001I call this meeting of the South Rford Board of Education together at 6:30 6:32 and you for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next item on the agenda. Would you call the role, please, Mr. Yes. Amanda Flesher, present. Lorie Hicks, present. AJ Johnson, absent. Misha Early, present. Sher Flesher, present. Daniel Winston, present. And Shirley Tower, present. Next item on the agenda is approval of agenda. Are there any no corrections? The agenda will be as written. Next item on the agenda is superintendent communications. Mr. B. Thank you, Madam President. I have several communications this evening. Uh special thanks are in order to our own administrator uh Beth Harris
002for once again her outstanding work with uh career technical education. Uh thanks to her ongoing efforts, we once again have been selected as the recipient of the Margaret Dunning uh foundation grant to the tune of $55,000. So, uh, so thanks to Beth's ongoing efforts, uh, these dollars will certainly assist us with purchasing additional items that will enhance the automotive experience for our career technical education uh, students that are a part of that program. Additionally, speaking of career technical education, on January 30th, we had the opportunity to host uh, Dr. Michelle Harmala, uh, deputy superintendent of the Michigan Department of Education for the Division of Educator Excellence, Career Technical Education, Special Education, as well as administrative law. And Dr. Harmala would like to share the following with the board of education. It was an absolute pleasure
003to tour the facility of the Brian Galdis Innovation Center and meet your students and staff. We all know how important it is to support our young people in attaining their life goals. and it is clear the students were pleased with the engaged uh level of preparation that they are encountering for their futures. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with all of you inclusive of the board of education vice president Miss Miesa Early during our lunch together at the nest. I also appreciate the opportunity to reconnect with Chef Tony as he is a wonderful teacher of hospitality and tourism and culinary and I always appreciated his support for all of our students when we worked together many years ago in Wayne Westland Community Schools. She wishes us our continued success on behalf of our students and
004she would like us to share uh her appreciation with the entire board of education but also particularly for the time that vice president Misha Early carved out that day as well. Uh additionally uh would like to thank our two kindergarten teachers from Jefferson Elementary School, Jodie Fabian as well as Kathy Bastine. Uh thanks to their grant efforts, Jefferson has began successfully piloting the pets in the classroom program initiative which is benefiting Jefferson Elementary School students. And then also it is a it is a proud honor for three of our graduating seniors uh that deserve to be recognized for earning their Michigan Seal of Biiteracy. This is a special distinction that is awarded only to students who demonstrate extremely high levels of proficiency in both English as well as another world language. Congratulations are in order
005to Ashley Sanchez Mendoza, Leslie Neri, and Pearla Monzo for achieving this incredible distinction which highlights the strength and value of multilingualism in our community. Their achievement would not be possible without the efforts of two of our teachers, Mr. Sha Salmanin as well as Jennifer Toy. Thanks to their efforts, uh these three students have earned this notable achievement. The seal will appear on their high school diplomas as well as their transcripts and it will also be celebrated on the evening of May 29th in the Dr. Weber Auditorium at Thirstston High School uh for senior honors awards night. So, congratulations to those three students for earning this distinct honor. And with that, Madame President, that concludes my communications this evening. Thank you, Mr. Next item on the agenda is the board communications. Do I have to the
006chair? Yes. I have two things to communicate. Okay. The first one is from Kathy Woods and it's in regards to the foundation and she wanted me to read this to the board. Um, scholarship application deadline is May 17th at midnight. The foundation is working with Thirstston Alumni Association on a fundraiser from May 6 to May 9th. It is a poker event at Wild Lake Allstars Lanes from 11 to 6. The foundation is in the beginning of developing a Christmas extravaganza for the community. More details will be presented at the as the event is developed and the next foundation meeting is May 22nd at 12:00 noon. And that's from Kathy Woods. And also, um, the board scholarship information was due, but there was a glitch and it wasn't sent out to the students. So, I've extended
007it, working with Chris, we extended it two more weeks, and they're going to push it out um and get that information out to our students. Very good. Thank you. Are there any other board communications? Next item on the agenda is comments from the audience. Topics related to the agenda. There are none. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Do I have a board member willing to adopt the consent agenda for the chair? Yes. I'd like to move the adoption of the following resolution, please. Do I have support. Support has been moved by Mrs. Flesher, supported by Mrs. Hicks. All in favor? I. Any naysay? Six eyes. Zero nays. Next item on the agenda is the presentation of Pierce Middle School. Mr. B. Thank you, Madam President. At this time, I would like to
008turn it over to Principal Jackson, Assistant Principal Duparin, as well as several Pierce staff members that are here this evening. And so, with that, I will turn it over to them. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. So, first we would like to of course welcome you to the Pierce Middle School data report out at this board meeting. I am Anisa Jackson which you all know and my partner over here who's trying to hide behind the boards Elizabeth do parent and so we are going to jump right in Elizabeth trying no I was trying to stand in front so this is a slide that you guys have seen before the big rocks of South Redford relationship ships and responsiveness, safety and curriculum instruction and assessment. Um, this just shows how the three rocks correlate with the my
009KIPS district strategies. So, relationships and responsiveness connects with safe nurturing environment for all and families as supportive partners. Safety connects with a safe and nurturing environment for all and curriculum and instruction and assessment connects with having a guaranteed viable curriculum which our science people are going to talk a little about tonight. High quality instruction and assessment evidence. So I will jump right in. Um, we will start with our 2024 ELA data and for MSTEP as well as PAT. It is with pleasure that I report this data this year considering last year's presentation. I wasn't the happiest about reporting the data and it didn't belong to me directly. So, as we look at grade six, our 2024 MSTEP proficiency was 20%. which from 2023 was an increase of 1%. However, what this slide does not show
010is the percentage of fifth graders because that's what we really want to look at those students and where they were in proficiency the year before because those are the students that are coming to us that now 20% are proficient. So when you look at seventh grade MSTEP proficiency in reading, you can see in 2023 19% of our sixth grade was proficient. However, those sixth graders become our seventh graders. And for 2024, 31% are proficient. And when we look at our P set which is taken by our eighth grade students again looking from the previous year 2023 where we had the 19% seventh grade those seventh graders became eighth grade and 52% were proficient on their PSAT. Now going to our math and we acknowledge that math does need a little additional work. However, we have
