10/08/2024 Educational Services Committee Meeting

001started we did have a a request Diana has to depart early today and Emily has to at some point get back to her uh actual job as opposed to hanging out with us in which case um right so we're gonna actually and Jenny's the one who's here a captive audience so if it's no objections I'd like to move the director's update to the end end of today's agenda and then hit items b c and d first in that order and then we'll do the director's report at the end Save The Best For Last I'm exactly so if that's good for everybody then no objections all good okay then uh let's queue up Emily and she can talk about cute puppies okay sounds good I'll try to keep it under the time 20 minutes so uh

002just to update at Services a little bit I had met with Jared and a parent that's working on this project and a trainer and I thought it might be a good idea to come to ed services so uh Douglas is getting a therapy dog uh so there is a little video if you want to if you can play it from there this is um the dog days of summer from toer I met with actually met with a principal from toer they have three therapy dogs one in each elementary school and I had an hourong meeting with one of the principles uh to learn a little bit more which was fantastic and I'll talk about that in a second but I'll let you watch this little teaser are over for most students and everyone but not

003here at foxview Intermediate School I'm Carl winter and for these students the dog days are just getting started a bernadoodle puppy named Oakley will join the fox viw staff in 2025 we've had Oakley here on site doing some limited walkthroughs and just getting used to the SES and the sounds of the school and um you know what he can expect when he's here he'll join three other therap dogs at the deir elementary schools as full-time District employees Charlie is our therapy dog and uh we love Charlie but she's not a pet she's a staff member so she's under contract with us Dickinson Elementary principal Luke klash says the chocolate lab has been a huge success the kids just light up when they see Charlie walking down the hall helping students in emotional distress recover quickly

004that was down to 10 minutes on average and so kids were getting back into the classroom missing less Charlie is also a learning tool as some students who are hesitant to read out loud will read to the dog and others will pick up a pen they write to Charlie they'll write letters to her and she has a little mailbox and then our fourth graders will write back as Charlie to the little kid so there's a lot of different academic ties to it as well training a therapy dog cost 7 to $10,000 of private donations each but Fox viiew principal Andy Bradford says other districts around wiscons are starting to follow deer's example we've um worked with other districts that have inquired about the process and there is there's a lot of behind the scenes that

005has to go into it principal Bradford says if Oakley is successful here at Fox viiew the district hopes to have a therapy dog in all six of its buildings down the line in Pier Carl winter nbc26 do you know your dog's longevity type there we go that's not the I did meet with those principles a different one the one with the golden retriever with the hat on Sideways that's the principle I met with who had the dog for two years all right next slide um so there's a lot of research and when talking with the peer they shared all their research with me too but a lot of potential benefits for students and staff social attention social behavior interpersonal I won't read this both SL to but a lot of uh positive benefits um related

006to working with animals and things and we know with animals and other buildings and dogs that come in to read with kids and things so I'm excited there's also if anyone interested there's an article from DPI recently and it's about the deir project so uh that's linked here to uh which was interesting to see which is how I connected with the deir people originally from the DPS arle um I'll give a little background of how we kind of got to this place so in Spring of 2023 a parent of a first grader uh contacted me he had some concerns about uh the there was a behavioral incident in his daughter's classroom and asked to meet with me we met and we talked and he's like how can you know how can parents help him like

007parents are welcome to get involved and he has military background and he's like you've ever thought of a therapy dog like yes but I have no idea where to start so he like got on this project he did a bunch of research um works with dogs through his work he works with veterans and works with a trainer um and had been continuing to bring up this project every time he came and met with me and had all kinds of ideas he's going to lead up fundraising through like local organizations like he had talked with different people at different like Public Service Groups or service organizations already and AET and other components in this trainer um so he had all this research done and then it kind of we didn't we talked on and off but

008then this summer again he said hey Mrs Lesnar like let's let's get on this I'm he's retiring in March and then going to be a police officer in a neighboring in a neighboring community he said this is the time and then I said let's set up a meeting so we met with Jared he brought the trainer who brought like two uh dog ideas basically um to us so we met in Fall they had Rose who's a trainer from 108 service dogs and for ainson trains typically service dogs and had been working with this dog um Bailey is the dog's name who was a two-year-old golden retriever who was originally purchased there's a sheet about her in the information too uh she was purchased by a woman to be a service dog for her adult son

009as a puppy from a kennel that custom Canin purchases from frequently and um this dog is lived with the trainer for about two weeks and then they and Rose wrote about it in her training that this dog really is just so loving that maybe focusing on one adult male was not really uh her jam and she was a little more like therapy dog material so she's done a lot of training has lived with the trainer for over a year because the woman ultimately decided to donate her to ten8 service dogs to find a job for her that would be a better fit than the service dog for her adults son so she's done a lot of community training has been in airports on city buses has gone to um hospice has gone to school summer

010school in Madison has gone to um a veterans like coffee group and Rose the trainer said that she really thrived in this environment so she thought being a school therapy dog would be so the one huge benefit is this dog has been donated so the cost of the dog is a large portion especially from such an established reader or penel so um that's really exciting and she said she'll be ready to be in school another option was a lab puppy which would have come to live at my house like in a week and then you're doing all the puppy training and all those things so um thinking about that and thinking about the commitment of this dog coming to live at my house which was a much better thing yeah I've done puy thing we

011have a dog but we're not going to putty train another one so this dog is already like crate trained has socialized gone to like Doggy Daycare all the time so it's going to be a great fit she came to this is in my office she came to school it's her current best she's getting a custom dougas Water Town Unified School District best and it'll say therapy dog instead of service dog um but so that you know scroll back up in case I forgot anything on the other slide um so basically um after meeting with rose and deciding to go the route of the uh the golden retriever um which she was like can we come live with you next week and I was like Co we have some things to figure out um I was

012expecting like a six-month project um and the puppy to live somewhere else and then this just uh kind of came to be quicker it was meant to be so um I did schedule a meeting with uh principal k from the pier who has the golden retriever and it was very helpful he shared all their documents all their resources with me he said it's equally as important to train the students and staff as it is to train the dog so he talked a little about their dog training and I asked him to kind of share like like how how does this work in your day you know I just wanted to have a realistic picture so it was very helpful to talk with him about how they kind of structure things in their school and he

013said he said even if the dog didn't go anywhere just having the dog knowing that the dog is there has just he said it just creates this just positive feeling and he explained like just kind of logistics of getting the dog acclimated so he shared a slideshow it was like step by step of what they did and obviously it's dependent the trainer uh will work with me on that but um basically the dog lives in in your office and then you take it out it's always leaned very kind of controlled in an area in an environment but getting some kids oneon-one involved at first coming into the office and helping to train even though this dog is already highly trained there'll be some new things to learn so and getting used to obviously being around

014happy kids but is also training the kids not to read the dog by name in the hallway because the dog is working and um so he said at their school the kids all just smile and wave even teachers he said can't just come up and pet the dog because it's a very distinct difference between a pet and a dog's working so um also I had talked to before talk to the staff to make sure you know people are on board and I already have four people who are very eager to help on a planning team which now has expedited our our timeline is a little quicker but one of our speech therapists a specialed teacher a classroom teacher and one of our Care Professionals jumped on board to be on team um and our PTO

015supported too so anyway next we can scroll this is Bailey there's a little sheet about Bailey but um so next steps I'm beginning something called the certified good 9 class on October 12th in Lake Mills um the trainer also owns laughing dogs um daycare in Lake Mills and owns penate service dog so there's a training and a test the dog and I will have to pass because it's about kind of your dog listening to the owner or Handler in this situation um we'd be acclimating Bailey to school in new home setting so she'll move in with me and then come to work and basically be in my office like the sounds of the school the bells help talk me that principal was very helpful about he just said it was that was like their goal

016for the first two months just getting used to being in a school building hearing things that they wouldn't normally here and just basically walking on like the laminate floor and things which this dog is a little more advanced than his dog was 10 weeks old when they started um I attached a parent Guardian informational note again modified from the deer letter um that would go home to inform parents and then let them you know opt out of like actually physically touching the dog if allergies or other reasons for whatever reason um that principal said he maybe gets a handful due to allergies every year so um just put that letter together um and then starting to train students and staff on what to expect so uh he shared his flight show I'd obviously modify it

017but it has things like you know pictures of the dog and how you penetrate the dog when it's at school and you see it and obviously it wouldn't be out and about a ton um I talked with him too about you know how he HS his schedule so obviously it's a growing process um because there's a lot of fsy things to do in the day too so um basically though the dog be living in my office um and then obviously working on securing funding this parent this dou of parent is securing is uh very um actively working on like a flyer to go to community organizations they already talked with safy about setting up a place for donations to go um our PTO it has supported all like the startup cost like the crit the

