001All right, welcome everybody. Um, it is uh 6:01. We'll start, I guess, with the pledge. Um, pledge allegiance 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. Um, welcome everybody. Thank you. Um, so tonight we're doing things a little bit differently. Um, we're going to wait to approve the minutes just because Eric's not here and also I did not get a chance to read them and I feel like they were important ones. I want to make sure I read them. Um, so we'll move that to next meeting and then I think we're um going to go into non-public um for um uh some business. So Chris, do you have what we should go under? Yep. You
002can do it under sea. Okay. Um, do I have a motion to go on to non-public? I'll make a motion. Okay. Thanks, Sophie. Um, do you have a second? I'll second. All right. Um, so all in favor, we'll do roll call. I, Sophie, I I Okay. Three. Um, zero. And Eric is not here. Perfect. Want us to just step out or not? They they usually Do you want to go in? We'll just go in that back room. Thank you. Yep. Motion to come out of nonpublic. All right. Thanks, Sophie. Second. I will second. Thank you. Okay. So, we'll come out of nonpublic at 608. We'll do a roll call. I Great. All right. And is there a motion on the floor? Yes. I would like to make a motion to accept the building subcommittee's recommendation
003to approve job construction company for the um next phase of the building renovation project. Okay. Thank you so much. I will second. All right. Sophie, do you want to say anything? Um I think the we had two really good options. It was a hard hard choice and um I think the recommendation was just that the other that Join felt like a better fit for the school. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Um All right. So, we'll do um a vote on it. All in favor of Sophie's motion, please say I. I. I. Three. Uh anybody posted? No. 30 0. Thank you for coming, Travis. Thank you so much. Okay. Should I start um public comment? Yep. Okay. I'm going to start public comment. So, tonight we're going to do something a little different
004where the board is going to be in training, but we still will have public comment um if anybody is looking to do that. So, I'll keep track for you while you guys are doing your training, Jennifer, if Yep. That way you can do the training and I'll just be on your periphery. Okay, sounds good. So, 610 to 6:40. Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right. I'm just going to turn this on really quick. Do you need Okay, I'll use a mic so that I can be heard. Well, hi everybody. Thanks for inviting me. I've been able to collaborate with Whitney and Ashley and it's been an incredible experience preparing for this. So, we're really happy to have the space. My name is Arlland Petta. I am the chief equity officer for SAU16. And we're
005going to be spending some time talking about educational equity, what it looks like in SA16 tonight. Um, and we're going to do some experiential pieces, small group work, and also some presentation style pieces. So, here's here's the plan. We can advance the slide. So, this is the overview of what we have planned for today. Um, we'll do an equity exercise. We'll talk a little bit about what educational equity looks like in SA16. um and we'll do a small group activity and then debrief. So, our check-in for today, um who are you or where are you on this blob tree? Hopefully, you can see it closely. We like to start with a check-in. So, I'd love to for folks to kind of reflect if you can see, um what blob are you feeling today? Maybe a
006combination of blobs. [Applause] I'm a 19. Little tired. Little tired, but hanging on. Not off the branch. Nice. Thanks. Kind of identifying with number one. Just trying to get on the branch. Nice. I I guess I'll go with two because I was running my kids around earlier and trying everything before I came here. So, yeah, I feel like I'm 18. I'm like pulling away from the family. I'm like, "See you middle of chaotic dinner. I'm out. I'm going to go to a board meeting. Bye." That's a good one. I love it. Oh, okay. Yeah, that sounds great. What do you think, Kate? I feel like I'm two and three. I feel like there's a lot of like collaboration happening in the building right now. So, some people are propping me up and I'm helping others.
007I think I I am number seven. I'm going to be fully transparent. I am hanging on today. Hanging on. Do you want to be part of this? I'm 19. Oh, great. Oh, you're perfect. Stay awake for this now. Yeah, we're going to stay awake. Keep the energy. Okay, good. It's always good to have a pulse check. Thank you for that. Um, I'm going to turn it over to Whitney and Ashley for an exercise. Hi, I'm Whitney. I teach third grade here at SMS and we thought it might be interesting to do a little activity that we do with our students um to help define the differences between equity and equality. Because sometimes we hear mostly at the beginning of the year as we're getting to know each other, that's not fair. He or she gets
008this, they get this. I want this. Um, so sometimes we do this little interactive activity. So Ash is going to come around and pass out a card to you. You can look at what it says on it. Thanks, ma'am. You're welcome. Thank you. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. Yeah, why not? Chris, you're going to have an ailment. Okay, as well. Do you want an ailment? We don't know what it is. We I don't, but I'll play along. I got one, too. Oh, okay. So, I I really give kids these cards. Um, and then I asked them to tell the class what their ailment is. So, if you could tell me what your ailment is, that'd be great. I have bloody noses. Oh, Miss Lucas had has a bloody nose. Sophie. Um, I have chapped
009lips and not five seconds ago applied chapstick. So, feeling much better. Uh, I was sprained. Oh, I have itchy eyes. Okay, I've got a headache. Oh, no. I know. Okay. Well, don't worry because I have a remedy for you. That's going to solve all my problems. Oh, yeah. And I have a remedy for you. Oh, dang it. Well, a band-aid will take care of that sprain ankle and those issue eyes according to my daughter. Yes. And a headache. And here, this will pep you up. Pep you right up. Um, and what we do is we talk about the fact that we all have different strengths and different things that we need and there's not a one-sizefits-all remedy for those things or um a boost for those things. And so it wouldn't make sense if we
010all got the same things all the time because that wouldn't actually be helpful, right? For your itchy eyes, maybe a band-aid wouldn't help. Um, so just a way to make it a little bit more concrete and tangible for kids. um and developmentally appropriate to help explain that. Um a lot of times the community really wrap wraps around that idea so that later on they might remind each other of this at all like oh well that's what they need right now or that's what I need right now and it's a great um sort of anchoring into that idea of the difference between equity and equality. We do talk about what those people might actually need, which I won't make you do. Um, if you had those amas, and we talk about how each of those things
011is quite different. So, thank you for indulging us in that little activity. I'll come around and collect your ailments. Unless you want to keep your ailment, in which case, can everyone see past the microphone or would you like me to move it over? I know. Do we need this? Yeah, maybe we can move it to the side, Chris. Oh, you can move that out of Yep, for sure. Perfect. just in case it's anyone anyone's sighteline. So these are the MU comm whoa these are the learning community guidelines that um I like to use before we enter into conversations that folks can have a variety of feelings about right these topics can be difficult we have to lean in and so having some norms around how we want to talk with each other about educational equity
012and any other topic is really helpful um so these are um norms that I typically use and we use norms in lots of classrooms with kids um teachers develop norms with their students and it's a really good way to revisit norms norms when things are coming up in spaces to say like is this how we want to be together? Um, and let's remind ourselves what this looks like in action. I think sometimes too that norms become a thing that we, you know, introduce once and don't revisit and they really need to be lived into. Um, so often when I use these in workshops, we'll come back to them and and talk about whether or not we're upholding these. So, I'll just read them because I think it's important to hear them as well as see
013them. Speak from the eye perspective. Don't expect others to speak for anyone but themselves and avoid generalizations. Recognize your communication style. Seek first to understand before being understood. Notice and explore your defensiveness and voice where you're at or coming from. Be open to unlearn. Move up and move back. Notice how much space you're taking up in a conversation or not. Suspend judgment of yourself and others. But I like this one because judgments come up for us naturally as humans. And we often talk about like no judgment spaces, which is a really hard space to create. Holding judgments lightly or knowing that they're there and noticing them and kind of interrogating that thought process is what I like to think about instead of saying no judgments because we know they come they come up naturally for
014us as humans. Uh be willing to share, honor confidentiality. Oh, this is and if we want to create some notes, this is actually for the student success and belonging chairs group. We talk about whether what notes we want to share out widely and what we want to keep within the group. And then be self-responsible and selfchallenging. So if these look good to everyone, we will move on. And I like to get a thumbs up. I know it's silly, but we do it with students all the time. Great. Thank you. Okay, cool. So, um, Whitney just highlighted this. Sometimes there's confusion about equity and equality, right? And I think one of the ways that I talk about this with students, um, and I talk about this with adults, frankly, too. Um, has to do with Olaf.
