001question. >> Okay. Well, let's uh get this party started. It's ed services December 2nd and it's 7:30. So, um we currently have no uh public here. So, let's go right to the agenda item A. >> Okay, we have three agenda items today and a lot of input from our uh principles and staff. So, I'm excited about that. Our first topic um is an update on attendance and truency. Um I will turn it over to Sarah. Oh, sure. Turn it over to the group. >> Yeah. So, I I just look around the room and I'm smiling because of all of these people who really are the faces of our schools. They are the ones that are working with our students and our staff every single day and lifting that achievement and that engagement. And it's so
002wonderful that you're taking your time out this morning. I know those roads were kind of hard this morning. So um in the ed services um board docs there is a presentation called um WUSD attendance and truency and this is an update for December because we talked a little bit about this in the fall. We're now heading into full-blown winter and we're going to talk a little bit more about this um as we go through this. everyone in this room um has added to these particular documents and so they have an opportunity to talk a little bit about what they're doing in their buildings, what they're doing at the different levels. Um we've also received some awards for the counseling team and it was based on data regarding attendance and truency partially. And so this is
003all very exciting for this particular school district. Moving on to um those um steps, we're going to start with our friends at Douglas. So Emily Lesnner is here and she's going to talk a little bit scroll down. I'm sorry, Jenny's navigating the different systems. Um if you want to scroll down a little bit um into into um our Douglas area, that would be wonderful. >> Sure. So, um, just some strategies that we do over at Douglas to impact attendance. And the screen before showed just some real positive trends in attendance across our district, which is super exciting to see. >> Everything in green, I'm sorry, everything in green is good. Green is good. It's going in the right direction. So, attendance rates need to go up. Chronic absenteeism needs to go down. Okay. All right.
004Yeah. And several years ago, we did some work around chronic absenteeism because, you know, your attendance numbers can look great, but your chronic absenteeism, which is those kids who have a significant amount of attendance, can really kind of be masked by some good looking overall attendance percentages. So, we've it's great to see green and all those chronic absenteeism because um that that means kids are missing a significant amount of time. Um and so, it's great to see those numbers going down. Anyway, back down to the other slide. Sorry. Um, so these are just some strategies that we use. Some are use, you'll hear kind of probably a repeat from other people about some of these things, but um, we as a district obviously we do Ready Set Go conferences and um, the teachers ahead of
005time at Douglas at least we gave them their list of kids in their class who were chronically absent the year prior. So they knew right away like who to make sure to connect with those parents, make positive connections, and to keep an eye out and to really build that positive relationship right off the bat. Um we do have bi-weekly attendance meetings which includes um our student services team members, myself, one of our office um team members who does like the majority of the calling and helps run all of our letters and things. Our school resource officer, officer um Stacy has been attending and then our transment officer also comes. We look through data on wise dash. We um check in on any univers we talk about universal strategies that we can do like monthly challenges
006and things like that and recognizing strong attendance. Um they also then put some things in place for either small groups or individual contacts with families or um groups with kids. A lot depends on the age, you know, like a lot of times you're contacting families right away. Families always know if we're going to be working with their kids on attendance. We'll let them know. Um but sometimes it's interesting to talk to the families to learn what's the reason behind the lakes and things like that. What's going on? What can we help with? Um we do um also in if you've been in the building at Douglas you've seen on our board we have some visible goal setting for kids. So we have our goal of 95%. We have every week during our Monday morning meeting
007we announce the weekly attendance champions for each grade. There's like a little traveling trophy. Like someone gifted them to us like five years ago. I'm like, what are we going to do with these little trophies that have like the label peeled off and they're like the perfect traveling trophies because the kids we do a little drum roll and then we announce like, oh, it's Miss Chapman's kindergarten this week and the kids like cheer and they cheer for their old kindergarten teacher and they're just so excited. But there's a lot of like pride around like being the best class of the week and then every month um we announce like the top class of the month and they have a pizza lunch from Pizza Ranch. So that's very exciting. We just announced yesterday Mrs. Bustler's fourth
008grade was the attendance champ for November and they had 100% week before Thanksgiving. So that was pretty awesome. So they got two trophies yesterday and pizza for lunch. So um we do um post up their challenges too. We started honoring the classrooms that had 95% plus the month before. So they get like a mini certificate to hang up, not pizzas that it's consolation. And then um as like this is a tricky time of year, so there are definitely some challenges that we'll be uh doing as the year goes on. Um we had a K1 family fun night presentation and Chris and Kelly came today to share uh this exact presentation which was really well attended. I'll just give them a little shout out that this was like a we brainstormed last spring and we're like
009what should we do because we noticed our data for our kindergarten last year was very very rough like a extreme outlier like most of our school was 95% or higher and there was 30% chronic absences in our kindergarten last year which was very alarming. Um that's why Bethany is probably Yeah. Yeah. She's like, "Attendance matters, right?" Like when we're in kindergarten and first grade, those years are extremely crucial for learning to read. You can't replicate, as much as you can send worksheets home, you cannot replicate being there for good instruction and 30% chronically absent, which means they miss 20 days of school uh home month. It was a lot. So, we were brainstorming what could we do for those for our incoming kindergarteners to really encourage good attendance and then to help our first grade
010families who had some uh who just to know the urgency and like what can we help them do? So, they put together this great presentation. We had a real strong showing, served over a 100 hot dog meals. So, that's exciting and um they're here to present. >> Okay. So, like um Emily just said, first of all, I'm Chris Budding. I'm school social worker at Douglas and at Webster >> and I'm Kelly Cunningham. I'm the school counselor at Douglas. >> So, you know, for a long time we've thought, how do we get this information from parents because, you know, if we just have an attendance night and come and learn about attendance, nobody's going to show up. So, we thought like set let's set up our learners for academic success. So, what we did is we
011planned a hot dog dinner. We thought, let's have some bingo that the families can play and then let's have some prizes. So whether it was the hot dog dinner or the prizes, I'm not sure, but we had um 27 families attend and we fed over 101 people, which was amazing for a turnout. Um so we targeted our kindergarten and first grade parents. We had child care provided by the National Honor Society students up at the high school. Um and then all of the prizes we picked were things that were family games or um slime kits, things like that that were activities that families could do together. Um and then our funding was all provided by Watertown Family Aid. I'm on the board of Watertown Family Aid and um as a board we've tried to decide
012find things that would you know serve our families in Watertown and one of the things that family aid has done is given some money to the different schools in the district to help with absenteeism and truency issues. >> Okay. Yeah. So, um, as Emily or and Chris both just said, like we wanted to target attendance, but like subtly, you know, so we included those other agenda items, um, on there, which were, um, establishing routines, sleep habits, screen talking about screen time, um, plugged in attendance there and then, um, the importance of reading. So, just we know routines are important and and health kids. So, we provided some checklists for families, just gave them some resources. Our whole presentation was more like giving them information and empowering the family to like make decisions that best for
013them. So just giving them those those resources. And we've noticed that a lot of our kindergarters and first graders are very sleepy. They could fall asleep and take naps. So we really thought I don't think parents oftentimes know how much sleep kids need with schedules being so busy like they are, kids activities being scheduled till 8:00 at night. um kids aren't getting the 10 to 12 hours of sleep that they need. So, we really emphasized that. We talked about what are some signs of um not kids not getting enough sleep. How do you set up good sleep habits for kids? Um then we also talked about screen time because that's another thing we know that kids are just everybody in our whole society is spending too much time on screen. So, we talked about, you
014know, what is what are the limits that we should be sending and how do we um, you know, are are we putting our kids in front of high quality screen time or are we and are we engaging as families during that? Are we watching a family movie together or are we just letting them scroll on YouTube endlessly? So, um, again, you know, this is all comes down to parent choice and but we just thought we'd provide them with some information about what you know, so they knew some of the information. >> Yeah. attendance. Again, just the importance of that Emily talked about the chronically absent and just talking to families about what that means, catching them early, educating them early. Um, again, so that they can help make um informed decisions and explaining to them
015the importance of the impact it has on um their child's education early for sure. Then we talked about all of the benefits of reading. It makes kids more empathetic, makes kids more creative, um helps them to wind down and relax at night. And then on the next slide you can see we talked about just the direct correlation between reading and academic success you know success on test scores and um you know their vocabulary. So we emphasized that a lot too. So then it was more of like what what to do next. Okay. There are opportunities that we can help with at school and then provided them with some opportunities that are um available in the community. So, reaching out to their teacher, reaching out to us, but then also like there's a triple P parenting
016class that um they could attend in person or there's a free online option for them too. And families were just like um we had a family that brought their grandparents as well that were kind of sitting right next to us and they were just kind of ooing and the whole time of like I wish would have had this kind of thing. Um so it was just again providing those resources and then we had a folder of resources that we gave to everybody a where to find guide about some community resources some um when is too sick when is sick too sick for schools how to create some routines good sleep habits and things like that. So they could take that with them. Any questions for our Douglas team? Yeah. >> Um I had looked on
017the triple P the other day. Now my Facebook, my personal Facebook is getting >> I was just wondering do you have any do you have any um testimonies of people that have gone through that? Actually >> I do because I'm actually one of the teachers of Triple P and I'm accredited in the one-on-one as well. Um yes, we've had parents who have come back because they liked it so much. We've had parents who have not wanted it to end at the end because they find um the relationships with the other families so powerful. Um the last class that we taught was last fall or last spring and all of the parents had kindergarten or first grade parent or students actually and they could all empathize and I think they feel find a lot of support.
018We have a family that happens to be a Webster family who attended and they um really talked about oh my gosh this is the first time kids have like actually gone to bed when I've asked them to. was the first time that they have listened that you could just sense their we do a pre-est and a post- test at the end to see like their parents satisfaction and um their happiness and their scores always show improvement which is amazing to see. >> Well, I noticed there's also a teen element to that. There's a teen course. Has that been introduced at all? So we have not done that because um we had worked with the foundation to get accredited years ago um and at the time you know the foundation typically focuses on birth the age
019five and so we actually actually that's not true. We did get three people trained however at this point I think two of them have moved on um from the district and I think one is still working but she wasn't trained in the class she was trained in the one-on-one. >> Okay. So I I think it's it's costly to get trained to do it to get accredited and so I think that is part of why it hasn't happened. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> And moving on down these are just some of the strategies and Emily can talk to these strategies that they you used at Douglas to um increase that uh attendance rate. >> I mentioned I mentioned just a couple of those but just going up today getting handed out are going to be
020little locker tags every quarter. Um, we didn't do it last year. We did it the year before. So, we're bringing it back because it was very popular. Kids will get like a little neon, you know, like when you like locker decoration. It's like this big and it says they had outstanding attendance, zero or one days absent for the first quarter. So, they think that's pretty cool. And they some had them up. They kept them and put them on their locker last year from the year before to show their like four quarters excellent attendance. So, we brought those back for this year um and sent them home with kindergarteners because they didn't have lockers. Um, another thing we're um going to um try, you can kind these are pretty self-explanatory, but the success mentors is kind
021of an interesting component um that we're going to try again this year is looking at kids midyear who were in that kind of I guess you could call it a danger zone like a watch zone who are kind of on the bubble for being chronic or being great because we see a lot of really strong attendance and then there's a pretty big middle chunk uh that we could it doesn't take many days more coming to like be in a in a good zone. So, uh success mentor is a pretty basic um strategy where um like we have a list of students that were in that um danger zone I guess I would say and then any staff members can just maybe you worked with them when they were kindergarten and now they're a fourth grader
022and the whole goal is just like say hello, notice them, say hello. you don't get them anything or doing, you know, you're just noticing and just giving one extra adult in the school that says they're glad you're here that day. And also just to build some awareness that when they're here, it's really important to recognize that and not necessarily for their teacher be that person, but somebody else um to be another like cheerleader for them basically. So, and then our um student services team provides attendance groups, individual support and collaborates with parents of students who are struggling. So, yeah. Moving on over to our friend Kayla Went from Lincoln and Leap. >> Good morning. So, I'll just um echo what Emily said at the beginning of her presentation. A lot of what we do at
023all many of our elementary schools is very similar. Um we talk in our elementary principal team about strategies that we're trying in our buildings and share ideas. So, they her team did a great job explaining a lot of this. Um I'll just go through mine here pretty quickly. So, at Lincoln and Leap, we try a lot of the same strategies. Um, we do share a school social worker at both of the buildings, which is nice. So, we're able to try different things at both the sites. Um, the first thing I put up there is our attendance celebrations and giveaways, if you will. Um, so celebrating the excitement on that tier one level of kids just being in school. So, surprise days with a dance party or a glow stick party, an extra recess. um letting
024them know on announcements that we're just happy that they're there and we're proud that they're there. So um celebrating them that way. Um classroom instruction. We have lessons with students on attendance from our school social worker who goes into our classrooms and just talks about attendance with the kids on their level. Um why is it important that you're at school? Why do we want you to be here? So we talk through that in the classroom on the classroom level. Um monthly attendance team meetings. Again, Emily had spoke about this. Um but we meet as a team with our student services team, truency officer, um administration, and we just go through and talk about who who do we need to catch, which families do we need to talk about? Um what interventions can we put in
025place for kiddos who are struggling with coming to school? Um sometimes we've noticed that it's something that we need to work with the parents on. And sometimes it's the students who are struggling and they're giving their parents a hard time about coming to school. So, we ask them like, "What can we do to help your kid help you in the morning?" Because I'm pretty sure everybody in this room can say that they've had struggles with their children in the morning of getting them up and getting them going. So, we try to put things in place for kids and for parents. Um, and then just attendance reminders that are sent home in our family newsletters each month. So, reminders for parents on why kids should be at school. And then our chronic absentee absenteeism notification letter.
