11/5/2024 Educational Services Committee Meeting

001team. Let's kick it in here and uh let's go. Um call to order the November uh committee meeting of ed services and we'll start off with the director's report, I believe. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. And I apologize. I realized while I was sitting here, I didn't put time spans on everything. So Jason assures me that they were only planning about two and a half hours for Teachology. So we should be good. We're all good. Um just a quick update. As you know, we're doing a review of our elementary literacy curriculum. On October 23rd, we had a very very very long day where we had seven um companies come and represent their materials to us and then a discussion about where we wanted to go moving forward. Diane, I appreciate it, came and listened to the

002discussion at the end of the day. when she walked in, she's like, "It looks like a bomb went off in here because we had so many materials everywhere." Um, kudos to Cheryl for helping me get that reorganized and all back into my office for folks who want to look at it here as samples. Um, we did narrow it down to three or four additional sets of materials. Um, today, this afternoon, we're reviewing the Spanish language arts version of the materials uh that we have narrowed it down to. We're working on, excuse me, setting up site visits and potential pilots on those materials and we are still aiming for a recommendation to the board in uh early late spring, March or April depending on how the process goes. Um we did limit our review of materials

003to materials that were either on the Wisconsin Reading Council list or uh the DPI list. The Wisconsin Reading Council is continuing to review materials um and did add one that was on VPI list that we looked at onto their list as well. Um I like I said I anticipate it'll be late spring, March, April that will move forward with a recommendation first year to add services and then to the full board. So the high school math update, any questions about literacy reading? Um, I'm going to tie in the question from the board meeting to this section, which is the update to the literacy uh grid that we had at the board meeting and how the what's the control group look like here? We have the multi- language learners and the students with disabilities, but we

004don't have is that you have that there? I do. Okay, awesome. So, I checked and we were So, if you compare um this to the overall data for the first graders, they were at 14.2% um in need of urgent intervention in the fall, which is when this data was from. Um and then we just grabbed an additional data point. That same year, they did fall to 12.2% um across the board in need of early intervention. So you can see right here the multilingual learners who were involved in our 4K program were approaching where uh the group as a whole was. Um but clearly work to do in the area when we don't get them into our 4K program and then also with our students with disabilities which is what some of that work um that

005I had talked about at the board meeting was about. Okay. So my question at the board meeting was this this shows what a multil- language learner uh what percent are in need of early intervention if they're enrolled and only 19% are in need and if they don't participate then 50% are in need in this group of kids. Yeah. In in this group of kids, right? And then similar with students with disabilities, if they part, which just shows that they're at least doubly better off if they participate than if they don't. My question was, if not the multilanguage learners and not the students with disability. Oh, the complete control. Yeah, I want the complete control. I want everybody else. What? Yeah. What does everybody else look like? Not multilingual. Yeah. not special ed subgroups. Do you

006only want kids who were in our 4K program? Um, or do you want everyone else? Good question. Or comparable for the I just I want a way to I want a way to know that it's not so much the fact that we're doubly better off, which we can see just by comparing 19 to 50 or 27 to 54. I'm interested in if does it benefit the other groups more or less or doubly so by not just looking at these two subsets of data. So if it's let's look at the however you gathered this group of population and said okay you you obviously were able to categorize them into multilanguage learners and students with disabilities. I want to know what happened to the other 70% of the kids or what whatever and and were their numbers

007also doubly and then how did they compare across the board because it looks like right now you're saying 50% if you don't participate 50% of our multil- language learners and 50% of our students with disabilities are going to need early intervention. Is it 50% for everybody else as well if you don't participate? you don't participate. No, that Okay, that that's my question. I can I'll dig that out and I know Chris has done some analysis of it. It's a great question because as you know with the team that we are we're pulling a data team under Kayla's guidance to say what data points do we want to track as it relates to this group of kids in particular, our 4K students. And that is a great data piece um that we can definitely make sure

008that we're tracking across time. Again, this is like we could get to one set of kids because of the amount of time that we had been doing like the we were specifically looking at like full day programming too because we know that's an investment for the district. So I will get that for this data, but then I'll also make note for our data team that that's the type of data that the board could be looking for. Well, and and we need a control. I mean, we need something to compare it to because right now we're I don't want to call these two at risk groups, but we we don't have a control to understand what typical is. And even if our school district doesn't do anything with it, this information would be good for potentially

009people at the family center at the health foundation that says, "Listen, here's what a normal group of kids looks like with and without 4K and this is even how much more it's important for these two other groups to be involved and and whether we share that with the public or we share it with other partner found, you know, entities. um just so that we understand how how each section each group approach comes to us and what can we do differently in in the community if if we're able to do it if nothing else than just sharing information. I'm not talking about education per se. I'm talking about getting the information out there. So yes, that's the control group I'm looking for is is the other. And if you just want to do that with an

010email or you want to do it with a I'm I'm fine with an email or put it as part of the meeting minutes. Um what I I don't think we need to discuss it more. I just want to know what that looks like. Got it. It the data is what it is. It's it's not you know we can each infer what it means uh afterwards. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Jenny, one piece to add. You asked me to add this. A comment I made at the meeting. Um was super surprised. I've sat through a lot of different curricular things before and usually it's a handful of people that speak throughout the whole thing. Every single person had voice. I mean, if you're talking this whole room was full and every single person spoke up at some point

011and not just little things, but it was data driven stuff like this would not help raise our scores for this. This would, you know, I was super impressed that all the things that we've been talking about as a board to move our district was in just a very casual back and forth conversation type meeting. and well this is great and it looks great whatever but I don't think it's going to move the needle at all. I mean I was amaz I mean you could have lifted my job. I'm like super impressed but I wanted to make sure I said that to Jenny and she's like make sure you state that to the board so they're seeing that what we're doing that push I shouldn't say that push. We're looking at data driven instruction and those

012conversations and they're trickling down. They didn't know what I looking for anything. I was just there observing and super excited that that's something that I observed. So thanks Jenny for your leadership in that and I don't know if you guided them there but Chris gave the whole data here's what we need to look at here are major things and yeah it's an amazing group of people who are super invested and I appreciate the support of the board because the other thing that I think has supported this was the um keys to literacy training that the board supported that we started over the summer and were able to uh pay folks to be able to do over the summer and get that extra time to really understand what it is that getting after. So, I think

013it's been a it's a good group of people. It's a it's going to be a big push, but I think that they are they're the right people to help support that. So, thank you. I appreciate And not everyone there volunteered. There were a number of them there that were volunte was was good. Yeah. Thank you. Good. All right. Um then I just wanted to give a brief update as to the high school math department. Um, as you know, they are in their second year of implementation with the open up materials. They are working with Molly Reing from CISA, who is a CISA math coach. Um, they are looking at their current course offerings. Um, and trying to compare that to a couple of different sources. Um, really examining the Wisconsin state standards. Um, looking at

014the NCTM, which is the National Counselors or National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Um and then a college readiness statement that was uh provided by the W system and W tech system about what kids need in high school uh in math. Um they are looking at their course sequence um and comparing that to these different sources. Um they are looking to provide some recommended changes in the spring of 2025. those changes would not go in effect until the 2627 school year. Um so we're trying to get out ahead of it. So nothing that we talk about today as it relates to course options or LA is affected by this. Um, I did want to give you an update that they are looking at honors geometry in particular, concerned about um, the honors piece of that

015um, and wanting to make sure that they're following best practices. Um, looking at potentially a proposal to remove honors from geometry and potentially as well as advanced algebra. um thinking about the idea that they want to be working with more heter heterogeneous groups of kids specifically with the new curriculum that they have uh implemented. There are pieces that they need to work through. They were not ready for a proposal at this point. Um and so I told them I would give you an update. They're also looking at other options for the third year of math at the high school level. So typically most kids take algebra, geometry, and then move on to advanced algebra. We have been offering something called elementary algebra as a dual credit. Um, as we have mentioned in the past, we're

016no longer able to offer that as a dual credit. So, determining what our best option is for that third year of math um for students to be prepared for career in college and ACT scores as well. So they would anticipate a more formal proposal this spring and again not for implementation until the 2627 school year. Questions or comments about that piece? Um, with both the elementary literary literary update, literacy update, excuse me, and the WHS math update, do any of these cause us to review our calendar um for curriculum review? Um, are those all consistent or in line? Uh, I know that the last one was mostly had less to do about the actual it sounded like less about the program and just offering additional courses, but does the literacy update these all dovetail into

017our current calendar? Yes. So, when I put forth the curriculum, the literacy curriculum, I go into my like working document and I put checkpoints in there. So, for instance, today I had put that in when we first did this to remind myself that you needed an update in November. Um, I will I um adopting Jason Bull's action steps at the end of our minutes. I will add that we need to add to WHS math this spring of 2025 so that we don't lose track of that. Okay, that's Yeah, as long as we tie that back to our calendar. Mhm. Mhm. Um, we had this conversation briefly when math was brought forth a few months ago and the seed was planted about the potential for removing the honors geometry and honors advanced honors joined the meeting

018classes. And that was um in a nutshell to be careful of removing the honors pieces without replacing some opportunity for that advanced group to be able to work. While I understand the heterogeneous grouping, you also want to make sure there's still the challenge for those top learners. And I don't want to get into the whole latte conversation, but we also have to remember that that piece would be removed as well. And so the suggestion was out there. Is there something that could be done so they could still earn that L opportunity or still be challenged in that other way? So I'm I'm talking both pieces there. Um, and my comment at that time still stands that if we do that, we need to make sure that it's not additional that it's in place of because

019when you're talking with those top kids, those the ones that excel more, you can't be doing all the regular stuff and then be added to, you know, asked to do additional stuff on top of that. So, as they have those conversations, that's a specific piece that I'm looking for and that I think we as a district need to be looking for. Thank you. Um, and in our conversations, Josh and I, with the math department, we emphasize those pieces as well. Um, they are mindful of that. Um, and I I don't think they were quite ready to propose it right now, though they want they wanted to. Um, and so we asked them to sort of create like where's your kind of three to five year plan and how does this fit into that? So, I

020will emphasize that I took good notes to make sure that I have everything uh documented. I just didn't want to come back as a well we you know we you know so at least keeping it in the Yep. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Anything else? All right. Well, the one time I got one minute. That was my fault. Okay. Next. Uh teachology. Thank you very much. I always want to start with gratitude. So, thank you to the members of the Ed services team for attending support and thank you to the teacher team of which we have three members here and I have to like pause and allow them to introduce themselves. I'm Miranda Cluggy, one of the computer technicians, Dave IT supervisor oversee the things you see in the board.

