001on fire. Awesome. Okay. Um all the April uh ed services meeting to order. Uh first up is uh Jenny with the director update. Yeah, nothing um huge today. I just wanted to take a chance. I'm going to turn it over to Ashley briefly just to highlight uh an event that's happening this evening which is the multilingual family night which we do in conjunction with the chamber of commerce. So Ashley I will turn it over to you. Yeah. So our yearly event is happening tonight at the Watertown Public Library in the community room. It's from 6:00 to 7:30. We've collaborated again with the Chamber of Commerce. We have a lot of different businesses who are planning to attend tonight. So, if you're free, feel free to stop in um and say hi. You said about 18
002vendors coming. Yes. And then we also have um some high school students uh who are helping to run children's activities in a separate area so that parents can um interact with the businesses that are present. So, should be a really fun evening. And free pizza. And free pizza. And Costco cookies. Yeah, you can't say no to Costco. Actually, is that a drop in kind of drop off? Yeah. And when you say the chamber, I know that uh Thrive Economic Development had posted a couple of these things throughout the county both in Whitewater and Watertown in the past. Is this strictly just a water town chamber or does it any way it coordinated with the county? It's just with water. Okay. And I think I'd given either you their name or their your name to see
003because I know the county still does that at least twice a year in various communities. Yes. And it's also a job fair for the parents which I presumably this is also with the chamber being there is also job fair for the parents but it's also an opportunity to reach out to those families from the school's perspective as well. Right. Got it. Right. It's a mix of uh employment and um just resources in the community like safe families will be there um and other organizations like that to provide resources for families. All right. Thank you very much. Um the next topic we have on our agenda today as long as there were no questions about that say no nothing else from the director. Nothing else today. Okay. Got it. I wanted to make sure we reserved
004our time for other pieces too. Um, as an update from the high school science department and I did invite uh Josh and Brian Gerky who is the chair of the science department um to chime in as well. But I just wanted to give you just sort of a brief review of where we've been um and then just a bit of an overview of what the science department at the high school is looking at. Um if you'll remember back in January of 2024 um we did approve a contract through ESSER with CISA 2 um to start analyzing our curriculum for science 612. We made an intentional decision to go 612 mainly because of the work that we were doing at the elementary level with literacy and the math work as well. Um if you remember um
005the 612 team met and did a bit of an analysis of where they were at with standards, but the middle school team was at a very different place. They had had uh quite a bit of turnover with staffing and were um looking more for a curricular resource at that point. Um so in uh April of 2024 um RMS moved forward with an adoption of amplify science which is based on the NGSS next generation science standards and they are in their first year of implementation of that. The high school science team was at a slightly different spot um in that they had a lot of stability with their teaching staff um but did feel very strongly about doing a deep dive into the standards as well um as the data that they um were finding with
006the student classrooms. Um as you can see based on that mapping of the curriculum they did find that there were some gaps um that students had depending on which um level or rigor of course work that they were in. Um also with the data dive they did find that um good news fewer students were failing um their science courses but they were not seeing an increase in uh their ACT performance um and in some places they were also seeing a little a decrease with their ACT performance um and ACT readiness performance as well. Um so from there the science the high school science team um just determined that they were feeling very strongly about ensuring that they were providing all students a solid foundation across all disciplines within science. Um they felt strongly about maintaining
007the variety of course offerings that they have um in science especially for the juniors and seniors. Um but they also wanted to ensure that they were providing cha challenging and engaging coursework for all students um and looking to move to eliminate the courses that were not at grade level rigor. Um, so throughout this school year, um, the department with Brian's leadership, um, has been talking about potentially looking at a different, um, course sequence proposal, um, which would require some changes, um, with requirements for graduation. Um, I just want to put out there that the soonest any changes would be would be for the class of 2030. Obviously, any of these changes would need um board approval and we would have to provide um pretty long long runway for our students if we were to make
008any of those changes. You can see that currently the school board does require um three science credits for graduation, the same as the state requirement with one in biology and one in one of the physical sciences. um what they are considering proposing and again this is just a draft or potential um and in this potential course sequence would be um the I would say most significant change that they're considering and so I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Um they are going to continue to investigate the implications of this um what staffing might need to look like, what um lenture for our um teachers might need to look like for us to be able to implement that. But the point of the new um proposed course sequence would be to ensure that students
009have access to all of the different um NGSS standards across the way. You can see that they've outlined both a typical course sequence and then like an honors or advanced course sequence as well um with the idea that um they want to move to eliminate those courses that are not at grade level rigor. Um, I give huge credit to the team because they've been working closely with the u multilingual teachers as well as the special education teachers to determine what that might look like and how they can best support students um accessing that rigorous curriculum in their classroom. And so I know that has been a focus of their work right now. The other piece of the work that they've done this year is um taking a look at ways to make their classrooms more
010engaging. um they are investigating uh an approach called storylining. Um and storylining is starting with a science phenomenon and then um really digging into how why that works and how that works within the classroom instead of more of a traditional approach. um they began exploring um and piloting a a curriculum called open cy which is aligned with the NGSS national uh next generation science standards um which is aligned also with what they're using at the middle school as well um and they are learning a lot through that approach and learning a lot through engaging with other science departments across the state of Wisconsin. Their plan um for the next year is to continue exploring that open sed in biology and potentially expanding that next year into chemistry and physics um to see if student engagement
011and achievement increases with the use of that approach. Any formal adoption of that would be brought to the full board for uh approval for the 26 and 27 school year. Um so probably around this time next year if that's the direction that the team determines that they would like to propose. Obviously they're going to be looking at some staffing considerations for any updating updated course sequencing um keeping in mind many factors including lensure um and then budgeting considerations as well. Um any updated course sequence would need to come to the board in late fall or early winter of 2025. Um that course sequencing would of course uh require board approval um for any new courses um and any updates to graduation requirement policy and again that earliest that updated requirement would be would be for
012that class of 2030. Um and then potential elimination of the courses not at grade level rigor would be brought again to the board in early winter late fall late fall early winter 2025 for implementation in the 2627 school year with board approval. So, I'm sort of thinking it would might be uh two different updates for ED services and then the full board um right along with the course sequence proposal with the high school um for any changes with graduation requirements or um with courses and then uh any um adoption of curricular materials would come probably around this time next year. I spoke for a long time and I'm happy to answer any questions folks might have. Sam, Lori, Diana. Um, quick. So, I guess uh summarizing, are you going to be my AI? Yeah. I