011still seen growth here. Our sixth grade 2023 was at 7%. And so, again, looking at 2024, 15% of our sixth graders were proficient. And again, noting we do not show the fifth graders to see what their proficiency rate was as fifth graders. But as sixth grade last year, we did have 15% proficient. Our seventh graders had 13% proficiency. So again looking at sixth grade, 7% of those sixth graders from 2023 were proficient. And those sixth graders becoming seventh grade 13% were proficient. And looking at eighth grade for PSAT again as seventh graders there were 12% and that's 12% became 17% as eighth graders. So we have shown an increase across reading and math in our proficiency looking at science and social studies. And keep in mind when we presented last year we were talking about
012science and social studies is only taken in fifth and eighth grade for fifth, 8th and 11th. So our students last year if memory serves me correctly did not take it during their fifth grade year. So when we look at our 2024 MSTEP, our science proficiency was 23%. Our social studies proficiency was at 20%. So from the last time these students were exposed to science and social studies MSTEP, we have shown an increase. So this is our data analysis and I do believe this goes back over or is this me? I lucky you. So here's what we have increased our ELA MSTEP in grade 6, a significant increase in grade 7 ELA 12%. We have uh shown an increase in our PSA T 8th grade by 19%. Our ELA 2023 cohort of students in grade 6
013and 7 both showed increases in our 2024 data. We had a significant increase in MSTEP grade six math 7% and a slight increase in our grade seven math. We increased in our math PSAT 8 by 4%. Our math 2023 cohort of students in grade six and seven showed increases in 2024 as well. And we had a significant increase in our science at 7% and social studies at 12%. So what now? We are continuing building a positive culture and climate inclusive of alternatives to suspension. Our positive behavior intervention support including our house system focusing on character traits. I don't have it on this slide but it is on another slide. We have our matrices now, the collective schoolwide matrix in the main hallway as well as the classroom matrices and matrices in every part of the
014building reflective of that area in the building. So now what what's next? We will continue to rebuild culture and climate with our PBIS assemblies, continuing again with the schoolwide and class matrices and implementing champs. We will continue to meet the mental health needs of our staff as well as our students. Our master schedule this year had a double period ELA and double period math. so we can continue to push the needle of achievement. We have academic interventions that are now inclass with math and ELA with small groupoup instruction. We have intervention class with read 180. We have afterchool tutoring as well as homework clinic. We have grade level teaming. So this year we were able to have our staff team with a common prep so that sixth, seventh and eighth grade could meet collectively. We
015are looking at alternative continuously looking at our alternatives to suspension with after school detention and other ways to keep students in school. We are continuing to examine and review our current and future curricula as you will hear soon from our science department. And as we did last year when we presented for ELA, we are continuing family engagement thanks to our PTO for being present tonight with our PTO meetings, parent nights. We will have summer school again with an emphasis on core curricula. So students that did not do well in their core classes during the school year will be uh invited to attend. We will continue with our plus delta with staff around school decisions and we have also implemented common grade book practices. Excuse me. Yes, I have a question. What is CHAMPS? Champs is
016a behavior management system and each letter stands for something different. So C is conversation, H is help, A is activity, M is movement, P is participation, and S is for success. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Now, so going back to the big three, the South Redford big three rocks um that we're focusing on, they lend themselves well to Maslo's hierarchy. We know that if kids psychological need needs are not met. If their basic needs are not met, they can't get to a place at the top of the triangle where they're ready and available for learning. So, we have to move through all of those pieces to get them to a place where they can learn. Um, the our three rocks in the district relate to those since those are our three uh relationships and responsiveness,
017safety, and curriculum, instruction, and assessment um are exactly what we're what our goals are in the district. So, they blend well with Masow's hierarchy. Um, we have a lot of support for our students at Pierce. So, we have counselors who do one-on-one counseling groups. So, they're meeting with kids based on specific needs, um like social groups, kids who need a little bit a little bit of help socializing, um groups like grief and loss, um different kinds of groups that that students can join. PBS specialized committees. Our committees are parent involvement sunshine which is spreading sunshine around the building. Uh also taking care of things when they're needed if there's a um a baby born or something like that. Fundraising assembly planning PBIS data and analysis and student incentives. We have monthly house meetings. So the
018kids are broken into three houses but those three houses are a blend of sixth, seventh and eth. So we meet we have uh meetings monthly and at those meetings there are rewards for different things. Uh we focus on culturally and emotionally responsive teaching. We have monthly students of the month by grade level teams and including the self-contained classes along with teacher of the month. We have grade level teaming which Ana spoke to. The intervention course read 180 that's really uh small groupoup instruction for kids who really need a lot of extra assistance and support in reading. Math and language arts are doing a lot of small groupoup instruction with the double block time. And then professional learning led by teachers. We often have teachers bringing to professional learning um and staff meetings different things that
019they're doing that are working really well. And we have a lot of different clubs and activities. Um, I think Josh just started garden club. We have Spanish club. Oh, it's all on the slide. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Uh, we have been using PBIS and restorative practices at Pierce for a long time and I I feel like we're at the place now where they're kind of working themselves. So, again, in PBS, we have house points. The students can gain points for their house and then they can purchase things with their points. the Eagle stores where they purchase things. They can order things like snacks and school supplies and then they're delivered. Monthly celebrations of students and then monthly staff recognition. So, we brought back something that we did a long time ago when Christine
020was around where each um there we have we have five different awards for teachers and the person who has the award now next month we'll give it to another staff member based on whatever the topic is and I think they're sunshine curriculum leadership um so we have five of them restorative practices we are still using restorative practices um I'm going to skip to the second bullet because the proactive work is really what needs to happen so that everything else flows well. So teachers are working on community building. We work on it as a building and then when there is conflict we do mediations. Um we spend time talking about what harm was what harm happened and how we can repair the harm and then um moving on. And often kids come in and it's a
021lot of with social media and cell phones and text messaging. Usually it's something that's misconstrued or misrepresented. And when the kids get together and talk really there's no problem between them and they move on without having any sort of physical conflict or anything else like that. So restorative is working really well. So our suspension numbers from 23 24 and 25 um we had in 23 71 students in the month of March that were suspended. Um in 2024 the number was 12 and in 25 it was 13. And if I can add, what you see in your packet is slightly different because we noticed that there was a discrepancy after this was forwarded to Chris. So this is at more accurate. Pato poured over the data. Yes. Are you sure we were straight on our numbers?