026So Emily talked um about that as well, which is something that we really focus on too, and I would echo what Emily said. Kids being in school in in school is where they should be. So those kids who are not I think like it's super interesting. I just have a personal story. When my daughter was in kindergarten, my um she she my husband got her there late to school and he came home and he's like they were asking me like why she was late. He's like, "I don't know. Why is that? Why do they care? Like why is that their business?" I'm like, "Well, it is. It's really important. And so I think about that a lot because I don't know that our families always know that it's like super important for the kids to
027be at school, including my husband sometimes. So, um, I just keep that in the back of my mind when I think about these families and how important it is for them to understand that their kids are in school. So, um, some of the things that Emily said, I forgot to put on my slide, but there's a lot of great things happening that aren't on there that we probably all forgot about, but we all know the importance of the kids being in school and interventions that we need to put in place when they're not there. >> Thank you, Kayla. Moving on to our friends over at Webster, Brad and Mindy are here >> and Chris. Chris is at both. >> We um do a lot of the celebrations and challenges and things, too. Um Chris and
028our student services team also did the setting up learners for success at at Webster, too. And um I want to say we had like 16 um sets of parents come. Uh we did it on a morning. We did at 8:00. Drop your kid off and come to the library. Um meeting handed out the same flyers and stuff. It was nice. Um I just want to focus just a little bit on our bi-weekly attendance team meetings. you know, we meet, we review um every student's attendance, we track in a log, are they getting better? Are they slipping a little? Um but our frustration a lot is is over the years we've seen a lot of the same families and it's so hard for them to dig out of that chronic absenteeism. Um, so we really chose
029to focus a little bit on that and and I had sent a letter home to every family just explaining what chronic absenteeism is, why attendance matters. Um, how we can help to ask for help. We're here to help. Um, so every family got that and then we followed it up with a letter with their students if any kids were on that chronic absenteeism list. Then we followed it up and I had said that in my first first letter. We're going to follow it up um with a letter if your student is currently chronically absent. And um please know that it just takes a a little while to overcome that this time of the year. If your kid is here for two weeks, you know, you can bump a big percentage this time of the year.
030Later on, it's a lot tougher to up that up that percentage. So, we're trying to get to them a little earlier. Um, Mandy Ganzer, our school counselor, has been doing a lot of data digging for us and and stuff. So, we want her to talk about that. >> Uh, nice to see you all today. Um, good to be here. Um, so yeah, data. Obviously, we have Wise Dash local, which is super helpful for all of us in our meetings, when we talk, when we meet. Um, the only thing is Wise Dash is a day behind. So, like today's data, it'll be there tomorrow morning. So, just a friendly reminder about that. Um, and then I just want to focus on the last bullet point for Webster, which I have to give a shout out to
031Brad because he goes along with these silly ideas that we have. Um, but what what was something silly is an everyday tradition. Um, after a door duty, which we missed today, that's okay being here. Um, we take a lap around our building. We have 20 classrooms. So, we just want to pop into all 20 classrooms every morning, be visible, see what they're doing, joining morning meeting. And a tradition every day I ask the teachers and the kids, "Do you have 100% attendance?" Um, and sometimes they say no, right? Cuz it happens. I was out a lot in November for some silly health stuff, too. Um, but then when kids say yes, we either get to do two things. We can either call Mr. Clark on the phone and say, "Hey, our class is 100% attendance."
032And he goes along with it. Yay, glad you're all here. And they cheer. Or one lucky student can walk down with you to Mr. Clark's office. Um, but teaching them the skills of, okay, you have to knock on his door before you enter. Um, hey, Mr. Clark, my class is 100% attendance. And again, he goes along with it, but then walking the students back to the classroom, they're like, "Oh, I was in Mr. Clark's office." Like, but we're trying to have those positive interactions with kids because it goes a long way. Um, and then again, we communicate with families constantly. Um, the phone calls, I love to pick up a phone and talk with them. But we do our rooms, we do emails, um our office ladies, they send out a weekly newsletter. Um our
033Friday folder, we have a lot of those handouts. But again, just we're trying to boost the families, right? Because we all are going through things in life. But again, it's a total team effort. We need them and they need us. So really good things happening in our district. >> I was also going to say we also sometimes go and pick kids up if they their car isn't working, if they can't get going. I have permission to drive students so I will pick them up as well. >> Now we're going to move on over to our shest tigers with Casey. >> Benefit of going last is that I can just say ditto to all. Um truly like we are in alignment with with what everyone has said thus far. Um and I don't want to uh
034war to death with redundant information. Um, but I'm trying to think of like what else sets us apart or what else hasn't been talked about. Um, two things stand out to me. Um, is the responsiveness of my staff when a student is absent. Um, we are on them, um, in a kind and compassionate way. Um, but my administrative assistants are on 3CX, which is our communication tool. Um and it's been so helpful to have that um because we can communicate in Spanish was a huge need of our our uh families at SHER. So just the responsiveness from administrative assistance, social worker, guidance counselor um when kids are absent like we are immediately making phone calls by 8:30 in the morning. What's up? What's going on? Um a lot of times we're waking up families and
035getting them going. Um and I truly have just been amazed at like the teamwork and the partnership from day one when I stepped into the shirt. just like school's important. You got to get here and it's definitely a priority of multiple people working together. Um and like we don't hesitate to jump in a car, right? Take two of us, social worker, myself or um school resource officer, whoever is available, truency officer, um and we go door knockocking and they love when we show up at their house. But it is quite um efficient, I guess, when you know the principal is standing outside your door like, "Hey, wake up." Um but we we don't hesitate to do those things. Um and then the other thing that I was going to say which I totally lost my
036train of thought. Oh um just meeting the basic needs of our students. Um and I know we all do this. Um but I think it's really important to understand that when kids come to shers they're not al they're they're getting a great education but they're also getting their basic needs met. They're getting clothing. They're getting food. uh they're getting love and positive attention that they aren't necessarily getting at home. Not because um families don't want to or um aren't trying, but our families are stretched thin. Uh they're working one, two, three jobs and um you know, school's a really safe place for a lot of our kids in our district. So, we get the opportunity uh to meet our kids where they're at. like just yesterday, first snowstorm of the year. Um social worker and
037guidance counselor um literally up and down our hallways all morning handing out snow pants and boots. Uh we have a list of kids we need to check in, but just talking with kids, talking with teachers. Um and we handed out every pair of snow pants that we have. Um we have a mass collection of boots and mittens and those were getting handed out left and right. Um and so I think that's another important um aspect to how we serve our kids and boost attendance is is meeting their basic needs. So as we go into the secondary level um data in front of you right now is from Riverside Middle School and as you'll see for 2526 as it stands right now we have made some great improvement. Um again attendance rate needs to go up,
038chronic absenteeism needs to go down. So, our friends from Riverside today are Josh Barnett and Mr. Mike Cunningham. You guys can take it away. >> Yeah. So, >> I'll end Josh. So, Mike Cunningham, co-principal for Riverside, and then Josh, our team of students. >> Hi there. Uh, part of this being at attendance and here I am a little late, so I apologize. I call my wife on the way in here. I'm like, this second time to be here stuck behind someone 35. Anyway, so schoolwide goal like similar to the elementary, we try to create quarter goals. Uh we tied to different things. So we had for our first quarter was our zoo trip. Uh we actually had one of our highest turnouts for that one and it was all based off of office referrals which
039are more on the behavioral side trying to make sure we're watching that but then also on the attendance. Um and so then there's no unexcused absences. Like we need families to communicate out like if you're going to be sick that's all right but then just communicating out and eventually we want them to be here as well, right? So working with families on that end with we'll continue to always have that as our quarter goals uh tying it in with attendance uh guardian parent meeting similar to the elementary schools just continual communication we have uh between student services and and administration we have two different documents that we were looking through one is just like our attendance like so we send out letters for communicating out just like the elementary schools uh but then also we're
040having like where the counselors can see it and then they're also doing additional communication out. Then we have our social worker with the second step which then they're coming up with action plan. And then the last step is like all right, we're like, you know, just continuing on down the line of like trying to make sure that the families and the students are getting to school to improve that chronic absenteeism. Um, and then from there, we actually then created a second one using Wise Dash, which was our students who are chronic uh absenteeism and figuring out why. And so, ironically, it's interesting when you look at that because one of our biggest uh things that impacts it is medical like and you can't really stop some of those things, but then at the same point,
041it's nice to be seeing like what is happening and what are the reasons why uh some of the students are gone and then kind of having those communications out like having opportunities during the summer that you could be doing that. But at the same point, like if it's a operation, you need to have that happen. Um then uh our school social worker is not listed on here now that we're into quarter two. Uh she's going to be doing uh a group working with students not just because like right now at the beginning quarter one uh Lisa Tuzo was working with students individually with attendance but now that we're seeing uh both in school and out of school like what are the issues? she's now going to have groups going where then it's just building up
042that like community aspect within it and then having it where there's like a individual goal but then also a like group goal and so we're starting with quarter two and we're going to continue that into the next two quarters after um and then she also works with outside agencies with Jefferson County and like we also work with um like court referrals as well going that route if needed uh within the school I mean we put that down as well just because Attendance also matters when you're at school because Scott does a great job of also communicating out with families, getting them here. Then my job is also make sure the kids are always staying within the class because that's where you need to be. So then within school, we just use securely passes to track
043hallway use. And then within school attendance, we use automatic notification for families whenever a child is late uh to the next class because not like elementary where you're kind of in that same area. We have kids that fluctuate between different classrooms. So making sure that we're always within the classrooms as well. Um, and so those are like some of the steps and strategies that we're doing right now. >> And and I would say a big shout out to Josh because those bottom two things are in school attendance are things new this year, right? Like some of that stuff we've done a little bit in the past. We change it every year, tweak it, try to get better, but um, securely class is brand new and we talked about that I think in August when we
044were here. Uh, it's working out really well. Our teachers have bought in. The kids now just know it's part of their day. Like they're going to the bathroom. They're using securely pass. I think now the high school's even starting to adopt it a little bit too. Um, so it's working really well. And then in the past, we've kind of put it on our teachers, you know, a kid coming the third hour. Uh, they've we're supposed to get a referral in the lunch detention, let's say, after their fourth party to third hour. Um, but that was on the teacher to then like keep track of it, even if it does keep track of it a little bit in Skyward, but then they'd have to go in and write a referral. We've now automated that process, so
045the teacher just marks it tardy. Um, and Skyward automatically takes care of uh the lunch detention on that end of things. So, it takes a little bit off the teacher's plate. Um, it just automatically tracks it. So, >> shifting on over to Chad and Jason from the high school. >> All right. Uh, Jason Whitaker, principal at the high school. As much as I want to say this is all the work of the new principal at the high school. This is lots of green. Loving all the green. Uh, Chad in year two of being the dean of the high school. Um, year two, is that right? Yeah. um has this has been a like heavy heavy lifting from the dean at the high school focusing on attendance. Um so uh a lot of what Chad is
046doing a lot of the conversations that admin have with with Chad is about supporting positive uptakes in the good and we're trying to reduce the uh absenteeism. Chad's been doing amazing work and now I'm setting him up right now. He's got to have this awesome presentation uh talking about all the great things he's doing. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Um, again, a lot of repeats of the similar things, but just last year being new in this position, um, chronic absenteeism was a big focus when I met with the principles and kind of just to establish some goals. So, that was a big focus of what I did last year. So, we didn't include it on here, but Chris Mallaloy and myself met monthly. um she kept a chronic absenteeism document uh that
047we focused on each month of students that were chronically absent. So there's a lot of kids in the high school like a personal goal of mine was to study faces and names of every kid of the document that we got um looking at them and learning them so I could address them by name. Um, so I spend a lot of time in the hallways and we just monthly just kept track of the kids and I made it a point to seek out the kids that were chronically absent. So on that document you could see student name um and I made a mention wishing them luck on their wrestling match. Um, and then every month we looked at it and Chris and I was able to see a lot of students that would drop below chronically
048absent and then there would be a new batch. so that next month we would target those kids and I would go out of my way to find those kids and say something personal to them just to create that personal connection. So that was something that we did and then April May we kind of involved teachers. So with a new batch of kids for those you know it could have been something that they were chronically absent because of a spring break trip or something. So then I looked through the students schedule and on those later months on that document I included teachers names and had them fill out like let me know if you've made a personal connection. And a lot of the feedback I got from teachers was like well this is what I do
