08/13/2024 Educational Services Committee Meeting

001in progress. Sounds like it's unanimous. All right. Good morning. Uh we just have someformational pieces to start and then just a couple of uh conversations to determine what uh we're moving forward with for the August board meeting. So I will start this morning. Sarah Alenhovven has our special ed policies and procedures. she just wanted to share and present. This is something that I realize I put presentation but I do believe it's not a presentation. We'll be putting that on the board agenda for August if uh you decide to move forward. So as a condition of funding under IDA um every school district is required to establish the written policies and that is directly taken from DPI and so we go through them. We make sure that we are following all those policies. Everyone is trained

002on that. We put our um our district information on the top and we put it on through. And those are the um legal ease that we establish all of our criteria, all of our um work underneath. And that's that. So, in the past, we've put this on the board agenda to have the school board approve of it. And then I know it stays as a copy in the special ed department if anyone were to have any questions about our policies and procedures. and we can absolutely put it on our website as well as we've redesigned that website. Make sure that it's up there with our new information. Okay. Um any comments, questions from committee? One quick one. We can I would change that or hope to change that to we will but that's you know

003my question is where is it going to be where it should be under special education access in the departments. Okay. Uh, I'll ask two questions. One, has it changed from last year? And two, um, I don't want to say does it need to change, how often is it reviewed against changes in current law? Obviously, we have Nola to help us keep our policies in line. Obviously, some of these things are the ordinances, regulations, etc., etc. going to be changing. I don't want to say regularly, but potentially. If DPI changes it, it is because the law has changed. That's directly from DPI. So their legal team takes care of that and then we adopt it. The school districts adopt it. Got it. So is there any language in this document that uh I'll say we created

004or is it more or less adopting DPI uh standards? There are a few things that I changed the front page. Um I changed it to instead of saying LEA agency I changed it to say Watertown Unified School District and then I changed the page numbers so that it aligned correctly. Otherwise, it comes from the legal department uh and the special education team at the department of public instruction and it only changes if there is um a need to change based on law and it did not change from last year. Okay. Thank you. Those are my Yep. both questions. So, okay. To put on in August. Anything else? Oh, sorry. Otherwise, I don't hear any other comments, questions about that document. Yeah. Uh, please add it as a resolution to I'll say adopt. Thank you. All

005right. Thank you. We just saved some time. All right. Uh, next up, Jason is going to share with us a little bit more about the Wisconsin guarantee. Thank you very much. Um, there's a document, uh, included there that's really just an attempt to systematize the work. And so there's a great number of folks that have worked to kind of learn more about what act 95 or the Wisconsin guarantee really means and develop these systems and I just want to give you an update around what those systems look like. Uh principal Kerr had talked a little bit about it when he talked about you also talking about Wisconsin Gree and direct and so this is just a followup to that. So if you look at the body of the document, the Wisconsin guarantee, that first blurb

006there is really just a cut and paste from the website. And so just want to always remember like where this is coming from. There's a link there to the website, but this is just information that's coming from a com a collaboration between uh DPI and university citizens. Just another reminder that the direct admit piece which is not this right direct admit is our partnership with EPI and universities to uh we ask students to opt in and they are notified by schools that will directly admit them. There's no application process for that. The Wisconsin guarantee is different. This is us signifying or identifying top 5% and top 10%. We tell those students they're in the top five and then they still have to apply. Okay. Uh so again systems are important because we want to rely

007on those those procedures. U we had to talk about well when will we capture who are our juniors and so the team decided the last Friday of June because we roll over our system uh early in July. So we're saying that's when we say at least our bless Friday. Um we talk about what juniors will be considered. Will we take any juniors out of the pool? Team was saying nope. Uh all juniors are juniors and whoever we capture on that last Friday to uh will be considered for part of this piece here. Then we talked about how do we identify the top five%. Again, we're looking at the top 5% and uh we're rounding down. It's interesting and that is direct guidance from DPI and the universities. And so for example, we have 500 uh

008juniors in a class, 10% would be 50, 5% would be uh um 25, right? Those numbers are nice. If you start playing with numbers and you get to 11.7, you're rounding down to 11, if that makes sense. always rounding down on the percents. Um, so there's an example on the back on the top of page two. Again, the example here is 312, 5% is 15.6. They're telling us with no no questions to round down to 15. Same with the top 10. We also uh uh had to think about how will we navigate tie breakers if we have some number of students that are tied. Um and we created a list. So the first one is we will we typically use three decimal places to calculate GPA and in case of a tiebreaker we check with

009Skyward. We can go to five decimal places which I'm pretty confident we will take care of it. If that doesn't then we'll use LA. Uh and then the last one is total credits earned uh by that last Friday June. So we have three kind of procedures to navigate the tiebreaker. Uh we talked about how we would denote this on transcripts. We wanted to keep it really simple. So at the top of these transcripts uh just say Wisconsin guarantee top 5% same for 10. Um and we always want to think about how do we communicate. So, uh, the team did a wonderful job of putting together a a spring and an early summer message that was linked and then we have a form letter that was already mailed because early admissions opened August 1st. So, we

010want to hit that and so folks that are in the top five 10% for the high school endeavor is not applicable. They're too small for e campus and his families have received these letters. other piece here. I think as we talked about with this policy that needs to catch up to this and I think that that work questions first one on final Friday of June if you look at this year's calendar the final Friday in June was the 7th that was the last day that students went to school. So final Friday, no final Friday in the month of June. Oh, in the month of June. Sorry, I misread. Thank you. Um, the second question is why what's the significance? I'm not questioning. I'm just curious. What's the significance of snail mail to families? We're sending

011police to fall. Is that just to ensure that everyone gets it as opposed to that and email? So the snail mail is folks will receive a letter from us saying that they're in the top five and top 10 and uh notifying of them of that and the dignion on the transcript because uh again early admission opens August 1st and we want them to be aware of their status. Am I correct or am I mistaking things? I believe we got two letters this year. One was to the because my daughter was in top five, one was to the student and one was to the parent. Same letter. Is that going to you know where one goes to the student, one goes to the family. Is that redundant? Maybe. But we don't want to uh we don't

012want folks to get lost. Thank you for um just high level, Jason, what is this? I'm going to say saving the student. Is it the ACT? Is it the application fee? Is it obviously the University of Wisconsin or the system designed this to try to increase enrollment presumably. Um I guess what barriers is this breaking down aside from the fact of letting people say, "Hey, you know, you don't have to do anything and you're in." But do they still have to I mean I presume it's been a long time since I filled out an application to go to a school cost me 50 bucks to put in an application or take my ACT which is another cost. Uh but we do that automatically for all juniors uh regardless. So, is there any uh I don't

013want to say cost like all financial. I'm I'm just saying effort or paperwork or uh is there things that this is uh eliminating or is it just increasing the awareness for in the UW system that you can go there without too much more effort from your perspective or maybe in real high level. I believe that it does increase awareness. I think it also reduces stress right because direct admit those are separate that's separate but it does not apply to Madison lacrosse or players this will impact uh Madison so Madison is really the top five [Music] so you still have to apply okay so you still have to apply right you're admitted you're in okay so stresses is the big savings type things. So the difference between direct and Wisconsin guarantees you technically don't have to

014apply for direct. Is that correct? Right. So direct my son is a junior. Right. So a couple weeks ago he received a letter saying these are the schools you have been direct admitted to. Right. He had to then go in a form fill out a form and say these are the three that I'm really interested and he's in. And that's what I was going to ask you because I did have another parent reach out to me and I even though my son was part of the direct admit I guess I hadn't really looked into it. Um is there a deadline? I think there's some confusion if there's a deadline to accept that direct admit or how that actually works out and I know we're talking about guarantee but okay I was going to email you

015but I'm like we're gonna be talking kind of about it. This is better. Yeah. But I think that's a confusion. Now students are notified. These are all the schools that you're admitted to. Now the student says I'm interested in these four out of 10 or whatever, right? They're in direct U Wisconsin guarantee is t you know we're identifying students in top five, top 10. They're in these universities, but they still have to apply and Wisconsin Madison is part of direct uh Wisconsin too many things, right? Do you know is there a modified I look at the application my kids going through it right now application letters of recommendation um essay whatever top five top 10% is there a modified version where it's just maybe I don't know I didn't look into it as deeply where

016it's just maybe the application form minus the resting obviously if they're top five or 10% it's the essay and nominations letter of recommendation Sorry, that was still part of the requirement. I believe so. I I have no information that would say that the application um so any other discussion questions committee? Good. Um as far as an update to the full board or to the full community, uh they can read the meeting minutes. Um or we can put a small section of this on the agenda. Jared, just to remind everybody what it is. I know this hasn't changed. I'm just wondering, does anybody else need to hear this more broadly uh in the public uh just to make sure that they're aware of it via the the board meeting? Otherwise, we'll just put it in the

017meeting minutes and people can read it at their their leisure. It's a interesting program. I'm sure you see it on online or on news articles or maybe even the daily times runs an article on direct admit or on uh uh Wisconsin guarantee. I just didn't know how well educated the public is on these topics and if there's anything that we should do differently with this particular one to make sure that it uh is is pared somewhere. But the somewhere could that be when parents have their orientation meeting at high school for example? That'd be a good spot where you know they talk about hey there's opportunity for college coursework and you have the direct admit and you have just a quick that way it's still getting out. I like it. Yeah. Yep. I like that,

018Diana. So, I'm not that's not that's not a mandate, Jared or Denny, as far as the the orientation packages. Just let's make sure we highlight that if we can. Makes sense. Yeah, we have a plan. Um, this is new for everyone, right? both the Wisconsin guarant team director of it and we have a time high school folks from endeavor campus and high school and I will connect after homecoming when the dust kind of settles say how do we do anything we can do so okay the discussions and planning are ongoing okay great and I wouldn't see any reason to bring this back to head services for any updates unless there's significant changes it's not like it's going to be an annual thing that we have to review so it shouldn't make a calendar or unless

019there's some major policy or structural changes to how it's administered. So, okay, sounds good. Thanks, Jason. All right, our next topic um is the you'll note the several references to draft working document uh on our curriculum review cycle. Um what I attempted to do here was to document where we have been at um with some of our curriculum review cycles and then trying to create a feasible and sensible plan moving forward. I think at this level we or at this committee we have talked about the fact that um some of these have been coming sort of fast and furious in capacity for teachers and administration to be uh going through this process um and so this was an attempt to document it. I do want to point out that there are several areas that I

020have not necessarily put on this curriculum review um but working with our departments um knowing when we need to do that. I'd also like to point out that in my mind, it's really a standards review. Um, and then determination of whether or not we need curricular materials to meet those. Um, want to be super clear that we're not uh committing any budget dollars on the purchase of new materials at this point. Some of these um curriculum review or some of these curriculum purchases can be quite large and um we would not be embarking on a giant wholesale change um if we did not have budget dollars supporting that. Um and so that's part of the needs analysis in year one. Again, we need to always be subject to change based on any uh changes in

021our standards or any updates at the state level. A perfect example of that is act 20. Um also, you know, in constant analysis of our data, if we're seeing some giant holes and we need to bump up a piece earlier, then we certainly um will need to do that. Um and then again that material purchase would be based on work through the CNI budget uh with consultation with the board superintendent and the director of business services. I do want to point out that I mistakenly thank you Diana left off our 912 ELA. Um that was a process that Pam Suski and Aaron Meyer embarked on the same year that it's 8 was doing uh their analysis as well. Um, theirs was more focused on a review of standards and if their materials were meeting those.