022Anybody have? So, where are we now? Culturally and emotionally responsive teaching. We want to continue to make sure that we are making classroom content real world applicable with connections for all students. We want to continue analyzing curriculum to ensure windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors for students, which I will speak to more momentarily before our wonderful science team comes forward. at increasing student voice from our Pierce Middle School students. We found last year when we were when the district was working on the new strategic plan that the students had lots to say. So they continue to remind us how much they have to say. And so it's always good to hear back from them because they are the ones that are being impacted most highly by the decisions that we make. We are continuing professional
023development with our staff. So this was just a graphic to show that these are all the things that we're continuing to encompass in our continued professional development and making sure that we are focused on our staff continuing to build their own personal practice. These are just some pictures from this year. the top um David Moy did some work for um Black History Month and uh women's history women's history month and this is a picture from that or a few from Halloween. Um Mr. Edwards did a really fun activity in his room recently with the kids that was um a picture down there of him. The three kids at the top are from students of the month from a few months ago. Um, so we had some students come to some students came to me over
024a break and wanted to have a yearbook. So, um, I started pulling pictures for a yearbook because putting together a yearbook in April is no small feat. And they were not, they were relentless. I told them, "It's a little late and we really can't put a yearbook together. It's just not going to happen this year. You know, maybe next year we'll try again." And they would not take no for an answer. So, um, in my quest to find pictures for this yearbook that these kids are putting together, um, these were some pictures that we brought up. And that picture at the bottom is probably my favorite picture from Halloween this year because, as you can see, that is Scooby-Doo and the crew. And each one of them, as you can see, you have Velma, you
025have Daphne, you have Shaggy, Fred, and Scooby. And they all like, "Okay, where's Scooby? Where's Shaq? I need you all to come together so I can get one picture. And those kids all went they all go to Thirsten for algebra one. So they all walked in. I when I was dropping Claire off, I was watching them all get out of the car to go into Thirsten for first hour. It was fun. These are some of our clubs and sports. U National Junior Honor Society has been back for a couple of years. It kind of went away during COVID and it has been brought back which is great. Um we have a robotics club. Um, Sterling Felix runs Omega Cheer and Dance. They just won um I It was a competition they had this last weekend.
026There were 35, I think, schools there and they won first first place in the county. So, super impressive. If you've never seen them, they're pretty amazing. Um, student council, Kings and Queens, esports. The esports team is also undefeated um in the county and they're they're really rocking out esports. So they play Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Splatoon, and Mario Kart. So they esports is like an upand cominging thing at the secondary level especially. And so they've gone really far with their teams. They're doing really well. Uh we also have football, volleyball, basketball, swimming, track and field, softball, and wrestling, which our wonderful Coach Crawford over there coaches. And what's not listed, Coach Crawford also just started the garden club and so he's teaching students how to garden and we are offering a multitude of activities for
027our students. So our current and upcoming work, we will continue to maintain a growth mindset among all our stakeholders. Elizabeth and I don't know it all. So, we need the help of a continued partnership. We want to continue to collaborate and coach through observations and feedback. Again, we don't know it all. We learn from one another. We want to continuously promote high behavior and academic expectations. And I apologize for that uh typo right there. A monthly staff and student recognition has already been stated and I was trying to remember the other categories for our monthly staff recognition. Leadership curriculum curriculum sunshine. Sunshine service and there's one I'm missing. Advocacy. Advocacy. Thank you. So those are the areas where staff are recognized monthly and they have to take their picture. they can't get out of it
028and then we put it on the TVs in the school so that the students can not only see themselves highlighted for the month but they also see their teachers and if you try to get out of it doesn't happen. Absolutely. Because somebody tries to get out of it. All right. So we continue to have ongoing professional learning um re-evaluation of our current curricula and practices again as we will hear momentarily. and continuous analysis and understanding of all data and input from all stakeholders, especially families. And with that, do we have any questions? Have question. Um, so this is a question for anyone in the room, but not um we're, you know, great stuff that y'all doing. number one. Um, a lot of great stuff. So, we have kids at Pierce and we're doing these things
029with them, the testing and the restorative practices. Do we have an understanding of kids who don't know the information and those who have a lot of external things that's keeping them from getting to their, you know, their capacity? Do we kind of know ones who need to learn how to read and those who know how to read but they're homeless or they don't have food at home? Do we kind of have a percentage of that just off the top of your head randomly? I don't have that percentage randomly, but what I can tell you is we piloted I Ready this year, which gave us another data source because that told us what grade level students actually were on from their beginning of the year, midyear assessments. So that then fed the data for math and
030ELA to do their small group instruction because then you could group students accordingly to provide the necessary interventions and try to close that achievement gap cuz kids who can't read can't so it's nothing they can do but so I just wanted to be kind of kind of understanding that those who need to build up and those who need to help more and what's interesting is we had one of our teachers our ELA teachers say that a parent was really you know thankful for the fact that she was actually told like this is the grade level your student has tested on. It was like you know they never heard it from that perspective because again you naturally think in middle school my child is where they need to be. And I would add to that too.
