001Yeah, exactly. >> Hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Aton Heights School Board meeting for Wednesday, January 7th, 2026. Would everyone please rise and pledge the flag? Pledge allegiance to the flag of America and to the standyice for all. >> All right. May we please have roll call. Mr. Abdullah >> here. >> Mr. Azar >> here. >> Mrs. Henderson >> here. >> Mrs. Sibbran >> here. >> Mrs. Kum here. >> Mrs. Kho. >> Mr. Moran >> here. >> Mr. Robson >> here. >> And Mr. Aker >> here. >> Eight present. >> Okay. May I please have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. on the motion. >> Can I please have a vote? >> Mr. Abdullah, >> yes. >> Mr. Azar, >> yes. >> Mrs. Henderson, >> yes.
002>> Mrs. Hillbrand, >> yes. >> Mrs. Kum, >> yes. >> Mr. Moran, >> yes. >> Mr. Robson, >> yes. >> And Mr. Hacker, >> yes. >> Before we move on, we're going to move the public comment section of the meeting to before the superintendent's report. I think the superintendent's reports can be a little involved. >> Yep. >> So, uh, at this time, we would be having public comment. Normally, we have cards and ask people to fill them out, but we don't have them tonight. So, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand. Uh, please come up when when you come up. State your name and keep your keep your comments to about 30 minutes. Your name and your name and where you live. One at a one at a time, please. >> 30 minutes.
003Oh, no. No. No. Anybody who knows me, you're being very gracious. >> A quick just about had a heart attack. Three minutes, please. >> Kidding. >> Is this thing on? Oh, there it is. >> Okay. Good evening. My name is Tams and Ree. Um my cohort is supposed to be with me, Susan Duckworth, but unfortunately her um mother is ill, so she is not with me tonight. But the two of us are here representing the Abington Heights Marching Comets. Um, tonight actually marks, well, maybe a month ago marks the conclusion of our two-year co-presidency, uh, Susan and I, with the Abington, uh, marching comments. And we wanted to thank the school board and, um, and actually our administrators in the back because we've had so much support from our principles and vice principles and the
004community um, which has allowed our students to grow not only as musicians, but leaders at Abington Heights. So, um, we also wanted to formally introduce our new president. So if you see their faces around, Roma um Estalfi and Kerry O'Reilly are the new presidents for this organization and they bring with them strong leadership, dedication and a deep commitment to our students and we are confident the program will thrive under their guidance. Over the past past two years with support of the district, administrators, staff, parents, and community partners, the Bamb Boosters have been proud to continue and expand our opportunities for the students. These include participation in community events such as the Santa parade, which is a new one for this year. We were super excited. I hope you saw them on TV with their Santa
005hats. Um the ice festival, which you do every uh February, the memorial day events. Um we were part of a day of service uh with a car wash from the Church of St. Gregory and Our Lady of the Snows. We did our inaugural and highly su successful bingo fundraiser. And thank you to some of you who are there and calling numbers. We appreciate it. Uh save the date. It's March 22nd, so we'll be hitting you back up. And um we also had jazz performances at the Central Park Cafe and Keystone College. We also worked to return to taking our show on the road, if you will. This this past spring, the students participated in Music in the Parks at Dorney Park. They competed against eight school districts from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The
006marching comets earned first place in our division, received the highest possible rating of superior, and were awarded best overall band out of all of the groups in attendance. In addition, the marching comments participated in Cavalcade performances where they were formally evaluated and earned top honors, further demonstrating the quality, discipline, and musical excellence of this program. The boosters also fund yearly uh Miss Comet and our drum majors to attend professional leadership training and clinics at Westchester University. And the students also participate um not all of them but they have they participated in Penn State's blue and white day and the blue and white uh the blue van summer camps. We're especially proud at this time that we're able to breathe life new life into the dance front program. We also in the back here have one
007of our she's actually our volunteer coach. Um but Jen, can you raise your hand? There's Jen. Uh she was instrumental the last two years. Uh this program went from four girls to 24 girls. uh which we we're really excited about. There's a lot more glitter on that field now. Um so through these experiences, students have consistently demonstrated pride, professionalism, and excellence while representing Abington Heights throughout the community and beyond. As we conclude our remarks here for tonight and we we let these two new folks move on, there is another project that Susan and I have been working on with the band over the last two years and that addresses our uniforms. So, it has to do with the long-term sustainability of the uniforms and the dance front um both programs. The evaluation process for replacing
