Public Work Session January 31st, 2023

001to be nice [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] let's see [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] let's see [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] there it is [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] let's see [Music] everything [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you good evening everyone Welcome to our school City of Hammond a public work session tonight on the Strategic plan I'd like to call this meeting to order can we all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign [Music] nation under God the indivisible with liberty and justice for all right roll call trust you boy King we're here trustee Spencer present trustee Murphy present trustee Candelaria present all

002trustees are here and accounted for um we will move on to public expression uh trustee Candelaria okay foreign just a second for that nothing all right we have no one signed in for public participation um we'll move on down to our uh item for this evening that's the Strategic plan superintendent Miller uh trustees if I could make a slight audible I would like to we had a situation happen today and I'd like to read the press release just in case anybody's watching this to acknowledge the significance of what happened is that okay yes please all right you have a copy of this in your email at Hammond Central High School at approximately 12 p.m today an unauthorized unauthorized student trespassed into the building when another student opened a side door the teacher recognized that the

003student came through an unauthorized door and immediately called the main office to report the situation the office manager radioed administrative personnel and security who quickly located the trespasser when the student noticed security Personnel he immediately fled and gave his backpack to another student administrative staff located the student with the backpack while security officers apprehended the trespasser after searching the backpack an administrator found what appeared to be a handgun in the backpack which was later confirmed the Hammond Police Department was immediately notified and the school went on secured status while the investigation ensued no students or staff were harmed thanks to the immediate response from him and Central staff and security officers the trespasser was arrested by the Hammond Police Department and left in police custody Indiana statute dictates a mandatory one-year expulsion for any offenses

004associated with deadly weapons any students that assisted the trespasser will be disciplined according to the SCH code of conduct the security of all sh students and staff are the number one priority of the School City of Hammond the due diligence and awareness of all staff allowed for the trespasser in question to be apprehended quickly even while many on campus were not aware of what was occurring our deepest appreciation goes out to everyone involved who ensure that Hammond Central students and staff remain safe thank you thank you and I would just like to Echo the the sentiments uh there of thank you to everyone that was involved um in handling this situation so quickly um and uh resolving it um so efficiently thank you superintendent Miller welcome the topic at hand is strategic planning and we

005are at the point let me just do a quick review of where we are for someone watching online is that a group of community members and some trustees in school City Administration put together um some lists of priorities a new mission and vision and core values for the school City Hammond the core values mission and vision and priorities were all approved at the second September board meeting uh this past fall and so we're not going to spend a lot of time on those tonight but um what was let what work was left to be done was to how we were going to accomplish those six priorities and that's going to form the the basis of our discussion tonight is what administration feels is um what are High achieving goals for each of those priorities and

006what we're going to do to try try to get there so um with that said you have a packet in front of you it's also on the screen and the the first page is really just what's already been approved our core beliefs I would like to read them exclusive Hammond believes in equity for all mutual respect for all open communication that builds trust being fully engaged in opportunities for academic advancement and whole child growth measurable objectives that are clear consistent Equitable and fair for all students and stakeholders promoting mental health wellness and safety within our school communities students and stakeholders giving their best effort while setting high standards for lifelong success based on those core beliefs we came up with a vision of through strengthened relationships we create positive and inclusive learning environments that build

007on the ability of all Scholars to be healthy confident socially responsible critical thinkers and problem solvers with our mission being building on our Rich history and proud Legacy of success we Empower our diverse group of Scholars by advocating for and providing Equitable educational outcomes this led to six District priorities number one being which I have numbered but the numbering really is for reference sake uh more than it is for any sort of priority but I will say that Student Success um if we go down to the next page Mr annunciata um Student Success being number one is intentional the all the efforts that we do are to try to build Student Success so that was number one number two is to retain our students and staff number three Is our commitment to diversity equity and

008inclusion or Dei number four is improved communication at all levels number five is fiscal responsibility throughout SCH in number six is a United District community so those were the six priorities that were identified we had we sent out a survey in the um on the fall we had very positive results affirming the Mission Vision core values and these these priorities so what we're going to spend the remaining time on is going through each of these six priorities in the action steps over the next the next five years of how we're going to achieve them um superintendent Miller I just want to add as well for those watching uh at home this docket this document is available in board docs if you want to go ahead and pull that up in case it's too difficult to

009read on this of the screen or you want to look back for a reference in the future foreign if you go to the next next page please so I think I think the right way to to go about discussing this 10 tonight trustees if I may is for um us just to go by section by section and then ask for feedback from the trustees on each section not necessarily every single item but as you're as we go through them you know make notes for yourself which ones you want to bring up to the group and where you think that we can improve or support or it's too much I will say that I looked at several other districts plans and we have considerably more detail on our strategies and indicators of success than most districts

010um a lot of them have like three goals and three three indicators of success and that's it but there's a lot here and it just didn't feel like there was things that we should leave off but if there's anything you want to redact off of this I mean that's that's why we're having this discussion is to kind of see what your feelings are on on these items I do feel the goals especially for Student Success are pretty aggressive but I'm going to go and read them increase the number of children attending Early Learning programs that's goal 1.1 we we recognize fully that for we saw it in kindergarten this year that there's something has changed in our society and some people think it's coveted I I tend to think it has to do more with

011kids not being socialized but they're not coming to us prepared like they used to and we need more kids in our early learning programs achieve a 90 pass rate on I read three that's probably the most ambitious goal of this on this list here but if our kids are not reading by grade three like they're not going to catch up like that that is the most important thing that we can do is focus on early literacy yeah and that's that's where I want us to be 90 pass rate on I read three improve iLearn Pass rates by 25 in grades three through eight performance on Sat accountability exam would exceed the state average that's what they take in their junior year graduation rates increased to 90 percent we're in the 70 range right right about

012now increase the number of Hammond students attending the ACC by 25 percent um we we have this great resource that prepares kids for the world of work and for college and we don't have enough Hammond kids in it we need more having kids at the ACC reduce the number of failures meaning students who receive receive an F by 25 district-wide and then reduce the number of suspension expulsions each year over the each year of the plan by 10 each year so I think all of those if we can do those eight things well we will make a dramatic impact on Student Success so before we move on to how we're going to do that let's I'd like to stop and pause and see for any feedback on what the goals are Madam president trustee Murphy

013all right we just received this this afternoon and you know me I like to send my stuff ahead of time so just off the top of my head and I am typing as you're going along here just on the goals I don't have a problem with goals all right but I like a document behind this document so it's like you want a 90 pass rate on Irene what is the current number what percentage increases do you want per year and are we doing this over a three year period over a five-year period so when you come to see us a year from now I can say did we meet that goal and if we didn't why didn't we if we exceeded it of course we're going to congratulate you but that's what I'd like to

014see and that's what I'm going to be sending to you um so so that is not in typical strategic plans that I no no this is from I you know we're a number of people up here we want numbers all right you are okay there's more there are several of them okay I just just I'm just teasing but again I'm not asking you to put it in this document okay a document that stands behind it where are those goals so when you implement this for next year and we come and have a public work session next spring you're like okay goal 1.2 this is what we wanted to achieve and you tell us whether or not you achieved it okay and so I already know ahead of time what that percentage you wanted to achieve

015so I I'm recommending this to be a five-year plan and so if I'm understanding you correctly you'd like me to say by year one we'd be here year by year two we'd be here by year three would be here so a year from now if we don't meet that goal we can adjust it okay for the other consecutive years okay yeah and if it is a Five-Year Plan like we're making progress you know towards each of those things other comments on the goals anyone and some of the goals okay all right superintendent okay um so for the next this is the longest list because the number of goals is the highest under Student Success and again priority number one Student Success really is where the most dramatic focus is and there are some things that

016are new and there are some things that I I want to affirm that we need to continue so you'll see some things that are new ideas the things that we haven't done in school City and there's going to be some things on here that I'm of just affirming that hey part of our success is to continue these things like JROTC just to pick one that's something that we need to continue for our students to experience success but that's not necessarily a new thing I'm going to go ahead and also if you look just so everybody's clear if you look at the numbers that are after that refers to the the goals up ahead so some of them are individual like developed marketing campaign around the importance of early learning that that only supports really 1.1

017increase the number of children attending Early Learning programs but if you go down a little bit develop an annual process to update improve Curriculum maps and pacing guides that affects goal 1.2 1.3 1.4 and 1.5 90 pass rate on I3 I learned success at CT success graduation rate it affects all of those so that's that's what the numbers mean after each item is they're referring back to the goal they support I just want everybody to be clear in that all right Michelle I'm gonna throw to you go ahead and we can start I just just go ahead and read through them and add and we can jump in if there's any commentary but this is what we've come up with for our curriculum goals good evening trustees and superintendent Miller for these eight goals we

018have the following strategies um this these are centered around each of the goals in order so it should be easy enough to follow around and kind of match with the goals that are there in the first couple it's dealing with the Early Learning developing a marketing campaign as well as partnering with new parents and weekly birth to four-year-old program the second one or the next few or deal with the achieve a 90 pass rate on I read three we're going to be implementing science of reading and all the elementary schools we've already are participating in idoe science of reading coaching program and we have those positions posted already on our website and this is what superintendent Miller has been referring to there are some that we have already in the works and this is one

019of them and so we have committed to participating with idoe for for the new year there's one thing I want to highlight on this whole thing that I think is the linchpin it is it is this is is this is how we teach reading is flawed how are teaching reading is flawed and the science behind all the pseudoscience behind how we're teaching reading is based on flawed cognitive science yeah and there's a lot of documentation coming out now there's a reason why the state and Lilies put up a hundred million dollars for science of reading because it's not just Indiana across the state some of the things that were should have been second strategies um we've you know when I say we don't mean Hammond I mean just schools have done as first strategies so

020things like looking at the context or to figure out a word or to look at the picture the visual cues to figure out a word or look at the first letter of the word we haven't actually taught kids how to read words and that's what we have to get back to is teaching kids strategies on how to read words and and this is true in every difficult demographic it's not an urban thing it's like if you go to some of the most wealthiest school districts they were teaching the same way and getting the same results from their kids that they were not teaching reading and so much of a child's success is their ability to read so much of all of our successes because we can read well and so that's what we have to

021do more than anything on this whole plan is we gotta free Focus everything on literacy like that has to be number one so I'll I won't interrupt after all no that's really fun to say continue to do so it's it's it's why it's super important and in addition to this initiative is the next strategy continue to assess and improve the diversity of curricular resources and Library resources and again this goes back to the science of reading as well as looking at the diversity piece which lumps it in with one of our other District priorities but again the idea is having us look at the materials that we have for reading and does it truly match with the science of reading and if not they're going to help us plan out how to attack that and

022get what we need for our students the next one is develop annual process to update and improved Curriculum maps and pacing guides we have not done so for a few years and so I have already on our plan to look at how to update those curriculum apps that should be a yearly thing you should all automatically look at what has changed in the idoe's eyes look at your data and adjust your Curriculum maps accordingly and that is one thing that we're going to get on a cyclical pattern and ensuring that we do that yearly as well the next one's not new it's something that it comes out my HR hat is fully staff our schools of course we cannot do anything without having staff fully staffed schools and ensuring that each one has a license

023in their hand um and that's one of our priorities and you'll see that again when he Pride passes off the HR part to me on the retaining of staff the next one is continue our commitment to one-on-one device policy we've had many talks about this and ensuring that we do have one-to-one devices in our hands in our students hands as each year starts and that is something we are looking at again and discussing um how are we going to ensure that we do have that come fall again the next one is to achieve stem certification at all the secondary schools that is the biggest priority that Dr Rausch has that we have passed on to her and also that kind of couples into fully Implement new tech project-based learning at both high schools I know

024we have I believe it's ninth grade am I correct superintendent Miller at that level with new tech 19th and 10th we're here we're in year 204 right now so again moving on forward to our Juniors and seniors all have that as well provide career awareness activities lessons in grades K to eight that was interesting we were talking about College and Career Readiness in one of my middle school meetings today and ensuring that we do provide that awareness especially at the seventh and eighth grade level as they as they begin to make those decisions with the grad Pathways that is very important that they understand all the careers that are available to them all the opportunities that we have and ensure that they tap into one of those opportunities and I guess that kind of feeds

025into the next one the fully Implement Pathways for all high schools we I sat down with the high school staff last Friday and we started looking at all the pathways and ensuring our courses aligned to those Pathways and we'll be coming to the board with those Pathways hopefully soon just to ensure that we're all on the same page but again we need to make sure those pathways are in place that's part of the diploma track and and this isn't just the general graduation Pathways these are the specific Pathways we offer Hammond students and again I've said this before I don't want any kid just going to Hammond's Central or Morton aimlessly they need to be on a pathway that is guiding them towards whatever they want their next step to be so we have about

