09/10/2024 Educational Services Committee Meeting

001Recording in progress. We're sharing. Got it. Okay. It is uh 7:30. We are in the appropriate location for the September ed services meeting. And uh I see we're almost all here. Oh, there. Okay. Now we're all here. I was trying to be proactive a little bit. Okay. Outstanding. And uh let's uh get started um with the director's report. Excellent. All right. So, just three topics on the director's report. Um first topic I have on here from the HR meeting, but Margaret Brady was sure to uh remind me that this was a special board meeting that the school board had about substantive teaching. Um I believe that the board directed the administration to create a plan um from the report that Margaret gave me. There was uh some suggestion that the ED services team would take

002on portion of that. Um, I just wanted to put that out here to this team to say if you had any suggestions and I'll tee it I'll tee it up a little bit more only because we were all there at the substitute teaching uh special meeting we had and uh aside from pay which is what my comment was which seemed to be the quote unquote one page solution is well we could incent this we could incent this we could incent this and I think I asked at that time were there suggestions because this is educ education services which is substitute teaching helping our teachers teach our kids. Was there any initiatives, ideas, uh uh anything that should come from ed services and not from HR or fiscal? Is there anything that we could think about,

003troubleshoot, come up with ideas? And if there's not or we don't think this is the proper home for that discussion or Margaret and Sarah don't think this is a proper home for this discussion, I don't need to talk about substitute teaching. I just wanted to make sure that if there was something unrelated to fiscal and HR, was there anything that we might come up with as far as a way to improve that situation with getting substitute teachers? uh surveys of what why is it easier to fill at elementaryaries and not middle schools? What is that an HR issue or is that an ed services issue? I just wanted to make sure that we were look attacking attacking this from all angles, not just a fiscal uh or or a pay uh perspective because uh I

004do surveys of my employees. Uh we all know that pay is always ranked highly until people say why did you leave and it's job satisfaction, opportunities for advancement. I enjoy the people I work with. N pay is always like number five to number 10. And so I'm not saying I was bothered by paying substitutes for money. I just think that there's something else a little bit deeper underneath the skin and didn't know if Ed services should talk about it. So that's the director's report. That's the reason why it's on here. It doesn't have to be a topic because we don't I mean we can talk about it a little bit now. we can come up with a plan but it's not a strategic discussion as much as I just wanted to revisit the topic so

005that thoughts ideas anything you're on the committee oh well I I know that one discussion that we had that had came up was you know the the concept of is it a behavioral thing and what can we do you know and I know there's some suggestions do we need to be a little bit stricter on students when you have a substitute, you know, right? You get three stripes, you go and get one. You know, I'm not saying what that looks like. That's you guys to figure out. But that was I think a big especially when you're looking, you know, I've heard it's be tough at the middle school. You know, they're they're they're a tough age. And so I don't know what we can do or if there's something we can do or suggest. And

006I'm glad you brought up that specific example because I'd forgotten that. I knew that there was a reason why and and that right there a student policy that's not fiscal that's not HR that would go through ed services and that's the reason why I wanted to make sure we didn't drop this and and not do our part in trying to support the initiative. Um, also at that time at at that meeting Margaret said she was going to go back and talk to about it with central office which is people I mean you three but not not us and Jenny I don't think that's conversation has happened yet or okay not yet. Okay. So um I don't want to say in the interest of time but in the interest of not having much direction on this

007I just wanted to revisit it with us. Uh I'd like to see what NSER, excuse me, what central office uh comes out of it with and then just be prepared as our committee that we may end up t you know pulling on one of the the strings to to get it to unwind uh if it so if it needs to be. So it's not just purely a fiscal or an HR issue. It could be a ed service issue or a policy issue. I just want to make sure that we're we're solving the problem not just you know putting a bandaid on it. One other piece. I was going to say just what you are, but in addition to that, middle school is a different breed. And so when you did, yeah, you can say behaviors.

008And yeah, there could be some underlying things there, but there are people that will not sub at the middle school. They'll only do middle. They'll only do elementary or they'll only do high school. And I'm not saying we have to survey, survey, survey. But I think we need to dig into um what what's not appealing about the middle so we can at least address some of that. I know they talked about paying more for the middle or doing I'm not sure that's the solution to it. You got to get to the root cause and until you get there, you can kick around every idea under the sun, but then we can look at, okay, where's our pool and how do we address and bring in people to that pool? Um, because not only the behavior

009things, you can say that's a middle school issue that's happen. That's by age. That's innate. And so, how can we how can we address some of that? But that's not what we're going to do as as the committee here, but but I'm just throwing that out there that can we bring some I don't want to say bring some data back. I'm a data person, but can we bring something a little more tangible? Yeah, I'm going to say behavior all day long. You walk into my class was phenomenal behaviorally. When I left, they were horrible. That's because it's fresh meat. Seriously, they would tell me that. But you like to emphasize the importance of relationships. But but when you have someone just coming in for that little moment, there's no relationship there. So how do you

010how do you build that into the culture? How do you build that into who you're bringing in etc. Can I throw one thing in like and I know I'm the outsider here and I'm only here for a presentation but you know middle school like I am one of them, right? The weirdness I embrace it 100%. I think it's more of a PR issue than it is like an actual behavior issue. I think it's like the perception or the fear that they could receive behaviors that they're like, "Oh, well, they're kind of weird over there at the middle school." Like, they haven't really found themselves yet. And so, they're not willing. Like, I don't see we're not seeing subs flocking away, like coming and saying, "Oh, I'm never going to go there." We see people like

011not even willing to engage. And so, that tells me it's a PR issue as like instead of it's a behavior issue that's pushing people out the door. like we can't even like get them to be open to walking in the door to see like this is not bad. Like they're quirky and fun and like in all the best possible ways and just trying to attract the people to like give us a try I think is is the issue to get them through the door. Yeah. One other thing I know we have a lot of um teachers that retire that then continue on. I don't know. Have we not had a lot of teachers maybe retire? I know we have a few teachers that substitute a lot at the high school because that was where they

012retired from and that's where they're, you know, and maybe at the elementary level. So, it's just another thing like are we maybe missing that retiring pool in the last couple years at the middle school and and maybe it has that it's just that I I I don't know. I think there's so many different things that could linger to it. It was just well Jenny in as much as said service or is Melissa communication under Jason or Melissa? Actually under HR okay under HR. Okay. So whether it's communication, great point, whether it's ed services and behaviors, uh whether it's fiscal or whether it's HR and more surveys, um just team be prepared that it may come back to us and if they need some solutions and and central office uh wants to give a a spot

013in the committee, I think there is the opportunity to put it here for certain aspects of it. Not not all of it. we're not going to do the fiscal part, but if uh if it turns out to be behavior, uh then then we should certainly be willing to take that on and and address it. Um so I just wanted to revisit it because it was somewhat fresh and brought up as a point of concern and uh just remind us that we may have a part in that. So that was the reason it's on the agenda. So any ideas you have on it, I guess get them to Jenny and or Margaret or Jared, whomever, just so that it uh central office has it whenever they do decide to discuss it. David. Oh, sorry. There's somebody

014on there. Uh, their hand up. Yeah, excuse me. I I'm sorry. I can't put my hand up on driving, so I apologize. Figuratively. His hands in the air right now. Can I um feel free. Can I uh you know, I I find it intriguing that uh Leanne brought that up. I mean, I never I never really kind of considered that it could have been a PR more of a PR issue. Um, in which case um you know, a temporary uh pay incentive uh for a substitute might work to try to change that for the time being. Uh at least correct the the um ship for a little bit. So, just something to consider. Uh you know, maybe maybe she's right. Maybe it's not all behavior issues, but maybe maybe there is something there. So, um

015I just wanted to uh give credence to that thought. Okay. Thanks. Just a short comment. Um, I think we do have to improve the PR part of it. And there I've talked to some long-term subs, including my wife, who subbed for over 20 years, and there was a change at the middle school as far as discipline's concerned. And she felt like she was supported until the last few years where she felt like you're on your own. And uh, can you write down fresh meat again? But the um true I think if we want to get some of those subs back and recruit new ones, I think we do have to improve the PR and say here's what we're doing with discipline and please come back and give it another try. Great. So yeah. Okay, perfect.

