001recording in progress e e e PA this meeting of a work session to order for the Anchorage School District this is a work session on March 18th at 4:01 pm and roll call in the room we have member Jacobs member Donley myself member hman and member Wesson uh Missing is member bellany Wilson and Higgins do we have anyone online okay and no members are currently online I think we do have a quorum just barely and uh I will turn it over to the superintendent thank you Mr President uh so today's work session will focus on the changes to school start times that went into effect this year so we'll begin the presentation with an overview of the timeline of events that led to the decision and we'll provide a snapshot of some relevant data points
002um two other things I want to note um one is the ASD has implemented a number of changes in addition to the school start times which include sixth grade to middle school as one example um and and there are others but what we're attempting to do is to use a k Square methodology to discern if there's statistical significance um in changes from this year to last year but with all that said because there's so many different inputs um into how ASD is operating these past couple of years we really have to look at any data point with a grain of salt um just so we can look at this through the research lens we can only discern correlation not conation from this particular type of methodology and any correlation or statistically significant data point is
003reflective of all the inputs not necessarily school start times by itself in fact if we were interested in uh more rigorous typ of methodology that would require um likely multiple years according to research best practice so with that said we're going to show you some interesting data points and I would like to note that member Bellamy has joined us in the room all right well good afternoon um so our very first spot we we're just kind of go back in time and talk a little bit about the historical context in January of 2023 the school board directed this Administration to research available options for school start time changes engage in information gathering activities and provide a recommendation to the board for consideration so between February and March of 2023 we collaborated with Shannon Bingham of
004Western demographics and carried out um 14 focus groups we conducted interviews with numerous medical professionals hosted three Community Town Hall meetings collected 9900 survey responses from the broader ASD Comm community and in April of 2023 we had a recommendation um we presented the findings of all that work that we did and then presented a recommendation to the board and on May 9th of that year um the board approved school new school start times which would take effect a year later and I and I just bring up that in that recommendation it was for that particular year but the board of course gave us an extra year to prepare for that um just kind of looking at school start times and as far as board goals go um really the board goal on the percent of
005students students graduation college career life Readiness as measured by the four-year graduation rates will increase from 81% in June of 2023 to 90% in June of 2028 and of course the initiative description is changing the start times and during that change we changed Elementary went from 9:00 a.m. um to starting at 8 8: a.m. Middle School moved from 8:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and high school moved from 7:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. and when we get kind of we're trying to figure out all the different kind of data points that we can look at and the first one that we're going to look at is um daily attendance rates um the data for the next few slides was pulled from the data dashboard um just yesterday um and it's around the actual attendance and if
006you look as absenteeism by month we have a 4-year look at this 2021 and 2022 to the current year for the first semester um there really isn't hardly anything of significance um changes you know in 2021 we had 88% for overall attendance and in in this year in the first semester we had 89.7 so it really isn't that big of a difference within those four years and so statistically it it's not statistically significant we didn't have hardly any kind of change for the first semester of this year when we break that up into elementary middle and high the Elementary attendance rate um went from 89 to 90 just over just over one and a half percent changed in the four years um and that number really doesn't reflect any significant changes as well so they're
007not statistically significant um we do have it broken down by month if you if you look um we kind of although it's very minimal that it does change August September October November December but that does that across all four years Middle School um also went from almost 89% to 90% so just a increase of 1 % um and is not statistically significant and then High School um had a about 610 of 1% change in the four years um and just slightly less than last year 12 hundreds of a percentage point from um last year to this year so none of those were statistically significant as far as attendance rate goes when we move over and start looking at Chronic absenteeism and percent chronic abs ism is of course that percentage of students who Miss 10%
008of school days excused or unexcused um this data we pulled on uh February 4th from the data dashboard and it is also having to do with the first semester um we we only started measuring chronic absenteeism last year so we only have two years of data right now for the first semester um elementary and middle school did have significant the are statistically significant um changes in elementary um decreased little over about a percentage point and a half in Middle School actually decreased over three percentage points so those are you know we decrease chronic absentees absenteeism we want to decrease so those two um are statistically significant the high school level though um that one did go up a little and that level is not statistically significant when you look at period 1 F rates and