018initial food cost and all those things I applied for an ed Foundation Grant um which we don't know about yet but other um Community donations the vet funding the vet is at a very reduced rate um as they do like police dogs so she's working she works with this trainer and this Douglas parent has already coordinated all this so anyway we're rocking and rolling and then um planning for scheduling with rose the trainer to come on site to train with me about an hour a week to start and then probably after school hours and then during the day as well so she'll be a familiar face um to the kids too and in the slly show from to Pier they had a picture of the trainer too so this is Mr you know whatever this

019is Miss Rose she'll be coming to work with the dog just explaining to the kids the dog learning their job so anyway super excited dad is very excited uh this dad's daughter knows and she's you know we can't they the talk she was like very like there's some very her and like a few of her little friends have this secrett or something anyway we're super excited and uh my family's excited um it's obviously a big uh commitment going from a one dog family a zero dog family before 2020 and then we said yes during Co getting a dog and now two dogs uh but our dog's meds and everything is really do so anyway any questions there's a lot of lot on a whirlwind of planning exciting my only question is did she get to

020come to Cabinet you know but yeah it was interesting the most helpful thing has been talking to that principal the talking to the mean just kind of wrapping her head around what does this look like because you know like I'm very busy during the day other people are very busy we don't just have like people available to just walk in but he talked a lot about like scheduling and having multiple people I have one special editer who has jumped right on like the moment I sent the email she wrote it back right away so that principal study has spent quite a bit of time in different special ed rooms like scheduled times being proactive and kids reading to anals and things so just yeah exciting stuff their dog actually sits and watches all the kids

021eat lunch stay in place for an hour and a half up on a stage on little so that's taking some training but uh just sit in walk do everyone eat lunch we don't have a stage but maybe some Sam laor Diana I just comment how awesome um when I was teaching in Jamesville a g trained Serv dogs from pupp on so I went through five cycles of dog training um and the dog wasn't leashed you know but it was trained within the classroom and it would come and visit people and just the calmness the the kids would read to it they would talk to it they would decompressed with you know any of those things but they also knew when the vest was on the dog is working and when the vest is off then

022it's a you know it's a pet you can play with it whatever and the training part you know all the things that you describe some people might think oh gosh that no it once they learn how to do it but yeah you got to train the kids just much so thank you for doing that pretty awesome yeah it's G to be exciting I can't wait I think the kids are going to be so excited and uh on my end I'd just encourage you to come up with a list of let's say 10 things that could go wrong and then have an answer for them okay everything from po training to what happens when the lessers take a vacation who's get the dog uh you know fire drills uh what what happens when shs and everybody

023else wants one uh ET Etc just come up with your list of 10 things that you haven't thought of yet write them down and then have an answer for them and I I think you're golden but uh yeah yeah these been interesting you know talking like luckily like we for example are already going to be gone in a weekend in October and Rose like oh or Bailey can come stay at laughing dogs for free she's like family to us I'm like perfect that's check that off the list and I think um yeah we've talked I mean obviously taking the dog out have to have a spot for all all things these are yeah just come up with the list of 10 things that you didn't think of yet and then answer them and you'll be

024fine y okay anything else okay awesome proceed we don't need any type of resolution or I would think so uh do we want to have any type of presentation on this or Jared will touch on it when it actually arrives I'm sure it will show up in a superintendent report at some point when when he when Bailey actually arrives at the school when is when is Bailey like schedule to actually start like pretty soon yeah that's what we thought there's there's like some logistical things that need to be taken care of right um and there's some insurance that we're looking into and there's other pieces which on that list of 10 thank correct the insurance the dog po like animal policies there's there's backs side of stuff thank you Emily maybe you can bring Bailey

025someday to add Services sure no yikes that's the timeline we're on right yeah perfect right thank you okay thank you all right we're gonna switch next is the summer schoool research presentation um and I just want to give a a brief update on a few few things as it relates to um summer school as you know uh Jamie ke has had the responsibility of summer school along with his assistant principal and ab um responsibilities at the high school um he has decided to step back from the responsibilities uh for summer school so we're working as an admin team to uh determine um who is taking on that administrative responsibility so I did want to preface this presentation for that um as a result Jamie is not here to present um he did share with me

026information um and I am presenting the information that was shared what I'm looking for from the committee is feedback um the what I would be doing then is guiding the next administrator who is uh taking over the summer school responsibilities to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our community our students and the requests of the school board so I am open to questions and feedback I'm happy to share the information that we have and I um will ask Cheryl to unmute as she is able to answer any questions um the ad the administrative assistant responsibilities um have been taken over this year for the first year um down here at central office um I think that's helped us streamline some items um Katie Shader and Cheryl holl have been like integral and helping us

027understand um some of the pieces of summer school and we've really been able to focus on some of the budgeting pieces as well this year so just wanted to preface our presentation with that um Mr K did work along uh with the APS and I will ask would you as you go through this you want to hold questions to the end or get through the presentation U anybody have a preference here from the committee if there are questions normally we would ask them as we go but given that this isn't exactly your presentation I didn't know if you wanted to get through it all in case there's a bunch of stuff at the end that might be missed in the beginning so uh preference I am happy to answer as we go as I assume

028that you guys got a chance to take a peek at it um I I did pull the presentation together from the information that was shared with me too so I uh um I yes so they did pull together a summer school research team as the board had asked last year they developed a vision statement and you can see it there um summer school programming aims to Foster economic growth cultivate creativity and Inspire curiosity to ensure each k 12 student is inspired and prepared for future success um I know there were some questions about the uh the members of the team I appreciate that it perhaps is not reflective of the students that we see um our summer school is particularly Elementary heavy um I know that Carrie Bean is our instructional coach and has um

029provided a lot of guidance over the years especially as it relates to um specific reading academic courses that we do um and I know that she was not necessarily able to participate on the team but definitely provided input um on the team um as specifically how the team was created um I think that was the summer school team that determined um who was participating on that keep going okay um uh Dr Burke asked me to uh determine how it connects to our new strategic plan in my mind it's two main areas and uh I did work with Mr Bull to ensure that we had some um action steps in our action planning as it relates to summer school obviously um focusing on math and literacy growth during summer school we know that Summers slide is

030an issue and a concern across the country um we are not exempt from that um and I feel like SCH fit nicely to provide opportunities to avoid that summer slide I think many of you have heard my haa story my daughter uh made some comment over the summer about how it's hard to remember something specifically as it relates to literacy when her teacher isn't singing her this song every day and I thought yeah that's that's what's called summer reading or summer learning loss I think I even said that turn she looked at me like what are you talking about mom um and then the other area that we felt strongly is that intentional resource allocation um being a good stewards of our dollars um and tracking our summer school expenses and um our what they

031call FTE which is the student count You Can Count um to ensure that we are uh within our budget each year um so when we look at the number uh 2024 summer school um what what were some of the successes that we have seen um we did come in under budget I worked with Sarah Duncan to determine those pieces our FTE count increased from Summer of 2023 um and I truly credit um our folks down here um Cheryl and Katie for that ensuring that we were counting every single opportunity we could count for summer school um and in order to increase that student FTE count um we don't have an exact like dollar amount essentially we send DPI our um our our FTE count and they in turn uh run it through some complex formula

032that no one I don't think really understand except for maybe DPI and then they uh let us know dollar-wise but we do know that we had an FTE count increase from last year um and we do know that we will come in under budget as a result of that um Margaret Brady worked to adjust some of the pay rates for summer school so that we could be a bit more competitive um and then again the increased student count what I did not put on here is we did increase uh rigor and opportunities for um uh some course work for students who were not achieving at grade level I know at the middle school in particular they used uml which is a an Adaptive computer program where you can um work through the standards uh with

033in relation to um where weaknesses are it's a program that they used during the year last year specifically in math um and RMS is using that this year again um with math and um Ela so I do know that that was one area where we beefed up some of the academics Jen bolt I know you are very closely involved with all of summer school so you feel free to add anything that you would like to add um looking and planning forward I think um we are going to be paying close attention and I think this aligns closely with what the board is looking for um implications of act 20 as it relates to our summer school programming um we do have to have a very um explicit uh programming for students the law states essentially

034students who are in third grade and not yet at grade level or not yet at the 25th percentile um you have to have summer programming there is some question as to whether or not you can require students to attend summer programming with that or not um but that is certainly an area that will be um honing in on my hope uh is that or my thought one of the questions I will be asking as we work through our elementary literacy curriculum review is is there specific programming either intervention programming or summer programming that correlates with the new curriculum materials so that we can provide that over the summer again as I had mentioned previously Carrie Dean our elementary literacy coach each coach kind of takes on a different responsibility and her responsibility is summmer school