013was otter. Yeah. Um, at this point the we're not offering any We're not even suggesting new courses. It's a realignment or an insertion of some things to close gaps. Is that the That's That's correct. If we do end up changing this sequence, we have a physics class that we offer the junior level. We have an earth science class that we offer at the junior level. They'd be kind of combining those two classes, modifying for a level. Okay. And then as far as curriculum or or text or or content uh aside from open sed is there currently anything being evaluated considered or known to be a gap I mean if we have the if it's just a refocus of the coursework or a realignment with the class schedules or the grade level classes is there any
014purchases that we anticipate out of this I mean it could be but I'm right so open sad is open source we can okay find that online there are companies vendors that provide prepackaged things but um we've been just using that. There are other storylining curriculums that we are also um exploring that are similarly open um resources. Um so I don't anticipate any okay expenditures for textbooks or anything like that regardless. And Jenny, as far as this lining up with your seven-year uh uh plan, is this a kind of the interstitial or is this on target with that that plan? Is this kind of an in between that we're just going to be looking at it and cleaning it up or is that actually right lock and step with the plan for high school science? I
015would say that we are aiming to be K12 and so because of that it's going to start to get a little bit wonky as we realign K12. Got it. And so um we will probably be revisiting high school science or K12 science before high school will have gone through seven full years. But that's to stink us back up K12 again. Okay. This isn't a major overhaul anyway. This is just an effort to tighten up the edges. Correct. I mean, I believe so. I think the biggest overhaul that it would be is if we do propose a different course sequence and need to change graduation requirements. That would be the biggest change. Okay. But we would have such a long runway with that because you can't obviously change it for the kids who are currently right
016now. So it would be the kids who are like I think we figured like seventh graders right now would be the first class that it could affect. Okay. Okay. Dan, did you have any questions? Well, yeah. Brad, could you explain that story lining thing a little better? Yeah. So story So the NGSS the next generation science standards they have three main components. So disciplinary core ideas which is like the traditional content. So like in biology like mitosis or something how cells divide. Then there's also within those standards there's science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts. So there's kind of like the skills and the themes that show up throughout science. And so in story lining it's written with the NGSS standard in mind. So it's looking at all three of those instead of just the
017content which a traditional curriculum would just be looking at the content. And so it's thinking about how are students modeling what scientists are doing. So we're giving them a phenomenon say something that they're having to think about to explore. Uh one of the units is looking at will the beast migration for example. So why are the wilderbeasts migrating in the Serengeti of Africa? And so then the whole unit is based on trying to figure out that phenomenon by getting qu students to ask questions um doing investigations and then everything is it's much more coherent uh for the student that everything is tying back to that for the whole unit and then they're building explanations as they go. So that's kind of the storyline approach in a nutshell. So how science is being used in the
018real world. Exactly. Yeah. And that I think that's the the the biggest benefit of it is you can see where the concepts uh apply to a real world situation and it's not like after the fact oh yeah you can see how this works you know and it's built in throughout the whole course sequence. So that's where you know we're talking about engagement. Um that's one of the biggest benefits here. Thank you. You had mentioned shifting things where you're having some classes that were junior classes now at the freshman level. My question especially in physics y is the mathematical component. Do the kids have the math skill set? I'm talking your middle of the road and lower. Do they have the skill set to be successful or are we setting them up for a even more
019challenging situation than what they're already being put into? Yep. So, good question. There's across the state there's basically two camps. There's the physical science, which is kind of physics and earth as a freshman or the bio as a freshman. We've been in the bio as a freshman. Um, it's kind of 50/50 across the board. So, mathwise, the physics, the math and physics is algebra based. Um, will it need to be different than it would be for a junior level physics class at the freshman level? Yeah, we would need to to modify that. Um, however, then the goal would be by if they're switching to chem their junior year, then mathematically they're prepared a bit more for chem. Um, which would make that process easier. So, it's kind of it is a bit of a trade-off
020there whether they're more mathematically ready for for the physical science or the chem between switching them. I guess I would hope that you would look at that very carefully because chemistry has been set up that it is at that grade level standard for 10th graders. So yes, modifications, but we don't want to modify it to the point where we're missing correct the standard. Yeah, that's something we'll definitely Okay. and collaborate with the Mac. Um Jenny, do you want to put any of this as an a future action item? You'd mentioned fall early winter 2025. Um just uh so that those how and next steps I'm not saying that anybody in the room is going to forget about it, but if it's going to go on an ed service agenda at some point, I just want
021to make sure it gets back on the ed service agenda and people know it's coming up whether it's on a footnote or in the future action items section of your uh record keeping. Um okay, got it. And uh I guess only other qu So who's involved in the uh this review um or who are you going to be tapping in the this effort the the who who's looking at this the science department as a whole has been working together for the last couple years continue to do so. Okay. Also at administration involved as well. But I and I do also want to say and and appreciate the hard work that the science team has done because I know they spent a lot of effort and um time trying to get Yeah, we've been at just
022at WSST which is the science teachers convention last week talking about this type of thing and we were having Kevin Anderson who's the GPI science consultant presumed with him and I've been doing with uh people from open sad as well to ask questions. Okay, good job. Thank you. Uh, next up, hold on. Good question. Um, if I may. Uh, so when it comes to alignment or I guess this is more like a stop cap if I'm not mistaken for scheduling for the purpose of ACT uh, success more or less. I mean before we do like a K through 12 alignment full alignment. So is that a decent characterization of that or am I I think um when I went back and reviewed our notes it did we started our investigation of science 612 um and
023we were using esser dollars that had been set aside. I think esser sort of put the gas on um investigating different set of curriculum materials because we had dollars we had set them aside. it fit well with the um purpose of ESSER. Um and what we spoke about is that we're kind of in a situation where long term we're aiming for K12 pieces. We're in sort of a situation where we're playing catch-up in certain areas and so it won't work out to be exactly like a seven-year curriculum cycle. Um but certainly science will pop up for the high school again before 7 years. And so it was us taking the opportunity of using the ESR dollars knowing this was not an area that we had examined um and then really credit to the science department