049every day. And I said I understand that but like for this particular kid you making just a couple more comments and seeking them out could be the difference from them being in school two to three more days than what they are currently. So that was really cool to get the teachers involved later in the school year and then see that where you can see we kind of met our goals that we had for chronic absenteeism um last year. So the bottom thing on there um chronic absenteeism I'm doing the same thing this year. A lot of our building goals are focused around the freshman class um because their attendance was not great coming into the school year. Um our junior class is actually worse right now. Um, so I'm making them my focus for this
050year. Um, keeping the same kind of document, meeting with Chris Malloy, doing the same type of things we did 912 last year, but I'm personally focusing on the junior class. So last month, I met with all of the juniors in the auditorium. Kind of just laid it out there because high schoolers will tell you right away if you're being fake. Um, and I just said, "You're my goal. You're my goal. This is what I need from you." and we just laid it out there and then we just kind of got into some other conversations and you know the students that wanted to be there and talk like they were super involved. We followed up with a survey. Um do you want to continue these monthly class meetings? What would be some topics that you would
051want to talk about? Got some great feedback from the juniors. So it's something that we're going to continue. Um and that's what I'm going to continue to try to build on in year two with this. Um, but as far as things we do building wide, I have awesome staff that is super involved with all of it. Evan Breer, myself, and Shelby Crowdfoot meet weekly. We go over our truency tracker. That's the letters that get sent out. Decide like what kids might need some county services, how we're going to involve them, do we need to go see anybody and make those home visits. Um, sometimes we'll schedule a truency meeting if if needed. We have one this week with parents and student coming in. Sometimes it's just Evan and I talking to students like, "Hey, here's
052where you're at. This is what's coming up. We need you here." Um, and those kind of things. We kind of switched how we did some of our consequences. Um, all of our afterchool detention time is now for like conduct related items and lunch is really for attendance and relationship building. So, we changed the name of it. They still all refer to it as uh lunch detention. We correct them every time. This is attendance reflection. They come in and we we basically hang out and we talk and like and a lot of times like kids will be in there for three, four days in the row because they have that many first hour late and we get to know them. I do a lunch and student services does B lunch and we really try to like
053just talk with them and learn more about the students and build those relationships. Um so that's been pretty cool to see. Um super pumped to learn about all the success that Securely Pass has had at the middle school. So we're soft rolling that out this week. Um hopefully to be off and running with that by after Christmas. Um, and then the attendance incentive, those kind of things we we do as well. So, that's pretty much it. >> Very good. I'm not sure what Brad's doing at Webster would work at the middle school or the high school principal, but uh, it's all all good stuff. >> Shoot, I dressed up as a turkey. They like that. So, I I've always been surprised at the end of the year when uh they award these students who have
054had perfect attendance in high school. I can't imagine that you would and I had one colleague and friend who told me why. He said, "My mother made it hard to stay at home even when I was sick. So I went to school." So you need the parents support. It's clear. Okay. Any questions from anybody on the committee? >> I have a question actually for everybody. Um, in this room, how many of the personnel here have kids from Bton Street in their classes? >> Everybody. >> All right. Thank you. And and you know what? I did get a four-year attendance award. >> Did you? However, I was tardy frequently. So, so I felt bad walking up to get the work. I thought they total my tardies at probably minus a day or two, you know, with
055the minutes. But I but I did, but I got other people sick as a result. You know what I mean? Like that's not the kindest thing you do to your >> co- students. I'll tell you, >> Jo. Well, this is a really basic question and maybe I should know it. How is is chronic absenteeism defined statutoily or is it defined by district? >> Stunning silence? >> No, it's statuto. >> It's statutoily. And and what what does what the statute statute% say? >> What is it? >> 10% absent. >> 10%. By the way, when I was principal, our seniors love to get stickers, but somehow when they get to be that place, they really enjoy that kind of stuff. Again, >> great >> Chad scratch and sniff stick. I'll send you some that that is an
056interesting thing though because I mean obviously we're reflecting different age groups here and and what motivates them is different but I I agree with Dave. I I've been astonished at what will motivate junior high students or middle school students. You think it has to be some elaborate thing but dressing up like a turkey, you know, and and some of these things. um they will never admit that those motivate them, but we see the success of it. And so I just want to say thank you to all of you for all the effort you're putting into this. Um I called the school the other day and I happened to call during lunchtime and the the support staff said, "Well, she's she's in the lunchroom." that goes miles uh to have to have you all as building
057leaders in those in those places in the office in the lunchroom, you know, doing all those things um to encourage the students to be there in addition to all the other creative work you're doing. So, um I show up. >> Great. I wanted to also I went through this the other day and I was really impressed with what you all are doing. I think it's great. It's It's more than what people did when I was in school. And it's but it's needed more now than it did. And when I was over at the um when I say reunion, but the day I was over at middle school first for uh >> Okay. >> Veterans Day. And it was an R Veterans Day. What I saw was uh a lot of faculty and the principles up
058there greeting the students and telling their name and talking to them and I know exactly what you were doing and you just talked about it today again. You all talked about it as well. Just talking to the students and making them feel like you care about them goes a long way and that's what you're doing. I appreciate that. >> Great. So if you imagine a situation where a child misses school and they don't get a single phone call or contact, you know, student or their parent might start to believe that a child um that that their child doesn't matter, their attendance doesn't matter. That's not what's happening here. the fact that I'm looking at data like this moving, you know, 1% but that that is indicative of a staff that is intentional. Uh that's a
059hard job. Keep up those efforts. Thank you. It's it's amazing. Um there was a time too in our district where we've had uh administrators that weren't present and that was also noticed that you know perhaps weren't out in the hallways greeting students. I love that. That's a great culture. Please continue that hard work. We appreciate that. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. And then we're going to move on to B the secondary cell phone update. >> Thank you. I think our absolutely great. >> Um we moved this up. I think we originally were going to talk in January potentially about this, but um last month I think or two months ago even we talked about bumping this conversation up a a bit. I know our secondary staff um did a lot of data collection both with
060like student interactions as well as uh surveys to teachers. Um in addition, as you probably are well aware, um the governor did sign a law in to effect I think the end of October. um essentially um banning cell phones if you will will during instructional or academic time with obvious exceptions for like medical and um potential use of instructional too. So I do know that we will have some policy updating to-do to reflect that. Um but again I will turn it over to you Sarah and your team >> and we'll go through the data that we have collected. So, there's a lot of graphs in here and I think we should just um get right on into it. The I'll just wait for Jenny to pull it up here. So, we're going to start with
061Riverside. Um and I'm going to pass it on over to Mike and Josh to talk a little bit about their data and about what they're seeing boots on the ground in that building. >> Yeah, we'll kind of chime in here. Um, so first graph is RMS and fractions enforcement. You can see obviously eighth grade uh is having more issues with cell phones. Seventh grade they're in the middle and sixth grade at the bottom. I do think part of that is just eighth graders have I'd be shocked if not over 90 some% of our eighth graders have a cell phone and I guess it's probably less in sixth grade. I don't know the percent off top of my head, but I guess at least >> more of them would be trying to use like Google chat.
062Yeah, I mean they they they are using other ways to communicate with each other trying to to communicate as opposed to a cell phone. So So I'm not surprised by that data that we have more issues in eighth grade just because more kids have cell phones. Um where we're having uh issues on that next slide is uh in the classroom is obviously really really high. We only had a couple kids in the hallway. Uh one kid in the bathroom. usually that one kid. I don't know this off the top of my head, but it's probably something happened in the bathroom with the cell phone in order to get caught uh having that cell phone in the bathroom. Uh things we are doing, what are we doing in enforcement? Like usually you are in a classroom
063and you have a cell phone out, you lose your cell phone, right? Like we're taking that cell phone. Uh obviously you when you click a discipline referral, you can only click a couple like one thing. So we're also contacting the parent, right? Like that's part of that. Um, and then conference warning, like maybe the teacher didn't take the cell phone and by the time the two of us get to him, uh, we're just talking to him and then there's obviously detention opportunities uh, with that as well. Do you have anything else? >> Um, yeah, I mean it was following your student handbook. So like usually the first one that's where then the teachers hold on to the day. Second one, that's where the main office holds on to it. Third one is where then the
064parents have to come get it. uh it is more it's easier now that that uh you know that's now state law in essence like right so that makes it a little when we're having those conversations with the families because I mean last year when I have this at certain points you know it's like well no I want my child to be having their phone I'm like I get that I understand that but this is also now state law so I kind of get to go like this after a little bit which is nice >> because parents do I mean like I don't know if I've ever really talked to a parent that deep down doesn't believe a kid should have a cell phone like like every time like when a kid's violating, it's because the
065parent really truly believes, >> yeah, >> they should have that cell phone on. >> Um, and then if there's kids that have like multiples, this is a common occurrence. Usually after that third one, I usually talk with the families as well and then we set up a plan like, okay, now either you're going to be having random locker checks because it's supposed to be in your locker and that's where it's going to go or you have to be turning in for a set amount of time. And so you I I would like to say it's like for good, but then the downfall of doing that one is after a while your list gets long and then my job at the beginning of the day is just hunting down cell phones. So usually I set it
066for like a goal. So like we we just had Thanksgiving break. So there was about three kids that had it all the way till Thanksgiving and then that's where then they could have their phone again. But then if I see him in the hallway yesterday, I was like, "Hey, just a reminder. I don't want to see it." And make sure you keep it away. And so like just kind of doing those parts as well outside of the handbook of it, just being like, hey, there's now more than just three offenses. Uh because usually the ones that you run into with the most are the ones that you know it's a chronic issue. >> Uh next one, ARMS staff feedback. 43 people responded to this. Uh our survey is very like we sent out the same
067survey as the uh high school. Um how would you describe the overall student compliance? usually compliant higher uh rarely compliant nine out of 43 so probably 25ish% I guess um never compliant right there couple and then uh occasionally compliant always compliant and I would say that that is the hardest thing right like our kids have their backpacks and it's the rule is often in their locker but to have it in their backpack you're not searching their backpack to start the class every day right like that's not possible um so are they in their backpacks probably so like when you were to answer that question do I kids walk into every classroom with a cell phone in their backpack. I think it's very possible, right? And then uh they can either get a notification on their
068watch or whatever and then that's how they probably get caught is right going to their backpack to see, oh, mom texted me or whoever texted me. Um I would say 80 plus percent of our texting at school is parents texting their kids. >> Uh it's not like they're texting their friends. uh they'll figure they can email each other if they really need they can find ways around that but uh I would say it's over 80% for sure parents are texting their kids for whatever reason um in class so uh and then how effective do you leave the cell phone off and stored expectations in classroom so eight people neutral somewhat effective eight very effective somewhat effective is the highest um and then not effective at all we have four people feeling that way um like
069I said it's it is tough and like these guys are doing the put it away in the classroom we're doing put it away in that. Um, but it's also, like I said, having it in your in your um, backpack is not impossible. Um, part of the phone off and stored expectation. We've had that expectation at Riverside for as long as I can remember. I don't I mean, so that's not really new. Like I've been in the building for 13 years. And I guess I don't remember a time that we said, "Hey, we want cell phones in the classroom in those 13 years." Do you in your eight, nine years? Do you have we ever had it? >> I would have never. Yeah. So, so, so there really hasn't in 13 years there hasn't been a
070change. So, maybe there's six people left in the building that maybe 17 years ago you could have a self. I don't really know. Um, so that question was really tough for Riverside staff to answer. No change. Well, that's because nothing has changed. Uh, slightly increased. So, I don't know. It's just a different question for us compared to them using the same survey. Um, how consistently, now I think this is a great question for the staff members. How consistently do you enforce the use of cell phone often in stored? Uh 30 said they're always doing it. 11 most of the time and then one rarely and one never. And one thing um I think those numbers are more positive than they've been in the past. Uh at the beginning of the year in August, we had
071a really good conversation with the staff of saying like you got we need to be consistent, right? Like if 25% of you are letting cell phones happen, like that's just that's hurting the other 75% and it's hurting the kids because kids don't know the expectation, right? And so, um, to me, those numbers are pretty pretty positive. I'm kind of surprised that one person answered like, I can never do that. Um, but >> yeah, I mean, really. So, >> well, you had 43 responses, but is that everybody? >> I'd say we have like 50 60 probably that probably should have. So, like 60 70% of the staff probably answered it. Um, and then moving on to the next one. Uh, how often do students attempt to keep their phones with them despite the policy? Occasionally seven.