015Chris has heard me do this before, so sorry about the spiel again, Chris. Um, but it it's a really helpful way to think about equity versus equality. So, does everybody have context for Olaf? Yes, we all know Olaf is a snowman. There's a big story. I try not to do any spoilers in case anyone hasn't seen Frozen, but Olaf is this wonderful snowman. At the end of the movie, this is a little bit of a spoiler. Um, things get warm and spring is beautiful. Things are blooming. People are happy. They've been waiting, right? It's been cold and they've been waiting for the spring. Um, and Olaf wants to exist in this community with all of his friends and the people that he loves. Um, and but finds pretty quickly that living this community is not
016going to work for him cuz he's going to melt pretty fast. And so what he gets is a snow cloud, a snow flurry. Um, and he gets his own personal snow flurry. Nobody else gets a snow flurry, just Olaf, because that's what he needs to thrive in this community. So I like to talk about Olaf's snow flurry as his equity cloud. It's not the same as what everyone else has. Maybe everyone else is able to walk around without a snow cloud, but he needs one in order to make this community work for him and for him to feel good about being in the community. So hopefully that's another like helpful framing around equity. So equity what everyone needs versus equality which is sameness, right? Any thoughts about this? You all can jump in anytime. I'm
017hopeful that this will be like a dialogue. Okay. So I think it's important for us to share a little bit about how we define educational equity in SA16. This is something we've been leaning on. We talk a lot. So, this is on our equity and belonging web page. We talk a lot about equity and belonging. We center those things. I think it's really interesting right now, right? There's a lot of feelings and media coverage of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, belonging, all those words and those acronyms, right? It felt really important for us to define what this looks like in schools because there's often a mischaracterization of how these things actually show up in our K to2 schools or pre-K to 12 schools. And so really defining what this looks like for us feels important. So
018here's how we define this in SA16. You all can read it. I don't think I need to read it out loud unless someone would like me to. I usually do that as a practice, but I won't right now. Yes, sure. I would love to. In SA16, educational equity means assessing the unique and different needs of our learners and meeting those needs by fairly allocating resources, access, support, and opportunity so that all students can achieve optimal learning outcomes. Through the framework of MTSS, multi-tered system of supports, we work to ensure that students receive the appropriate interventions and resources to support their academic, social, and emotional growth. Working towards equity may also involve addressing barriers that students face as well as assessing policies, practices, and institutional cultures for fairness. And we also have underneath this on our
019website we have the def our definition of belonging which is much shorter. Any questions about this reflections? It's a balance right? Can you say more? Well, if you take it to the extreme then every child gets their own teacher but then that's not fair because some teachers may be better than others. So it's never true. You know, it's it's a balance. Yeah. So, meeting people's needs may look like everyone needs a teach their own teacher, but it may also look like designing a classroom that m that meets the needs of all the students, right? And we're going to talk a little bit about that soon. Like universal design for learning, right? How we design with everyone's needs in mind and actually not not requiring us to add additional resources. It's a balance. Yeah. You never
020can truly be owned. It's probably too we may have some limitations. You think we can meet all the needs, Kate? I think we're going to work really hard at it. That's our job. Otherwise, somebody that's a clone teacher really has the optimum need. Yeah. And I wonder if there's I'm curious too about like how we define needs versus wants, right? Like how do we talk to students about what they need versus what they want? um like what do you need to do really well in this class versus like I want to have a puppy on my lap and I want to also like have a pillow in case I'm right like what do you what do you actually need to what do we need as a community to thrive and how does that meet what
021you need as an individual so there's some like right push pull there um it's about defining what we need individually and then what we need as a community just yeah I think another part of the work that we do is um who's responsible for students learning and what their role is in that. So sometimes I might say to a child, I'm actually not going to swoop in right now because I think it's appropriate for you to feel the struggle of this moment and work through this. And I think um that like every every child having a teacher would actually be counterproductive to building um independence and um for them to understand their um autonomy and their role in in facilitating their own learning as well. So we do keep that at the forefront of our
022thinking too like how much are we instilling in students the ability to think for themselves and um understand how to persevere through struggle or advocate for themselves appropriately or be patient because it's not realistic to receive that level of feedback from somebody else. So we do um and we'll talk about that later when we do the exercise, but our our approach to meeting students needs is multiaceted to say the least. And I wonder about how like the conversation shifts or the the lens if we think about um the expectation is not we're doing it 100% of the time because I think that's hard when you think about 19 kids in front of you. But if you think about the course of a day and you're saying my job is to meet the needs of and
023the in the offer opportunities to really extend the things that they're really passionate and good at within the course of a day, I think it's a very different potentially a different way to think about um equity because that it's possible 100% of the time with 19 kids all the time. But I think if you're thinking about my day with students, I think it's a realistic opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of equity too is like thinking about it at the individual level and at the community level too. Like what does it actually look like to offer students skills that meet their needs and also stretch them in a way that helps them interact with their community, build their social emotional skills, be prepared for a world where they're going to be collaborating with other
024people. That's also part of teaching educational equity. Can I ask a quick question? I don't want to ask if it's going to be answered later, but is the this presentation throughout about like MTSS and how that relates to the equity I guess cuz I was thinking of that as like a performance sort of thing. So, it's kind of interesting to see it brought up at not performance, but I guess that's the frame that I was thinking of it. So, is that kind of throughout this presentation? Sort of. We talk about it a little bit more. It's not specifically about MTSS. This is one of the vehicles that we talk about. Are you interested in talking more about MTSS as an equity? I'm just curious about it from the perspective of being, you know, part of
025equity because I think a lot of times it was talked about as being performance related. You know what I mean? No, totally. And maybe like folks who are deep in MTSS want to speak to that a little bit. Y so we can Yes, we can have a singular conversation to do a lot of that. But I think if we're thinking about an MDSS model really allows us to really get to know our kids as whole children and really understand their complexities as profiles as like their cognitive profiles, but also how they engage with learning, how they engage with their peers, um maybe their behavioral um patterns, maybe their social emotional needs. And because we can do that through our MTSS system, we are then able to provide what they need in a really personalized way
026which really speaks to equity because it is very much personalized based on the whole being in front of us. Okay. So it's not just like really a performance analysis. It can also be used to identify Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think usually has two components um academic and behavioral. And here at SMS we have they're combined so it's both. And we have a third component to like the social emotional part. So there's behavioral, there's the academic, and there's the social emotional. And I think one of the other things that we do really well through our sorry I don't mean to sabotage the conversation. One of the things I think we really do really well through MTSS is the all the other factors that influence a student's experience. So that's everything and not that we have