024for really doing a deep dive to know what it was that our kids needed um and what they might potentially be missing at this point. Okay. Um, I heard Diana's comments regarding uh her concerns about chemistry and I think those are valid. Uh, especially with with physics and and the rigor that's required, math requirement and all that. Um, I do kind of wonder what the data looks like when it comes to eighth grade coming into ninth grade. Um, are we behind in science right off the get-go? Uh, so are we looking at the possibility of possibly introducing some of this course material from 9th grade into eighth grade? At least elements of that so that so that they're a little bit more uh receptive to the coursework that's in ninth grade. Can I piggyback before
025you answer that? Sure. Because as I thought about this, and correct me if I'm wrong, so I'm trying to tying it with his question, the ACT is our means of um evaluating. So in middle school, we have the STAR, which really looks at in from my understanding how they fit or how they're learning in terms of standards. This is the ACT, which is really a college prep type evaluation. So it's not quite the exact same. So when we're looking at the benchmarks, we're going based off of college benchmark ACT standards that we get to all not the STAR test. So we have to just be in from my mind. So you can piggyback on that, but correct me if I'm wrong because if not, I have a follow-up question to that. Um so as far
026as the middle school science curriculum, they did shift away from being more um departmentalized to being AC more across the board. So sixth grade science will hit on a variety of different topics. Seventh grade as well and eighth grade as well. So, previously it was more like more like the high school where like sixth grade was and I don't know the actual course sequence because that was before I was in the position but sixth grade was like biology and seventh grade was more like earth science. Now what they're doing at the middle school is so that kids are exposed to each of the areas each year. They are taking more of a like crosscurricular approach to build into the high school piece. I do agree that one additional piece of work and we intended to
027do that after our science folks got an opportunity to get through the amplified curriculum at the middle school is building that 612 conversation again um to say hey here's what we're seeing when they come to us in nth grade right like what can we be doing differently in the middle school to help support that so I do believe that that is another step that we need to do in the process um well outside of curriculum review process that should just be ongoing things that are happening. Well, you know, and to Diana's point, you know, Yeah. Yeah. You have two different assessments essentially that may have different um benchmarks that they're trying to hit. But I I I think that we could probably chew gum and walk at the same time. Could we not? I mean,
028start introducing some of those elements earlier on that might alleviate some of this crunch here. I think it's really what she's saying. She was saying like, you know, they're they're taking an approach to instead of silo students at the middle school, they're introducing all of those topics across the board to prepare them, right? And in doing so, that will then force the high school a little bit to look back and say, okay, now that we have a couple of years of Amplify Science in, we know what you've changed and what you've done. how can we support what we are doing there and realign here to make sure that their outcomes on the ACT are the best and so that's what they're essentially doing they're they're walking and chewing gum that's how you want to put
029it at the same time they're they're trying to interweave those but it's all based on the same NGSS that are national standards for science that's that's what I'm hearing happening what else to just remind the team that this is our first year that we uh implemented the preac ACT89 at the eighth grade level. So we have that paid as well and the feedback we had was positive. So I think we'll do that moving forward as well. Can I add one more comment? The thing that I like that I'm hearing these last couple years is it's all coming back to the standards where before it was more looking at this is a textbook that we like and we follow the textbook and with the standards they've just done the revisions for those next generation science standards
030making sure that there is the alignment. So if we're following the standards that should address your point of this is what needs to be done at these grade levels sixth grade seventh grade to prep them for that. Um whereas in the past it was well this should be done here and this should be done here and we were kind of peacemealing where we thought it fit and if we truly look at standards and are we learning the standards are we teaching the standards and then how you teach it with the more engaging parts of things that's what's going to kind of bridge what you're talking about. Um so I'm excited that it goes there that that we're looking at that. Um but it takes a lot of work. So, thank you for all of the
031extra work that's being done on top of everything. Uh yeah. Um next generation science standards. Uh maybe this is something that was picked up before I got on the board last year. Uh where does that come from and why are why is that the set of standards that we're working with? Good question. Uh the state of Wisconsin has um either the Wisconsin state standards or the next generation science standards. Um and as a board those were the standards that were adopted because you're right. We typically talk about Wisconsin state standards. This is kind of the one exception to that. Yeah. What is the difference like where does next generation science standards come from compared to Wisconsin state standards? Um very good question. They're essentially the same. Okay. Yeah, they've been adopted. Wisconsin state standards are
032thes. So, the Wisconsin state adopted the NGSS as their standards. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if they if there's any tiny modifications, but it's essentially the same. And I know this is future. um if you're going to realign the graduation requirements, would that be aligned with an entire graduation requirement, you know, because I'm assuming that may affect how many fed is requiring how that will look. I'm just curious. I think you are correct to assume there might be some additional context with graduation requirements um in light of some budget questions. what that looks like. I don't think we know yet, but I think that's I know um in fact that the science department has thought about that and um has that on their list of things to be thinking through and thinking about. Um so
033yeah, I mean we will think about it within the context of the greater the greater high school graduation requirements. Perfect. Greg, what uh what kind of data will be collected over the course of the year in order for us to know uh that this is the right pathway to proceed with? Good question. Um I know that the ACT preACT is something that they look at. I think engagement um using their common assessments is something that um the department is really really strong at using their PLC model would be another area that they would look at as well. Um sometimes people use attendance as a sort of uh indicator of engagement. Um, sometimes that works well and sometimes it doesn't depending on how bad the flu season is and whatnot as well. So, Brian, do you
034have anything that you would add to that? No, I think you hit on the the right things. We'll be looking at ACT and our in like our intermittent assessments with this the interpretation of data for instance with like the ACT um and see how that is progressing. other any other thoughts of data that the board might want to see? I definitely would like to see um those data points, you know, going forward in and April if we were going to make a decision. I mean, that's essential for me to be able to make a decision. I don't want to see what that looks like. Okay, next topic, summer school. What do you got? Everyone's favorite. Uh, well, just a brief shout out. We opened summer school registration last night without a glitch. That's exciting. Um,
035I believe that some of our courses are closed to capacity. Um I'm not sure that we have filled any of them up completely. So um I know that we must have a large following of parents out there. So if they haven't signed up to summer school, there's still tons of great options out there. Um the next two um items on our agenda are policy items that will also show up tomorrow night on the policy agenda. I just know that summer school policy had been discussed here before and uh Jason and Fred Yant had had the opportunity to look at some of the feedback that the ED services team provided um ed services committee had provided um to um adjust the Neola policy. So I will turn it over to you Jason if you want to