072Frequently 35. Yep, I would agree. and rarely won. I would say the sixth graders are the most likely kids to put it in their locker. Once again, like the parents are just giving them that cell phone. Their parents are probably like, "You need to like follow the school rule put away." I think by the time they're in eighth grade, like I truly believe a lot of our parents are feeling like I just want to be able to get a hold of my kid. And and I get it from a parent perspective too, right? Like I have two kids, a freshman and a sophomore in another district. And it's kind of nice sometimes to just text them like, "Hey, after school today, I need to humble the dishwasher." like it it might not be anything s
073but it's like hey and can you you know they were still sleeping when I left this morning and can you guys get the dishes unloaded can you do this we got to do this tonight um so so from a parent perspective I get it it's just that it's also they need to be at school learning right so so I see both sides of that >> and it's a pretty common thing I think not just for middle school but then a lot of places now with backpacks like they live it like it's a hermit where they put everything in there and like their lockers are used pretty much just for their um coat >> coat and whatever they put in there in September. And so like and so like that's a common conversation I'll have with
074families is like you know like now yep like they're living like a hermit. You got to make sure they're putting their stuff away and you know you know it's part of the organization. >> And when I have a conversation because you put this in your locker I don't even know my where my locker is November. And you do have access to Skyward which tells you your locker number and your combination. Like just like you look up your grades that's right where your locker stuff is too. So I'll look it up for me. my office and I'll, you know, put it on a post-it form, but they have access to that on Skyward if they would choose to up. Um, so then the other side, have students disruptions related to phones, decrease in using the cell
075phone, often stored. I mean, yes, somewhat no noticeable change. I will say there are some classrooms where the teachers are just on the kids and no noticeable changes because they didn't have any issues with it last year, right? Because they're on them. Um and then yes significantly and and then increase one person which might be the one person who doesn't enforce it right if it's possible. Um so yeah uh do we have what one more uh do you believe cell phone off expectation has an impact positive impact most people no impact and negative impact um obviously having it off is super positive and and going from there. uh current considering new legislation, do you feel the current self schools should be maintained as is and then strengthened 27? So like I do think that's something
076we can we can look at. Um I don't know, you know, like I don't know if moving it to the high school model of bring it to the classroom and turn it in is necessarily strengthened, right? Like I don't think when the expectation is it's not supposed to be in the classroom, I think that is better because I think you're going to have less like hey on the watch on this the every other single device they can have on them that is now dinging on them. Uh, so I mean I think maybe it's just something where um looking into next year we just need to do a better job of educating the parents on like hey here's not this is state law, this is school policy, here's some resources of why this is better for
077your kid to not have their cell phone on them as far as learning goes. Um, and educate them at some point on why this is better and then just dig in with maybe it is bigger consequences which parents then disagree with because they kind of disagree with the fact that even have this rule in place. um staff feedback. You can kind of see that comments uh summarized from chat GPT. I don't know if I need to go through all of that, but um you can look at it. If you have any questions, let us know. >> So, is this for the for the staff, for the teachers? Is this voluntary? >> No, I mean it's like in the handbook like students should be put away. And like I said, like the one person says that
078they're not. I don't even know what room that is to be honest with you. Like I'm surprised by that. Maybe they read the question wrong. I don't know. >> Yeah, I'm thinking two things on that. One is I never had a problem to begin with because I made sure they didn't do it >> correct >> or I don't believe in this anyway. I think they should have >> right >> if you've got that going on. I mean, I would not be happy >> I do not believe we have that going on. I think there's been years in the past where some people have and that's why I said like we sat down this year beginning year and said like this has to happen and like I said I think in years past I would say
079it's possible when you walk in this classroom that it seems a little more lax. I truly don't see that this year >> and it's modeling too, right? So like there's I'll go into a classroom if I see a kid out I'll just walk over and they'll be like thank you and like you just then you show them like that's what's expected and then you know they'll see that as well. Um that's helped out as well. Um, the biggest thing I think right now is like looking at our handbook. You you have your third offense. Right now the parents like have to be coming pick it up. That puts that pressure on the families, but then it's like, okay, what do you do for the kids? Like in the past, if the kid refuses to turn
080it in, parents refuse to also come get them. Then like our hands start to get tired. I'm like, well, now you're going to be sitting in ISS until you like turn it in. And there's one child like this became a habitual issue where then like I'm like how how long do I dig in for an ISS where now I'm taking away your educational you know exper you know opportunities right >> and and we have a lot of parents that are like hey I can't come pick up my kids something they need it right and they're and I talked about this I think in August like I have to make a decision like are we keeping this or we sending this kid sixth grader home without a cell phone and mom's working all night right like
081and they don't have a landline and like okay now there's a house fire and or whatever happens like that's on me a little bit, right? Because I decided to keep this kid's cell phone. So there's a balance when um I would say the greater community, not Watertown, right? Like I think the United States, if you were to survey a lot of parents, they think the kids should have a cell phone, right? That's why they bought them the cell phone and they're spending a lot of money on that every month that they feel like it's needed. Um whereas obviously all of us grew up and we go to the park and playground and never have a cell phone and nobody necessarily even knew where you were. Um, and I will say even last night my kid
082just started driving. He's 16 and his brother, my freshman was riding in the car and I texted him like from basketball practice like take the lake road which by our house as opposed to Highway 18 because Highway 18 is snow covered. Like I don't care if it takes you five minutes later take these roads to get to our house and you know I can just click it up um like oh yep. My wife asked where the boys at yesterday when we were cooking supper and it was oh they're on the lake road which is perfect. They went the way we wanted because of course they didn't text me back and say yeah I got it dad. was they just did it which was great but you can then check and be like oh y I
083want to oops drive >> I don't know how we ever existed 20 years yeah I was interested too to see when I looked at this uh where it said prior to phone off and stored expectation how has student engagement changed and no change >> well and that's what I said I think in 13 years that I've worked at Riverside that's been the rule so like I don't even know if there's 10 staff members that were a part of our staff where there wasn't a cell phone rule. Right. Yeah. Because in my 13 years, I don't ever remember. It's it's changed, right? We've had three or four principles and maybe there was a time 13 years ago where the principal was like, "Hey, as a classroom teacher, you decide your rules." Fair, you know, maybe to
084an extent like what's your bathroom pass rule? it's your and let it more be individualized. Whereas we're pretty lock step in my opinion is hey the thing is supposed to be off and in your locker and I guess if it's not off in your locker if I never see it it's hard for me to enforce right like if it's in your backpack buried and you don't have a watch buzzing if I see your watch buzzing you're constantly looking at your watch then obviously either it's possible your locker is right outside that classroom then it's working the right way that's the whole goal of all of it right is many of them were doing the right thing in the past right correct Julian, >> I think one of the most telling things is on your uh
085last slide, point nine says, "Overall progress noted this year, many teachers reported improved consistency and reduced push back." >> And then the second bullet point, staff credited administration for clearer messaging and follow through. That's key. So I think you absolutely >> um I do think you're exactly right. I was um >> I was thrilled to see what the governor signed. You know, I think I think we have to work creatively to figure out because it was clear in in the messaging and in the bill or in the now law that um districts can be stronger in their policy than what the governor is requiring in the state legislature. So, um you know, I I get that parents somebody said they got phones because they want contact with their children. My experience with parents and bones
086is if kids have badgered them into it um and they just get tired of the argument. >> I I sixth and seventh grade. I think you're 100% right. Like I said, my two kids are in high school and at some point it is kind of nice that like I can see where they're at when they're driving around. Like it is kind of nice. >> Well, let's be honest, technology has real advantages and it does help parents keep track of children and when they're out on the roads and immediate. But um there has to be a way of I shouldn't say there has to be. I think we have to keep bearing the burden of explaining to parents how distracting in a classroom they are. >> And most teachers, you know, the outliers on here I
087don't really bother me. I think they're such a small minority. But um any teacher who is doing his or her job knows they're distracting. And and by the way, I'm just, you know, you've heard me say it before. I think I love pedigogy and I'm a firm believer in management by walking around. Good teachers are moving through those classrooms. They're not just upfront, but I think Jason's phrase is stage on the stage, right? Um they're not just there. They're walking through those those seating arrangements and taking the phones away. Thank you. you know, not obnoxiously but intrusively but students know and because that presence that that physical presence of moving amongst the students helps deter the phones out you know um I did note in here that a number of the staff said they recommended
088changing to the high school policy and I'm very interested because I looked at data earlier very interested in the data because data is very telling I think >> so Um, but but kudos to you guys. I I think uh first of all, you should get some kind of award for being a junior high for 13 years. Um I think it's the best 21. I just have to be in this building for 13 years. But yes, >> I think junior high is the best age in the world to teach. But um but thank you for investing this way. If we're going to have a policy, it's got to be enforced and it's got to be enforced from the top down. So and that's what'll make it successful. So thank you for doing that to all of
089you. >> Yeah. Craig, >> I I find it fascinating. I think uh RMS is the closest to like a bellto bell like building policy that we have in the school district. I mean aside from elementary that I don't have cell phones. So, um, but for the most part, what I find fascinating is on page three, I'm sorry, page eight, where there's a strong interest in a more structured system and then on page seven where uh they feel that the cell phone policy at the school should be strengthened. Uh so among the a bell-to-bell building policy, there's a desire to see a strengthened policy that is more of a turnin process. That's what I'm gathering from from this information of our staff. So So um yeah, I I think that there's there's a there's definitely some
090merit in discussing that further, but it's definitely uh it's definitely notable that uh this is somewhat effective in making sure that discipline is um kept at bay when it comes to cell phone use. Well, some of the bigger issues that we'd always see were cell phones in the bathrooms as far as expulsion hearings were concerned. That's just never a good situation. So, >> yeah, >> I would say this and there might be a little bit of a correlation when you say the bathroom thing. We've changed what bathrooms are open during the day. So, for example, we noticed last year, this is a little bit of an attendance thing, is we uh the bathroom by the gym for a lot of reasons, kids wanted to go to that bathroom, right? They'd be downstairs and they want
091to walk to that bathroom. Um I think it is the nicest, most remodeled bathroom. So, I think there's some away from your class. >> It's also the furthest one away from classes. So, during the school day, that is completely been locked except for during lunches, which that is the bathroom that should use during lunches. It's actually the closest. So, I do think like there's less probably issues uh because I think kids would go out there and have their cell phone out to do XYZ and now and there really was no staff there like right that's impossible to have a staff member there at 8:30 in the morning when it's in the middle of a class because there's no classrooms there other than the gym and half the year the kids are outside for gym and
092there's no staff members in that whole hallway. So, uh, we just changed a little bit this year where that's locked except for during lunches and it's locked again after lunch and then that keeps the kids closer to the bathrooms near their classroom, which I think is kind of a big deal. But, I mean, puts it on our custodial staff because they're the ones locking it in the morning, unlocking it, and so it adds a little bit of work to their day. But, I think it's been positive for them and save them a little bit of time, too, because kids are less likely to make a mess in there because they can't get in there, right, unsupervised, more so. Okay. So, let's take a look at the high school, which um as you know, the way
093they handle cell phones is a little bit different. And let's take a look at that data. Jason and Chad, >> sounds good. So, just really quickly, just a quick history lesson over the summer. Chad led a a a meeting of maybe a couple meetings with the behavior like interested staff members who were interested in in seeing some uh behavioral uh supports and changes from the previous years, right? So like cell phones have been an issue has been a frustration among the staff and just like that battle in the class um over like you know possession of the cell phone or when you should be using it when it's acceptable to use it during the instructional time. And so a recommendation that Chad led that came out of that was let's have a visible like every
094single classroom with an accountability the the big a word that I heard all summer was accountability accountability accountability for students for staff for everybody. Um, so let's order 70 cell phone caddies. We call them their calculator caddies, right? And then with an expectation that every single staff member is going to expect that students are putting cell phones in the caddy visible like I have my cell phone, put it in the caddy. I want to go to the bathroom. I'm leaving my cell phone in the caddy the bathroom, right? Um, so that's that's a little different than the middle school, right? So, some of the questions, the survey questions were a little wonky because the middle school wasn't doing anything different and the high school had have a change in what they were looking at. Just
095full disclosure, at the high school before school, during passing periods, at lunch, cell phones are allowable to the 9th through 12th graders at the high school. It's during instructional time, first hour bell to bell, second hour, bell to bell, those are expected to be in the caddy. So, looking at I'm just kind of scrolling. Um I'm going to wait for Sarah or Jenny to scroll and I'll just speak to the slides. So similar right I mean that that previous slide 87% of our students are doing what they are supposed to do with the cell phones right highlighted a massive amount of students are always doing the right thing around cell phones. Um and so similarly loss of privilege uh for the most part which is like you're going to get your phone taken um and
096depending upon what strike it is you might get it back at the end of the day. You might have a parent that comes and has to get it. Um, you eventually might be on a plan depending on what you were using the cell phone for where you have to check in your cell phone every morning like come to the office and drop your phone off and get it at the end of the day. You all lost the privilege of using it like between classes during lunch things like that. Uh, and again in a big place of I mean 1,50 students uh we've had uh just over 140ish in the time that the screenshot was taken incidences. Uh so 59 staff members responded uh which is I would say pretty close to our full teaching staff.