022Um, and so I do apologize because I did leave the 912 piece off of there as well. Um, I was attempting to Oh, I love that it printed three pages. I was really trying hard not to get anything on that third page. I was Oh, there's nothing on the third page but the big draft stand. Um, so I was attempting to, like I said, sort of space them out um, so that they weren't all coming at once. As it relates to elementary, um, as you know, we're going through a process uh, starting next year. We'll be analyzing our curriculum, determining if we need to move forward with a different set of materials per act 20. Those materials are all what are referred to as knowledgebuilding curriculum, meaning they implement science and social studies standards within

023the literacy materials. So, you'll note that I've kind of divided out elementary social studies and science. Uh the thought being that we would determine u an adoption with literacy, get that under our belt a bit and then analyze our science and social studies standards and determine what we might be missing, what's included in our literacy, and then take a look at science and social studies and see if there are any changes we need to be making with that. Um, I then tried to loop them, if you will, so that eventually we're doing 4K through 12th grade um, processes so that we're not trying to do middle school at a different time than elementary and high school and vice versa. I do realize that some places I put K5, some places I say elementary. Um so

024I will try to get the language uh cleared up on that but the hope would be by 2028 we are taking a look at K12 math then literacy then science then social studies. Um I debated where we were at with putting math or literacy first. We kind of engaged in both of those simultaneously. Um we have seen so far positive results with our adoption specifically at the middle school. Um and I know that we are likely adopting potentially adopting different materials at the elementary level. So those two are pretty staggered. I wanted us to have some time in the elementary materials before we brought literacy back up again. So therefore, I uh selected math to go before literacy. Um again, trying to avoid where we're at right now. We're at the elementary level. We're adopting

025new math. We're embarking on literacy almost immediately. Um and again, this is certainly subject to change and to input uh from from the board as well. So that's a brief overview of what I was attempting to do with this document. To me, it's incredibly important that we have this. Um, going through the math process, I know um there was some reluctance because it felt like, you know, if if these materials aren't like the perfect match, like are we ever going to get a chance to review this again? And I just needs in my mind to be a part of a process that we're going through on a on a pretty regular basis. So, that is uh just a bit of an overview of where I am at with this document. open to questions, feedback, or

026any other thoughts that folks might have about that. Committee members and a few additional you get most of them. I did my best. You did your best. Um, in the headings, one of the part it says midpoint review and I think you clarified this because if you're looking at it as a curricular study, you're looking at standards first, then yes, that is the midpoint. Yet, if it's only year two of implementation, is it really a midpoint review? Because now they first really have their feet wet for maybe a year. So, that was just a question. What What are you thinking in that midpoint review and does that fit? That's a super great question and perhaps that makes more sense in a later year, but to me it's a like a question of like we need

027to be looking at our data. Are we seeing a difference? Um, our Chris Malloy has been amazing. I've had conversations with our administrators. She's able to break down our data into very uh discreet skills. And so if we find that we're um, you know, lacking in a certain area, is there something that we need to add in to help support that area? To your point, year two would be awfully early to know that. Um but what I do know is that as we have been currently setting our goals with both literacy and math that is sort of an ongoing process at the uh each building level. So you're right year two we may not have enough data to be like yep we really know that we need to beef up the idea of base 10

028in third grade because there's not enough in our current curriculum about that. So I agree with that that that is probably sort of part of that you know implementation refinement analyzing that data and and figuring those pieces out. So I do agree that that's a midpoint is sort of an ambitious Yeah D I mean D just for clarification is your concern and I think it's a good question. Is it that it's called midpoint when it's not at the midpoint or that No, she had it she had hit the nail okay with it because a midpoint you're looking at is it working? Is it not working? What do we need to fix? What do we need to do? But you're really in year two and you really don't have new curriculum up and going till years

029three or four. Okay. And so to me, she hit the nail. But okay, it if you're not to that point where you can get that data yet, it doesn't seem to review. But if she had something different in mind for midpoint review, I didn't want to put assumptions out there. Okay. I understood your answer. I didn't understand. You're welcome. Mike and Mike share any day, Diana. No. Um the last one is social studies. Yes. Um I didn't see it anywhere under any selfstudy review, you know, whatever that way. So can you speak to that just a little bit? It's not following the same process as the others. You're right. And I think we um those the ESR dollars played a role in I think a lot of these implementation pieces. Um and I think that

030does come to a case of capacity. We did not spend much time last year with our social social studies department doing sort of a needs assessment and planning. We are building that into our process this year um as we're working with our CIA uh representative. I was just working with her just last week about what does our roll out look like and the very first uh very first day that we're spending together is doing some of that uh self-study review analysis of where we're at with our standards and whatnot. We did not have an opportunity to do that last year um with our other ongoing pieces. And so again, working document maybe at the end of this year, we may not be ready in social studies to move forward forward if we're making some sort

031of for formal adoption, but we certainly have uh started in on um that analysis of uh where we're at and in this case mainly 612 and if we need to start doing any tweaking or changes. So, social studies might be something that, you know, we're moving into next year before we're really able to make any major changes with it. Um, what I don't want is our teachers to feel any sort of like whiplash, like, whoa, that went way too fast and I'm not comfortable. I pressure is okay. Like, too fast is not going to lead to a successful implementation of changes. I just didn't want to make any assumptions. Totally fair. And that is K12 social studies, not just elementary. Cuz down below, yes, it has elementary, I'm assuming in 20, 26, 27. That means

032elementary science and elementary social science. Yes, thank you. So that's where it's it's just if it was K, you know, put the label before it, you know, whether it be K12 science, K12, that way it's clear that if it has to break this was K5 and this was 612, it just keeps it consistent. I agree and I Yep. I definitely agree with that piece, too. And to be fair, we will have uh elementary reps on the uh social studies team just to sort of begin thinking about it, but I don't anticipate any changes happening with social studies at this point with what's happening in math and literacy at the elementary level, too. Were you still looking for was it social studies or science at the board? Social studies. I'm still looking for a board rep.

033So, so if someone wants to do it, they can do it. If you don't get anybody Okay, I'll put you on the Emily. You're on the literacy one as well. No, but I just wanted everybody to have the opportunity, but I don't want it to be a vacant spot. Mhm. Greg. Um, so I want to say I I do appreciate a time timeline how how things are are broken out because I I think it's a a valuable tool to to communicate what the intentions are and what the uh with budgeting and to to uh prepare the staff for what can um what's up and coming. So I think that's a good thing. My one of my questions would be how would this then be con um communicated to the staff on a regular basis you

034know once a year or whatnot. Um that would be one question. The other question would be is um is is the intention to put most curricula on a 7-year cycle? Um because if that's the case then um if I'm looking at um you know uh literacy in ELA that comes up uh in 20 next in 2029 that would be nine years wouldn't that be better better place than 2027 you know and I I had a similar question Craig but if I understand this correctly and I don't know if this answers or contradicts But this is really implementing uh curriculum from year three to year two because you're still using the old curriculum for the years one and two while you're reviewing before you implement. So it's actually a closer to a 10ear cycle year three

035four five six seven one two right you're still going you're still going to be utilizing that curricula the old curricula in year one. Yes. And two, I think. Yeah. But so that's I had the same question. I think if that is that and it should work out to be seven years. And I also don't want to like imply that every seven years we're going to make a major change like the change from elementary everyday math to bridges, right? Um we could analyze where we're at and say, "Hey, this really is meeting the needs of our kids and we don't need to." What I will be honest with and say that I am not sure that we did as well as we should have is if we don't um put a schedule out there and to

036your point communicate it. What ends up happening is that we uh maintain we're not necessarily focusing on our standards when the state makes shifts in standards. Uh we're not examining necessarily best practice with it. Um, and we can get into a situation where we're using materials that are out ofd and are not best meeting the needs of our kids. So, I don't mean to communicate that like every seven years we're like wholesale changing what we have and throwing everything out that we've done. I don't want that to be the message, but I do want the message to be like we are keeping up with best practice. We're focusing on where our standards are at the state level. We're focusing on the data and how our kids are doing. Um, to your second question about literacy,

037what I was trying to do, and perhaps ELA would be a better way to to document that in here, um, is that because our elementary folks will be adopting a new curriculum potentially, um, in the fall of 2025, um, if we bump them up to 2027, I think is what your suggestion was, they'll only be like two years into that. And I really want to try to get it to be K12. And to your point, you're right. The middle school will have invested and the high school have invested quite a few years in what they're using. I felt more comfortable with that because the initial data is telling us that we're seeing um success there. Um and I think that's first of all, I think that's super exciting myself, but I also think that that's

038a huge kudos to those teams and the amount of time and effort and energy they've put into that. And so I really debated like what goes first, math or literacy when we kind of try to get back to this K12 piece. Um and again I'm open to suggestion but that was sort of my rationale as to why I put literacy. And I reason for the question is just to get the rationale for it but you know I I I also am concerned that if if we're doing well in particular area we want to still maintain doing well. Yes long term. So yeah I agree. Sarah just to just to add and and I agree with you as it needs it needs stating and we need to say this often with um things like this um

039this is an aspirational plan right this isn't 100% roadmap it it follows a line all the things that I keep telling you that we need to have that we haven't had in a while a vehicle replacement plan a 10-year projects plan for facilities right we all know that these things right are linked to limited resources. So for instance we can have this plan but I will tell you that this school district like many other school districts across the state have deferred curriculum right recycling we've deferred maintenance we've deferred other things because we haven't limited the resources. But what having a plan like this has for us is it has a way to keep track of our data as to what was refreshed. What were our aspirational goals? What did we want to try to make

040commitments to? And it also is a communication tool to parents and other people as to when when was the last time things were refreshed? How how are they on schedule? What is coming next? So that if we do have resources, if we do have the ability to get those things done, whether it's a vehicle replacement plan or a roof or curriculum, at least people know, right? And they know where we're headed. Again, this is more of an aspirational document than a road map. Jared, along that line, and to answer Craig's other question, how was this communicated to teachers? How often should ed services use or review this? And then let's say that it does come up that 20, you know, 5 26 or 24 25. Uh let's see what's in the I don't say in

041the budget. The question is is should it be in the budget? So how are you going to be able to use this with central office to say okay here's our budget for the next year and it's time that we invest some resources in ELA or what have you and so what's the timeline for our review and our communication? So, Ed service should look at it at the end of June so that when you're building your budget, that that's my question. When when would it be good on the calendar to make sure that we're all on the same page what has to be in the budget for the following year. I think all of these kinds of plans, right? It should be reviewed annually. Anywhere between January and March, okay, so we can start the budget

042development process. That's what I hear. Thank you. And again, same with fiscal. The school's going to need to be starting to look at our vehicle replacement plans and you know all of these things then inform the budget and talk about where are we going and what resources do we have, right? Um and that will help keep us on track. We haven't had a document like this for some time in this district. Um therefore, uh we've gotten we've gotten pretty far away from our plans, right? Yeah. Uh and and also it's harder to communicate too what has been refreshed, what hasn't been refreshed to our public when we talk about uh you know when I say we've deferred curriculum um we've deferred professional development, we've deferred it's because we don't have these plans to be able

043to show what we didn't do. So, uh, if had this document been in front of us in the first quarter of this year, what date window would we be looking at to refer to fiscal and the full board for pursuing a curriculum review? What year would that be? So, we were at the beginning of the we were at the middle of the 23 24 school year in first quarter of this year, which means that if we said, "Yep, we're going to stick to the plan." what the budget would then happen later in 2425, but it would really be for the 25 26 school year. Is that would I be is that accurate? So, the good thing about the curriculum one is because we've identified ESO dollars and we are securing those into the future uh

044through um you know an assigned fund balance because that's what you assign that money to, right? um we're closer to this document than some of the other pieces now for a little while. The problem is is when those ESR funds come due, right, and they're all spent, we still have to find out how we're going to put hundreds of thousand dollars into a budget that has zero right now, right? But and so had zero for a number of years because we've been deferring. Yeah. I don't want to say that. That's not my question. My question is what's the if we're talk if ed service is talking about in the first quarter of a given year what curriculum are we what curriculum year are we looking to recommend for imp or inclusion in the budget it

045would be the following year is it would it be 18 months or is it six months my you say the following if I'm in January of 24 and we're talking about it we can't implement 25 or 24 25 at that point. The budget for that year's already been set. It'd be we'd be talking about the 2526 budget. Okay. So, it's not the following. It's it's essentially 18 months out. I just want to understand that that's what we'd be looking at if I'm understanding the the time when we say yes, let's go then the budget and then the following year. So, you're you're looking 18 months out. But I think the piece that you're missing in that is years five, six, and seven implement. That gets back to my the question of your point review. There's

046conversation each year throughout. So there would be conversation at ED services if this program isn't meeting the mark for standards. That's they're not going to wait. My assumption, correct me if I'm wrong, you're not going to wait until year seven to say, hey, this didn't meet the mark. It's going to be, hey, we need you to do something. So yes, we're going to need to be looking at curriculum or hey, this is meeting where we are right now. We're still going to look at standard, but we've been looking at standards all along because it's going to be standardsbased. It's going to look different in my opinion. It should look different than what we've gone through this first time around because we haven't done any of this before. It's I like the word refinement because that's

047really what it's going to be doing. So, it's not going to be as abrupt. Am I correct in what I just Absolutely. And I feel like I'll use math as an example. That was a pretty heavy lift because I think we hadn't been uh following the changes in the standards and best practices. Um my guess is and I'm just going to like advance into the future. For example, this year 2028 2029. During this year is like when we're doing a heavy analysis of where we're at, what other materials might be out there so that we have an idea budget-wise as we move into a more formal adoption, like do we really think that we're going to need to make a wholesale change that's going to be a hundreds of thousand dollars worth of purchase? Is