02620 of them and that's what what Miss Reese's but I want that needs to be fully implemented right in this in the spring of eighth grade we have a conference with the parent the student and the counselor and they select their Pathway to enter high school and each spring they have another revisit conference where they have an opportunity to reflect and see if something needs to be changed but they at no point are they just going to high school they are always on a pathway to the next step and I've told the high school principals and the counselors ideally in juniors and seniors they should be out of the buildings experience the things that they want to do their pathway their passion that what they want to decide in life the next thing is add

027a minimum of three new Pathways at the height at the ACC and I've shared that as well that if we can't get them all into the welding then we need to have other avenues to give them that welding experience whether it's at the ACC or where at and like I said add more teachers at the ACC get our kids in those Pathways and if we have to expand we need to expand to other other interests that these these students have and I know that superintendent Miller and I agree on this we need our students experiencing whatever they want to experience in their high school year and we know that you we will have students that don't um continue and stick with that occupation for a lifelong we know that um just by looking around but

028at least when they exit they have something to do somewhere to go or some some plan and and check for them as they leave our high school in in frankly the the cheapest teachers um for the district are CTE teachers because the state reimburses so much money for offering CTE programs it is the most cost economical way to add teachers is through CTE so to support the goal of 25 percent more students attending the ACC we are going to have to add more programs there um I'm gonna ask you to pause just here for a second before we flip the page right yes does anybody have any uh questions on these strategies or indicators have been presented so far Mr Miller yes or Mrs Reese when we talk about Pathways for those that are listening

029could you sort of Identify some of the pathways that everybody's on the same thing sure when I again when I was saying Pathways is this I'm not talking about the three buckets of graduation Pathways that ideally I'm talking about a four-year plan for high school where it says freshman year you're going to take these courses sophomore you're going to take these courses and some of the pathways we have is we have the Early College pathway we have the JROTC pathway we have a project lead the way pathway we have 15 Pathways at the career center which include like welding we have the education professions that that that's our newest pathway we started uh two years ago we were trying to grow our own teachers through they have pathway we have again at the career center

030we have cosmetology culinary arts information technology Printing and graphic arts pre-nursing EMT criminal justice dental hygiene construction welding Advanced manufacturing Auto Service technology all of those are available for students to select as they go into high school to pick what interests them and then we design the courses around what would be most helpful for that career so if they're going into nursing there's degrees of science that they have to take in high school to help better prepare them for nursing which is not necessarily the same as if they're going into construction trades they may have more math classes if they're going in construction trades but not necessarily calculus you don't really need calculus for construction so um there there that is what we're trying to do is provide a pathway for all of our students

031so they feel connected with a purpose when I talk to young people too often when you ask them what's their dream or their Vision they don't really know so part of what we need to do in school City of Hammond is connect kids to the purpose and also let him experience things to decide is that truly what I want to do maybe they finish that and decide well this definitely was not for me that's okay they don't have to decide that this is a you know lifelong ambition and occupation it's they can decide at the end you know what health occupations is definitely not for me I can't take blood I can't that that else was the purpose of graduation Pathways give them the experience and let them determine from there that's a great point

032because otherwise if they wait to college they're incurring debt in significant debt to figure out that it's maybe something they don't want to do and if they they have two chances in high school then come as a junior come as a senior take two separate programs and even if they strike out on both I mean that's still really valuable information to know that's not something I want to do and I don't have to go into debt for college for for that program trustee Spencer and the three new I'm sorry let her finish okay I'm sorry you finished okay thank you uh and what are in terms of what do you think in terms of the three new three new potential Pathways what would you possibly be yeah so I based upon um the the regional

033economic data we would need to expand in the health services so um medical assisting or medical coding and billing um would definitely be things we would consider another job that there's only one or two Career Centers in the state that offer but it can be done and it has a high need still is CDL to help students get their commercial driver's license that's another program that we could offer um a third one I'd have to look because it's not something that we would just pick it would be based upon the needs of the the regional employment data in order to recommend a pathway um thank you sure okay I have a couple of questions sure um and sorry if this has been discussed you know in previous times and I wasn't aware So when you

034say increase the ham and students attending the ACC by 25 I'm curious why are there not more ham and students there already sure so um I you know I was over the career center before I was superintendent so I know I know this very well and it's a multi-faceted response but number one um like it actually ties into 1.7 reduced number of failures so traditionally if a student had failed too many classes they would not be eligible to take a half of their day their Junior and Senior year to go to the career center and I've always said just to be honest I've had mixed feelings about that because um the focus is is it's a right one to say that we need to focus that kid on graduating I don't deny that but there

035are certain kids who are so credit deficient that is actually probably better to set that goal aside help them get a GED and get them a skill right like they okay we're going to get you a skill so at least when you turn 18 you may not have that diploma right now but you'll have a GD and you'll have some skill where you go out to the workforce but that was that the priority has always been graduation and not not doing that um another thing is is still we fight against a reputation sometimes with the career center that that's for kids who aren't interested in college and that really is is wrong like the the the right way to think about it because every CTE program I think except for one has dual Credit in

036it is that you're still getting a real leg up on college or your career because so many of the careers we promote at the career center do have a college component with them my daughter went to the career center for criminal justice and she was able to graduate from IUN with her bachelor's degree in only two and a half years because she got a year and a half done through the Dual credit with criminal justice like that's a real thing like in a lot of ways that's saving money on College costs that's cutting down time um you know she graduated with her bachelor's at 20. I mean that's that's awesome so I think that's another perception issue that we've struggled with um and we have we have immature things sometimes where we don't get enough

037support where kids are like well my girlfriend doesn't go to the career center so I want to stay back with my friends I don't I don't really want to go half a day to a to a different school but we we need we need it like we absolutely need it and everything that I can see on the state long-term Focus for accountability is going to be on outcome base and whether that's right or wrong what they mean is traditionally for high school accountability they looked at graduation rate and how kids were doing on the state test and they're going to push that into what are they doing after they leave you and you can say that that's not fair because we can't control what kids do after they leave us but that's what they're going

038to measure us on so we need to be taking more intentional steps about making sure that kids are prepared for the next step whether it's military and Workforce or College um and we can't just we can't just say we did our job at the graduation commencement I've used this example before it's a little bit harsh but we can't we can't do all the Pomp and Circumstance in June and then wipe our hands in August and just say you're on your own we can't do that like that's we're missing the Mark if we're not actually looking at what their opportunities are in August thank you um and then I have a question about the science of reading so is this a new curriculum that is going to be implemented in elementary schools yes that's the easiest

039way to say it but it's gonna so what the idoe program is is they are footing two-thirds the cost of an instructional coach um to work with our teachers to model lessons to be an era so we'll have 12 of them one in all 12 of our elementary schools for two years first year of the grant they pay for two-thirds the second year of the grant they pay for one third but they're working with the teachers to implement this this these reading strategies with kids so some of it it's not necessarily adopting a brand new Ela curriculum but it is how we're teaching reading and that the books that we need to use for struggling readers are going to be way more intentional they're going to be decodable books as opposed to um some of

040the other books that that so let me do what to say so let's say you're that for early reader who's really struggling and they're looking at at sounds um then you're going to provide a book that also supports the at sounds in the actual book that is given to the child to read at home with their at night or the the book They're reading in class that is what the brain science and all the cognitive Sciences has to happen for struggling readers um the the C Jane run things doesn't work yeah and just giving them a book where if if the parent reads it to them enough that they're going to start to get it that doesn't work for most kids it works for some kids it doesn't work for enough kids so that's going

041to be some of the changes that we're going to see it's not all phonics it's it's part of it it's not it's um I haven't gone through the training personally I've definitely listened to enough of the uh of of people talking about it that I I do believe it's the next step forward um and I do believe I've said this before too forgive me if I'm repeating myself but like when you look at a math book when when I went to school for a math book teacher said do problems like 1 through 25 and it was just math problems and then maybe the last two were story problems every single problem that a kid does in an elementary math book is a story problem my daughter's in first grade at Kenwood every math problem is

042a story problem so if you can't read like if you're a really struggling reader it affects every other discipline that you're doing as a child yeah and that's that's what we have to get back to or get to I think to to have success I there there's a really good podcast my wife turned me on to it it's called sold a story and it talks about why we're at where we're at and the the large corporations who had a vested interest in selling products to schools where a lot of the motivating forced by and why we teach reading the way we do in America but I encourage you to listen to Soul the story find out for yourself see if you agree but that's where you'll find out things about like this is not a

043a poor School problem or Rich Community problem this is a systemic problem and not just in America this was sold in Australia and all over the world where some of these things came to be but it's we can see it we can see it uh Miss Horgan I mean you you teach fifth grade right you see it with our kids right like that that they're just struggling to to be able to read new words thank you very good thank you all right I don't know if that answered your question Spencer it does I guess my last just kind of part of that question um with the science of reading so if we're implementing this since this is a five-year strategic plan will we be keeping science of reading for five years because I know that

044new curriculums come around and schools are always very quick to drop what they're doing and pick up a new curriculum so I just want to ensure that if that's what you know we're saying we're doing are we sticking with it so that we can see it through the five years and see what the results are that's a really good point and um you know I worked in school City a long time and initiatives have come and gone but I really feel like that this is something that we have to anchor on and that hold me accountable to it like this is where we need where we need to move yeah and um and it's a reading strategy more than it is like a textbook credit because sometimes when people say curriculum they mean like oh

045we're going to adopt a new textbook curriculum that's not really what I'm talking about I'm I'm talking about how we're teaching reading to kids that's what I'm talking about thank you are there any other questions from it Madam president trustee Murphy um I want to start with strategies and indicators of success to me it should be and award because as you go through these not all of these are strategies and some of them are indicators of success so when you put and I yeah I know okay but wordsmithing just you know it's important okay so if we go into achieve stem certification for all secondary schools and then you've got the ones underneath that is that really a strategy or is that an indicator of success and to me because I like stem it's an

046indicator of success for me to me it's both because they're certainly it's an indicator of achieving the certification but the process that you go through and the resulting the resulting rigor that's developed through that that achieving the certification is actually is absolutely a strategy I guess having looked at other strategic plans I've got some problems with the way this is formatted I know this is what your cabinet put together but with some um they would have on there like who is responsible for each of the goals um the different strategies and indicators of success and I talked a little bit before about the timeline so it's like is this a one-year timeline or is this a five-year timeline when do you expect to go and reach these different things um but like that that to

047me is something that we can discuss at a later date I I the ones that ball sent me did not have that like I said they even have less they have like three goals and three three indicators per goal that's it like it and so ours I didn't think that would that would please this board so I added a lot more things that I felt were the combine of these things is going to bring that to where we need to be but I I can on that same sub the same supporting document where you want me to have one two three or four five years I can absolutely indicate who's responsible and what the benchmarks are but that's not the public plan that that I see in other in other documents um and Dei so

048we lost our champion there's a whole priority for Dei priority three is which you wanna priority three is commitment to Dei we can talk about it then if you want no we should wait until it gets there but to me let's see so you've got continue to assess and improve the diversity of curricular resources well to me you've just got 1.2 there wouldn't that also fall underneath the other priority three with your goals 3.1 3.2 3.3 sure that's you know that's the first thing it said to me is that making sure that that is embedded in this document to make sure because we talked about it um I I know we lost the person we were supposed to be using we just did that audit which we're going to have at the end of the

049month yep um Unfortunately they didn't get it to us sooner it took them time to put it together yeah um but I will say my goal three is be I have seen the draft of the audits my my priority three when we get there is based upon the results of the audit when we get there and those are for just that page thank you okay all right are there any other questions on this first page you know I I'm just thinking you know we we did put a lot of time in it and seemingly we are already behind you know but this what we have put together a lot of this it's almost not enough considering the state we are in now our district you know in terms of the test scores and the finances

050and everything it seemed like we almost could have doubled the goals to meet to get where we really need to be in the future Define what I'm saying I mean we put a lot of time in this but we weren't aware of some of the things that were going to happen you know with our finances with the test scores and how well the children are faring so I think we almost for the most part it's a good document but I I don't think um it really addresses what's happening now follow me to some degree I mean because we're always going to be playing catch up with a student plan because we don't know you know as we're preparing it what is what's what's going to happen so that's basically my comment because some of these

051um uh parameters we perhaps could have doubled them based on where we are now academically that's that's my point if you understand what I'm saying I don't know I think I get it that you're you're saying from the point where this started that some of these things we should have been working already but a lot of these things we actually have been have in progress even if it doesn't say like like all the all the books we bought for Library resources last year were all books to expand our Dei catalog every single one so I mean some of these things we have moved forward I'm just saying that like I mentioned earlier that we have some are continuing and some are some are brand new all right are there any other questions on page one

052any other questions all right um maybe we'll do there's 20 on this one so maybe we'll do 10 and then take some questions and then do 10 more give you a break okay that would be good yeah so that's it so develop uh district-wide uh late work policy stop there yeah okay before or after right it doesn't matter yeah okay the next set of strategies and or indicators of success deal with the mtss the social emotional learning issues that we are experiencing you'll see that we are implementing mtss fully at all grade levels to support students in need of academic Behavior or social emotional support again looking at schedules and making sure that we have interventions in place remediation the tutoring that I hear trust trustee Blake King talk about make sure there are systems