021Thank you. Uh we think it's important to provide some updates pretty regularly and today we want as you hopefully saw in the document share some data some recent projects what we're thinking about looking ahead and then uh thinking about supporting as you well know technology teaches every uh touches every aspect of our district and um just really proud of the team and really grounded in the mission and vision of our district and the team. They're working hard to develop systems and you'll hear some of that today. And we also talk a lot about our team serving as a role model for the entire district in a way that we provide customer service to students, staff, and parents. And so that's really important to us as well. And so with that, turn it over to Miranda

022to talk through some some of the data that we're are pushing forward. Thank you. All right. So um some of the data with our work tickets which is what our ticketing system is for support. So some of the generalization from July 1st to the October 22nd we have closed 954 tickets with an average response time of how quickly we have addressed the ticket with 1.7 days which this is just a generalization of like it could be less time. This is just the average time. And then the respon resolution time of 3.2 days, which again, we strive to do our Chromebooks within less than a day. Um, which is our number one priority of our tickets. Um, our staff engagement surveys would came in pretty well for the the 23 24 with 93% of the staff

023being satisfied that they have their technology of doing their job well and what they need to support. So next year we really want our goal to be a little higher than that and hopefully we can um continue to strive to do well in our district. We maintain several Chromebooks, so over 5,000 of them in the entire district, both students and staff with 20 roughly nine Chrome boxes and 223 interactive displays, Windows devices, about 277 with 143 desktops and then addition to 3D printers, Glow Forges and various other and phones. various other devices in the district. So, with that, we've had some recent projects that you may have heard of, no pun intended, especially with our 3CX phone system. Um, one of the things that we did with this is we wanted to play with safety

024and security updated and with our current system that wasn't going to be able to happen in the current legislative changes. So, we wanted to make sure that that was a top priority. It came in handy during the Douglas um and Lincoln power outage last week because a lot of parents were able to call uh a lot of teachers with children uh using their phone even when the power was out at the building. So, it was a good use of the system during that. Um we really wanted to also offer the texting, the portability as well as dual language. right now um the system does transcribe as best as I can um Spanish into English for our offices. So we have been offering that as a part of our system upgrade which the old system would

025have never been able to do. Um we've also transitioned our email and calendar system from being a dual system since I've been hired here to Google. Um, this was I can attest been one of the more uh requested changes with teachers since I was hired seven years ago. Um, this improved our safety, security as well as um uniformed our management of how we offer accounts and stuff which the better we can secure our systems, the better we can see secure everybody's data. So, we've been able to offer a new um with that um rolling into a single signin system. Uh it's kind of like if you have multiple if you got a key for your back door versus a key for your front door, whichever key is the least secure is the one that uh

026somebody's going to get into your house with. Um by securing this one secure password across the board is the best way of accessing all the data possible. And then if there is a possible incident where somebody accidentally loses like somebody's password gets stolen or something, it's easy for us to help mitigate any losses of data. So we're all secure, better in process and serving and supporting our communication. Um, we've a lot of our we've been making a lot of changes to allow us to better communicate with the community, better communicate with staff members. And all of this including with the phone system, the email, all integrates together for us to be able to uh improve the communication as a whole, the district as a whole because we do support the entire um we start thinking

027about uh looking ahead. We have a few things that we know we're working on now and planning to work on. And the first is multifactor authentication, MFA. It's just another layer of security. Many people are familiar with it when uh you have to get a text or an email with a code and then you use that code to get into a system. And so uh we're currently working on a timeline where we would implement MFA. The earliest that would be is semester two this year and maybe even the beginning of next year. Um we also have uh last year we had a future ready digital planning team uh that really worked to um the beginning stages of that plan is to do a full evaluation of the district through the gears and those gears that

028we saw at the library meeting are very signal. And so that team last year did an evaluation really said the top priority is around curriculum instruction and assessment and some of the things that you've heard about today security communication are direct reflection of that priority from the team. We're working now to bring that group together and we're quite obviously struggling to get that team back together again. So we're reaching out to some additional members and that work will continue really focusing not only on curriculum instruction assessment but how do we continue to grow our professional development platform around technology uh this year uh we've uh instituted some ESC lunch and learns. So once a month the tech team hosts a lunch and learn here at the ESC. Uh we do about a 12 minute um

029um um presentation around a topic. In September we talk about 3CX and then we give about 20 minutes for Q&A. Those sessions are recorded and a follow-up email is delivered to all members of the ESC team with the recording and some additional information. In October, we uh did Google labels and how to organize and keep your inbox as clean as as possible and organized. And we have one next week that we said was going to be around the calendar. I don't think it's going to be around calendaring. So, but we'll have one a month for the rest of the school year. Uh this year, we also last couple weeks we have provided a podcast. Uh we have a Friday flyer that goes out to about 80 people across the district and uh the last couple

030weeks we've included a podcast and those podcasts are really mirrored around the same lunch and learn topics. So our first podcast around 3CX the phone system and last week was around the first one was around Google labels. Last week was around the phone system and people can listen to the podcast and learn more about the system but also their questions or or want to learn more. We ask them to put in a ticket and then we sit with them. And we've had some positive feedback. We only had two but positive feedback thus far. And we're also exploring how we can provide that to parents as well in podcast. So we different topics but certainly engage our parents in technology and how it can support our our mission and vision. Then the last piece is really

031we will we'll spend some time summer and January thinking about the summer and what projects we have. Last year we did this and um just shared those projects across the district with principles and other leaders so they were well aware of the plan and then revisited that in August and and give it open and so we'll do that again. That would be part of what we do every year. All right. Um so looking looking for your support um we would like to continue with the Chromebook plan that we've uh that we started um two years ago and then tweaked a little bit last year and and finalize that this is what we'd like to do for the future which would be purchase drum books for the kindergarteners, the fifth graders and the freshman again this

032year. Um, we've already worked with uh Sarah Duncan to um to make sure that we have funding for next year that we can do this and she's ensured to set the funding available. Um, so we'd like to continue to have our Chromebooks uh progress with the students and uh which will eventually over the next four years allow touchscreens all throughout elementary up to fifth grade and then fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth would use the Chromebooks that they get in fifth grade and then of course get them in um which allows us to maintain our fleet um and keep uh um so that every year we fiscally know what we're going to be spending roughly. and and we don't have devices that are getting um outdated or you know aged up. Um and then uh you

033know um you know continue to communicate to to the community and and to everybody that you see that we are making we believe we are making great strides in technology and what we're doing and offering opportunity for students. Um, you know, if you look at where we were two years and then last year and now where we're at today, I think we've made great strides and and how we've been able to modernize what we're doing and and help bring the district forward. Um, and we're continuing to work with the teachers and and work with the students. Of course, our biggest focus is is our student impact as as anybody else that's working in the district. Any questions? Um only question on that Dave is just how does that cycle compare to what I'll say the

034board approved from say three years ago. Um is this consistent with the one every five years? I mean we got 5,000 books as Miranda said u ballpark u is a thousand a year is that on target? Is that on budget? Are we still under the same purchasing contract? Is everything are there any changes in this uh uh uh looking for your support or is that pretty much all what's already been approved at some point? It should be almost identical to what we like last year. Absolutely. Um we the four years in the students and fifth year as student as classroom loaners and all in all the classrooms and the sixth year we we scavenge them for parts and that plan has been um this year it it's been great. on um for damage actually. I

035mean, so damage to the Chromebooks, most school districts our size, if you can stay under 10% damage for the year, you're doing pretty good. Right now, we're on pace to be under 2%. We have had uh 28 broken screens. Um only $225 of that was actually our cost because we're scavenging parts from people their Chromebooks and we're able to use the screens from Chromebooks that we've retired. Right. So that plan is is working great because our actual additional cost to maintain the fleet is very very low. Um but also it's been a pretty it's been a huge success in damaging middle school. We know middle schoolers are the hardest on anything we give them and they've we've only had 18 so far this year. I expect this I I'm anticipating 10% as a district with

036them being a majority of that right now. 18 out of 750 students and we're a third of the way through the year is going to put us um you know closer to uh 10% less than 10% for them alone. And then at the middle or at the high school we have almost no breakage in the elementary we have literally I think we've had one screen broken in all of elementary. Um we this year we let the students take them home at the high school level for summer. We had one screen come back broken out of almost 1,200 kids. That is absolutely amazing. Um, so I I'm I this has been a huge success and my last district of 700 students, I would love to have these kind of numbers on breakage and repairs. This is

037this has been really good. But then again, like I said, the plan where it's, you know, the students, the the devices year five, they're pretty slow. They work for loaners, but they're not going to be an everyday device. And then again, parts, it allows us to keep our cost down. Yeah. And not and like I said, it it hasn't changed from last year. You did mention contract. We don't we don't have a contract. So early spring we'll go out and get three different quotes for Chromebook history. Okay. Right. Prices so much. That's Thank you, Jason. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I like the attention like the quality assurance style metrics that you guys are using when it comes to uh uh your technology to work tickets and all that. Um I feel like your focus uh

038and organization on technology in general it's it's appreciated and um it will pay dividends to the learning environment overall. I think you guys are really building a strong team in that area and making huge strides for the district. So, uh I mean I've never I don't think I've ever heard uh those types of metrics ever um uh reported back to the school board any in previous years and um I I appreciate your effort. So, thank you. Could you you want more questions on Chromebooks or you is that what you're taking right now? Any questions? Yeah, he's he's not done just yet, but if we have questions on Chromebooks, that's great. Otherwise, wait until he's done. There we go. I was asking if there's any question. Yeah, I thought he was done. Yeah. Oh, he's done.

039Okay, go ahead. Fire away. Sorry. Join the meeting. I echo what's been said. You know, I appreciate everything been done at this point. Um, what I am hoping for, and I said this a year ago as well, I'm looking at the educational component to it. We've talked a lot about how we're, you know, getting Chromebooks into the hands of kids, and that's a first step and we need to get there. Um, as we talk about this digital future ready plan, we we've heard that, but I haven't seen a plan yet. And so I'm hoping that as that comes maybe within the next year, that next cycle, what's our educational piece to it? You got to get it used to kit. You got to get them, you know, acclimated with it. Yes. And then what's that

040next step? So I'm hoping that as we come back this next time around that we'll have some some artifacts and evidence and things because we've said that, you know, it's moving things forward and we said that it's making a student impact. I'd like to see how and and before they answered B, I'm statement. I was going to I was going to interject. Is that a report from the IT group or is that report from curriculum saying, "Okay, now that we have all these tools, this is how we're integrating it into our daily curriculum." Well, and I don't know because as you have a a a future ready plan as you're moving through it at some point, yes, it's going to shift, but because we're still in the infancy stages of it, that's where I'm not

041sure. And I'm just throwing it out there that as we see that, where does that go? I can let them they can figure that piece out. But this would be the place that it would come. And and I I agree every everything you just said. It's a question of how do we Yes. get when's the right time to get a update on that? Um so but Lori on that like the one question I asked even just having what are our goals? What does that you know what I mean? like what is it that you have of you know whether it's around QD or whether it's around a curriculum maybe just starting out with our goal is to have this you know what I mean like vague you hear a lot of vague and I know

042that the work is being done but I don't know if that you know I think everything starts with a goal and when you're trying to implement something if you don't really know where it is you're trying to go how do you necessarily get there can't get there fast kind of always goes like So, I guess Jason and Jenny, what I'm hearing is that we like everything we're hearing, but we want to tie it to outcomes if if I'm not mistaken. And and I'm not sure how best to do that either on as a augment to this report or something else that in the future when we get updates on curriculum, we kind of state what percentage is online or uses the books. uh at Chromebooks. Um I I don't know what that would look like.