048this more going to be an analysis to determine? And so this is why in this column and in this year we talk about the budget piece. If we go through it and we say you know what there's you know this new change and shift in our standards and our materials aren't meeting um then either at the end of this year or the beginning of the following fiscal year is when we would make the purchase so that we would have the materials uh for this following year. So if you track through with math like that. So, for instance, like elementary literacy, we've been having a lot of conversations at the elementary level with administrators, with coaches, and now our coaches are having this conversation with teachers during the uh keys to literacy training they're doing over

049the summer. We're finding that we think there are probably holes. I'm anticipating, and I don't want to like, you know, spoil it. I mean, I don't want to say like I predetermined we're going to move on, but there's a lot of things indicating to me that during this year, we're likely going to need to make a larger purchase of elementary literacy curriculum. Um, and that's what we talked about with our our study or with our uh research proposal and that so that we're either purchasing at the end of this fiscal year or at the beginning of this fiscal year to have those materials and implementing those materials. Um, you know, and it's not a perfect process. Maybe if you had asked me at the beginning of the math process, Diana, you'll understand this. I felt

050like our scores looked good with everyday math. I felt like we were we're doing well and we uh I think that many of our elementary teachers on that team probably felt the same way and then we did a deeper dive and realized, oh boy, we can be doing a whole lot better. Um, and I think that everyone is excited about the direction we're going with math. So, it's not foolproof. Um, and I don't want to make a decision before we've gone through a process with a team, but I think you get a sense when you're going through that whether or not you're going to need to make a major change or not. And then that's where you're working with the board and the business department to say, "Yep, we anticipate this is going to be

051a bigger change, probably a more costly uh it purchase." So, okay, Trey. Um well I guess my my first thought would be if we're deviating from you know planable maintation of curriculum and we'll say year you're three we have to call an audible and say hey this will be this isn't going to work for us. Um there should be some questions about the process of the self-study and review that that we perhaps missed a mark when it came to planning for this particular curriculum selection. Um and and we really need to have a serious conversation about that. Now granted act 20 things like act 20 happened which are out of our control but um I would still expect that there's a conversation there about that. Great. Um the other thing is what I appreciate about

052this and I was concerned about was the fact that um uh the the selections we made as a result of um SR dollars are are not going to become a fiscal clip for the district. Um so I I do think that this kind of helps alleviate those concerns. So thank you. Okay. Um, then I guess as long as this is draft, I don't know if it requires full board approval or ratification. I think it uh per our previous conversation, we just want to move it from draft to uh implementation and review at sometime in the first quarter. Is that consistent with what we just discussed here and more or less agreed to? Um, it's for reference for the board. It's for reference for the administration and ED services will review it sometime in the first

053quarter of each year to make sure there's no major adjustments necessary. Is that does reviewing it in the first quarter give us enough time if there's implementation steps in the first quarter or do we need to review quarter four so that way it can be up and moving by quarter one? I would ask that to the people who actually have to put the boots on the ground. I I think uh If we're doing it like I said with the intention of it's really 18 months ahead schedule right so that we can get that plan out budget planning eyes then I think we're in a better place I like it good job thank you guys all right I will turn it back to Mr. an update on our assessment plan. Um, and then our, uh, Renaissance

054contract. Thank you. Before we go into that, I looked at the direct admit letter, Lori, and there is no specific deadline. It just says, "The sooner you complete this step, the closer you are to become a University of Wisconsin student." All right, I will let my son know. you get on this. Yes, gentlemen. Just talk about the assessment calendar. Um just like the uh curriculum cycle, this is as draft as um it can be at this point. Um so this is draft. We're working really hard to say it's not a draft in the next two or three weeks. So we'd be ready for the start of the year to be able. you take this across the district. Uh this current version, I think it's important to note that really reflects hundreds of conversations uh really

055starting in December thinking about what an assessment calendar could or should look like. And so I just want to thank the many people that have um given me feedback and insights. Uh this calendar is draft and a work provisor. and different a number of things. One is that act 20 has um put us on hold on our assessment calendar. You know there was a time where they said that a year ago we would know what what what the screener would be and then they said July we would know what the screener would be and then about two weeks ago we learned what the screeners be. Right? So we've been waiting for that expansion. that's impacted not only the calendar but the draftness of the calendar. I think what you see also is that there's a

056desire especially with partnership with Chris Moy and I a desire to elevate the voices of all stakeholders. So I'll talk more about it but we're going to have conversations with students and parents and staff members to to elevate their voice. And then um I think it's also important as as Jenny mentioned in the curriculum cycle there's a strong desire not to overwhelm people right uh our our elementary folks are navigating a new math resource doing some research and literacy at 20 learning about keys to literacy and so in an ideal world I think this calendar would look a little different but uh we want to be mindful not to overwhelm people So you'll also see two quotes. Uh one is a star quote which is renaissance. Um I can answer questions but um I've signed

057that it's not we haven't paid anything. I know it's over the 20,000 threshold. We worked with Sarah Duncan a director team and talked about that sign saying we're interested. It's important to note that it's a one-year contract. Typically we've signed a three-year contract with with with Renaissance. They are aware of all the implications that I just said and so they actually encourage the one-year contract and really this contract reflects just moving us forward for one more year what we've been doing. The second piece is uh FastBridge and Fastbridge is around $5,000. We uh entered that partnership or plan to enter that partnership uh as a possible replacement for Renaissance. Same company but different than STAR. We would like to do a 100 seats and then that's what the plan is. And we have a plan

058to work with instructional coaches and title teachers to really play with that uh assessment and tool to learn more about it so we're better prepared to make decisions for the spring. Those are the two invoices. They'll also be on the fiscal committee as well. Um there's some things different and new in the calendar. So I'll just go through the calendar pieces that are new and uh answer any any questions you might have. And so on page one, the assessment calendar, I think of the assessment calendar as not only a calendar but a learning tool. So there's some pieces that are come just really cut past pace from DPI about strategic assessment systems and then defining what summitive we throw around the terms right but summitative intram formative and diagnostic what those are just examples so

059it's a learning tool top page two or my page two I think there's a distinction that's noted that's important to note bold assessments are mandatory from a district lens And the ones that are not bold and also listed as discretionary are really discretionary by by teams grade level teams or by buildings and that pops up a couple times here. And so if we look at 4K through two again star is something that our teams are familiar with. So that's again we don't want to overwhelm folks. And Star will do that three times a year. The second, the winter window, the second testing window is discretionary. We want folks to make a decision. If they're going to use the data and drive instruction to make decisions, they should use it. If not, that's okay. If they

060have enough other data, we're going to continue with Hagerty. Hagerty was new last year at the four and 5K literacy. Um there's the winter window there is web plus that is the four the early literacy screen that the state told us we will use there. So that will be used across the state. Well it starts in the winter. um that's when we have to begin to use it, but we're already in in in discussions with our our instructional coaches and our time calendar in September to learn more about it after the start of the year and um pulling that off in the fall is probably unlikely, but if we ready, we will do so. Uh FP is a is a screener or a literacy uh assessment that we've used in the past. We've just again

061changed that to discretionary in each window. Again, schools um very low teams to make that decision. If that is data that they need and want to drive instruction, they will have that uh at their at their discretion. Is is playing for now. It's something that we will talk about with our admin team tomorrow and get some feedback. Grade three uh bottom of page two is really the same as very similar to what we've done in the past other than making that star discretionary in the winter and FMP discretionary in all spots. Something new at the top of page three is literacy perspectives. Uh that's uh student agency and identity identity conversation. to draft. A lot of work needs to occur before now or before then. But the idea is Chris and I will go to

062every elementary school and talk to students and how they see themselves as readers and writers. And the data that we gather there, we then share with every elementary principal. And so we have uh Chris and I have worked to schedule one month or 30 minutes every month with individual principles to share some data. And so that that'll just become our system. So we'll talk to I think the vision here is to talk to 10 students at each of the elementaryaries and talk to them about again their views and their confidence as readers and writers. Grade four again is u the literacy math is is very similar. We see math perspectives same concept. Chris and I will talk to fourth grade students now and talk to them about their perspectives and competence in mathematics and that

063data will be gathered and brought to principles uh for their for their for their lootage. Uh page uh four if we go to page four something new there is uh it's been happening as you see student community career and college readiness career exploration we're just codifying the fact that the academic and career planning process really begins before high school right so we're already talking to students in elementary about what what are you thinking about the future what what what excites you and so we're just calling that and I'm working with Sarat to ensure that that that grade six um it's not new but you see diagnostic last year was the first year at the middle level continues so now it's officially on the calendar that partnership will continue here you see literacy again at the

064sixth grade same concept Chris and I talk to sixth grade students now about how They see themselves as readers and writers. We go to page five. Again, shows up at the seventh grade level. If we turn our attention to grade 8, you'll see preacct 89. That is new. And so, uh, I believe Josh talked about, uh, his at the last data meeting his use of ACT data, uh, to set student goals and really understand where they can grow in their ACT suite. And, uh, so we're bringing the preac, the eighth grade level in the fall uh, for a number of reasons. for it'll give the eighth grade uh staff some data to uh really dig into that that really connects through the high school. It also not this year but next we'll have our freshman

065year walk into the high school with being prepared to write goals on the ACT that connects for the rest of their high school career and it also aligns with some of the expectations of it at the middle school. It needs to be a pre college assessment. I think it's great about the web has been lacking. So it checks a number of marks but the middle school is really excited about it. And so um we're partnering with ACT. We see um bottom of page five was piloted at the high school last year. And to keep that continuity and that peace in place, we're going to use at the freshman and sophomore levels. Uh and a little bit at the at the junior level as well for ISL. Page six, community career, college readiness. Again, passion skills

066exploration that's already in place part of the academic career planning process as well as grade 10. It's really asking our students to explore what they're interested in the plan to to further explore that so they can be ready. Um, page seven. Um, again, community college career readiness. Really just thinking about and Sarah is working with me to make sure this is realistic, but really thinking about at the junior level one experience focused on uh community career and college readiness. So that could be things like school works, uh, uh, youth apprentichip, dual credit, AP. And so the data is saying that our students at the junior level are hitting this already. And at the senior levels, we're saying we should have two of those. And again, this is already in place. We're just going to code

067by systematizing. bottom of that chart of grade 12 just see we're saying we're going to pilot this fast bridge piece and uh we'll be early spring be ready to say fast bridge star or something else which will put us in a less drafty spot in in August next year. Next, uh, access stamp and DLM are assessments that we, uh, are asked or told to give. And so those are the states that we, uh, push forward. The bottom of page seven, um, again, we do a staff engagement survey. We're just listing that here. Top of page eight, uh, we did some rounding last year, and we want to just put this on the list so our staff sees this. This will be shared on our website across buildings so folks are are aware definitely drafting but

068community pieces we're thinking about really uh using the community rating as as a marker to to talk about and talk about what that means to our district and community thinking about community engagement survey and the directors will have conversation at 9:30 today um about this possibility um having some town halls really elevating the voices of our community in a in a spot that's you know really facilitated by us and then think about parents and caregivers. We want to do an engagement survey with our parents and caregivers. Um and we would ask uh this last piece here student family engagement opportunities. We've really uh asked our our our building leaders to think about how they engage families and what they can do differently or better. We'll have conversations throughout the year around that topic post. What

069questions? Anything about the assessment calendar members? I do question please. I know. So at eighth grade they're you're going to have the career exploration for your goal plan. Will there be I think it be important to continuing to re-evaluate those goals. Is that part of the identity kind the student agency or I guess I feel like there's something like once they get to high school that's when they really need to be right. You know what I'm saying? Sarah Tari is our champion for the district for academic and career planning and so I've had a number of conversations with her about what this looks like. I think there are pieces in place already around this but there is definitely an opportunity to show that up and so she's working now to put together a middle school

070kind of ACP academic career planning team uh to talk about what that showing up will look like. And so you see that fifth grade, these are just uh highlights, right? We're gonna have the conversations every year, but we know at fifth grade, we really want to start thinking about what what interests you and then in eighth grade be more systematic perhaps in those conversations, knowing that between fifth and eighth, the conversation will continue, but eighth grade as you enter high school, are your courses aligned with what you're excited about or want to learn more about? And so those are just kind of pulse checks of of that work. Lori, yeah, I was gonna say, Lori, would you I mean I'm in eighth grade it says career exploration and four year goal plan development. Should we