027control over those, but the knowledge of those plays into how we respond to children. So a student might be um showing behaviors that would indicate maybe that appear to be anxious or appear to be stress. Um, and then by understanding the family, understanding the child, we might know that there's a trauma response involved. And how we as adults ensure that we're giving that child what we need is very different for a student that's experienced trauma versus a student that has a diagnosed anxiety condition. So, I think that that's a really important part of equity is really the complexity and knowledge that is required to to respond. Thank you. Would you like to add to any of that? Um I guess one thing that um is helpful in the shift that we've made since really um
028embracing the framework for teaching and learning under MTSS sort of this like model of how we're able to ensure that kids are getting what they need as much as we can. um the idea that as we're planning lessons, which you guys will think about in just a minute, um we kind of ask ourselves like what do I need to do in this lesson to help my students be able to access it most successfully? And then on a more that's the understanding um UDL piece that um Arlland spoke about before, but then more holistically like what um supports do we have in place at this school that will allow a child to be the most successful. So it's like at a classroom level and and a grade level and at a systems level under the MTSS
029system. And it just like allows us to think individually about a child and more globally about capitalizing on our resources to ensure equity and access. You any other MTSS thoughts? Okay. Thanks. So we wanted to highlight some areas um the role of equity in the classroom. Some these are there many the many equity plays a large role in many elements of the classroom experience. And so these are some of the pieces we wanted to highlight. Promoting inclusivity, encouraging class engagement and participation, providing safe spaces, um students feel supported and respected by their peers, higher quality programs and materials, and cultivating self- advocacy and self-confidence. So we wanted to highlight those pieces. And then here's where we're getting a little deeper into MTSS. So these are some more examples. Go ahead of Thank you. what equity
030looks like in practice and MTSS again is included like thinking about this here. So we're equity in practice looks like researchbased frameworks like MTSS and SEAL social emotional learning and UDL. It also looks like the use of state and local data to identify opportunity gaps adjust instruction and improve learning outcomes for students. uh special education services. I don't need to read all of this to you. Competency based learning models to allow students to demonstrate what they know in personalized and meaningful ways. Um alignment with federal title programs which include language around equity and access and resources outcomes for students um in underresourced communities. And then for um English for speakers of other languages um providing targeted language development support and recognizing that language is not a barrier to potential. So these are some of the
031areas we see equity showing up in practice. And there's lots more. Um, I think the other piece that gets lost sometimes when we're think when um there's a mischaracterization of some of the words like equity or diversity or inclusion or justice is right that we think only maybe about race and gender in those conversations. And part of that is thinking a lot about our students with disabilities, students who access free and reduced lunch, students who are unhoused, right? Our multilingual our multilingual learners. So thinking about like the populations that we serve which is a huge number of our students are included in this conversation. Any thoughts about this one questions? Okay, great. I was just going to say too I think that is I don't have the mic that you sure yeah right for the
032video. Like I think that was an important highlight for everyone too because when you look at our population it doesn't always appear very diverse and I think it's really important to widen our understanding to see how diverse our needs really are in every school in every community um for the why of why we're doing this work. Perfect. So this is where we're going to have you all engage in a little activity. Hopefully you're up for it. So, well, we're going to play this video and we're going to play it through once and ask you to just notice and consider. Do you want to prompt around this piece? I think we had it on the next slide. Oh, maybe we should Yeah, I just want to say one little thing from an equity standpoint. So in
033class when we are um asking children to listen to things, we often do it more than once to allow um students with different levels of processing speed um and internalizing opportunity to hear the information and just take it in and then we may might um ask them to do a task or to think about something additionally the second time or third depending on the level of complexity of whatever we're asking them. So we we wanted to do that here too. So the first time you're just listening and watching the activity and noticing what the teachers are doing, what the students are doing. So you're you're genuinely just taking in the lesson. The second time we watch it, we'll have a different lens. If you need to take notes, they're welcome. I mean, but we ask
034students to do this, too. If they want to take notes, they are welcome to. You're good. I'm good. I'm here. Thank you. Okay, we'll be teaching math related to her practice. So, take a look. Great. And if you look on your paper and up here at the top, it says what? Right here, read with me. My guess, there's a line there. So, when you look at the bag without counting, you're going to guess how many cubes do you think are in there? And then our captain is going to sort them out and put them into what? And ones. And then you're gonna find the real answer and see how close you are. We're going to do this three different times, but the first time we're going to do it together. Okay. So, I'm going to
035use this table right here to help me with this activity. Okay. So, I'm going to pass this bag around and take a quick look. Pass it to the next person. Take a quick look. How many do you think are in there? All right, Jade, what do you think? How many cubes do you think are in here? 40. Okay, come on up. It's going to come. Can you write? Can you reach way up here? Right. You use your marker here and you're going to write your guess right up there. You think it's going to be 40. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And I'm going to take all my cubes out of the bag and I'm going to start putting them together so that they're in tens so we can count them a little bit easier. How many
036do I have there? How many more do I need to make 10? Let's count. 2 4 6 7. How many more do I need to make 10? Excellent. Will you do that for me? How many do we actually have? Let's all count them together. Let's start by tens. 10 20 30 31 31. You were really close, weren't you? That was a great guess. Any questions about what? Because you're going you're going to have your turn next. Everyone should have written what we just did on their paper and you're going to do the next three with your captain at your table and Miss McCubri and I will walk around and help you. So if you're having a problem, you have question, raise your hand and we'll come over and help your table. In looking at this
037film, one of the things that I noticed was that um in introducing the lesson, the activity, she's really modeling what she wants the students to do. And she's very clear and she models it with a small group of students and you know identifies herself as taking on a specific role that they will be taking, right? And then she sets the whole um learning activity up so that now it'll be their turn. So it seems like she's moved from modeling to providing some guided practice which is a very nice structure in the classroom. Well, I was going to say that's highlighting the structure of everything she's doing. Sometimes in the guidance when it talks about uh highlighting or clarifying syntax, but it's really the underlying structure of things. So making the structure of a lesson explicit.