035um so we'll work closely with her for that another challenge that we found is that it is difficult to staff in the afternoon uh Cheryl can speak to uh attempting to assign students who want to attend a full day um into an afternoon course because many of our teachers like to just teach the morning um and so some of the class sizes are larger in the afternoon so ensuring that we have enough programming in the afternoon so that those courses in the afternoon don't become overloaded um the team did request and recommend some scheduling scheduling changes um the team felt like we were starting too early and the students are arriving late um there are implications as it relates to that student FTE however if we shift that schedule I also feel like there are

036implications as it relates to like parent convenience if we shift that schedule too and so we are looking at that and I um have included the proposed schedules um Cheryl had done an analysis of how many minutes we'd be missing um if we changed those schedules and what that would mean for our FTE count um so that is something that we're still working through um with Sarah Duncan as it relates to whether or not it makes sense for us to change um those times um also working obviously with the busing company because transportation is sometimes a barrier for students um if they're not able to take Transportation they're not necessarily able to attend um and then another CH chall is that the compensation uh despite some adjustments are is not uh where other school districts

037are for summmer school um so taking a look at that that budget the FTE what we're bringing in um and determining if it makes sense to make any changes in compensation we have no recommendations for that at this point and obviously we'd be working closely with the HR department and the business department to make any determinations with that um some of the possible solutions um is the uh modifying schedules to support a later start time um offering additional Credit Recovery sections in the afternoon for high school students the way Credit Recovery works is that um we don't it's different um how we account for FTE for credit recovery um it's not like the minutes the kids are in school you get a certain number of minutes for the number of credits um recovered and so

038the thought would be if there are high school students who want to come in in the afternoon to work on that credit recovery versus the morning that we may um help facilitate more credit recovery to those options um and then also the communication with parents and this also relates back to act2 ensuring that parents really truly understand like we are strongly recommending your child for summer school here are the courses ensuring that students get enrolled in the correct courses and in starting that process even earlier um and trying to do that during like parent teacher conferences where there's like a oneon-one like conversation with families rather than just tears of sler in your kids uh um folder about what we think you should do but really ensuring that the kids that were recommending and following

039up to make sure that they are enoll um so as we move forward I think the next steps is clarifying the leadership roles and responsibilities um working through any Logistics in any scheduled changes that we would make um determining any costings of Staff pay or raises um reviewing our calendar and schedule changes at ed services this is something that I would anticipate bringing back to you because I don't feel like we are in a final draft version of that um the calendar may be okay but if schedule changes that I I question a little bit more and then beginning our staffing plan for summer of 2025 my next slide does say questions or thoughts but what I'm going to do is just show you um the proposed summer school calendar um and we did do

040a quick analysis of how this looks differently um than previous years um it's a little confusing with all these colors so I would propose that we would uh create um some different calendars for the different activities so folks understand what it is but for ease of today just um having I did accidentally print this in black and white first time which was not helpful um we would be starting this year on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday um the week of the 4th of July you can see there's a five day weekend um um the end date we end on a Friday instead of a Thursday um but at the end of the day the main summer school would remain the same number of days I know there has been some concern about how late

041gradu ation is and as a result summer school gets bumped back a little further um in the past I think there was a work day on Monday and the teachers started on a Tuesday um but that would literally be like the day after graduation so there's the challenge with that piece um unified strength and speed did get reduced from 27 days to 24 days um that again would affect our FTE in our minutes so we're going to have to take a peek at um whether or not that makes sense to continue to do and then as always these dates down here are usually determined later um we include them in our summer school like band camp our freshman experience and RMS experience um but those dates aren't usually determined until a little bit later in

042the process I realized I've just been talking and I said I would stop for questions um and then the proposed schedule um we took a look at what the implications with that would be compared to year pass um the hours are the same for our 4K and K shifting from 8 to 11:30 my question is how does that affect families families who you know drop off and head to work if a 15minute delay makes a difference or not it does go 15 minutes longer um in grades 1 through 4 um it does decrease the amount of time at the later start in the past it started at 7:45 and is now starting at 8:15 which is an a half an hour later in the morning again a question about how that would work with families

043um and then our actually how it would affect our FTE count and we've done some calculations about what that might do for FTE count and then whether or not our bus company can um accommodate a drop off in both of those places at the same time I do believe it was staggered a little bit to uh support transportation in grades 5 through 8 um it's a 15 minute uh or I'm sorry a half an hour later start time again so how would that affect families um and then it does decrease the day by about 25 minutes um and how the FTE count counts is literally like number of kids times the number of minutes they're there and so a decrease by half an hour does change that FTE count so budget wise and familywise does

044that make sense um and then the biggest change here in 912 is again offering that afternoon session for credit recovery again it just the minutes the kids are there does not count towards the FTE it's more about how many credits they've earned is how many FTE that you get I know that the team has felt that this has been a nice switch for kids and they've been able to earn more credits than how we were doing it traditionally um and I think they would like to offer an afternoon session because there are some student students for which the morning is not their strongest time Andor some students may be uh working or have other family obligations so these are things that we're still reviewing um I will come back with a final recommendation to ed

045services but I did want your thoughts um and um next steps things that you want us to ensure that we're looking at as we are transitioning with leadership and making changes to help support our students can I ask questions just on this slide start with you sure can um starting with the face school since that's where you ended you have a morning b day launch afternoon you know proposing a afternoon schedule I'm not understanding that when you look at the schedule for this year so maybe you can talk through it a little bit it had high school as a full day from 7:45 to 1:35 so how what looks different about that question um so what we've seen is that students when they enroll for 9912 that they are scheduled for the entire day but

046so many of our students to sit at a computer and to stare at a computer screen for a duration from 7:45 until 1:30 is incredibly difficult to be in a single room one computer um and our students are often times not successful and so they might work for maybe an hour or two and then they shut down I mean and it's virtually possible to get them to do much else and so we thought that by perhaps splitting it into two separate sections that students could sign up for a either the morning or the afternoon to give them that sort of break if they wanted or if students really wanted to have the entire time they could do that too so it really is just trying to accommodate I guess the life ons makes sense the

047other question I have on this slide is you talked a bit about the minutes right and losing them and and you stated them very clearly at grades or they don't lose anything at 1 through 4 it's 20 minutes a day that comes to 400 minutes or 6 hours you know almost a full day sorry you you're laughing because you know I did the math no I'm I'm laughing because we did the math too and then Cheryl took it a step further to determine how many ft loss that would and and for that I appreciate the FTE loss I'm looking for the curricular sense yeah when high school is losing 10 hours when Middle School is losing 8 hours that's a full day you know and I we've talked about at the board level learning loss

048we've talked about how do we close that Gap and so I guess when you come back to ed services not right now but I'd be looking at okay if if this schedule is going to go into effect and we are going to address that loss piece how are we going to address the curricular pieces that they're missing out on too because yeah 8 hours broken up over 20 days may not seem like a lot but it could be one or two additional pieces or components so just something to consider yeah I appreciate that and especially in light of the increased uh rigor with act 20 and concerns there um that's definitely a piece that we'll want to keep our eye on along that same line with the FTE and the need for breakes is there

049a way to say game the system if they're there and they're not if they're on recess does that get counted as an FTE in that calculation do they have to be on property or they have to be in front of a classroom or have to have a teacher in front of them uh does a does a break count I mean it I'm not saying it's just about adding 15 minutes to the day I'm just interested in the calculation and and how stringent the the DPI and reimbursement looks when you're actually in the building and the bell rang but you have let's say 10 minutes between classes not five you you know how do they count that extra five minutes against you because they gave you an extra five minutes to walk from one course to

050another I I don't know I'm I'm just asking how how granual a good question how granual the calculation is yeah and Cheryl I think if you I think you get the minutes for the courses that you're actually enrolled in and so if we figure how many like minutes the course is so if we give them 5 minutes to walk between I don't think we count that time CHL just unmuted so she knows and and that's just that is correct um it is based on the classes that they attend also um going back to the grades 9 to 12 and what Jen bolt had said the problem is if those kids are sitting there and they're not working they're not completing the class and they're not returning So based on they have to pass the class