071also include that Jason and you know 9 10 11 plan revisit. I mean just to know between 9th and 11th grade my son completely changed what he wanted to do. And it's not to say it's not going to be revisited. It's a question of should it be on the map in the spring of every year to to re revisit the plan just to make sure that we don't look like we're setting it looking at 11th grade and think that they're on the same track that's most likely like adding a revisit uh just in there I that captures it I agree that's and again that is happening right these are just for me like these are uh non-negotiable checkpoints knowing that those are happening so thanks for the feedback Committee members, excuse me, Dan, Sam, I

072have a bunch, but if Dan wants to go first. Okay, I'm okay with that. Okay, thank you. Uh, the staff engagement survey, could you give me some typical questions that would be on that? Um, no, stop my ahead. We've done that same survey for at least three years. I believe it was just revisit our last board meeting. Yeah, we changed it. That's through HR, right? Yeah. Um, and if you want, what we can do is I can have Margaret send those uh survey questions back up to you guys. All right. Thank you. If you want to partner with school perceptions here, good. Okay. All right. Um, with the assessment calendar, we have the discretionary test. I like that it's discretionary because you there's been commentary that we're over assessing kids. So, I like that. Hey,

073you know, if you need it, great. If not, but my question becomes, is there going to be some sort of consistency within the building, within, you know, grade level, whatever. Um, which leads to a second part. Middle school literacy is discretionary across the board. All of six, all of seven, all of eight. So, teacher A is doing it three times a year. Teacher B is not doing it at all. I I know this is still drafty draft, so I'm not expecting an answer. It just leads to me to wonder what's what's going to happen down the road. Um and the other piece to that is if there is nothing required at the middle school level, what are we using then to check other than I mean I'm not saying that our our district summitive assessments

074aren't good, but what is it comparing against a norms of standards and thought? because as we look at math, we in the past we didn't realize that our standards were a little off in terms of what we were teaching versus what should have been done. So I feel like we're losing our check and balance if we don't have something there. So just something to consider, not necessarily an answer at this point in time. Um, another thing is it looks to me like is kind of moving toward um, taking over for star and I'm okay with that. Um, because is being utilized. My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we have a paid version of which I haven't implemented this diagnostic in five years, so it could be different than what I did. But

075when you have the paid version, it takes the kids that they're readiness level. Here's where they are. And then their pieces that come up in EXL for what they're ready to do and learn and and take care of is based on that diagnostic. That diagnostic is what they knew at that point in time. But now you have instruction that's happened throughout the year. If you don't do another checkpoint in that, by the time these kids hit summer, they could be still here in ISL, but their readiness level has grown because of the instru instruction that's happened in class. So, I'm just wondering if that needs to be looked at, especially I mean, I'm assuming at summer school they would do another diagnostic anyway to get them up and running for when they need, but something

076to consider moving forward. I don't think the way this is that it's utilizing to its utmost capacity, but it might be using it to the utmost of where we are right now. It's just there's room to grow in that. Um and then my last one I sorry these are all comments questions. Um the last one is kind of a com or a question and that is when you look at STAR and you look at growth districts either look at it from fall to fall to see where the growth has occurred or from spring to spring. And that's why the the winter one isn't necessarily needed because you still have that full growth. Yet when you look at 4K and two and grade three, some of them are doing fall and winter. Sometimes it's winter, spring,

077some, you know, consistencywise. Are we okay with that? Do you understand my question? Because we we're not consistent as, oh, we're measuring growth. You know, how do you communicate that to parents? Are we communicating fall with fall, spring to spring? Because parents get these results also. So, I've got a kid in kindergarten, second, and sixth grade, and it could be different in all three. So, how, you know, just something, and again, I don't expect an answer right now. Just something to consider thinking about. Yeah, I appreciate the the feedback. And I I would just say that 4K to that fan is the most drafty part of this piece. uh just because the timing of the announcement of Ames web through a little bit you know ideal web each window and then think about how star

078might be used as a diagnostic only as needed or any other tool so this this this calendar will look much different next year for sure but I appreciate your feedback and we're going to begin to have conversations with principles tomorrow that will hopefully at least remove the on the drafts like those three. The star had to be used for K to 2 in the fall. Could you use Ames web at all three just for consistency? It could be. And then literacy would start in grade three with start. It could be, but again as web, we're not prepared to to execute it right now. And again for that sanity so that's it's not ideal. Anything else from committee members? Thank you. Correct. Um I I have a few questions too. Apologize in advance. U by making

079the screeners optional. um are we are we concerned about losing the longitude of data that I think that's kind of what part of what Dan was asking um that would be one the other one would be u where there are two screeners that are offered like in fourth grade and some of the other grades too um is the discretionary screener offered in in conjunction with or in lie of you know um so they're not taking two different screeners at the same time. Uh because but then then the other thing other comment I guess I would want to make would be um that I I probably encourage more of a department level decision on whether or not this would be discretionary because what you probably don't want is uh for students like and Mrs. Mrs. Clark

080didn't have to her kids didn't have to take the STAR test. So, I'm not going to be taking the STAR test in Mr. Grant's class. You know what I mean? You you kind of want to I don't know just someone else's thoughts and concern about you probably want to make sure that you have a valid screener. Um I can speak a little short here. Um so again tomorrow we'll dedicate a number of minutes to talking about the assessment calendar with principles and to talk about what discretionary right it's the first time I think that this has popped up and I totally agree that we don't want if we're a third grade group for me to be the assessor and you not do it right so some some guide rails around what discretionary means we will

081we will definitely talk about Um I also think it's important to know that or to state that these assessments the literacy especially are really um you know Dasha who is a wonderful instructional coach reminds me often is that literacy is complex right each of these assessments really assessing a different complexity or a component of literacy and so I appreciate that reminder right like because I want to strip this assessment calendar down air bones. Jenny yelled at me and death. She yelled at me, right? But it's it's really to uh try to capture where our students are as far as literacy and that's a difficult task. And so I appreciate that. But but you know those discussion better. Thank you. And my my final question, if I may, um, starting with third grade through graduation, um,

082we have on here, um, student agency and identity conversations. Tell me more about that. Yeah, sure. Um, again, one of the things that Chris Malone and I talk about often is how do we elevate the voice of our stakeholders, including students, staff, and parents. And so this is we don't have a plan right now other than it's on the calendar. We know we're going to do it. But we picture it going to Douglas for a day and sitting with I think third grade is the first time it shows up. Really talking to 10 third grade students about how they view themselves as readers and writers. Do they like reading? Right. Are they good at reading and writing? And uh so it's a something that we continue to formulate our plan but that data will then

083be shared with principles. Did you know that you know third grade group doesn't like reading? You know it's a small sample size but I think it's powerful again to elevate the voice of our students and our parents exactly. techniques, but that's just like a form of curriculum or assessment that's associated with with that particular um topic or is it just No, we're we Chris and I will formulate some questions. I'll be happy to bring those questions here when we're ready. Um but it's a conversation with students about again how they see themselves around the issues of staff. And so it's just a rounding check in. Um but we're just going to have a random kids in each grade level at random. Hey, we want to ask this question just as a false focus on something

084either math, literacy or career readings. We think hearing the voice of our students or those topics is important. It'll get messy. It won't be perfect the first time we do it, but I think hearing the voices of those students talk about those topics is powerful. Okay. Used Jason, Jenny, Sarah, Jared, um other ed service members. Uh this document was requested by ED service and put together by Dave Vitali probably two or three years ago. And it lists um all the assessment names as as of that time. There was star, there was panel, there was Wisconsin Ford, there was preac, and then there was the ACT. There um wasn't on this one. There wasn't Hagerty listed. Uh there wasn't the LL or um I'm not sure if there's other ones I'm missing. The the one we're

085going to we're going to be re approving or or or going to be asked to approve. So, uh, Jason, I ask that if you have this, if you don't, I'll give you my single and only copy, although I think it's available digitally. And I just ask that it, uh, it dovetales very nicely into the calendar document you put together, but for reference, uh, I'd like to see to make sure that there's definitions. I mean, I know you did a good job of grouping yours under summitive, interim, and formative, which I don't think this one did quite as well. Um, so I like that you put those topics in there, but if this needs to be modified, um, you know, please do so and then make it a full document so that a reader knows in

086detail what STAR is and what forward is and what prec is compared to just having bullets on a on a piece of paper. So I' I'd ask you to merge those if possible. Great. And then the other thing going back to a similar conversation with Dave at that time and probably I think you already said it, we are not under assessed and your first bullet on here, uh, I shouldn't say first bullet, uh, with the least amount of testing. Okay. And it sounds like you got some push back on that by maybe some people in the room. Uh, I'm okay with that, but it's really up to you and Chris, I would say, to determine what is the minimum amount of data that you can sample and come up with a conclusion as opposed to

087testing every part. uh you test a representative, you know, number of parts. I don't care if you're uh you know, the bald rich award or you're Deming. Uh you you don't need to test everyone every time. And uh I think that just qualitatively we're over sampled. Uh but at the same time, I can't tell you specifically how to reduce that amount. Um because testing them is not necessarily as good as teaching them. Um and and those are valuable minutes that we're losing uh by finding out how we're doing as opposed to assuming we're doing what we were doing last time and continuing that path. And so that's just a high level statement, but it sounds like you're aware of it and your your statement in here actually includes it. So I I just encourage you

088to push down that path of sometimes less is more. I appreciate it. You know, I chose Jenny and I are she yelling at me, right? It's it's a it's a fruitful conversation about how do we really be strategic for long term and and I think it's important to know again the impact of act 20 that how that shows up in the calendar cannot be overstated and the timeliness right and so this is to me like a transitional year in our assessment calendar so thank you very much appreciate um and then what would um can you frame the two uh expenditures and if I'm not mistaken, they don't have to go to fiscal. If we recommend them to the full board, the full board has to approve them. They're over 25,000, but they don't have to

089be reviewed at fiscal because ed services would push them to the full board for approval. So stars uh 20 thank you 27 probably 27,000. It's for one year. Um again, it's part of that transition. Signed it just saying, "Yep, we want the interest. We haven't paid the bill. We know it's over 20,000." Uh Sarah, I talked to Sarah Duncan, told her that it would be available at fiscal meeting. Um but if we want to push this forward, we'd love to move forward that fast bridge is $5,000 and that's the one that we're kind of piloting playing. So those are those two pieces. Either of those have been paid or invoiced. These are just I have to sign it to keep the ball rolling. So with this quote for STAR, the school count is eight, but

090according to your plan, the high school is not using it. Is that school count correct? Is that the correct pricing? Yeah, I was just curious. Uh there's a small number of seats that we traditionally have purchased for the high school. Okay. I believe uh special ed department us question. I just accidentally clicked on the bottom of the calendar. There's the student identity and agency conversation guide. Y and it gives you links to surveys. Yeah. Those are just in the community career survey. You know that's that it's asking do I tell the truth when it's not easy. Yeah, that's that needs to be unlink. That is not the one we're going to use because this looks like a lot of Pandora. It is not the one. It is Sarah. Chris and I are working on a

091different version. So I apologize. Okay. Yeah. But you see what we're thinking, right? We're thinking about how how do you see yourselves as readers and writers as being prepared for creating? Yeah, the survey doesn't really ask that. That's not Yeah, I apologize. Okay. Um, is the uh committee uh good with uh the two uh quotes and recommending those for resolution? Um, I would assume as one resolution as opposed to two cuz technically one doesn't need one. It's only $5,000. Only one of them needs one, but we can lump them together into one. Is that good with the committee? I do. Okay. Awesome. All right. Okay. Anything else on that uh topic? And Jason, do you have this? I can. Okay. And if you want to change that, this is not in stone. It's just a

092hard copy piece of paper that I carry with me that's got coffee stains on it for reference. So be honest. You do. I would forget literally everything about what star is compared to fondness and panel if I didn't have it with me. It's a good resource. Um so if it needs any changes just please make it available and reissue as necessary along with the timeline. I'm going to put an additional request to that. Can we share that out with the committee because we have two committee members that might Yeah, I don't know where I don't even know where this it used to reside in a Oh, what did Dave call that web page? It was his was it his ed services blog and I don't know if it existed anywhere else. I think I don't

093know if that ed services blog has been sunseted. I don't know if it still exists or if anybody's maintaining it. The one that Dave had independent of the school districts. Yeah, that's what I thought. This could be something that could go into. We're starting that board member Google Drive. Oh, right. Something there to access, right? That way even if you're not a committee member. Hey, what just Yeah, I like that. For whether it be board orientation or just public consumption, obviously it's they want to know what the test is. Hey, I mom, I took a STAR test today. What is it? And um as a side note um we'll send out some information starting in September to families that gives that overview as well. We just think it's an opportunity that we missed last year