036make some comments about what you have included. Yeah, thank you. I did get an opportunity a couple different times to talk to Fred. Uh this is a super clean version of a messy pallet of strikethroughs and colors and highlights that we have worked through. Um and so this is kind of our first uh serve here to services to see what you think. Um first of all looking at our comparable school districts, what does their policy look like regarding summer school? it is almost boilerplate Neiola um with maybe a strikethrough of something transportation related or something that they weren't necessarily interested in taking on but otherwise it looked very much like what Neiola would have pushed out there for policy. So this is definitely has more like a flavor to it maybe what we're trying to
037accomplish. Um things that feedback that we had gotten uh through this process uh was trying to talk through how do you infuse rigor and like academic work as much as makes sense to do so in some of those enrichment courses. I feel like we did a nice job of that um through those first three bullets um providing academic instruction um which wouldn't necessarily have to be the exact curricular access that they had over the course of the year though it could be. So, as an example, uh middle school students who would maybe benefit from a well like remedial experience, um learning loss experience in ELA or math instead of pushing Whitten Wisdom and um illustrative math out there in a in a 20-day package. uh may be something that we utilize as a way to
038like get at it from a different angle um instead of just like pushing them into an abbreviated uh a place that they were unsuccessful with over the course of the year and coming in at very different levels. So um they have some experience with that during the school year this so we just wanted to make sure policy didn't limit us. It allowed us options to do what we had been doing over the course of the year but also some different ways to go ahead and do that. um recreational activities, promoting student engagement. We want kids to want to come to summer school. We can't necessarily force them to come to summer school. We can't require it. Um we want to encourage it and um but we also don't want it to be all enrichment. We
039want there to be obviously connections to curriculum. So definitely some ideas on how to do that, how to connect every single class to something with with a somewhat of an academic focus to it. Um and you can see that again in that third bullet. um feedback on um what the opportunity should uh provide. Um you can see those three A, C, and E have um suggested changes to it. Um trying to make sure that we have students that are um having using being able to utilize summer school as a way to um stay caught up, get caught up to be able to make sure that they're graduating on time. Um south of that, um Fred loved this work, by the way. said he loves looking at policy and making changes to it or suggesting changes
040to it. So I had learned a lot from him. Um he thinks the number one part of the board should be to appoint the director before all else. And then so we made that order change in there. Otherwise, I'm just changing some words here and there. I don't know if that was a good presentation or not. Jenny's so much better at this. No, I I think you did a you and Fred did a great job and I appreciate you taking this on from a historical perspective and I'm going to frame this um to make sure that we're all aligned as to why we're we're looking at this is that uh on my tenure on the board, summer school came up at least three consecutive years as far as what is our goal and we were
041never able to answer that as a collective partially because we didn't either have a policy or we didn't even you know couldn't answer it otherwise. Uh there were some who wanted it mandatory that if you were not at grade level you had to take a academic course in order to take an enrichment course. There were others who said, "Hey, there's a lot of people in the community view this as a, you know, kind of a a daycare and you don't want to mandate the academics if the people are enjoying it and it's a it's a cost center for the uh or FTE center for enrollment for the district. So the goal of this was to uh try to get us all on the same page and editing this NEOLA policy um as a repository for
042that understanding and that uh common ground seemed to be a great spot for it. Um and I don't even know if there was a summer or interm you know a summer school policy in the previous book but we knew there was in Neiola. So this is where it made sense because otherwise it would end up somewhere else that we wouldn't be able to find or there'd be confusion uh etc. So u that's how we I'll say got to this point. Um and on those um w with that in mind Diana Lori Sam questions comments regarding this effort and our understanding that it aligns with where the board wants to summer school to go. So the questions for today are more overarching and being more nitty-gritty are for policy. Yes. Yeah. We Yeah. I don't think
043words smithing the policy is necessary today. Uh no, I agree. Yeah. Policy committee can do that. Uh I would think uh maybe with uh Jason's continued involvement, maybe not. But I would say that the first bullet, the first green bullet, which is providing academic instruction inclusive of but not limited to curriculum. Um, and WSD will strongly encourage but not require. Um, those are key elements and and foundation for our district offering summer school. and and if we're going to ratify it then then conceptually yeah you can words smmith it but you know so my well I have both that's why I wanted to ask so my o I have two overarching questions and one goes along that line um I'm typically the one that brings up the unified strength and where that fits and so
044my initial read in this is how does unified strength fit into this but it is not really required it's strongly required but my reason I'm bringing this up is there are coaches at the high school that pretty much require their athletes to do that. And so there needs to be some sort of conversation there that it should not it's you can strongly encourage but you can't half-heartedly require there's a difference and there's a bit more than half-heartedly requiring there on on that subject. We I know we talked about it and I don't think you can get a PE credit or that that was the discussion that that was the discussion three months ago. Yeah. Because it's like if they're gonna somewhat great, let's get credit for that. But since we can't do that, then that
045needs to be just that encouragement piece. So that's a communication thing. So for example, I mean, my high school basketball coach wanted me to shoot 10,000 shots every summer. I did that at my house. I didn't have to go to the gym to do it, but it was a requirement. Okay. So, it is is a coach's requirement for strength and speed or what you're talking about need to reside in this policy or is that just strictly the policy of a coach who says I want you in the gym three days a week this summer? This was and it could be a coach by coach basis. My kid does CrossFit does it three times a week. That wasn't okay. You come and do unified strength with your team. Oh, in addition to Okay. So, it's like,
046wait a second. But is that a summer school issue or is that a coach issue? That's where it's an implementation of summer school. So, that's where I'm saying it becomes an administrative piece in how that's communicated. So, because unified strength falls under the summer school umbrella. Yeah. My opinion is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's a summer school issue, but it's how the new director then communicates that to the coaching staff. So that's why it's an overarching piece that I'm bringing up today. Good. Jason, you have any I mean I I don't know how to answer that. I wasn't expecting an answer. I'm just putting it out there and Jason's nodding like, "Yep, I hear what's going on and that's something that we need to look into and that's my only purpose in
047bringing it to my second question or piece is down on page two where they talk about um it's the first, second, third bullet that starts with reasonable fees, maybe charge blah blah blah." The last part there says in accordance with DPI regulations and this is simply I don't understand this please help me just to make sure when you have a cake decorating class or you have a V you know there's fees there are those DPI regulations that allow you to charge those fees they go toward materials so if that falls under it great if it doesn't then we need to make sure that somewhere I didn't see it in here that we are still able to charge the nominal fees for covering the cost of materials. So is does that fall under DPI regulations to