016Thanks for all your comments. Um it expect to hear from it again if not from us fiscal HR full board. Uh so u thanks Jenny. why we had it on there. Awesome. All right, a very very brief update on Act 20. Um, we very very very proud to report about the work that our elementary teachers have done over the summer as it relates to ACT 20. As you know, we purchased the key to literacy training which is mostly online with some facilitated sessions from our literacy coaches. Um, our teachers are should be, and they all are, 59% complete with the online program from the summer work that they did, which means they put in at least 20 hours over the summer to do that. Um, we paid them curriculum pay out of ESER to do

017that, but um, I'm very very proud of the work that they've done with that. We've had some teachers who completed the entire online portion of it, um, which is completely okay. it just frees up some of their time later in the year when we have outlined time for them to work on it on their professional development days. We do have some facilitated sessions remaining. Um, and what I appreciated about the work is that they were able to reflect on our current curricular materials and how that met with um the ideas that were presented in the keys to literacy. Um, to reiterate, there was a lot of appreciation of the training that our literacy coaches have done over the past four or five years. um some of it was repeat, some of it was new. I'm

018a believer that it takes more than once to learn and really understand something and implement it in the classroom. Um so I think it was an amazing opportunity. And then also four of our administrators have completed their training pathways to leadership um for literacy. I know as soon as they they're done because they very excitedly tell me they passed their test. And it is not an easy test. I took the test. I was nervous. Um and I I did pass as well. Um, so we have a few more administrators that need to go through that as well, but it is very, very technical. I will tell you that. Um, so that's exciting news and very pleased that our principal engaged in that over the summer, too, because we all know they don't have time during

019the school year to be doing that when there are kids in the building. And then last but not least, I just wanted to give a little bit of an update on our 4K. Um, right now we have about 160 kids enrolled over 10 sections. Um, we're a little bit lower than we were last year, but I'm be honest with you, we had two more kids enroll yesterday. So 4K is one of those where we kind of get enrollments probably a little bit later. We want them obviously by third Friday so that we can count them. Um, but we're consistent with where we have been postcoid or even maybe a little bit higher than we were postco. Um, we certainly haven't bounced back to where we were precoid. Um, but we're getting there. Um, as a

020reminder, our 10 sections, we have five district full day sections. Two at Webster and then one at Lincoln, one at Douglas, one at SH. The SH one is a dual language program. We work in cooperation with Head Start for two additional full days, meaning the district is responsible for half of the day and Head Start's responsible for the other half of the day. And then we do still have three half-day programs. 100 a.m. at Gingerbread. We had lost them for a year, but they have come back. Now, this will be their second year back with us. And then an amm section over at Douglas. Um, I will say it feels like the five full day are kind of the right fit. For the great most part, we've been able to get someone in a full

021day section if they're interested. We certainly have families that are interested in the half-day program. Um, not quite ready for full day yet for their four-year-old. Um, which is why it's appropriate that we continue to have those half-day programs as well. Um our teachers engaged in the ready setgo conferences. Um we do something called the ASQ screening which is a developmental screening that is completed by parents. Um our hope is that they complete it before their ready set go conference and so that the f the family can discuss with the teacher sort of the results of that. They also share different activities. Um it's broken down into five areas. um fine motor, gross motor, uh oh boy, social emotional, I'm not going to remember them on the spot. We generally see that the fine motor

022is the lowest. Um and so our teachers try to uh incorporate things in the classroom to be able to support um fine motor development. That is a nationwide uh pattern we've heard from ASQ. There's a lot of theories as to why that's happening. I know in my house when we get out the Play-Doh, it makes a giant mess. But then I also know that it's good for their fine motor. So we try to sweep it up when we're done. Um our curriculum, we're using bridges math just like um in 5K through fifth grade. We're doing portions of FMP classroom. Heard and jolly Phonics again to build into that 5K program. Handwriting without tears is a program we use. It's also that fine motor piece. And then the pyramid model which I've talked a little bit

023about which is that framework um for that social emotional development. Um and that leads into the next piece. As you know this year um through the staffing plan we did request um to have what we're referring to as an early learn learning systems coordinator. Um Kayla went is in that position right now. It is a half-time position. We have been working with the foundation to sort of outline very clear goals that we're working on with that position. We kind of broken it down into four areas. One is improved data tracking so that we're really using the information from our 4K program um to make decisions about having kids prepared for kindergarten. Um increasing and improving on our pyramid coaching. So Kayla is what we consider our internal pyramid coach. So she is going into classrooms

024and providing feedback to our early childhood and 4K teachers on implementation of pyramid. Um increasing inclusive three-year-old setting um options. Um when we looked at our data, we noticed that our students with disabilities were not as successful in 5K and in first grade. And we know that inclusive settings is a great way to increase their skills. So that's something that she'll be working on. Um, and then the other thing that we noticed from examining our data is that our students that are multilingual learners tend to do better in first grade literacy if they have been engaged in our 4K program. Um, but we feel like we're missing a portion of the population. And so really engaging our um, multilingual learner families um, into our 4K program. So those are the four main goals that Kayla

025will be working on in her position. It is a halftime position. funded through the district using a couple of different grants. I am going Sarah and I are going on Friday to make a request to the foundation to expand her position to a 1.0 position. So, it would be funds through the foundation to expand her to a full-time position. Um, we have some pretty aggressive goals. Um, we are concerned that we won't be able to accomplish them in the same way that she is in a part-time position. So, I will keep you up to date on that. We are hopeful that the foundation is willing to consider funding that. A big piece of what the foundation does is focus on those early learning um specifically to be prepared for kindergarten. Um so we're really hopeful

026that they are willing to engage um with that work. So that was just my update about any questions about that. So, with Kayla's position, that's a if it's funded through grants and now we're looking through the foundation, is it a year-to-year kind of thing that we're looking at? Is it this year and then we're hoping to figure something out more long-term kind of trial by fire? Can you Right now, we have um grant money for two years that we have secured. We know of. We're using some dollars from the state, mental health dollars. Um and so we know that we have those for two years that we can spend. The foundation always encourages us to um have our plan to continue that when their dollars uh dis dissipate. Um, and I think that first goal

027with like really focusing on data, I mean, if we can make a case that this is making a difference and the supports are really helping us um with early literacy and literacy scores in first grade, um, then that would be something that we would have a conversation about including um, in our regular budget. Kayla is aware of that. anytime we do a grant-f funded position, we make folks aware of that that it's not necessarily a forever position, but it's a let's see what we can do to make it work. So, good question. And the foundation has made multi-year I want to say grants promises, but rarely that I'm aware of have they ever been in a lot of times they're two and three years depending on what the situation is, whether it's the dental clinic

028or whether it's other, you know, activities. So maybe they would do it for more than one year, but uh it it's case by case and depends on what you request. So possibly you could request the health foundation to do two years, but they may say no or they may say we'll review it annually. I mean so uh but it's not uh unprecedented to do multi-year. Typically they've done two years for us, which has been great. And then they're very open to having that conversation again to continue. Thank you. Um any questions for Jenny on any of those items? Do we have a plan to reach those multilingual kids that we're not reaching? So that is one of the things that we have outlined. Um we feel strongly about making connection with the I'm always calling

029it the large family center because that's what it was when I was on the board. But um family connection, thank you. Um, I think it's important for us to understand why families choose to come to us and maybe why they don't come choose to come to us. Um, I think it's important for us to emphasize that being um, fluent in your native language uh, makes it far more likely that you'll learn a second language. And so really emphasizing that home language is important to us here in the district. we have um some out some plans to do like what we're going to refer to as rounding with the families that are with us to say why did you choose to come with us and then if they have any connections with families who are not

030with us. Um so that's kind of our our our um direction there. We're working closely with Ashley Py with that as well because it's nice she's a Spanish speaker um so it's a little bit easier to connect with families. I my high school Spanish teacher was right. I should have stuck with it. So, okay. Uh, anything else on those three topics? Okay. Uh, one item you uh you alluded to, Jenny, and um I don't want to take it up on ed services just yet, but that's ready, set, go. Yes. And then also as it relates to the calendar which is typically an HR activity but it gets approved by the board in December. And uh I'll I think I'll quote Tony on this and he used the term vestage. Both ready set go and a