009we were just looking at period one on this um this was pulled from q and excludes like Alternative School charter schools um and then we also excluded sixth graders because we had the sixth grade change going and it was hard to take out the three schools that had the sixth graders beforehand so we only looked at grades seven and eight from middle school and the F rates for middle school went down 9/10 of a percentage Point High School went down 4/10 of a percentage point so overall we went down about 610 of a percentage Point not statistically significant as far as F grades F rates go and I do want to note that these grades were after our extended school years and those opportunities for students to actually make up their grades if they weren't
010passing right at the end of the first semester so this this is actual data that happened and it's actual FS for the um first period semester one first period grades I do want to interject real quick that member Higgins has joined us online as of a few minutes ago all right then we have a little more on attendance and the next one is on am and period one tardies in elementary school we take we take attendance in the morning and in the afternoon so we're looking at the am tardies and the period one for the secondary schools um for the Tardis and of course and again we excluded the alternative Charter and qualification divisions in all grade six students and for these all of these are significantly um statistically significant the elementary had an had
011an increase of tardies of five percentages percentage points Middle School however decreased 8/10 and and high school did go up 410 of a percentage point so those all all of those were considered statistically significant uh results now kind of looking at the report summary um the first thing is like Dr Bryant said is really to evaluate a big change like start times you really after one semester it's almost impossible to really have a correlation to start time to any of the data so really you need to look at a longitudinal study or have at least two to three years of data to actually determine um whether or not the school T start times are are uh how effective they are or uneffective so um looking at that you know we're kind of looking at different
012types of data points that we might be able to um pull in um we've looked a little bit on uh uh mental health because that's one of the things that we're looking at the problem is like with mental health we we don't have a really good mechanism to actually um uh measure that right now we have a lot of different pieces but none of it um really is good right now we have some pieces coming in and we're adopting uh data data program for that but right now we don't have that so really looking at um we need more time to be able to determine whether or not the data is a with school start times um and if whenever we have a big change there's always an adjustment period um we are we literally
013this data was for one semester after we started um it's essential to consider that students parents the community all have to have some time to adjust um and get into routines to new schedules um sometimes school students take up to several months um to get into those new types of routines and these adjustments phases could influence both attendance and academic performance in the short term so um we really want to look at the data over an extended have some internal factors um of course along with our start times we did move the sixth graders to middle school we also have the late start PLC Mondays um we have some PBIS implementations as well so there's a lot of things that are overlapping so being able to pull out exactly this is starttime um data is
014pretty difficult so we need to be able to have more time and then we also have external factors when we're looking at attendance and and grades and stuff you know weather conditions holidays socioeconomic challenges and shifts in school policies can significantly influence attendance and academic performance and um sometimes these are out of our control right so we have to look at those as well when we're making any kind of analysis um because they could complicate things as well so I guess at at the end here I just want to reiterate what Dr Bryan said around we need more time we need to be able to have more data we need to be able to have more data points to be able to have anything to be able to show any kind of correlation to um
015attendance or academics as far as um as school start times effect go so that's it for our I know this is very quick but that's it for our um our brief if you have any questions we'd be willing to try to answer them I am wondering if there's been any feedback about after school activities and if they've been affected one way or another and before we start um discussing this I want to be clear that we intentionally focused on the major quantitative factors because that's the data that we had at hand and any commentary on any qualitative data points are purely speculative and should not be used to for decision-making purposes but um our team is welcome to share anything that you've heard anecdotally anecdotally I I I'll tell you Middle School um events in
016that evening especially when it's dark have been been an issue that they they sometimes stay much later than they have in the past um when they're having events of course um but as far as like the number of students that are participating I don't believe there was any kind of real significant reduction in the number of students that actually participated um but we also haven't gone through the entire school year yet with all of the different events and member Higgins has a question did he hear you oh sorry and he may be having trouble unmuting and we'll come back around member Jacobs yeah thank you Mr chair and appreciate the the presentation and the update I understand that there's a lot of caveats there because the data that we have is only for a semester
017um I was following along using the data dashboard and one of the the areas of concern for me when we made this change was the combination of PLC Mondays plus the the latest Middle School start time for a group of students That Couldn't um transport themselves to school without assistance um I was interested to look at the breakdown and it seems like Middle School um vulnerable populations R CIT um child in transition or homeless students economically disadvantaged um English language learner free and reduced lunch students all seem to have um what if it if the trend holds what could be statistically significant bumps at the middle school level I won't ask about that because it's only a semester and so I'll pivot to a question about what I think I remember from our conversation when