043I think it' be a natural time when um like I mentioned, it's been a little bit of a struggle to get that um future ready team back together. People are just very busy. And so once we do get that team, we'll have some goals and priorities really more fleshed out. My goal would be to bring it back here in spring, early spring. Okay, we can talk about you know the goals but also the priority areas and what we're doing the current state of the union and what our plan is. Okay. No, I that sounds reasonable. So I mean between the the fiscal management and the obviously the the hardware management the we also have the education management portion of it. And if that's something, Jason, you can get back on the agenda in the springtime

044to tie those all together, especially if we're going to be going back out. I don't want to say through fiscal, but as a resolution to approve another round of purchases. Uh probably a good way to augment that request is to verify that we're actually using the tools. Uh we know we're not breaking them, but maybe that's just because we're not using them. very so let's that's not but let's follow that and say we're not saying that that's the case I'm not saying that's the case I'm just saying is that there that that's a possibility so okay um anything else Dave on here no I I think I don't have any more any more questions okay um just one comment I know that u in in running businesses and running this business. Uh I love the

045one-sizefits-all approach because it makes your jobs all easier. And then you look at the variety of uh uses that we expect out of our technology. And for example, uh, when I owned a company that was heavy into, uh, drawings and CAD, I could cloud-base my email and I could cloud-base a lot of things, but I couldn't cloud-based my CAD drawings because it was just it it just wasn't practical. And so those had to stay on site just from a standpoint of information. We we also know that most businesses use Exchange and Microsoft, but maybe most education uses Google, in which case we switched over to Google, but we also know that there was a lot of headaches and and maybe in this office specifically. And so I just want to encourage you to continue to

046look at all your shareholders and stock, you know, the the people who are going to be impacted by these decisions to ensure that it's uh not forced on those who it should not be forced on and come up with a way to say, "Okay, well, we're going to make an exception here." But there's a good reason to make an exception. And I hate two systems. I do. I love one system, but sometimes one size does not fit all. So I just encourage you to look at that when you're going forward in uh implementation of uh your initiatives otherwise cost economies of scale yeah knock it out of the park but that the users got to be satisfied with it. Yeah, I appreciate that and that's something that the team continues to talk about is that

047I believe that it's a customer service piece, right? And conversations that I've had with the team and continue to have is that we always start with yes and we want to uh have conversations with those users about the why, what, how, what, whatever they're asking for about. And we only work towards no if we have to. And so that's something that we're growing in to be quite honest, right? We want to uh we get a request for the latest iPad. Well, it's not what we're going towards, but let's have a conversation about why you need a iPad, how you use the iPad, and then make a decision there. Yeah. No, I'm good with all Android based stuff. No complaints. And I would add um from my standpoint, and this is the way I've done it

048for the last 20 years, and I my perspective is always I'm looking at what the student's future is. I understand the back end of building and and the back end of of the business end the things running for you know of the school the business of running the school. I understand that out. So, and I understand how hard it is to be, you know, to be a teacher and everything that's coming at you. But from our perspective, or at least from my perspective, I try to watch the road map and try to make sure that I'm preparing and having systems in place that prepare our students for their future and not necessarily our past. Just because it's something that we've always done it this way doesn't mean that it's the way it has to be

049done or it's the correct way to do it. Just means it's the way we've always done it. And we're constantly in an everchanging world where technology is changing so fast. Um, you know, I just read a report where again CAD, that's a good example. Autodesk and Solid Works have both announced their cloud-based um products that they're going to be offering education. So, um, you can use it on any device, you know, so without any special programs or anything, you're just going to be that's the way the world is, right? That's the way it's moving. We have students in our elementary right now that will in 20 years be like, "You had to install software on a computer." Because they'll never see that. They just will not see that. They will not see that. It's like,

050you know, kids today, they're like, "You had to install songs on a device that you carry around because it's all streamed now." When we get into cassette tapes and recording off the radio, right? So, I just want to make sure that we are we want to have those conversations. Absolutely. And I'm not saying that I'm going to say no to teachers. We say yes first not always but I also my forefront is what is ouru students future I expect us myself I expect our staff to be open to come in with the same attitude that our students do open-minded willing to learn ready to anticipate change and continue to grow forward right so it's a balance and I will absolutely we will as a team continue to you know have those discussions where we're taking

051all stakeholders uh you know and everybody has a But my underlying thing is where do our new students need to be and are we preparing them for that? Are we preparing the adults to to be able to teach the students that because if they're still stuck looking backwards instead of forwards that makes it a challenge as well, right? So, anything else on teaching? Okay. And I should uh ask both Jenny as well as Jason uh no resolutions. It didn't sound like from either of your uh last presentations. Nothing here. This is just an update. Okay. So, just for keeping accurate minutes. Yep. Okay. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Uh next topic is WHS course proposals. Um we every November bring to you any additional courses that our teachers want to propose. We also heard uh

052last year that it was important for our uh course book at the high school to accur accurately reflect uh the courses that we're offering. Um so you'll see a couple of different things here. We have three course proposals um that Jesse Domer is revealing to us and then Josh will speak to some course book updates um as far as courses that perhaps have not been offered that we would like to remove so that folks are um aware of um kids in particular are aware of when they're planning their courses what actually will be available. That will lead nicely into our next topic which is an update with LA but we're kind of trying to keep the two conversations separate for uh the purposes of today. So Jesse I will turn it over to you. Is

053there do you want to kind of give us an overview of the three and then I can kind of project the course proposal? All seen the applications or have access to those. Um I gave you the extra sheet today because I'm a visual person. kind of like to see visually what this all means and there's a lot of changes to the tech course offering going into next year like the three that I have on the table as well as um Mr. Kuring geometry and construction off of as well. So you see the current uh year's map and on the other side you see the proposed map. Uh just as a visual um try to be quick. Um GA the welding to TIG class has been something that we've wanted to have on the books since

054we made the changes to our metals lab facilities in 2018 when we invested 100 grand into the metals lab. Changed all of our curriculum from what it used to be to what it is today which was a huge success. Um but I was trying to take small bites at the time. I didn't want to put it all on the table and thankfully it it continues to be a success. So we do want to put the TIG class officially on the table which maybe we should have done 5 years ago and just chose not to. Uh we currently offer welding one uh which is running five sections a year right now of 20 plus students and we're running two different welding two classes. I know it can be a little bit confusing. They take one or

055the other but they concentrate on one of the welding processes. Uh they're one of the three main ones out there whether it's ARC MIG or activity. Um so we're running no we're running four sections of welding one five sections of welding two right now between MIG and ARC classes. Uh so this proposal is finally putting the TIG class as a welding two option for students to take as well to concentrate a whole trimester on the uh TIG process. In welding one they share a welding booth in a trimester. and welding two. We cap the class at 14 students, so they have their own welding booth all 70 minutes every day of the trimester uh to dig in with those processes. Um so that's the welding 2 class. Uh I know that you uh slashadmin slash

056everybody is very uh encouraging of winding down the high school coursebook. And believe me, teched is is full. We used to be three plus teachers. We're now at two plus teachers. Um, so I get that. Uh, my proposal if needed for welding to Gaw is to take metal fab off the books. Um, as a class, that class you had to take a machine tool and a welding class to qualify. Um, we're not finding as many kids jumping into that. It's run, I think, three times since we started it. Um, so that would be a whatever you call and Jesse to be clear, it's not that we I am trying to dwindle down the course. I'm not saying I want it to be accurate. accurately reflect that. Well, honestly, try and get rid of choices for

057kids. Honestly, we have too many courses, but it it it's an extremely hard discussion to have within oneself to say we shouldn't offer graphics um to to have more emphasis on other categories because we know that everything on here is following some sort of a career pathway out there. So, how do you not duck down? That's that's an impossible conversation that we continue to within ourselves, too. So, by cutting metal fab, we're not actually cutting a an area. We're whittling down so that maybe more students are able to take other classes. Um, I know it's extremely muddy. So, no, I'm not trying to be negative. No, I know. But I just want to like I think it's important for our students when they go to look at the course book to like understand what has

058and has not been offered. And I think that's what Josh has been trying to work with the team leaders to do. So, it's not that we want to get rid of options or choices for kids. It's more we want to accurately reflect because a lot of our courses run specifically based on like student interest and um enrollment and we just want to make sure we have that accurately. As team leader I'm in those professions and I have no issues with uh pulling of that class in there. So Jesse, when was MetalFab added? Has that always been here since you've been here? 2018 um change? No. Okay. So that prior to 2018, all we ever had was a manufacturing one and a manufacturing two class. uh where students in one manufacturing class did everything in the

059shop. So in reality, they were only in art welding for eight days out of the class. So for us to say we're producing any quality in manufacturing prior to 2018 was a lie. So now we actually are producing some stuff. So because and the reason we couldn't do it before was you only had four working welders at any given time, two working lathes at any given time. Um so that investment we had jump started in 2018 allowed us to offer a welding only course with 14 working welding and so on. So now we can actually dig in. So 2018 or 2019. Thank you. The other two courses then is actually um making a a change to what used to be called graphing. I know when you all went high school, that class existed in your

060high school at some point. Existed in Watertown. Um, don't quote me, 10 years of drafting class. I changed the name of it to intro to CAD um intro to CAD and then at least years later wanted to bring some Raspberry Pi stuff in somewhere. So, we called it intro to CAD robotics. Um, and what I'm finding is we're trying to cover too much content in that one course and we're not doing it very well. just like back in the day with manufacturing, one and two, we're trying to do too much. So, my goal is to um split the robotics and the CAD 3D printing into two different classes and dig in deeper into both of those contents. We have robotics in a handful of different places that are or are no longer running within our

061program. We have an ADB robot arm donated by Fisher Barton at 25 grand from 10 years ago. They used to run in our PLTW SIM class. So that's in class hasn't run in I can't even count as many years. So it just sits there which irks me every time I walk by the thing. How do I get that back into a class? And it's a struggle because it's a high-end technology and your traditional shop kid doesn't like computers which is a whole another conversation for another day. Um we do Raspberry Pies, we do VEX, we do um some RC electronics type stuff in these various places. So my goal is to pull a bunch of those in and call it the introduction to robotics class where they kind of do some rotational units through those

062different areas. And we've touched on that a little bit deeper than we are now. And then the 3D printing and design. Honestly, I'm just pulling the robotics out and I'm going to go deeper into what I've been doing in intro to CAD robotics. We're going to we've got more 3D printers now of different styles. Uh we've got the ability to do higher materials uh engineering materials with what we do with some of our newer printers. So I just I want to go deeper than just hey let's print some stuff to let's talk about 3D printing. So um that one would be replacing a class and then I was proposing oh maker space. Um I sat in front of you three years ago and said I wanted maker space. I remember getting asked by one of

063the Daves, "How are you going to prove that kids are doing a good job and following through what they're supposed to do?" And on paper, it's perfect. But in reality, what we're getting again is a lot of shop kids, and shop kids really struggle with project-based independent motivation. Um, so it's not where I envisioned it. It's a lot of holding hands. It's a lot of pushing and pulling. Um, it's just it's it's not really there. So that would come off the books and we'd go back to more structured classes of here's your assignments which is unfortunate but that one would come off books too. So those are the three courses um with uh three removals essentially. Like to commend Jesse and his team on not just their thoughtfulness and reflection in terms of planning not