051in order for us to count minutes so if they would have lesser time there they would probably be more successful in completing the class versus sitting there and doing nothing does that make sense yep I know the question was asked and it's interesting too and we can go back and track that is like how many credits have been earned over summer school um over time and we can go back and take a peek at that I don't have those numbers right now and you also ask specific enrollment data I don't have the historical one but I did chat on what last year was on a giant Post-It note um we had about 1,250 kids who participated this year in summer school in some way shape or form so roughly a third of the district well

052it it did highlight for me a new element which anytime I've ever thought about summer school before I never looked at the fiscal component of it it was always just the programming and the summer learning loss and the engagement and the in the credit recovery There Was You know I don't think I've ever heard FTE presented or budget presented as part of summer school so that's not necessarily the specific uh focus of ed services but it's certainly interested to know that you just can't pull on one lever and not expect another lever to you know reaction action reaction it's it's nice to know that there's other considerations just besides that uh not to say that it's our primary focus but something we have to be aware of I Diana I know you have a list

053and I know I did not hit all of them you did all the four oh good I I got close um do the other members want to chat first and I'll just in case they and I'm sorry I called on Diana that's not my job she was looking there with a grin on her face and she was just at the she already got your question go ahead through your question I okay um one of them was and you've touched on this a little bit and maybe there's an answer I appreciate that there's another meeting forthcoming is thinking about how slly streamline that communication communicating to families earlier on was something we brought up well over a year ago and for me when I think about that timeline we discussed a year ago that you know

054by November December that's got to be ready to go and by Christmas break you know we've got to be ready to communicate that to family so it's ready in the spring and at this time last year it was H the runway is too short you know we can't really get there well I'm hoping that there's something somewhat the works because I really don't want to hear the runways Too Short again um and I'm not putting a threat or anything out there I'm just I'm really concerned that hey we're not going to be able to get this up and and moving again because we did talk about be it up in terms of academics and I think we've seen strides toward that but I know that I was looking for a plan of what's that going

055to look like how are we going to communicate that and so I'm hoping that we'll see a timeline for summer summer school 2025 in the next at the next meeting whether that be November December whenever that is when can we anticipate those kinds of things I was thinking that that was coming today and so I was a bit disappointed that it's not here today so we could have some discussion because I don't know if anything is ever perfect the first time around and with feedback you know to get through you know I'm we're going to be vocal and things that way um I'm excited for the research that was done um I'm not fully understanding the why why did we do the study the way we did it um I I don't know the why

056in there and that's maybe that's my fault in that I didn't quite understand it I should have asked more questions behind it but I guess from the direction that I saw us moving last year this looks like a bit of a pivot and I don't know why we pivoted I'm okay with the pivot I just don't understand the why so if you can help me understand the why when you ask the pivot the pivot from the focus on how much uh academics to put into it versus the pivot of how to just design and more robust or over I mean I I I don't even 100% recall what the direction we gave Jenny and Jamie and the team as much as you think that we pivoted from it so well when we look at the

057the presentation we did a lot of different research on summer school and time and this and that and I'm not saying that wasn't needed I just okay so this was a route we went I'm not you know yes we talked at the board of beefing up summer school we talked about keeping some of the enrichment things like that I don't see any of that within the research part of it so I feel like there was a that's what I wanted to articulate that to me I don't understand did we miss something still yeah that it doesn't seem like we're moving in that similar direction we're kind of off a little bit but we're still moving that make sense and I want to come back and talk on that topic but keep going um and then

058one two other pieces is um how does four weeks compared to what other districts are doing I know that I mean is this adequate time for high school recovery especially when you're you're trimming 10 hours off um and I get the half day kinds of things and and with high school recovery I'm glad that it's no longer a full day because don't sit there the entire time why do they have to be there they're going to be at home no kid can I can't sit for 10 hours doing it why are we expecting that of our kids what does that look like so I appreciate that we've talked with other schools I just there's a disconnection that I'm not quite seeing and that could just be me um the last question that I have is

059a question that I asked at the last meeting and I'm really really concerned that concerned is what other offerings can we give other than credit recovery for high school students are there things out there I know financial literacy was one of the pieces the requirement there that kids wouldn't have to take it we have how many kids you you can look at the numbers that take unified strength why can't that be a PE credit you know that opens up a section of their day to do that they're there how many hours anyway I asked that six months ago well we'll have to look into it and I wonder was that question addressed and answered if kids could get a PE credit every summer that they're doing it and that opens up some things within their

060day they're there anyway and maybe it's an attendance piece okay so we need to tweak how we take attendance if we're requiring kids there okay let's look at that maybe it's not feasible I don't no I'm just posing a question yeah no I appreciate your urgency um and I will say what you see in this presentation about fiscal um that was probably my fault because that was a piece that um we were looking at particularly here um so I don't want you to think that the research team spent so much time with the fiscal end of it I will take that I know that when they reached out to other school districts I believe they reached out to like 20 school districts and as I remember the question was sort of like are we requiring

061that you take an academic course if you take summer school at all um and so I know that was a piece of the questioning that they did when they reach out to their schools and overwhelmingly the answer to that was no because I know there was some question on the board like if you're signing up for summer school you're not just taking card games and PE but you're also you know have to take um you also have to take um like a reading class or a math class at your level and overwhelmingly we found that districts are not requiring that as far as schedules go I know they took a look at what some different ideas for schedules are um I know mainly it looks like either they offer one big summer school time like

062we have or sometimes districts will split it up into like summer school a and summer school B um and so you can sign up either for like session one or session two or both of those um I feel like that was another piece that they came up with Jen I've seen you nodding so I will see if there's anything else you want to add to that yeah there was I mean a large number of questions that we asked the different school districts and and there were a lot of school districts that we talked to um again questions that were you know things of are you requiring summer school and any capacity for academics and again the alarming answer there was absolutely not we can't require that um many of the schools actually didn't even offer

063any academic site um that was pretty hidden Miss um and so you often saw that summer school like what they really wanted to talk about was trying to get more kids into summer school but a lot of it was for enrichment purposes and many of the schools had timelines where they were on for like four days of a week for two weeks took a break usually over Fourth of July week and then came back for another two weeks but again at four day weeks was pretty common from what we saw and so it was really interesting just to kind of see the data as to what other schools were doing how they were offering it their timelines um many schools did not vote me on noon so like a lot of them were not getting

064lunch and I know that that was a huge factor for us that our students really felt the need that our students needed to have a lunch piece um so we looked at a whole lot of data and I don't know that there was a a specific Direction other than to collect as much data as we can get that and those pieces are nice because we've not been shared those pieces of information so and that's where okay was just was a missing component in the presentation feed because that helps to close that Gap at least for me I'm sure that probably provide that alleny you know so knowing that hey we looked at this and this is why we did this and you know we kind of got here some of the questions that we were

065going to ask here's the decision that we made and that bridge really helped yeah and then on the high school piece again offering that in two different sections we are actually hoping to gain more students in for the high school level because that daunting piece of you have to be here you know four or five hours of craft was really you know a detriment for a lot of students that no I want no part of that or maybe if we have well you in the morning or you only have to sign get be an increase thank you John she came for Science and stayed for summer school Laur you have question the only question and I don't know exactly how sad works that's more HR I suppose and I'm not real familiar so you mentioned

066that we have a hard time getting teachers in the afternoon so I guess I assumed that if you taught summer school you did the whole duration of like that was your commitment I should never assume but can you maybe what are we are you finding that at a certain level or is this because I'm wondering if we're having a hard time like at the high school level is it going to make if we are going to have a morning and an afternoon are we going to have a hard time staing so I guess just a little bit more on good question so our 4K and K is just a half a day we find there are a lot of teachers who will only do half a day and we also have students who only want

067to do a half a day so we have more offerings in the morning um and there are so we wouldn't necessarily want every single teacher to stay the whole time because in the afternoon then we would have like tiny class sizes because there's some families that choose to only send their kids to half a day of summer school too so it's sort of that Balancing Act between um what classes what classes what what's the demand we looked closely this year and by we I mean um Cheryl and Jamie and not me um looked closely at like class sizes like if we needed to uh close a class because there were only a few kids in it type thing so it's a it's a kind of a balancing act between those two things okay thank you

068I just was curious how that worked I just assumed that you touch on go you're that I am and if you went to that's yeah a little different Sam anything no nothing okay um in my conversation with the I I say a brief conversation on the subject with Jenny PRI and for the team who put all this together and and I hate to I don't want to say a broken record but Reas the questions we've had before where the questions regarding let's say the early dismissal on Wednesdays comes up again we get questions about Ready Set go on a regular basis and I hate to say that every single one of our programs should have an FAQ for board members but Jen you've been able to ask virtually every question that was asked and you