097Um and just kind of talking through I mean I think I'm looking at things that are like you know always or usually you're looking at those kind of top two things. Um and looking that we've seen some really pretty good results around that. you know, 57 out of 59 saying overall compliance has been usually or above. The effectiveness has been somewhat or vary. 54 out of 59. Uh, scrolling up to how has student engagement changed? You're seeing an engagement. Um, it certainly didn't have a decrease, right? 55 out of 59 are seeing increased student engagement. Um, how in how consistently do you enforce it? And so, let's talk about that for a second. Um, one thing we said at the beginning of the year was that that you're going to get teachers are going to
098get feedback on this. All right. Our our current evaluation structure has admin in classes almost every single day all year. Like we are doing observations on teachers instruction. One of the things that we committed to is we were going to give feedback on our AVID strategies and we're seeing that in action and we're going to give feedback every single time we're in a classroom on are using a cell phone caddy. Right? So teachers are seeing that when we walk out. Did you use it? Yes or no? Or was it unclear? Um and we're having conversations with people when we are seeing stu uh teachers not enforcing it. So um relatively recently we walked past saw a teacher uh no phones in the caddy, right? And so we saw kids at the tables with cell phones
099and so not in the moment not like hey come here we're going to address you but like following up after that listen like this is an expectation around the building. um you like you're you're accountable to making sure you're following this public expectation. Uh we did a a random kind of call drive by around the building, right? We just walked walked around seemingly aimlessly walking around the building, but in reality we were walking past and just kind of checking on how the cell phone and we had five teachers out of 50 something that we had a question about. Doesn't mean that they weren't using it. Just means like we had a question. We see 25 kids in the class. We see 15 phones in a caddy. Sorry about that. Um, and so like I feel
100like those like impromptu check-ins I believe is evidence of the policy being effective, right? Um, if I say, "Hey, I'm coming around tomorrow. I'm checking on your cell phone." We better have 59 of 59, right? So, as we just go through going up a little bit more, um, how often do students attempt to keep their phones with them despite the policy? Um, I will say this, like, um, in the end, we're not going to search kids at the door. We're not going to have a metal detector at the door, right? When you walk into English class, we're not frisking you to see if you have your cell phone. I will say that the teachers have have acknowledged that they are not having that battle like they did before. Like the if if if this is
101in my pocket and u the teacher doesn't know if I have a cell phone or not, they don't know because the kids's not accessing it because I'm bringing it out. It's not going off in class. using it. Um, which I think in the end is the overall goal of this whole thing, right? Um, changes in student focus or participation. Um, improvement, 51 out of 58. Uh, staff feedback, do I think it's had a do they think it had a positive impact? Well, one person thought it had a negative impact. U, but for the most part, I mean, 49 out of 59 is a is a really nice uh number. say it's had a positive impact on classroom culture or relationships. Um, we even sorry we even did some rounding. I had 25 juniors that came
102in a month or so ago and this was unprompted. The last rounding question is if you could if you had a magic wand could change one thing uh to make uh engagement better. What would it be? And that was a question like I didn't like like push them to answer a certain way. two students without me saying anything said um what you're what we're doing with the cell phone caddies of making a difference in classes like I love it and I'm like you're 17 like that's not what you're supposed to say right you're supposed to say like you hate it no I'm just kidding so like just without saying without pushing that they're noticing that things are different in the classroom so that's great um I'm scrolling I am to the comments um I also
103ran this through chat GPT it spit out eight or nine just like the middle school did. Uh the significant I mean Chad GBT rated them like this is the number one baby one. This is the second big one. And so I just put those two things on there. U they saw it as a major improvement. Um increased engagement, focus and conversation. Um they want to make sure schoolwide consistency. They want to make sure that all teachers are enforcing the same expectations. Uh some of our best evidence is, you know, Mike's going into a classroom subbing for a teacher who's out and then comes and says that was a that was a rock fight trying to get those kids to put those cell phones in the caddy. Um and so that's a follow-up conversation with the
104teacher that Mike is subbing for because that sets Mike up to be unsuccessful filling in that room. Chad, what I miss? >> I think that's pretty much it. Like our policy from last year to this year is different. So like it's much more clear and I I think it's more studentfriendly and that was like part of the conversation that came up this summer like we were previously last year if a student got that second or third offense they were turning it in for anywhere from 5 to 20 days. So I would spend the first 30 minutes of my day walking into classrooms which is quite intrusive and embarrassing to a kid. Give me your phone like that. So now the conversation is more on that first time it happens. Um look, you made a mistake.
105This is if this is the only mistake you made this year, like this this is not a big deal. You get it back at the end of the day. Like your parents aren't having to come and get it. And I think the numbers reflect that like how few we have like with one and they don't get a second one because they don't want their parents to come in. Um like so for me from last year to this year that's a huge win. Um and then this second offense the parent has to come and get it. No consequence other than that. Third offense um they parent has to come and get it and it's an hour after school and then the fourth one they're meeting with their assistant principal for whatever that plan looks like. So
106I think that's more fair to the student. Um, but other than that, like like Jason covered pretty much everything. I think it's having positive impacts in our classrooms. >> Sam, >> so uh just to clarify, I know that at the middle school you guys do have essentially a bellto bell thing where it has to be in the locker or at least in in a backpack. It can't be visible at all. It can't be seen. >> Um, at the high school, do you allow the use of cell phones between classes then? >> Okay. Yes. >> And so the reason I ask is because I'm wondering if the slightly more relaxed standard throughout the entire school day actually makes the class time and like putting it in the cavities more effective as far as students go. Okay.
107I know I there are going to be periods of time where it's acceptable for me to use my phone, but instructional time is not that time. I'm I'm wondering if you've gotten any feedback in regards to that and if that might be something that helps out a little bit because it sounds like you guys still get a fair amount of friction. Maybe part of that is just that they're in the middle school, but I don't know. That seems to that seems to be significant to me from the information you've given. >> I I think so. Like, and that gives you four or five minutes to check in with your parent that has texted you. >> Um, and then, hey, I can't talk now. I'm going in class. >> Like, you're teaching them to be responsible
108with the device. I feel like >> another aspect to that I think for the high school that works well I think is if you're a parent worried about school shootings or something like that the cell phone is in the room in the caddy and you can get to it and uh so it's it's a little better feeling for parents and for students and maybe even for the for you uh that that works well >> and you get less feedback maybe May parents like that better. >> Women, did you have >> No, I was itching. >> Well, itching. >> I I think maybe Sam was on something. It might be that, you know, they anticipate I'm going to get the phone. But one of the problems that I thought that we had we had talked about
109it some point about the cell phone use at times outside of the classroom was that in the bathrooms and the hallways and sometimes they become part of the bullying process and part of the discipline situation. Have you seen any that would say that's better or um I hope not worse. >> I just don't even want to answer that. I'm going to knock on this table, right? It's just it's been I think that that has not been a but it just takes one day and it takes one situation to to then it's like, wow, this is not a big deal. But I don't know, Chad, if you've seen an uptick or a down tick in in that. I just I haven't been made aware of much of that at all this year. >> I feel like
110the investigations that the APs and Officer Breer have have to have had to do like probably is the same for you guys. A lot of those things are stuff that has happened outside of the school day that's into the school day. >> I I mean I so like I I like the feedback like part of me I in my mind it's like all right do we need to get caddies at some point? I don't know if that's something we start in January. I don't know. Like maybe it's a next year thing, right? um invest in those cies and do it. And I think yep, them checking it in the hallways would be great. And then I struggle with I love the fact they don't have their cell phones at lunch, right? Like I love the
111fact that our kids I I walk in the lunchroom and I don't see cell phones, right? And the fact that they can actually have a conversation and not be and if I think in my opinion is if we give them their cell phones, this is where they're going to be at lunch. And that's where I struggle a little bit. Like I I I think it'd be great for them to be able to check in with the parents and do some of the things. I think the downfall to me is seven, six, seven, and eighth graders play clash uh on their cell phone the entire launch as opposed to talking to their peers. And then also like instead of going outside, which we have a ton of kids that go outside and get some fresh air,
112I think if given the opportunity, they'd rather do this than go outside and get that fresh air. >> That's a good point. >> You know, so that's my worry is I like the idea in theory. I think the passing period thing, I don't have a ton of worries other than I hate the fact that now it's more likely to go to the bathroom. Um, and the so that I struggle with a little bit in my mind because that is a problem area. Um, and we can't really enforce bathroom use cell phone usage. And then lunch I just struggle with personally because I like to talk. >> What do you think the logistical uh how hard how hard do you think it would be to have the kids use a caddy during the lunch period at
113the >> beard? I feel like there'd be so many kids in the lunchroom kids like kids with 30 minutes of it trying to get that to be set up. I I think that >> of course three staff members that we have in >> I mean only the skinny only the kids who have that lunch that splits classes into skinnies could do that but that's not 200 right that's not >> I mean that that's just where I like I like the idea in theory but then that I love the fact that our kids are on the floor they're talking outside >> I think the if you ever did go that route mine just take me then it's just kind of like that binding because then it gives like kids hey here's your opportunity on this end
114right you get the hallway you get the lunchtime but Then you in class, you get it all like completely gone. So it's just kind of like which which side do you want to go? Because it's nice when you go black and white. Yep. 7:15 to 3:15 we can't or 7:45 to 3:15 we can't see it. Out of sight, out of mind. Don't want to be seen at all. Or you go have the opportunity kind of like the high school. Just my take. But >> great >> just uh just my two cents that uh uh just an observation that from sixth seven sixth to 8th grade is usually when they first get the privilege of having a cell phone. So, they don't quite have um the the skill set built up, I guess would I would
115say, to to have that level of discipline. Um, at that point, I kind of like that that break point at the high school level perhaps where, you know, if there's going to be a privilege to be able to use it at, you know, at lunchtime or passing periods, I'd rather have that be at the high school level than at the elementary school level personally because I think that, you know, they they've at some point perhaps maybe earned a little bit more um more of a privilege to be able to use it during passing periods and if it's working um discipline wise at the high school I mean obviously this is a drastic change from from before so uh how do you measure that against the bell-to-bell system at the high school I don't know that
116we'll we'll really know that but you know if we if it's working, I'm I'm on board, you know, and and at the middle school, I can't say that it isn't working. I can say I can say see that teachers are expressing an a desire for a strengthened policy um or enforcement of the of something different as an turnin policy but um uh I I can't say that it's not effective at the middle school right now either. >> Right. And when you look at infractions and enforcement, five kids in the hall of sixth grade, you're talking 2% of kids have got caught with their cell phone. >> Great. And and from a teacher perspective, when it's a cell phone, it's a super quick like that doesn't turn into a bigger deal, right? And then in seventh
117grade, it's 12 kids. You're talking 6%. And in eighth grade, it's 11%. It's 22 kids. So it's I don't think it's this huge prevalent thing. Like obviously everybody wants a strength in everything, right? Like I would love to see 000. um that would be fantastic, but I don't know where to get to that level. >> There's no no problem with having the high school do one thing and middle school do. And I think Craig made a good point. >> And I'm wondering what the teachers at RMS what they saw or think they see with the high school policy versus the the U belltoell that RMS has. It's the okay, give them some access, take some pressure off, you know, maybe I don't know how much feedback you get from parents on it. I or that's
118kind of settled down over the years. >> I think the feedback's only when you're calling specifically about their kid using their cell phone, otherwise you don't hear much. >> I have some observations. Um, I was impressed by the slides. You're not going to get 100%. Um, when I was in school, you wouldn't find any cell phones in the bathroom, but it often smell like smoke, you know. So, these kids grand grandparents, you know, were fighting something else. And uh, someone, it may have been you, Linda, who who told me about a policy they have at Milwaukee South High School. >> No, >> that was it. They have volunteer teachers at the door as kids are coming in and they have a bag and they say, "Who's your last class teacher?" And they collect the phones
119and they give them to their last class teachers, which is a bell-to-bell, you know, and they have no problem with teachers volunteering because they like the policy. So, I mean that is something that can be done without a lot of uh uh rigor rigomearo. I did talk to a teacher at the high school last week and um she loved the caddies. In fact, she said and and and her children go to another school district. She said she wants them to have their cell phone for the various reasons you were talking about too. So, um I think allowing a little bit of little bit more responsibility to high school isn't a bad thing. You're not going to get 100%. Uh last the last time we were together last month, we had a lot of teachers proposing
120courses and they all use the word rigor. And it seems like that's what's happening too with the cell phone policy that it's more rigorous. um anything that takes the responsibility out of the teachers hands will work I think and and it seems like that's happening but I want to ask the committee do you like these policies or do you think they need to be strengthened? >> I think they work fairly effectively. Um, the main reason I was kind of discussing, hey, do do you see an uptick in in cooperation with the caddy system is because when you do run into a situation at the middle school where um, you know, someone starts digging their heels in, that can turn into something that's really timeconuming for both you guys and for the teacher. And I'm thinking
121if the caddy system has more or less the same success rate, right? if it's between like 7 and 10% uh occurrences uh and it provides parents with a little bit of extra security and that way kids don't feel like oh I'm just having this thing just completely ripped away from me that you know that that would be that would be my rationale for moving over there but but like Craig talked about it's not like your system isn't working well it sounds like it's working very well overall um but to save your you guys some headache and to save Peter some headache I don't know that might be that might useful. I would be interested in hearing more specifically uh not just the general theme that you have in here, although I do like the themes
122that you have summarized. Um I would be interested in hearing from the staff at the middle school what precisely they would like to see and why they think it would work better because I do think that you know local information is going to be a lot more useful in making that decision. I think it works well though. I think both of you guys are doing great job with uh with uh how you handle these situations and working with kids. >> My take on this is that you're doing a good job of doing both things >> and I'd say at this point, let's keep doing what you're doing. >> You're not going to want to change in the middle of the year anyway, >> right? >> I have one other comment is um Jason B. Um
123I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if if evaluations reflect like scholastically if there is an improvement and we won't know that till when? >> Sorry. >> So the fact that there's less distractions in the in in the classrooms, when will that actually be reflective on students grades, if if at all? >> Yeah. It's hard to put uh enumerate a time where we would see results academically because of changes in policies regarding cell phones and it might even be a stretch to correlate those two things. I think my opinion is to continue to look at ways we triangulate data right today just alone we've saw we've talked about attendance and a little bit of referral data and cell phones that's triangulating data and I think we see some powerful uh comments and powerful data
124and we also talk about how do we triangulate academic data right we look we look at our forward exam which feeds into our report card we look at Ames web for some of the early literacy and math and uh some of the common formative summitive assessment. So I think our conversations continue to center around looking at multiple data sets and making good decisions uh based on that data. Could that possibly be a rounding question that you and Sarah do near the end of the whole school year asking students, do they personally feel their grades were impacted positively because of that? Could that be one question that's kind of interwoven in there to just see if students themselves feel that because of their possible less distractions with the cell phone? Well, and when you're talking about
125less distractions due to cell phone or lack of cell phone usage, you're talking about more engagement in the classroom into the rigor of those academic pieces. >> And um I think that while people can feel that over time, we'll see that potentially within data. I think that's tricky though um because you want to make sure that as as you talk about the triangulation of data right it has to be one effective in the classroom implemented with fidelity there's the f-word in the classrooms um to ensure that the data would be sound when we're looking at that piece I do believe that our older students would be able to articulate quite well >> that they are or they are not more engaged in a classroom because the distraction has been removed. So, I think it's a
126great idea to to ask um and I think that they would have the ability to to articulate that. I think honestly, Linda, when I walk through the buildings at the high school right now, especially at the high school, um even though they have cell phones that they can use during passing time, I'm not seeing them on the cell phone. In fact, I counted four the other day. The rest of them, their faces are up. They're talking to their peers. And I was shocked because two years ago when I was walking through the same hallway, they were all down into their phones and no one was talking to each other. And I remember thinking, "Oh, how sad." >> And and they're not doing that right now. >> And so there is a marked difference. So when
127you have Mike talking about that socialization at lunch is so crucial. It is. they are learning social skills, talking with each other, um, and that relationship building because the phone takes it away. >> I would also add that we'll talk about triangulating the data. In the spring, we'll do the school perceptions, student engagement data. So, we'll look at that. This will be our second year using school perceptions. So, we'll have that data. Uh Chris Mallaloy and I just did u middle school student routing. So we have some data there. Uh next up is elementary in uh February, I believe, and then high school at the end of the school year. So we'll get some data from them. And then as Jason and Michael have talked about, the majority of their school goals are centered around
128student engagement. And I think Jason spoke about uh half jokingly the amount of time that is being spent in classrooms, but that's on purpose, right? Yeah. It's to capture some observational data and also elevate the voice of our students so we can capture their perspectives. >> Thank you, >> Sam. >> Yeah. Um, so kind of in line with what Sarah was saying, I think that uh pro probably the biggest thing that causes cell phones to be a distraction is not just merely the fact that they have information on them, but it's kind of the anxiety that goes along with it, right? That's what the uh that's what the title of the book is about. Um, and I think even if you don't have your phone on you, you can still have anxiety about what's on
129your phone. Um, and that might be part of why having the caddies is effective. And additionally, having those caddies and kind of training yourself, you know, like weaning yourself off of something you're addicted to is often times a more effective route towards real freedom from addiction instead of trying to go cold turkey. So that might also be why you're seeing uh more like interpersonal interaction in the hallways because as kids get used to this idea of like, oh, I can have my phone sometimes and there's actually things that I can do that are fun that aren't on my phone. I think it helps people understand uh some of that value as well. Um, that's definitely something that Yeah. >> Okay, I think we're ready to move on to uh discussion C, elementary English language arts
130curriculum and course guides. Uh, thank you people. >> Thank you for being here and >> thank you so much. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate >> it. Uh I do wonder uh Dan and I know Sam you're here too is just putting the cell phone policy on the policy committee to update it state law to make sure that we're in compliance with that. I'm sure Niola will release something at some point. Um it'll be pretty self-explanatory because it's in that law but we can always strengthen it, >> right? We just can't make sense of the next. >> Yeah, definitely. >> Okay. >> All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you. >> And thank you, Dan. You're right. The next and final um topic on our agenda today is our um ELA curriculum course guides at the elementary level.