064only for now but also for the future because I have a lot years of thought and planning um as the courses evolve. So I I heard you metal fab comes off maker space comes off intro to CAD changes in intro. Okay. Right. And that one changes. And then that one gets split. Yeah, that one gets split to from intro to CAD to intro to 3D and intro to robotics. And then you add the welding too. Okay. Um D. Uh go ahead. All right. I appreciate this movement forward. Um that we are looking to let me rephrase. welding hasn't gotten the attention that it's needed overall to get the kids into the workplace. Um, we've heard that from different businesses and things around and so that's move the ability to provide something that gives them more

065experience because as you said in your course description, whatever the only way you get better is by doing it and so to give them that opportunity helps them to get into the workforce and be ready. Um, because we have seen the shift. It's not two-year and four-year educations anymore, but kids aren't coming out of high school prepared. So, I appreciate that piece. And I really appreciate the separation robotics and 3D printing and design because again, as we look at the conversation we had earlier about moving into that 21st century and where it's going, this is an avenue there. So, thank you for helping keeping us in that trajectory of moving forward and keeping the kids ready. Warrior Sam, very good uh very good explanation. I appreciate what you're doing. Uh yeah, I think uh I

066I appreciate what you're doing to the program in general. So I I definitely uh respect where you where you want to go. Yeah. The question I have would be um the geometry and construction uh that particular course I noticed that is also eliminated and you would think that that might be one where uh somebody that a student that is more bound into the trades would be able to naturally pro progress into a math course that would be more suited for for what they might be interested in. Um I'm just kind of curious on some of that one. The numbers have been low. It's only run once on the books since it's ever been proposed. Half the time it's 12 kids signing up for it. Once in a while we've had a number approaching a potential

067run. Um but some of the issue with that one too is we have more and more geometry kids taking geometry in seventh and eighth grade. They can't retake this class. So your your pool of students that can actually take this class in high school is less than it used to be when this course was proposed by far because more and more kids are being advanced math now in the middle school versus the high school. Um and then just the numbers taking the class has been low. The other issue we're running into is as the math curriculum is adapting and changing this curriculum for the geometry construction class which we basically bought from wherever right uh was created under the older math curriculum and hasn't been aligned. So theoretically there'd need to be some serious effort

068and alignment of that class to the current curriculum which is a lot of work. I I'd also add to the the constellation of staffing when it comes. So even if if we want to run it with even smaller numbers to line up the schedule so we have a math teacher and a techad teacher to be able to do it at the same time for two trimesters. Um well it's it's meant for three tries. Three. Yeah. But we've been trying to run it as two to compromise staffing. Um and even in that it's an expensive course to run staffing. Right. And then then more kids don't get into the courses they want because of how we've created the course schedule. So it just it's I do not disagree. I'd love to see the class run. We'd

069all love to see it run. It's just there are reasons we can't get it to run. Mhm. Like I I kind of wonder and maybe maybe this is just way out there. Uh like if it was like some sort of a trigonometry and construction or trigonometry in engineering because you happen to have stuff centered around engineering. Um the hard part though is that if it's counting as a math course, it has to include all of the standards that go along with that and count as a math course. And so my understanding in the past, correct me if I'm wrong, but that um class with geometry and whatever counted as math course. Well, now with the changes and it hasn't aligned with the when the standards changed that it doesn't fit that anymore. And so the

070hard part is how do you get all the other stuff in there? Yeah, it's awesome. I know kids that have taken it, they loved it. But if you're not reaching all of the standards and you've not met that far, you know, it makes it makes more sense to have a nice robust strong math program and keep it separate because there's parts of geometry and there's parts of trig that go into that, but that's too, you know, you can't count that as a math class then. And that's Yeah, that's the tough. You just want to try to capture the kid to have want to envision a future. Yeah. yet still progress in math. I think it's a good point and on top of and I'm sorry to interrupt on top of the fact that I know

071our math department is looking at like what options are there for that third year. It's definitely feedback Josh and I can provide to the math department. So, thank you. Um, so I really appreciate because this is not my strongest. I don't know a lot about, you know, but I know it's it's definitely needed. I know that there are kids that definitely will appreciate this and I appreciate when I look at the 25 26 proposal. My question and I may not even be on the right when you look at the production pathway because I appreciate it looks like there's a really good pathway. So those those students that are you know this is what I want to do. This is pretty my I'm assuming that this is the kind of gives them a you know a

072pathway when we look at the production. Are we missing anything at that ninth grade? Is that what are what is going to be like are you going to recommend you know those students that maybe want to take an elective that is going to be in that pathway. What where where will they go? Looks a little different. Part of the reason it looks different is I did clean up the map for it looks clean. I like it. But part of it is you can see two lines ID and interading into production line set in the previous maps. And 15 to 20 years ago, those were prerequisites to take most of our shop classes that were never actually followed by anybody. They're on the books, but nobody actually ever checked the box of did the kids have

073those to get into their classes. And then a few years later it came off the books and wasn't even there. But I kept the map there because I really hoped kids would have a CAD class before you took a shop class. So I always encouraged it and now it just it's not even a thing. So I'm like I should probably make the map accurate that you don't have to take a CAD class to take a shop even though it should be encouraged. Okay. Um so that's why the map does look different. Why don't freshmen take shop classes? um they never have and Magnus's always held their ground on it and I just never had the conversation since then and our classes are running full enough the way it is right now. Um those are bad

074excuses. I also had freshman uh the number of required courses and they have fewer electives their freshman year than they do you know starts open sophomore especially junior year. So, I mean, technically they could take any of those anywhere. Sure. But it does look like what do I do if I want to be a welder? I 100% agree that um maybe I can spread out the CAD ones down farther. I Yeah, I was just I'm not that opinion or telling my Thank you. So, piggybacking on that, my question is and and I was going to say, you know, are they twofold? There's so many things that freshmen have to take, but as we start opening things up and and work with things online, whatever. Woods one, for example, is a prerequisite of that being a

07510th grader. Yes. So, does it have to be? Um, the only reason I'm asking schools that allow freshmen middle school is doing liberty. Yeah. The only reason I'm asking that if it's a prerequisite, yeah, leave it there that you have to be in 10th grade. If it's not and the chips fall where they may that there might be one or two kids that their schedule does allow it so they can be entered in but 99% of them don't. That's why I'm asking is it a prerequisite that you have to be in that 10th grade or it just naturally fits that they're 10th graders. That might be something to consider thinking about because then you're not closing it off to 9th graders for that couple percent that could fit in that schedule. It's available to them.

076Um but we know that 95% of them don't whereas woods two is a prere you know woods one is a prerequisite of woods two you know then there's not a grade level prerequisite but a course prerequisite I guess I've never I shouldn't say never rarely do I see grade level prerequisites it's usually a course and in those wood one welding one machine tool one that's always been on the books as long as I've been here and I've never bought Well, and I'm not saying you have to because sometimes it's a maturity thing that we're not having freshmen because they're just maturely not ready. And that's usually the answer that comes out, right? But but then you can argue we do it at middle school. So I I I would I would as a freshman, but

077not here. I made a boat in grade at the middle school. So I mean Yeah. Like if I was able to make a boat when I was 14, you probably make a boat when you're 50. Well, but I used a planer and a human sized band saw, too. So there's a large piece of liquid. Yeah. Lory's still not And Lori's still not used. Um, okay. Uh so before we move off of that then I guess Josh I want to hear from you and then we'll talk about all these collectively if that's okay unless Jesse you got to go somewhere I don't okay. All right. Sounds good. Um so um brought this form to you last year just to give you a global view of of updates and changes to the course book. Um along the

078lines of again making the course book more accurate. Um AP micro and macro have not run in four years. Um so the social studies department um is also on board with removing that from the course book um to make sure we get more accurate course offerings. Um other courses being removed if you look down to business ed and information technology um we uh we had a our business instructor um who we had for for a very long time uh was was almost a unicorn in the sense they had so many different certifications um to be able to teach different different dual credit opportunities in that area. Um we um are so fortunate to be able to have hired a new business teacher because there are not many of them. Um but but unfortunately some of

079the certifications don't carry over for courses to be able to offer them as as dual credit courses. So this is what you see here. So uh advanced cap accounting um that would not able to be run. Um entrepreneurship we can still run um as entrepreneurship but but without the dual credit, right? So we I can still leave that as an option. but just not not as CCHS. Um and then personal finance cap um is is not able to be run um college I don't know um but I know it has to do with like college Yeah. Yeah. It it it equates to being able to earn college credit. Um um Yep. So those are our removals. Um, and then Jesse explained the technology engineering piece. Um, if if you look at courses proposed, um, they're

080just the ones that that Jesse brought up and did a great job explaining. And then in terms of adjustments, there's a couple minor changes that I wanted to keep on the radar. Um, you know, that we um, we made a core sequence transition with offering government in junior year. So as part of that, the department had some really good discussions about um offering European history, right, grades 11 and 12 instead of it also being being open to sophomores, right? So like it just it works within their course transition to be able to do that. Um and also having US history or AP US history as a prerequisite for AP government. So when we switched to the government, we if you remember now students in uh can take government or AP government to satisfy the government

081requirement their junior year and the teachers really felt that making sure whether either you had US history or AP US history was a strong foundation for that course and that was something that was was needed. Um minor language changes in world language and I know we'll talk about this in a little bit. Um there's a proposal um for um adding to the law a courses Spanish five and six and German five and six. Again, I'll dive into that in just a little bit. Um and then finally, school to career and youth apprenticeship. There's there's some expanded opportunities. Um so not not new courses because it falls into that um that pathways and youth apprenticeship. Um and there's a link um that you can click on um that if you'd like. Um but these are also

082being opened up by the state. But um adding language around a healthcare pathway, business pathway, transportation distribution, and logistics um uh gives gives our students um some additional career opportunities, which is great. So we're looking at finding some ways to articulate that um in the course book. Um so that's one. Um, and then down below in terms of general notes and considerations, there's there's just a couple tweaking that we did with some of the language. Um, you know, you saw that above like modification of post-secondary experiences, articulation agreements. There's a page in our course book um that that has the listing of courses that that meet that graduation requirement for a post-secary experience. Previously, um, uh, Project Lead the Way was was under dual credit, but it's it's not actually a dual credit course, right?