008the marching band and dance front uniforms began um two years ago. Our current uniforms are between 23 and 26 years old and have been carefully maintained through professional dry cleaning, which happens annually. So, these kids don't get one uniform and wear it for five or six years. They have to turn it in every year and we have to resize them every year. It's a process, but it's fun. You love it. Um so, repairs and alterations. While that stewardship has served the program well, um continued repairs are no longer a sustainable solution. This fall, a committee of band boosters worked in coordination with band leadership to review options from nationally recognized uniform companies with careful attention to durability, fit, student comfort, and maintaining the tradition and identity of Abington Heights. Planning also accounts for our current
009enrollment of approximately 100 students, including middle school members to ensure consistency and equity across the years. Band boosters are prepared to contribute approximately 10 to 12% um through our ongoing fundraising efforts in order to contribute to this effort because uniforms require approximately 7 to 8 months to manufacture. I'm going to let that do the math on that for me. It's January the fall. Okay. Right. Seven to eight months um moving forward in the near term would allow them to be ready for the upcoming season. So we are looking to move on this rather quickly. We respectfully place this matter in the hands of the administration for further review and guidance on next steps and we thank the board for your continued support of our students and the program. Thank you very much for your time.
010Um we will be here after the meeting. We have brought samples of some of the material that we have. Also um we have a where is it? Yeah, that's a demo. So we've worked on this with with some folks to kind of narrow down what we think it should look like. It's actually very similar to the one we have but obviously updated. So if you have any questions, if you'd like to look at these later, we will be here after the meeting. And thank you so much for your help. >> Thank you very much. And thank you for your support of the students. >> Okay. Is there anyone else uh for public comment? If that's the case, let's move on to the superintendent's report. Dr. Schaefer. At this time we are going to have our
011our principles come up uh one by one and uh yearly uh at at the midpoint usually uh January Februaryish uh we update uh the board and community on our goals um and our and our progress towards them. Uh and today is no exception tonight. Uh so we're going to have each of the uh principles come up. They'll they'll spend approximately three four minutes uh and they'll they'll tell us what they've learned from uh the data that they have in in front of them. They will talk to us about uh their plans this year and some of the metrics they uh look at along the way to ensure that uh we are tracking towards uh these outcomes. You know, at the same time, you may hear about some what some of the challenges are and and
012how we work through those. But we think that um this is an effective way to communicate uh our progress towards our goals as well as some transparency about uh where we feel some of the challenges uh lie. >> All right, we'll start with Clark Summit Elementary. Mr. Millani, >> hello everyone. Uh thanks for having me here this evening. Um as you could see our our slide for our English language arts school um for this year it's increased proficiency in ELA in grades three and four on the PSSA proficient advance that would be and then also uh the benchmark for our cadence K2 uh increased to 80% which means at or above grade level um for students from the beginning of the school year measures. the Matt slide and we'll get to the Matt slide in
013a second is is very similar. It's the same exact layout. Um some of the actions that we've taken are again um working with our small group instruction um having data meetings to design um specific small groups to work with students to give them what they need. Um that instructional um those working with instructional strategies and and practice for students um with our teachers and our our intervention team. Um progress monitoring is something again that we've added and we have a schedule of progress monitoring that takes place throughout actually throughout the school year. Um but definitely in between our our benchmarking um targeted instruction and enrichment um again data centered meetings and researchbased instruction. So at the midpoint after analysis of where we're at with the CDT data uh we are demonstrating measurable academic progress in