018we moved to in this direction was we were planning to make um our buildings available before school on PLC days um are we still doing that what has the usage been like um any information on that we can [Music] share you know I haven't other than the first few weeks of the school year I haven't really heard anything um Kiren have you heard anything at all um could you just repeat the question my job sorry about that yeah sure no problem um I think the question boils down too how are we still making our buildings available on the middle school buildings available early during PLC Mondays given the I think 10:30 time essentially and what has the usage been yes thanks for repeating the question I appreciate it um so the answer is yes um
019we still are letting parents um drop students off our security is there um it's it's not necessarily um really well utilized at this point in the year as people have gotten into a routine I would also of the groups that you were talking about sometimes I want to knock on wood when we have a bump like that but those students more no mostly ride the school bus and also like our child and transition kids take taxis so they have that specific time to get to that bus or anything so that might be a thing we can look at just a follow comment if I might Mr chair yeah I think it's it's great I hope the trend holds and I you know so I will also knock on what over here I just know that
020that was an area of concern that we heard from the community as well as um I think some board members mentioned that um having a start time that late without um having the same level of supports for middle school students might be a problem and thus far the data hasn't hasn't U indicated that that bears out but um I I think this is worth monitoring and I hope we continue to review this data on a regular basis U maybe not in this same formal way that we have our goal monitoring process but um at least for the next few semesters if not the next few years I feel like we we owe it to the community and for those who um still would be interested if given the choice to revert back to our all
021schedules to to continue to look at this data and scrutinize it thanks member [Music] Higgins St word member lence thanks um thank you for the report and thanks for the questions that have come forth so far I'm just I'm wondering about the chronic absenteeism or really any of this data sort of postco my sense is that nationally chronic absenteeism has been a challenge but people have been working on it do we have any sense of how the progress that we appear to have made aligns with national Trends are we an outlier like where do we fit in a bigger we didn't look at okay any kind of comparison to other places that all did there you are we we did not for the purposes of this slide but that's something that we we could take
022a look at and um provide an update maybe in the board connect yeah that I think that's just helpful to under I mean we are a part of a a bigger narrative and um I'd be curious to know whether we're making head you know making gains or um sort of part of a uh part of a recalibration of a lot of kids and families are across the country member bamy sure thank you Mr chair thanks for this I mean it's hard after a semester not quite a semester just over a semester I guess to get this to try to figure out whether whether it's working but I do thank you guys for the information so in terms of uh and I know you were just giving us um information on attendance and absenteeism f rate
023party those are all indicators um of how kids are getting to school and when they're getting to school I guess so uh Transportation wise are we doing okay with the schedule I mean do we have any um I mean are we because I know we had to Mr Anderson can have an answer about that we may not have any um initially when the school year first started because there were so many changes to include sixth grade to Middle School there it took the traffic engineer about a month to redo all the lights and everything else the other piece happened was a lot of people who were driving um started putting their kids on a bus again and and so the the traffic flow got better um I I haven't heard any complaints on the on
024it I just wondered if we that was one the you I got a lot of emails the first month of school and then they really tapered off in okay other than bus is getting rear ended by a car and being late things like that um that are kind of normal in the city but okay with the with the elementary schools going first the Elementary buses have been pretty close to being on time this year it's the usually they were the ones that were having the hard time because if you're late in elementary was the last ones to get to school then the last ones to be picked up we don't have a really good way to compare it to other years right now but okay I do know that it's gone the elementary has gone
025down because we continue to get um concerns mostly with flipping Elementary with I can't remember if it's middle or making making Elementary La I guess and that's something I mean I don't know that we don't need to discuss it today but any any impacts on uh plc on the PLC Mondays and how that I know what it looks like for for attendance but it any impacts of that I know we we started a lot of things at the same time and they're considering what the chaos could be I think it's going pretty good but at the same time um what do you guys think so we had PLC start a year ago a year ago so the difference now is just PLC those days are pretty quite a bit later now um for some of
026them the elementaries are kind of right back to where they were pretty much um but we don't really see a significant change in this in the absenteeism and that on those particular days on those days okay yeah and then I guess the other part is I guess I would like to maybe hear in some way from the principles and the teachers on the start times and I I know they feel you know they talk to you guys and they respond to you guys but I I would at some point I don't know how you would do it but maybe we could have a work session with a few principles from each level uh to talk about start times and and impacts beyond what we're talking about here today that's just a request and that's it