069you did it with sound reasoning and going back to my conversation with Jenny was listen we have to know why we're doing it and then do it the way we say we're going to do it so if we say we're going to offer three sessions well now we know why we offer three sessions so let's write that down this is why we do three sessions this is why we don't staff teachers in the afternoon this is why FTE are important this is why we can't require kids to take summer school but this is why the board wants a academic component if offered I love the idea about getting credit for PE because that frees up uh electives in other semesters that allow them to actually get get either more well-rounded or more academics so great

070question but I I don't know where to go with that because that FAQ if it's like any other FAQ that's on any other website I never read it I just rais my hand and ask the freaking question because I'm just I don't like reading but from a standpoint of knowing why we're doing something and being intentional you use the word intentional in in this in this presentation and yet the vision statement doesn't necessarily tie to our intent they're not we're intentionally doing a lot of things that the vision statement you know fostering academic academic growth isn't necessarily I'm not saying they're not the same thing I'm saying is that there's no way to it take the vision statement and turn it into what our intentions are and and show that we're demonstrating and following our

071intentions and so to that point and to to Diana's question what is maybe just remind me because I'm sure you had timeline on here but I don't recall going back to this conversation almost exactly a year go a do we have enough Runway to change and maybe more specifically let's switch that back a do we want to change and B do we have enough Runway to do it and did this study answer that first question do we want to change or and and and are these changes already Incorporated in in the document in and of itself and and then B do we still have enough time to to make those changes and and that's what I was hoping to get out of this and and I'm not going to get in the weeds as to

072what classes are offered or to whom they're offered to and or even maybe why we're offering them I I would take all of the Educators uh experience and expertise on that and tell us who needs to be targeted to prevent summer learning loss or credit recovery etc etc I just want to make sure that it's intentional and that it's intentional then we have to be following our intent and then be able to communicate to the board so we can just check that off the box and say hey good you guys know what you're doing we don't have to worry about it anymore let's work the plan so my questions coming out of this did we identify things we need to change and are we still in a position to change those for next year and

073and intentionally you know I don't want this to be arbitrary and I think I use this with you as like just don't tell me this the way we've always done it I hate that okay I never want that to be the answer that's well I done no that there has to be a reason that's in and of itself a a a valid reason so uh high level otherwise no I'm not uh I don't want to say uh disappointed I will say that I still think there's one more kind of chapter to this book uh uh as far as the presentation to the board or the enactment of the plan uh whenever that might be so thank you um I would fact that if there's additional information on this unless that needs to go to full

074Services again for another discussion or revisit that it could just show up in a director's report to to tie up Loose Ends uh I'm not saying that a director's report is could be sufficient on that maybe there's too many other pieces that we're still unknown that we need to revisit a full revisit as an agenda item with those outstanding questions and and I know Jenny you have di you've answered many of Jen's writing some of them down um so if if you want it as another topic again so we can put it to bed and answer those un thing unanswered ones or we just have a quick conversation between Jen and Jenny and Jared and get it on a director's report in the future I'm okay with that too so I'll let you guys be

075the decider as to how much meat is left on the bone that we have to P out here and I do want to clarify that if the research study and what's been done has stated and and we found that we've beefed up this year if that's to where we need to be or you know I'm not saying it has to be a huge we might have already gotten exactly you know we' now addl as a component you knowl can go home with every kid because we pay for the premium version every kid can have that but communication would need to go because then some kids not sign up for summer school that can now be an enrichment for our high fire kids not just remedial for our you know there's pieces that can be done

076in there the bigger piece for me Isn't the beefing up educationally I think we we've gone on that path it's how we communicating this that's more of the the piece moving forward that's just my own thought so I just wanted to make sure because I I know I didn't come off sounding that way I had a lot of questions where that channel was perfect thank you for the uh Insight on that Diana and thank you for the team who worked on that through the summer and the presentation Jenny and um yeah uh let's just put a bow on it uh sometime before implementation sounds good thank you all right I believe up next you said the um library media team yes okay and there were no questions online um hand raised or anything like that

077I hear beeping behind me but I'm not uh I think someone just joined the room okay good question no I didn't see him here okay great all right so I will turn this over to Mr Bull and his library media team I know this is a part of the Future Ready Library plan and so I thank you you put the other anchor I okay there we go I we always want to start with gratitude so I just want to the members of the team here today for listening and asking some great questions and ultimately giving us feedback journey I also want to thank this wonderful Library who spent hours last year this summer and early this fall really learning about what this Future Ready plan needs to be really dissecting what our current state ofion

078is and then thinking about what the future is I just paused to allow this wonderful team um my name is Jamie clerton I'm the library media specialist at high school I'm in my 1th year in Watertown but I like to tell our students I've been here since 1992 because I'm an original gu um so I went two years to the old school two years a new high school not some new anymore but it still looks like it um so I've been in water a long time my name is Jackie Leo I'm the library media specialist at Riverside um I am invested in this community because my husband is also one of the band directors in the district so we are committed goling family I'm Daran Nelson I'm one of the Elementary media specialists at Sher

079and Webster School I have Jam be I've been here since 1987 this is7 year with WaterOne School District um so yeah I've got lots of lots of history and I remember the first time we even got one of brought into the entire school was still the xerx machine way and my is super excited because today is Library day and so he was so pumped I am fish long I am the other Elementary media specialist Leon leap and Lincoln and this is only my fifth year but I learned under Daran so I'm excited to be here thank you very much hi I've always thought that the library should be the epicenter of a school and um I'm just excited to work with these folks that I believe share that thought and so they're ceration on making

080that dream kind of a reality appreciated I think along with that epicenter it's important to note that en vision for libraries to be spaces where staff and students are not only welcome but they look forward to like Jackie just mentioned you know her son being excited about Library days that those are the stories we want to hear so we're working hard to make those spaces uh become that I think it's important to note that DPI has partnered with the Future Ready plan and they really have provided like this wheel we're going to talk more about it but this wheel here the Future Ready plan um identifies those components of wheel and then we think about and did a survey of where we at on each of those folks and then determine some goals around it

081um I don't know if it's integral to this presentation but I thought it'd be important to note about uh just give some information about school library funding School libraries are really funded by Common School funds and common School funds uh are provided by the state and they're really strictly governed by how we use those and the easiest way I remember is that really resources that pretty much stay in in the library certainly can be checked out by housed in the library and need to be available for every student and so you classroom libraries that's not common School fund Furniture unfortunately is not allowed under common School funds so that it's pretty strictly done um today we're really looking to provide a high Lev why what how the full uh uh plan is linked we we'll

082dive into that only if by request the right questions but we really want to give you the why how look for your feedback and then DPI has an expectation for this to be supported by the full board so we'd like to bring this to the full board October 28th and with that um I'll turn it over this wonderful team so thank you again thanks Jason and we want to thank Jason for guiding us through this process over the course of last year and really providing us with time and support we haven't done this before together so so um he was a really great support person for us so thank you um so our why why did we create this Future Ready plan for the district um part of it is it is written into Administrative

083Code that districts should have Library plans in place long range Library plans um and it's been a while since we've done a comprehensive plan so um DPI kind of pushed us along saying that they would like all districts to have uh plan uploaded to Y by December so last year we worked through the process this um in addition to that requirement we really wanted to have a plan because having a plan in place um helps us focus on building robust library programs for the district and that was really important to us because we're all passionate about our libraries um as Jason said we want our libraries to be spaced where students want to come staff want to come spend their time and we also want our library programming to support student learning so that we're

084helping the district reach its goals as are outlined in the Strategic plan um so that's kind of our teaching our programming is helping student learning but we also want to create those um Innovative spaces for our students so last year during professional development days and through cisa networking sessions that we attended we got to work together and also alongside um other library media Specialists from other districts who go through this future ready process which is the wheel that you see and the eight wedges of the wheel so we sat down and we looked at our current practices in each of those eight wedges what are we doing right now what are we doing well where are areas of improvement um and then from there we kind of looked at some overarching smart goals with action

085steps um we had to keep in mind that our our plan is a three-year plan so what can we realistically accomplish in three years and that was really important to us to have goals that we could measure and we could actually feel like we could work to meet um so you'll see that a little bit later on our goals um so we collaborated did that current practices and put together our goal we came up with our Vision which is that Watertown Unified School District Libraries will serve as as vibrant centers of educational excellence and then we have some commitments that are in the full presentation as well so that was kind of our why we want to have a plan in place so that um we can grow our libraries and our library program and