038Making the structure of what we're doing is something that is very necessary for some students and and is a good sort of meta skill for uh even the most um advanced of students specifically within the guidelines. She does a gradual release that is she says we're going to do it three times. I'm going to do it with you the first time and so on. So she's um both modeling and uh and gradually releasing that so that they can do it on their own. And she also uh elicited feedback from them as a group after she completed her modeling, which is a good check in to make sure that they really have the idea before they start doing it in their smaller groups. All right, let's continue and see what else we see. Remember, pass the
039bag around first. Let everyone take an idea and write your guess down on the top line. Did everyone take an estimate over here? Take a guess how many you think. All right. And the cats. Okay. Now, the captain should start sorting the blocks out into tens and ones so we can get an actual number. [Music] How many do you have? Seven. Seven. So, you need how many more to make a group of 10? 7 plus what equals 10? Three. We have two left. Okay. Ah, 31. All right. So, you have three groups of 10 and how many ones left over? Three. Three. Okay. So, you're going to put three in the 10's place cuz there's one, two, three groups of 10 and three in the one's place because there's three ones. So, what's your number?
040You know, it's interesting. I was just thinking about the use of the blogs and the nature of the classroom. In our observation of this classroom, there are 30 students and there are 11 different languages. Okay, we're going to pause there. Um, so the next time that you watch it, you're going to notice and wonder about the more explicitly like write down your notices and wonders about um the role of the teacher, what the teacher is doing and how the students are responding. um with the intention that a few minutes you'll get a a profile um of a student who could potentially be in a class and you'll think about what um what moves a teacher would need to make in advance of the lesson or what things she would have to consider um what accommodations
041or modifications she would have to put into place to make the lesson um accessible for that student um and and therefore more equitable for all Um, so I think we were going to have you watch one more time and notice and wonder and then get the profile and we'll talk in small groups about what what changes might need to be made um given these profiles. Are there any questions about that or is that unclear? So one more time this and we'll have an opportunity to u think about related to her practice. So take a look. Great. And if you look on your paper and up here at the top it says what right here. Read with me. My guess. There's a line there. So when you look at the bag without counting, you're going to
042guess how many cubes do you think are in there. And then our captain is going to sort them out and put them into what? And ones. And then you're going to find the real answer and see how close you are. We're going to do this three different times. The first time we're going to do it together. Okay. So, I'm going to use this table right here to help me with this activity. Okay. So, I'm going to pass this bag around and take a quick look. Pass it to the next person. Take a quick look. How many do you think are in there? All right, Jade. What do you think? How many cubes do you think are in here? 40. Okay, come on up. He's going to come. Can you write the reach way up here?
043Write your marker here and you're going to write your guess right up there. You think it's going to be [Music] 40. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And I'm going to take all my cubes out of the bag and I'm going to start putting them together so that they're in tens so we can count them a little bit easier. How many do I have there? How many more do I need to make 10? Let's count. 2 4 6 seven. How many more do I need to make 10? Excellent. Would you do that for me? How many do we actually have? Let's all count them together. Let's start by tens. 10 20 30 31 31 You were really close, weren't you? That was a great guess. Any questions about You're going to have your turn next. Everyone should
044have written what we just did on their paper. And you're going to do the next three with your captain at your table. And Miss McCubri and I will walk around and help you. So if you're having a problem, you have a question, raise your hand and we'll come over and help you table. In looking at this film, one of the things that I noticed is that um in introducing the lesson in the activity, she's really mo it seems like she's looking for model nice structure uh highlighting or clarifying making the structure of what we're do a skill for uh even the That's right. She says we're going to do it three times. I'm going to do it with you the first time and so on. So she's um both modeling and uh and gradually releasing
045that so that they can do it on their own. And she also uh elicited feedback from them as a group after she completed her modeling, which is a good check in to make sure that they really have the idea before they start doing it in their small groups. All right, let's continue and see what else you guys say. Remember, pass the bag around first. Let everyone take an idea and write your guess down on the top line. Did everyone take an estimate over here? Take a guess. How many you think? All right. And the cats. Okay. Now, the captain should start sorting the blocks out into tens and ones so we can get an actual number. [Music] How many do you have? Seven. Seven. So, you need how many more to make your group of
04610? 7 + what equals 10? Three. We have two left. Okay. Ah, 31. All right. So, you have three groups of 10 and how many ones left over? Three. Three. Okay. So, you're going to put three in the 10's place cuz there's one, two, three groups of 10 and three in the ones place because there's three ones. So, what's your number? You know, it's interesting. I was just thinking about the use of the blocks and the nature of the classroom in our observation. Okay. Did any one want to share some noticings and wonderings before we hand out the profiles? I thought the instruction was very clear. She did a good job making sure she was repetitive and demonstrating and modeling and asking questions. Great. Yeah, I had kind of like the repeat having the students
047repeat back some of them was like a three-way communication type thing. Yep, absolutely. Any wonderings? Things you were wondering? Well, I mean, I hate to be thinking ahead to it, but I was looking at like what's required to participate as far as like visual, tactile, like hearing, that sort of thing. That's a great thing to consider before. That's what we have to do and that's what we are hoping to invite you to do today. So, I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. So, we have um a very small group obviously. Um so, we have two different profiles for you, but they're the same across. Um we were going to just do one like two groups with one each. But the reality is we would have, you know, 19 individual profiles in our own classroom. So,
048um do you want one K or you're good? It's up to you. Got it. Yeah. Um, so these profiles kind of indicate the whole child like we always hope to do. There's general things about them as learners, some areas of strength, some areas of growth, and then some indicators about their learning preferences. Um, so if you could just we invite you for the next I don't know, we'll check in after seven minutes or so. We said um to consider what would the instructor need to do to make sure these students or hope to ensure these students have equitable access for the instruction and you can talk. This is small group work. Do we have the same ones? Yeah. Yep. Same two. Yep. So should we just take a minute to read both of them and
049then discuss? Is that okay? [Applause] I had your name on my hand. I wrote it this morning so I would remember. Look at I'm like full circle. [Applause] Yeah, I would love that. I love that. That's great. You want to be a little smaller? Um, I'll just sit on the periphery. Let them jump into it. So, we're doing our own room. I'll scoot over here. Okay. A bunch of reminds me you had in class last year so much. I'm reading. I'm like, oh, I wasn't going to say any names. Oh, no. I just [Applause] All right. I'm looking at the resilient and resourceful learner. Are you guys on that one? Sure. Um so um we're just what what is the prompt that we're I think it's kind of like what consideration should be made. Yeah.