053in place to help support our students not only social and emotionally but also academically and behaviorally also implement the restorative justice practices to have meaningful discipline move the SEL lessons from Standalone to integrate into the core educational program what that means is a lot of times SEL is taught as a standalone lesson like okay kids today we're going to talk about conflict resolution that's that needs to move into okay we're going to read a story and the characters have conflict and let's just in the context of what we're doing let's talk about what would be a different way that the characters could have resolved the conflict so having it integrated into a lesson instead of saying we're doing SEL time that's that's what I mean by that and again looking at our work with the

054mental health and Therapy Partners that we have and expanding those Partnerships to better help support our students and families in crisis continually looking at where we can find help in that area next is to continue to support the alternative education program to keep students in school looking at that and figuring out are we meeting those students needs in the alternative program do we need to make changes to better meet their needs and again our goal is to keep the students in school finding ways that we do realize that students cannot some students cannot function in our four walls within our schools and how can we better support them and better meet the needs that they have next is to focus on professional development on improving tier one into instruction and we'll later talk about professional

055development in this document as well ensure our teachers are utilizing formative assessment data to drive instructional practice practice that's basically looking our i-Ready data as well as all the other data that we have such as the SAT PSAT I read data I learn data but really looking at the formative assessment are the students passing the on the standards that we are assessing and if not what are we doing to remediate or to enrich so so there's a little bit of Education ease in this in that bullet point so formative assessment is the i-Ready software that we administer in elementary and middle school and we do it three times a year across three windows and when a student takes it the teacher when they're going to teach the next standard that the program is aligned to

056the Indiana standards they can pick the standard and it'll automatically show every kid in their classroom where they fall on that standard like they don't have to do any work like that I mean they just run the report and it shows like okay these kids um already show Mastery these kids are approaching these kids are emerging these kids need a degree of remediation and these guys need a lot of reteaching in every single skill but that that informs your teaching so if you're going to teach a brand new standard then you know which kids can be your leaders which ones are going to need more support and who you're going to have to provide some targeted remediation to maybe it's the whole class maybe the whole class needs remediation so before I teach the grade

057level standard it's not wrong to go back and say okay if 90 of my kids need support in a remedial standard I need to reteach so that's that's what I mean by using formative assessment data to drive an instructional practice and trustee trustees we even learned with the i-Ready data it even goes into here are the prerequisite skills in order to teach this standard and it tells you where the students fall even with the prerequisite skills and which who are deficient and who are ready to move on to the New Concept that you're teaching so it does produce a lot of information that we have been providing our teachers with the PD and the training behind that so that they see what the i-Ready assessment does for them in addition Implement a high ability program

058at the elementary I know that we have charged that with Mr Salinas and looking at the high ability we do have students within our schools that are showing signs of high ability and need the challenges and we want to better meet those needs at the elementary because right now we're doing at the high school level we have dual credit AP courses honor courses things like that in place but we need to focus at it on the elementary level we also need to continue to support our non-traditional Learners through the e-learning options again we realize that not all students are our traditional Learners and can learn within our four walls and we need to have other options out there for them and e-learning does provide that and I'll stop there one more one more develop district-wide

059late work policy and again looking at our grading and our weighted grades will be I will be working with a committee of our curriculum team to look at what we're doing with the grading and the way to grade sector of that but also what's coming out is this late work and again looking at what is our policy with late work and making it more unified as we head in so again developing a district-wide policy regarding it it can be a pain point at times because there is no policy so it's left to each individual teacher really to decide how they're going to handle late work and so you can have some teachers who will accept it all the way up to the end of the marking period there's other teachers who who won't accept it

060a day late a most extreme example I heard of was one of our elementaries we had a first grade teacher with a student turned in assignment daily they got a zero at first grade and and you know it that to me is not an age-appropriate solution when the majority of homework at first grade is going to be they have an adult there to sit down with them and be able to work with them on it so having some and teachers would absolutely be involved in the creation of that District late work prophecy but I do think it'd be fair and it could be banded it could say it Elementary or this grade band this is the policy and then at Middle School it's this policy High School is this policy but I do think that

061that's something that contributes to the number of apps that that we issue all right so that's our next 10 uh strategies and indicators are there any questions on those okay trustee Spencer um so with the mtss do we have a person in the district who is running mtss currently are we hiring for that because yeah so this should be implementing it again so there's there's a couple things here um we we had a full-time person for mtss and we had a full-time person for Dei um and we had a full-time person over leadership academy which is our professional development um when I sat down with leadership and we thought about like how can we downsize our central office administration did you hear that Mr geek as we downsized sir central office administration um and uh

062we um we looked at certain things that actually kind of supported each other and were closer together than maybe we had thought and so we developed a job description that included Dei mtss and high ability in one job position say well that sounds like an awful lot well it is a high demanding position but there's a lot of things that actually go together with that because mtss is all about providing kids with the appropriate interventions for them to be success successful well what's the point of any di initiative well a big part of that in providing Equity is making sure that kids get what they need to be successful yeah and so we saw actually a lot of overlap there where the right person could come in and have a positive impact on a lot

063of these different areas and high ability is something that that we really haven't had a dedicated person for a while and and it's languished so we we have to reinvigorate that but again what is high ability well that's looking at mtss is not just being like sometimes mtss is presented as a as a downward triangle where all the all the kids are tier one and if a kid doesn't have success each year when they go down to the next rung of the triangle is tier two and then then a very few kids who really need support go down to tier three of the triangle but I've also seen it done as a diamond where there's also for kids for high ability are going up into the higher tiers of mtss where okay we're recognizing that

064actually you need more challenges what you need so we're going to provide you with more challenge instead of you don't you don't need a person to sit with you like you don't need the traditional supports to be remediated you need support you need to be more challenged and we need to provide you with more individualized learning opportunities so we saw High ability actually fitting in with the mtss as well so that position has been posted we have gone through a round of interviews and we decided that we needed to repost because I really think the right candidate is out there and we just we haven't found them just yet but my intention would be to still hire that position and make a recommendation to the board this year and to move that on that said

065in our curriculum team meetings we continue to bring this up and we we talk about these things even though we don't have a point person right now to to move it forward assistant thank you additional questions from the board on this these time Madam president trustee Murphy restorative justice I'm confused we've been talking about it for years I thought some schools were already doing it are they not doing it so it was an initiative in my time here the only time I saw that it was actually trained was last year uh Miss Hondas brought in some people and we we had some training on what restorative practice restorative justice practices would look like in the schools so I I don't feel just sitting here that I can say with 100 confidence that it's being implemented

066with Fidelity with every administrator across all schools what the goal for restorative practice is is just to recognize that maybe when I was young that if if I got disciplined by the school and I got put out of school that my parents would take care of the issue and I'd be coming back and apologizing and doing all this but somewhere along the line discipline in some cases became punitive and it was it wasn't actually helping to modify Behavior it was just like okay well you committed this offense so you're out of school for three days and then when you come back well you're just in my class again and there was no conversation about hey what what happened that led to this consequence and and for example like if if a student had a conflict

067with a staff member and and they're out for two days the student um and they come back and they don't have a conversation that's really a missed opportunity to restore the relationship and to say hey like okay like this is you know when this happened let's talk about three other ways you could handle this that would have not had you have to be out of school what were the warning signs that led up to this Outburst in class where you said bad words to the teacher you know like these are the what are some things we can do to make sure that if you start to feel that way we don't get to that level that's what like restorative practice is about is looking at the whole point of discipline is to actually help kids

068reflect on their behavior not just to issue consequences and that's the part trustee Murphy that I'm not I can't say with 100 Fidelity that that we're doing uh the next thing I want to go back is you talked about the formative assessments I want to talk about our side of it and one of my pet peeves okay the data we've already gone through two I learns already for this year I believe and we're finally getting the public work session on it this month I would like to see Tuesday yeah okay that we get three Public Work sessions so some period within a month after the date is done because again with this it goes gives us an opportunity to reflect this is our Baseline these are the goals that we wanted for this year now

069that we have the data for the kids coming in we can say yeah those goals still work or no maybe we need to tweak them then the second says that data comes in then you can come back to say hey is everything working good or not so I'd really like to see that for next so so on that comment if I may I I do think our new format will lend to that and I've actually asked Mr White to develop a calendar of when to expect a presentation for each because we have Wida we have ASVAB we have iLearn we have I read we have I am we have sat we have PSAT and we have the three i-Ready windows so there's a lot and I would rather just have account that you could expect

070that hey at this meeting of each month this is when the presentation for each of these is going to be love it um uh the late work policy I get to put my two cents in there okay um they also don't put their name on their homework okay all right well yeah so you can't just be not turning it in I remember at Scott Middle School working with Science Olympiad and the teacher be like so I've got all these homework with no name on it would anybody like to check to see if it's yours um but we also need to be cognizant of the students that are turning their stuff in in time so there's other things versus giving them lots of time so maybe you get to um you can't take away recess if

071they're in middle school but other things like maybe you're after school once a week to get caught on your homework versus we're going to give you weeks because it's not fair to the teacher to all of a sudden have all this homework this will not be the fact that we develop it is top down the how it looks is not going to be top down like I want teachers to have all the input on the world in developing what this is but there needs to be a degree of consistency for our parents to know that hey this is the expectation for homework or or projects for for the district no I totally agree with you because exactly what you said some T teaches Zero Tolerance policy others are like come on guys would you please

072turn it in I don't want to fail you type thing yeah totally agree um High ability and I'm not going to put you on put it but I want to see how that's going to look so in the past we had ESP we had soar that is pretty much all we had for our high ability students um Plus getting them into Lego Science Olympiad the whole bit if you don't mind I'm familiar with soar what was ESP that was before sort okay um I actually got to go to um Cape Canaveral and in Florida we took them down there for a whole week that year was the great year Mr Kobe got tons of federal government what is the pro what was the program what was ESP but ESP the kids went to school six

073days a week in the spring and then they had the summer enrichment program and back then it was six weeks six to eight weeks these kids were doing summer school that they loved they did the Okefenokee Swamp we did physics at the Disney and the Oregon Trail some of the kids did the Oregon Trail that was back in a lot more federal dollars so we had some really cool stuff but again it's pull out and then I've had a lot of disagreements so one of my kids who ended up graduating from St Mary's they told me she had a learning disability she was switching her B's and D's and refused to put her in ESP and the art teacher um actually said you know what she can come in I'll put her in ESP for

074the summer and art and then as all of mine did they all outgrew that thing of switching their B's and D's because it was a third grade character trait of theirs but I find that sometimes teachers are like oh you've got this little Quirk you're not gifted or you're not need to be pushed and that thing really needs to be discussed with some of our students that they need that little bit of extra push so I don't I don't have it I know we need it I don't have it fully implemented I'm hoping that the person we hired a champion it would have the most dramatic input on on what that needs to look like what I will say is there doesn't seem to be academic consensus on the best way to address High ability

075there are schools that do pull out there are schools that say the best way is to keep the kids in the class there's there's schools that separated by subject matter like you go to High ability for math but then for English maybe you're at a at a different level so there's a lot of nuance to how that that could look there are schools that have a high ability school like I mean they put all the high ability kids in one separate building um that's how Maryville did it when I was a kid they moved all the high ability kids to sock and and they moved them all to one school so like there's a lot remember Rod poets our transportation director he told me it saved his life to be able to go to a

076high ability school he went to Gary public schools and he he got to go to the highability school so I've heard all these different opinions and testimonies on it I think it's got to be a collaborative effort to decide what's best for Hammond's um but I don't know what it'll look like today no and that's why I'm not putting yeah lots of discussions with the teachers I think Department of utilization is actually part of that discussion because you can have a fifth grader that you can send to a sixth grade math class when we start talking about those things and moving around yeah right that's all I have on this section um just just a couple more words on ESP it only ran through middle school and it was on Saturdays it was at gavit

077and there would be teachers that came from at least part of the time it was at Gavin the part I know of uh teachers that came from all over the district but they also employed high school students so each teacher got a high school student to work with and it was very similar to what you did at the career center um like in the summer when you had the special topics that's that's what those courses were and it it was it was a great program I got to work in it as a high school student so um anyway so that was uh a little more on the ESP program all right any other questions on these 10 initiatives no okay uh then I guess we're ready to move on break's over okay well the last

07810 within um the this one's priority Student Success so the next part is looking at the Dual language program and evaluating whether there should be a second site also achieving a 10 year-to-year increase in Wida proficiency for ell students the next part is also looking at our exceptional Learners and increasing their reading and math proficiency by one grade level providing professional development and implementing Universal Design for Learning to improve the accessibility of lessons for all Learners and Universal Universal Design for Learning is typically one that is looked at by special education but again they are finding success and utilizing that with all Learners as well and it's a framework for lesson lesson design also continuing to support the early college program and pursuing more on-campus classes for students again giving them those opportunities outside our