014both subjects. Um, we've reviewed, like I said, Aadians benchmarking, our CDTs, the PSSA results from the previous years to see how we did and performed and students and then compare our cohort for fourth grade from their third grade scores last year. Uh we also look at our classroom based assessments um and all these um indicate that our targeted instructional practices and the consistent implementation of our MTSS process are positively impacting um student learning um through these data centered instructional practices um and our MTSS structures that we continually um revise and we work together as an elementary team here um to ensure that we're consistent and on the same page as well as uh strengthening the researchbased strategies for our teachers to implement with students um is is has us on a trajectory where we're anticipating
015meeting our goals by end of school year. If you can switch Oh, there's the mathematics slide. Um it's up already. Um no, that's okay. It that's all right. Uh again, these are our midyear percentages. Um, you know, if you have any other questions for me, you know, I'd be happy to answer. Um, we do have, uh, data meetings that are happening now and into next week, um, analyzing this mid-year data with our our teachers and to, um, readress groupings, um, that we have amongst grade levels and reallocate resources that we have because there's some really innovative things that are happening in all the elementary buildings um, with um, our our teachers and our specialists. Um, I could speak to kindergarten. Uh, we're doing a push-in MTSS support where students during their small group time have
016three teachers in the room. So, there's, uh, the classroom teacher, the kindergarten teacher, our reading specialist, and a math specialist in the room working with students, switching through groups. So, we have three highly qualified individuals working with students, our youngest students during during our our kindergarten program. And then we also have speech and occupational therapy support during that time going in and making sure our speech and language therapists have eyes on all students. So this is a great way early on to be proactive uh and ensure that um kids have what they need u moving forward. Um, again, we're doing a couple other things with push-in supports in third grade at CSSE. um second grade as well that we started last year that we we we demonstrated um definitely was very successful for our students
017um with foundations and um you know being able to decode words and encode um so like I said we're the mid-year data that we have um we're we're on track and showing progress um and meeting our end of the year goals um for this for this school year They qualify under time. I didn't hear the bell for the three minutes. >> Just obvious comment. I just want to make sure I'm right. Ei >> beginning of school year. Yes. Yes. Mi middle of school year. Yes. Yes. >> Sorry, I just condensed it into a short slide. >> I just wanted to make sure that >> Yes. Ely would be end of school year, too. >> Okay. Any questions for Clarks Summit Elementary? >> Real quick, since you're the first elementary person, so when you answer this
018question, nobody else will have to do this. >> Oh, boy. >> And I'm only asking you because uh you're you're leaving. So, you know, >> you're you're going to have the hardest job up here today. >> All right. N um so we've got uh up here the A cadence benchmark and sometimes we it's it's acronym uh soup. So I, you know, I wanted you to kind of distill this to the least common uh, you know, denominator that way. And I I'll I'll give you all the knowledge I have relative to this, but it's not wasn't a cadence, but um, for everybody here that's gone through it, you know, you'll see something here where it says like a a cadence, but uh, I remember this as a parent. So, you know, when my children were kindergarteners,
019one of the first things they would do is like, do you know your letters, right? And we have some national statistics where we'd say, okay, if you know, if you took this in the fall of your kindergarten year and you could name 12 uppercase and 12 lowercase, then you were right where you needed to be. So sometimes when we hear this and it seems like alphabet soup um you know it in a different way. Is there anything that you can kind of add to this accadience? Like what are some of the things that we do with the kids and and and then how do we determine who goes where? >> Sure. and and it varies amongst um our grade levels like there's there's like um different um skills that they're looking at and the easiest
020way to describe it would be like their temperature checks along the way um which is why we do it and we look at the curriculum that we have in place along with the standards to figure out how how to program for that. So for example like first sound fluency is one where letter identification and some of these metrics change in grade levels and then throughout the year when they when they add them in um um in the math portion of it um there is um computation which is also part of it as well. Now it doesn't tell the whole story but it gives us a picture of where that support may need and we might have to dig deeper to do something else to be more diagnostic like the classroom diagnostic the cdts which is