048Okay, I didn't know what those specific were. So I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, BPI says you can charge for a fee for materials, but all of those materials have to be used at some consumable materials and keep the receipts for audit purposes. Mhm. So when they charge for bowling or when they charge for whatever that's consumable, not because we're using but because it's going toward the Okay, those are my only two. Jason, did you have a response to Diana's first question about how you want to integrate that or change this as far as the fees or as far this first part of the question regarding um athletics like and again you can steer me in a different direction like I I I do believe it falls under summer school. Obviously this is taking
049place in the summer school. I also believe it would be likely a conversation with the Jamie Ke of the high school around like the athletic director part of that to say listen like is this an expectation that impacts students eligibility or playing time or their status on the team over the course of the year. I remember in my previous district, we had a a baseball a successful baseball coach would require summer uh spring break practice and for the family wanted to go on vacation for spring break that led to just this like rock fight. It seemed like every year when that would be the case, that was an expectation a coach had, but there was nothing like governed it like in policy or anything like that. So that was a conversation with the athletic director
050to kind of So I I can see myself working with that person to come up with something that makes some sense. Okay, Mor. Yeah. Um, it's kind of along the lines of of that particular sentence. Um, I I would suggest that maybe we strike out the words but not required. Um, simply because I think that might um provide the most flexibility. uh because later on in the document itself it talks about um you know to offer opportunities to earn credits to graduate. One might take that to mean well if I've exhausted all my other opportunities well then it's kind of a requirement. The other thing without skipping too far ahead is you're talking about the third and fourth grade promotion later on and it also talks about the summer reading program uh you know to
051be able to complete uh in order to be promoted to to the fourth grade. I don't know that saying um that is not a requirement is an accurate statement for some students. But but if you look at summer and interim school session that paragraph letter C says to make up a failed course. My question as we get into policy the meeting tomorrow is in parenthesis it says to offer opportunities to earn credits to graduate on time. That's contradictory in there because a failed course at third grade. The addition of what's in green makes it seem like it's just high school. And so if we word smith that farming, then it leaving it making up a fail course does get through the course or the third and fourth grade that you're talking about. If we just
052leave it as is because then that work that they're doing that they that's required falls under that bullet. Craig, is it so please restate that for me. Um, is it your interest that our policy requires attendance for below grade level students? Or is it your or as as option one require attendance for below grade level? Option two, if they are below grade level, they can't just take enrichment. So my my take would be that it's an overall plan for that student that's below grade level and summer school might be an option for that is one of those options. Okay. So so in that case if they exhausted all of their options then it might be considered a requirement. Okay. Okay. So, as it's written right now, we'll strongly encourage but not require. And that I
053don't want to say directly comes from Brad Clark, but I can remember a year ago saying, "Yeah, of course, we try to push the families to summer school when practical." But sometimes you're just going to get a flat hard no. And at at that point, I I don't know what control we have over a students or family's summer plan. It'd be a question of are we then going to force a tier of of oversight on those who are enrolling to ensure that they're taking some catch-up courses. And this is at the heart of it is that it's not so much the word smithing Diana, it's that so far, Craig, no nine members of the board have come to a consensus on on that. There's always been a rumbling that wouldn't that be nice, but it's
054it's never been a requirement. And and so I'm not saying that your what I understand your comments or your questions to be are are uh new or or different. I'm just saying you're going to have to put this policy in front of the board and have them vote on it. And if they want a requirement, well then that's what we have to do and we have to do it before this summer. We have to do it for next summer. Um because you're there's a they enrolled yesterday. I mean, so it it it it's yours to change, but you have to have the vote of the board and articulate exactly what the requirement is for those families and those kids. And right now, we've not articulated a requirement. I I think one of the best things
055for us to do in this situation because I also hear what Craig's saying which is I don't think you're saying it is a requirement but in the end when all other options are exhausted it almost feels like a requirement right even then I would suggest that we u we would consult our attorney at that time and talk about whether or not we can force a family outside of maybe the new act reading law to have to engage in summer school to go forward to the next year. They may talk about um in school interventions that have happened or haven't happened and you know other discussion points. Um but the actual requirement of them having to do that in a time that is not required time under state law may be a difficult policy stance for
056us. You're right. They may feel like that's the only thing they have left to them, right? Right. As an offering um but to flat out say and it's required for you to move on may be difficult outside of act 10. But to the converse, maybe you ask your the attorney then that putting a language in your policy that says not required when the act 20 requirements may require some of that. ask them if that's contradictory because that certainly seems like it. Yeah, that that's why I said outside of that nuance, right? And that nuance may be taken care of not in a summer school policy but in a promotion policy. Um and uh certainly Niola has come up with uh a a policy around that that um Miss Boris is looking at and and having
057put forward to us. uh and I think that's where uh language around that one topic would reside not in a blanket in which case tie it back to the promotion policy would be tied back to the in the promotion policy policy right yeah and if you if you don't want to move if you want to move forward then you have to meet these standards and if you're not meeting these standards you better consider summer school and that's in that policy not in this policy um because that's about promotion it's not about the course offerings. Yeah. Yeah. Or the or the theory or the the goals of the board and better aligned with 10 20, right? What did I say? You were saying 10. Oh, sorry. That's my No, that's my 20. Sorry. You said it
058twice, so I figured you knew what you were talking about. But you you were locked in. No, I Yeah, that's the the only thing I was going to add too is then technically is it a requirement or would it still be a choice? Well, the choice if you don't Yeah, I'd say if you want to be promoted, it's a choice. It's an option for that choice. That's right. Well, yeah, it's your your choice. You don't want to move forward, then don't take summer school. Right. And I will say that from and I know we're jumping ahead to the next conversation from everything that we've gotten from DPI about act 20 and summer school and reading plans is that requiring summer school as a condition of that is not something that is like a possibility. So
059that's everything that we have gotten from DPI at this point. Um, so I just want to use caution in saying like that would become part of the act 20 piece because DPI has been pretty clear about that and I was just peeking through the FAQ and I didn't find it in there that requiring summer school for promotion from third to fourth on a reading plan is not something that you can require but that we should do everything in our power to make it accessible for kids. Um, and I think that would be a point of conversation with our interning is encourage, make it accessible, right? That type of thing. So, I just want to use some caution with that because that is what we've heard thus far from DPI about the act 20 summer piece.