027for me oh I did have a follow-up child care I know member Jacobs asked about child care in the morning um what what about after school I mean is that especially at the elementary level are we doing we do are we partnering we we still have in most schools that Jim kind of has the probably the best data on that we we do have several schools with Head Start programs we also have schools that have their own initiatives to provide after school care um and we're working with a potential um organization for all day Child Care at an elementary school sometime in the future oh good to know all right some of the things that we heard early on was it was going to be actually easier to find some of the employees because it
028wasn't broken up into before and after it's mostly just after a bigger trun of time okay member Jacobs yeah um Mr Anderson said four words I think that that peaked an area of interest um about maybe traffic having improvements and I'm assuming that came from or a traffic engineer at the mo MOA and I would imagine that those folks don't deal a ton in anecdotal evidence and so I was curious if if there's any data from the mo MOA we've actually received as to traffic improving due to this change and then more students taking the bus is that something we actually know or is that um I can check I know that um spefic specifically you know MIRS hando rig um the Traffic Engineers spent a significant amount of time adjusting lights at the Abbot
029Loop building they they adjusted those lights repeatedly until traffic got better but I don't think we have any way to know exactly how many students transition from car to bus um I don't think that kind of data would would exist other than we know in the beginning of the year especially with brand new sixth graders going into middle schools there was a lot more vehicle traffic and it got less but we didn't have anyone out there counting the number of cars that went through or anything like that Mr check I follow so two follow questions and do we count our our ridership on bus so like how many students are assigned to the bus and then if to to I guess I was a follow question to to the first half of what I asked
030if the Moa has any data or has done any analysis year toe as to what traffic looks like and if they've done any um research on it I'm not asking anyone to do new work but if something already exists I'd be happy to look at it thanks I haven't seen any research from the mo MOA um but I can certainly reach out to them and see if they have the data from the first couple months um next school year we're already piloting it now um where we'll have uh every bus will be tracked by GPS parents will be able to go online and see where the bus is at um and as a result of that as a child gets on a bus um they'll basically log in with a swipe card or or something
031and so at that point in time we'll have um very accurate data on bus ridership but we don't have an automated system to collect that data right now um other other than the pilot that we're running but it it will show the driver will be able to see exactly where the child's supposed to get off um so we do track children all the time I think member hman um probably helped do this in the past um where they get off at their friend's house and then the parents um little upset and and we might spend an hour or two trying to find out that um their child is a friend's house uh but at least once we have this system fully operable we won't have to pull the video to look for the child to
032see where they got off to confirm it'll all be digital and we'll know that they got off at the right spot any other questions uh member bamy I was just wondering um do we have any I know one I every so often we get an email about uh the hardship to staff and I I'm just wondering if we have any I it really seems to me that people are settled and they're making the best of this as they can you know I think that when you I think if we we haven't like pulled staff or anything like that but what I have heard from elementary teachers is most of them love it and they haven't heard that from middle school teachers okay thank you thank you thank you and checking back again member Higgins did
033you have a question or I'm not sure if he's having difficulties connecting or not but it it does seem strange to go a whole meeting and not hear his voice that anyone else with a question Mr chair uh member checkup yeah not not the purpose of the this work session but I'm curious if it's if the schedule if the Bell change and the order change has benefited um or there's there's perceived benefit among Elementary School teachers and what I think I recall from previous briefings by Mr Lang is that Elementary um educator positions are the biggest area of need for the district do we know if that's helped reduce vacancy rates year-over-year so just um specific to this change we've only you know lived with the the time changes for one year uh so we
034don't have good comparable data um you know over multiple years but that Elementary vacancy rate has been trending upwards we know that and so um I haven't looked at whether or not this year I mean this year it went up and so um but I don't know if that if there's even any correlation there it's it's difficult because I think there's a lot of other factors that are driving that veh vcy rate um so I don't don't really have any good associative data to to pair that up with the change of start school start times if I could just add to that um that's a great example of something that can be affected by multiple variables which could include start times but also just as one example this current year this current fiscal year we're
035delaying the hiring timeline slightly while we anticipate changes to funding if that timeline is delayed by to long that could also have an impact on Staffing so again when we look at this data a year from now we may see a slight uptick in vacancies but that would be more of a driver of a budget process more than start time so that's just one example for how complicated this is and why a rigorous analysis would be prudent uh if the board wanted to understand the impact of this for decision-making purposes remember B me did you no I'm okay okay sorry any other questions hearing none the chair would entertain a motion for recess into executive session well in that case I'll just do it without a motion we are in recess to Executive session we'll
036reconvene at 6 p.m. tonight re