094or I missed last year of just communicating early and often to our parents what is the access what is the flow. So we have a chart that will pull out starting September. Okay. I'll say this though too is don't beat yourself up too much the direction that we're headed and the path athletes that we've taken on the last couple years have you know some bound up we'll let Jenny beat you up yeah regular I think you're kind of Sure. Honestly. Are you giving us yours? Oh, sure. Mine. I don't care. I see I see a window where things can be thrown through. Oh, things are thrown. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. But now you have to get up to do it from your seat if done. It's part of the wellness program. Um, shifting gears,

095uh, our next discussion is the panorama discussion. I know that that was on the full board. Um I just have a few remarks to start with. Um essentially today we hope to get some questions answered about how you would like us to move forward. Um, I do want to share that uh Sarah and I have spoken often and in depth about the fact that if the uh either the committee doesn't want to move it forward to the board or the board doesn't move it forward, she is ready, willing, and able to embark on a process to determine uh best next steps about how to measure these pieces. Um, if you notice on the assessment calendar, it was intend determined. Um, and so I do want you to know that we are ready, willing, and able

096to uh move forward in a different direction if that's the direction that the either the committee or the board is wanting to move in. Uh, today my hope is that I we know whether or not we are going to move the proposal forward to the full board. um whether or not you are interested if that is the case in moving forward a K8 or a K12 option um and also if you are choosing to move forward whether it's an opt in or opt out process um I do know that um we intend and will maintain the same questions that we have used in the past because I know there's been some question about what questions will they be um I will again point you to the district website that has those uh posted. I know

097it does say sample form, but I can assure you these are the questions that we used. It's just when we go to PDF it, just like I marked things with draft, they mark it with sample form. Um I also know that um should the board decide to move forward, we will roll out a very comprehensive uh communication plan to families um first about the assessment and then about uh results and how the results are being used. I know that's been one area of concern. Um and then I know there were also some questions about data security and privacy. And I will just turn you to the um the quotes. Oops, let me see. And I've got too many quotes open. If you look um within the quotes, it does review um specifically the data security

098and privacy and what happens upon termination with the data because I know that that question was asked as well. Uh so I will just turn you to that for those answers. Um, so that being said, I will reiterate that uh Sarah, the student services team and administration are ready, willing, and able to uh move forward with determining a different plan if um either it services doesn't forward it to the board or if the board does not uh approve uh the implementation in the fall. Okay. So, um I'm going to say that I missed the last board meeting where there was a committee of the whole on this subject. So, I'm not necessarily prepared to kick off the first comment uh or maybe even ask the first question. So, for committee members present, who wants to

099go first on the topic of Panorama and where the board left off and the decision before us today? at the committee of the whole we discussed this uh quite a bit and I did talk towards the end about how I was going to look into some alternatives and do some more research and that's what I handed out to you guys is some of my conclusions about that as well as uh kind of a demonstration here. I don't think I gave you one of these earlier. Jared, do you want Absolutely. Um, so yeah, so I started off with the conclusions that I had uh with some of the alternatives that I looked into. I thought that would be the reasonable place to start so people could kind of see the bottom line there. Uh, what I

100found was that none of the survey service alternatives to Panorama are as robust as Panorama is. Panorama seems like it's kind of cornered the market there. Uh, I did look into three alternatives. There was survey monkey. Second, Sam. Um, I think that did you email it to Jenny? Uh, K Jenny, let me Yeah, because I I just got it in my inbox and I just want to make sure she can share it on the screen while you're talking. Definitely. Just so that the people who are participating online are can reference the document. Definitely. Yes. Thank you. [Music] I think I just got a copy. If not, I can forward it. Yeah, I think I just sent it to the board members, but I didn't get it. Yeah. Yeah. if you want to just forward it

101to that one might be that one might have a few less slides than the ones that are in here, but it'll be fine either way. Um, nothing substantial is taken out. Did you forward when did you forward this to us? Uh, just this morning. Yeah, some moments ago. There's that road uh word robust again, huh? Hey, I've got it on my mind now. when I found out that it's the Latin uh the Latin equivalent of the word oak. I don't know. I like that. Sounds nice. You should be getting it or got it. Okay, thanks S. Oh, thank thank you. Yeah. Um, yeah, so uh the three that I looked at were Survey Monkey, Fright Bites, and Branching Minds. Uh, Survey Monkey had some really, really strong uh, political bias that was fairly apparent when

102I looked through their uh, when I looked through their content on their website. And I think that that's probably not the best direction for the uh, for the board and the district to move. Bright Bites did have uh, less of that political uh, political inclination, but it wasn't really specialized for school purposes. So, I didn't know if that would be the best option. Branching Mayans uh at least on its face seemed the best. It seemed very very neutral uh as far as worldview things go and uh it was geared towards schools. So it seemed like that would be a it seemed like that would be a quality alternative when I was looking at it initially. On further inspection all of them did have some degree of that u of that political leaning going on. uh

103but I think that that's kind of that comes with the territory when it comes to these survey services which started in you know started in uh 2012 or thereabouts. Um so some of the overarching issues that you know with those alternatives that I saw were that you were probably going to have to look pretty closely to see if there is a withholding of information about political bias. Uh pricing like we talked about at some of the previous meetings is likely going to be less favorable than Panorama because Panorama is recommended by DPI and uh subjective surveying regardless of what tool you use. Even if we just use a uh a Google Forms survey like the one that we looked at in the last section, it's still going to have that subjectivity and that is to

104a certain degree going to be unreliable as far as drawing strong conclusions about the student body. So I thought it would be useful to kind of walk through uh a demonstration of some of those issues that arise and Panorama is the best example of uh of where you see that. So I wanted to go into the purpose of SEAL in education and kind of how that plays out. Um so you can see that uh on the following uh slide I have there uh I think it's uh yeah it's that um SEAL it seeks to assess weaknesses uh in the student body as far as uh as far as academics, education and uh in social and emotional areas and to provide a remedy for those weaknesses. And so I thought it was worthwhile to look into

105what exactly are the weaknesses it's trying to assess. And in doing so I found out that there was a presentation given by DPI uh with Panorama in 2020 October of 2020 where they kind of outline why they think you should use Panorama uh for their forCal and they speak specifically about looking at through an equity lens. Uh, and just so we're clear, there's equity can be used in a couple of different ways. Equity can mean allocating the proper amount of funds to the proper places so that a school runs smoothly. But in this case, as they make clear uh in their description, equity is really talking about racial, gender, and other identity class equities. Um, as it says down below there. So that's where Panorama is coming from. And if you look at the toolkit

106that they give people, the playbook rather, they have a a variety of resources, but I thought that a great one to uh just examine as a sample was teaching tolerance uh teaching tolerance.org, which comes from the southern poverty law center. So when you go to teachingtolerance.org, the URL or website address actually changes to learning forjustice.org, which I have circled up there. Learning for Justice is uh is a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as I said, and in their program goals page, they outline that it's to be a catalyst for racial justice, to dismantle white supremacy, to strengthen intersectional movements, and to center learning on action for liberation and justice. And they make it very clear that their goal is to make students think with a political activism mindset very, very clearly in their

107program goals page. So then I have a couple of examples from the lesson plan. I took them from the kindergarten through 2 grade because I thought that would be useful. They're uh antibbias education orientation. And uh at the top of the lesson plan examples, I just reposted that programs go to there so we can remember uh kind of what they're talking about when they talk about these things. So they talk about challenging the text uh uncovering assumptions and biases within the text for for literary plans. And again, these are assumptions and biases that have to do with dismantling white supremacy, racial creating racial justice, intersectional movements, you know, political activism. They also talk about resistant reading where you uh refuse the ending of a book. Uh you you scrutinize the beliefs and attitudes in that

108book and then you examine contradictions, gaps, silences. Again, this is all in aims of addressing those things. And then what really ties that together is they say in a cracking the code they explicitly say that they have students examine texts for bias related to race, gender, class, religion, age, and sexual orientation among other identity categories. Again, this is for kindergarteners through second grade. They're having them examine for biases for sexual orientation. Sam, just a quick question and I might have missed u how did we jump from I I see how you tied Panorama to DPI. uh in in this slide that's a that's a presentation from the DPI. Yes, this is a DPI and Panorama presented this, right? Okay. Then how do we jump from them to Southern Poverty Law Center? Where where was the

109where's the link or the the how does that resource tie to what the DPI and Panorama presented? Uh so on the I believe this was the 33rd slide in their presentation they talk about uh when you use Panorama you are able to access a playbook of resources in response to SEAL results. So this is something that they provide you with they provide and encourage you the DPI slide. This is uh D well DPI and Panorama. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So and then I'm saying let's go and look at Okay. So then you just Okay. That's your Okay. Thanks for clarifying. I wanted to make sure I thought that's what I was just trying to follow the bouncing ball. Okay. Yes, definitely. Definitely. And this is uh this is kind of one of the recurring issues that

110we've that we have here is um this is a pretty pervasive element of panorama specifically and the other survey options that I looked at had strong flavors of this as well, but they oftentimes don't bring it forward and make it apparent that this is where they're going. But you can see from these examples that I've given you that Panorama is saying take the SEAL surveys and then use this to address the issues that we analyze with the SEAL surveys. They make it fairly clear that their goal is to promote a critical consciousness and a political activism in students as young as kindergarten. I think that's pretty strong. Um and then that's just one example. There's many other examples throughout that presentation, but that's not the end of the issues that I observed with Panorama as

111I've been looking into it. Uh there's federal connections. Um the Meritt Garland is the head of the Department of Justice. Uh and he in 2021 said he was going to discourage, identify, and prosecute parents. And the co-founder, president, board member of Panorama is Merrick Garland's son-in-law, Xan Tanner. I talked about this at the board meeting. I think it would be uh very unwise for us to do business with a company that's associated with a man who is going after parents who are pushing back against uh critical race theory being taught in schools. Um and then uh additionally they have many more connections to CRT than um than just what we looked at. They used to provide uh webinars and other services, essays, things like that. This is a list of names of them. L is

112social justice. Dismantling white supremacy within systems and self. How white supremacy lives in our schools. Uh leading adult seal to combat systemic racism and implicit bias in schools. Implicit bias being when you're racist but you don't know it and it just automatically comes out of you. Uh and then strategic or strategies for addressing racism with students and caring adults. So they did this very very strongly in 2020 2021 when news stories of this started to break. they wiped all of the information from their website and the only way I was able to access the fact that they had been teaching this to people for multiple years was by using uh the internet archive. Uh so it that kind of leads into um the next slide which is suspicious and concerning behavior. The fact that they

113minimize the available information on their specific stances and they remove evidence of their previous resources, it doesn't sit well with me. I think that they're not behaving in an honest way or with integrity when they do that. They're not standing by what they believe to be true apparently and they think that the best tack is to kind of uh fly under the radar. They also used, I thought, vague language concerning student and family privacy. When I was looking into their privacy standards, they did say that they don't sell information for advertising purposes, but they always made sure to clarify with the clause for advertising purposes. I thought that was very odd. If you're not going to be giving student information to other people and to other organizations, it seems like it would be simpler to

114just make a broad statement. We do not give student information to other services instead or to other organizations. Instead, they always clarify for advertising purposes. We do not sell or rent. And that seems oddly phrased to me to say the least. And then last uh and this is just kind of a throwaway uh they promoted a collection of essays, a book called Teaching While the World is on Fire. And the lead essay is by a domestic terrorist who uh promoted or I'm sorry, not promoted, but organized multiple uh multiple bombing uh initiatives. Uh Bill uh did lots of bombing back in the 60s and 70s. Uh didn't kill anyone except for his own people. Uh but you people's deaths came from uh from his organization. So, um I just I I feel like Panorama has

115a lot of really uh unnerving connections, ties, and things that they promote. So, my proposed solution at the end of that, and thanks for listening to me talk through all this. I tried to make it as compact as possible. I would say that because of those political affiliations, because of their suspicious behavior and the reams of problematic subject matter, we really should not be using Panorama as a survey system in the school. I do think that checking those alternative survey services may yield fruit. Um although after looking at the kind of sample survey that you had um in the last section, Jason, I think that maybe an alternative would be doing a Google form survey. uh depending on the kind of standards we can set in place to make sure that it's one survey per