060Oh, Dan, this is Heather. I'll definitely have we ever had a discussion about tweaking the summer school transportation? I've talked a little bit with Sarah Duncan about that piece that becomes a financial piece um and where we're transporting to and from. I believe we have tweaked those over the years. Um and so that is a conversation piece and um one of the data points that I know I am interested in is like fiscally how summer school is working for us and are there dollars and would there be opportunity for something like that because I do think for some families transportation becomes the challenge and there are there are ways to I believe the goal and correct me if I'm of summer school in Watertown is to not have it cost the district money. But I
061don't know that it's the intent has been to make the district money. I mean, I do think there are opportunities to make the district money as far as like being able to maybe then support something that would be able to expand maybe if it's just housed in summer school, maybe expand the summer school opportunities for more kids and maybe transportation as a part of that. But I know like in a in a different district, I know that they have hundreds of kids taking a traffic safety class and there's one teacher and there's hundreds of kids taking it and all of that stuff is reimburseable to the district and outside of that teacher salary maybe the program that that the curriculum that teacher is using really that money is all going back into the program. Not
062that it needs to be the lottery, but like just I think that there are some ways to think about how summer marching band gets reimbured like just different opportunities that there's massive amounts of kids coming and taking and not charging the kids but getting reimbured by the state. Um just rewinding for one second. I mean, we did Fred and I did talk a little bit about uh the require versus strongly encourage and I mean just just like looking at DPI in general around requiring summer school and it says at least on their most recent uh narrative on that is that you're not able to require it. Um just like it doesn't give like stipulations around that. It just says you can't you can't do it. So if there's different if that's one path to getting
063to where you want to go, it's great. And there's other paths maybe potentially, but again, maybe that's true. It's kind of like uh requiring homework in in middle school. Uh if you if you say something like it's not required, they're not going to do it. If you say something like it's strongly encouraged, they might be more inclined to participate. Just saying. Okay. So, uh, Craig, I, as I emailed you ahead of time, um, I didn't know what this document was going to look like, so I don't know what's been put on policy doc for tomorrow night, if it's just an agenda item or if you were able to grab this and already put it out there. Um, I don't hear any edits from this group or suggested changes. Of course, if there's, as Diana pointed
064out, or or policy will have last look at this to then push it forward to first read. So, Jenny, uh, for all practical purposes, I'd say ed services did their part. Uh, Craig, if you have the bandwidth tomorrow night to pick this up and, uh, review it with policy team and then, uh, recommend it for first read or not. Um, or I guess push it back to this committee if, uh, there's edits that are functional in nature as opposed to word smithing in nature. Um, and Jason, don't know your availability tomorrow night for policy. It's not that I don't know where it is on the agenda. Um, I don't see it on there. Oh, it is. It is on there. Very, very Oh, it's on its own. Sorry. I was going to the policy 2000
065group. So, anyway, uh, so thanks for capturing those, Craig, and putting it on there or Lynn, whoever dumped them in there. I looked at and I will be at policies. So, okay, there you go. Perfect. Okay. Thanks Jason. Thanks Fred. Thank you. Act 20 requirement discussion. Great. Thank you. Um this policy um just came to us from NEOA um from Acts 20. There was specific uh language about promotion um from third to fourth grade for students who were on a green plan. uh DPI release released a model policy I think like January 1. Uh Neola just got us this updated policy as well. Um this is going to be an interesting conversation for the policy review committee because we do have to have this one in place by July 1 of 2025 by state law.