050Well, I mean, one of the things I noticed right away, right, is that there's an aid in the classroom. So, as soon as you have like two adults in the room, right, then you can split. And so, like, you know, acts out or withdraws when frustrated, but if you have someone there helping out, probably helps with a lot of those behaviors. So, question is, is there is there going to is there a need? Yeah, I think also about like the like a consistent aid, right? Trusted consistent I guess that says especially when hungry or worried about home situation. maybe have an idea of like how they are coming in in the morning as far as if they eat or that's right. Yeah, maybe have snacks. Little early snack. I do find that like Millie eats
051the minute she gets to the classroom. She eats immediately. Immediately. Yeah, they basically eat all day. Um the other thing I noticed is born with cerebral vision impairment. Um so impacts vision. So making sure that whatever is on a board right they can see. So can they read or even write on the board? Can you read? Yeah. the board. Um, one of the things I noticed is like that little girl was like passing the blocks to the captain as he was counting, which is very cute. So, it just made me think like, you know, if you have that kind of personality, that might be a good good activity for you. Yeah. Low stakes. I'm sure that they have maybe this person is this Dude would like to have a leadership position, right? [Music] Hands-on learning
052and movement based activities. So, just trying to build that into Yeah. Right. Like building those block towers is kind of cool. Builds Yeah. each lesson possible. Whoa. That's how like says can be a leader like we were talking about that but then there was the thing about prefers 101 or small group might be a challenge in front of a group of peers to present things like also like there was no choice right they had to do this one activity [Music] allowed I was like yeah even one not even may need an extra time and reassurance to build trust with teachers and peers. Okay, so it's not time for a test or something. Predictable routines and a calm structured environment. So that was definitely very calm. What's that? It just seemed that seemed very calm. Oh,
053you mean if the student was in that class? Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Consistent as much as possible would probably be helpful for this child. One small group. When you mention about the aid, like I noticed the aid was kind of assisting with some of the groups and and I was looking at this like gaps in academic skills. Nobody knows that. That's kind of a gentle way to be able to help fill the gaps without explicitly being, you know, I guess I just think of it in context of like, you know, like I one of my kids had like an aid, but it was like for the class instead of being for a specific, you know what I mean? So I look at it in that in that regard like this person's here for everybody but obviously
054can hone in on where the gaps are. Yep. Especially with someone who's consistently with with students in that classroom based on the considerations you discussed. How are those reflective of educational equity for all learners? So I definitely think snacks is universal. Everybody would be benefit from snacks. Um everyone would benefit from consistent adults. Consistent adults. Oh yeah. And like that calm environment. I feel like that would be pretty much good for everyone. Everybody likes that because I think the like the vision ones would be very specific to could be. Although you know there may be some students who have slightly slightly difficult difficulty in reading. So maybe making sure like a UDL component could be like making sure the font is large. Mhm. And the lights are dimmed so there's like a good contrast, you
055know, things like that I feel like would be kind of a UDL for the reading component. If you can read the board, so large font lights. Um, all right. We only have three minutes to go to the next one. just about asking me. [Applause] I think she would have done well in this. Yeah, it is interesting. This prefers written instructions and opportunities to process information because they definitely did not have that, right? Yeah. And that could be a equity thing everybody has. Directions. Um, they got small group. Yeah, they kind of had big group and small group hands- on activities. That's what this was. Well, it was interesting cuz the teacher was like, "Oh, you did great when you guessed 40." Mhm. Yeah, it was cute. Guess whether like the option where it says working
056independently or with one close friend like the groups were probably what four or five students so maybe like the option to have a smaller group that's easier or Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, you could maybe set them up with the person next to them or something. Compare answers with the person next to you. possible. Thank you. I guess like in a big group setting like that, if you don't know the answer or if you didn't really understand the assignment, how would the teacher know, right? As long as the captain knows, right? So, just in terms of uh advocating for herself or taking risks, she can kind of hide in the group. It's not really. Mhm. That's kind of like the needs encouragement. I feel like may require like prompting I guess from if the
057teacher's aware that okay the student probably knows but isn't going to speak up, right? Especially if she's hungry. [Music] Beautiful sound. Yeah, but it's okay. [Applause] [Music] Okay. Well, these were the questions we had hoped you had considered. Um, so we're curious to hear how your conversations went. I'm going to get a chair, too. Can I give this to you? Oh, sure. What do you think? Yeah, I thought it was really good. We had a good discussions and there were definitely more components of I feel like opportunities for universal design that um weren't in the video. Um so we noted some of those and um yeah we can talk about it would be helpful if we talk about those. We talked about snacks having snacks available for the student who has trouble staying engaged if
058he's hungry. Um, we weren't sure if the person in the room was a trusted aid or somebody who's consistently with that class, but that sounds like that would be helpful. Um, and then in terms of the vision, we weren't sure if um the student could read the board clearly. Um, and it seemed, at least from the filming, that the it was the contrast was a little bit rough, like it was kind of hard to read. So, I don't know if it the lights were on too bright and, you know, the there wasn't enough contrast maybe. Um, but making sure that that student could read what was on the board would be helpful. Um, and then the other student would have benefited from written instructions on the piece of paper and maybe other students would have
059benefited from that too. Um, yeah, what am I missing? So we also had note about it was like a single activity offered and one of the learning preferences was more comfort in being offered multiple activities. So just remember that was one thing we noticed was it was kind of like hey this is the this is what we're doing. Yeah. Um, we did like it seemed like the teacher, you know, when she said, "Oh, you guessed 40, but it was 31, but that was really close." You know, like that kind of positive feedback, it really made like the classroom, you know, she was obviously very calm and encouraging. And so, um, you know, it can probably give confidence to the kids. [Music] Um, I think we talked a little bit about how like I saw one
060of those kids like handing the captain some of the blocks. So, just like offering helping hands, you know, there's like opportunities to help even if you're not the captain. Um, and so, you know, that kind of sets them up well for whatever skill set they might be offering in the classroom that day. And I thought also this gaps in academic skills. I know that you talked a little bit about the aid. Um, you know, I know the aid's not necessarily for a specific student, but able to like they showed the person kind of prompting some of the um activity. So maybe like identify that, hey, this person has some gaps like here it's due to attendance or home life or whatever. And can you kind of gently offer assistance without being like singled out for
061that? Those are all great. Thanks. Yeah. I was struck too, Sophie, when you said like the contrast on the board like would support that student and other students. And I think that's the whole premise of universal design. Like one change we make for an accommodation perhaps really can benefit everybody. So um that's a great thing to notice. I don't know. We thought about maybe sharing like our noticings too. Um, and uh, in terms of like the high contrast is helpful. Um, and I heard you guys talk about font size. Um, not that I was like listening into your conversation, but I just overheard someone say font size. Um, and a lot of times we do have to be really wary of that, especially if we are using um, some kind of workbook. um it does
062require you to enlarge a lot of things and be really cognizant of then what that does to um the look of the page and even um spatially how the page is set up is that like visually over stimulating for a child. Um, one thing that at my old school that happened was it was like at the time when Smartboards were first introduced, which seems like an eternity ago, but they were all um mounted at the same height in every classroom. And if you think of accessibility, like those kids could reach like maybe the bottom, I don't know, fourth of that board. And then like who's the board for in terms of like the boards are supposed to be interactive and manipulate them. That's not for the teacher. It's supposed to be engaging. Um, so that
063kind of thing. Um, sort of I was actually kind of stunned at the lack of wait time, um, and processing time for students. Um, it was like pretty so if you're not a child who can hold the bag for one second and make a decision or respond right away, that would be tricky probably and could then be an off-putting for a shy student. Um, so sometimes we preview a question beforehand. If we know that um a child might be um have a tendency to be a little bit more um reserved about things or might need more time, we would preview it beforehand. Um we might say, "We want to give you an opportunity to speak in front of the whole group today. Here's what we're going to talk about. Here's what we're going to do.