116person and that it's linked to specific student accounts and things like that, that may be an option. Uh but I think the biggest uh the biggest and best uh alternative would be to invest our efforts into building a strong understanding to the student body, the parents and the school uh an understanding of conduct and consequence in the district. I think that that like Dan has talked about it a couple of meetings now is going to give us more bang for our buck than some of these subjective surveys and especially when these subjective surveys are tied to all of the things that I just talked about. So that's my not two cents that's my buck 50 I guess a lot more than two cents but trying to Thank you Sam. Um, thanks. And, uh, yeah, you

117did a good job of keeping that concise and on target and hitting all the high points. So, I appreciate that. Um, one of my questions, and this has to do more with the administration of the Panorama, uh, tool is that as I look at the dashboard, which is on our website, uh, this is available and and you see that the on the left you have emotional regulation, learning strategies, self-efficacy, self-management, social awareness. What we don't have is teaching tolerance as a header. Were we able to screen that out or is that something that I mean because we got to pick the questions, did we also get to pick the categories? Can we use the tool and avoid things that are more contentious? Um, for example, if we're happy with the questions that you've seen or

118that we've seen, we have examples uh and they're on the website that the what do you want to call and and we can mimic them potentially in Google forms. I'm not saying it's not an option. It's more of an administrative what else are you getting with the dashboard? What what else are you getting with the analytics that you don't get? Sam, you did a bunch of research on other tools and you called Panorama robust. Is there a way to get the part that we want and not get the part we don't want? Uh we bit we can allocart the questions. Can we allocart the reports? We can allocart our resources for where we go to address what the reports say. If we scored a 74% in social awareness, we don't have to go to the

119Southern Poverty Law Center to address uh whatever that last teaching tolerance is. Is that feasible? And I'm not trying to advocate for Panorama. I'm saying is that we have the tool. We've used the tool. We're quasi familiar with the tool. It was a one-year run. There's some things that we find objectionable. If it takes us down a rabbit hole we don't want to go down, so let's not go down that rabbit hole. Um because rebuilding whether in Google forms or switching gears are is that going to set us further back from where we want to go? What's your I mean spin on that? Uh I'll Jared raise his hand. I'll let him go first. First of all, I don't I don't want to take away from progress moving forward, but I think uh for us

120to have progress moving forward, there's still some unanswered questions that I have is the administrative district to ascertain um what it is we're really here to talk about. we're we're talking about a tool, but um I don't know for sure that the the board is comfortable with what we're talking about at least administratively when we talk about the need for um surveys or or assessments of whatever kind because that's a surveys are assessing, right? And so I want to make sure I'm clear as to what our perceived needs are as an administration because I I agree with the last statement you said about you know um work working on you know uh you know consequences and those kind of that that's also needed right but that's not the only thing that's going to help us

121make better learners right um and the the keys to the portion that I um am very passionate about are are things to deal with social skills. And what I mean by that, and I I have a list of them, you can go online and look at them. Um, but you know, we're talking about things like, you know, cooperation, assertion of one's ideas, um, effective communication, conflict resolution, um, self-control, other executive functioning skills like organization, planning, you know, those kinds of things. We don't have a really good way to assess those things. I mean, we have teacher observation, right? but we want to get better and those things are necessary for the development of students to make sure that we continue to move those forward. A lot of times those were learned outside of school in

122the home um in in in neighborhood conflict resolution, you know, um in in my growing up that happened a lot on the baseball field, right, on pickup games, right? and we had to help self-regulate and self and we had those learning opportunities. For whatever reason, we're seeing many of those opportunities being lost. A lot of uh kids being in organizations like um Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other organizations, and I'm not saying that those are the holy grail. I'm just saying that those were opportunities outside of school and school day um church groups and other things where where students learn these things. the attendance of those has has uh dramatically decreased, right? And so their opportunities for learning and their opportunities also for us to to see how effective that can be um has declined.

123So we're trying to pick that up in the schools and say how do we understand that these skills these very important skills that lead to productive learning are being had right what I am desperately not wanting is to have some kind of uh social training whatever the like you talked about here that that yeah that is something that I think you guys know of me um that I am super aware of also trying to make sure that that um that is not what we do as a school, right? Uh that that is not what we're looking for when we talk about this. So, I just wanted to make sure that we are on the same page because if we're not on the same page and we don't think that these things are important, then we're

124we're talking about a tool that we may or may not use that it's not it's not even worth the discussion, right? But if you think these things are important, finding a tool, the appropriate tool and the appropriate um ancillary things about lesson plans and other things, right, is important. And so the idea of having a tool and and being able to go through the supports that come with that tool to say what's appropriate for use here and what's not appropriate for use here is going to be the important thing that we're going to have to have administration uh direction from you and the administration to help uh our staff sort out. But I just want to know where we're where our starting point is. So I'll open it up to that kind of conversation. Um,

125Craig, go ahead. I guess I my my first question would be uh is it the role of the district to fill a social void of organizations like Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of America, and religious institutions that teach ethics, biology, and things of that nature. Again, I I shared with you I don't think the school district should be teaching the the ethics portion of that or anything else. But what has been missed by uh non participation in those are other executive functioning skills and social skills right development that has happened that we're seeing not happening in our students anymore right and we're trying to assess if these things are happening like self-control, self monitoring, paying attention, all of these things that you can see uh on the internet that are good things that lead

126towards uh a learning and the ability to learn, right? Not the ability to morally think or ethically uh train. Again, that's the family, that's the church, right? That's other organizations responsibilities. As parents pick those organizations that they want their kids to attend, that's on them. But these other things that really lead to learning are us my questions piggy back to that there are four very overarching I'm going to blend them and however the conversation takes off from there right the first one is if panorama is not supported by the board we choose not to move forward with it what will be used as the alternative at all grade levels to ensure that these needs are being met and I'm glad you listed to go though so I don't have to. Um that was one of

127my first questions. My second was if this is a need in the district and Panorama fills that um is it needed by all levels because we've talked K12 but then it was well maybe we just do K8. Well if it's not needed by all levels if it's only important K5 what are we doing 68 to meet those needs? and is that good enough to do cave? We've got a couple different things kind of going on. And then my last one is what would be used instead of panorama. So to meet the needs of the I'll say it's the playbook, whatever those things to meet the executive functioning, the social skills, those things. Um, you all know I haven't been in the classroom in 5 years, but if you look at since the pandemic and even

128before that, there's been a withdrawal of kids in terms of their participation in external kinds of things. You can look at the sports teams in Watertown and themselves, the attendance has gone down significantly. You can look at attendance in things whether it be 4, you know, some of those things. Kids are opting more for their video games. They're opting more to stay home. Their connection is different. And so what we had, sorry I'm on my soap box right now, but what we had when we were younger is different than what it is now. And so those social skills that they might have gone through once those you know those kinds of things that were there that were more heavily involved there's a withdrawal from that and somewhere that needs to be provided for all kids.

129I've been subbing in the schools and lining up after lunch acting appropriately at lunchtime. There's a significant change in the last five years. So I understand the push and the talk for academics, but there's also a different need. Why do you think in kindergarten we s criss-cross applesauce, keep your hands to yourself, you know, asking to pl those are things that happen yet I've seen and and again I'm only in the proial schools so it's not a total fair but if I'm seeing in the proial schools, you know, it's got to be at the public schools as well. It's it's a very different I'll call it decibel level um across the board. So I'm not saying we have to go with panorama. My question to the committee is if not this then what? And I'm

130going to jump right to I'm going to say Sarah on this because it sounds like you and Jenny had a conversation on this. It can I don't want to say specifically answer Diana's question, but based off of your conversations that you've had, what have you I presume they dealt with a lot of Diana's questions because she also forwarded those to Jenny ahead of time. Thank you. Uh so you had them available to answer. So uh why don't you fire away? We didn't yell at each other. Yeah. Oh, that's only Jason. Only Jason gets that favor. We don't. Um it directly addresses what you're talking about. So you're talking about students. Let's just do the example of lining up after recess, right? Getting back to some of the basics. So, what you guys have been talking

131about, right? Um, while this survey or any survey might get back to how students feel about something or how they feel about themselves, what you're talking about is um crafting uh a systemic way of teaching explicitly behaviors that are the expect the expected behaviors. Right? So it comes back to how are we doing the first six weeks of school which is very responsive classroom. Okay. And how are we then modeling reteing doing our mini lessons which um back in the day of PBIS those were called cool tools right and then they were the mini lessons um and how are we doing that based on data. So what I've been working with our principles on are creating um and Riverside still has theirs but making sure that we are creating our behavior teams. They can call

132it anything they want to call it, but we are looking at our data and then we are being responsive to our data, but we are also being proactive. So the first week of school, we're working on classroom expectations. The second week of school, we're working on hallway and bathroom expectations, lunch, you know, and we do that very systemically. Um, so that students know what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to have appropriate behavior in a school setting because it's very different than being at the mall or being at home or being at church or being anywhere else, right? if students knew they would do and so we have to make sure that we're teaching those modeling behaviors where this comes in panorama and I wasn't here when it was ch when it was

133chosen I don't know the you know the precipitating factors to why it was chosen however um do we is this something that Jenny and I you know want to die on a hill for no we can find different ways to work with our students in tier 2 and tier three with our school counselors and with our social workers ers if it comes to that which is what we do already. Um how students feel about their belonging in a school is absolutely reflected in their behavior. When students feel that they belong in an environment and that they are um part of that family in their classrooms, we know they learn better because they behave better as well. And so some of that is just coming down to those responsive classroom techniques. Um in the middle school,

134I know Josh Barnett and I have been having conversations. I just talked with Jason and Mike Cunningham yesterday about this. Josh and I had talked about this. How are we building in that community and that climate within our classrooms so that our students feel they belong there? They are learning, but we are also addressing all of those behaviors that lead to um losing out in academics, right? It it comes back to our students um and their academic growth and achievement. Let's get through all of those things. Let's teach them what to do. Let's retach them what to do. Let's support them so that they can learn. I think that that addresses some of the questions. Did we have that last year? No. Okay. So, this is something that has grown. So, I'm looking at pan

135last year, right? An advancement that I want to say panorama has led us to, but we've evolved, I guess, is the word. Well, and I think that, you know, you you learn and you grow as you see um how things change, right? And you know, last year was my first year here, and so it gave me an opportunity to observe and to take a look at where some really great celebrations are and where some really great opportunities for growth are. And the pendulum swings, so sometimes things are going really well and sometimes we need to just adjust our course a little bit to meet the needs of whatever um needs to be done. And it's just one of those adjustments. Okay. Thank you, Craig. I'll come back to you in a second. Um Lori or

136Dan, any comments at this time? I But we're not done. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to speak up. Okay. Thanks. Uh Sam, in your I'm going to say your analysis, your review. If panorama is not the tool and you mentioned two or three others, have you concluded that there's any that should that we should or the district should dig into further as opposed to selfbuilding one from Google survey or was there one that seemed to started to separate itself as far as something that we could investigate? Uh so panorama being high-profile has a lot of information that is more easily accessible about what it does about what it provides. So I was able to pull a lot of information ver uh comparatively easily um not from them themselves but from other sources.