031full week off for Thanksgiving are vestigages of the co year. Uh they weren't here before 2020 and many people don't believe that they should remain after CO. Um, on the flip side, I was in a separate meeting unrelated to the school and on the parting shot as we were walking away, they're like, "Oh, by the way, I had my ready, set, go conference last night and I loved it." Okay, just so you know. Okay, so there there is still some positives, but those are positives which tend to be for people who don't have middle school kids caring for their elementary kids and then there ends up be a split household where you got to figure out how to get, you know, junior at home but, you know, senior at school. And so we we beat

032this thing. We beat this horse to death through board and committee. I'd really be interested though if you could bring that back up to central office, talk about it amongst your admin team, bring in the principles. I'm not talking about a full survey and report back to us and a board presentation and all those questions and all the we've fine-tuned it. I think about as best as it might ever be fine-tuned. In which case, if that's what it is, it is. But I've also heard some uh people in in staff saying, you know what, they think it's going to sunset kind of on its own and kind of gradually disappear. And so if it does, well, we want to make sure that we're all on the same page before the calendar comes out in December

033where it's still on the calendar. Um and then also take a look at those three days before Thanksgiving, too, because that just it's still a head scratcher to me. But that's a separate item. But anyway, um, so Lori, I'm trying to remember. Do you do some kind of questionnaire or survey? So I'm assuming that's being looked at and then maybe that'll give you if there's something that needs to change, I think you'll be able to get that from the people that are actually involved in it. Right. And I'm going to meet with the elementary principal on Thursday to talk about it. I threw it out on the calendar. I mentioned to Margaret that was a part of a calendar discussion and she did remind me that it's an ed services discussion goes at services but

034the calendar is HR and then that's why it's kind of goofy that they they're separate and I so it's all good. Um but I did reach out we are going to meet on Thursday where it's fresh in everyone's mind. I'm not sure that we'll do a full survey. Um I think to your point we have tweaked over the years we've shortened it. Um, one of the things that they have done in the past typically is that running record. Oh, here comes Margaret because she hears us talking about ready, set, go is not a a topic on the calendar that is meeting Thursday again. uh but the week of Thanksgiving as a scheduled period of time off is part of the discussion and there's a couple uh committee members here and we will take that back

035to the group and we'll be that will will be included as part of the survey to parents uh staff and students and one other piece that came out of HR just as the reminder is there were some parameters that were set and One of the parameters that came moving forward is no double digit June days. Yeah. So with that, you can't go to June 14th. So that may graduation pushing things back. So that's going to um in many cases shrink down that just because they're putting a a cap on the last day. Yeah. And and the calendar, I'll say, is decidedly not at services. And I'm glad that there's committee members on it, which I didn't even know which committee members. I'm not. But um I know that the surveys are done. I I'd like

036to hear a report on it. I mean, excuse me. Uh Ready Set Go. Uh maybe next time if not October, November. Uh if we're already Am I doing my math right? Next time. Next time would be October. Yeah, not October, November. Uh just upstream of the calendar, which is traditionally December. And I don't think that you're going to get a lot of push back one way or the other because we have fine-tuned it enough. But I still want to make sure it's being effective and being used and and every I mean the majority of the people are getting something out of it and that we're not just doing it because we've always done it that way because obviously that's not the case. We haven't done it that way. So um I'm looking to see the

037growth in it. You know we looked at it a couple years and okay we will then be at years three, four or five. So, we should be almost to that running stage, not fumbling through, well, maybe we try this or how do we do that or maybe we should try this. Yeah. You know, I'm looking to see we started here, now we've grown to this. Good. Put that in the action item section for a future topic. And uh that can probably just be a director's report uh unless there's a lot of meat with the discussion uh that you want to bring some uhbody in for a full presentation, but otherwise I'd put it part of the director's report next time or the November one. Okay. Appreciate it. Perfect. Yeah. And I appreciate that because I

038know there was like a year or two where it came to the ED service really late and there was really no time to make any kind of adjustments. So I appreciate that we're kind of trying to stay on on track with those. Good. Perfect. Thank you. Every once in a while. Perfect. All right. Abid update. Um I know there has been some discussion and actually discussion through the substitute teaching piece as well about engaging uh volunteers and families in our school. Um I have had some conversations with Leanne. Leanne, as you know, is our instructional coach at the middle school and also is our AVID site coordinator. Um and so I will turn it over uh to Leanne to talk a little bit about um our AVID goal and how that relates to volunteers in

039our school. Yeah. Um so RMS so kind of backing up a couple of pieces. So we have a regional director with AVID who comes in and kind of helps guide us through some fidelity check pieces twice a year. in the fall and then again in the spring to give both RMS and the high school kind of guidance about what seemed to be the major hurdles, what seemed to be the pieces that she would recommend us fine-tuning. She helps guide the work with summer institute like here are the classes or the strands that your people should be engaging with. Here are the people she would recommend sending to summer institute. And so kind of working with her to kind of sit down and figure out where are our gaps to be able to help us move

040forward um both as specific sites or buildings and as a district overall. And so from that work and from our summer institute work um we came up with two goals for Riverside this year. Um so one is that uh Riverside will intentionally use Ricker strategies and instructional planning and classroom practice so that a 100% of students will participate verbally in classes every day. So helping increase that student voice. Um rigorous engagement was one of the key pieces that we saw was um something that might be lacking within our building. Like just helping students have more of a voice in the classroom as opposed to like a staff member like acting as sage on the stage and just like delivering lecture content. We were recognizing that we were losing some students. Um, and then the secondary

041goal there, by the end of the 24-25 school year, Riverside Middle School will meet the benchmarks for AVID schoolwide as identified by the AVID CCI. So, the CCI is our kind of like accreditation fidelity check tool to be able to say like are we doing what we need to do in the mind of AVID? And there's a continuum for every single metric. Um, and we recognized after filling out the CCI last year that we were just shy as a middle school of reaching AVID schoolwide. Um, and so down below you'll see like we recognized that there were some areas of need um that we are working to address to hopefully um be AVID schoolwide this year. Um like and when I say AVID schoolwide, so we are doing AVID practices schoolwide, but it's like the

042big comp and circumstance recognition from the AVID company to be able to say like you are truly embodying AVID practices across every facet of your of your building. And so being able to get that recognition has been a goal since our onset. Um we have wanted to be able to strive to do that. And so our three areas of need that were recognized the last time um was that our RMS elective classroom participation in AVID wicker strategies needed to increase. They are our teacher created content and so being really intentional about putting in AVID strategies is a lot harder because their lesson plans live in their minds a lot of the time like gone like they're not writing them down because we're dealing with Betchman teachers. And so we recognized that in those environments a

043lot of the times like our AVID strategies were lacking. And so having an intentional focus, we took AVID elective teachers to summer institute this year to really make sure that they were trained and felt comfortable with AVID practices. Um we created a school improvement committee out of our elective folks. So, our elective team works um uh multiple times a month to sit down and reflect on what avid strategies are in place in their spaces to be able to say, "Hey, if this is working in my art classroom, could it work in your FIAD classroom? Could it work in band or choir?" And so being able to share those pieces um and receiving that ongoing professional development with best practice strategies so that we see that increase um in all classrooms, not just our core where

044our adopted curriculums like were adopted because they aligned with AVID practices. We wanted to really bulk that up in our elective rooms as well. Can you just clarify one second because at one point you said AVID elective and another it was just elective. So, so our I want to make sure we're not talking about just the cohort group versus So, I just want to make sure there's clarity. Correct. So, our AVID elective classroom completely separate entity, not part of this update at all. Like they are rocking like it is an expectation that this lives and breathes in there and that has been happening. I just wanted to make sure there was one point where you said AVID electives. So, I just wanted to make sure that we're okay. Yes. And so here, yes, being clear,

045all of our other electives across the building, our band, our um FIAD, our health, our, you know, art classrooms, all of those pieces really helping them find a home within AVID strategies that will help um bring their subjects maybe to greater engagement for students through some different practices. Yes, thank you for that clarification. And so in order to meet the benchmark for AVID schoolwide, we have to be able to say yes, it's living in our AVID elective. We have been checking that box since the day we started our AVID journey as a district. Um our AVID core class or like our core classrooms then engaging with AVID practices. We have truly been living that since we've adopted different curriculums where that's just become second nature and that's ingrained in their practices. And now we're seeing,