131Um, I have invited Ashley Pyrick, who's our curriculum coordinator here, as well as our instructional coaches, Bethany Schuel, Desa, Kyler, and Carrie Dean, um, to answer or respond to any questions that you may have about the curriculum course guides. Um, as you recall and remember, we reviewed the math elementary math curriculum course last month. Um, I will say that the lion's share of writing these has gone into Ashley Pyrick has done an outstanding job of that. We are incredibly lucky because she's also bilingual um and so she was able to do the um Aria Laura um as well which is the Spanish version um for our dual language program. Um we have reached out to our elementary teachers and obviously our instructional coaches have been uh integral in doing ELA piece as well uh for
132feedback on it. Um as you well know we did create the curriculum committee and so after this month these curriculum course guides will move into the curriculum committee. If you remember from our previous timeline um we were going to take on ELA and math at the elementary level first. um and then give time throughout the year for secondary teachers to be completing the secondary ones. So, I did plan a little bit of a pause um with curriculum course guides in particular, January, February, and March. Um that gives our secondary staff the full opportunity of our PDA days to work on those. Um though, I will see if there's anyone who might be available and ready to bring them in February. We still have topics to discuss at the curriculum committee. So, it's not that the
133curriculum committee is not meeting, but it's more that um we wanted to give time to the secondary staff to complete those. Um if you remember, this curriculum was adopted last spring. Um this is our first year of implementation with it. Um we did uh engage in a 5-year contract which was board approved with this curriculum. So, um we intend to refine our practices with it as we go on. Um I will also say that uh kudos to our coaches and our principles. Um as you've heard from the secondary staff, our elementary staff is also engaging in uh classroom observations. Um we recently did a dayong observation with a um representative from the company where we um the principles, the coaches and myself uh descended upon classrooms at the elementary level just to learn from the
134representative of the company like what's going well, what would you provide for feedback and we specifically focused on those foundational skills portion. Um, and I have to tell you, it was like, you know, one of my favorite days to be getting into classroom, seeing how our teachers are implementing it, realizing how rigorous this curriculum is. You know, they were in fifth grade talking about some pretty complex vocabulary words and like the root and why those things meant those things and the kids were super engaged and the teachers um did did an amazing job. So, that is my brief introduction. Um you'll note that we have both interreading and arrival laura um for each grade level. Again I will point out that these are many many many many pages long um simply because uh this is
135the majority of how our students are spending their day at the elementary level. Um I do not anticipate 15page course guides um from some of our courses at the high school and middle school level. So, I just want to kind of set the stage for that. Um, questions, thoughts, um, wonderings, things that we can address for you. When I looked at some of these, I wanted to first of all, let me say I like the organization of this. I like the template. It's easy to follow. You've got things there. I think I think even somebody not in education could at least understand some of these things. Um, when I looked at the state standards that you were using, I wanted to make sure that the state standards had changed enough to use the phonics the
136way that act 20 is supposed to be. And I saw them in there and uh um I personally probably would like to see a little more phonics at the at the kindergarten level. However, I do see it at the other levels. I see it to first grade, third grade, and stuff like that. And uh so I was pretty pleased with what I saw and I really really appreciate all the hard work that went into this. Somebody did a great job of doing this. >> Thanks Ashley. >> Looking at Ashley. >> Good job. >> Thank you. >> Can I ask a follow-up question? When you talked about stand when you talked about the phonics at the kindergarten level, were you referring to the standards or were you referring to >> I was referring to the standards.
137>> Okay. >> I was referring to the standards. Thank you. And that's that's I should have said that because I looked in there particularly and I saw that's what they're referring to with the state standards in here. >> Yeah. >> And I thought it was a little light on the phonics and it could have been a little heavier on that. But that's that's from my background >> because uh where I've been principal and and the teachers we used we used a system of phonics in kindergarten where the the students most of them the majority of them were reading by January. Short short sentences. Julie knows what I'm talking about. And it wasn't like they couldn't handle it. >> It was because they were drilled uh and they and they enjoyed the drills >> on the
138sounds and the things that go with reading and sounding out things and it actually worked. And I don't see enough of that necessarily now, but I know it works because of what I've seen in the past. My wife used it. She she had reading by by that time. So, uh that's just my own thought about this. But I like what you're doing. I like what's in here. >> It's the same standard that I'm talking about. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I do want to point out they have not updated the ELA standards after the passage of act 20. Um so that might be a piece of that. Um I will tell you like when you talk about like the drills of sounds like when we did our observation or when our principles are continuing those observations,
139they are going into the foundational skills. >> And to your point like I will just call out the kindergarten classroom. We were in Alicia Chapman's classroom at uh Douglas. Um those kids were like super engaged. They were um able to like repeat the sounds, understand the sounds, have discussions about the sounds. Um we were in a second grade classroom. Um and I about died laughing, I think, because the kids were on the carpet and they're all engaged and one like leaned over to the other one was like, "That's the schwa sound." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's like that's exactly what we're aiming for here." >> Exactly. Um, and so what could appear to not be very engaging with kids when you see it in action, like they were very engaged. Now, it
140probably didn't hurt that there were like 10 adults in the back of the room watching, like they're going to be engaged, right? Um, but I do think that that's what our principles and that's what our coaches are seeing when they're in the classroom observing these. >> And that's that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. >> And what you're saying is the standards necessarily have not been upgraded enough for act 20. I they have not updated the ELA standards since the passage of act 20. No. >> Yeah, this is ELA we're talking >> Y. >> But our but our curriculum guides would be reflective of the act 20 even if the state standards have not been brought up to date. >> Correct. And the curriculum guides are um really specific to the curriculum that we're using
141which is very um phonics uh heavy. >> Um so yes. >> Okay, it sounds good. >> Yeah. Great. >> Yeah. I I guess I'll just make a blanket statement. Um, I think quality of literature matters and I have not had the opportunity to dive into H.M.H. But I hope and I just you know had like Dave I gave it I didn't spend a lot of time because it was Thanksgiving you know um but I did look at the at at several of these guides and number one I just echo thank you I we know they take time we are not unaware of that this takes time I'm glad you got to ask us I'm glad you got things that can help and someone like you that has shouldered this. So, thank you. But I haven't
142had time to dive into HMH the way I'd like to, but our kids deserve quality literature. And I I hope as I read through the some of the titles here, you know, I can't make a judgment because I'm not looking at the book, but I'm I'm we're trusting you folks with making sure that they're reading quality literature. Um, I'm I'm just not I'm not a person who thinks that I have to be careful I say this. My brother was not a good reader, but when he could read a Chilton auto manual, it was like gang busters. So, I get that you find things that they like to make them better readers. Um, I'll read anything, okay? And and you know, but not everybody's like that. And so I understand that we have to find different
143types of literature with different interest to appeal to them to get them into how wonderful reading is. But even within that, there's good literature and there's not so good literature. And I'm hoping that we're calling carefully and vetting the choices that we're making to ensure that as much as possible, we are giving them quality literature. This is going to be very unpopular. I'm just no fan of graphic novels. First of all, think I can't think of a worse name for a genre. In my day, a graphic novel was you don't read this. This is this is nasty stuff. >> And because I had this conversation with kids who were in school district care and the first time I heard it, I went, "What are you talking about?" Because you can't be talking about what I'm
144thinking. These were first, second, third graders. Oh, they're they're And they I said, "Show me one." And they brought me a book that they had had in class or gotten from the library or something. I said, "This is what we mean. Actual graphics." Um, and I understand that that graphics and pictures help contextually. I just never want to see it replace the written word where it becomes the dominant me. And I I actually have a personal example that I I won't use, but I watched a poor reader rely strictly on the pictures to do the story. >> Yeah. >> Strictly on the pictures. and this is to give an IEP summer school and reading to to get that support. Um, so I guess I'm sending now and and these are going to shift over to
145the curriculum committee here. We have our first meeting next week. So, but those of you in the crate community, but I I'm I'm sending out the rallying cry for rigorous literature in the sense that it's the best that we can get and that we push them towards um actually reading the words rather than relying and and I'm sure you are. Um I'm anxious to get in and watch how we do reading especially with the new HM um approach and see how it goes. But I I I don't mean to ramble, but >> No, I I want to piggyback on that, too. >> Yeah. Do veteran teachers have the ability to bring in some things that worked, some literature in that worked and plug it into HMH? >> So, this represents that core curriculum that we've
146purchased. We also have anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes a day of differentiated literacy groups. So that would be like think of like a book club. So like we kind of group kids based on their needs whether like they need a decodable book because the phony is really poor. This group really needs to work on theme. So we're using this book. We this group here needs some non-fiction work so this group's going to need this non-fiction book. So we have like this differentiated literacy block where we try to pull in that good literature where teachers get the choice like oh you know what this group of boys they need a book about you know X Y and Z because I they're really not engaged with what the whole group text is right now. So we
147do still have that kind of um support and put that into our schedule so that kids do get um what they need, you know, what they need in terms of engagement, what they need in terms of good literature, what they need in terms of the deficit skills so that those kind of issues as you're saying do get addressed because right we we want kids to love reading yet and not just be able to read. Right. I'm kind of surprised I didn't like stand up and clap when you were giving me we need quality literature because when we did go through our review process, I think that was a piece that um people really really really appreciated about our previous materials. Um obviously knowing we needed to beef up our phonics piece um but not wanting
148to lose that. And I will say I feel like we've gotten feedback from our classroom teachers that the literature in there is high quality and it's high rigor. I mean, I remember Dan when you were uh took a look at the classroom. I think you were in a fourth fourth grade classroom over at Webster and um that the books are not not easy, right? Um and the teachers have mentioned that the uh books are very engaging for kids um and the literature that's chosen as part of the core curriculum is engaging. But to your point, there are other times throughout the day that we are um differentiating that instruction um and teachers are uh using their skills to know and understand what it is that kids need to to make sure that we're moving every
149kid forward. Just have an anecdote. Um, and I won't I won't mention the school, but I was in a school recently in one of our elementary schools and principal was with me and we wandered into the library and there was a reading group there and it was there were I think it was fourth graders and they all had actual books, you know, they weren't looking at a screen. Um, they they looked at the title of the book and you know, and it wasn't a graphic, it was a chapter, what you all call a chapter book. Um, and so it was an elevation above the graphic book and that kind of thing and I was encouraged by that. Second thing I'll say is in that same school I was in the K1 class and the teacher
150was was something on the screen there with animals and the teacher said what kind of animal is this and this is K1 and somebody said that's a carnivore and I and and so the teacher went on to say why is it a carnivore because it eats meat. Well what's the other what do what do we call animals that don't eat meat? Well, they're herbivores. And I mean, this was kindergarten and one having a delightful conversation about what I would say are pretty sophisticated words for for even if they were all first graders engaging and none of the kindergarters were engaging. Um, and that tells me there's some there's some reading process in there, >> not just vocabulary because I've heard it there. There's some kind of of association with So, I was very encouraged and
151delighted. Just delighted. So, >> yeah. >> Yep. And I think that that is a a good summary of what we're seeing like the vocabulary of the upper grades to really talking about like what do the roots mean to help them like apply that when they're moving on to like higher level texts. Um yeah, it's it's been encouraging. I I mean I won't say that it's been perfect. Like obviously anytime you try something new I think I've emphasized in the past that our elementary teachers are taking on a lot of challenges right now. new literacy curriculum, second year of math, new assessment. Um, and so certainly there have been a lot of changes. Um, but I think what DESHA reminds me is that anytime we have implemented something new, we're implementing it uh with integrity to
152fidelity, however you want to phrase that. And then as we're looking at the data, if there are things that we notice that our kids are not doing as well in, then we're um then we're tweaking from there. Um, and so the first year of anything is going to be a little bit more challenging. >> Are you able to find enough appropriate books for students to read at their level? >> I know a lot of stuff out there. >> Yeah. Yeah. It it is, you know, books are not cheap. So obviously, yes, there is a financial, but um, we had book rooms in each one of our elementary schools before we purchased the these materials, and we kept those book rooms. So, not only did we get materials from HMH, we've kept um some of our
153traditionally trade book published books as well and books from our previous curriculum so that teachers do have a variety of good literature or short texts um non-fiction fiction so that we have those that variety available >> lots of different topics so that kids >> great when I when I observe student teachers at that level I was in third grade this They they had a whole bunch of books in the back of the room. >> I end up usually reading a few for myself. I like they're interesting enough to me. Yeah. >> That I want to read them. >> And I'm thinking looking at the grade level was third grade in this case. Uh I thought, okay, these are probably easy books for them to read. And then they can learn a lot in the process.