031I know you um the fact that we have counselors and social workers that care so much about our kids is and teachers also. But when we've got kids coming into counseling and they're getting in trouble or they got kicked out of a class and we have these people, these mental health professionals that can, you know, take them in and talk to them in a way that's different than the two of us can. Um, that's huge. You know, we we have students that sometimes come in and we'll I had a girl today and we had a short conversation about some things that were going on. And then she went and spoke with her counselor who she already knew and already had a relationship with and was able to actually her counselor came out and was like,
032"She taught me some things. She showed me this app about me this mental health app that she's been using." And so I think that that's a piece of it too is that we have a lot of support in the building with teachers and counselors and Alisa and all of the different the our our kitchen people this year the last few years have been really amazing and they're on top of what the kids are doing. So, you know, it's everybody, the custodial staff and um I think that that's huge, too, is that the the kids feel like there is a huge support system for them. When you talked about like homelessness and things that are going on at home and things like that, they know that there are people in that building that have them. And
033if I could give another kudos to our counselors, we have a new counselor this year the students absolutely love and she does what she calls minute meetings with them. So that allows her to try to get to know her entire case load. So before Elizabeth's situation today, she had to come into my office and she was like, I just, you know, my minute meeting with him, like what's going on? So she's able to come in, know the child by name, not just by face, and have these conversations and everything moves forward. Any other questions? I have one. Yes ma'am. Um the intervention course is that kind of like the stu you said the students that need extra help and and so that's what that is right. Yes. Okay. So so to piggyback on Daniel you
034do have some idea of some of the things that he asked you. Yes. So read 180 is based the students are placed in read 180 this past year based upon their NWA test scores. So when we look at where they fall, then that's how those students are selected. And every time we meet with the read, we meet with the read 180 coaches a couple of times, the people that work for the company, they put together all the data for us and they analyze the data and then bring it to us. And every time we meet with them, they have told us that our scores are higher than most of the districts that they work in. So Josh Bizovi teaches that class and he's he's doing a really good job. That's great. Yeah. Good. Thank you
035guys. Any other questions? Thank you so much. You're so welcome. So, I am going to switch off with Alisa. I needed the So, is this for the um Pete Pierce science curriculum? Okay. All right. That's the next item on the Are we doing science or all the rest? The diversification is impressive. John noted. So, as my wonderful science team is passing out materials for their classroom tonight, it is with pleasure that I again stand before you and introduce the Pierce Middle School science department less one of our staff. We have Nathan Morgan who's also our science department head. Ashley Hutchkins who's coming back for more materials and Josh Crawford who is very gingerly placing his water bowls on the table. So as mentioned in our previous presentation, we are continuing to analyze and review core
036curricula and this year we are taking a look at science and it its alignment to the NGSS standards the next generation science standards. So on the one slide we talked about curricula having windows so that students can look out into the world and know what's going on in the world and make it be real world applicable. We talked about mirrors them being able to look at the curricula and then see the reflection of themselves and then the sliding glass door the preparation for them to step out into the world. So this year our wonderful science department piloted my star as a new science curriculum to adopt. So it is with pleasure that I introduce them and let them go from here. Thank you. Thank you principal Jackson. So we are asking the board to adopt
037MEAR as our middle school science program. Maestar is a comprehensive science program develop developed by Michigan Tech University or I should say developed by teachers along with Michigan Tech University that is meant to be aligned to the next generation science standards. So we recognize that there is a need for a science program that's going to have students do the type of science that they will see on their MSTEP that they will need for future learning and then of course that they will need for future careers in science. We know that the workforce is becoming more STEM related and it's estimated that 40% of all jobs when our sixth graders enter the workforce will be STEM related. So, we believe that myar is that program because it gives students more hands-on opportunities to engage in their
038learning. We hope to share some of that with you tonight. The program is rigorous. This program is hard and it's asking students to do more than just learn content but to become scientists to practice those uh science and engineering practices and to familiarize themselves with those core concepts those crosscutting concepts that arch through all of their science and all of their learning. The program um includes a lot of data literacy opportunity for students and like I said uh really shows what they're going to be doing on their standardized testing they're now doing in the classroom. So we hope to share some of these these things with you tonight. That was Nathan Morgan by the way our science department head. Okay. Josh Crawford here. Another science guy. Um, you're not supposed to present my dumb, so
039I'm gonna get rid of that. Um, so what you're about to watch is uh a video taken in my eighth grade class. Um, and the activity has students exploring um traits, how there can be beneficial and traits and traits that are actually harmful to an organism. Um, and in the activity, you're going to see students using spoons and forks. Um, and they're going to be collecting uh beans and marshmallows. Um, and then collecting data. Um, and then eventually we'll have a discussion talking about which one was easier to collect the marshmallows, you know, was there any benefits to having the fork, any benefits to having the spoon, etc. So, uh, here you go with that video. Okay, we're going to start uh we're going to start the next round. Okay, just reminder, you only have
04010 seconds. All right. Only going to have 10 seconds. Now start now. Got to keep the cup on the table. Keep the cup on the table. Yep. Keep the cup on the table. And time time. Now you're going to count up your seeds. Count up your seeds. Now you got to roll your dice. So there's also an element of randomness because you know life is also random. So you know something randomly could happen that to to cause an animal or organism to survive longer than uh another organism with same exact traits. Okay. Um, so pretty engaging there. You know, obviously uh sometimes the competitiveness of an individual can skew the results a little bit. So I always had to have uh another chart with what I wanted to happen happen, you know, to kind of
041share with them. Um because, you know, somebody with a fork will somehow get like 27 beans and that's not supposed to happen. Uh but um yeah, so that's one activity. Um, also over here, um, we had, uh, uh, Miss Hutchings staged, uh, a lab accident. So, this is a skeleton dressed in like clothes. It's got a wig. It's hunched over a burner, hand on top of the burner, hairs everywhere. Um, so having her students investigate that scene and identify, you know, what is wrong with this lab set. Um, so teaching lamb safety and obviously it's a lot of fun for the kids. Uh, this next video over here is that same activity uh in Miss Hutchkins room. And it what we really want you to see here is just the excitement and energy that the
042kids are having with this activity. So just really getting into it. Some of them cheat a little bit. When every day do that. Yeah. Um, okay. Now, what's what's set before you uh is an activity that I've uh just done in my class. What I want to learn about the solar system um and uh planetary objects. Okay. Sorry. Let me catch up here. Check the time. 9 minutes left. Okay. Um so, you have a student guide in front of you. This my star curriculum always has a student guide for the students to go. The front page is instructions. If you want to just flip over to the other side. Okay. So, as students are making observations, let me tell you what's going to happen. You got water in front of you. Okay. You got a
043spoon. All right. And I'm going to put in some some dirt. They asked for perlite, but I didn't have perlite. And as the garden club person, I've got dirt. So, Apologies in advance for any soil that touches your table. Okay. Just going to sprinkle a little out there. All right. Have some more, please. Yes. Uh, tell me when I have when, you know, obviously I, you know, make a little joke of it in the classroom. You know, have you tried the uh the dirt this evening on special? You know, All right. So, um, got a stick. Yeah. Yeah. Probably an old bean sprout that died in this, you know, when I taught summer school. Sorry. When I taught summer school a few years ago, cuz that's how old this dirt is. And don't eat it.