086um these strong spaces within our district so then we come to the what um and that is the development of our two goals and essentially um as Jamie said with our vision and and our goals in mind we want students to use the space I keep coming back to the fact that um literacy is always an important part of our District's vision and Mission and how we want our students to grow um and be educated people and where better to do that than in a library right and so I always think about my own children going to library and enjoying Library time and having fun at the library because in my mind I think if they equate fun in the library that makes reading a little bit more fun um to them and so with

087our goals goal one really focuses on the space and creating a welcoming space where all the students want to come um explore engage create because those are all of the things we're doing especially at the elementary level where they have classes every week and then number two is really analyzing our Collections and at first we thought about setting a goal where we're increasing our collection and purchasing more things and of course those things are new and Innovative and the things that the staff and students want um but then we also thought but part of that is also weeding which a lot of people don't understand and kind of getting rid of the things that are no longer needed in our library um I always kind of use the example of when you go shopping and

088you have a huge clearance rack that's just shoved full of stuff and it's kind of like do I really want to go through the work of digging through all the items to find that one piece I might like that's a really good deal and the same thing is true for a library you don't want all this old stuff cluttering up the shelves so it's about reading our collection really analyzing and looking at what we have and then having those new resources that are updated that are professionally um reference um that students and staff are looking to check out to increase the circulation and the use of the things that we're offering so that is our what and I think just to add on to that that's also looking at our electronic collection of resources our

089es too so database subscriptions ebooks um not necessarily the physical things in the library but also the other electronic reer so we all know any well crafted long range plan has clear mission and vision statements a well-written plan has meaningful and attainable goals that they're going to achieve but I truly believe the meat and potatoes of any well-crafted plan are your action sets the things that you are going to do that are going to get you across the finish line the things that we are going to do that are going to make this plan successful for all of its stakeholders so our library plan has some action steps we're going to establish Library spaces that provide a welcoming environment for everyone we're going to identify the interest of our students and our staff in order

090to get those relevant materials and then we're going to we promote those resources and services to our students and staff it's great to have a collection but if nobody knows about it it's worthless we will do lots of promoting we're also going to continuously and we do this ongoing every day um continuous collection development we'll increase our currency and our relevance of our Collections and then we're going to leverage an understanding of our school needs identify and invest in print and digital resources to support student learning so thank you for our opportunity today to come and present this to you we would welcome any discussion or questions that you might have I'll start I we'll start I standing thank you so much um very thorough very easy to follow I'm linear sequential so this in

091my wheel um but when you think about libraries the way we went to school it's different now today yet when I walk into libraries at various schools not just in our district but in others we have a gap and so I'm excited to see that we're and and not huge gap because we we can tell we've been moving forward in it but I love the fact that we're looking to shift that because kids don't pick up books a whole lot anymore and while I still love to turn the page and I'm not an Avid Reader but I'd rather Turn the Page than flight you know what do we do to get kids to read it's not a matter how many pages can they turn it's are they reading what are they doing and The Innovation

092part of it to get them to just I love your term making Library fun because you look at our public library now it looks very different than what it did before but it's very engaging in different ways and so thank you for for turning the corner if I can use that term um to where we're going in the future with reading because if kids don't have that that literacy piece literacy is across all disciplines um especially now that the way the curriculum's gone it's gone more reading based so without this it would be much more challenging so thank you for all the efforts and I'm excited to see in two years we come through you know how did those smart goals turn out and where are we looking in the future so thank you all

093right Sam um question Future Ready it's bigger than libraries remind me think the first time I was on ed services three and a half years ago I sat with Dave and Future Ready came up for a I don't want to say ratification or just an update or had to come back in front of the board again and I'm I don't want to use the word confused I'm just ignorant there's no confusion I just don't know um where does it come from who writes it who authors it I see how this is from the DPI and it applies specifically to libraries and and you guys did a great job of incorporating that plan and those guidance and those requirements but future ready as far as what it means to the district and how it governs other

094activities and other directions that we're supposed to be focusing on Beyond libraries who who's got the two-minute blurb on what is future ready and what it means to the district cuz I forget or the two main things that I know about future ready is that DP is partnered with Future Ready the external right that connected to DPI partner and the two main things that I've worked with in future Ed Library as we heard today and technology and technology is similar Circ of the same platform with wedges and we have a district team last year that worked through Future Ready the technology piece starts with a a whole lot of surveying like a selfs survey you know self evaluation and we're getting the band back together again this month and they will now put some action

095St so two things so those are just main two prongs of the Future Ready is libraries or or media access and then technology okay not to be confused with the aasa redefining ready no I I don't even you could tell me about two different things I will say that that one is so foreign I don't even remember that one but but you may have told me before but I'm just saying is that Future Ready was one that PO correct okay uh the uh two other questions Jason you said that what fund is the resources common School fund and is that of a number just called common School fund there probably some number but because the VR glasses came out of that last year yeah okay I I remember that but I didn't know if that

096a number you mentioned that uh it doesn't go for I'll say furniture but in your presentation making welcoming spaces is whether those are mats whether those are call it reading Corners uh do these things intersect or is there a natural problem caused by the inability to use those common School funds for some of the things in Future Ready answer is yes to both those right one they do intersect because we'll think about different allocations to support this for example think we purchased some furniture at the middle school last year uh with title4 $4 little more wide wide open right we use School budgets to support and we scrap the other technolog or inovation having school fund we are always looking for ways to not you say earlier not looking for loopholes but to stretch right

097and we will we have a great partnership with our DPI partner and we'll ask her what do you think of this she'll give us okay so really try to leverage both okay and then uh last question you asked for at the very beginning uh to to present and or ratify what would be the resol does this need a resolution what is the resolution what what are we going to be approving just this plan as outlined in the what why and how um yes okay okay any questions on that concerns from committee members as far as that making it to the as a resolution okay all right I will move that to a resolution then okay um that was it all right thank you all thank you thank you again for your time thank you okay

098back to the director report I will turn it right back to Mr bll if you're ready I know we wanted to revisit the assessment calendar because it was a bit um it was a it was just a draft it wasn't a drafty draft draft um but now it is no longer a draft I just wrote down a couple things that I thought were important thank you very much um one is that the assessment calendar is is now not because we're working through it I did uh update the program overview which I think gave you best for in the past it's on the website and I have copies if anyone wants to copy of that I updated things like as web on there PTY is now on there so it reflects our current State of the

099Union as relates to assessment again it's on the website two different spots and I have copies here second piece is that really excited to be continuing to work with Choy principales Angel lot lots of people are helping and we are about to engage in our first round of student rounding and just a reminder that all of our conversations that Chris and I will go to this round of the elementary schools thank you very much elementary schools and talk to students in the third grade around how they view themselves as readers and writers we'll talk to fourth grade students here about how they see themselves as mathematicians and we'll talk to fifth grade students about how we're preparing them for for the community and so uh we have a schedule we've identified students we're we're going

100to we'll meet with about 90 students over the course of three weeks and we have a finalized the questions I copy those as well we have a PA letter that's going out so we'll mail a letter home to each parent the student that we've identified just explaining what the the student routing is questions that we'll ask student the data that we gather we'll be sharing with principales we'll be looking at internally and love to bring some of feedback here as well and I have question copies of the student question and the last kind of update I wrote down is really around as web plus as web Plus is that early literacy screener that DPI told us that we are going to use um and we are working working with a small but very Mighty team

101and our plan now is to do some professional development with um a great number of folks on the afternoon of October 24th and so we'll learn the inner workking how to administer this ass and we'll also do a of as web plus from October 28th November 2nd and what we've committed to is every classroom teacher will just work through this assess with five students basically over the course of a month so the students become familiar with it teachers become familiar with we will navigate the full as web during the winter we also have a parent letter that's going out I know later than October 23rd families of K through just explain what this we thing is called inut bu question Sam no nothing I do um so I still feel there's something missing at the

102high school I'm so concerned about the when we're talking about the student Community Career College we talk about this because you know I see let me get here in eth grade we do a career exploration and four-year goal plan development so when we look at a plan development that means they making I'm assuming that's to kind of decide what their four years of high school would look like where is that being readdressed do goals change plans change so I'm just wondering if we need a better one thing I've seen having a high school student just talking personally that that is really a piece that's been missing and I know I brought that up when we you know looked at the rough dra so I'm just curious maybe there's stuff going on in the background that's

103not included in this and that would be great but didn't know if that has been discussed at all two things and things this is really reflective of the mandatory pieces gotcha KN that is other work going on okay perfect especially that work shows up through the academic career planning process okay ACP um process really starts at grade six goes through 12 part of the Strategic plan piece that we talk that with Sarah and the ACP process what would that we really want to have really2 I just don't want to be doing the bare minimum you know I think that that is uh speaking to high school students seeing student like I know that that is TR and it's not necessarily anything that we're doing or not doing it's just a struggle for them to figure