154What we're really talking about here too is not only just reading something but reading something they learn from from there's something that they it goes into other uh other kind of meth not methods but content other content what they read and they learn like and stuff like that. So I I see that in a lot of buildings and a lot of classes. So good good job. Appreciate that. >> Go ahead. >> Sam >> uh so I have a couple of questions. Um, so previously before we switched over to uh a phonics focused method with ACT 20, um there was more of a focus on the whole language or whole word or queuing method uh in literacy education in Wisconsin as a whole and I would imagine it was the same here. Um so are we
155still employing whole word and queuing methods for instructing kids in literacy in the schools? No, because um our new curriculum obviously >> um to be approved with the state you cannot have cubic systems and so yeah no that's not an option. >> Okay. >> In our in any of our realms whether it's our book room or >> Okay. So that would be so if that were being taught that would be something that we would have to kind of like redirect on because I have heard from several parents that they've been getting um not sounded out by phonics site words but just memorize what the word sounds like by looking at the whole shape of the word you know a whole a whole word method. Um, so what could be happening there and I don't know,
156but when we look at what we call um high frequency words or irregular words, there are some irregular words that do become decodable as you learn more phonics skills. So think of like a kindergartener. Um, can is a decodable high frequency word, right? You can you can stretch that out once you know those three sounds. That's a decodable phonetic word. would w >> is never going to be a decodable word to a kindergartener because we do not teach that OD pattern at that you know stage. So that becomes what we call a heart word and you have to learn it by heart and what we do is we do a graphing phone. So sound written symbol association. So what are the regular sounds in that word? So the W and the duh, we know those,
157but then we kind of put a little heart around like that O L part because that's the part you have to learn by heart right now because you you don't have that expansive knowledge to know why an OU can make that sound. So they might they might when they're coming home with like flashcards like that, some of them will be decodable and some of them are going to still type. You're just going to have to memorize it now. you know, think of like war we er >> not gonna happen like >> so that I don't know the situation. >> Yeah, I would I would have to check. Yeah, I was just curious if like this is like something that's being expressly like put out there. I know that there's been I I talked to someone
158who was actually on the um the kind of curriculum authorization committee at the state level and the person that I talked to said yeah honestly when we had HMH go through it was really on the edge because HMH was still kind of clinging on to a lot of that hybrid approach with whole language and so I know that's been one of the concerns that I've had um more with the curriculum itself. So the last time that HMH went to the Early Literacy Curriculum Council, it was version two. >> We adopted version three, which just came out late summer, and that comes up to the ELCC in December. So it's currently being reviewed now again. So there definitely were some major changes in the finet version two to version three, especially even going past grade two.
159So we have this structured literacy approach to phonics instruction spiraling K5 now with that version three versus what version two is able to offer. >> Very good. Thank you. >> So it'll be interesting to see what happens with their December. >> It's good to know. Good to know. >> Excellent. And then a couple of other things really quick. I'm sorry. Um then um just one tiny adjustment that I would request with the curriculum course guides. Um I think it's very readable. I think it's very accessible. I think that's great. um when you have the titles of uh books or or or anything that the kids are going to be reading, if we could put the names of the authors along with the books, obviously we can't make the actual material available because of copyright issues,
160but if we can make it as accessible and as clear for parents as possible, something like um uh wheelchair sports hang glider to wheeler dealer is probably going to be a pretty unique title, you know, that you're probably going to be able to find that pretty easily. But artificial intelligence is a great invention. Might be a little bit more abstract. And there are some in here that are such that are the titles are so generic just in in how they're written that they're a little difficult to find. So for parental accessibility, I think that would be good. >> And then my last question is kind of a two-parter. Um you talked about having uh kind of like non- library book rooms or and and we have these in the classrooms as well and we have
161these differentiated literacy groups like reading book clubs in classrooms which I think is great. However, we do have uh an informed consent change that's come in with mom Taylor and I'm wondering how we ensure that we're not violating that informed consent with parents when we're using book rooms. Do we have like a do we have like a list that parents are able to access of all the books that are contained in those rooms? Um, how is that being approached? >> I think that's a great question. I'll um >> Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Julian and I had a a similar conversation too about the fact that some in some ways the curriculum course guide works in combination with the controversial issues policy. Um, and I know that when we shared the information with the staff at
162the beginning of the year, the board did outline areas that were considered controversial that we would need to notify families ahead of time. Um, and so with that in mind, um, our staff know what those lists of controversial issues are. Um, and that we're working with them to ensure that if those are coming up that that's being communicated home. The other thing that I will share with you and I just uh pulled up at the end of the curriculum course guide as I had said previously with math like the intent isn't necessarily that parents need to pull up the curriculum course guide to know what's happening in the classroom but instead that we're also sending home parent letters about it. Um the team and I will give a lot of kudos to Emily Lesnar put
163together uh parent letters. Um the parent letters with HMH did not come with the titles of the books that they were reading. Um, and so she uh pulled together those and in those parent letters that we sent home with the modules, it does include the list of the text and then the author as well. Um, and so the families get an opportunity to take a look at what those two things are. So I guess that's my way of addressing that. >> That's great. It's uh obviously we're new to the controversial issues um policy and so we're learning about um how and when to communicate those things. But I guess that's how I would respond to that piece as well. >> No, that's great. And the main reason I bring it up is because sure we
164do have a list of some things that people could consider controversial, but I think more than likely what will happen is people will say, "Well, I think this is controversial and it's not on your list." and my you know my list or your list or your list doesn't trump someone else's list. It's more like anything that would be included. So that was my curiosity. I think that you guys are handling it really well and it's going to be a complex thing to really to flesh out over time. So I think you're moving totally in the right direction. >> I completely appreciate your point about um understanding that like what's on my list might be different than someone else's list or your list. And I think when we talked about attendance and cell phone, like the
165idea of relationships is super important. And I think if there are families that um bring to our classroom teachers or our principles, there are things that you know they're like concerned about themselves. It's in my mind about that conversation that you're having at that point to better understand like what makes sense or doesn't make sense in a particular situation for a particular family and for a particular child. And I know historically even before we had uh that policy in place that there were a lot of conversations. I won't say a lot. I won't qualify the number but there were conversations with families about topics or ideas that may or may not uh make sense for their child in the classroom too. >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Other questions or comments? >> I assume that we
166are sharing recommended reading list with parents, >> right? I mean >> like tell me what you mean by that. >> Well, like uh fourth graders would enjoy reading this book and that sort of thing and we >> I think that um that's a really good question and I think about finding things of interest for kids like during library time and whatnot as well. Um I don't know that we're sending home like here's a great list of like fourth grade books to read as a family or anything like that. I don't I'm not >> would be an individual case by case like maybe a conversation at conferences about you know I'm noticing your child is you know not keeping up with their reading minutes so here's some you know some suggestions or this would be a
167great series to get into. So I think it's more of a individual basis versus a blanket grade level. I just remember uh a teacher who had said Tommy really enjoyed reading this book and if Tommy was reading it I'm going to read it >> you know and so that type of thing if you personalize it because Tommy was interested in the same things I was you know like reading the Chilton Chilton does transmissions you know >> but any other questions women >> I just want the three of you all coaches Is that correct? Could you uh sort of summarize what you do? Like I don't want to say every day, but you know, just kind of summarize what you do because I'm very interested. >> So many things. >> Well, that's why I I believe
168that, you know, I there's so many moms. So like one of the first things that comes to mind is we really do kind of run our school's intervention system. So we are looking at those kids who maybe are not being su successful in our core one instruction and what can we do for them whether it's finding um support with a parah whether it's working with our title one teachers whether it's supervising reading core tutors kind of managing that system as well as managing all the reading plans and making sure progress monitoring is happening. What is that data showing us? Should we make a change? Is this child ready to exit? Is the grouping not working? So those kind of things. Obviously, we sometimes take on interventions because, you know, there isn't there isn't enough bodies
169to go around. And then we also do focus a lot on that core one instruction. Like how how do we help our classroom teachers be successful with teaching this curriculum? Are there certain like we were just kind of finishing up some observations about word study and we'll be providing our feedback like should you should maybe try this or this would be another technique you could use. Uh we help teachers find materials sometimes like you know I got a kid who still doesn't understand silent e and I've used all these resources. What other techniques, tricks, strategies do you have? So we we support that as well. Um, we support with assessments as well. Whether it's our Ames web, whether it's looking at diagnostic assessments, we we support that and and and anything else that teachers really
170kind of need, we kind of the first go-to and then we try to either we can help or we try to find someone who can help them. >> So, you're like live ask us >> and more, >> right? I mean I when teachers have their like collaborative meetings we attend with grade levels um and like at SH in particular I would say since I've got the dual language model um making sure where I have one teaching English half the day and one teaching Spanish that we're making those connections and I'm able to look at both and be in that meeting and then to make sure we're making those cross language connections during the day. So just supporting that because it's a lot for teachers. >> Oh yeah. >> Um so just to have an extra
171thinking partner in those meetings who's looking at the same materials they are. Um sometimes when we have time we are lucky enough to go in and teach side by side by teachers. I think that's one of our favorite things to do. Um and then a lot of helping with planning um assessment. We do things um like the pacing guides to make sure teachers between are staying on track with curriculum and not getting behind. I think it's really nice that between the three of us, we cover all the buildings because we're able to do some of that um buildingwide professional development like on the spot when needed based on our new curriculum or whatever we're looking at or like what we did with ACT 20 last year and we're able to make it common between the
172buildings um because we meet weekly to make sure we are on the same page and we plan those things together. So, elementary teachers across the district are hearing the same message from us, which I think is really important. >> I think one thing I'm particularly excited about this year is the um going into the classrooms and doing the observations with the principles because we're all learning this and this curriculum and wanting to be able to help like the principles understand feedback that they can give. It's not evaluative. Like the point isn't to go in and be like, I caught you doing this wrong. But it's the to go in and say, "Hey, we've noticed when we compare it to our teachers, man, no like like my kind of aha when we were um in uh
173with the person from HMH was just like the consistency across grade levels and like are we are we using all the examples? How do we determine when we're using all the examples or when it would make more sense to move this part of the lesson along a little bit more? How do we increase the engagement?" and just being able to help provide that feedback. It's very time consuming, but I think it's very valuable to to be able to provide that feedback, too. So, I appreciate that. >> I would just add that we also do new teacher training or new staff training before the school year starts. So, we're kind of their first introduction to the what they're teaching part of their uh experience in the WUSD. And then as we're talking about what we're seeing
174in our buildings also sometimes we do um staff meeting staff development but then we'll also plan districtwide staff development too with the other >> P a lot of elementary PD >> and with the assessment too I think I mean we we train teachers on we help assess we do all of that but then when we get the whole building worth of data back we sit with teachers and grade level teams and help dissect that data and what does it mean for your classroom and what does it mean for your students and what do we need to do with this kiddo to move them along. So we support that process really heavily. >> Oh, thank you so much. >> One of the things Jenny and I had put on January's meeting is volunteerism. We're going to
175try to build up a or and I think it's easier to get volunteers in elementary reading, you know, get grandmas to come in and do that. They might be a little fearful to go to high school and monitor the bathrooms, but I you know if we can if you have other needs and you can tell us exactly what those are, we can maybe find somebody. Are you willing to do this? So think about that and uh get back to us if you work. So appreciate. Thank you. >> Curiosity question. Do you ever use a academic RTI system in your reading or anything like that? >> Like the RTI multi multi-level system three level. >> Okay. >> I wanted that because we've done that and I've seen that done and it works pretty well. >> Yeah.