064Here's a question that I'm going to ask. Does that feel okay?" If you want to share your thinking in advance, go for it. Um what what were the other things we talked about you want to share what you said about like when the aids potentially like one of the things that resonated with me was that the adults were doing the thinking the kids weren't really doing much of the thinking they weren't really given the opportunity to do that and it was really really explicit um and while it is important to be clear and concise um and explicit um it shouldn't be around the actual happen. The person with the answers, the person who's done the thinking is kind of the focus. And so really allowing the kids to take I was thinking about like how
065do you want to organize your numbers? Like she said, put them in tens and put them on. I would want kids to like actually know what helped them organize their thinking and their numbers and to be thinking about place value and to have time to be exploring that. Um so I felt that happened quite a bit throughout. One of the things that we have worked on a lot as a staff is our like level of questioning. Um, so just like that person could have said like talk to me about your thinking right now instead of like there's three I'm I'm giving you all the answers. I'm like telling you actually exactly what to do and exactly what to write. Um, but just like talk to me about your thinking in this moment. Um, like just
066sort of the way and if and if there is a misconception, how do we push back on that a little bit so that still it's the student engaging in the thinking um in whatever concept we're talking about in that moment. Um, one other thing is that like the only choice of materials, um, it didn't look like there were any. So, a lot of times if we're talking about place value, we might have different ways to represent place value or um, like place value charts available. Um, I didn't see any. It doesn't mean that they weren't there. Um, I didn't see any students with them. Um, one thing that we talk about a lot is we have a lot of resources in the room. It's your responsibility to get them, to know yourself as a learner,
067and to get them. Um, I'm not available to prompt every single one of you to go get their, you know, that kind of thing. Um, but it didn't appear like kids were like getting different things to help them. Um, but those are just some considerations. [Music] Yeah. I guess I'm wondering if you all talked at all about um the student profile where working in larger groups seems more challenging for this student. So, like how might we think in advance about what that looks like for this particular student who prefers to be one-on-one or what someone trusted? Um, did you all about that piece. Uh yeah, you're talking about the second profile the or I guess we looked at a second. Um but uh yeah, we were saying like maybe option for like a pair or
068a smaller group if you know it says they prefer working independently or with a single friend and might be more difficult with four or five students in one group like that. So your to your point earlier about some choice options of like how they might engage with the activity. Yeah. I was just curious because I think this learning profile is really interesting like I don't this is this feels um like a student who is more reserved and quiet and a thought I love the description of like being a thoughtful observant learner and I don't think we all that can sometimes fly under the radar and I think this is a really important one to sort of pay attention to because I think it's something that um is not always uh a profile that we plan
069for. So I think it's it's a really interesting one. But I think there was there was thing about like reflecting on things and I think you mentioned something about the pace at which there wasn't like a lot of opportunity to you know reflect on the activity was just kind of like all right we do it now go do it. So I felt like that was would be a challenge I guess for that student who needs some time to reflect on something. I think also like obviously this is about more than gender and race but like you can't help but notice the gender of these two students right? So, you know, you see they just seem uh yeah, how how you bring the, you know, the the female child out who's thoughtful and observant but quiet,
070doesn't advocate for herself versus the male student who, you know, might have temper tantrums and might have behavior issues. And so, definitely notice those two things. I think regardless of gender too, just the idea of those two students existing in the same community, right? What sets off one is triggering for the other and that you're always walking that balance to kind of meet all needs. Um I think because that's the reality of the kids in front of you, right? Um some can be quite different. Do you want Yes. Do you want to do the debrief or do you want me? Go ahead. Oh, okay. So, we have a little debrief question. So, thank you for engaging with that. I know it's a small group. We don't want to but we want to make sure we're
071get rid of this for you. Look how I know it's not great though. There we go. Now you can see better. So, I think we wanted to have a bit of an open debrief discussion question like thinking about all of this, right? considering these profiles thinking a little bit about the framing around equity probably sorry thinking about the framing around equity um our sort of debrief question is as a board member what is your role in advocating for educational equity for all students I think that's a really important question um and I'd love for us to just kind of like have an open discussion about it if folks can reflect first if you'd like um we can just jump in and I think it's a Yeah. Uh I think like considering the resources would be
072a big portion of that is whether there's the resources to have a equable equitable experience for all students because there's you know something I look I have a child who has hearing disability so you know I know they have like the sound towers and whether you have you know the funds for those sort of things and you know those that's something I would think of is yes some of that stuff comes with a cost and whether you support that or not. Yeah, resources is huge. That's a huge piece. Yeah, for sure. I also think about like how to balance micromanaging because like we're not here to tell y'all how to educate students. Like that's not really our role, but how do we encourage Yeah. encourage equity and support that in the schools without micromanaging exactly
073how it's done is something that I would think about. Yeah. And I hopefully I mean maybe you all all already know all of these things, but I hopeful hopefully highlighting some of the ways this actually shows up in classrooms is helpful in like having more broad conversations with community members as you all do about like what educational equity actually looks like in schools. Um so I think that's really important too to be able to say like here are some examples of what this might look like um and some challenges and some successes that we have in these areas. Yeah, I think equity around the budget is important, Cameron, and um not only for students, but also for staff. Um so that's one thing that I've advocated for of like, oh, I've noticed that that position
074um is funded. This was at the joint board, but that position was not funded the way maybe a similar position in another district would be funded. So, um, yeah. Well, I think also, you know, you were talking about conversation with other, uh, community members. Um, and you kind of made mention to this earlier about the misconception based on, you know, whatever media or whatever where to me this presentation is really focused on the ability to access that. And I think a lot of times that gets lost in the, oh, we're just, you know, doing whatever anybody asks. But it's really I think um you know you you mentioned about the comment about having a one teacher to another student and how that may actually not be the best situation even though I think that might
075be the perception sometimes with resources. So I feel like trying to pivot it away from that weird political discussion and more about well it's just so that everybody's learning the same thing and that's really what we want. Yeah. And the goal like right with especially with UDL and tier one of MTSS is that like those supports are for all students. And if we're doing that really well, we're meeting the needs of many many students um by being thoughtful about that on the front end of things, right? And then also like tier 2 and tier three meeting the needs of students that we haven't been able to meet in that tier one level, right? Think about an example um that I think has evolved at SMS over the last maybe five years or so is um
076the idea of occupational therapy being being a tier one service that we offer offer in preschool, kindergarten and first same speech um social objectives which is like navigating social situations and sort of the nuances of that because we know it's pretty complex even as adults. Um and historically our traditionally people think of those services as being special education services but what we realized you know the research shows is that the the skills that they're teaching students that may have received it through an IPB services actually are skills all students need and benefit from that instruction at the universal level and I think it's a really nice example of we thought it b we were thinking it was benefiting one year but really benefited all of the students. the idea of like then us thinking like