137Uh the issue with uh the other three that I mentioned and other ones that I looked into as well is that information is less forthcoming. So I think that either branching minds or bright bites seemed much less contentious but as I said before there are still signs of this going on and financially speaking or fiscally speaking I don't know finance economics fiscal there you know I'm not sure which word to use there in terms of how much it's going to cost I think it would probably be more cost effective for us to just create our to create our own stuff. I think a lot of the cost that goes into this is so that they can promote a lot of these things that people in our community don't want to have promoted to their district

138or to their students. Understood. And then I'm going to ask Jason and maybe Jared to self build surveys, administer them, and then harvest the data for Chris. Is that something we have the the skill sets, the time, and I'll say cost effective. if we if if Sam is correct that the we're going to spend 10,000 or 18,000 maybe 30,000 if we switch to a different program or maybe only five but comparatively for us to build something that harvested the data and we could administer on our own and we could control the questions and and with Sarah's guidance or or everybody's involvement at the teams also dictate how we respond to that information and we can use our own best practices that are directed more internally as opposed to externally. Um, is that even reasonable or

139are we still going to be looking for a third party partner on this? And Jared, I'm going to get back to your very first question in a second here. But is that do we have the competency and the time and the money to do that internally if we if we feel it's valid? If we move away from Panorama, it goes back to Dino's question. What's the alternative? So my my response to that over time has has always been we probably have the uh resources um to do that. We don't have the resources to do everything. So I mean if that's the if that's what we want to do is to invest time, effort, energy and resources to do that and do that in a way that gets to a level of efficacy that we think

140internally is good. Um it is going to be a journey and it's one that if it's important we will enter in and if that's what we have available to us that's what we'll do. The problematic piece of it still remains that it's what we do and it's what we do internally. It has no check out there to see like how does how do how do these the development and the assessment of these skills align to what what other other people in best practice are saying are are where you should be right so I we don't have an external check it'll be only us operating within a cocoon right and and the DPI or CISAs may or may not have resources but so are many different books and many different uh ed you know development we

141use bright bites or some other tool right that has been out there created tested right and and we're in that and we say here's the question sets we use from that survey or whatever else we can still compare our data to other data sets that are out there we can't do that if we do our interview organization okay thanks Lori I I think the only thing I would add you know thank you sir because I think that kind of and I know when we talked about seal at the meeting before, one of the thing I I had asked is what are our goals? And I think when you look up there that that can mean so many different things at so many different levels for so many different students. And I think that's where I

142get a little lost in the translation because I like can only speak for my child as a parent and I know where his downfalls are, but I also know, you know, do you get what I'm saying? Like I think if we don't know what it is that we need or what we want to do and goals, if we're talking about discipline, there's a lot of things that we could be doing differently just in discipline. That doesn't mean we have to do all these other, you know, it could be a us thing. Are we doing the right practices for discipline? Maybe we need to change some stuff. So, I just think we need to really evaluate the what our goals are before we even continue trying to fix it when we we don't have any goals

143of what we're trying to fix. Does that make sense? Because when I looked at DPI and any of those other resources, there's a lot of things in there I don't like, but um the number one thing it said is what are you have to have goals? and I asked if we have goals and we have no goals. Okay. So, I think we're kind of going backwards and I want my opinion to some degree answer Jared's question which Craig you asked and I'll I'll give my input on that. U you know, if it's not the church, if it's not 4, if it's not uh uh backyard play uh baseball, if they're not learning to self-regulate, uh I don't want to say adapt. I don't even want to say meet the child where they are, but 10

144years ago, maybe 10 years ago, Dave, you were there with me. 3D printers and STEM was a $20,000 expense on Jesse Domer's uh vision 2020. It was around 2015. Well, they didn't cost that they did cost $20,000 and now they only cost like 500 bucks. Uh the point is the district pivoted. We saw that that was a need that our students were going to have whether it was to to to understand 3D printers and if we identify a need in society whether it's because of what they come in with or what they have to leave with it's the district's uh has the opportunity to absorb that and say you know what that's a new thing out there that we have to start teaching our kids about 3D printing and so we did it and Jesse

145did it because he was on the I don't want to call the cutting edge, but he saw that it was a need. In the same sense, you cannot plant a seed in infertile soil. If the kids are coming in and they're not prepared to pay attention or to cue or to sit in one place for an extended period of time, you can't teach them. And if we're going to continue to hold our staff and our teachers accountable to teach our kids, then where do we meet these kids in order to be continue to hold our teachers accountable? I'd love to hold the parents accountable, but last time I checked, nobody gives me that purview, nor anybody else in the room to hold another teacher uh parent accountable. In fact, we get a lot of letters

146saying stay out of our discipline and our raising of our children. And I would venture to guess that that's a significant portion of the parents. So that means you have to work with the product you're given. Which means if it requires a little fertilizer before you plant the seed, then let's spend some time on a little fertilizer before we plant the seed. And maybe on the back end 3D printing and going that direction sounds like a great idea because that's education. And on the front end, we're a little bit uncomfortable with it because it's not quite something you learn in a textbook, but it still produces the outcome that we're looking for. And that is students who are or I I I get a it's not exactly yet in the mission statement or the vision

147statement but let's just say you know educated contributing citizens and and that's still our ultimate goal. So if we have to Jared my answer to your question do we have to dip our toe in the waters? We do if we need fertile soil to plant the seed in otherwise you're you're going to we're going to fail. Um, so, uh, let's see. Craig, I think you were up first. Yeah, I guess I take I take an issue with, um, I I feel like Panorama is just a panacea just in general. And, um, I take issue with outside organizations like DPI telling us where we need to be when it comes to social emotional learning. When we get into the the the nitty-gritty of social emotional learning, that's where ideologies and some things that can be very

148harmful can creep in according to who who's ideologies are best suited for teaching these kids. Really, that's that's the discussion that needs to be had if that's the if that's the road we're going to go down. Um so when it comes to PBS at the middle school for instance um there was such a huge push um more so board approved or board um codified I don't know how you you would indicate that but for restorative circles restorative classroom restorative justice and and now you know personally I'd rather see a greater emphasis on tools like PBS and love and logic use um because I failed to see how a survey is going to be the magic solution um to repairing demonstrative behavior and actionable discipline because that's if that's what we're after, that's really what we

149need to be focusing on. Those those soft skills, those those demonstrated behaviors that we can correct and a survey isn't going to fix that. Okay, Sam. Yeah. Uh, so two points. Um, uh, in line with, uh, what Craig was saying, I do think that we shouldn't be so quick to, uh, to conclude that conclusions have been made in a in a in a in a solid sense. I think that the jury is still out on the efficacy of SEAL programs. I think it's way far out, like so far out that it's going to Woodstock. But I think that the way that companies like Panorama and other special interest groups who personally benefit, the way that they would like to present it is that oh the the science is settled, the data is there. I don't

150think it's as solid as it seems. And I think the fact that they push a very subjective data set is indicative of the fact that they don't necessarily take as strong a view of data as I want to. Um uh secondly, yeah, I I also agree with the other thing that Craig said. I think that ultimately the the relationship between the school is one where the family has the opportunity to provide their child with greater opportunities in life but in order to do so their child must be prepared to engage in a civilized and formal environment. Right? So when we're talking about these soft skills that is the responsibility of the parent to prepare their child for that environment. The school's responsibility is not to raise the child or prepare the child. The school's responsibility

151is to hold standards so that that child can succeed and go on to do productive and great things with their life in society. And I think that uh saying, "Oh, like don't worry about it. We're going to teach it at school is just going to worsen the problem in the long run because it's going to create an environment where people go, I don't have to teach my kid how to do this. I don't have to teach my kid how to do that. They're just going to go to school." and it minimizes the role that a parent plays in their child's life. Not intentionally. I'm not certainly not saying I think anyone on this board or in this room wants to do that, but I think that that's the long-term effect. It's like um uh like

152if you spent years in space, your bones and your muscles would start to atrophy from a lack of regular use under gravity. I think that actually the weight of responsibility there is really important for keeping a society good. This is a really broad philosophical conversation, but that's what comes along with really broadreaching and vague subjective surveys like panorama is like what is the purpose of school things like that. Sam, first of all, Sam, thank you for doing all this work. It's terrific the way you organize it. One correction though, um, three of Bill's acolytes killed a research student at University of Wisconsin when they bombed the math research center. Um, I really like what I'm hearing around the surgical yard and uh I I agree with uh um David and and Jared that we do

153need something and I like the idea that we would generate those survey questions because uh nobody voted for Panorama except nine people. Um but they voted for each of the nine here the district did and so if we created our own survey they have somebody to answer to and um I also agree that we need to see how this is implemented by teachers. The client is the teacher not the parents not the families. And I agree the value should come from from the families and so forth, but we need to see how this is being used in the classroom because we've had some problems in the past and had to let teachers go because they were taking their students to Washington to a protest at a president's inauguration and even commented on Facebook that uh

154maybe we'll even get arrested. Thankfully, that teacher was let go, but that's happening. And so, we need to go back, look backwards, and see, okay, we've got a good survey. How is it being used? And if it's the final result is getting to the Southern Poverty Law, um, that's not good. If we have it here and the bottom line is we've created then we can get those calls and those letters to the board. Thanks Dan. U Jenny just let me know Fred has his hand up. Fred, thanks David. I hope everybody can hear me. Um good conversation all around. I I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. Um, one thing that stuck out to me, uh, as we look at this is we keep talking about tool and and I appreciate Sam providing different opportunities or

155different options and things there. Panorama is we're looking this as a tool like any other tool I'm looking at, you know, a hammer can be used to fix things. It can be used to break things. I think the same thing we need to look at is the agency of our district and of our administration to use the tool to the best for our district. I don't and I don't fall either way on for or against Panorama. What I'm looking for is what is the best tool from a fiscal perspective and to get them the results they need. if that is Panorama and they think they can use it and they can steer clear of any of the issues that we're talking about here because Panorama provides them the reports and things that they can they

156can't get anywhere else fine if it's Survey Monkey Survey Monkey and Google there are reasons why you want to support or not support all companies and what I'm saying is is that we need to look at this as a tool if we can't use it and if we feel that there is undue pressure from the company when we use a tool. Maybe that's the tool we don't use. But again, I don't want to take away the fact that we have agency as our for our administration to use these tools to best fit for our district. And we should hold the administration accountable for the way we're using the tools. We can't hold the tool accountable because that'll be just the same as we can use for any other tool. As I'll point out when you

157know we were using Zoom in the HR committee meeting and people were using Zoom to you know zoombomb us again does that mean we need to go away from zoom no this is the whole point of this is look at the tool if we can use this we can steer clear of the issues fine if we can't then we should look at a different tool is my only point here thanks everybody thanks and I'm go ahead Diane otherwise I'm I'll say try to wrap it up but I may not be successful. Go ahead. Three pieces. The first, we've talked about the survey part of this. That's one component. We've talked about the playbook, the tools that go along with it. And we talked about those separately. And then we merged it. So, we're doing a

158lot of this. Um, I appreciate all of the effort. There's things that open my eyes to some additional things. There's open my my mind to some questions as well. Does Survey Monkey, as one of your alternatives, provide the tools, the that playbook toolbox? Does Brightite Bites? I I haven't had time to dig in and look because they just appeared in my inbox now. Um, so I haven't had time. So, I'm asking those general questions. If we say we need or we want a survey of some sort to gather the data and a playbook or some sort of tools to help with that two parts and pieces which of these alternatives provides that the survey monkey does bright lights does branching minds the follow and I don't know these answers I'm just posing it out there

159when the when the admin team came to us with a proposal for Panorama. Bright Bites was one that you had on there. Have we had conversation with that group to see why Bright Bites was or was not considered at that point in time as opposed to kind of going through all this again? Maybe there were things in there they were lacking this or that or maybe that was a really close race. I don't know. Um, but I do know that if we try to create our own sort of tools, survey, those questions are kind of easy, but the tools part of it, we talk about resources, money. What about the bandwidth? We have a referendum. We have a strategic plan. We're redoing our whole policy stuff with NEO. We're already pretty thin. So, as we

160look to move forward, who are we asking this of? And understanding the amount of time in a day from talking to the different administrators that I've talked to, I know their schedules are pretty full and and stuff is very heavy on their plates right now. So, what are we going to ask them to take off so that this can come forward? So, just I'm always thinking of the teachers, the the staff in that as well. um STAR and ISL have a diagnostic kind of thing that survey they're given fall and spring and then you have months that you use that assessment that survey that whatever it is to help bridge those lagging skills if I use the term lagging skills. So I don't like the fact that we we only do the survey once or

161twice a year. There's got to be other things. But I agree what goals what are we doing with it? How are we doing? There's a lot of improvement that needs to come. And I said this at the last two meetings. We took our we put our toe in the water. Where do we go from there? Do we want are we saying that, hey, I don't like this water, so we need to get out of it or are we not far enough into the water to make a decision? But if we go to a different pool, for lack of a better analogy, do we have the bandwidth to be able to create all that we need? Okay. Um, I'm going to say any new information, not just, you know, I don't want reiterated thoughts on the

162same subjects. New new Well, we've already heard people's opinions. that that saying it again is only going to take another half hour. I'm I'm Is there new um We can continue to talk. I It's fine. I don't have to go back to my office. I just let Okay, Craig. Go ahead. is coming to know that the comment was made that that that this is this is a to use as a tool and that we were supposed to be holding our administration accountable or staying on particular path of that particular tool something that just um but I think it's very different when this when the tool itself is geared toward and stacked for the most fundamental bias of instilling ideologies and that I feel is harmful and destructive to the fabric of our society and um

163that is panorama. I think that's been demonstrated very well today. Um so I don't I don't I'm going to say I 100% disagree with you Craig. That's fine. I I see no install I mean nothing whatsoever you can find on their current web page. I'm not saying that in the deeper webs that you're not right, Sam, but the installation of any type of ideology is missing from anything that we've seen on the surface. I'm not saying that any tool, as Fred properly pointed out, can be misused, but I'm looking at it from a bandwidth. I'm looking at from an efficacy. I'm looking at it from a is it fiscally responsible? Does it get us to fix the problems that we're seeing? Um, I would not whitewash this as a, you know, dark state effort. Uh,

164I just I just don't see it. I'm not saying it. I never said that. Well, I forget the words you used exactly, but I I don't view it that way. I'm not saying I'm in favor of Panorama. I'm just saying is that I don't believe that it's a dark tool that we've been a Trojan horse that's been dropped into our district. Uh, I just I just don't see it. But once again, as Fred pointed out, it's the agency. It's our responsibility to use the information. We don't have to follow DPI. We don't have to follow Southern Poverty Law. It's just, you know, we're not suckers. Yeah. If I may just add to that and this is where I started my conversation which is the more that we understand from you the elected people who govern

165the school district right what it is that you think is important and I listed some things that I said administration thinks is very important that you look at right going back to your agency as elected board members to tell us what we need to focus on and teach having administration bring to you what our thoughts are and issues that we're seeing. Um, and tools like this or others that we can try to use to get to that is what the uniqueness of our system is about. Right? Madison may choose to do it differently. Their board is elected to do whatever they want to do and we're certainly not Madison and not not in this community. Not that I know of. However, when we talk about what is ours and what isn't ours, that's your job.