176Yeah. I would say we probably orchestrate and keep all those plates spinning. >> Tell our students to do that. Jul. >> So I know I noticed in each one of these I think I saw in everyone that under the instructional methods learning activities that support instruction in the guide that it looks like this is all of them appear to be using the discussions of small group all the variet. So is HMH itself how would you describe it? Is it student centered? Is it teacherdirected? Is it a blend? Is what's what's the main >> I would say it's probably a blend because you know ELA curriculum is very dense because it's trying to hit so many different facets of literacy whether it's reading, writing, oral language, speaking, listening, and you know there's there's so much to
177it and so any curriculum company wants to check the boxes of everything, right? So, it's kind of weeding through those things, but where that's a lot of that discussion piece is is trying to build those oral language skills. Um, there is English language development lessons actually included in this so that students learn how to like give be an active participant in a discussion and give feedback. And sometimes that may even require some scaffolding of like here are sentence stems or here are the words we use when we want to explain why cause and effect like you we're going to use it because sims are so in your in your language because um reading and writing float on that oral language. So if we have don't have those oral language skills, it really is hard to
178build those written processes. >> Thank you. And I just have a clarification for for Sam. Um my experience with with reading I I do not teach little ones to read. Okay. That is beyond my capability. But um I've watched it many many times. And what they're explaining about what they call hard words. I think Dave and I experience we would have called them site words and they just had a list of them that just broke all the rules phonetically or as you said they weren't they weren't skilled enough because they hadn't been exposed certain sounds and com letter combinations and so it is not out of the ordinary for there to be a list of words that are considered memorized >> that >> oh yeah I I had a very strong uh phonics focused upbringing
179and I had the same thing where there are words that at first glance don't fit into the common grammar rules that we use. So yeah, I'm totally familiar with that. I'm not sure that that's what uh I've had described to me. Um but it might just be uh you know, it's a pretty strong shift to move from the queueing method to phonics. So it might be trying to uh trying to ease into that. And you know, I I don't remember what grade the child was in either. So there's also an issue where if you have a child who's done four years of the queueing method and now you're moving over to phonics, that's going to be rough on the child, not just on the teacher adjusting to a new method of instruction. So there's a
180lot of reasons that that could be. I'd have to find out some more information. So you know, as I hear about those things, I'll certainly bring them back and I'll talk to you guys about them. Well, you bring up an interesting point because um and again I haven't looked at the scope and sequence and all of that kind of thing about how they move through the phonetic approach, but if somebody's been in our system under a whole word queuing, you know, approach and they move into third grade this year, that is a big difference for them. It's almost like going >> back to the basics. Yeah. >> And almost relearning that. And I can see where there could be a confusion to frustration, you know, and parents being like, >> but I'm not saying we're
181doing the wrong thing. I'm a firm believer in phonics, but um >> I Yeah, that's a >> it definitely takes some adjustment for sure. >> Absolutely. It's it's harder to drop things on the whole system >> rather than starting at the bottom. >> Yeah. >> And so you kind of have to work with that for a while. So, it was interesting. Let me comment on this. Act 20. I was reading that again. >> It said not to use the queueing system for sure. Then another place it said, "If you really want to do this, we'll let you do it." >> And I I couldn't figure that out. >> But you know what I'm talking about? >> Yeah. Yes. So, but what I listen to uh people interpret the law or the ELCC, they'll say what
182the law is very clear on is the prohibiting of queuing systems. >> And then there's these nuances of debate of like things like context clues. Is a context clue playing into queuing systems or are context clues what we you know helping kids learn the meaning of an >> cues are important >> right um you know as I said this is a really dense curriculum so there are some activities in there that are designed for English language learners and so sometimes there may be a picture support because sure >> if you're new to this country you may not know what a helicopter is so if you see that word they may have a picture there. Well, is that a queuing system or is that a language support for a vocabulary word that a kid does not
183have in their existing language? So, like and this is what people like to, you know, debate about and think about, right? >> It it really comes down to how are you using the materials, right? >> That the the instructional intention is really the focus there and what why are you using this and what is your goal for it? Yeah, >> that would be what I'd always >> as opposed to just using this and not using, >> right? You know, we're not going to avoid using context clues like that. That that's what proficient readers do, right? >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Yeah, I know what you're talking about. >> Great. So, I could I could see an argument for um a situation where I think that the queueing system was intended for um getting younger
184readers to recognize whole words instead of uh individual letters in that particular word. Uh I think that was way it it missed the mark completely. But at some point in time of a child's reading process of reading learning, they're going to transition from recognizing individual letters in a word to the whole word. And when you know I think that's where that there's that area of debate that you know perhaps maybe there is some merit to to recognizing the whole word. Uh but I think that's probably much later like in fourth or fifth grade you know >> we call that automaticity right we do not I mean you are not going to be a fluent reader and if you're not fluent you will not understand what you're reading if you're always looking at every single word
185in a sentence sound by sound right you just have to be able to capture something whether it's you're looking at the in and thin or you can look at it and you just kind of know it all of a sudden so yeah there is as kids read more as they become really confident with what those phonics patterns are. That does happen, right? And with our older kids, we want them to look at things in terms of, oh, I see that root in the middle. Oh, I see that prefix. I know that suffix. Like when they look at those multi-elabic words, we want them to pick up on those things so that they become fluent. >> Yeah, they come fluent. >> Yeah, I saw that in the third grade. I was observing. It was in Ohio,
186though. >> Okay. >> I just thought I'd ask, are you spelling be preppers, too, or no? Those two would be really good. Okay. Just curious, do we ever do we ever have any spelling be winners here? >> I know that the Water Company Times runs a spelling be and I remember Emily did a spelling be. I think you were the you were the reader for the spelling be. Weren't you, Mr. B? >> Yes. Yes. That's >> I was always like the first to sit out after spelling >> probably a sensitive spot there. >> Well, interestingly, phonics is not always helpful in a spelling be >> when they get to the upper level to break the word they give break all the rules. >> Well, that's when you watch like this, you know, the national spelling
187media, one of the first things they'll ask is what's the etmology? What's the absolutely this word? because that does, you know, you hear a cuss sound and you know that's French and you know it's probably a queue e and not a ck at the end, right? Those kind of >> we know that, right? >> Yeah. >> No, that that's exactly why you made me think of that when you talk about rwords and things. >> So, well, first of all, I'm very impressed with the the knowledge that you all bring to this. Okay. And we're relying and I think appropriately so, we're relying on you to to largely say to us that you are happy with these guides as they are done and that um we are not skilled enough. We're not in those classrooms. We're
188not in those buildings every day. It's inappropriate for us to to one level. We don't have time. That's not our job. Um although Dan and I think that we're pretty busy with school board. Um but are you when you look at these at the at the totality of them from kindergarten through fifth grade are you all happy with what you've produced as far as that it gives the information you would think that because here's how we're viewing here's how I'm viewing these. I will not speak for the entire and I'm not on this committee but I am on curriculum. Um, when these get put out on the website, we want them to be user friendly. Um, I think it's very important as Jenny and I talked about, there's no way we want these to replace
189the ongoing communication between the teachers and the parents, but we do want these to be accessed so that the average person can look at them and go, "Oh, I know what's going on generally at least in fifth grade ELA >> in any one of our elementary schools." So that's I I I don't I'm not sure how the other aid members of the board are looking at it, but that's how I see I want them user friendly. Um >> and that's how I tried to author them was from the perspective of a parent so that hopefully it's organized so that they can easily find the information and and hopefully it's understandable. So if it's not, I would love that feedback to make adjustments as well. M >> well I think one thing that will be necessary
190because Jenny when you pointed out the parent letter at the bottom of it >> I think that's a very important component of that so what I'm envisioning is that on the website there would be some in some basic statement about you know that explains how to use it that would include for more detail on on how you can help your child and books that are you know being considered during the class time and a given during a given period um go to the bottom of the click on parent letters or whatever. >> It's not a bad idea to think about even just pulling the parent letters out separately and putting that someplace on the website for people to access. >> Um that's not a bad idea. >> Yeah, we're soon going to and we probably
191are already there. Um the frustration with the website is always the tyranny of the urgent and the tyranny of the most important because the front page can only have so much information on it. So, we're going to have to be thinking about what is really, really, really important and how we I don't see this being the first thing, but I do see it on the website as being something prominent as a link to get to these. >> I wonder too, like when I look at these, I think they're fabulous. I think between these and the parent letters, we kind of offer two versions. Like for a parent that really wants to dig in deep and really wants to get into the nuts and bolts, they can look at the curriculum guide and you're going to
192have parents that absolutely want that. But then you're going to have parents that are very comfortable with the information on the parent letter. And could that be something? I mean, across the district, we are same pacing between buildings. I know most buildings send home from the front office a monthly newsletter. Could the links just go directly in there to the parent letter? Um I mean obviously these would still be on the website for those parents that want to I would I would predict that probably 60 to 70% of parents the parent letter is what they want to see and it's going to give them the information. So by making those easily accessible in a common way between buildings either through your monthly newsletter or whatever that might be a way to address that. >> Absolutely.
193>> Yeah, it's a good idea. >> I think the burden rely remains on us to make the information available. >> The old adage we can lead a horse to the water we can't make and and we try to salt the oats, you know. Um, but >> all right. >> By the way, just one final comment. I've heard the importance of family mentioned numerous times from the beginning of today's meeting um all the way through. Thank you. Um family is is critical and the more we recognize that and the more we work with them and 20 years ago when I was on here I sat over there at a table. I don't remember where the old boardroom was, but and I had to say to board members, this is America and people have the right to
194be bad parents. I wish I wish we didn't have parents who weren't taking good care of their children, but they do have the right to do that up to a point. I'm not talking about the abusive situations, okay? but things where you know where where we they don't seem to take time to read and you know do those things and um but I think we've made some really really good forward progress in emphasizing the importance of family and the important role of children in the learning in the educational process. So thank you for continuing to emphasize that making priority. >> Yeah. So, >> no, no, you go. >> When I was first on the board, I asked the question and Sarah answered it for me about um counseling for parents. You said there's legal reasons
195on that. And yet, what I heard today was how well you're dealing with family and parents and trying to help them in certain areas, which really went to the question I was asking. I know there are legal things, but you're doing what needs to be done can be done. Great. All right. Well, thank you guys for your hard work and coming in and sharing with us. >> So, with the committee's listing, I would put um the curriculum course guides for ELA on the December uh full board meeting for final approval. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Good. What were we at action items? >> I have two big ones. The course guides in December and then the cell phone policy at the policy committee at some point. >> Um >> yeah, probably not tomorrow. I
196think that's too >> if we meet in January, we'll do it in January, the next available policy meeting. >> And I think that the way the state law is written is that the policy has to be implemented by July of 2026. So there's time. Yeah, I think it's pretty minor stuff that we're going to >> I was going to say I also think that at some point waiting like we'll see what Nola releases. I'm sure they'll have an update for us at some point um as well. So those are the two big action items that I had. >> No, have a wonderful Christmas. >> Oh my goodness. Of course that that goes without saying. >> I was I was joking this morning with Jason about like I knew that the November and December ed services
197are going to be quick turnarounds. They were really quick turnarounds and our next meeting is until January 13th. It feels like oh, you know, feels like next year. >> My favorite joke. >> All right. Well, then uh >> agenda. >> Yeah. Um I I would request that uh there would be a update and a discussion potentially surrounding uh you know we're halfway through the school year but um surrounding the co- plan to uh co- what's it >> serve co- >> co-serve um approach that we've taken recently and how some of the staffing decisions that we have made are affecting uh are impacting students. Um so at least have a discussion about it as a checkin. >> You mean at the middle school? >> Uh districtwide. Oh. >> And if that could be in January, that
198would be great, too. >> We probably have room in January, don't we? Right now. Um, I just made notes of what January had. Uh, we have the eCampus and Endeavor uh check-in with the uh data dashboard. Um, I'll be doing a quick uh WHS PD update because they have a January PD day. >> Open enrollment. >> I have open enrollment. I had originally that we were going to discuss the curriculum cycle at ED services, but I would move that to the curriculum committee per our last discussion, Dwayne. And I haven't talked about that with you yet, but I didn't think you would probably object. And then the volunteer recruitment piece as well for January. >> Um and so when we meet the next time to kind of talk about it between that January February time
199um we'll we'll work that out. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> All right. Well then I guess we are journing at 9:59. >> 959 it is. >> All right. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. Uh, have you made contact with Justin? >> Yes, in fact. I literally just spoke with him yesterday. is I