046okay, our next area of need is truly our general elective classrooms because it's teacher created content. Um, and so that was one big area of need. And so we're addressing that. We feel very confident with that. Um, the second area of need was pre-colgate exams. And so AVID wants students to be like college and career ready and being able to see themselves as being able to be um, collegebound should they make that choice for themselves. And so AVID asked that we are engaging in pre-colgiate exams um or rigorous exams to be able to use as benchmark assessments for students to be able to watch their own progress. And so um new this year thanks to the help from Jason Bull and his team we are enacting the preac for our eighth graders. And so removing

047that star test that wasn't necessarily giving us all of the data that we could possibly need to be able to see that bigger picture. We are doing the preac this year to be able to see does that give us a better indicator for forward performance? Does that give us more indication for how we can help students um earlier on be able to kind of um work through their journey with us? And so that will be new. We will be embarking on that um here at the end of September. um administering the preac for our students and then disseminating the data that comes from that and being able to compare what did we use to get with star and what is preac providing us and we are confident that what preac is going to provide us

048will give us more direction for forward than what star was giving us it's going to give us more actionable detail um and so that we're going to be able to check that box um so we're very excited about that and this tutor piece is where maybe you guys come in because this is the biggest um hurdle that we have yet to overcome within our AVID elective classroom. Now um one of the expectations within our AVID elective classroom is that students are engaging in tutorials. And so one of the pillars of AVID is that you are taking students who need more of a challenge and need to be pushed with more rigorous content. So, we are asking them to engage in honors classes, in AP classes, where maybe they would have shied away from those in

049favor of like, I'm going to just do really well in my general ELA class. Now, we're saying, no, we're going to push you and you're going to take that AP class and you're going to fall back to your AVID elective classroom within tutorials to be able to help you feel confident with the work that you're engaging with in your classes. And so, um, tutors have been really, really hard to get at the middle school level in particular because the high school has the benefit of being able to use cross-age tutors. They align their AVID classes and so the higher level AVID students can tutor the lower level AVID students like it works that way pretty easily. Um, but they like tap each other out as resources and so the middle school hasn't been able to

050benefit from that as much. And so those tutorial sessions we offer um at the middle school. It's once on Fridays and so that where you can see this fun little flyer. I make copies of those flyer for you to give to all your friends and family. So I will pass those around. Yes, please like circulate them at will. Um so we're talking a 42minute class period on Fridays. um where um I think when you hear tutor a lot of the time I think the perception in general outside of AVID academia is like I have to be really knowledgeable about a topic and I am coming and imparting my wisdom to students who need help with that. In the AVID elective classroom you function as a facilitator of a discussion. You are not seen as the

051expert. The point of an avid tutor is h like helping to have that avid student find the answer within themselves. So you need to be trained in asking really good questions of them, helping direct them back to resources they might have at their disposal because ideally right the idea of the tutorial system is preparing them for should they choose to go to a 4-year institution. These students then could be seen as the leaders of like discussion groups and t like tutoring sessions within their college setting to help them engage in their own content. And so giving them practice as I am in the driver's seat of my own instruction and I need to take some ownership here, but having an adult or a a higher learned person being able to come in and help guide

052them in their own questioning to help them find the answer for themselves. And so our tutors likely will not know the content and that is just fine. Like you would be trained in the avid processes so that you understand the practices that students are engaging with. um you are trained in higher level questioning like so that you know how to ask students those questions to find the answers for themselves. Um but ultimately like that tutorial session runs with like you in the background taking notes for the person who is like asking the question like so that they when they finish their questioning session they have some notes taken by you. Um but ultimately like it would serve to you would serve as a facilitator in that. And so we're making requests of the school board,

053of the chamber of commerce, of our parent volunteers to be able to get some adult tutors in our AVID classrooms on those Fridays from 7:45 to 8:30. Um, just know that um you would not have to sign up for every Friday all school year long. In a perfect world, we would have five tutors in the room every Friday. And that could change. So um if Lori Holland says, "Yes, I really want at this get me into that AVID classroom." But I know that I could only make the, you know, two Fridays a month. There would be a schedule created where Lori could go in and put her name down on the Fridays that work for her. And so we would love to be able to get your help. Um because this is a piece where

054we currently are checking does not meet. And so by checking that does not meet box, we will not meet AVID schoolwide because we are not adhering to one of the key pillars of the AVID elective classroom. Um, by doing that, when we were in COVID, we had virtual tutors. It was kind of a mess. Like, it worked for what it was, but it was like a college student on a Zoom screen trying to like help facilitate a discussion with, you know, six middle school students. Like, that was just really hard. Um, and so coming out of COVID, um, we haven't done virtual tutors just because it wasn't ideal for what we needed. And so, we're finding ourselves just like lacking in that area. And I think this is another great opportunity to show off the

055amazing middle school students. I know you said a little bit PR issue. This would be an incredibly engaging opportunity for our community. These kids are highly motivated. I just love going into the AVID elective classroom. Um they're excited, they're interested, they're engaged. Um it's 7:45 in the morning, so it's right before you leave. if you want to do it before you go to work, if you have a typical 9-to-five type job. Um, I think it would be a great opportunity for folks to see the amazing things that are happening in our middle school. Um, and you get to work within all the different content areas, too. So, they may have a math question or science question, and you don't need to know the math or the science to be able to answer the question, as

056Leanne said, you just need to be able to support the process. So, so in a perfect world world, we would be looking to train folks here at the end of September, like kind of take them through some training so they feel confident going into the tutorial process. Um, at the beginning of October, like the first couple of Fridays in October, doing some relational capacity strategies with the tutors in the AVID elective classroom, so you know them and they know you and you feel comfortable working together. Um, in the official tutoring process, like the first tutorials are typically the middle of October, like in the teens in October based off of like the AVID curriculum when that falls. Um, so that's kind of what we would hope to be able to get accomplished in that amount

057of times. Um, question. I think I heard you say that in the high schools they help each other. This older AVID students help the younger aid students. Is that what you said? Okay. and that opportunity doesn't exist or just the there's no bandwidth because they've already got in all their hours up there or they they've done what they needed to do or done what they could do in the high school and it's difficult to get the scheduling piece that like when they are all scheduled to be in class at the like they try to schedule their AVID classes at the same time to facilitate that so that seniors can be in the nth grade classrooms like and vice versa by the time that they are seniors they're running collaborative study groups so they are no

058longer like needing an outside tutor to come in. They are being trained on truly how to facilitate themselves. But like yes, they are tutoring down and so they just don't have the time in their schedule to then also come to the middle school to be able to provide that. Okay. And not to go too deep down that rabbit hole, but uh being on the teched uh what do you call it? Jesse calls it the uh teched partnership, the industry partnership. Getting people from the from STEM and or Skills USA from the high school down to the middle school with a science cart has been something I've always been very high on. But if it's not in their schedule, then it's not in their schedule. But it would be a development opportunity for potentially a credit

059for a a senior or a junior and also inspire a lot more RMS kids to get involved in STEM if it was possible. But that gets to be more of a is it possible to even do it in the schedule? And if it's not because they just don't have the electives and they don't have the time and they don't have the transportation and they don't have it's only Fridays and it's what yeah well and it's only Fridays that that's I there's an opportunity there to develop seniors who are already at their band. I mean, presentation and leadership skills are not something that automatically comes with an education. And yet, it's critical in a professional world and to develop that in our seniors or our juniors is a great way to develop that if we could

060get them in front of more middle schoolers. And so, it's it's free labor. That is what you're saying. And I I don't know if there's a Yeah. just there's an untapped resource there that we we do ourselves a disservice by limiting it in which case if we wanted to open it up and I already sent this out to the 20 members of the yes group so they they'll get this flyer we'll talk about at next month's meeting um and they're all ready to help the community so we'll see how many we actually test um so yeah I don't need the paper ones the electronic one already went out but uh I just mentioned the high school so if there's something there quick clarification question the preac was that done. I've gotten that for both of

061my kids, ninth and tth grade. So now we're just pushing it back a year. So then we actually would have one more year of longitudinal data in there. I just want to it's preact secure is part of the act suite that we don't have option on. This is similar but we we engaged in it versus being told to do it. Yes, the answer to that. Yes, but it's we have one more year of longitudinal. So, it's not like we go eighth grade take star and then what do you do with it? At least here now, oh, we have something we can do with it as they move to high school. So, there's better usually take the star at 8th grade. We take it three, we did take it three times a year. So, September, January,