077systems wide, how do we continue to support that um model in a way that provides that access for all of our kids. Um whether that's a budget, whether that's through staffing, whether that's through just conversations within the community. But those are the things that we are part of our framework for teaching and learning are part of our MTSS system. I think the other thing that I think about is yeah along with that like educating the public um what is going on? How can we be liaons and make sure the public understands what equity is and how it shows up in school and how ultimately like that results in better test scores, it results in healthier students, it results in, you know, better community members ultimately. So, um I think trying to make sure that we're
078communicating that with the public is something else I'm thinking about. Well, and I think just a better understanding of like where people are starting. I know based on a previous conversation we had about, you know, you might not think like I've never myself or had kids who had, you know, housing issues or food or what. So, I think a lot of people come in and you're not going to consider that. It's just like, hey, you're at school, you're supposed to be doing whatever. And it's like, right, but you're already starting at this deficit. And I think that's not considered. I don't know if it's, you know, like we talked about our community and there's, you know, a certain level of what, you know, I mean, I'm sure this varies differently from community to community. So,
079I think a lot of times the thought is like, well, that's not a concern here. So, yeah. So, I think I love that awareness piece because I do think right if it's not your lived experience then it's hard to imagine maybe. So, this is like that empathy piece like doing this learning and this awareness piece around like what are we missing? what students are not being represented here. And so I think that's a really really important conversation because if you don't have that experience in your life, the only way that you can understand that experience is by hearing from folks and by raising your level of awareness around it. I think that was that's what we had. Thank you all. We wanted to just provide something that, you know, allow the wheels to get turning
080a little bit. We really had a lot of fun doing this together collaboratively and like thinking in this way and talking in this way. So we appreciate you all engaging on an evening. Um yeah. Thank you. Thank you guys. Yeah. Sorry our we only have three members. You put in all this like amazing work for a really cool fun thank you slide. We might as well put it up. There you go. Oh thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Can this also be posted on that since it'll be posted. I think that'll be really cool. Yep. So, we've been videotaping. So, that will go on just as any other board meeting. So, they'll be part of the the minutes and people can watch it if they want to. It's a little bit hard. I tried to capture
081the the screen. So, um but if you have the slides, we can definitely attach the slides to the minutes so that people can refer to them. I'm thinking about um when you guys appoint your new board member then being like just to know this is available shared at least being a shared experience. And if you ever want to come um Eric came to my class for an entire afternoon and then we debrief for an hour. If you want to spend some time and just see um what things look like or if you want to interact with some kids and I mean you're more than welcome to you can give me no notice. I want to I want to joyful. Please please come. We are a fun group. Cool. You have to like clear yourself out.
082Like I'm like every you need to come out here right now. Like I'm I'm coming. I'm staying in here for a little bit longer. Oh, I guess the thing that strikes me like just watching that video or talking about this is like what about that kid? How how do you handle that kid that automatically like knows how many things are in write can write their numbers like where is there equity too for that kid that is is maybe above above that level. I think um one of the things that we've been working hard to do is um through whatever means whatever formative means um engage in some preassessments of skills. Um and that's why a whole group instruction is um like you're you're getting it's short, right? Like in third grade my my whole group
083lesson depending on the subject. If it's something more complex, maybe longer, but if it's something like that, like a skill which I would know in advance that many kids might have already demonstrated across time that they have a solid understanding of estimating. My other question about that was like what's the goal and is this like the first time this has been introduced to them? But anyways, um you would provide alternative activities or you would plan for that small group. Like right now um in my third grade class I have we're working on fractions and I have students working on proportional relationships and balancing equations um with variables and negative and positive numbers. And then I have students who are understanding fractions at um the shape and number line level. So um one disadvantage that you
084are insignificantly in watching that is that you don't know those students. Um but one advantage that we have is that we spend all day with them and know them well so we can plan accordingly. There might be a group activity and then they split up at Y or I have like for me it's like planning time to meet with kids depending on what they're doing and what they need. And so it might look a little different like that group that's working on ratios and proportional relationships. I meet with them at a different time and they're working on a task together during that whole group lesson. Okay. We also think about uh resource allocation for that. So in our MTSS model, there's opportunities for gradient support where we can do some extension groups based on the
085data, the current data to say like these students are ready for this. So that is outside of the core instructional block. Um but it is an opportunity that they get three or four times a week where they get to be um really saving receiving some personalized extending activities and then like how we resource those how we um use our resources differently um whether that's um the math specialist the interventionist administration utilizing apps like we really think I think we try to think really creatively and thoughtfully about how we can maximize our staff because you're right there is such a variability of where students are at at any given time. Um I don't I'm not would not suggest that we've mastered that. I would suggest that we think about it all the time and are continually
086looking for ways to even expand that. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that's been really exciting for us as a third grade team is we share kids. So from 10:30 to 11:00 um after the core lesson um students move to different classrooms and we teach an area based on an assessment um that best meets their needs and aside from Kate Banger who teaches our enrichment group uh it's the classroom teachers so to allow the math interventionists to service kids with other skills um skill needs. So, that's been incredible. And it's allowed us to like broaden our relationship with kids across the grade level. It's another person that they feel comfortable with. Um, and it allows us to get Yeah, we love it. It's so fun. It's like a little jolt of joy in your day. Um,
087but it's a good change up and allows us to meet kids needs. Yeah. In a broader area, too, than just like one thing we think about, too, is we follow a a pace and a sequence. And it doesn't mean that all kids are ready for that or that they've mastered it within the time frame before we're having to move on because of um certain constraints, time constraints. Um so this allows us to revisit skills that we're noticing continue to be areas of need or enrichment. Yeah. So, can I ask a question about trying to keep track of that as a classroom teacher? Because so I always think of like the IEP only because I'm familiar with that and I know from previous discussions that's like 20% of the population of the school, right? So, when
088I look at this, it's like, okay, now this is that for everyone, right? So, I'm curious how when you've identified, you know, um where people need additional supports, how you're keeping track of that in a classroom of and I'm not to just bring this up, but obviously this ties into number of students in the classroom, which has been a big discussion all that. Um so, we uh work nights and weekends. Um, no, we do. But, um, we use for for our grade level at least, we create spreadsheets. So, when we're, um, conducting a pre-assessment, um, we share the spreadsheet across our team and we say this many kids that need this skill, this many who need this, we track fidelity data. So, um, we keep track of like absences within the small group. So, if
089I'm um doing a two-eek group on fractions on a number line greater than one, that was just my group. Um I'm keeping track of how frequently the students were there and actually received the instruction and I'm keeping track of their post assessment data and how they're doing and I just take notes and share it with my whole team and then I give them the work and the assessment um so that the classroom teacher has it back. Um, so within each group, we have a system for taking notes and keeping track of who is in attendance and how they did on a post assessment to know whether they're ready for another round. So, for example, we conducted our post assessment today for this round of groups. We met at lunchtime. We talked about how our kids