104out a plan so just thank you um how has uh I'll say uh Chris malloy's efforts influenced any of any changes in this I see that that there's several in here that you have as bold because they're required have we dropped anything did I miss that in your presentation we we certainly didn't need to add anything that I'm aware of um we're I don't want to say that we're over tested but my belief we're over tested that's a very uh non-exact uh uh assessment of of our district Andor our our habits I'm not saying that that's bad and by the way it's not even statistically proven and so I defer to Chris to say how many of these that aren't in bold um if if that's truly accurate that every one of these as you

105point out bolded assessments are mandatory and should be provided within the indicated window um are these other items have we we have we weaned it down at all or are we continuing to Pyon and and I think that the my it's my belief again that through some analysis we're going to find out that many of these things aren't necessary or that they're not delivering us information that's actionable in which case why are you using it I mean if you're not going to make decisions with it then why are you doing it and and that just comes down to my basic rule in life is if you're not going to do anything with it then why why why bother um any Insight on that share that thought first foremost I would say that this year I

106view it as a transitional year mostly because of the timing of the announcement of a we originally were told I think December 2023 we were told July of 2024 I think we learned August of 2024 we were building this C while waiting for information so I say it's transitional because we'll start conversations really soon here where to start and I think the weaning will take okay so I think I have to Patient okay the other pie two other piec student voice and having that show up as the is exciting for me and the data that come from that I think would be informative part the last piece I would say Chris is weighing in on this all the time and really uh doing a great job of connecting with adults to show them the data

107so they better understand the data that is beneficial of me what will impact learning and teaching but it also help us make inform decisions about this calendar over okay um and then one other comment I guess it's to stay away from uh on your page one you call it f&p spell it out okay you can you can you can put it as a you can you can uh you know anagram it later but spell it up the other thing is is that this is the document I've referred to many times uh Dave matali put it together for us about two or three years ago I'd love to see this on pages five and six of this document so that if people want to know what star early literacy is the description the purpose the assessment

108window the outcomes and the results the impact on the report card these are all things that theyve put together for a nice little rubric I don't want it to get lost uh only and then more specifically I don't want it to get recreated every single time that somebody puts together a document like this because now you have two documents that have to refer one to the other so if this can be resurrected and included it's like okay that's it okay okay and I didn't click on the links but perfect okay great uh then thank you um um and anything we need to do on this ises this also require any type of approval I don't think so okay thank you very much all right uh next up is we have I wanted to give an

109update on the 612 science um I will share that our um Middle School team as you know has been implementing uh amplifi this year we had our first coaching visit um from the company they came I believe last week at some point um she observed in classrooms and provided feedback to Administration and the teachers about sort of where next steps would be um overall the consensus is the folks are using the materials um working out some pacing pieces um and she gave them each sort of a next time I'm going to look for acts in your classroom to help support that um we our coach and Jason Whitaker the principal there accompanied her on that visit on that day so they know how to support that um when she is not there um as you

110know our high school team um last year embarked on a review of our standards um and the data for our students and how uh we are meeting the needs of our students um what they found when they did that analysis is that there was a pretty cleared gap for some of our students in like physical and Earth Science given the course sequence that they currently have um they also uh made note that um essentially there's kind of a three track system with science and the students who were in sort of the below grade level track were not showing as much growth um and achievement as they had desired um so as a team they are working through a process right now and this is where I wanted to update you because we are not ready

111for prime time on this but I wanted to preview it where they're looking at their current course sequence and course offerings and determining um how they might make changes uh to ensure both that uh our students have the opportunity to engage in all of the standards um and then also to decrease that gap for students who are below grade level um their timeline for implementation would not be until the fall of 2026 at the earliest so um we have it's not that we have to bring you like any course proposals or anything like in the next month they will be spending time in October they'll be spending the PD days year this year frankly um examining their course sequence the standards and what might make sense moving forward generally speaking what they're thinking that they

112want to do is move forward with sort of a ninth grade course that um would cover those uh earth science and physics standards um and then move forward with a chemistry in 10th Grade I believe and no chemistry and 10th and biology other way thank you um and they would want to continue to maintain many of the options that they have now we have a lot of Project Lead the Way and AP options um they would also like to to maintain the honors options as well so that sort of up the kids who choose to take additional challenge maintaining that track um but they want to look to um eliminate the track of students who they're not seeing as much progress with with that lower track um there are many Logistics to work out with

113this including um sort of like with our uh social studies and where we change where we're offering Civics courses and so they'll have to work through what like what would the logistics of that look like um they also are engaging in a process um with uh piloting a um a curriculum in particular and suddenly the name of the open S I was like suddenly the name escaped me they are piloting that in biology right now um this is an approach that is much more similar to amplify where it's more inquiry based they call it story lining where essentially at the beginning they ask one overarching question and then through their uh study and exploration they're looking to answer that question um so they're working through that piece as well um they intend to do like

114I said analysis of uh the standards how our current approach would need to change and how we might transition into that as well as to do site visits to any um districts who are using a similar course sequence and are looking at that open side Ed um curriculum materials as well and that is worked still engage in on their professional development days with the goal of a more um solidified proposal to ed services and then to the full board this spring and again not for Implement implementation until um fall of 2026 so we have time with this um I will tell you that I'm really excited by their High Lev engagement with this they said you know this is things that we've been talking about for the past five five six seven eight years um

115and they're just appreciating the opportunity to sort of tackle this at this point so I told them that I would come and share with ed services where we're at with that um and that we would come with a more formal proposal in the spring and if there are any specific questions that the team has um at this time or the committee has at this time that I can bring that back to them if you're doing a current pilot is that ideally the idea to possibly pilot something else next year or how to my room so I'm just asking there are um very few like like curricular materials to choose from at the high school level um this is the main one that many school districts are moving forward with um it is uh quite a

116shift I would say from where they're traditional practices were um and I said if we learned anything from our math adoption at the high school level um a slower implementation of that rather than like all courses at once would make more sense especially when we know that the students from the Middle School are coming to the high school with more similar experiences with that so at this point I don't see them wanting to engage with any other materials but it is a question that I can pose back so they piloting it this year you said in biology correct and they're liking it does the pilot just continue next is that just considering continuing the pilot or would they go you know what I'm does that make sense what I would because we're looking so far

117ahead no I agree what I would anticipate is as part of this plan that we would propose in the spring that um at that point we would ask for a more formal adoption of that okay so that one could be more just maybe just that one yes just that material perfect the other thing with open is that you can actually use it for unit specific and so I don't know that they are going to Pilot the enti it and so it may be that they are going to Pilot a couple of units to see how they like it and then next year would maybe be like Tri and then also trying to bring in like the chemistry into the open science as well and Jen's leadership has been phenomenal on this because she uh was

118a science teacher herself uh so she comes with a very strong background um with a lot of connections across the state with her involvement with the state uh sign team as well so we very much appreciated her leadership uh with this as well the reason I asked sometimes I feel like Pilots are really quick yes and sometimes you have a pilot so I was just kind of curious what yeah like yeah okay um I'll say somewhat along the same line is this consistent with the curriculum review document you put together last month or two months ago yes so we didn't we didn't present that and then immediately get off page no this has been uh essentially so where where we're at with every single one of our curricular areas is that this has not been

119a process that we've engaged in and so we have sort of Gone full force really fast in all of our areas um we were in different places at the middle school and high school when it came to science the middle school had had some teachers who had uh had longevity and had create like their created material that they had used we had a lot of turnover with the science department and did not feel like we had at the middle school a really strong backbone to work from and so that's where the urgency of adopting amplify was last year and that's an example of having piloted materials pretty quickly because we knew there was a higher level of urgency there um at the high school level they worked in conjunction um with a review of the

120standards the high school team has had a lot more longevity with their teachers and didn't feel that same level of urgency to adopt materials they wanted to take the time and look at their course sequence as well and so they're taking a little bit longer than where the middle school was my goal is long term we're working through a process that k12 and it daggered a little bit more so that we're not like fine social math like right in a row um as you know with our literacy review and we talked with the team last night about this the curriculum that will adopt will likely be what they call Knowledge building and we'll have science and social studies embedded in it and so my long-term plan is that we will sort of sync up these

121three levels so that when we're looking at this we're looking at it k12 and not with individual schools we just weren't quite there yet um and so this is exactly where I had planned to be with that CC M cycle that's a long answer to your question as long as we're on I hate to put forth the document then y the very next month deviate from it corre work the plan Y and then I think you've said this several times maybe directly answering this question but maybe I'm just going to ask it again when we realize that there's a opportunity a gap uh we're just missing the boat and an example I come up with is 30 years ago playing Pictionary with a friend they had to draw England and they didn't know where England