062and then again in May. And is the prec? Would it make sense to do it a little bit? I I I'm not I was just curious why we were using like our benchmark assessment so that we could give that data to our teachers like in the same way that STAR was functioning in some sort of that same capacity to be able to say to our science teachers, right? Our science teachers haven't gotten feedback about science performance for students. And so having that data, they're going to be taking an actual test to say here are the skills and the knowledge that our students are coming with. And so how can we use Amplify, right, our adopted curriculum to really meet students where they're at in ways that we have not been able to prior. That makes

063sense. Thank you. And they give teachers that concrete data because the results that parents get is just here's where we project if you you continue on this trajectory here is where you can anticipate as an ACT score. So at least they have they are broken down by standard like we will get all of that information. students then somehow get that as well. That's typically part of okay the the class experiences. Do we also need Spanish speaking uh tutors in our AVID elective classroom? Typically no. Okay. Okay. So Leanne on here you have next steps recruit and train tutors. We've talked about that. Train staff. You're taking care of that. And then next reporting period when do you want? I know typically I have presented to you presented to you twice. once kind of in the

064fall. Well, it has been asked for a fall. I think most of the time I show up sometime in like January or February. It's like, hey, let's move that earlier. So, here I am. September. Yay. Um, and so presenting to you guys now. And then when would you like an update next? Is just like when would you like to get it on the books so that I can make one, is there anything else you need from us except for to help recruit and train tutors? I mean, it sounds like you have the rest of the house in order uh inside the walls. So getting more tutors is is a part of this success path. Yep. Okay. And there's and that's the ask. Yeah. There's no there's no curriculum. There's no uh money. There's no changing

065my face and it's like a money request. No, this is not that. I'm just clarifying that there's I'm just asking make sure there's nothing else in here that we're missing. and then obviously some of that preac stuff will start funneling into Jason and Chris Chris thank you Chris Malloy um and then we'll at some point obviously it's not longitudal if it's only one data point but uh that's a good start okay so um when would we like an update I don't know well I have two actually one is kind of I know it was mentioning I don't know who it was Margaret we were talking about the what you say she's listening and that Avid is always asked looking for volunteers and I was curious if there's more volunteer work you're looking for from the

066AVID families or was this really the only thing you were the big okay because she kind of made it sound like oh they're always looking for help and I didn't know we would welcome you in at any point right like you want to come on a college visit with us you want to come and help with our career fairs and all of that like we will take volunteers at any point but like true hands-on meeting some of the district-wide goals that we have had around um our AVID journey and trying to get where we're hoping to go. Like this was the key piece that's like truly preventing us from getting there. Okay. And then my second is I would be interested I'm just speaking for myself to more know more what happens at the high

067school level like what are what's how's that going? Because I know at least you know for instance my niece is now a freshman. So, what does that look like? We hear a lot at the middle school and I've been involved and I see what's going on at the middle school. I'm kind of more curious, okay, now they're at the high school. What does that look like? How is our, you know, because we really want to keep these students throughout the high school. I want to like to know how those goals are being reached or what were what hiccups or whatever that looks like. Well, not just the AVID elective at the high school, but I'm sorry. Not just AVID elective at the high school. You're talking Yeah. Are we are we putting AVID in at

068the high school outside of the elective and what does that look Yeah. So over and beyond. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And um we're excited. As you know, we have an instructional coach at the high school at this point. Sam Kari Leanne and Sam are working closely. Sam is also the uh avid site team coordinator. Um and so I do expect that we'll have uh some progress to report. In fact, we mentioned that to the Sim yesterday as well. You know, over the years, you've heard of little things that have kind of changed at the high school level. So, I'd just be curious to hear more and we can do the same thing where they're sharing what their goals are and what not to do at the high school level. Terrific. So, good. One final piece

069I just want to make sure to point out like you brought to mind our family night. So, our first family night, you'll get an email from me also. Um, Thursday, September 26th is going to be our official like AVID induction for our eighth grade students. Our big signing ceremony welcoming all the families. Um, it's a pizza night. Um, so feel free, we would love to see you if you want to see what does that look like to welcome our AVID students and kind of get them on board with the process and see what the families see. Um, so Thursday, September 26th from 6:00 to 8 at RMS. um that takes place typically in our LGI. Um as always, I will send you guys emails with our um updated anytime we have a family night. I

070know there were some questions about so are you guys now officially on the mywd train also or are you Watertown K? So I know last year like there's a group created for you guys called schoolboard at my WUSD that sends it to all of you. um fun on the back end, but like not fun when it's not reaching the inboxes that you prefer from last year. And so um I will make sure to use that um my WUSD email address to be able to communicate with you guys so that you know when our family nights are and we would love to have you. So I would like to just add a comment. If you have not gone to one, I would recommend it if you are interested. It really gives you some insight on the

071family that they're building with those kids. And granted, my niece was there last year, but even beyond I enjoyed it beyond Angel like right like I I think it's really I would recommend going at least a lot. I would like to go like the beginning and then the end is the beginning. So they do that because I think that's important. So my email address is on there. If you know people who want to be tutors, have them reach out and I will talk through next steps in terms of what's what does that training process look like and get it set up. It's with me. So, it's not some scary big thing like it's us sitting down and kind of guiding you through how to engage with middle schoolers so they don't seem scary um and

072being able to help um guide some higher level questioning within them. So, thank you for some pretty scary folks in this picture. I know. Don't they look really intimidating in their hard hats getting work done? Yes. Yeah, I would let you. Yep. I will email you. Okay. All right. Yep. Um, so our next topic is our advanced learning handbook. Um, I will introduce to you Stacy Bargain. Many of you are very familiar with Stacy. She is in her second year now as our advanced learning coordinator here in the district. um huge kudos to her because I believe over the last year she's made some um pretty big improvements in our advanced learning programming for our students. Um we know that from our audit communication with families um and then also some certain areas of giftedness

073that we needed to be able to address. Um and that is one project that she has been working on. Um when we started this journey of creating a a guide book or a handbook I should say for AL learners advanced learning um students um we kind of broke it into two areas. One is there was sort of a if I will refer to a technical handbook that had been um started and worked on previously with our previous coordinators who were also principles which made it very tricky. Um, and Stacy felt very strongly that that was full of educational ease and maybe not the most userfriendly. Um, as a result, she did create like a family advanced learning guide um, which uh, got rid of some of the education ease in there to make it uh,

074more user friendly for our families to make it a better uh, understanding of the process. Um, and we also felt uh very strongly that we have sort of our technical guide behind it um for our staff for families that might be interested um that outlines some more of the specific uh tools that we're using uh some of the data that we're looking at some of what the processes look like. Um and so that's what you see before you today is uh drafts of both of those. Um, I did have this on as a presentation versus a discussion. At this point, I wasn't sure if you would be ready to move forward with that with a a board vote in September. Um, so I did leave it as a presentation, but if after today you have

075discussion, um, and you'd like us to move it to that or whatever our next steps might be with that. Um, so Stacy, I will turn it over to you if there are other comments that you want to make. Um, I do apologize. I will say I got the agenda out a little later than I had anticipated. I will blame that on the beginning of the school year and how busy we are and also that Labor Day is on Monday. Um, so I apologize I didn't get this out to you guys until Friday morning. Typically I try to get it out by Thursday at noon. So I know you might not have had the amount of time to look at it as you uh would typically be able to do that. So Stacy, I will turn

076that over to you. Okay. So, um yeah, first of all, uh the advanced learning family guide was um is basically what it says. I wanted to put in there as as just a parent myself. Um I having had two kids that have completed K12 education and two that are in high school right now. I was looking at this as a lens of what would I want to know if it were my child going through the school district and receiving services or that I felt deserved services or wanted services. Um what would be useful? And so that's what this is, trying to put it um in a way that would be useful for parents and hopefully somewhat visually appealing and um so yeah, I just have general resources in there and then at the end information

077on the advanced learning team. It's fairly brief and if parents wanted to know more then they could contact us. But at least it gives parents something that's a little bit hands-on that they can look at and get more information. Any questions specific to the family guide? Dan, I know you have worked really closely. I do. And my question is the questions I have get in the weeds. I have been so involved in the advanced learner stuff. I mean, the handbook I've spent a ton of time in prior to Stacy coming. I know that up, down, left, right, in, out. My questions are more technical. So if the group I only have like three or four for each. If the group wants to hear those, great. If for the sake of time and efficiency, I've connected