083So, when you take it, you you don't like earn like college credit in real time, right? There are opportunities to be able to take um that in some courses to be able to earn college credit. So, we created a new heading for Project Lead the Way in the course book to reflect more accurately what what those options are with Project Lead the Way. Um, so but it still fulfills that graduation requirement of a full Yes. Yep. Correct. Yep. Um and then as listed below or listed above um removing those courses um due to instructor certification. Um and then uh then there's some impact to Lah which we'll we'll dive into as well based upon which courses we'd be removing because of instructor certification. That's kind of a the 30,000 foot view uh with updates for

084looking at the course. this way. Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. When you say go. Okay. When you say the instructor certification, is that saying that the instructor who's teaching it currently doesn't have a new required cert is this like a new um they it's it's it's because to be able to um there there's agreement with the colleges to be able to teach it as as that cap class, right? Or as that that dual credit course. um you either have to go through a certification or sometimes you even have to have like um post-secary credits like you have to take classes to be able to do it. So it can be a long drawn out process. Um is that a new requirement or No, it's it's it's it's been existing. Um but it's just it's

085well a it's increasingly hard to find business to like have those certifications um is even more rare. So just because of Okay, thank you. Can I on some of that the business department 10 years ago used to be three staff and we're down to one as you know as those teachers uh were you moved on the remaining two or remaining one ended up picking up a certification to pick up the load that was lost and courses were never taken off books and what you ended up with was our unicorn that had a million certifications which is unbelievable on a teacher. So when she left there's a hole. So, but we're still offering a handful of certifications in that department even with the new hire. Yeah. And and and based on our new hire um you

086who's been very open to like working with things even added a certification working with Madison College to still be able to offer one of our dual credit courses um to be able to do that too. So there there may be updates to that in the future. Um but but for now we want to accurately reflect what what we know we can offer to kids versus having inaccurate numbers. I just want to clarify personal finance the cap class was lost but personal finance there's still a high school requirement I'll be taking that so I just want to make sure I didn't want to assume but there's still a requirement before graduation there's a personal finance class it's just the college credit one is correct yeah you can still take financial literacy it's it's just this one

087with college credit is can't offer anymore I I guess I would piggy back off with Diana's question in the sense that It's it's hard to know what what business courses are still offered while we're removing these particular ones. Um, you know, and because at first glance, you take a look and you say, well, it's it's a shame that we're removing business courses. But I also understand that sometimes things need to be u modified so that we can u continue to operate efficiently. Um, but I also look at it like uh to somebody that might get into the trades, this might be their only opportunity to gain some sort of level of business acumen. And and I guess I I I fear that missing out especially when I see like entrepreneurship getting removed and stuff like

088that. Well, that says it's still being run. It's just not being run with the dual credit. Yeah, it's just still it is still run. Okay. But it's not okay. Yeah, it's just not we just can't offer it as credit certifications. Sure. That is I mean that is a that is a great point. Um but it seems like the two that are actually uh kind of being retired are the I think cap is accounts payable. I could be wrong though. Um the accounting one and the personal finance one are the ones that are actually being retired on that list. And yeah, I mean if we don't have someone who can teach it and also it's not run is like due to lack of interest. Correct. Yeah. I think when you're 16, 17, it might be a

089little bit of a hard sell to be like, hey, you want to do accounts payable. I know some people who like it, but but you're still offering accounting, right? Yes. Just not the college level. So there's still the introdu, you know, the regular coursework. It's just not the college credit one. Correct. Yeah. No, I I I think it's a really good point, right? I mean, this is definitely a reduction in business courses. Um, as Jesse knows that our course library of business courses right now is just really huge. So, reality, we need to cut more. There's just Well, right. I mean, then, right, because right right now, our business teacher has maybe four different preps this trimester, three different preps next try, four different preps third try. Then we're we're even finding ways to be

090creative and combine courses. Um, I do look forward as as well um because we have a fantastic business instructor um as as they start develop their philosophy and and grow interest in different courses. Um I'd also anticipate this this evolving right which is great because then you're generating interest and you're building relationships around the passing. Just one quick thing. Do you know based on you know how many students have been taking these courses how much of an impact like do you feel like these were not really filled class you know what I'm saying like or is this really going to affect some some pathways for those students that are looking another option we can look into like an online course or something yeah I mean we we we can definitely do more investigation in independent

091studies or on online courses But I mean it just it's it's it's quality over over quantity too, you know, and we want to, you know, do it to fidelity. Um I I have to look back at the course numbers. I mean I know over time um some of the accounting the advanced accounting courses have been been very limited. So we've had to combine them with the other existing courses. So I mean any any kid who's impacted is significant. Um but it is a smaller number than perhaps like a full like cutting full sections. Okay. Okay. Um, so we will have a resolution. Uh, Jenny, I ask that we make sure that this document that Jesse handed out makes it part of the meeting minutes and attached in any way that needs to, uh, both either

092prior or post. Um, one question on this document, Jesse and or Josh, does this exist for every uh department? Um, in in in the course book, um, there are visuals of sequences um for most departments. But when I say does it exist, did that mean Jesse put this together? Does that mean it was put together by your office? No, the the departments do that. And so then we in in our current course book like we have there's a whole section at the end that talks about the different pathways that you can do in different book. Okay. Well, my comment is is that I'm not saying that this is the best but it's good. Yeah. In which case if if other entities should be doing it I mean learn from what they're doing in the teched

093area to make sure that we have a similar document for those who uh don't want to read the course description on everything. They prefer the visual aspect. So, whatever software Jesse's using or whatever method he used to do this, this would be a good learning tool for the other departments to make sure that they get their specialization. And I don't care if it's just if it's AP, if it's latte, if it's English, if it's math, if it's, you know, whatever sciences. Um, this is a useful tool for us visual learners, uh, and for a parent who might be sitting at home trying to plan their kids pathway through their, uh, through the high school. So, I I like this, Jesse. So, thanks for providing it. And uh then the other thing was and and Josh

094that's why I wanted to talk have you give your presentation before we finish with Jesse's is that what I heard is that the only changes to the course book that we will be quote unquote approving are the three additions that Jesse put forth and then several eliminations that uh both Jesse spoke of and and you spoke of and maybe just elimination in title not elimination in content but make sure you delineate that when we're given the resolution so that there's no confusion that hey, if we're just dropping the the the CAP portion of it because or the dual credit, but we're still offering personal finance. I don't want there to be a lot of discussion or confusion that says we're confused that we're dropping courses when in fact we're just dropping accreditations. Does that make

095sense? Unless I misunderstood what you told me. Yeah. I know then that that would apply to entrepreneurship but like we wouldn't offer personal finance that we offer financial literacy blanket. So it would personal finance and advanced cap accounting would would be cut but we we could include in there students are still able to take accounting our students are able to take financial literacy. Let's just make sure that hey if there's going to be questions there's going to be questions and I assume either you're going to be there on the two weeks from you know yesterday to present and say this is what we're adding this is what we're subtracting but I just don't want to be there a lot of confusion because I like Craig don't want to see personal finance disappear uh because we

096believe that well for those of us who are watching the kids come out and the ones we're working with uh personal finance acumen seems to be a a shortfall of a lot of and a lot of adults for that matter. statue that we have to add. Right. So I I just don't want to get into a lengthy discussion. So I'd rather be clear from the onset with what we're adding, what we're subtracting, and what we're changing. And if you can put that as an attachment to the resolution, that'd be great. I think this document does a nice job of um Okay. What I would maybe suggest is we add another column that just says notes and then where it goes to that business ed piece just add notes that or put an asterisk next to

097the ones that are being dropped versus the ones that are just being tweaked. Something of that nature just to clean that up a little bit. I'd appreciate that. I have a quick add-on. You talk about this and we've talked briefly that some of these are located in the handbook or in the course book and some of them aren't and it's a good visual piece. Great. Yes. Yes. Um, it's also a piece that's utilized through the counselor discussions. And I know this isn't a conversation right now. This almost gets too late for the first time to see it to be a junior year discussion. I don't know if there's conversation that occurs with freshman and sophomores, but if there's not, maybe that's something that could start to happen that as we start looking at pathways. Um,

098this does way better than a 50some page, 80 page book. And so to to have those conversations earlier even at you know as they're eighth graders hey has you thought about your c your pathway but without a visual that conversation becomes difficult. So I'm just piggybacking on what you said if we have it for the other disciplines as well. It just makes the conversation easier for everyone. Guidance counseling. Yes. Yeah we we do have some of those resources. I I appreciate the feedback. This is definitely work our ACP team um can help to continue to build in our building and in working with the ACP team because I'm with them quite frequently. Um I will say that it is something that they do have conversations around. I do agree with you that the visualization of

099what it looks like your freshman, sophomore, junior and senior year so that it it proves sequential um is really important. Where does this lie and where does this credit fall as well? So if you're taking this class, what credits do you get for that? It needs to be very very clear. But then it also holds us accountable, right? If we're saying that in your junior year you can take this and this is your pathway, well then we need to be offering it the junior year. So there's a lot of pieces to that, but we're moving in a good direction. Absolutely. Progress. Okay, nice topic. Thank you, Jesse. All right, thank you. Thank you. All right. Um I will turn this over to Josh. um he has been having conversations with his uh leadership team about

100LA um and I will let you take it from there. Appreciate it. All right. Well, first thank you for um allowing me to present. Um as you recall um I was here in June, albeit with more crutches um to update you on on our plan and let you know what we were planning on doing um in the spring um in the summer and then into the fall. So, my goal of today is to be able to share updates on that progress since June. Um, I'm not going to go through this this form word by word. Um, I'll give you the the the executive summary. Um, but I do think it is important to revisit and just as a reminder of why. Um, and and overall, a lot of course should be a challenging and rewarding

101academic experience that pushes students beyond the typical high school curriculum and prepares them for success and rigorous college or career related academic pursuits. And I bring that up because it's been um through this process, our teams have had a lot of really great discussions about what what LA means um and what the current status of LA is um and what are some ways that we can continue to improve. Um so the what um since June, we we've taken a couple steps and left with some recommendations. Um first, and I'll dive into this in just a moment. Uh we did a review of our existing courses, an evaluation of um in light of our updated criteria. Um consideration of new LA courses. Um and then also with with a recommendation um to not only review this

102every five years to be sure that we're we have a plan for consistently going back to the table to evaluate like where we at, what makes sense, and is is we what we're currently offering um up to the standard of what we hold as a rigorous experience. Um, and we also, and this um, a really huge props to Stacy Bargains, too, um, a need to more clearly communicate this this process and these pathways for kids and families, right? So, we're working on plans to be able to do that. Um, so with that in mind, I think it's been a fruitful process. Um some some quick updates on um on the evaluation and and you saw um first in terms of new courses. Um the there was an update for um the Spanish five and six

103and German five and six. And so then we we used a proposal form that's linked in in board docs. Um and the rationale behind behind that um and this was vetted by by our team leader team as well and recommended by the world language department um is when when students complete Spanish five and six it's listed there um they more often than not they they can go take that exam for their um like at at their college um and receive retroactive credit for that. Right? So the departments feel that that um that would merit a strong argument for being in uh considered aotted course um and if if it is approved then that would begin in we would include it in this year's course book beginning in the 2526 school year. So students would not

104earn any retroactive course credit um because we want to make sure that we're communicating any any changes as people are academically planning. Um so we we think that that's really important. Um so that that was proposed. I know there were there were a lot of um healthy discussions when we were reviewing Lah courses um and especially around um AP prep and I think especially Diana um you know for for engaging in those discussions. Um you know as we think about I'll just I'll fill you into what what some of those discussions were. Um the the team can can definitely understand the the argument of why you know taking an AP course or taking an an AP prep, right? and then they take the test. Um why why that is an experience. Um but but the