066And so I know that will be discussion with the policy review committee because of how the book will be adopted and whether or not this will need to be a standalone. Um I will let that be a conversation for tomorrow night. Today I bring it to you because this is the uh committee that is most um knowledgeable about the requirements with act 20 and there are some details that we do need to work through on this policy. Um this policy specifically relates to the promotion of students from third to fourth grade who are currently receiving a reading plan. Um the biggest questions and the biggest pieces that this covers is, as we alluded to previously, that promotion piece as well as um the idea of in intensive summer programming for students who have not um
067graduated, if you will, from their reading plan, as well as any support beyond third grade um if they have not quote graduated. I think graduated is my word. um been released from their reame plan. Um first and foremost, sort of the biggest decision that we have to make as it relates to this policy is our implementation date. Um I did scan in the DPI FAQ um specifically related to this policy. I also had the link there if you prefer to go take a peek at the link. Um but the first question is when do we have to adopt this policy? We have to have this policy adopted by July 1 of 2025. And then we also have to stipulate the date by which this policy will go into effect. Um I am recommending that we
068picked July 1 of 2025 for this policy to go into effect. We could push this all the way to September 1 of 2027. Um, but I am recommending that we go with July 1 of 2025. If we picked a date earlier than July 1 of 2025, there would be some different um, implications with that. By choosing July 1 of 2025, we are saying that the intensive summer support would be enacted in July of 2026. In summer of 2026, I should say. Um, and any additional supports for students moving from third to fourth grade would go into effect for the 2627 school year. Um, and you can see that DPI specifically outlined that timeline on their FAQ. Um, the reason for that recommendation is that it's multifactored. Um, number one, we just did our first assessment
069um, using Ames Web and for students who are in third grade, the only thing that we are looking at is oral reading fluency. And so our students really have only had one opportunity at that assessment. Um, second of all, um, the level of parent communication we would be able to have with families about this intensive summer programming um, would feel, in my opinion, to be coming sort of, um, a little bit late. Also, at this point, DPI has not given us any guidance whatsoever on what the definition of intensive summer reading programming would be. Um, not that we don't have suggestions on what summer reading can look like and does look like. Um, I'm also anticipating though it's not been finalized that moving forward we'd be using as the Ames assessment in our upper elementary
070grades, fourth and fifth grade. So, we will continue to monitor that progress for our students in fourth grade as well. Um, and the goal of the implementation of the new reading curriculum is to better align with the requirements of Act 20. Um, knowing that we'll be focusing on that in all of our grades, but in fourth grade as well. Um, as you look through the additional policy, um, oops, there it is. Um, the changes, as you well know, are in green. Most of the changes are just the basic change the district to WSD. Um you'll see that we maintained all of the different reasons why we would determine whether or not we would promote or retain a child. Um so looking at all of these different factors. Um and then after that really Nola doesn't
071provide many options for um the district with those pieces. So truly the the biggest discussion point today is the date of the implementation of that. This would work in concert with the additional promotion policy that I know um the policy committee uh looked at. I think at this point it's been almost uh a year and a half to two years ago. we would have to you just go back to that policy and make sure that we um refer parents to this policy for those reasons, right? But other than that, I think that policy is still um what we intended um and um we're um certainly we have aligned our elementary especially in the last year and a half. So I I think that just having a crosswalk between that policy and this policy for reading
072purposes is what we need to go back and review. Right. And again much with the work when we adopt the full book when we go back and just ensure that our procedures are in place. One other comment I do want to make is um technically we won't know whether or not a child is um graduated from released from their reading plan in third grade until after summer school starts because not only do they have to meet the goal in their reading plan, they also have to be considered proficient on the forward exam and we don't get the results of the forward exam until the summer. So, that's one of those um interesting pieces in um state law and I know that happens with the fourth and eighth grade promotion policy as well is that we
073don't get those results until the summer. And so, technically any student who is on a reading plan in third grade, we won't know whether or not they've graduated from that until after the forward exam results, which come to us late July typically anyway after summer school starts. So, that's just one of their And then what happens then? they get not promoted in the middle of the summer. So then you have to have a process where you're determining whether or not a student is promoted from third to fourth grade without that data. Um and it's hard because the correlation between what you're assessing for on as web is different than what they're assessing on the forward exam. Ames web is assessing reading fluency or oral reading fluency, how quickly you can read where the Ford exam
074looks more at comprehension. So for a student to really like graduate from their reading plan, that one data of the the timeline between getting that result or knowing if they're eligible to be promoted and the time where you have to enroll them or uh roll them into the next class is what window. That's part of the issue that um we're working through in DPI, working through and every district has that question too because you don't want to be calling parents in August saying, "Hey, we need to have a conversation about next year." Yeah. Those are conversations that you're typically having in May or whatever. April or now? Yeah. Well, we can hope it lights a fire on now. April May score forward and have it to us by the end of May. I'm not gonna
075hold my I know, but that is the for those that opt out of the board exam. Yeah. And there's like verbiage in here about being able to opt out because you can opt out of it. You have to take a different take a different summitive assessment. Okay. That would Yeah. Was going to give you that same kind of information of whether or not committee members first. We got I see his hand. I got him. Put it down. He know he knows he's going to get called on. I think I'm good. I thought he was exercising. I was like, doesn't recognize we'll get to him. We'll get there. Starting to turn blue in the face. So, the alternative because I saw the alternate language, which was wonderful. Um, two things with the board exam. It comes
076after summer school is just about over, if not over. So, hey, that's not even a piece in there. The alternate assessment, is that a state standardized assessment piece? Is that something then that would be encouraged to take because then we at least have all of that information? Um my followup to that is I hate to say don't take the forward exam but you also hate to over assess students. So to have them do the alternate and the forward and the as and you know there's just so much in there but if that alternate assessment is giving us the comprehension um data that we need does that seem like at least in the interim right now a better choice I'm trusting you guys will work through that but as I'm sitting here listening it's like okay
077the forward exam yes they have to take it but it's not really giving us any useful data and it's causing stress to the kids if they have to do the additional stuff because otherwise if we don't do the alter if we don't require the alternate what data source would you use? So my first comment is like with the forward exam like we um highly encourage everyone to take the forward exam that is one of our indicators um as to like what percent of students opt out of that. So though we can't require it, we certainly encourage folks to do it unless they don't want to do it. We can't force someone to do it. There is verbiage in here about students with IEPs and there are some students who have who take what's called the