078with Stacy regularly anyway. That's not a big deal. It's what would the group like to do. That's up to you because I know we're supposed to be hovering here and some of these go down a little bit. So I don't have any detailed questions on this. I'm here as a recipient of the information because I'm not as involved as you. So feel free to ask questions that you think would educate us if that's the same opinion of Sam. So if we can jump to page 11 of the parent guide or the family guide you talk about it's now called amp 56. That's that five six math. Yeah. And and at the elementary level what happens is grades fifth graders get the fifth and sixth grade curriculum. There's always a lag there. you know what was

079missing and whatever. So they've shored that up and then you call it math seven. My question is is it really a math 78? What we learned with the curriculum adoption process is that the curricular standards eighth grade teachers thought hey the the Pythagorean theorem is taught in ninth grade so therefore we don't need to teach it in eighth grade or slope is taught. There are topics in eighth grade that are foundational that eighth grade kicked it to the high school and then they realize, wait a second, it really is an eighth grade topic. So my question is, is what's titled math 7 really supposed to be math 78? And while that might seem just like a technical thing, if we're not making the curricular adjustments that we discovered were lacking, that's a bigger issue. So,

080not necessarily a need for an answer right now, but technically it would be a math 78 class, not just a math 7. And that actually has been addressed on the curricular level, but the that's why it's called accelerated math 7. Accelerated math 7 actually covers essentially the second half of math 7 and all of math 8. Okay. Just want to make because as a parent reading it, it doesn't read that. So just taking looking at it through a different lens as a first time through just kind of the question there. It looks like it's just a math seven there a footnote that says accelerate math seven is the second half of seven and all of eight something in there but it just looks like it's a math seven piece. Okay. And then a second question

081um is there an honors or an accelerated English language arts type class? I don't remember what page as it talks about middle school I believe we um started in honors didn't we honors seventh and eighth grade ELA at the middle school this year is the first year that um we are offering that I don't recall seeing anything noted of that in here I can add that in that was added this year and I created this no and that's why looking through it just putting those and then the last thing is the first place that your phone number is listed is page 11. Yes, there's a link early on as an email, but not everybody communicates via email. So, I'm just wondering if you want to have a phone number listed earlier. Thank you. You're welcome.

082That's it for that. That was good stuff. Okay. Yeah, those are great. All right. And I will switch my screen. This will be linked then in on the website, right? So, one thing that we discovered is our website needs some um updating because it has uh information on there that's not accurate. Um and Melissa and Stacy have already connected. Stacy has a fabulous resource um that we're going to work together to get up to date. Yep. I already have a new website like all slated out, all sorts of links, all sorts of everything. we just have to transfer it to the district's like approved format, but everything is completely ready to go. So, that'll be coming as soon as Melissa and I can connect, which may be in a little while. I don't know. Yeah.

083But we uh chuckled when you pull up that and it's uh still the previous coordinator. So, we do need to update that. So, but it's 100% ready to go when there's time to implement it. Perfect. Awesome. All right. And then the second piece is something like I mentioned has been worked on uh for I think years now specifically um which is sort of the ins and outs of uh exactly what the process looks at at um when we're looking to identify a student um areas of giftedness the data pieces that we're using how people can nominate um talks about our our kind of three tiered system um and really goes into sort of the nitty-gritty of Um the details the audience for this would be parents who are interested um definitely teachers obviously uh Stacy

084and her team would be aware of it as well. Um and it has been updated. Uh one thing that I really appreciate Stacy has brought to us is some new and different assessment pieces to look at some different areas. Um she is able to give those assessments which is nice because it takes the load off our incredibly busy school sites. Um, and so, uh, this is what this is. Um, any specific questions? Anything that you wanted to add to that, Stacy? Um, only one thing. After this was published, I went through and made a few minor tweaks. Um, just in a little bit of wording. Um, so what you see there isn't exact, but the the content remains exactly the same. So if you were to notice like if this were to be approved or

085whatever and published, you might notice, you know, very minor like change of parents to families type of thing. So think nobody else does. I have a few. Um um by the way, thank you for your hours and hours and hours of work on this for so many years. This was originally um what I did was I took what you guys had. I looked at all of the remaining limits that had never been addressed addressed. I addressed those and then I collapsed many of the pages that were somewhat repetitive into one. You know, there were three pages that kind of were a little bit repetitive. I collapsed them into one and tried to put the information in all of it into one. So for those of you who are years and years, this never got approved

086through the last strategic plan and the last strategic plan was five years instead of three. So this was a five-year revision process. So I am super excited right now that this is finally coming to fruition. Um the amount of hours spent in the Google Drive and the amount of comments and as I look through I actually when this was here I'm like oh I have my file of that all just went in the burn barrel. So it's like okay check done. Good. So thank you. We should throw a little hearty at home. I know. Um, so one of my overarching questions is this this ALE handbook. This goes back to when my daughter was in second going into third grade and now she's a senior. So the spans of this one of the goals in

087that on page 11 or excuse me, page 16, it talks about um advanced learner parent meetings happening twice a year. I think that happened twice out of the last eight years. Is that something that is that we believe in doing? I know it was left in the handbook because that's what we should be doing. That's what we hope to be doing. Is that now that we have a true advanced learner coordinator here? Is that realistic that we keep in there or is that something that we need to do something a little different with it? Because if it says it's here, it should be happening and then I'm going to look for is it happen? Does that make sense? Well, last year I did one not even knowing that it was in the handbook. Um, this

088year I took it as a mandate and I have on my to-do list to schedule two advanced learner parent meetings. I don't I don't know if that's necessary or not. I think it would be best practice to have um so I am taking it as a mandate. Perfect. The second one is on that same page under program feedback. um a standing committee composed of staff and parents will meet periodically periodically to revise this plan that went about a year and then I was the parent on the standing committee as you kind of work through so and and one of the things is as the parents tried to come in unless you have something regularly happening it the cohesion isn't there so again if that's something that we want to continue with great if not let's

089change the wording that's my only my thought on that is if since it says that it will be reviewed and revised as needed, maybe that could be a part of the, you know, as we do the parent meetings, maybe when strategic plan comes up since this is required to be revised around the time of the strategic plan, perhaps there could be it could be presented as part of the parent meetings and if anyone is interested in revising, feedback could be given at those parent meetings instead of having a separate committee. I think it might be appropriate to have it just be put into those existing parent meetings. What are your thoughts on that? I'm fine with it. The hard part with this handbook, um, I did an exercise with the administrators before and said, "Can

090you find the handbook for me?" And they couldn't find it on the website. And so this is something I've actually suggested that if a parent is part of the advanced learning community that they should be given either the electronic link paper copy or an option to both because there's information here that is very valuable that you don't always get overall. The principles and the teachers have so many things throughout their day. How do they communicate all of these pieces that are there? And some want more information than others. Um, so if people know that it's out there, those who are more willing and able will come forward and those that don't, you know, it gives them that option. And I know we're not basing this on uh special education processes. Some of them are similar.

091I know at the beginning of the year, we send out what we call parent rights to every student um and anytime a kid is evaluated. This could be probably Stacy, you and I could work together. A quick welcome email at the beginning of the year from you with a link to this to every family if they were interested in it. Um, I appreciate that you've gone digital with those because oh yeah, a lot of wasted paper postage to every family. This is this is where I I struggle. Yeah, if it goes to every family, it gets lost in the shuffle. My thing is if they're identified as a tier two or Well, that's what I read. Yeah, that's the only reason I'm saying that is prior to Stacy coming in, every family meant every family

092and it got blasted out to every single family in the district. And then it gets lost in the So I just want to make that's why just clarify. Yeah, it's the same process that I think that we follow with special education, which is all of the current families that are affected in special education and anytime we have a new evaluation coming on in. So um yeah, perfect. Yeah. And one of the things that I worked to do last year was to identify students in Skyward that were identified as tier 2 and tier three. Um, now it turns out there are some problems with that because teachers can't see any of the comments that I entered in Skyward. And so they can't see like how or why a student was identified. Um, and sometimes if a

093student is identified in a single subject area and it's, you know, um, social studies and a teacher can just see that they're identified as gifted and they're not doing so well in math, the teacher doesn't understand why they're not doing so well in math, you know, and so I I' I've been I've asked to work with our Skyward person to um, figure out a way to make that cleaner because right now it's not clean and teachers are like, "What's going on, Mrs. Bargains?" So, as I'm working through that, um, this will become more clear, but I can use that once we get that figured out to, well, even now, I can use that to just blast out that email to parents of students who have been identified because they are tagged in Skyward. So my