090did as a whole. We talked about shifts that we need to make and decided to do another um another week with these current groups next week um based on the post assessment data in the same lesson or I'm just I don't understand what no so um I am planning for my group so I taught fractions on a number line greater than one Mrs. young taught um fractions like more basic understanding of fractions sort of pulling the idea from a lot of kids have an understanding of fractions in terms of shapes and they're pulling it to the number line level u Mrs. Binger and Mrs. Tero taught the enrichment group u Mr. Salt test taught a group about um scaled graphs and understanding the nuances in language and ambigu ambiguity when you're answering questions about graphs
091because we noticed that sometimes questions will be like um uh like how many more students liked spring and summer than fall? And so that ability to combine spring and summer first before finding the difference that that kind of um piece and then um Miss Sullivan taught a group about telling time to the minute and elapse time. And those are either concepts that are being introduced um soon and we wanted to give some students a preview of that or um um concepts that we were previously taught that we're noticing that we might have a cohort of kids that might need some ex uh additional practice with. Um, and we're currently in a fractions unit. So, is that all like teachers in the same grade? I know you were talking before about the team cohesion and that
092sort of thing. So, yep. Within the third grade, that's what we're doing and sharing kids across the grade. Fifth grade does the same thing. Okay. So, that's what you were talking about like teaching to kind of like an assessment that sort of thing. Or is we just use um we just like to make our decisions based on data. So we collect like we tell kids you might not it's okay if you are thinking to yourself wow Miss Forbes never has mentioned this to me before because some of these skills are a preassessment and you might say to yourself well I'm already secure with all of these skills that's fine we have a group for you too or you might be thinking oo this is hard for me I know we've already done it but it's
093still tricky that's okay um so we kind of are looking like ahead a little bit back a little bit and then like what are we currently working on and how are we going to build groups to meet everybody's the assessments are not a a length and standardized assessment. It might be four questions for five questions. Like it's a really quick like comprehensive check of where their skills are. So they're meanted to be like real time and then be able to teachers can then respond really quickly to them. Well, that's just a new concept that I was curious because I, you know, I was thinking of in regards of like, hey, this is Mrs. Forb's class. These are the kids that are in it. But it sounds like you're kind of adapting that to expand to
094all the teachers. So you can kind of have multiple groups. Is that correct? Yeah. And we're hopeful to expand like right we you know it's like a learning curve right we did the first round we did we were like oh lessons learned we shall change this this and this next time um and we're also hoping to expand to literacy in other areas. I think one of the things that we find about that or the the ask that we've asked so the a piece that has also been successful this year is our case manager also sharing kids so that they're available more because typically if the student was on your case those are the students you serve as school now they're sharing their students so that they can consistently see them more services they have some
095time to also work with students that may not have IEP based services but are in the classroom that they work um but one of the things that I think is really important kind of going back to what you mentioned Cameron is that um sharing sharing your students with other people is always an apprehension because you just love your kids so much and you know them so well. Like that's your group. Um and so getting to a place with your team if it's new or you're adjusting to new people is not that you don't trust them. It's a matter of like I want to know how you are. You want to know how I am. And I want to make sure you understand the nuances of my kids so that when you have them, you're really
096ready for them and they're ready for you. And so I think that goes back to like our third team. You're really ready to launch this in a way that is cohesive across the grade level. It speaks to that there's there they have been together. They know each other. And I think it's a huge ask for any teacher to get on your page for any amount of time. Um what we're not control freaks with care. We're like I will I will teach them this. Well, it's just care, right? And you want to it is harder. Um and trusted adults is a huge part of the students comfort and success in any academic or or any other area where they have learning. And so that is part of like kids being ready to then vote for a
097different teacher, right? So I think build over time. Um, but we're finding like Whitney said, the grade levels that are doing it, it's quickly rapidly growing because it's building success up to success and we're seeing it when students are being successful. So, it's like feeding itself in a really beautiful way, but it takes a lot of like healthy risk taking within the professional profession as well. It's like gradual release like you were the teacher there is like gradually releasing responsibility. That's like what our admin team and specialist did for us. They're like, "We're going to be heavily involved in this first round and give you lots of coaching and advice and then we will let you be free and you will run the next round by yourselves. Bye. Go do the things." No, they weren't
098like that. Um, but it was, you know, there's been a learning curve in it. Well, do you try to keep and I just one more question, but do you try to keep, you know, we were talking before about shifting around and I know all this is all related, but from year to year because if you kind of develop this group of teachers and with what you're talking about is the trust of hey, I want you, you know, you're teaching my student and this sort of thing. So, does that come into play with like the teachers are trying to keep in a particular group or that sort of thing year to year? Um, I think it's a complex question. I think there's a lot of pieces that can be said about, but I think two distinct
099things that I think really matter. Every year, um, the administration sends out a survey to our staff and says, is there someone looking for a change? Because we want to honor the staff that are looking for change for whatever reason. It might be the dynamic routine. It might be that they want to grow and try something new. It might be um that they've had a really cool professional learning experience and like I really want to do that with a grade level, right? So, we want to honor that as good as possible without disrupting everything. So, that's certainly part of the decisions that are made. Um and then the other part is a number of years ago, three years ago now. Um so I Kate and I had been here together for four years and we
100had done a ton of work vertically across the building about the dynamics and about what was best for cohorts of kids and and um expertise and experience across the grade level. It's really nice to have a myriad of things to be able to offer students across the grade level and the cohort of kids. Um and uh 10 teachers changed grade levels that year. At the end of the year, that was a decision after I mean hours and days and months of conversation and really hard critical conversations, but really looking at like the entire system, not just one individual teacher or one individual grade level. Um, it was really hard. Um, we felt we felt like we were in a place to to do it knowing it would be hard and it was it was really
101hard to follow. There was a lot of mixed feelings about it. Um, and now to a person everybody's like, "Yep, it was the right thing." But I think change is really hard. Um, and it requires people to stretch themselves in incredible ways to teach it in new grade level. And so when you make those decisions, it's like I will put in a ton of supports for you the next year to ensure that you don't feel like you're you are left to do this without feeling some level of um support from your administration and colleagues. So there's a lot of other factors, but I think those are two that jump out. Thanks. team. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, a motion to adjurnn. Before
102you do that, comment. So, at the last meeting, for those people at home, if you are putting your application in to be the next board member, I said it would be a two-year term. I want to clarify and rectify that. That was a misspeak on my part, so I own that. it is actually only uh a one-year appointment and then you would have to apply for the one year that's left on that. So your appointment on this board would be only be till March 2026 not 2027 as I indicated last meeting. So I just wanted to clarify that. So thank you. Yeah. So so the other question I'm just curious. So if you then run for that Yep. It's for a one year on one year left. Yep. So it would show a one-year position
103then anybody that would be up would be the three years. So it would be show us a one year on the ballot and a three year on the ballot. Okay. Yeah, there'll be three spots that you're my seat, Eric's seat, and then that one seat or the oneear position and thank you for your presentation. It was very difficult to stay quiet, but I felt I needed to to have that happen. So, thank you. Oh gosh. Yeah, I weighed a lot. Motion to second. Okay, roll call. I All right. 7:32. They too.