044Even though you got a spoon, you're not supposed to eat what's in front of you, you know. Okay. All right. So, what we're going to investigate is the formation of the solar system. And um there had to been a force to form the solar system. So, there's four different forces you're going to investigate. And I don't expect you to record your observations like the students do. I'm not going to collect this for for a grade at the end, but we're going to start with number one. Poking. You're just going to poke at the dirt. Poke at the dirt on top with the spoon. Use a spoon. Just poke at it. Okay. in different spots and be thinking about how is it that the soil is moving. Is it starting to collect in any type of
045way? All right. And thank you. And no, it's just kind of blobbing around is you know what you'll what you you'll hear the kids say. Okay. Next one. Um it says pushing the perlite back and forth. So I describe to the kids it's like you're painting. Just paint up and down. Just brush strokes up and down. And describe the movement. How is the soil moving? Anybody want to share? Dirtier. Current with the current. What' you say? It's getting dirtier. Getting dirtier. Hopefully there's not too much in there. Okay. I might have went That's a good one, too. Okay, the third one. Now, they're going to ask you to slowly stir. Slowly stir. supposed I don't have to start. And how's the soil moving now? Slower. Slower. Is it starting to collect in any certain way?
046At the bottom. At the bottom. The bottom. Yeah. Okay. Off to the sides of the bottom. The center of the bottom. All over the bottom. Pretty much all over. I can't see that way. It's all dirty. It's a little cloudy. Yeah. Okay. And then now stir quickly. Stir quickly without making a mess. Okay. You're ahead of class. I was always special. I was always special. They said so. And and what this is what this is getting to show is that as you stir quickly, you'll notice what it's coming together. is starting to come together towards the center. So that sparks the conversation of you know where where do we see or how is that similar to our solar system and then it starts to talk about the sun and we talk about how um they
047have a graphic the curriculum provided us with the graphic of different beads and there's a 100 beads on the screen and you ask the students how many beads do you think uh make up the mass of the sun you get some guesses and then you reveal to them 99.9% of the entire mass of the solar system is in the on. Um, and then I did this with a I also did this myself with the larger video, a big bucket. Okay, much easier to see. Probably I, you know, got a little overzealous with the soil. Okay, I apologize. Um, so it's cloudy. Um, but you know, getting this idea of that that spinning force is pulling um all of that matter and material towards the center similar to what we had going on uh with the
048sun. So how you know first step observe we have a model uh to bring a real life example in front of the students and then you bring out this larger concept where they watch this two to three minute video um which I have uh I have hyperl here that we end up watching in class. We don't have to show it right now, but that's something you can go back to and uh compare the activity in class to what uh happened uh what scientists believe it happened with the formation of the solar system. But um yes, so that's what I got for you. Uh and then also the lesson plan is hyperl here um if you wanted to dive in a little bit deeper, but That's what I got for you and I'll I'll start working
049on the clean up here. Hi, I'm Ashley. Um, eighth grade science. So, um, this is our current curriculum. Um, we have content and pictures and diagrams that go along with our content, but it's definitely not allowing the students practice and analyzing the data that they need for these standardized tests that just keep coming and they keep getting harder. We need to practice our testing stamina and our mental stamina and able to like get these scores up. We can't really do that with just diagrams. So, what I would like to show you is this is what we've seen. This was in my first unit that I taught um with the eighth graders, just our first unit in the myar. We actually have equations that the students have to work out. I had to get out calculators.