079four walls we we we're doing that this year we do have some seniors over at Purdue Cal who are taking two different classes at Purdue that was one of the things I wanted to see evolve in the early college program is we when we hit at the ACC um it was almost it all happened at the ACC kids weren't actually able to go on to the college campus um they had a summer experience for two weeks but it wasn't the same thing I I felt they needed to be on the college campus and they are taking classes with adult Learners so it's not just a a section for kids it's it's with adult Learners I think that really will help prepare them correct the next part is continuing to expand the half of programming into

080the K-12 to provide increased opportunities for students to participate in the Arts again expansion looking at how what ways we can expose our students to the Arts continuing to support our Civic leadership through the JROTC pathway and then ultimately increasing our dual credit faculty so both schools can offer the Indiana college core that's that's one of those things that we're going to be pressured from ideally that's one of their goals is that every High School in Indiana would be able to offer the Indiana college Corps which is a defined 30 dual credits that transfer to every Indiana Public University so that's that's what that goal is about and again I know ideally and other higher EDS are offering ways for for our staff to get dual credit along with other staff in the in the

081state of Indiana and giving those our teachers the opportunity to do that um and again expansion is what we're looking at giving our kids other opportunities utilizing Extended Learning opportunities such as summer school and tutoring to help students to bridge the learning gaps looking at the best ways to for our students to do that what are we offering during summer school and what are we doing during the tutoring sessions and lastly within this priority work with Community Partners to increase the number of work-based learning opportunities and service-based learning opportunities for our students at the end of the pathway they should have the opportunity to have that work based opportunity or an internship May whether it's paid or just an experience we need to allow our students to do that within their senior year and giving

082and giving them the opportunity to leave the school for that period of time to to better meet their needs and decide again if that's their pathway or not so that is all for that priority all right questions on these uh 10 strategies and indicators Madam president trustee Murphy how is um expansion of Hapa into Elementary different than what we already offer with the art and music classes so I guess the vision is to increase things like accessibility to learning instruments at younger levels providing things that maybe be alternative to just general music such as dance and just making sure that that our programming leads well into all right we know we're doing half a well at the high school but just like with athlete Athletics like if you want to have a good high school

083program you got to have a good middle school program and a good elementary school program so same type of thing with musical development a big part of that is practice and the number of years that you've had opportunity to learn instruments and to develop your talents so that's that's a big part of it is trying to continue as opportunities come up to make sure our kids have more than just generalized music but they have opportunity to learn instruments and and develop their skills at a younger age now do you envision this as during the school day or after school as extracurricular so I think the easiest thing to do is extracurricular and even look at maybe even centralizing it at a middle school or something else like that um but it doesn't have to be

084exclusive to that we struggled at burn six to find a music teacher so we hired a dance teacher and the kids have really been loving it I mean they maybe even the fifth and sixth graders are doing dance I've seen some videos of them doing it it's it's it's fun and my other question is on the Dual credit strategy so the long-term goal is it to do away with the AP and move towards the Dual credit do those still require the master's degree in order to teach them have they loosened up some of the requirements because that's one of our tough areas to do that so um they have not loosened up the requirement but they have loosened up the the guideline that you have to basically just take one course a year towards becoming

085your master's degree in it so basically their languages you have to be on a education plan approved by a university so if your University partner has approved the plan that's enough to be able to issue dual credits for that teacher um to teach in the area that of their licensure um but that's as far as declining AP I do think there's a place for both and there's actually some school systems that run the same class as both dual credit and AP so they give the kids every kid gets the Dual credits and they and and then they give the kids the opportunity to take the AP exam at the end of the year as well um here's here's the trade-off just for anybody listening dual credit is primarily primarily for Indiana colleges that's primarily what

086it is if you're going to go out in Indiana Public colleges I'll say that so if you're going to go to Notre Dame or you're going to go down um you're going to go to MIT are they going to honor the Dual credits that were issued by Ivy Tech or from Purdue Northwest maybe as electives but they're probably not going to honor them as the actual courses and they're going to make you take them AP is Nationwide AP you have to if you're not familiar to take a high stakes test in the spring and you have to and then universities pick what their score cutoff is to like a four some cases it could be a three to say that you'll earn credit for this class because you passed that high 10 high stakes test

087with the three or four or five uh those are more National the movement Indiana has definitely been towards dual credit because they basically take the college course and then they get the grade for the college course and it goes on their transcript um and that's it saves money because you don't have to pay for the college credit and generally kids have much better success with that than the high stakes tests try to do the combination for the students that aren't going to the public university I have no issue with that the the to me that's the best of both worlds quite honestly now does the state pay for the AP test does the student pay for the AP or do we you know I'm not sure I know the details of of the funding of

088it Eric do you happen to know I mean we can get that information okay all right okay I'd like to ask a follow-up question on that with the Dual credit I know we talked a little bit about this um kind of coming into the fall and that we are limited on the number of instructors at both schools um and I'm wondering for the fall as we're continuing to grow our program till we get full faculty in both places is there a way for us to do synchronous learning between the two schools and is that on the radar for this fall we've done it this year um actually um yeah and we've also done the the sharing of teachers between the two high schools where you know we're on block this year so a teacher on

089Monday May for the first half of the block go to Hammond Central and then the second half of the block they go to Morton which is Tuesday in order to do that so yes to both of them but we've also had a couple cases where it only worked where in their schedule I'm thinking of Mr Childers um he he was teaching a class that was remoted into Morton and then there was times he would come over morning as well but the typical day he taught from Hammond Central and was remoted into one the third option which we haven't used a lot of but if we can't find a person we can also remote into the university partner and we have done that on occasion in the past when I was at the ACC where we

090couldn't find a licensed teacher in that case it was Vincennes they provided us a remote teacher from the University rather than you know because we couldn't find a teacher so how close are we then to being able to offer um The Core Curriculum the Indiana college Corps yeah I I don't have that assessment in handy so I will add it to the to-do list okay to see how close we are I mean I know it's not not perfect because again remote learning isn't for everybody but um as we're growing right it gives those kids an opportunity are there the questions on these 10 strategies and indicators um I'm sorry I want to go back to our first half that I wrote these questions down um when we talk about the alternative education program where are

091we at with capacity there right right now um so we've we've had to make some adjustments because when we applied for funding they gave us some feedback that they wanted us to change the way we were doing middle school and high school so Middle School they want us to do an all-day program in high school they want us to do a half day program for high school students so we have two Middle School teachers the grant requires 15 per so we can have up to 30 in middle school and then we have um the two High School teachers which is another 30 but since it's they're doing only half day they can actually have 60. across a full day and is that the numbers that we have there like our is it full it it

092is not but it's and that's because we had a significant degree of students who had semester returned back to their home school because they completed enough of the program goals that we felt confident that they could transition back so not everyone you know you know some students came in as recent as December so they're obviously still in the program but some of the students who had been there from September they did complete enough to go back but it will continue to be added and I did just in transparency sake I found that there were some internal organizational miscommunications about which students could qualify and not but I think those all had been rectified and I I would expect that um will take full advantage of our capacities probably know where to keep kids in school

093yeah because it would seemed like it would work um you know that would go hand in hand with the 1.8 reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions absolutely because because the student goes the alternative even if they're put up for expulsion a student goes the alternative program is not by the state definition of expulsion is not expelled if you put in the alternative program it's held in the bands so it does not affect your official expulsion rate or anything like that if if a student now um there's only been one or two cases where I've had to revoke the form 16 agreement because of behavior at the alternative program by and by the kids have done pretty well with it any other questions trustee Spencer no thank you should I say blinking any questions oh

094you're good okay I'm sorry all right um I think that completes uh priority number one we're ready to move on to Priority number two all right priority number two is how do what are some things we can do to retain our students and staff yeah and this probably goes without saying but I'll say it anyway that that if we continue to lose students out of the district for whatever reason um it's not good for the health of the district it's not good for growing our schools and and providing programmatic opportunities and paying teachers well and everything else if we continue to lose students um so it is something that I certainly agree we have to be strategic about and the other part of course is our staff when we invest in our staff members to

095learn our policies and our procedures and the way that we do things and years of professional development to other districts for things that sometimes that are in our control um that that hurts that hurts everybody as well it hurts the the cultures at the buildings it hurts the culture of the district so um what we'll see here are some things that we feel we can do to try to address it and the the the goals as stated 2.1 minimize the loss of students and turn that loss into a gain over the course of this plan 2.2 reduce the number of Employees leaving the organization for reasons SCH can impact meaning that I acknowledge there are reasons that from there are many things that we could probably do better that would limit the amount of people

096leaving the organization there's certain times people leave for reasons that we can't impact you know somebody's spouses relocating to Texas that's something that we really can't we can't impact but a lot of things we can this one's pretty aggressive but it is a goal that there would not be an open position after 30 days of a new posting so let's say a person leaves us that that position will be filled within 30 days that would be our goal for every position in the district and then of course with number 2.4 increase the diversity of talent coming into the organization and and again diversity can can be a broadly defined I'm not just talking about ethnic and racial diversity but I certainly am talking about ethnic and racial diversity but making sure that the the people

097that are coming in are representative of our students and are providing a variety of World Views in in just a great addition to the culture of of our of our faculty and our staff um those are those are the goals as stated any any questions on on the goals um I think priority number two is the essence of our district and number two will either make or break us uh because it has so much meat and just this summary in itself it speaks survival and we really have to dwell on this really look at it you know I don't know how you're going to go about it Mr Miller your administrators um because I see this as it will make us or break us retain our students and staff I know we've talked about trying

098to at least get exit reviews from our our employees when they leave so we have a general idea of what what what's missing here what are we doing wrong or maybe not so much wrong but what are we doing that our our teachers especially leaving us so um we really this we really have our work cut out for us with priority two and uh 2.4 increased diversity of talent uh that is is extremely crucial we've seen uh all of our uh administrative of colors with Doctor degrees are no longer with us and that's big problems and and to um how we address each other how we respect each other and we really 2.4 in my opinion we really need to work on it considering the diversity of our student population so number two I see

099that is our most crucial priority thank you are there any other questions on the goals any questions on the goals all right I think we're ready to move on to our strategies and indicators of success then well Michelle you worked on a lot of these you led the team on this so I'm going to go ahead and let you go ahead and review these as well hey I would be happy to looking at the students and and looking at the retention of of them within our district we have several strategies that are in here one is to provide an annual report to the board on where our students are going again determining why they are leaving us and how we can and what we can do to keep them here create an exit survey to

100provide to families leaving the district we already do that for our staff and again looking at it from the student standpoint we should be asking families why they are leaving also conducting an annual customer satisfaction survey with our parents again reaching out to them and getting their voice on are they satisfied and what can we do to be better the next is to create a student advisory councils to listen to the needs of our students that is crucial when you want when it is time when you want to know how you are doing is to ask the students themselves what is it that we can do to get better how did we meet your needs do you have any suggestions they're the great voice out there in in the um in the terms of students

101and they are the voice that we should be listening to because we are trying to meet their needs and again creating those Avenues and those ways in which they can tell us about what they are feeling also and to improve external communication um we'll hit that one in detail under priority 4.2 so we'll come just in general I'm just recognizing that's part of what what we have to do but we'll hit that in detail when we get to the priority for and we saw that as part of our issue with the retention of students and staff so that's why it's there also achieve the idue family friendly School of designation again showing the the schools around us that we do have family friendly schools and trying to Showcase what we do with our families and

102trying to get that designation in place that's actually like a rubric based certification that you apply for and they come and they evaluate your school based upon it's actually part of the work that the the Consultants who are doing the the parent Outreach that's part of their goal is to help prepare our schools to submit for those certifications the next is um you have approved the customer service training and again we will be conducting that um starting in June and providing that customer service training with all of our our front office staff and administrators also continuing to improve new parent experience through the SCH Welcome Center that's where it all starts when new families come they they go to the SCH welcome center and we want that experience to be good for them and they

103get all the resources that they need starting with new family packets where they might find this type of resource or what they can do if they have this question where can they find the answer and again giving our parents the the tools that they need to be successful when within SCH also improving our student outcomes which is this whole document improving our students and their outcomes and I mentioned C priority what I'm just acknowledging that a reason people might leave is because we're not we don't have the outcomes we need that's why they leave also improving our facilities to be attractive to students and families can and that will be something that I know has been on Mr Kurtz's play is to look at the operations side and look at our facilities and how can

104we make them more attractive also ensuring our schools are safe and healthy that is the highest priority especially for our families that come to us they want our schools to be safe and also healthy continuing to minister exit surveys to staff and provide an annual report to the board again getting all that data for you guys and presenting to the board on why we are seeing the exit of staff conducting an annual employee satisfaction survey with the staff that is one thing that we talked about within the committee that I that I held with this priority that we need to make sure that our employees also receive a survey and also we get their feedback and how best to meet their needs develop and refresh our new employee onboarding for all employee groups we started