094recommendation is to connect with well Kayla's back on staff now but Jason and Kayla because I actually had that request to them three years ago because even with my daughter was identified gifted in math but it only said that she's part of the ALE program and so there's a way in Sky to do that. So they might have already done the heavy lifting. So just check on that to see. Yeah, it's it's already been done but it wasn't in like we have to change how it's been done. Got it. Okay. Um, page 18. Okay. There's a link to advanced learner progress reports. Yes. Are those something that Okay, I already know the answer. I'm not going to ask you a loaded question. Please do. Those No, those progress reports that are here were actually created

095or brought in from the Beaverdam School District with Bill Losman. He was part of the program here. They have been utilized less than 5% of the time in the last five years. There have been issues with those progress reports that the elementary have utilized. There's some elementary language in there than it's from the pull out procedures enrichment stuff. Um the elementary have a much easier means of being able to communicate progress. The reason where this came from through the parent committee groups was for the middle school kids for example that don't have that um they need something more and how are we showing that we're meeting them more at their learning level. High school has more of the honors and advanced kinds of things. So it's to fill that piece and gap. And so the

096where this was left three years ago, two and a half years ago was they were going to work with something different. Elementary might look different than middle school. They might look the same. So, I don't know if this is the best tool or if it's a tool or if it's even being utilized. I know that it was kicked out the last time that it was at committee, but this is the last thing that was present. So, you might do you have anything different in there to suggest? Not that you're holding on to something that you thought we have been using when it really hasn't been. No. Um, this is actually something that we started discussing last year among myself and the AL team that we needed something like this because there was nothing being implemented

097as of last year. And so when I started going through this and revamping it for the AL handbook and I saw this, I said this is actually pretty good for elementary. And so um, we should implement this for elementary pullets. And I just when you said that I amended it to say advanced learning progress report pullouts just now. Um and so you know I wanted to be clear that that is for that. So what are we doing for middle school and high school? I don't know because those are all classbased. And so I should put something in for what do we do for middle school and high school and how does that show? because I would think that that would maybe only show on report cards or you know I that's a good thing that

098I need to give some thought to. It's just something for those families to get feedback because it is in the classroom and so how are we extending that child's learning um beyond yet they're going to and the report card what does that mean they already knew the stuff coming you know um that's a great question I will find a way to address that with the the summary so if we go then to you didn't put 21. There's a link for the summary of advanced learning evaluation findings. [Music] Love this because that it's more detailed than what's ever been there before. Where is this housed? Will it be I mean obviously electronically, but will it also be stored in the file? The reason I'm asking is if there's a student that leaves our district and that's

099happened, do all those things end up leaving or do they do they not go with or if our advanced learner coordinator leaves the district, does it get lost somewhere? No, this should also go in the students paper file. Anytime that there's something paperwork done on a student, the paper should also be in their file so it goes with them. It should be. Yes. Meaning that I will make a copy and put it in there. That's that's my that's what I've been doing for the last decade in this role. No, no, perfect. Um because that hasn't always been happening here. And so I will put that on here as a on the bottom um just so that I know that it is a reminder. I went through this very quickly. I don't recall seeing a link

100to a D, a differentiated educational plan. Is there any again I went through that would be on here services to be offered that is part of that is rolled into this now if they need a D or an acceleration plan then that would be a part of this the advanced learning finding evaluation. I understand that but I'm talking for a parent looking at hey what could I anticipate or expect then that would just be something they wouldn't know any different coming in. So that would make sense. Okay. And then lastly, when we talk about criteria, sorry, I didn't write down where's the page where we talk about the criteria the Okay, starting it's still in that evaluation or that summary of advanced learning findings. What page are you on? How come you're looking at something

101I'm not looking at? So, you have to click on the link on page you have to go to that the link is here. the link in the summary advanced learning evaluation findings. It's on page 20. Click on there. Y and then once you click on that summary of advanced learning findings, it starts on page two where we get into the different types of gifted learners, general, intellectual, specific, academic, etc., etc. one of the as the asterisk there. A minimum of two criteria in one tier are required. So that came from the original. Yep. And that question was still even in that because not all you have it listed under all of them. Not all of them have a ton of criteria to to select from. I'm I'm sorry. What page was that on? So it

102starts on page two and then goes to page three on your summary. What page was it on on the AL doc? The she's in the um evaluation. So like if you look here, right? I'm just trying to figure out what document that is. This is that um the evaluation summary. This your evaluation summary. And I'm sorry. Normally I have all my questions up ahead of time, but I did this Sunday night. I just have to get back to it now. So Okay, I'm there. So when you look at the different so bottom of page two, top of page three under each of those um key areas, the first aspect is a minimum of two criteria in one tier required for identification. Just something to think about like under leadership there aren't a ton of criteria

103and under you know not all of them have that flexibility. So while consistency is key I understand that it kind of we're not quite there yet is just a thought or as it develops criteria and for the good of the committee up until she came we didn't have criteria for leadership or creative thinking. So there's huge progress. I'm not saying this to be overly critical. It's just another set of eyes. And I know you and I get that. So that's a really good point. I removed it because and it doesn't even differentiate within the tiers. It's just you know what the committee of teachers or whatever where they place it in. Yeah. That's all I have. Thank you for all of your work on this. Next steps. Does the committee feel like you want to

104move forward? we can make it a resolution to adopt and I would say the not the advanced learning family guide but the actual handbook is it something we want to bring back with the corrections at a later date I can do it as a part of a director update or something like that and move that a little bit further um I have no problem with the advanced learner family guide is that what you said that uh this one I would say this probably doesn't need necessarily board resolution that's what I was going to Does it need board resolution? I don't think so. Okay. Yes. The handbook. Well, even the handbooks are and I'm Craig's still on. We we have that all the time with policy and administrative guidelines and then then employee handbooks is that

105we govern the policies and then from the policies flow handbooks and administrative guidelines. We have to be aware of them, but they don't need necessarily resolutions to approve them. But it's implicit that we're involved. So resolution maybe not awareness definitely but that that frees up some opportunity to edit them and accommodate like Diana just said oops we left out a word well right now if you leave out a word in policy it has to go back through policy if you leave out a word in administrative guideline or in a handbook I think you should have the freedom to change it without having to go through the board but go ahead I thought that's changed I thought we do need to approve that handbooks but I could be this has And I got a new policy,

106one of the new policies. Craig, can you maybe answer to that? I think I think handbooks have to be approved, but I want to double check on that. Okay. I can't remember. I know. I know we've had discussion. I believe in one of the new NEOA policies that we have been working through. I thought it had been decided that that was going to because they're now going to also be on board or on board docs. Yes. Handbooks attached to policies or more guidance. And I don't know, handbooks, guidelines, it gets really confusing. Exactly. So I I uh I don't know, Jenny, if it's ready. Yeah. If it's ready, at some point we'll have to, you know, put it out there and go into first read and second read if that's if that's where if that's

107our new standard. But we didn't do that with the handbook. But it's a Nunola policy which hasn't even technically do it yet, right? We're not there yet. the resolution on the special education one last month. Yeah, that's so you did. You're right. So, I think we are trying to It's not going to hurt anything. I was going to say if I do appreciate the point of like our assessments changed um and it was nice to be able to go there and fix that without having to bring it back everyone because we looked at the assessments. I will work with Jared. If Jared says yes, we should bring it to a resolution. Are you comfortable with us bringing it to resolution with those updates in September? Okay. Unless Sam, you had a question. Uh sorry, I

108just wanted to say um just one point about the uh parent family guide uh on page seven under social emotional complexity uh parental resources for social emotional topics. I would personally encourage you to remove castle as a resource. I don't think Castle is reliable or respectable because of um certain initiatives that they're associated with. I would I would maybe keep it to Seth Broer's website and understood.org from what I know of those. Um, but besides that, I think I think it looks good. Okay. Thank you. My wonder about with that is I know it does have some resources and these are resources specifically for a parent to make a a decision on. Um, so some discussion about removing reference to cast. I'd have to yeah I mean resources are resources and parents can pick resources