050We have tables that have multiple data. And then we also have various graphs. This is one example, but they oh sorry they also asked the students to build graphs. So I had to go to the math teacher and say do they know how to build a bar graph? Which is really interesting. But my eighth graders did not know how to build a bar graph. So that's something that I had to actually talk with the math teacher about. Let's get out some rulers. What's the difference between a line graph and a bar graph? And this to me is building that math score because these are things that they also need in other classes. Um, so I really was really impressed. Um, we were seeing things that we I hadn't seen since like 9th grade um with
051the eighth graders. Um, and just more practice with this. So the analyzing data is important because um, we're asking them to write these really profound um, CERS or claim evidence reasoning and they don't have a lot of time to do that. But if they're learning how to think on their feet in the classroom, what's going to happen when you get on the test? Practice makes perfect. We're going to get there. So, I really like this because it feels building them and it's built straight uh to go into the myar, I'm sorry, the MSTEP test, which is what I was really excited about. I think I had one more thing I wanted to share really quick. Um, my also worked with NGSS and they also worked with the Michigan Department of Education to ensure that the
052assessments were similar to the INSEP. So, not that they just looked at it, they actually sent their materials forward to get reviewed and they actually made sure they were very similar. Thank you. So, we're I'm hoping you can see just the rigor and the depth of this science program and the engaging aspect of it as well that we're really asking the students to to get involved in their learning and do things. We did follow a comprehensive process in choosing this program before bringing it to you today. So, we used these recommendations and these ratings by professional organizations including NGSS who makes the standards that students need to meet in middle school. We used a rubric called the equip rubric which asks us as teachers to then look at the program in all of these different
053ways to make sure that we're hitting the things that we need to with the curriculum. We piloted se or we investigated several different programs taught lessons in our classrooms not only from my but we did look at other options and we decided that this was the best one and we've been spending the past semester or the the entirety of this year piloting this program teaching it in our classes and we truly believe that this is going to be the best option for our students to move forward to set them up for success on that Mstead question. Yeah. What was the cons to the program that you guys know? Perfect segue back again. It's almost um so this is rigorous as it was mentioned before and this program builds on itself. So with us introducing this
054as a first year for the students um it was somewhat um I don't want to say alarming but a lot of the kids weren't able to do some of the things they were asking. Some of the standards that are here in myar were very new um and had to be reviewed or or just taught for the first time to our students. So this is an example of what was standard. This is what Myar expected our students to know. Um we had to go backwards. So um I had to teach them what force vectors were. We had to look at arrows. The bigger arrows means what? If I have a bigger force here versus a larger force, where like where would it go or smaller force, what direction is it going to go in? Then we
055also introduced a few numbers. So if I have like what is a balanced force, what's unbalanced force? So those are things that MySart expected the students to know coming into it and we didn't. We had to work backwards. So that took like a day day or two because I had to please take this home. So then this was the standard. Instead of just giving them this as a standard, this is stuff you were supposed to know. I went ahead and I um made this into a quiz. So I highlighted a couple of things, drew some arrows. We had to do a blue arrow for the direction that the object was moving in and black was the force that was put onto the object. So they had to do a push and a pull on the
056back of the paper. Okay. Then we went back, reviewed it. Why is this correct? Why is this incorrect? Great. So from there they had, this was lesson four. Lesson five had them three times um do pushes and pulls. They had to do a black arrow and a blue arrow. For my room, this was an assessment because it was a lab report. Um but they had to do this on their own now. So giving them the practice to get all the way over here because now this is graded. Now it's going into the gradebook as an assessment versus this was just a standard. So, it took us a minute to get there and that is the thing that we're noticing. We have to move really quickly. Um, and some of our students aren't always able to
057grasp everything so quickly. So, we do have to scaffold. It's not provided. We have to do it by ourselves. And that takes more time um out of prepping, grading, contacting parents because we have to go back and read in its entirety what the kids have to learn before we even like flush it out. because how embarrassing is it or just disheartening for the kids when you start the lesson and like they have no clue so you got to go backwards. Um so just a lot of extra planning on our part to make sure that our kids are successful making sure the misconceptions are out there um practicing it ourselves and then just pushing it out in a way that is somewhat movement like fast um but then not overloading the students at the same time
058with the content that they're getting. Um I think that was it. So I hope that answered your question. Some programs will give you that stuff. This one does not. We have to come up with it as teachers. So, that's one of the the big cons. It doesn't give us the extra stuff that we know that we need. I'm sorry. No, I they they answered my question. Are y'all okay with that? You just said wait on my part. We have We have a plan. We have a plan. Okay. I did not sub money your answer. So, Alisa Nagel, how um secondary curriculum coordinator, instructional coach, how lucky am I that I get to work with these people, right? They're incredible. I know really like I feel like I'm constantly just catching up, you know? Um they're
059incredible. And so, but my role as for either one of those, the coordinator or the coach, is to help with them implementation with the professional learning that Miss Jackson and Elizabeth and Mr. Parin spoke about today. Um, and myar did provide professional learning and it's linked there in the implementation plan. You're welcome to look at it later. Like any program they tell you, oh, we give you all. There is no perfect program. It does not exist. We anticipated some things. Ashley did a great job of kind of saying as we went along the way, we realized there were some added things to the teachers plate, if you will, that they needed to work around. What I really appreciate about these teachers is they're not just picking a program that matches the NGSS standards. As Nathan
060talked through the elaborate process that they went through and everything is linked. I'm going to show you. They have detailed examples for every single part of the rubric that they scored. They didn't kind of look at this. They spent hours in detail looking at this. And as they did that, they said, "What we like about this program is how engaging it is and yet rigorous." And because of that, and because it's developmentally appropriate in the sense that it provides the right type of interesting activity, the dirt is a perfect example. The kids are doing something. Other science programs that we looked at, it was a very long story line where the kids talked and talked and talked and talked and then did a thing. Well, if you've ever been in a middle school classroom, Yeah.