078DLM, which is the alternate exam for students with IEPs. And I know there's some um like alternate language for them. really truly where that alternate exam comes in place is for families who opt not to take the forward exam and then we need to come up with an exam that would um show us how they're doing with their reading. My gut would be that it would be the other parts of Ames Web because that's what I'm likely guessing that we're using moving forward. I know we haven't finalized our assessment calendar, but rather than doing like yet another, I would likely want to go back to what we are already using to not over test because my guess is a family is opting their child out of forward. It's because they feel like we test too
079often and then to give them yet another test is probably not going to um meet their needs or be what they're looking for. So that would be my guess is how we would work through that. opt out, do they score a zero on the district? So, if we have the opt outs, it used to be that it was a zero and that then affects your overall district scores. Is that still the case? Because I haven't been in that mix for quite some time. I don't think it's like we get a zero. I think it's just that we had that number of kids opt out. So, like in grade book, I think it do like an X, right? Like exempt kind of thing. We get impact on our state report card for participation. school. Correct. So
080to the alternate assessment. So within as web there is a reading comprehension test not required by the state but we do encourage our classroom teachers to give it at the third grade level because it makes up a composite for the read influencing vocabulary. So we could certainly use that as a judge in the spring when we give that in April. Right now it's so new to us. We don't we don't understand the correlation of which percentiles would be equivalent to Christine. probably a pretty good indicator that you'll be successful on forward. We've done star for a number of years, so we do kind of have that confidence build with the current assessment, but moving forward just because we haven't used Ames web enough yet to say, oh, they're scoring at the 67 percentile here in
081as web, there's a pretty good chance they're going to be at proficiency. Thank you. Correct. So, I'm really concerned that so far our discussion has been so hyperfocused on the the final determination of whether or not a child gets promoted from third to fourth grade and less hyperfocused on the interventions that lead up to this. If I'm not mistaken, this particular policy is at risk policy. We should be identifying children that are at risk. And by knowing that those children are at risk, we know that there's a likely possibility that they might not pass that that final exam at the end. So, but we have I mean that's what we've been Yeah, that's what we've been doing. That's what they've been doing. I forget the name of it, but we've been doing interventions with with
082kids that we believe are at risk whether they you know, some of them fall below that 25th percentile and need that reading plan. And then there's also kids that might be the 27th percentile that we're like they need some extra support as well right now or they may not be proficient. And what do we call that? What's the title of that policy? I mean that's a very robust six-page document on getting the kids up to speed. Our personalized reading plan is what we're using as a result of that. And I totally appreciate your point too. Like to me this is about this policy. this isn't about all the robust things that we're doing to ensure that kids don't fall below that because to me that is the far more important conversation but state law does
083tell me that we have to have this in place by July one and I generally like to follow state law so I totally agree with you Craig like the work that our teachers are doing to um look at where are their reading deficits and what are we doing to individualize their instructions so that we can get them where they need to be is like the crux of where we need to be at. Um, and you know, whether or not we check box A or not check box A is in my opinion of far less importance what our teachers do day in and out. So I agree with you. Um, and the other question I had was, um, I mean, I'm I'm a little disappointed that we can't potentially move forward with this this summer. Um
084I mean is is it just a logistics as far as um what the what DPI has specified for us that you know um what constitutes a I don't know intensive reading program is that that pretty much what comes down to a lot of the guy was pretty late to roll out support resources all these other things I mean we're actually I think one of the school districts in talking with other superintendents and other people like Jenny u we're probably further ahead than a lot of other districts you know so I understand the the disappointment in in approximation to the law right um but where we are on the statewide roll out I think we're doing a phenomenal job comparatively yeah and I think the parent communication piece is the part that um you know I
085I will give um huge kudos to our literacy coaches in combination with our title one reading teachers in combination with Chris Mallaloy putting together our reading plan document um and Chris has been brilliant about like hardwiring certain things into that reading plan document and one piece that we talked about is literally putting something right on that third grade reading plan that says like if your child has not completed this and by the end of the school year, please know that, you know, intensive summer school will be like highly encouraged um at the end so that when when we're having a conversation with a family in September about a child being on a reading plan, they're already on their radar that next summer intensive reading is something that's going to be highly encouraged. Um and so
086just giving us the runway to be able to set that up to be successful, I think is going to be an important piece with that. So I appreciate the urgency and share it. This is uh this is going to go to policy tomorrow night. Then it's going to go to the board for burst rate. Then it's going to come back to policy next month. Like yeah, that probably Yeah, likely. and the policy does something different normally. Sure. Sure. Right. Okay. Yeah. Just double checking because I don't have anything that's an overarching uh comment. These are more like smaller uh smaller things in the policy, but I think that can wait. Okay. And yeah, Jenny will be there tomorrow. If you want to email those to Jenny ahead of time so she knows those questions so
087she can do some research into them, that'd probably be beneficial if you're going to be there, Jenny. that way, that way she can do some research if you have some specific questions given that it sounds like a lot of this is dictated by the state act 20 um and andor nola as a start as a as the leap as the starting point for where it's uh where it came from. Um, so one question just again on July 1st, 2025 and per Craig's point, that means that this won't start impacting discussions with families and kids until probably the end of next school year. I mean, as far as promotions or I mean, so we implement this on July 1st because we have to. We agree with what it is, but I don't want to say that's
088when it takes effect. Every single third grader's already been promoted to fourth grade that's going to get promoted to fourth grade per Greg's point. So this is really going to impact the kids going from third to fourth grade next summer. Okay. Right. Just but the conversations are going to be started ongoing. Yeah. Here's the policy. You're aware of it. Exactly. It's not like we're going to wait now. Exactly. Yeah. April to have those conversations. So um on a on a larger timeline uh talking about when this is implemented and uh you made reference to the the larger policy book um in recent conversations with Mr. Wardman. Our plan is to take uh that book to the board uh most likely in June. Right? So it will be part of those resources. The only thing that
089we're going to have outstanding is there's about 20 or just less than 20 policies that this group has put into a parking lot that need a lot larger conversation, but we don't want that to stop the passage of the the main book, right? So uh we will be uh able to position ourselves to make sure that we share with families and staff um the main changes that were done within that book. But mostly it was just an alignment to current policy that book was there are certain policies that might be new uh and or have had some major changes but we've identified those with our admin team already. Got it. Um, so anything else on that subject? Otherwise, um, yeah, Sam, if you could email those to both Craig and Jenny, um, ahead of tomorrow
090or the rest of the policy committee as well. I assume Craig would want others to have it so that they're prepared for a discussion. Appreciate that. And uh anything else? Okay, class dismissed. Done. Thank you all.