105team leader team um you know really felt that the AP prep um didn't didn't match the rigor um of of the other courses. In addition to not meeting the rigor um there there also difficulties around um the logistics right of when a student takes an AP prep or then takes an an AP exam. So, say they were to pass the AP exam, um, should they they earn a latte point, um, being able to equate that to a GPA gets gets hairy really quick, right? Um, and so at at at the end of the day, um, you know, the teams did not recommend that that the AP preps, um, would be considered as as LA points. Um, so that, you know, that's where our teams land land right now. Um, I know there were also some

106healthy discussions about equity within the the Latte point system and there's there's some areas um including YA and music where you're able to take a sequence of three um little latte points um in you know with within a school year. Um and you can see those those listed there. Um which which again prompted us to look look back at the data. Um and so we looked at the the top the valadictorians the top latte scores um from the last gosh five or six years. Um and then an excessive number of music credits um did did not consistently show up in in our top earners. Um so in discussing this with the team um which we also included this as part of the discussion um you know that the team really felt um that you know

107not not only had this been the case since the inception of the LA point in terms of having being able to have access to 3D for some of those areas um students have lots of choices and we're fortunate that we have a really diverse course book with with lots of options and the team really felt that that the options that that are available um provided ample opportunity for students to be able to follow follow those pathways and be rewarded for the the experiences that they had. Um and so that that's a summary of the feedback um that we had. So um that that was the what um and then uh you know finally the the how. Um again like going back to needing to continue to review this every five years um to make sure

108we're consistently doing that. Um anytime you know a new course would be proposed coming back to this team and ed services you know and having healthy discussions around like you know does this new course meet that lot of criteria um we would always bring that forward um and then a more robust way to communicate um with and working with the advanced learner coordinator. Um you know what this system means to families especially at at a really young age so they can begin academic planning um as early as possible if if this is something that they they want to engage in. I think the summary document of what uh LA credits uh students can earn. This is our proposed changes. So you can see we had the discussion about business and marketing in those courses and

109you can see the effect of that on this LA chart um is definitely clear. Um, you can see the proposed additions, Spanish five and six and German five and six. Um, and to recap the question, at one point, not only was it important for us to review all of the courses to ensure they're meeting what the team initially set out to do when we switched to the LA program, but also to address the question of the AP courses. The question had been brought to us about for instance like AB calculus one and two you could earn two LA points for um but there are a few areas including the youth apprenticeship where students are enrolled for three trimesters where they're earning a LA point for those three trimesters um and music is another area where

110that um where you can earn it for those three trimesters. some of the questions that came up. Um it has we looked way back to the beginning of time or the beginning of LA thanks to Katie. Um those courses have always allowed the three trimesters of enrollment and then three trimesters of LA points. Um I think it's important to keep in mind that kids cap at 36. Like we don't count more than 36 um when we're determining um LA and validictorian. Um, and so Katie and Josh did an analysis of the students who have been validictorian since the inception of this. And is there like are there students who are um meeting that criteria with a overabundance of LA points from either music or that youth apprenticeship where you can also get it from three.

111Um and the analysis shows that while there are some students who sort of earn like the max of eight, that is certainly not the majority of our students who are um essentially at the end of the day being um determined as validictorian. Um I have one other point. Oh, the number of honors and AP courses, however, or the number of points earned from honors and AP are definitely the majority of the LA points that students who are being determined as validictorian is. I know that the switch was made to LA, not while I was in this position or uh paying super close attention, but the idea that we're really honoring students who are taking the risks academically and the ch in the more challenging courses. I think one statistic, I don't know the exact number,

112but the um ACT from average pre with validictorian to post, it does seem like we're increasing sort of the rigor um and and um prioritizing students taking challenging courses for that designation. But that definitely was the question about the AP courses questions because I know we're going to have them. I'll wait and let others go first. I'm going let you go first. Okay. Um I did spend a lot of time with Jenny and Josh and I appreciate that. I went in as a parent um concerns with that and so I'm sorry I don't have my notes here because it's on my personal computer. So, I was looking at my phone like do I have those questions and things that way, but I did forward those. So, you guys addressed the majority of them ahead of

113time. So, thank you for that. Um, a couple questions still arise. And as we look at music for well let's start with a the AP course because the AP prep courses is where my conversation originated in and you guys have have somewhat explained why those aren't considered for LA but the part we haven't addressed still is that we have compacted the curriculum and I've said this a number of times I'm sorry for being redundant but it's worth repeating again. We've compacted the curriculum because it's a college course to be done within our trimester system and they are meet they have to students in those classes have to learn individual content by the end of our dictated trimester date. So they don't get as much time to practice those skills because of the timeline. Hence AP

114prep as that third trimester becomes their time for practice. Now let's shift gears. music, for example, they don't have an AP or a college offering, but they do college level material, but they have the liberty of being allowed the entire year. So, they can learn a skill and they can practice it for a couple days, a week, whatever, and then learn another skill and practice it. They don't have the same time constraints. So, they do get the reward for practice where the rigor may not be there. So, I would beg the question, are they learning as much content, but they're still getting the LA credit for it? Then you move to our course handbook or the course book. And this course book specifically says in the AP courses that they are synthesizing that material. And

115sorry, I'm in the education world right now. Bloom's taxonomy synthesis is near the top of skill sets. So, that's rigor in what they're putting those pieces together. they're getting ready to take an AP college again. So, I ex I understand everything that you said, but it's still missing those key components and those haven't been addressed. And so, with that, if we're saying that it's not rigorous in the AP prep class, then you need to change the course handbook. That can't say synthesize. It can just say wrote practice. There is no rope practice when you're preparing for the college exam. So, I don't understand. There's still a disconnect for me there. Um that hasn't had clarity through this. Um I just lost the other Oh, as far as um getting credit then I understand the aspect

116of so how would they get credit for the AP prep course if they take the AP exam, they pass it, whatever, because it doesn't equate to a GPA. then let's figure it out. To say that they've earned college credit, but because we don't have a system that works, therefore we don't give it. To me, that doesn't make sense. So, this was brought up almost a year ago. We've had time to work on it. So, then, okay, if we deem it's important, how are we going to figure it out? How can we bring people to the table that can work through it? If we say it's not important, that's a whole different story. But I I haven't heard that. And so I guess I don't have an answer off the top of my head. How do

117you equate it to that CCAP GPA? But to say it's not offered if we were in and I hate to play the what if we were in a semester system. This wouldn't even be a conversation because they would have the same accreditation no matter if you're taking it two trimesters, three trimesters, whatever. Um I talked earlier on about the equity piece and that was brought up very briefly here that um music for example I use music not because I don't agree that music is there but music is one of the only areas that offers it all three trimesters. The piece that I didn't realize until about a week ago was that there are many courses in that music piece that students can take more than once. So not only do you see wind symphony for

118example three trimesters but that student if they're very good in music whatever they can take that twice. So now that's six opportunities not just three. We don't have that in any other discipline other than the youth apprenticeship. But in the youth apprenticeship, what they do in year A, they go to a youth apprentice. It's not the same. So they're not repeating a class, if that makes any sense. I'm not saying that it's less rigor. I'm not saying it's less work. I'm just saying it's not equitable. And so that too needs to kind of have a look at. I understand we need a runway. I understand we can't because I had originally asked, can we do something retro for the kids? My big push isn't just validictorian, but it's how we getting kids the latte recognition

119that they deserve. We have kids that are taking classes, the AP classes. They're taking it. They're doing the rigor. They're prepping for the college exam. They're not getting that. We could be recognizing more kids, sumo, magna, and kumla than what we are. I think we're missing kids. And if they've done the work, I think they should get the credit. Sorry, I was on my soap box. I'm off it now. I'm not going to say you speak for all of us. You speak over my head. So I don't have an input on it. So thank you for your comments. Right. Yeah. No, what you say makes complete sense. Um, and I I get that, you know, and and to go off of music for instance, you know, you you music theory one and two that makes

120sense for LA points, you know, maybe. Yeah, like maybe our skills or or an advanced theory course or something like that. Um and and yeah, being in chamber orchestra and and concert choir, those are all important. Um but you kind of wonder maybe loud points. I don't know. I I see her point. But they have said that college material is done in there. So I I'm not It's no different than an honors class being in there. So I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be there, right? You just want equity. Well, I think that as far as I see it, I think it might almost be the other way around, you know? I think and I love music. I mean, if I were if I were to go back and do school again, I would have

121been taking most of these music classes, I would have been taking as many of them as possible. I wish I had learned more instruments when I was younger. Uh however I think that the idea of evaluating a rigorous course becomes kind of complicated when we get into the field of art especially music because it's a performative art like you said music theory makes sense because it's information it's about digesting information and it's about comprehension of that information. When it comes to performance yes you are understanding the piece of music that you're playing. you're showing an excellence in in perform in that performance, but in a lot of ways it's almost closer to uh an extracurricular sport because because of the just the nature of of what you're dealing with. And so I wonder if the

122issue is the representation of, you know, bringing more kids who are doing conventional academics up or if the issue is with the way that we're categorizing some of these some of these disciplines. Music is a discipline in its own right and it's incredibly impressive and I think it's something that people should pursue, but I just don't think it I don't think that it's in the same category as something like biology, chemistry, trigonometry, you know, uh calculus, um even history or literature and composition. Yeah. So just piggybacking that just so you know the conversation we've had a lot of conversations I appreciate all of your work time energy on it um we had the conversation of how do you evaluate some of these courses and we actually started a groundwork I don't know where it's gone

123maybe you can speak briefly if it has to looking at an evaluation system a rubric of something and one piece that I comment I did make is how do you you can't evaluate because music doesn't have the same pieces art doesn't have the same pieces that others do an evaluation system becomes tough but we can't not recognize it because with our advanced learners they do have a creative piece there is a musical piece but we don't have and we talked about the lack of creativity the lack of leadership isn't represented in our latte system so I think there's some work that needs to be done and I'll still stay in contact with you and with Stacy on how we can continue continue to move that um to your point as well there are many districts

124that don't even offer or acknowledge anything in the music in the arts and anything as they move toward honoring they don't use latte but looking at validator and looking at I want to say how smart someone is we at least are honoring that challenge so that's a good piece I don't think it should be removed but would we be able to make like a would we be able to make a different category because even like look at technology and engineering you don't have anything for woodworking in there there's no there's no LA recognition for someone who's exceptionally good at making it happen, but it needs to be these are on that pathway to college stuff and that's where the delineation and and youth apprenticeship is one of those that it's that school to career piece.