061too. So, these teachers aren't asking for the program that's the easiest for them. They're asking for the program that's the best for their students. Yeah. That's why I'm lucky to work with them. So, you ask, is it okay with them? It is, but they're going to need a thing. We're going to need some time, maybe some release time every quarter so they can continue to pre-look at the units and develop the the scaffolds and the differentiations to keep the rigor high because the last thing we want to do is reduce the rigor, right? We want to keep the ceiling here and build in the supports and the tools to give the right ceiling or the right floor, pardon me, so we can all get to that high rigorous ceiling. And who's better to do that
062than our staff? No program, no p paid professional developer is going to do that better than our staff with the resources to support them. They're not having to create every single lesson from scratch. So this frees them up to do that that work. So to answer your question, Misha, that is why it's okay because we're trusting the professionals to do the right work with the right resources that they chose with a very rigorous vetted process. So with that, did I answer your question? Yes, you did. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. So with that, do you have any additional questions to the chair? Yes. Just just one. We don't have the board activity page, the links in our print out. You know, I apologize. There were some changes made because like any good teacher, you're changing
063your lesson up until the minute you change that. Sometimes you're changing it halfway through the lesson. So um we're going to I've been assured that we're going to get you the PowerPoint tonight. And I've double checked that all the links are like the universal links that anybody can look at because I do want you to look at that. Okay. There's another thing I want you to be able to look at. If you can go to the next slide is all Oh, sorry before I skip to that side. When we came to you last year um for ELA and thank you by the way that is going so well like my heart just soarses. Um the staff showed up in common gear. They did most of the talking because the right people did the work. The
064teachers we rep we replicated that today. It is baseball season. There you go. Um, and we wanted to hit a home run with this. There you go. Um, I know I tried. So, we have the I know, right? We have the entire science department behind this. This isn't like they had to make some hard decisions. I mean, they had some hard conversations. You know, what do we really want for our students? There is 100% consensus on this. Um, so I want to point that out just like last year because they're the ones that have to teach it. They're boots on the ground. That's why it's important they are a part of this. So, if you can now go to the last slide. Thank you, Judge. Um, all of the different things that we talked to
065you tonight, the scored rubric, uh, the implementation plan, the actual NGSS standards are all linked for you there. The last link is the Glen literacy essentials. It's those cross content um, essential disciplines. One of them, which is very, very important right now that Ashley did a great job speaking to that data literacy part. If you talk to anybody right now, everyone says, "Oh, AI is going to interpret everything for us." But you still have to be critical at what you're looking at. You still have artificial intelligence. No, no, I knew what it was. I But I was just referring to our department of education. She's calling it A1. There you go. We'll get some hot sauce for you. Yep. Um, so we need children to be literate in all senses of the word, especially data
066literate. And that applied math is so important. And that's not us. That's the county, that's the state, the nation saying that our kids need that. And that's another reason why we chose this program over others because it does a better job of those cross disciplines. So I just want to point that out, but I want to defer to them in the amazing group. So I have one more question. Yeah. What happens if you have a child that's not in attendance the day that you're teaching the four steps? Yeah, Joshua, that's what you saw Josh's video so I can go back and look at it that way. Okay. Yeah, great question. Yeah, part of that I mean it does take some time to, you know, I always make sure um that I have something that a
067student can watch because, you know, um well, I wasn't here. Sorry. But there's a video, you know. So, um, plus, uh, a day or two passes and you want to bring that, you know, you want to bring that experiment back to the forefront. Hey, let's watch this video again of, uh, the spinning because, you know, like I said, I made a video of me doing this with a larger bowl, and you can just see, I mean, just like you would see a spiral galaxy, you'd see the soil on the ground on the bottom of the bowl start to spiral, too. and um on a much smaller model, you know, that being a con of doing it like this instead of a larger model. Um so uh yeah, another example I brought into the classroom is
068um to tie into that activity, you know, talking about uh if you ever had a pool and you ever made a whirlpool, I know as a child my dad would have us kids get in the pool and okay, get it spinning and then all the, you know, leaves and stuff like collect in the bottom and they go in with a skimmer because we just collected all the dirt and stuff right in the center. Um, but anyways, yeah, you didn't know you were a human experiment. Yeah, right. That the GE LN What did you say that was? Um, it's the If you want to go ahead and open it up. Sure. Yeah. It's the general education leadership network. It's a network of educators. It's um both Michigan and there's a national component. And if you can
069see on the tabs here, it's where they've taken those competencies or literacies and put them all across the different content areas. So, what does this look like in social studies? What does this look like in math that way? And our social study, our science teachers rather um looked at this in addition to the NGS standards to make sure that it was a good fit. And our ELA teachers did the same thing last year when they looked at amplify because, you know, we shouldn't have these things in silos, should we? learning is interconnected and that's how our children learn best. So why wouldn't we encourage that in the programs and the resources that we choose to adopt. So it's really important that we keep coming back to this as we do our work. Great question. Any
070other questions to the chair? I just have a just a comment to see the enthusiasm of your team. It's wonderful. It want it makes me want to go back and experience this level of learning in science. It's wonderful. So, I applaud each and every one of you for your connection. She sent us a message. We like to get, you know, I wouldn't mind it all. It's exciting. Thank you. Thank you guys. So, I would just like to close out unless you have another question. Yes. I don't have a question. I just like to commend you guys for like when you said the bar graphs and the and we wouldn't you wouldn't have known that if you hadn't had to actually go through that. And I commend you guys so much because you took the time
071to say, "Okay, we've got to get to this point and we got to teach you to do this." And I love that. Thank you so much. Yes. [Applause] So, I actually was just saying, you just gave me my segway to say again how great uh our science department is. And hopefully you see how the myar is actually interconnected across curricular with the math. It's crosscurricular with literacy because they have to do the writing. And then, you know, we're trying to keep it all rigorous at grade level and making sure that our students are exposed to grade level content so we can continue to see increases in our scores. As you saw from the first presentation and Nathan can attest that about every couple of weeks, I'm like, "Okay, as he walks by, come on in