109that they want to pick. So the fact that we allude to it and the teacher or the the parent can use it right without necessarily being sponsored. But I Sam which page and which uh that's uh that's page seven. I just you know if um I would say uh I would say that if there were a um an organization that was kind of a child organization of say Scientology I wouldn't want to include them. And in the same way I wouldn't want to include Castle because of the organization that they come from the PZER Institute. uh is something that I would be uh something that I would be remiss to not mention. I'm just going to I understand what you're saying. Scientology probably not the best example because it's religious based. Do you know what

110the Feeter Institute is? So with it with the what? The Fetcher Institute. They're the ones that created Castle. Uh here initute. No, but I mean send it to me. We can look at it at another point in time. Yeah, they're just spiritual path forward healing and hope creating a spiritual foundation for a secular world. They're a spiritual organization. The Feter Institute is, and they're the ones that created Castle. That's why I encourage people to move away from that. So, because we said we didn't necessarily need the board approval for the parental um guide book, um I think that can be a discussion at a different point. Um, we'll move forward with if we need a resolution for the advanced learning handbook. Um, and we'll touch base with Jared on that piece. Thank you. So, Jenny,

111one added piece. Yes. A while ago, someone over here asked me to kind of keep bringing this to the surface. So, I um regarding handbooks, um, well, it wasn't regarding handbook. Hey, remind me because I won't remember. Do we have a place where we've kind of started a list of handbooks so that way we have a process or something moving forward that okay store them and well not just store but as we look in oh yeah so we get it on a calendar that we're not looking at six of them in a month or oak we're now at November and this should have been done so just kind of getting a process through I mean we've looked at three or four now in the last three four five months and last month we talked about

112the curriculum calendar longterm but that was more year to year, not month to month, but you're talking more just that we get something in a cadence. Yeah. And moving forward is all I really appreciate the director update piece because it's kind of a nice spot to put things like that like if we have to make changes with assessment or something along those lines. So, okay. All right. Um that's good. Um action item was the ready, set, go we talked about. Um Jenny, you will of course review andor andor Sarah and Jason. um the calendar uh to see if there's anything else that we would normally review in October related to curriculum or scores or anything that we're doing going forward to stay on pace with budget and etc etc as spending. These are all things

113that we developed a calendar three years ago to make sure that we didn't get surprised and had to rush something through. I'm not aware of anything but that doesn't mean that there isn't anything. So let's just review that calendar for October. Yep. Um committee members, uh when Jenny runs it by me, I usually interact with her, go iterate a little bit and then I send it out to you for comments. Uh hope that that's it's not always I don't want to say timely. I try to get it to you at least two to five days before it goes to the paper, but uh you you do get it. So um and uh yeah, otherwise besides a director's update on ready, set go if it's appropriate for October. Otherwise, any other action items? Um I think

114we're anticipating a live year media team update. Um uh anticipating a summer school research study update. Yes. Um and then definitely I had a note revisit the assessment calendar. Jason, you and I haven't even talked about if we want to put that on for October or not because I know we talked about that in August and it was still a little drafty draft. Um I believe you have now essentially finalized that. We'll need one for for the summer school. Jenny, I'd like to on that one. Let's make sure that we get that to you at least two weeks prior uh to the ed services meeting and then I'd like to see a rough presentation of that because sometimes there's questions that just don't get answered when it's presented to us. Sure. Um so if there's

115indepth more detailed, I'd like this team to see that well ahead of time. Okay. So that additional questions can be asked and answered uh and maybe even the full board on that subject just because it has been a subject of what is summer school in our district and what is it supposed to be. So I don't want it to seem like the presentation next month is going to be the definitive uh this is we're done talking about it. So let's get that information out to us at least two weeks ahead of time to make sure that it's a productive conversation. Yep. Thank you. the one that I had maybe more fiscal but it's kind of wrapped into this. We're coming to the end of the time frame with er dollars correct and so there have

116been things that have been delineated through educational kinds of things. Um maybe we is that September 30th September it's September 24 and I don't know what fiscal talking about um as far as are all the dollars spent. I know that most of them been earmarked. Uh but I don't know if there's I don't think there's anything else left for us to do ed services. I I'm sure Sarah's got some a couple more dollars to move from one fund to another and maybe one more purchase. I just want to make sure that through our purchases through things that we've delineated for educational kinds of things just that we've done that that we don't miss it because things are crazy busy in this month. So maybe a summary of what ESRE dollars that were spent through ED

117services. That'd be useful. Yeah, a summary of that would be good. Okay. And assuming that October isn't too late to I mean if there October is too late to spend it too that's that's the point. So it's kind of through it but but it's a summarize to look through. They might find Yeah. If they did it before September 30th we've been talking a lot. But if you would find it useful to see how those dollars were spent. I mean, I know your if it's I'd say if I am, but only if it's a natural outflow of your other activities, right? Yeah. Not a special report to us, but if if you and central office and Sarah have that list, it'd be interesting to revisit it because we had that should Yeah. If but maybe the

118full board in October, not just add, you know, that kind of just go away, which is okay. Sorry, I just want to chime in. Fiscal is going to be reviewing uh all of the ESER outflows that have occurred and then eventually they'll go to the board for full review, but just wanted to let you know we don't have to do that in all of our committees. Okay, thanks Jared. Yep, that makes sense. But where that that lended from or came from was two years ago we were talking about tutoring and things or after school services and stuff at the middle school for example and they were going to make some changes some improvements going into the next year. We really didn't hear anything about so it's kind of like that that came to my mind

119when we talked about avid tutors. It was something schoolwide and I Dan I promised you that was in the back of my parking lot from planning and other things. this volunteers and tutors and and all those things keep coming back that came from an esser piece has there been benefits that came from the discussion how do we close that gap through co um so I am curious what is happening at the middle school for example what came of that are they still doing something like that is there a need for something there that doesn't have to be a next month kind of thing it's just a wonder hey an update could be a director's up Perfect. Should we ask Jared since CC Jared's now about the handbooks? I'll follow up with unless you want to

120have it here. I don't mind. Jared, are you listening to us though? Yep. I'm here still. Like, darn it. Um, just you and I are going to touch base about whether or not we're moving the AL handbook to a resolution um in September. if handbooks need to come to resolution with the board. I know we did that with um multilingual learners. I know we did it with special ed uh procedures. Um so just a discussion with that in light of the new Mola policy. Yeah, I I I appreciate um it if all handbooks can be finalized with a resolution at the board level. Um the reason I say that is because our handbooks take on um policy light language. Uh I know it's procedural work but still if a family were want to have you

121know some kind of a resolution format of course that resolution format through a complaint process would go to the board. So I want the board to be fully aware of and have approved any handbook material. I just ask that. Is that only new handbooks or is that something that we're going to have to do every year with all handbooks or just when there's a change or a new I think when there's uh substantial changes uh to a handbook that they would come forward. If they're just small or grammatical kind of changes and everything else, we will we'll take care of that administratively. But if if there is a a substantial change to policy and or procedure within the handbook or things related to that, then that of course needs to come to your attention. Perfect.

122All right. Thank you. Just a clarifying one. Sorry, I'm I'm going back in time. Should I go? I I do have to go into another meeting. I just want to make sure handbooks still come before committee because a a simple change I'll go back to the AL handbook. The simple change that was made the first revision was they took out all of the parental roles in it and that came to the parent group where they took out the you know any type of parent involvement whatsoever. And so no you didn't. No, this was this was five years ago but bringing it to committee I had my old version. I'm like, wait a second, you can't take parent out. And that was going to be done without board knowledge. So when I came as a parent,

123I don't think that constit okay. I would agree. It was just it's a word. I mean, that's that's a word, but it's a word that means a lot. A lot. It's not like removing the word and. Got it. Well, and I think too like changes to our assessments like if we swap out STAR with preac to me would probably not be a substantial change. Correct. Um so I think that would be something that we'd be discussing through an assessment calendar anyway. It's not something that the board would be unaware of. But that's kind of what I think about. Yeah. Now, if we like, you know, remove the process for teacher nomination or something like that, that would be more substantial. And I doubt we would ever do that to be super clear. But as an

124example, Craig, I saw you put your thumb up. Hopefully, you're not driving because I know you couldn't raise your hand earlier. I'll talk to you guys later. Have a good day. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, we're adjourned at uh 859 and then uh Diana, Jenny, and Jared were just talking after for the record. I'm no longer driving. We adjourned. Got it. 859. Jenny 9:05. Damn it. My suggestion when you do the minutes, can you put in there a notation