122was and this was an adult and I said How's this even possible possible and she goes well I moved from one school in eth grade to a different School in high school and geography World Geography was in seventh grade and one and eth and 8th grade and the other or whatever it was and she never had a World Geography course well that's what happens when you move from one one school to another um how do when we see gaps when we move from one curriculum when we see from when we move from one school how do we know when we're missing something in and of itself in the classroom and when we need to re-evaluate the entire curriculum all together and and maybe you did say that there were gaps I thought that's what I

123heard that we identified but we don't have to hit it with new curriculum day one we can also put the science teachers together and have them have a conversation and say Hey you know little Jimmy and little Susie's coming in and we're they're not getting what they're getting over when they come in from Webster they're not getting at Douglas or or whatever the conversation is just highlight on that is that how we tend to build the small gaps is with not cross functional I guess it'd be vertical team uh to to ensure that everybody's on the same page with what the deliverables are um or or am I overstating or understating the the the process no I think you're exactly right and I think that's where we want to get to this more of a

124K12 process instead of like a leveled process um you know for example when the science team examined like where they found gaps we're not waiting until 2026 I keep looking at my computer as to what year it is we're not waiting till 2026 okay to to start filling those gaps like for instance with the coursework with Project Lead the Way you know they're noticing there were certain gaps with Project Lead the Way That students have if they're taking sort of that pathway and so they're right now figuring out how are they ensuring that those gaps that they've identified are included in that cour work rather than just saying we know it's a gap so sorry for the kids who are currently in our seats but we'll have it fixed by the time their kids come

125through right they they see that and they're um already looking at how they're implementing pieces to make that happen so okay and then when you look at how the state reviews um standards when we start on our path to the curriculum review cycle then reviewing the standards that the state put out if there are any major changes with that an example of that is and we've talked about this a lot math we did not um we did not review our workings with the new with the standards and the shifts in the standards and we saw a huge uh difference in the rigor from what we're offering compared to what the stand standards were and so that's why it's important that we engage in that process on a pretty regular basis so okay all right and

126then last but not least uh Ready set go I asked our elementary principles uh um the questions that you had asked me to be able to address um and I should color code my paper next year or next month um we reviewed the attendance by our families um we had attendance ranging in our schools between 92 and 96% so our lowest engagement was leap at 92% and that's such a small school that if like one family misses that's going to really shift your percentage um but we had 96% attendance at Webster sh and Douglas and 9 4% attendance at Lincoln uh so it was a highly um engaging EV inent event for families they were absolutely signed up and ready to come um feedback from teachers the principal shared with me that they really feel

127like it's a great way to start building that positive relationship and get to know families um I experienc this often as a teacher too where families want to tell you some like highly sensitive information and when you're in a like large group setting at like an open house that can be somewhat awkward and uh for the families and we wanted to give them an opportunity to share that important and sensitive information in a more private setting and it helps the uh teachers better understand their child um without having to worry about sort of what I'll call working the room at open house um and then again the piece of Assessments um they had opportunity in time to do some of those assessment pieces that will be something that we're examining with our new curriculum what

128assessment pieces as we'd want to do during that uh Ready set go time laori I know you had asked the question like what changes have they made over the years to improve so as you guys know we started in September of 2020 due to covid at that time it was a 45 minute session um what we did is we decreased that to 30 minutes because the teachers felt we could accomplish what we needed to in that amount of time um thereby taking fewer days we reduced it from 3 days to two days um we have flexed the teacher work hours um so that we can increase the number of evening offerings so I believe it's at least one day where teachers are starting like at noon instead of 8 in the morning and then going

129until like 8 o'clock at night so that we have more time in the evening for families to be able to attend it um and again that also helped us reduce it from three instructional days to two instructional days um the principles felt like the one-on-one time with families um that communication in a private setting um time for assessment are the real benefits and then as I kind of talked about in the science uh presentation we've had a lot of changes to our curriculum um and our staff is able to better communicate like what is it that we're looking for in each of those curriculum areas during that time um what they're proposing as a plan is maintaining uh for the 2425 school year for uh consistency for families um so that would include using two

130days of the calendar so the first two days that we would be in session um for those Ready set go days so typically we start on a Tuesday so that would be Tuesday and Wednesday for Ready set go and then starting with the full classroom on Thursday so that is what they're proposing um and those are the reasons behind that questions thoughts I know we typically then propose propose that during the full calendar um but I know that we wanted to sort of separate the calendar discussion from Ready set go as well did you receive feedback or any feedback from parents I know they have surve parents in the in the past they did not do a formal survey this year with in families why just because we've been doing it now or I I

131I will ask them question yeah okay any additional thoughts La Sam no I mean I I think that for those of us who were close to the beginning of Ready set go when it was created Lori and I were on the board quite yet then but we got on shortly thereafter and it's been I don't want to say contentious but it's been reg regularly debated and tweet and there were some board members who were more against it than for it and there's probably some teachers and some principles who were more against it than for it but opinions have varied I think that the current sentiment of the board is not that it's not ative and useful tool and we've heard from Plenty of principles in the past uh as we presented on this and we've

132seen the surveys and think that the the staff has done a as best as possible job trying to accommodate parents uh schedules and other students schedules um and and I think we're getting a lot out of it I I think the one thing that it comes down to still at least for me and the one that I hear if there's any heartache it's the overall school calendar it's when does it fit do you come back for a Friday for a Ready set go conference do you come back for Friday for one day of school and just getting everything compacted into the most efficient bundle that respects the time of the families respects the time of the teachers and respects I'll just say major holidays uh whatever you want to call it and and so I

133don't think there's a lot of sentiment on the board currently that Ready set go is a vestage that has to be you know removed there used to be that opinion um from former board I I don't hear that now I'm not saying that I can speak for everybody on the board obviously you're not hearing it today and that service and and I don't think you're going to hear it much from the whole board at all so it's still making sure that it's the most effective program as possible not just yeah exactly not just for that one student and that one teacher in that one classroom but the contracts the long-term calendar graduation date you you know you just have to look at it in a big picture not just narrow as Ready set go and

134and if there's anything that I'd encourage us to do is continue to work on the overall calendar uh which this is why we're talking about a Ready set go today is because we'll probably be seeing the full calendar probably not in I think we see that in December typically uh but this will roll into it so and I know that there is a calendar committee right now that's looking at some really creative and different ideas um the last meeting that Margaret facilitated um there were some really different ideas out there but um I appreciate that I also know the elementary principles have analyzed minutes that they have and what compared to the minut that we have so instructional minutes that we have compared to what's required by the state um and we have plenty of

135room um as far as like the bare minimum required by the state to I hate bare minimums I know and as I assume Margaret's listening right I assume she's she'll be running in the front door I exactly here at one point there she is I will also say that the three days before Thanksgiving was the other one that was strictly implemented to prevent kids from going home seeing family during Co and then coming back to school with a bunch of uh viruses in which case there's no reason to hold on to that one any longer than is necessary especially when it adds three days in the summertime but now I'm not on the calendar committee I've just overstepped the bounds I think we're done with the meeting today I I just comment that I've heard

136that one before it's out there Dy noted Dy noted parents about graduation I'm hearing about it believe me precise I know um okay is there any Lori I appreciate your questions ahead of time or past questions on Ready set go um I don't mind reviewing Ready set go on an annual basis but it's not a review to decide keep or go it's a review to just say how did it go this year and did we learn anything that we should be doing different right and it does affect the calendar like you said so there are a lot of things that go into it so I think it's keeping us on the same track together right easy put in our director and I really like the attendance numbers um not not only are they good numbers

137I like hearing the attendance that that you know hey how do we do this year because if it's slipping then we realize that the the community isn't quite as engaged in it as we want them to be and we have to redesign it but keeping everything in the 92 to 96 Range I don't think we do anything at 92 or 96 so that's actually pretty good okay good all right thank you that was it for the director's report okay technically only 10 minutes past the schedule based off your your based off your bucketed minute so with nothing else uh we'll adjourn the meeting uh future meetings I've already gotten a note from Diana regarding some action some topics that she'd like to uh add I'll review that with Jenny uh Sam and Lori please do

138the same as well as any other board member listening please forward uh any topics to me and then I'll discuss them with Jenny and uh that's that we're looking at next month uh review of The L courses at the high school and uh course proposals keep on track with that so just to head up on that okay sounds great pass dismissed