105with our new teachers we want to go to all employee groups when you come to SCH this is what you can experience from how do you get your ID to how do you log in and find your paycheck to what do you do if you experience this sort of thing what given them the tools to be successful at SCH and that involves training how to deal with a difficult student when they're telling you no things like that again giving them all the right tools to be successful utilizing our mentorship program for new employees across the organization we felt that if we have it for our new teachers and new employees and then within the teacher group get a mentor we felt that it was vital to have it for any new employee coming to school

106City of Hammond and the last one on this page is to develop Employee Appreciation program for all levels of SCH we really felt like we needed to show people our appreciation but that doesn't happen one time a year it happens throughout the year and we need to put a program in place to show our to show all employee groups that we do appreciate all the hard work that they do and and give them that recognition whether it be at a board meeting a note a card whatever it may be but developing a program and putting that in place and I'll stop there if you would like for me to yes please uh do you uh does anyone have any questions on the strategies and indicators or success for priority number two Madam president trustee Murphy

107the superintendent talked about the I do eat excuse me family friendly schools um is that report done and when are we going to see it and I put that in my questions if you don't want to address it now that's um the last time we we had a meeting Michelle do you remember when they said they would have a because they had some draft things but they hadn't put it all together until report family they've completed all the surveys they don't have it combined into a report yet so it's in the questions then that annual annual to the board on the exit surveys when will we get that first annual report again put it in the questions if you're not ready to answer it now okay I we haven't we haven't discussed the time yet

108but I'm anticipating you know kind of open to win the board would want to have that what makes the most sense I would I love all these upcoming Public Work sessions yeah I was gonna say if it's something that we're already doing we can put it on the radar for now or is this something that we have to look at for 2024 okay we can take a break okay um no we we have we have been sending out the surveys for a little while now so um and so I how comfortable are you as far as when I'm not sure we have a Year's worth yet but I mean the end of the year I was thinking more like the end of the year um that would give us plenty of surveys to review I'm

109sorry end of school year or end of calendar school year okay so june-ish right okay that's all I have all right are there any other questions um just a typo under the one that says improved facilities to be attractive to students and families I should say see also goal 5.2 not 6.2 foreign okay um if we can continue on with part two of priority two yes just a few more strategies under the retaining of our students and staff the next one is through explore providing employee child care as an added benefit I know that we've looking at that with our Early Childhood Program at the ACC again exploring that Avenue whether it be through them or a partnership also explore working remotely in flexible hours as an added benefit improving internal Community before you jump

110off that um I I added that one personally and I just think it's something that all employers now are going to have to they've got to figure it out it's a generational difference My Generation I think older are like we go to work but that's not how Millennials see work and so like I think as a progressive organization we got to see what what positions do we really need people to come in for and what can be accomplished remotely that's what I mean by that the next one is improving internal communication and I guess that will be accomplished in the future yeah and priority for we're going to hit that big time so yeah I was acknowledging that's part of what people say with why they leave they feel like they weren't informed enough or

111they didn't they weren't involved in decision making things like that and we did separate that as two separate things externally and internally so that's why it's separated within the document yeah also providing competitive compensation packages for all employee groups looking at that we've been trying to make Headway in those areas we want to thank the board for supporting the support staff and making those changes for this year but again and I think the last year was the um not transport the what there was a food service food service thank you sorry about that the food service and looking at making sure that there were more competitive as well also Implement an employee referral bonus program that is something the committee thought would be good especially if you are referring somebody and it wouldn't be that

112you automatically get um a gift card or whatever for referring something right off the bat but it's also making sure that they remain at SCH for some time before that referral bonus is given um and again that was another way to you know tell a friend tell them to come work for us a way to promote SCH olar participating in local and college recruitment fairs this is becoming the time of the year where that's starting to happen and we have also asked HTF to participate in with those our first one is coming up I believe in March with Miss that I've sent with Mr geekas at IU is our first one that's coming across but again getting out there and reaching the the students that are in these colleges also implementing a safe program for

113positions that remain unfilled for more than 30 days again finding ways to fill those positions promoting unfilled positions to paid listings after 30 days of being unfilled and I know this was something that missed the super Tim Miller is really after you know if they're sitting idle even though they're going out on LinkedIn and other avenues maybe we need to pay for those listings and have them sent out in different ways that we aren't able to do right now through Nimble Nimble has provided us traction attraction from other Avenues such as LinkedIn and other companies that help get that word out but there are still some that they're not tapping into and again looking at that so basically both those those two last goals are just saying that that if we have a 30-day threshold

114and we have no one like no qualified candidates we can't just sit like we can't just be like okay well it's unfilled like so everything we've tried hasn't worked so we have to start thinking about being more aggressive in filling these positions if the goal is to be fully staffed we we can't just hope the next person comes along we have to do some things differently so so paying basically means it's so your job search is going to come up higher in the list when people are are searching and the incentive program this one's going to require more discussion but I want us to have the discussion and that is that if we have a position at a school that is that that we just can't fill but we have other internal candidates do we

115even want to offer an incentive for internal transfers to fill these positions at schools that have been historically understaffed I'm not going to say them out loud right now I don't want to put anybody embarrass anybody but those on this board probably know who I'm talking about that if we can't fill the staff at those schools they're never going to get out of the they get their head above water and if it's easier for another school to restaff maybe we go ahead and train providing incentive to a transfer employee over and let that other school where it's easier to restaff re-staff their position so I I just think we have to like I mean we gotta like that it's probably even more critical than I agree with trustee Blake King that if we don't have

116our staff in place like how can how can we meet our goals like we're not going to meet any educational goals if we if we aren't staffed so um that's that's the concept behind providing an incentive for positions that remain unfilled but more more to come on that okay go ahead that's okay um the last three that we have is continue the education professions pathway at the high schools and we're moving those to the ACC to again provide that opportunity for all of our kids that want to go into the education profession also continue subsidizing costs for staff to become licensed we do have a few teachers is it what we want with all the EP teachers that we do have hired here no not all of them are are pursuing that I don't know

117why they are pursuing these Avenues to go get their license but we are subsidizing their costs and it's an easy thing all they have to do is to apply get accepted and start attending courses we are reimbursing it but again there are a large number of our EP teachers that are not fulfilling that need and not trying to become fully licensed and and we just need to continue subsidizing those costs right now we do have the Partnerships with IUN and pnw and we're looking to expand also directly recruiting from hbcus and HSI education programs again looking at biodiversity the trustee Blake King has addressed look and going to those universities and and um doing those interviews like we do with our Indiana colleges and trying to recruit HSI if you're not familiar as a Hispanic

118serving institution and hbcus are your historically black colleges and universities are there any questions on these strategies or indicators of success Madam president trustee Murphy I'm following up on Dr Reese so how are we communicating that we're subsidizing these I send that out to the employees to tell them that that we're subsidizing those we need to get better at getting them out there and we I met with them last fall or last spring sorry and I need to do it again this spring and tell them this opportunity is still out there but I do follow up with my emails to the EP teachers directly thank you I say that was going to be my question too do we ever do anything that's specifically just for those epe teachers focus group or like what is it

119that's not attractive to them if they still aren't moving I don't know of what I can do to answer that is like if I wish somebody would have paid for my college like like asking you know what I mean like asking them or like doing a survey like hey you're not participating in this you know what like why yeah yes just to you know a thought that's all thank you for that suggestion um all right but I do meet with them and I do send them just to that group yeah great thank you are there other questions on these strategies or indicators anybody anybody all right we're gonna move on to Priority number three um does look like priority number three is just the single page so uh if there are no objections when we

120finish this um we'll take like a five minute break uh let's stretch their legs and grab a cup of coffee before we continue on okay all right so priority three is the district's commitment to diversity equity in inclusion um in our in our goals and the strategies and uh let me just say this so the district commissioned a diversity Equity inclusion audit this fall and it was conducted by an outside independent agency and they came in and interviewed a whole bunch of people um that was Milton and Franklin Reed and their company and Nate you were involved in a lot of the conversations with that as well um they have sent me a draft version of it I have reddits and what we see here is is absolutely consistent I mean I took it from

121their recommendations and from the audit the board is going to hear the Dei presentation on February 28th right it was the last Tuesday last Tuesday of February there in a public work session they're going to hear the results from Milton Reed as he presents that but the items listed here under both the goals and the strategies are directly from the results of the initial results of that that survey so that's if you're asking well how did you come up with this I came up with it directly from the Dei audit so if there's some of it that will be better answered by Milton when he comes to present with you but but that's where this is coming from based upon our surveys of our stakeholders all right so the goals commitment to improve SCH culture

122with an emphasis on diversity equity and inclusion 3.2 ensure all students and Staff feel accepted and valued 3.3 identify professional development in educational interventions to reduce to not reduce to reduce student achievement gaps Foster an equitable environment and ensure sex success for all okay so some of the strategies communicate out the Strategic plan to all stakeholders so that was something that was identified in the survey responses as that that they knew the board was working on a strategic plan but they didn't know the details and people want to know the details so that will be that would absolutely be something that we will work on I'll work with Mr Neely he already knows that I put this on his plate that when the board does vote to approve this plan in its final version we

123have to have a strategic Communications plan on how we're going to let everybody know this is what we're working on improved internal and external communication was also something cited in the study we're going to hit that with priority four ensure all learning environments are representative of the students we serve some of the things that were cited in the survey responses is that there was there was strong evidence in some classrooms that the things that teachers chose to display and the examples of student work that they chose to promote were very much representative and then there were other court classes in areas of schools where there was no evidence of student work or things that were promoting a inclusive environment that was representative of our kids and their cultures improve transparency on how educational materials and

124resources are distributed so one of the other concerns was brought up in the survey was that that there was a general feeling from some that that resources were not distributed in the school City in an equitable way so I I believe our processes are actually Equitable but we don't talk about our processes so that's what I mean by improving our transparency is being much more communicative about how we make decisions on on how resources are distributed so yes we provide a a funding amount per student per per school but I never send an email out to the staff about that but that's something I can do say hey this is the calculation we used is based upon the number of students in your building and that's how we determine how much each each school gets

125you know so things like that to improve the transparency improve both opportunities to strengthen children's cultural identity and communicate those experiences to families so this was something in the survey data I believe the number was only 56 percent of our families felt that our schools strengthened their child's cultural identity so only one out of every two you basically parents felt that our schools strengthened their child's cultural identity so that that's something we can absolutely improve on and that we should provide PD to teaching staff on how to incorporate students cultural references in all aspects of learning this is one of their recommendations is that we need to provide professional development for our teachers on here's creative ways where we can incorporate some of these cultural background things in what we're already doing then yes provide

126PD and discussion on how grades 6 through 12 teachers can Bridge the engagement Gap reported by students so again we surveyed students and this was not an issue yet Elementary but in in secondary grade levels um students frequently reported that they did not feel that their they were engaged in their classes so again that's a discussion that's something that we have students are feeling this way we got to have a talk about it yeah and that we have to we have to do professional development how can we make our lessons more engaging survey feedback on the co sir we need to survey feedback on the code of conduct and how to improve it that was another thing that was cited frequently by staff is that a lot and I saw a lot of the comments

127some were very valid some of them show a lack of of understanding about the code so we need to figure out why there's a disconnect between what the code really is and and how many people perceive it to be the code was a result of the office of civil rights voluntary investigation and it was meant to address disproportionality that we weren't suspending students of color at a disproportional rate that was the point of the code but it I'm not sure everyone understands that and knows that so their needs we need to figure out how we can improve the code of conduct Implement district-wide committee to address bullying concerns this is another thing addressed in the survey data that students felt that bullying was a significant concern and how how is like bullying inclusion or like

128Polar Opposites right like nobody can feel included if they're being bullied like that's the opposite like I'm not accepted if I'm being bullied so that is something that I my recommendation is that we form a district-wide committee that has some kids on it as well and that they make recommendations to District administration on we want to do this we want to do that to address bullying in the district commitment to include building level Personnel earlier in decision making process I'll own this one this is I've been guilty of this but that there was survey feedback data that we feel like things are top down that we're not being involved in the decision-making process and sometimes teachers are involved but I don't do a good job communicating it for example we just had the calendar committee

129meet last week which is a very representative group there's more teachers on it than there is administrators but I didn't send out something out ahead of time and say hey teachers the calendar committee's meeting meeting on this day if you have concerns here's the teacher Representatives share your feedback with them because they may not know like if I like they may not know that there's teachers on the calendar committee because I didn't communicate it or a principal didn't communicate it like that's something I acknowledge we can improve on is saying that some our code of conduct revision absolutely had teachers on it last year but I bet the average teacher doesn't know that so like those are things that we can absolutely improve upon um with this and then this is a recommendation also from

130the calendar committee is we have to provide an intentional time for professional development and I'm going to recommend late starts when the calendar is presented to the board but that is a recommendation from your calendar committee that I want to include on here is to provide an intentional time for professional development for for our staff to address some of these needs so otherwise when we're going to fit it in so that's oh okay I'll shut up but again all of this did not come from my mind it came from the results of the audit on the goals or the strategies and indicators of success for priority number three Madam president trustee Murphy code of conduct as you know I was there when the original one was done we've been talking about and nothing's perfect it