072here. Let's have a conversation. How is this going? I need to know. our students, you know, grasping and, you know, moving forward because we do know this is grade level and it has a level of rigor that I did not see in the science curriculum when I arrived last year. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay, guys. We're going to take a 15 minute break. And you guys 7 7:37. I call this meeting back to order at 7:54. Next item on the agenda is consider Adams Fiser Jefferson and Vanderberg furniture project. Mr. B. Thank you, Madam President. At the board meeting on March 24th, 2025, the board discussed the Adams, Fiser, Jefferson, and Vandenberg Elementary School furniture project. Bids were solicited and received for the work. The companies that are recommended for the work required are
073listed below in the board packet and the award of $460,7356 would be paid for out of the 2021 bond. Madam President, the resolution is attached for board consideration. Do I have a board member willing to adopt the resolution? To the chair? Yes. I move the adoption of the following resolution, please. It's been moved by Mrs. Flesher. Do I have a support? Support. It's been supported by Mrs. Early. All in favor? I. Any naysay? Zero nays. Six eyes's zero nazs. Resolution adopted. Next item on the agenda, consider thirsten High School specialty AB project. Thank you, Madam President. At the same board meeting on March 24th, 2025, the board discussed the Thirsten High School specialty AV project. Bids were solicited and received for the work. The companies that are recommended for the work required are Sound Planning
074Communications for $171,454 and Sound Planning Communications for $41,12 and a 10% contingency total expenses not to exceed $233,713 is requested to cover any unforeseen costs associated with the project. This bid award would also be paid for out of the 2021 bond proceeds. Madame President, a resolution is attached for board consideration. Do I have a board member willing to adopt the resolution? Madam President, yes, I move the adoption of the following resolution. It's been moved by Mrs. Early. Do I have a support? Support. It's been supported by Mrs. Hicks. All in favor? Six eyes. Any nays? Zero nays. Resolution adopted. Next item on the agenda is discuss and consider superintendent evaluation tool. Do I have three minutes? Yes. The board of education is using the college and blah PC evaluation instrument for superintendence which allows the
075board to evaluate the district superintendent performance. On May 13, 2024, the board adopted a res a resolution renewing the use of Collins and Blaha PC evaluation instrument for superintendence. Um, Southford School District's superintendent evaluation committee consisting of myself, Misha Early, Daniel Winston, and Anthony Johnson is recommending the continuation of the superintendent evaluation to from college and blah PC. I know we talked a little bit about it at the last meeting. There won't be anything else that anybody has to say or suggestions or anything. keeping in mind that we will be doing another evaluation in January to go into um so we can be in a lot in line with Mhm. Do I have a board member willing to adopt the resolution? Yeah, my mouth is okay. It's been adopted by Mrs. Hicks. Second supported by
076Mrs. Early. All in favor? Six eyes. Any nays? Zero nays. Resolution adopted. No. Do that. We plan to to do you know we have to do it before June 30th. So we have two dates available in May. See I think it was the 12 the 19th. So you see something okay about those things okay next item on the agenda is discuss board's mission and vision statement. I guess that's me. I believe the board will review and discuss the board mission and vision statement. Um, okay. So, I um would like to us to um think about um we have in front of us the mission statement from um our new strategic plan and the vision statement. has been broken down both the vision, the mission and the vision. So I what I'd like the board to
077do is think about um if we want to reuse our mission statement and just add the um part of the mission statement. But we do need to do both um the vision and the mission. So um I would like to do a special workshop in June um for that. So what I'll do is uh get with Chris and we'll send out to the board um what will be the best days um in June because I'd like to get that done. We um our strategic plan was approved in July and I'd like to get that done um before we go on our break to the chair. Yes. Um we usually do our mission and vision statement after we've done our board evaluation and they all come together with the goals. Yeah. Well, we're right now I
078think it would be really advantageous to us in doing it backwards. We'd have to repeat it if we're if we haven't even done our own evaluation establishing our goals and we're going to just pull up mission statement or vision statement. And I also know we have two board members that will be gone for a period of time in June. That's me. Oh, okay. I have a wedding out west. Okay. Well, um, well, we're we haven't quite decided what we're going to do for the board evaluation yet. So, what I'd like to do is get the mission and vision statement together. Yes, we can do our goals, but I I don't want to wait until um after September to even consider doing it. um hour. So what will and and I'd like to say this a
079lot of boards don't even do board evaluations and it's not that we it's not that we always do uh that we can't do a board um mission statement and vision without doing the board's evaluation. So, um, what when are you going to be gone? I will be leaving leaving June 6th and not coming back till about the 22nd. Okay. Well, and to the chair, um, Amanda's representing the family the week of the se 17th, 15th, 17th, that that week. Um, they're putting my mother and father to rest, okay, at sea that that week. So, she's representing the family. So, she won't be there. She's going in my place. We do it the last we the last board meeting in in June. That'll still be before I leave or compare. Okay. Well, we'll um we'll figure
080it out. Okay. Okay. Travels. Yeah. Next item on the agenda is comments from the audience. Have none. No comments. Okay. Next item on the agenda is plus delta. Um who's doing plus delta? Madam president, what processes supported the board's work this evening? Are there any chair? Yes. I always appreciate when the curriculum comes from the middle school because they always uh have like a long list of things that they've done to research and collect data before bringing the curriculum to us for approval and I always appreciate that from them. So, I like their presentation and the little weird dirt experiment. Oh, you want to just do the dirt, too? Mine had a stick in it. Any other to the chair? Yes. I um it's just refreshing to have schools come in with solutions. You know,
081we get these schools that come in unfortunately sometimes just the information things are bad, see you next year. you know, so it's it's really good to see we have some schools coming in that are like, look, it's messed up or it's getting better. This is what we're doing, but this is what we want to do to get the ceiling higher. So, I mean, I really appreciate that because, you know, I'm so tired of hearing CO happen as a sol, you know, as the issue. It's like something different is going on now. So, I'm really happy about that. Some solutions, curriculum change, things like that. So, yeah, that's that's good. It was also nice to see their numbers are going up. They're not quite at the county and the state yet, but they're at least moving
082in the right direction. Yeah, they that's good. Anyone else? Opportunities for improvement the board's processes this evening to the chair. Yes. I I think we can improve when we have deltas as a board that we revisit them and come up with a solution because that's the whole idea of doing the plus delta. How can we better and change? We never revisit our deltas and I think why why do we do that as a board if we don't have the time or put the commitment into coming up with solutions for some of our deltas. Okay. Anyone else? Well, back to you, Madam President. If there's nothing further that comes before this board, I adjourn it at 8:07.