125So, I understand the push. I think there's more work to be done. I'm I'm hopeful that we're not waiting for five years to I know it said look to revamp it five years. Are we saying that our review of the Lah system is done and we're we're on check back in five years or are we saying here's where we are now? There's there's still work that's being done. What's our Hold on to that question, Josh. Right. I just uh I I just want to make sure that we're on the same page because I'm I'm hearing what Diana is saying. She's not suggesting that some of these things on in music are removed. She's she's just saying that there's there's a desire for for other avenues in our district for for la points u based on

126the rigor especially in AP courses. When it comes to music, it depends on how the the course is actually presented. And if you happen to be uh of a of an elite status is in your discipline as a musician, that can be Oh, yeah. at a college level. And and that can be I can I can see that point. So one suggestion out of that came what if there was a balance that you can only take so many latte you can only earn credits earn so many latte credits per discipline. So if the max is four or pick the number then it creates diversity and over overarching and latte is entirely foreign. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going say Latt is entirely foreign to me. Okay. I don't I can't even spell it. I don't

127know which one's better. I don't know if Suma or Akuma or whatever Magna it's it it is irrelevant to me. So, who can give me a one-s sentence? What is Lai and what do we why do we award it? Why is does it have I don't want to say why does it have to be equitable? Why should anybody pursue it? What is it? What I mean this this is I mean hey I I apologize I've been on the board for three and a half years and I don't know the answer but tell me why that any one student any one parent should strive to get more points as opposed to more education to kind of to Diana's point but can who who can give me a summary on that more than if I can go

128five. Yeah you go five. All right five. All right we're good. All right. simplified. So sentence number one um stu students pursue latte points um beyond taking rigorous coursework um to achieve uh recognition either in the form of validictorian or being in the top 10. Fair enough recognition one. All right. Um and then I'll go to the mission statement. Um but that's the Lah system recognizes and celebrates academic achievement while fostering intellectual growth and a commitment to rigorous coursework. Vlad courses promote academic risk-taking, high levels of critical thinking, preparing students for their future college or career opportunities. At WHS, LA courses are offered across various disciplines to provide a well-rounded selection for students with diverse interests. Okay, that's well that was all one sentence. So I would I just read it fast. I I will

129100% echo Diana's comment and I think I've said it before. I was saludiatoran in a class of 40. Okay, which means I was just number two out of 40. But number one took nothing but English. I took science, math, biology, and English. And I ended up number two. When you say in that statement rigorous or well-rounded, you've done nothing to make somebody well-rounded by letting them take 50 points in music any more than you've caused the person who's good at math to but flip it over and take points in a different discipline that they're not good at. So, what this does not do is does not stretch them into areas that they are uncomfortable or would otherwise not be exposed. It encourages them to pursue more points for the sake of points versus being more

130well-rounded. That's the way that I see it. In which case, I like Diana's cap idea, if that's what I will call it. That's maybe not what she said, that you are capped on latte points per silo because listen, we're just not going to give you 50 points in in English. We're just not going to do it. I like that you're exaggerating. It's not bad. I'm just saying bye. I mean, can can we tap it? And then the other thing is, sorry, Sam, just one comment is that does everybody does every discipline need a We already said a great point, Sam. We don't give them in woods. Why not? You can get a lot better career in the world being a great woodworker than you can be a great musician. And career is in the description.

131in career in the description. In which case, I I'm not I got nothing against the arts. I wish I was a better piano player. I can play the saxophone, maybe the harmonica. But the point is is that that doesn't give me any real world usable skills that help me in my day-to-day job. In which case, I'd question what do we offer them for? What are we trying to encourage? And do the rewards reflect the goals? And if it's just to accumulate points, then I would say no. It doesn't. If it's to create well-rounded, wellchallenged uh uh students who have a breath of ability and exposure to the world, then we need to tweak the the system a little bit either by adding more points to woods, capping categories or redefining our mission statement to make

132sure that our what we're measuring and what we're expecting are matching each other. Yeah. uh and and if if and I'm not saying untie it from saludiatoran and valadictorian or or grade ranking uh per se, but make sure it reflects what we're trying to produce here. And that's well-rounded students who have a love of learning. Well, I don't even know if I actually love music because nobody forced me to take a music course. So, how would I know? So I we have to be careful that we're not I agree and understand with what you're saying, but we don't if a student has a strength in music or a student has a strength in the health field or in math, we want to allow them to pursue that as well. We just have to find a

133balance. So we have to be careful in how we're and I would say that's what secondary school is for. GED is general education. Right now, I'm going to have to take an employee who graduated from a high school in Argentina and put them through a GED course in the state of Wisconsin. I don't think there's going to be a question about Beethoven's fifth on the exam. Okay. So, GED is GED. That's what we are going to be graded against. And if we go to the DP, I'm I'm being I agree. I'm being extreme on this comment, but is that if if the DPI requires it, I'm I'm not I don't bring the DPI into it. It's more of a matter of I I don't want to be overzealous in awarding latte points just because you're

134good at math or you're good at woods or you're good youth apprentice. I still believe that we have to create well-rounded students and that means force them into some areas of discomfort which is by the way is in the mission statement is to stretch them and and we should be trying to do that and to and to your point there I mean there was for quite a while in the history of this country in particular and I think in a lot of countries uh general education was 1 through 8 and actually the 9 through 12 school year was the collegiate school year. you were specializing, you were, you know, going after higher level things. And that's not because prior to the 1900s, the general population of America wasn't smarter than an eighth grader. It's because

135an eighth grader was was at a much higher level. So, I I I think it's weird because schools still offer a lot of those higher level things, but now we're sitting in this like general education and college middle zone with a high school, and that's that's a pretty unique situation. Yeah. Sorry. I I guess I guess I I appreciate that thought. Um and yes, I I agree things seem a little bit lopsided as far as the LA points are concerned, but your analogy might not be might not apply. If let's say in this particular case you're you would be looking at somebody that has lot of points in music you know for for hiring somebody unless you maybe have like you're an educator or you're or you're a I'm a conductor at a an orchestra

136right you're you're looking at it differently I guess it depends on that particular silo that's that's what you're the the lens that you'd be looking at I got a question from a while ago. I don't know. I don't want to try to go backwards. I'm not trying to but I know that and I know you and I talked last year and I know this has been with the AP going back to the AP. I'm not trying to go backwards, but when we talk about the prep class, I know like kind of kind of going off of like what Diana suggested where the course book describes it, it wasn't always being done kind of how like with rigor. Then I know last year there was some changes with the AP prep where the students were learning

137the entire trimester. Where are we standing with that? Is that what we're continuing? Because then I don't really understand where the prep is not still in that. I don't know. I still am not sure how they came up with that not being equivalent for a lot of it. Yes. No, thank you. Um and so which is a great tie to the so the the the AP prep and I appreciate um dialogue we had that last year as well because it's dialogue I had gotten from other community members too. So it was a good time to just revamp. So starting with last year um we we added some more direction to the AP prep post exam because what happens then is students from the start of third trimester until the exam which ends up falling to

138the first or second week in May um students are preparing for the exam. um historically post exam it was it was left pretty unstructured in terms of of what was happening in that space. So we further articulated what should be happening and so working with the AP teachers we landed on 60% uh enrichment right or content and 40% guided study um so because simultaneously many students are taking more than one AP course right and so that time that twoe period in May um often turns into prepping for more than one AP exam right so we they didn't want to continue content and how it went they also have other courses and feel like students needed towards the end of the year after a you know, rigorous school year, right? I needed some needed some space.

139Um, so that's where that that 40% guided study, but then 60% enrichment. And the direction right now when it comes to 60% enrichment um is is a great opportunity to not only learn a little bit more about about that content area, but also engage in service projects around the building, right? Or like find ways to give back to our community. So we had created a structure for um to provide some direction but but also be responsive to the needs of the kids in the classes who may still be taking lots of other courses or have a lot of other stuff going on. So that that's where that that piece ended. So when it came back to like to you know feeling feeling the ringer like that and and I I appreciate all this dialogue because

140this echoes a lot of the discussions that we were having over you know over the course of the last year which I appreciate and it it gets hairy, right? I mean there's no doubt about it. Um but but like the the the teachers and the team leader team I mean I just really felt at the end of the day that the AB prep did did not match the level of rigor right that that we expected in the other the other courses. So I think the other challenge is not every AP course necessarily offers an AP prep course to go along with it which was another like question mark about it. Um, so just to piggy back off on what you were saying too, well and and and I also just um wanted Did that help

141answer the question? Yes. I mean it did, but I think there is still definitely some work that needs like I think there is still some inconsistencies. So I'm not really sure what I'm not saying one way or another. I just am still still feeling clear on that. So, I'm gonna not I'm I'm gonna halt the conversation just briefly on this and just do a a checkin. So, the the purpose of the presentation, why you're here today, and why it's on the agenda is to update us on the coursework that is included with the LA points. Is that correct? Okay. as far as the philosophy behind Lah and how that is bantered about amongst five board members who are here and then the countless number of staff that you'd already had involved in this and you're

142hearing opinions you're you're hearing some ideas. Is there an actionable item that the the the staff andor the board should work on in any way together? Are we happy? I shouldn't say happy, say satisfied. Is it workable? Um, are there drastic changes? Is there something that we want to take action on? I'm not I'm hearing a lot of questions and I'm hearing a lot of thought generation, but I'm not hearing a lot of new change of direction. I mean, not unless we sit down and put together an entire team on it and say we're going to revamp this. And I'm not saying that it's not worthy of revamping. I'm saying as a priority in the district, is it a priority to revamp it in the district? and and I'm not 100% sure that it is

143given all the other priorities that we have. So Diane, I'm going to let you go first. So action items. We've talked a lot about the AP the AP prep course. We've had discussion pieces here. We're kind of sitting in the middle. So we need to choose a pathway. In my opinion, this is my suggestion. We either need to say yes, we're going to honor and recognize the the LA day, the top 10, whatever, by acknowledging that AP prep course, which you've already said, your team leaders have said no. Then that leads us to the other side, which then we need to change the course book to get rid of the word synthesize. If that's not the case, then why are we having it 6040? You know, if if we're saying it's not rigor, then we

144shouldn't be saying, okay, after the AP exam, they've just if you've prepped for an AP exam to pass it, you're spending so many hours even outside of that times two or three classes. If those kids have downtime for the last two weeks, they've earned it. So with that then the action item needs to be if we're saying that there isn't the rigor for the la things in it let's not pretend that there is so let's change the course book to reflect what's truly happening there and let's stand behind what we you know if the building leadership team says this let's not pretend that so right now we're kind of talking out of both sides so let's choose a side and go from there and if what I'm hearing is we're not saying that the AP

145P prep course has the rigor whatever then let's state what it is let's change the course book let's make sure that the um prep class doesn't go beyond you know it is what it is it's preparing for the exam then after the exam okay so with Diana there is does the committee have any input as to which way to land on or is that something we push it to Josh and Jenny and and other staff and say pick a lane I I think I would go with uh um in the interest of not causing I guess LA point inflation, I would go with uh your your second proposal to kind of restate and clarify what's happening in the in the prep course. Um I think that would be a better solution. Uh and then if

146if we want to down the line, really down the line talk about how that works, you know, in the future, that's one thing. But I think that uh I think your second proposal would probably be the one that I would more so look towards. Well, as far as talking what's been going on, we've had this conversation for a year. We've as a parent going through. So there's the been the conversation. I don't know how much more conversation can occur to me. They've done the research. They've done this is where they're saying this is the belief system. Okay. No more conversation I don't think is going to change that. And so that lead that's why I'm saying action step then all right if we're saying that we're not even going to think about entertaining that piece

147whatever action item that second action item that I have out of that would be I don't want to wait five years I don't think that we're to a point of being done you know yes we did a one year or we've started in this looking at laud um I don't feel with the questions here that it's done maybe that's just because you guys were trying to answer the bunch of questions that I had going through. Do we feel like we're at a good place? We've talked about how do we evaluate course or the courses in there. We haven't gotten anything on that today. And I think as we start, you know, you you referenced it, but we haven't seen what that looks like. So to me, that looks like a logical next step. I would