131all can be updated but we've been talking about it for two years well we updated this board approved it this year is so why are we talking about it about doing more changes because Ira I'm going to recommend we have an annual review process every year on the code that that solicits us feedback from teachers and staff and what's worked like to me the next thing that's big that we haven't addressed is cell phones like we I hear if there's one complaint I hear from teachers more than any other it's Mr Miller you got to do something about cell phones but it can't just be me it's like that's something that the code of conduct committee has to address and say this is how we're going to recommend we address cell phones so and the

132next one goes back to improve both opportunities to strengthen cultural identity so I had this brief discussion with you about Native American Heritage Month so where do we put our priorities you've got Black History Month you get Hispanic Heritage Month Native American History Month um women's history coming up but not all of them are federal months some of them okay so I'm gonna go with that the ones that have been approved by the federal government is areas that we need to go and push because you brought up other polish um you know people from the past sure type of thing but I'm just going to go with the ones that have been approved by the federal government in the past it's things that we should be looking at which goes back to curriculum um the

133Annie burn Hicks story I really would have loved us to start the year out with that lesson plan but we're going to wait for Black History Month for that you know my feeling on that was uh because her birthday falls during the school calendar was to do it on her birthday annually but the committee I think wanted to do it during Black History Month I you know it's I'm open to but that's why we're here to talk about it yeah all right and so I want to put up we need to start going from they have a month to curriculum is the whole year that's why I liked it because it wasn't just saying that we're limited to February that it was I believe it's in April is winner right I would support that yeah

134all right but again we need to move away from these and then we had I had lots of comments about Native American month because they also fall under Hispanic Heritage Month because you've got a lot of Native Americans down in Mexico and the other areas who feel that they are indigenous just as much as the Indians that came from North America so this area so not to bogus down needs a lot more discussion about what we're doing to be inclusive especially with curriculum curriculum to me um I responded to you on that AP um yeah history class so to me it left out a bunch of areas um that I think are still real important that aren't covered is a great start absolutely but it doesn't cover everything so that is my two cents in

135that is that this area still needs a lot more discussion thanks all right other uh comments or questions on priority three anyone all right um not hearing any comments or questions on priority three we're going to take a about a five minute recess here and um we will be back in just a few minutes [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] we are back thank you all for your patience uh with us as we took a just a brief recess there we're going to continue on with priority number three I'm sorry four improved Communications at all levels superintendent Miller Okay so uh the the strategic planning committee committee

136rightly identified that we have to address communication and in any large organization like SCH where you know internally 2 000 employees externally were talking you know with parents and Guardians close to 20 000 and then sometimes we're trying to communicate to the whole Community which is another or a total of eighty thousand and here I'm in like we have to be more strategic about how we communicate so our goals are for 4.1 provide timely and effective internal communication for all employees 4.2 improve external communication with parents and 4.3 improve external communication in Communications with Community stakeholders so for this a Nate worked hard on this one Nate George is our Public Relations Specialist and so I'm going to have him come up and talk you through some of our strategies for improving communication good evening

137trustees superintendent Miller members of the public um so I'll go I'll be going over some of our strategies and and indicators of success um the first one is to develop new digital document Solutions so employees can access needed documents procedures in a centralized location some of that will take place by where we redo things on the website um so some of these things that you'll see here you'll hear me repeatedly say like there's a revision of our website that's going on um currently in the building process hopefully to be done within the next month or so but it's going to look differently than the interaction for users is going to be different um I'm really looking forward to be more representative of who we are as a district and for it to be user friendly

138we know you know by the uh analytics by the Google Analytics what people and unique visitors use our website for so now it's making it easier for them to be able to find the information that they're looking for and then also put information that we really want them to have make that up front in public so so I'll just say with this one too like right now if I'm a new employee to the district we have a district intranet we have some things on Google Drive we have some things on OneDrive we have some things that you have to find in your email we have other things that are still paper-based forms we don't have a central place for documents and we we need one all right the next one is improve District scheduling and

139calendar to eliminate conflicts and approve attendance at events so I know as administrators one of the things we always talk about and and sometimes we kick ourselves about is not being able to to be at school events and we know you know just by the feedback that we get from administrators and principals that they want to they want us there they want to see us there but sometimes we just aren't always as aware that we should be so one of the things that we've done recently is start to develop a Google doc a Google spreadsheet we've asked principals to start filling it in so like for Black History Month um most of the schools have all started filling in this is what we're going to be doing this is the date we're going to be

140doing it or they're providing us links to their activities for women's History Month they're doing the same thing there are other things that are occurring in their buildings such as chess tournaments um um what's the other one Lego robotics tournaments those kinds of things we're also asking them to fill that in as well the board get to that I mean that's one of my frustrations um when someone calls me I was like why weren't you at the Legos tournament it was like I didn't know about it yeah so one of the things that I know that is a that has been approved lately is um what is the official position or we're calling it a webmaster social media specials social media Specialists so um I know when you all approve contracts one of the things

141that was in there was an additional stipend for individuals at each building to update their pages to update their websites um to you know send out parent Square messages right now as it exists so it has as as it has existed before um either they have somebody who is really good at it and they just kind of volunteer to do it or sometimes principles or assist the principals are taking it on on their own on some occasions they're they're calling me and asking me to put it what we really need and what we're really going to have is individuals in those buildings will be telling those stories for themselves so they'll be able to drive out that information from their own buildings to let parents and and members of the public know as well so

142we're talking about next year then the next school year no no no this is going to be all right so if myself as a board member does it just your calendar that I can pull up usually has the school board meetings on it but I don't see much else where am I supposed to go to find out about these events so internally if you want to go to find out about the event I can share it with all board members that that one's not a problem um but we have had other conversations about like a district-wide calendar as well so I mean that's something that we've got to formulate work on myself and honor honor is really kind of taking a lead on it she's been kind of pushing me to stay on task with

143it but that's something that we're currently working on and that's something sorry trustees that's something I when I came I have asked about because like you I've been asked why have you not been at this event but when you don't know about it it's hard to attend so again looking at the district-wide and making sure not only board members but admin know about it as well as any parents out there or Community member all right the next one is publishing internal brand and Logo catalog to provide consistency and Clarity and Communications so one of the things that I I realized um you know a few months in is that there are some buildings that have really good branding and really good uh mascot logos others did not so one of the things that we did

144at the beginning of the school year 10 hour spreadsheet to all principals asked them how they felt about their mascots and their logos got their input and then forwarded all that information to the ACC the graphics arts and design class taught by Mr luska we have they have uh formulated a lot of think a lot of upgrades to the mascots and we have put them all on the spreadsheet and we are in the process of kind of finalizing how they feel about them in some occasions they have well most occasions I should say they have used this as a tool to send out to staff members to students so they're selecting their own branding everybody is taking kind of an ownership of it it's a really good thing to see and so um we are

145I think we got about four schools left that we've got to finalize but the whole goal is while you know everybody's logo won't be won't look uniform look the same but we all wanted to have like the same kind of look to it they should be modern they should be up to date it shouldn't be something that looks like it's 20 years old so that's something that we're in the process of doing hopefully it should be finalized within the next month updated SCH website for improved usability and that navigation I touched on that a little bit earlier um that is that is a project I've been working on for for quite some time uh the other thing that is involved in that is getting some content that gives a good representation of what our district

146looks like so what goes on an everyday daily basis around school so last year um at the at the end of last school year you all approved the contract for a photographer who has gone around I think we've got three schools left to take care of and then we've got spring sports that we got to take care of we've got a huge catalog of pictures that is a really good representation of what goes on in school a lot of those will be used on not only the home page of the website but then each school will also have access to that catalog so they can put them on their individual pages and then for any marketing materials that they want to use so if there's a brochure that they want to produce if there's something

147they want to put out they have access to it we all want everything to have a real clean Chris professional look to uh publish I'm sorry I skipped one continue to offer parents training with communication channels such as parents wear and PowerSchool I know that is something uh that has been ongoing for the last few months Miss Becky Parks has been facilitating those trainings um there is one every month that they've been doing I want to say they started in November so I remember trustee Blake King was was always very intimate about the fact that we need to have employees I'm sorry parents uh trained on how to use parent Square how do you how to use PowerSchool so that was the first one that they've done they've done other ones that are um classes

148or videos that would help parents to learn how to navigate through the tools that we utilize to help parents keep track of of their students progress uh published quarter Elite newspaper newsletter in both printed digital formats and distribute to parents and the community so superintendent Miller touched a little bit about earlier about the Dei audit and about the feedback that we get from some people just about not knowing what goes on in the district and there's a lot of what a lot of things that go on in the district and um the feedback that we got it sometimes that people just aren't aware of it and so we thought that developing a newsletter would help us to accomplish that there are what's her name principal lenzo has a newsletter that's a Weekly Newsletter that she

149distributed that she uses to get information out so it's something that we need to do district-wide in order to make sure that you know we're getting the word out so it won't be a division that we have for it is not that it will be a very wordy newsletter but in the digital format it would just be a link to like an article or PDF so then people could read the whole thing so you would see the headline the topic would say hey parenting tips for powerschooling then they could just click on that and then utilize it um with the a new platform that we're using will have the ability to be able to track how many people received it and how many people have clicked on that link so that will allow us to

150to see how we're doing with that Mr George can I ask a quick question sure so accessibility as well as responsiveness like those things are you're keeping those in mind as these are being designed right like various screen sizes as well as people with uh Vision impairments and so very good question our website and I had this experience with the website our website developer um keeps those things in mind and if there is something that we're doing that is outside of the bowels of that they will let us know okay great they will make that correction there was there was something I tried to do from a navigational standpoint and they let me know know this um goes outside those bounds we need to keep it like this so even if we feared left they

151would bring us right back to where we need to be that's wonderful I I just I know there's a lot to know with that and if you've got is somebody that's that's watching over you that's that's wonderful yes absolutely I am a question sure to me my issue is fiscal so the district used to do a bi-yearly newsletter there was only four pages because it's costly um glossy and it went to everybody and if I'm worried about how much your budget I mean this you send one out to everybody the postage and everything else you're talking tens of thousands of dollars so I'd like to see what the budget is on this um with doing four and who your audience is because everybody or you have a targeted audience that you want to get this

152information out to and I will send that in a question yeah I would say we'd have to be very strategic with it obviously doing it on a digital format is going to be more cost efficient for us but we do know that not everybody is computer literate not not everybody uses uh the web or the internet so our Target is to try to reach any and all people as as much as possible so maybe we don't we don't do it um you know on a large scale but we do it on a scale large enough that we're able to make sure that we're reaching people uh no matter which platform or which no matter which media they use I can't tell you how many times oh go ahead I am my only comment regarding the

153newsletter I was just happy to be talking to a couple of colleagues in other districts and um they saved quite a bit of money by putting their News letters in the uh the mayor allows them to put their newsletter in their flyer touching of the mayor sends out the water bill and he has his flyer and you're talking about that would be a tremendous saving to those if we can do that kind of partnership and I read everything in my newsletter with the mayor Sammy I read every bit of it it's good information so we might consider that that's a good suggestion superintendent Miller you were going to say something I was just going to say I I can't tell you how many times people have brought me a sample newsletter from other districts they're

154like oh we should do this we should do this so I know other districts have figured out a way to to produce a print copy um and and get it out I do like the suggestion of including it with um with the with the city talking to the mic please I said I do like the suggestion of including it with the city thank you all right um continue commitment to provide digital recordings of all public board meetings um so and whenever we do have four meetings we regularly provide um links it's upload it provide links to the meetings so we'll continually do that produce a podcast that would highlight educational leaders promote our success stories and discuss issues in education so this was something a superintendent and I discussed we we've been doing the school

155City speaks for more than a year and some of you have been present at them and even though it's open to the public and people can ask any and every question they want it's very sparsely attended usually no more than two to three people outside of those are what those of us who are affiliated with SCH so one of the things we talked about was how do we get information out to people um in a way that breaches them one of the more popular things that's going on this podcast um you know it's it's a it's a new wave of the future any and everybody has a podcast and when I say any and everybody almost any and everybody has a podcast but if they're used correctly they can be really good valuable tools to

156disseminate information you heard something antenna Miller talked about how it's influenced him on decision uh that he's been riping with the wrestling with and so The Filling is if we can highlight different people around the district those administrators and and buildings or if there's a teacher or coach or even a student you know we have some brilliant students in the district if we can use that as an opportunity to tell our story that's something that we should explore have we ever considered tick tock trustee Miller yeah so I have not a huge Tick Tock fan I'm just going to admit it I know I shouldn't admit it as a PR marketing guy I am not a huge Tick Tock fan I'm gonna I'm gonna age myself um and the conversations I've had with trustee Miller