166Because when when public education started in the 1800s in this in in our nation, right, that was the government's idea that we do have to step in and start teaching these things. that it used to be this only those families and those families who could do it right for their children right in our nation we've decided no there are certain things that we as a public want to instill in our students if you want to instill things like organization planning um working to measure monitoring these kinds of things I'm telling you that we're we're lacking a way to make sure that we understand exactly where they are in the development of those things and we need to start using some kind of tools to get there whether they're self-created whether there's something we purchase out

167there whatever um and there are bandwidth issues and there are discussion points but we need to start with what do you want right and and to make sure that we understand and define that so that our public understands what we do even because I don't want people thinking that we're doing some of the things that you're worried about, Greg, which is having some alternate tool decide what it is we're teaching versus what we're teaching. Right. Right. Okay, Jared. Um, uh, I have one comment and then I'm going to ask for a poll. Uh, first of all, I'm just going to say that probably the break. Well, first of all, great conversation. Appreciate everybody's respect for each other and bringing up a lot of different points. Uh, I will say that still the most interesting thing

168I heard wasn't in today's meeting. It was actually something Diana said last time and even before was a topic even before surveying when you were a teacher you uh indicated that you used to ask how your kids are doing and are they ready to learn and that was at the last ed services meeting and this is an effort to try to expand that but that doesn't mean you can't just go back to that and make it very personalized between the teacher and the student because that's ultimately who's in the room with the student trying to gauge if they're ready to learn and so I love that I heard that Diana said that that she used to do that and you were a very good teacher, I'm sure. Um, just one I guess that's just an

169editorial. So, thanks for bringing it up last time. As far as this one goes, um, I'm interested in asking what we want to do with the resolutions and I definitely don't hear broad support to put them on the agenda for approval. However, and I'm glad if Fred is still on, and there still is always an uncomfort level for me that if a subcommittee chooses not to put forth a motion, that is a de facto vote to get not allow the other five board members who are not board members to weigh in on it. In which case, uh, Lori, I brought this up last time. I still believe it's our responsibility to make a re recommendation to or not to approve it, but then still leave the resolution on the agenda so that it can be

170voted down or in favor of by the full board. By doing it alternatively, you are actually gutting the ability of other board members to weigh in on a subject uh by deciding in committee which committees don't have the authority to decide. So that's the way that I read it. I'm not and I want to just how we as a board have decided to do that. I mean I my understanding is there are things that don't go as a resolution. So I just want to be clear that we're always that's if fiscal for example decided not to pursue something and it's only four people but the other five people didn't weigh in. They're making a decision and there are only four people making the decision. No. So are you asking if there's precedent for that? Yeah.

171I'm not saying it's one or the other. I just think the word definitely I don't know Fred what I mean if the committees cannot take board action and David is correct in saying that by not by killing a uh recommend or killing this before and I'm struggling with the word here uh before it goes up to the full board you're taking board action what the committee does is do the research and make a recommendation. Put this up. This should go up in front of the full board and then the committee's recommendation is to not follow through with it and then present the information that was provided to the committee and not follow through with it. Then the full board takes the action to vote on it. Vote it down or up and then allows all

172the board members to have their say on it and make the action. Now, by the committee saying, "We're not going to go forward. We don't make that. We don't recommend going forward with it." Chances are the board's gonna the rest of the board members are going to go. The committee did the work on this. They understand this. I'm going to go with what they've recommended. But we still have to have this in front of the board. I held off on this up to this point because we were still in the midst of discussion on this. I think we've kind of come full round and finished up our discussion on this. So, I would expect we should have this on the August uh board agenda and and I that's the direction I was leaning Fred. The

173alternative, Lori, would be is that we make a recommendation for we make a recommendation for no resolution and then anybody at that time because it's in the minutes could be brought up as a resolution on the spot and say, you know what, despite what the committee recommends, I'd like to see a resolution and then it comes on during the process of the board meeting. But I really believe that the board should have a more messy. Yeah. Yeah, that's more messy. I' I'd rather have a recommendation and Okay. So, one, if Fred's in agreement and you're all in agreement, the resolution goes on and it's going to be for the approval of one and or the other of the two adoptions and then there's going to be a vote at the full board on the resolution.

174I guess my question here is I've seen in the board meetings when a resolution I have heard board members say I assume that the committee they have sent it to the board I trust that they meaning those four people felt that it should be here and so I don't know where that do you get what I do you know what I'm saying and I'm not I'm not saying it right I'm just saying there's always this presumption that the committee has made this recommendation And I just want to be sure that you get what I'm saying. But that's honestly where as a board you need to be clear with direction that having the resolution out. Right. Doesn't mean that the committee supports that. It just means this is business we have to take care of. Sure.

175Right. If you in your minutes say um the committee does not uh approve of this resolution for these reasons, we're forming you as a board, the board can read in read those, right? Yeah. Each board member can make their own decision for business that needs to take be taken based on their vote. Whether that's supporting the committee or not supporting the committee or whatever, right? That's how a good functioning board works is that they share from the committee the the discussion points and or whether or not they're leading one way or another on whatever topic of business that comes forward. It is a topic of business. I'm not saying it shouldn't go to the board. I just think there's been some unclearness on having a negative Yeah. having negative action as a resolution is uncommon,

176right? But this one particularly, we're not picking between a, you know, a Ford and a Ram, you know, or a Dodge or whatever you want to call it. I just know, I mean, this was a while ago where it came to the board as a recommendation from the committee when the committee had not recommended it. So, I just don't want there to be any kind of Got it. But I think we've come a long way in terms of where our minutes have been. Sure. In terms of discussion because I know when I first joined the board, Yeah. that was hash on committee and if it made it to full board unless someone specifically said this was not supported you knew it had kind of the approval we've evolved since then there's been a lot more

177discussion um with each of the sets of minutes but I agree that there needs to be something stated so there's no assumption out there exactly that this has because I can imagine getting a lot of calls and emails that right good point is there and that's what that's I was going to say is that in in the minutes in the and the minutes are going to have to be in there. But you're right, if we put the resolution on there, there's going to be could be a dozen people who are going to stand up and tell us that they don't want us to approve it. And my next question is is what do we all want the minutes to reflect right now? And I'm going to say Lori, Sam, and Diana, uh my as as

178what did uh Tony would always do is say, well, I'm reading the room as it does not have broad support from the board, in which case the minutes should reflect as such. and looking for alternatives. That's all I was trying to get. I'm not saying it to clarify too this this recommendation, right, came from administration, right? It it's not coming out of a committee. It's not, you know, going from the administration to the committee and the committee got by. One of the um important things about that right is when we bring an administrative recommendation to you remember that we've done a lot of study uh a lot of study a lot of discussion points about whatever tool or whatever um and we're bringing some staff voice to that right that says some staff or the

179staff that we're we're utilizing this feel it's important right or at least the majority of them we're bringing that um So, for you to not have it go anywhere, um, it really, uh, you know, uh, it said it doesn't have a codifying notion to it. Lori, what what I think we're going to do, if everybody's okay, let's write the resolution as a negative, that the resolution is to not renew Panorama. And that means an affirmative vote on the resolution is a non-renewal of Panorama. if it's worded that way. One, we don't have to pick between two because more or less and I just wanted full disclosure public comment and all nine members to weigh in. So, I do not want to do this in committee and then make anybody who's not currently present feel like

180they don't have a vote. Uh nor do I want there to be ambiguity in what the recommendation of the committee is. So, if we word the resolution as a non-renewal and we vote on it 729045, at least we'll have very clear direction from the full board as to its renewal. Does that seem reasonable? Does that assist in trying to set the expectations for Would you guys move forward with that or would you would you need it to be My suggestion would be in reading alone that there is interest in engaging in a process to determine what the best tool might be for this. So if we want to have it in negative toward the panorama but supportive of a research study process in which we are examining our data uh collection as it relates to

181social emotional learning through a year-long process then that gives us as administration direction as to what the board would like us to do. I would can we just leave that and then can that be left in the minutes and just leave the resolution to panorama. I mean services has the ability to but that would be that an action step. How clear do you want your actions to be for the staff to understand? Well I I do not want this to be a ref this should not be a referendum on seal. Okay. This is a referendum on panorama and that's it. Okay. That's what's on our discussion today. That's what the resolution is. So I don't want it to start to think that we're not going to be finding out what our kids need in order

182to be successful. We haven't voted on that and barely even touched on that subject today. That requires like a whole separate meeting to talk about. Precisely. Precisely. But then our minutes should reflect if this if if your intent as a committee, right, is for us to study something else because we do think that some of these things are important and trying to find a way to assess them is important. Then we need to denote that as action from the committee given to the administration. Okay. And you want that in the minutes or you want that as a resolution? No, you can't make a resolution from the committee standpoint. What general is it be it be a resolution take to the board um to see as go ahead as this resolution was brought forth to sorry

183I cut Jared off not finished. Um, what's important is that we have direction from you and that we can share that direction staff. That's all I'm saying. Thank you. And I'm going to agree with Jared. Sorry for cutting you off, Jared, to agree with you, but uh um as the resolution was brought forth to the committee, you can make the change to the resolution before you send it up to the full board. It's not gone from the full board at this point. I would also I would uh recommend as you said have a negative of the recommendations to not go forward with Panorama, not renew the contract and seek another tool to another surveying tool and then whatever other language but begin because we need clear guidance for the district for the administration on what

184okay if we don't have this what do we do? Well, we want you to seek another tool. Okay. Thank you, Jen, for that addition. These are going to be my best minutes ever. Yes, you got it. Okay. Was there anything else on the agenda today? So, I just want to read that. Does the committee agree that? Oh, sorry. Agree with that. Does the committee agree with that? Yeah. Negative recommendation. Explore other options. Explore other options. I'm I'm good with that. Good. board was good. Awesome. Thank you for taking that and understanding where what I was trying to get. I wasn't trying to say the board should not have a was to be. Okay. So, not renew panorama but engage in a process to determine how to best analyze our data and make decision. You'll come

185up with something clever. Got it. Like I said, best minutes ever. Okay, that is the last agenda item. Anything else? other action items that we took from today's I I already took care of emailing Margaret um to get those uh staff survey questions out to the board. Um so that action item has finally en been acted, but were there any other action items that um the committee um gave the administration? There's the other referendum for Sarah for the special ed is it the special education resol resolution? resolution and uh Jason and Jenny both have a couple of documents that had draft stamped on them that I think we agreed as to when Jenny's is going to come back. It's going to be in the first quarter. Jason's, I'm not sure about yours, but you're still

186working on it to clean it up as far as an overarching document that's going to be communicated to the parents sometime during orientation. I would love to bring that back to this table as well when it's yeah convenient and incorporate the other document as a standalone and make sure it's available. And I just want to clarify a resolution for the purchase of Star through Renaissance. Oh, right. And I think you asked for fast bridge to go on the same resolution. Put those in the same place. Okay. Any action items at the special ed document will go on to the website. Mhm. Uh Jason, I believe we don't have it doesn't have to go to and uh I believe though that that we can certainly with this week as to say that services take care of

187this. We don't want to keep passing back. Thank you. Okay. Ajourned. Thank you. David, congratulations on being three minutes shorter than the planning meeting last night. I appreciate that. Boy, I could I could have made it another minute shorter had I known you're the one who self select I I sorry Yeah.