148be thinking that we would get that sometime within the next year. So that tells me that it's not a oneand done. But because in your timeline it said 5 years, it didn't say, "Hey, we're bringing this back in January and March, pick month, whatever." Um, that's what led me to believe I don't know if that's really in the works. So, that would be the second action item is if we're going to do some evaluation of our of our system, what does that evaluation look like? So, those were the two pieces that I had on and and whether everybody caught that or you're going to go back and relisten to the recording and and write those down. My only comment, not that I disagree with them, I just bandwidth. Okay. And and if LA is not

149a top priority to address for the district because we have too many other things that we need to address, then I'm going to say feel free to discuss with Jared and move it down the list. Okay? I don't feel it's a board priority. It's something that Ed services is very interested in understanding and cleaning up, but by no means would we want to distract from other more important priorities. Um I I think it's a a cleanup. It's not a re it's not a total retooling if if if I'm hearing the questions in the discussion in the room, but at the same time it's not something that we want to let go forever and then have the conversation again this time next year is that if there's some things that we can do to it whether

150I didn't double check on let's say Jesse's curriculum proposal. Is LA a line item in there? It's in the proposal, but not I understand. Okay, it's on the proposal. But then to Diana's point, has every other course that's currently LA been graded against that same standard that a new course would be graded against. And and if the answer is yes, that's yeah. Okay. Um, so I mean I don't see that ed services as a committee as moving towards a I I have no problem discussing it. learning a lot but at the same time I want to be respectful of everybody's time and actually be moving towards a decision or a course a course of action. So right now I haven't heard that except for the fact that there's still a lot of interest in making

151it better but not really certain as to the timeline or the people who need to be involved in doing it. So uh I'll let Craig interject here. No, I um I think you tossed out an idea that that is probably might be beneficial uh before about um a cap on points in certain disciplines and and maybe that question needs to be asked the committee. See if there's a appetite for exploring that idea any further too. Can I a very specific Tim is they have proposed Spanish five and six and German five and six to be added. So that is another action item that I feel like we need to be able to walk away from today with a resolution on that that requires a resol. Does the board I know we approve the curriculum. Does

152the board need to approve law? I feel like because it's on the new course proposal sheet I feel like any new one added we should have the board and I could Okay. But then it's going to be lumped in with the first resolution. It'll be lumped in. Correct. So yeah, the the law day and the course book will be all in one resolution. That was my plan. Okay, if that works for me, if that's good with the other committee members, you review the Oh, sorry. Go ahead. uh if as far as the uh latte point situation goes, if we want to do something with that immediately, I think that the two useful uh action steps would be rephrasing in the course book like you talked about and then clarifying perhaps that you know you take

153advanced shared music, you get those laud points but repeated repeatedly taking the same class even one you only get them one time. I think that's pretty reasonable. And I think that if you're a kid and you're interested in taking those classes over and over again, it's because you're interested in the subject, not because you're not trying to cheapen it, but not because you're playing a point game. Um, I think that LA I think it's a valid point. I like your term LA point inflation. I I'm use that somewhere else today in my normal conversation with the word LA in it. Yeah. With LA. Yeah. I think that's spelled L A H D I N. Yeah. Um, so just some ideas I guess Josh to take back to the mission statement, to take back to the

154course book, to take back to the structure of it and and it wouldn't be obviously for the 2425 school year. It'd be, you know, for next year's course book and any additional language. And if you need to get that after the course book is approved in let's say two weeks if we want to change any language regarding L we still have I think runway before next year's course book is released right if if if that's what it results in next year's 2526 that's well kids starting busy the reason why it's now is because we need approval at the end of November to then move forward in December. Okay. So if there's a if there's a structure to the latte points, we'd have to have that in by December and and that's only if and I'm

155not saying you have the time and to do that. I'm just trying to understand the timeline. We have to adjust it if we wanted to. So I feel like there are potentially two pieces within the resolution. The Spanish and German five and six, yay or nay. And then the AP prep courses, yay means that we're adding them as laud and we would reflect that here. nay would mean that we are changing the course book to not reflect the level of rigor. I feel like the third piece is if we are bringing forth a more comprehensive team to review it, we would look at things like uh is there a cap in certain areas? Allah the music point you're only taking it one time. Youth apprenticeship you can only take one time which I think meets

156with that cap piece. Um, and then determining sort of are there other courses or a more broad like the woodworking example. So, sort of like those three pieces like Spanish and German five and six. That's the easy one. That's why I listed it first. Yay or nay should do eight week prep courses. And then third, an administrative discussion with board leadership as to what is the capacity to dive in more deeply. The one thing I will say is um not to foreshadow too much, but if we do have to make changes with like the high school schedule and whatnot, some of this will have to be rehashed um because of to your point the trimester system and whatnot. So, I think that that third committee piece with board leadership and um administration determine some of

157those pieces may work itself out if we have to look at a different schedule. One clarifying piece, we have to be careful with youth apprenticeships. It's a very general statement. There are different avenues within the youth apprenticeship. So whereas and again I'm coming back to wind symphony. It's a music class. That's a name. That's a class and that's a repeated class. Youth apprenticeship is the overarching piece that it's called. But there are different focal points under youth apprenticeship. So they might do youth apprenticeship multiple years that has a different focal area. So it's technically a different class but it has the same name because of the way our system is. So we have to be careful to say that hey you can only take you apprenticeship once for coursework when there's I understand you can't

158repeat it if you're doing the same thing but it has to be something different. So I mean for one course out of the math department. I but I'm just saying because the latte it could be this could be a youth apprentichip where they're focusing something on finance and this one could be something in agricultural whatever they're two very different pieces that fall under the umbrella of youth apprenticeship right no I that would be the work of the committee I guess correct I'm I'm going to ask first of all um I apologize because we're not giving you clear direction and and I hate to send anybody off to go fix something that we don't have clear direction on the board direction on how to fix it. And so we're we're still under kind of a discussion

159and an understanding phase, in which case I don't see a specific action item on this aside from the resolutions you just brought up. But if it's possible, Jenny, between the time when you meet again with central office and other staff and have additional conversations with Josh, um if if it's possible to include this in your director's report in December as far as any followup or what you believe your capacity is or timeline just so that we can revisit it and say this is what your team thinks we can do in a certain amount of time so at least we can rally behind behind it, understand it, and ratify it because I don't want to have to I mean, actually, I enjoy the conversation. It's just that it doesn't go anywhere, okay? And and and trying

160to do that here, it it gets us all on the same page, but it doesn't get you guys the direction you need. And so, we need to do a better job of giving them that direction, which just means not to say we have to be in agreement, but we actually have to have a plan of how to reach that path. Um, so I would like to hear back just additional thoughts now that you and Josh have I'll say you and Josh. I don't know who else is involved in that discussion, but letting it sink in and understanding what some of just the comments from the board has been. If you can just bring that back to us and hey, this is what we heard. This is what we think we're going to be changing based

161off of your last input and what we can do in this this runup to the 25 26 school year. So I don't mind talking in December at a director report about the idea of the committee and the capacity and what timeline of that might look like. I do have a sense of urgency about the Spanish and German five and six so that we can put into the course book as well as the idea of the AP prep course. I Okay. Well, the first the first the first two we can put on a resolution in November. I would love that. Yeah, definitely. The AP prep uh how do you want that worded as a resolution? I think we're in agreement that we don't that this committee doesn't believe that it should be part of it, but

162that's not how it is currently worded. It's currently worded that AP prep course would not Okay, then. Okay, then it is how it's Okay, I missed that. So, I think what I can say, too. The administrative recommendation is that Spanish and German five and six be added. Yep. It's not specifically um outlined here, but the AP prep courses would not be added. Correct. And that's just that's for November. That's how it's stated. Yep. That's fine. So, you want us to move forward with approving the German five and six and Spanish five and six. We will not add the AP prep piece in there. We can remark in the course book um changes. Oops, that's this one. I'll get there eventually. Nope, I probably closed it already. The course book changes. We can note that we

163can change the language in the AP prep courses if you would like us to or we can just leave them be as removing the word synthesis is well as we do yeah there's there's more than just the word synthesize in there. So it would if we are not going to have them as L offerings then and if they are just practice then the course description needs to reflect that and it currently does not. It currently states that it's doing much more. So, I'm hearing that the direction that you would like us to head is to update the language in the AAP or in the course book for AP prep courses to reflect what you believe would be more accurate and taking out things like synthesis and add things more like practice. Correct. And then that

164too would be reflective in what the requirement comes from the administration that it's no longer 6040 if it's you know there's other pieces. So it's not just the the wording it's then what's the expectation in the course. The expectation in the course should then reflect the wording in the course book. Okay. Do you feel like Josh you have the bandwidth to go through all those AP prep course descriptions and they're all the same? They're all the same. Okay. minor tweak. Yeah, that that's that that is a doable change. Okay. And then Spanish and German five and six would be additional LA opportunities for students. Yes. Okay. And then in December, I will do a director report. Josh and I will take some time to say, "Okay, let's look at a potential timeline of what it

165might look like, keeping in mind some things that might be some different changes at the high school level that would affect that, and we can update you a little bit more in December." Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Okay. I don't want to put too much on your shoulders, nor do I want to be unrealistic in the fact that we I just don't want to be here in the same conversation a year from now. So, at least come up with a plan. If we're still in the same place, that's okay. But we know why we're there. Okay. So, or make a subcommittee or or make a sub. Exactly. Something like the like the mathurriculum. Exactly. Curriculum review. It'd be a curriculum review committee and that'd be perfectly acceptable and make a lot of sense. Okay. So, that's

166I I guess I'm not jumping ahead, but that's kind of think where it will end up. But that just extends the timeline um necessarily. So, then will we be getting an update in six months a year? We'll find out next December. We'll find out December. Yeah. If if that's the case, then I'd like to ear mark it onto a future calendar. Not that it's set in stone, but just so it doesn't get lost. Uh we'll put that on for December when they give us the update. Perfect. Okay. Okay. Sorry about that one. It was a good conversation. I knew it would be a good one. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for all of your work and it's been a ton. Okay. Any um you guys have been doing good with forwarding uh suggestions

167and uh items for the calendar. Otherwise, uh Jenny's been working from um a standing calendar and I didn't just close it prematurely. That was the last item, wasn't it? That was the last I was pretty sure I was done. Um, I'd like to insert some joke about a very long discussion we need to have, but I have my head. So, if you have any other items, otherwise Jenny par for the course, uh, she'll get us the, uh, topics for December sometime in a, you know, a week or two ahead of time. I'll forward them to the committee for review. If you have any questions, comments, or items for that, uh, please forward them to me, uh, prior. Okay. And I did forward Jenny the one on unified strength. Thank you for getting back to me.

168Um, is that going to be offered as a summer school credit for high school? So, just so that wasn't lost. So, that'll be part of you. She's going to be either part of the director's report or something. Thank you. I was started to what else I want to talk about for summer. It might be just a full That's okay. I just wanted to bring that because I promise you bring that back. Yep. Okay. Anything else for the greater good? Awesome. Dismissed. 9:42. Not bad sound. I was watching the clock.