157I mean I'm sorry with superintendent Miller I am searching for a student a very mature trustworthy student who can help to produce the content that we could trust that would put out only the contact that we would like a little guidance you know just yeah so it's something I'm working through um I'm not a huge fan of it um and then there's there's some controversy around the security implications with it because of you know the the affiliations but to your point it's uh to medium that our young people are using and not just young people right I mean you know there are some of us probably in a room if you willing to admit it that utilize tick tock on a regular basis and so um it's up to us to go where they are

158hi my name is Scott and I use tick tock so no to answer to your question yeah we we absolutely have to get there do we have oh no go ahead do we have a SCH Instagram page we do and how is that utilized because I'm hearing a lot of the questions about um you know how can we centralize all of a lot of this information and that would be a great Avenue usually for almost everything I would say 90 of the time there is a program that I use called HootSuite and it allows you to develop your message and send out any and all pictures all from one platform and so generally unless it's something that doesn't have a picture with it I'm usually using all three at the same time so whatever you

159see and by all three I mean Facebook Twitter and IG right the the Twitter because of the character limit you know it may be manipulated a little bit to fit it under 280 characters but generally speaking uh the Facebook and Instagram posts will mirror each other and uh those phone we we hired Mr Cooley to do those have they been understood anything yet uh no those are going to be rolled out when the website is is okay I've got thousands of pictures in our catalog we have a really good catalog to build from I've sent trustee Murphy before you even ask a question I know it's coming we are in the process of getting our own camera so after our contract has expired we can develop our own internally um next one continue to utilize

160the radio program to get news into the community and highlight Student Success this is one I'm sure it's superintendent uh Miller will agree um sometimes we go on there and we you know have wonky conversations but really the best shows we have when we're able to get students to join us whether student athletes whether it's happened students that's when you really see them shine and it's a really good representation people are really enthusiastic whenever they they hear it and see them on the radio right because wjob also Simon casted or or there's a web-based um showing of the radio program so we definitely want to continue with that format it's definitely a positive for us um and it's worthwhile I consistently have people tell me that you know when they when I first meet them

161oh yeah I've heard you on WJLB so sometimes for the radio portion it's hard to get a metric of how many people are really tuned in but I know they do I know people listen both internally to some of our employees absolutely listen yeah yeah and then we do have another radio station here in Hammond what is it 102.3 and uh they have a wide range audience especially in Hammond and Young Folks nice and you might consider this right on Calumet Avenue right next to that future just become familiar with them yeah they have fmnam they have the young folks and I don't watch that because all that junk music I don't do that but they have the gospel and the contemporary it would be a good look yes ma'am uh continue to invest in

162targeted social social media promotion to highlight District success and keep stakeholders informed um depending on what it is that we are trying to accomplish I will utilize the uh the pay portion of the um social media Outlets so usually if we have a big push for enrollment you know we're going to invest in that um if there is like for summer school we were trying to make sure we have people registering for summer school and want people to be aware of it we were utilizing that the the really good thing about social media marketing and it's not the the be-all end uh but the really good thing about it is it allows you to be able to kind of pick the people you want to Target so if I want to go after people between

163ages of 18 to 25 or 25 to 35 or 60 and older those who have kids all those things that allows you to be able to do it it gives you the feedback the number of people who viewed your messaging uh the number of people who have clicked on the link the really important thing is to call to action so to to see an ad is one thing but to get to people get people to react to it to make a phone call to click a link that's really what I'm I'm interested in and so uh on a number of occasions we've utilized that over the last year and we'll continue to do so we've seen the benefits I've even gone as far like with our enrollment I'll generally make a phone call to the

164Welcome Center hey how the phone calls going are you getting an increase in them and they they usually report that there was an influx on phone calls so we so we know it's working to me you know one thing you don't see on here is is purchasing Billboards and my my that was something the district had done prior to my time here and my first year superintendent I went ahead and authorized it as well but I I just don't think a lot of people make decisions about the school they're going to be at by looking at a billboard I just oh okay I'm driving along oh there's a School City of Hammond maybe I should check that out I think the targeted social media marketing where they can click on something and learn about our

165district is much more likely to to get somebody interested than just seeing a billboard so Billboards are expensive like when we had those contracts in the past we were spending thousands of dollars so I'd much rather spend it on targeted marketing than than Billboards that and and uh social I'm sorry not social um search engine marketing so that's a very powerful one as well that will be one that I I would suggest that we use more whenever the website the new website design is rolled out because it's one thing to get people to to go to your website but if it's not user friendly or if it doesn't have a really clean professional look it can have the adverse effect and so once we get that process you know for those of you don't know

166social engine Market social search engine marketing is the process for when you go and do a Google search there are ads that are near the top those are usually your sponsored ones those people pay for that kind of real estate and then everything else after that is kind of organic depending on your word search we want to be at the top we want to be you know we want to be at the top there's no doubts about it and so once we get that the website together that's that's what I'm going to utilize for uh last one is to continue to publish Communications in English Spanish and other language as our parents and communities need generally whenever I do a flyer we have access to a translator who works in the house for us and

167so I'm usually doing a a flyer in two different languages the use of parent Square allows us to do our messaging and English and in Spanish usually all I have to do is click on edit translation and it'll automatically do do it for them so we are doing I would say probably as much as we can to make sure that you know those of uh those of our parents who are Spanish people Spanish-speaking population uh get all of the information we need and in addition um you know I want to keep promoting the ldp and the ESL boot camp which you know meets on a on a weekly basis and it's regularly involved in making sure that our parents are learning English and not only learning English but learning how to apply it and use

168it to check on the progress of their students Mr George can I ask a question about using Auto translation like it it gets you part way there but not all the way there we don't have anybody that can proof those things in Spanish before they go out um I mean that when we talk about being sincere and engaging um there is a difference when you use Auto translate the parent Square doesn't do it thoroughly I've not seen any auto translate that gets you all the way there okay um usually the grammar's off yeah trustee Candelaria you you want to chime in there yeah I totally agree like it'll get you part way it gets you okay but it's not necessarily the correct way of uh right it's it's not necessarily A fool-hearted like we really

169want you to you know we took the extra time to have somebody translate this okay um that's that's my word of caution there um bought lessons so um but but a suggestion on my part is like if someone could actually look at those things and do the translation for you it will be received far better than your auto translation Point thank you so so I'll generally say if we're sending out something official from the district we we do have it translated by an actual person where where it becomes challenging is you know like all of our teachers all 800 of our teachers use parent Square to send messages and so like they like we don't have a capacity to have all of their messages translated in that I get but things that are coming from

170the district or advertisements or newsletter what you know things that are coming from the district if we could take that that extra little step um I I think it would go a long way I um I do think this is a problem that technology is going to solve in the next year or two I don't I don't I didn't show it to the board but I sent an email about chat gbt to the teachers but I had Chad gbt write the whole email and I can't tell you how my teachers told me oh I assume like it sounded like you like I mean it sounded like a real person yeah it does then in the PS I put this actually this message above was written by chat gbt yeah so I think the AAA stuff

171will if they can do it in English they're going to be able to do in other languages as well but I have a point is taken and I agree that for district messages we could probably do better with that sure and perhaps we could uh hone in our our collaboration with the Hammond Public Library there certainly would put our information on their website and we certainly can leave Flyers at the library when it's you know it's not open yet but I'm just saying when uh when it reopens we certainly should contact them and you know we are Partners absolutely continue that partnership in that way trustee Blake King don't they send out a newsletter too doesn't the library send out a newsletter too we don't send it Citywide and that's something we're talking about now

172focus focus on certain groups with our newsletter Tampa Public Library Madam president wait I think do you have one more oh I think he eventually they continue to offer the English classes for non-englishment okay all right Chelsea Murphy I want to go back to the podcast um where are we thinking this the ACC do we need to update what they have maybe a great learning tool for them to be hosting a podcast so I don't want to jump too far ahead um but the conversations that we've had would be that's kind of rotating around the different buildings in different locations currently we have ACC interns who are working with me to develop the stories of each building and so they're kind of already they have an assignment for their school year that they're working on

173so to fit this in would kind of throw them off their axis a little bit but um superintendent Miller has kind of tagged me with the responsibility of kind of putting it all together with some assistance some technical assistance tips from I.T and and uh and uh this Horizons so we may have a home base for for some of it but I want to have the flexibility to be on site so you know like for example if we're going to contract a speaker to come into the technology conference I want to do a podcast with them even if it's only for 10 minutes and record right with them someone you know get get their their best thoughts on on record you know and do some of this so I want to have the flexibility to

174take a laptop and a mic and go to a place and and and do it remotely even if we home base it at the ACC that might be fine too but um that's that's the goal like I want to highlight our students I want to I think it's a great way to highlight staff like that's started to do a podcast about staff no no I I love the podcast ideas um I didn't know that stuff was flexible I thought it was like more fixed with the microphones and everything that actually can be you can actually get microphones to attach to your phone to do podcasting with and make it that that portable and the quality is good it is good you might post it off site but the interviews itself like you could record those

175with people um the other thing I want to talk about the podcast and I saw this um when nsba was down in New Orleans I went to a site visit on a school district so they two high schools like we do and with sports so when the rivalries come in so the football coaches would come in with a podcast mid-week and they would talk smack about each other and they would highlight the different players to watch at the game and I've talked about this for years it's probably been eight years since I went to this thing but now that we're down to two high schools I think you talked about drumming up things and having things on the calendar if this is something we did with our coaches with football soccer basketball a rivalry game

176type things yeah just just the in him between the two high schools good idea thank you all right I have a couple of comments does anybody else have anything on this well one other thing I you know I'm someone going back in in time I wish we could uh just really recall when the robotics team uh created that bicycle for Gracie that was an epic moment for us and that should have been on CNN Network so I'm just hoping if we ever have a moment like that even if we can go back because I mean I'm sure they still have the bike I have the pictures I cried that that was phenomenal that they built a bicycle for a young lady who would never walked or used her lamps before so you know I want

177to see our kids when I turn on Channel 7 News 5'9 when they showcase you know you know grandkids we have grandkids here in school City Hammond we got to get them on these networks and do whatever it takes these contests because that's how we're going to draw people to our school when they see our kids out there being getting National Acclaim for what they're doing here I mean Mr sawinski sent us the uh all of the gold medals for the band The Music Department that was phenomenal that needs to be out here somewhere you know we gotta find a way to draw and I just would love to see our kids soon and that kind of uh venue 2579 CNN Network whatever I think most of you will attest to this but anytime you

178go into one of the buildings it's hard to not want to stop and take pictures or take video like there's always something going on and it's uh it's a matter of us just getting that content together and distributing it to the rest of the world for them to see thank you all right are there any other comments okay um I want to Echo what trustee Murphy said about the district calendar um that would be amazing and you brought up about seh speaks or wjob like I get parent Square messages for lots of other things but I don't think I've ever gotten an a parent Square message about those things happening like hey like tune in to wjb or catch the recording or here's the link or superintendent speaks is going to be this week that

179again it was like a district or wide message um the only place as a trustee that I've seen it is on the home page of the website in the Rotator otherwise I don't know where they are um so I I don't if we had a district-wide calendar that would be another way to maybe address those things um and then to me also communication is different than marketing like I have lots of things that I've been talking to the superintendent about is as it relates to what we're doing with marketing so I don't want to muddy the message here but I would go on record as saying like I would love to see like a marketing plan and what are we going to do with digital and it is more than you know keyword searches or

180boosted posts in Facebook and like looking at the analytics of what you're doing already but also looking at like digital ads for some of the things that we do that are unique from other other districts that might help draw for open enrollment and it may mean re-looking at some of our policies and some of the things that that we're doing there as well but I don't want to I don't want to get us too far off track tonight but I do think there's some significant opportunities and if we're going to leverage those for the fall like that's something we need to be talking about in February and March to start getting those things out so I I'd love I'd love to see more on that okay all right if there are no other uh questions

181or comments on priority number four um I want to try to keep us moving here we can slide on over to Priority number five superintendent Miller thank you Mr Mr George we appreciate you very much thank you thank you all right um priority five is fiscal responsibility throughout School City of Hammond um our goals 5.1 seek operating referendum renewal to maintain Staffing and operations at near current levels 5.2 see Capital project referendum to address long-term facility needs as identified in the facility study and to provide a degree of equity among school facilities 5.3 increased cash balances across all major accounts educations operating referendum operating to recommended levels 5.4 implement the new Financial system and improve efficiencies in all operations 5.5 increase opportunities for local minority women and veteran-owned businesses to partner with School City of

182Hammond 5.6 continue to fund high value academic programs that contribute to Student Success and 5.7 provide compensation packages for staff that are of high value and competitive all right before we I have Eric explain some of this at any any comments on the goals any comments for anyone on the goals all right seeing none let's move on to strategies strategies and indicators of success all right Mr Kurtz go ahead so under the strategies and indicators of the first two bullet points are curing the Hammond voters to approve an operating referendum renewal and being the voters of Haven to approve a capital projects referendum so the indicator of success would be at election day exactly uh periodically update the facility study to current status so that we pick up things that may have become a higher

