late um you know have shorter comments and maybe some of this is this this idea of thinking out loud and working out loud where we really are saying not just kind of our question but I'm asking this question because if I Center on this goal this does not seem
140to be in line with our goal and how do we you know make some of that our thinking which is in our head kind of more more public um and showing how it is our decisions are tied to these kind of this goal that we have essentially any other [Music] thoughts okay um so just as a reminder we're going to use all of this input to draft um a theory of change internally um and then we will be bringing that back for review um this winter and presenting it to the public this spring so do you have any more questions about this work um or anything that we talked about tonight okay oh sorry okay oh did you have a question no oh I I did just have one other thought that I was thinking
141of after um and I know Mr Dom's gone um home but I one thing about the instructional coaching model and I wonder if it's part of a culture here that's unspoken um is you know one of the axes was oh can people come from outside the division or people have to be from inside the division and I think in looking at that axis and just saying again the quiet part out loud um I think we've had some really good hires from outside the division I think it's really important when you're looking at change work to get fresh perspectives um so I'm glad that we're looking at that and then I hope that that continues throughout our thinking in all this I do have one more question Jamie um you said in terms of developing the
142theory of change then it would impact our strategic plan so we have a cabinet retreat in December we'll have just the draft theory of change then but I think if we can look at some of these things that we're writing down in terms of accountability and you gave some examples tonight right like you said if we um really are listening um sharing our thoughts with the community and an example is thinking out loud while we're speaking and you gave a lot of other examples if we sort of have a rubric with our theory of change with some key examples um I think that will help inform the thinking in checking our strategic plan and what we have in there for strategies and also what we're prioritizing as our strategies we also um will continue to
143just use this document as another lens to think about the structures that we have in place across the division um you know we were looking at systemic changes in root causes and recommendations four and five and so there's a lot of procedural things that we do across the division that I think if we were really centering instruction and trying to collaborate with principles and getting input from teachers and all of these things it would look different and so when when we're making decisions about projects and things that we're implementing how do we do that so that we're doing these things that we say we want to do um and it won't be perfect but it will be another way to think about it before you jump into the work all right okay thank you very
144much you thank you Jamie thank you thank you I know yall now I'm going to collect all your tests sorry thank [Music] you didn't wrote for thank you very much Jamie all right we're back we're down to other business by school board members Andor superintendent any other business all right hearing none this meeting is adjourned