183priority or things that have changed over time maybe things that haven't previously been identified that need to move up in prioritization uh cash balances as I've talked about I think we need to look at maintaining a cash balance across the education fund operations fund and the referendum fund of about 15 percent which is just about two months of of spend um and we are below that so I feel it's important to to maintain a healthy balance and that's really what I would consider to be the minimum prudent level uh and and hopefully that would move us to the point where we went require securing tax anticipation warrants every year because those have some underlying costs that really don't benefit anyone so um so the you know the metric of success is simply measuring that that

184percentage uh and then the fact that we don't need to secure those taws uh link Financial system um implementing that successfully the street Streamliner operations uh in addition to that it I think it also provides the level of transparency certainly to the board because when it's fully implemented we should be able to as you're looking at a claim you should be able to click on it and actually see the invoice see the documentation that's associated with that expenditure so we're in the very early stages of that implementation on and we're really implementing it at first Apples to Apples and then over time we'll be able to take advantage of some of that digital work stream that that link has told us their system will support and before you move off of that I will just

185say we still I saw a tick tock video recently and I was talking about asking a millennial to fill out a form in triplicate and that they don't see the need like why are you making me fill out this piece of paper and send one copy to this person and another copy to this person and another copy to this person and the point wasn't lost on me is that that we need to convert some of all of our paper-based processes to digital things like if if we're if a teacher requests a professional development leave then you need to go on in onto digital form and when they click submit it needs to automatically go to their principal for approval and then if it's funded with title money needs to go to Catherine Danko for approval

186and it needs to do all of this digitally now we have to send different copies through school mail and they go from this person to that person and then when they're done they have to go back to this person it's completely inefficient so when we get link implemented we absolutely will be able to have that level of Automation in our process well not just automation but it's the security too with digital signatures and um things don't get lost and all of those things um no that's a great thing we are we are very paper-centric right now um and the last bullet point on this one is uh work with the board to develop a policy to encourage minority women-owned and Veteran business enterprises that are that are local so those are living Finance what I

187mean by a policy is I really need the board to tell me to what degree do we want to incentivize mbwbb local business participation meaning do we would we like let's say we have a public bid process and you know it comes in at the cheapest bid is not someone who falls under one of these categories but then maybe the second bid is someone who falls in this category but they're not cheapest what degree of cost should the board approve some organizations say five percent so if they if the MBE wbvb Falls in a five percent range of the lowest bid then you award the bid to the MBE I need the board to tell me that I need to say you can spend in up to an additional five percent in order to give

188business to to groups that fall in this category and it probably depends if it's a thousand dollar purchase or a million dollar purchase too sure of course so but like those that's something that we have to like that really isn't a superintendent decision that's a poor decision that we want to support this I'm just recommending that we do and um I think there's ways we could track it to get started you know we could identify which vendors would qualify as this and then we could develop a policy to say this is how School city is human intentionally wants to support this trustee Lake King I know you've been asking for this for a long time I think we're I think we need to do it so I um I think we have some federal guidelines

189that actually wouldn't that updated federal guidelines say we have to do it with our federal Monies um for a certain purchases above a certain level but I think we should just the board should come together and say okay this is this is the degree we want to support that's that's the concept behind this indicator okay are there any questions on the goals or the strategy of the president yes Linq how much is that going to cost us uh we're trying to financial system implementation the board's already approved it um yes um it was about half the cost of our current system so we saved substantially but I believe it's around to 250 200 000. I believe that was approved at the July board meeting just as I was starting so it was already implemented well

190it's not already implemented we're in in the implementation process uh the first phase is to really work on our accounts payable so we'll the month of January and the month of February will be done in our Legacy system but we hope to go live with accounts payable requisitions and and those activities in in March uh and then start to move on payroll activities in April May and then when we return to school from Summer our extracurricular accounts go live on the link system for the next school year so will it change the way you're making the report with that format change because it's really yes it probably will change a lot my expectation is is the first thing is we need to be able to function in the new system and I think we will

191I think to be honest I think we'll have some delays in getting you reports that look like what you're used to um so you know give us a little Grace as we Implement that news I mean if you can make them look better and more you know explainable especially to the public because that's something I still deal with I I tell anybody that's my weakest point on this board is understanding uh report at least I printed I know she's sick of me because I do Mr Miller did a lot give me information tonight I don't know that they're going to be easier um because the data is the data the data and the accounting structure that Indiana school corporations use is the accounting structure that were mandated by the State Board of accounts I just

192have to trust you well I mean I think the P ultimately when fully implemented to the level that was represented during the selection process if you look at something you should be able to then click through it and say okay I want to see what this is and then when you click on it I'll show you the invoice and then when you click on deeper you can look at the purchase order and it provides you as a board member with the ability to dig dig deeper now that's the end State when we're done I don't you know that's not going to probably be here in 2023 but hopefully soon after that okay are there other questions on the Strategic indicators Madam president um I want to periodically update the facility study the current status so

193the one in board docs for the board is from September of 2021. and if you pull it up the first school building they have on there is Columbia meeting excuse me 3.2 million repairs and soft costs so we all know we put all that work into Colombia so most of that's not true so I'd like us to get those updated I mean Schmidt I put him on the spot in that one Public Work session and they said they would update it as we got the work done they did and so be nice to get this one updated in here just again exactly what you're saying so we have up-to-date data on what the priority schools are now we know Columbia is no longer one of them like it shows them there that's the only thing

194I have on this one all right are there any other questions or comments on priority number five anyone priority number five all right we're going to move on to Priority number six and I will also note this is our the the final priority as part of the Strategic plan okay priority six is the United District community and I think I will read the summary for this SCH recognizes that for us to be our best and for our students to achieve their highest level of success all stakeholders must work together as a United Community community includes but not limited to to our school board trustees our District administration our teachers and staff our parents students civil leaders higher education Partners Community Partners and our local businesses so our our goal is to see strong evidence of

195all Community Partners working together to benefit School City of Hammond schools that's I don't know how else to Define what a United District Community would look like other than seeing evidences of all these different partners working together with with us but I'm open to revisiting that goal or adding additional goals if trustees have some other ideas but um I'm just going to go through evidence of mous in partnership with area universities including Purdue Northwest IU Northwest Calumet College and Ivy Tech evidence of partnership with Community Partners for fulfilling active roles in our schools this is like Mental Health America and Latinos counts and just a lot of the groups that are working in our schools evidence of parents taking a greater role in their child's education through increased PTA membership increased attendance at open houses

196and parent events I think that's one metric that we can measure and give you data on is the number of parents who are coming to to our events evidence of student engagement through increased participation in extracurricular programming and event attendance another one that I think we can track and look year to year and say okay are more students participating in our extracurriculars evidence of teachers and administrators partnering with parents through increased PTA membership and attendance and meetings so sometimes I think we forget that the T and PTA means that there's an expectation teachers are part of that meeting it's not just for parents to get involved it's a parent teacher Association so that they can work together evidence of Staff commitment through increased attendance and extracurricular events I I think that's just something it's you

197know there is some comments made that sometimes people don't know but I like we need to see our kids in other contexts than just the classroom and and when we see our kids in these other contexts experiencing success it just makes for such a better school culture and I can point to half activities or sporting events or extracurricular activities but when you talk to kids in these scenarios you can just see their light shine and we need to do that and we we need we need staff to consider that a part of their maybe not their job but just their their responsibility to being in relationship with our kids that hey I'm going to come support evidence of Civic leaders partnering with our schools and our students supporting and attending Civic events so um this

198goes both ways but we have great Partners in the in in the city and Beyond many of them do give time to come in and talk to our kids but I do think that that can be deepened evidence of business involvement through increased opportunities for students to participate in work-based learning I kind of mentioned this under the Student Success as well that we need our businesses to not even always employ our students to provide work-based learning and internships and job Shadows those type of things creation oh sorry skipped one increased volunteerism from our parents and community members in our schools I think that's something we can easily measure I've been saying you may have noticed I've been saying this in meetings recently we we need our parents to come be part of the solution like

199I would love to see every Elementary class to have a parent volunteer every day of the year that would be amazing for our classes and for our parents to get involved in that way so that's it doesn't just have to be there like we talk about school security things like how could we man entrances that we obviously can't put a security person but if we have volunteers we can put up a desk we can have a person sitting at a desk yeah and and make sure nobody comes through creation of superintendent's advisory Council to provide input on matters important to the community so this would be one of my my tasks is to create this and set a frequency and have a representative advisory Council to advise me evidence of positive and supportive relationships between

200all School Board trustees and District administration um I think that's really important I think if this plan is going to be successful and we're going to do things like when a referendum we we have to be together like we have to see the best in each other we have to want to work together and coupled with that commitment from District administration and all School Board trustees to advocate for the district in a positive manner that is supportive and recognizes that Unity is critical I just I don't know how else to say it that like if we're not United and we've heard this from various people over the years if we're not United like it's it doesn't send the right message that that we're moving forward together and and if the priority is a United District

201Community has to start with us and start with us and so when we disagree we have to disagree in a way that's that's civil enough that that we still see that we're committed to one another but I'll be quiet and that's the last the last indicators all right trustees um are there any comments or questions on the goals or strategies and indicators of success for priority number six Madam president trustee Murphy so to the superintendent extracurriculars are we talking Legos Science Olympiad chess or are you talking about something else so to me extracurricular is literally any event that is outside the normal school program so that's Athletics that's Hapa that's um and all the academic extracurriculars that you said it's it's all of it like if you go to our games you'll see that we

202have decent Community involvement but like we we don't have an enough like we really don't like for this number we have 2 000 employees like we we don't we should be packing some of these things out and we're not okay okay so that's a um should be two-pronged so I coached on all those different ones all right except for sports so with Legos Unfortunately they have the smallest number of students they allow and it used to be like 12 kids all right so that gets you you can't they already have a Legos team unless you increase the number of Legos teams for that school you can't increase the number of students um so actually putting this all sending it to you my notes so that's one problem or as I've talked to some of your

203administrators what if we do something different this goes back to curriculum and not necessary under this goal so we had all this Essa money and I said well Science Olympiad they do the um balloon cars where the fifth grade did the balloon cards this year and another one sixth grade did the mouse trap cars and everybody learned about the physics and the math involved with these and we just didn't do a small amount of students so I know that doesn't belong under this one it should be under curriculum and I'm going to put that all down there but to me her own not only High ability students should have the joy of seeing their mousetrap car go down the hallway everybody should have see have the joy of saying look at my car and I

204beat you the whole class should be able to do this so that Schwab to read is something that we should be pushing out by bringing the stuff into the classroom and I know it's late so I'll put the rest in an email okay I'll just add to that real quick I'm sorry oh no I was gonna say questions from other members um what trustee Murphy was just saying a lot of that falls in the project-based learning and stems and I'm a huge proponent of both of those so I think you know if we start to implement more of those that is that was in the first part one of the Strategic plan we could see a lot of that great other comments are instructions other comments or questions okay so um I know just based

205on some emails um when we when it got brought up about approving the Strategic plan I believe trustee Murphy it was you that wanted to hear the Dei uh Report with four like may I clarify sure all right so after listening to what the superintendent had to say I don't think I need that okay all right um it looks like we do have some of the overlay and as he stated in there it's a dynamic document all right and that can be added in um and I see no problems getting it onto February I'm going to send some small stuff you know me there's a few grammar things I want it to be good so um does anyone have like good reason that we wouldn't try to take this to February board for approval that

206would give you a couple weeks to submit questions and we have a couple of other Public Work sessions between now and then so if we need to revisit something or somebody feels like we need to add another goal like a superintendent Miller you know uh mentioned for the United Community or United District Community like do we feel like we can we can get this done in that that amount of time and that would be the goal is for this too to go for approval the end of February I have no problems with it Jesse Candelaria I'm fine you're okay uh Jesse Viking trustee Spencer I think you can we can afford our questions and then if there's something we need to bring back to the longer to the larger group to look at adding we

207could do that yeah I I absolutely think the administration will be ready okay all right okay uh any final thoughts questions concerns for this evening and where we are with a strategic plan or any other common superintendent Miller no just thank thank you all for your input I know it's a long meeting but there's a lot of work that went into this so thank you appreciate the feedback I have one other question look looking at our agenda in terms of public communities moving forward is that where it's going to be as beginning at that stage it'll be before we have it yes that was the very uh I think that was the very first thing that was on there after the pledge and roll call this morning or this this it seems like this thing

208we've been here so long right um for this meeting but yes uh that's that's where um thank you we agreed that it would be versus they would be doing it now at 8 30 at night they would be doing it now yes otherwise all right um I just want to thank superintendent Miller and all of the staff that worked so hard to put this together for us I'm excited to see the growth um when we meet again in January of next year and we start looking at the measurements and and how how are we performing so I'm I am really excited and I'm very very grateful I know this wasn't an easy thing to do so thank you all very much and uh thank you for being here with us tonight and those of you

209that have joined us online uh thank you as well so we will see everyone next Tuesday uh take a motion to adjourn so moved second good night everyone