021diagnostic as opposed to a benchmark u which really digs down and I can pull up in grade three and grade four exactly the reporting categories and the standards where they're performing and how they're performing and then we can program for that um to to um um group students based on those skills and areas of need that they may have. Um and they again they're flexible as well. So um just because a student may need help, let's say geometry um you know identifying two dimensional shapes, okay, doesn't mean that they may need that for the entire school year, right? Um so these groups are designed in our small group times that we built into our master schedule. And now that we're the six day schedule, we built this in a couple years ago as as an
022elementary team um to recognizing the need to support students in both ELA and math, not one or the other. Um because sometimes students need support in both. And again, enrichment as well, right? Like so we're supporting all students, not not just certain students, but all of the students that we have at CSE, at Waverly, at Newton Ransom, at South Abington, at the intermediate school, at the high school. We're supporting all students. Um so we use this data internally. We also share it with parents as well during parent teacher conferences which were in our October this year. Perfect timing right after our our data um first beginning of the year benchmark. We had these reports to share with parents and explain. So when these middle of the year reports come home next week um for the
023elementary level and if they have any questions they can email and reach out or they can bring it to the parent teacher conferences in February. I wouldn't wait that long, but you know, they could reach out. They could reach out sooner. So, they have a basis to see where their child is going and where they may need additional support and our families and our community highly engaged and they do whatever it takes to make sure that their students are successful um with support even outside of school as well. So, um, I hope that answers for the community and, you know, for the board. Um, sheds a little bit of light on kind of what goes behind goes on. I don't want to say behind the scenes, but like like you said, all these acronyms get
024thrown out and a cadence and cdts and you know, what does that mean? It's temperature checks. Do we make sure that what we're doing is working? Same thing with the progress monitoring that we've implemented. So, we're progress monitoring students as well to make sure that the instruction um and the practice that they're getting is working. Um and that helps us to course correct or refocus um you know throughout the school year. >> Perfect. Go ahead. >> Two questions. Um when you look at the when you look at the numbers and obviously this is just a subset. Uh has there been anything that you look at and as a principal and a teacher you say this is more concerning than I would have expected. Is there something that says to you, you know, uh here's an
025area that you would have to look at? >> So, so here's what I can say and even collectively. So, um it depends on the students and and the grade level and the cohort that's in front of you, right? Like because that's I like to look at kids as how they how they track through from grade to grade to grade and compare them to how they did the previous year. Um, one one need that that we saw was more practice with that text dependent analysis in and the writing process. Um, not that it isn't already in our curriculum and in the supplemental resource with wisdom that we use. Sometimes it's just like a different format that they need to see. Um, so using our standards align system and and being able to pull prompts from like
026item scoring samplers and things like that. So, so kids can get that, you know, language may be different than what they're they're exposed to at times. Um, I wouldn't say anything sticks out. It depends from from year to year and like students that are coming in. Uh, which is why it's so important to have these temperature checks. um as well as the meetings that we have with our faculty and staff to kind of check in to see how they're doing, not just on Aadian, not just on CDTs, but like with uh day-to-day uh and our curriculum based assessments. Um, so I think collectively, um, with support of central office and all of our admin team that we have, we do a great job of communicating, um, with each other. And sometimes needs at CSSE might
027be a little bit different than needs in other elementary buildings or other grade levels. >> Thank you for Thank you for that. >> You're welcome. >> Very best of luck to you. We we're sorry you're leaving and uh good luck and much success. >> I I appreciate that. It's been a pleasure working here and working with everyone here alongside everyone. Uh nothing but gratitude. Uh it's been uh a very impactful and meaningful learning experience for me. Um in my almost 20 I think it's 20 years now. I don't I don't try to keep track but um you know it's uh I appreciate your insight keeping the focus on students making the hard decisions you know ensuring that kids not just now but in the future will will you know have that excellence that standard of
028excellence. So uh much appreciated I know it's not easy at times but um you know I I I appreciate all the support that you given and showed to me and and welcome me here. So um you know I just wanted to say thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Excuse Mario. By the way, >> his daughter's >> Mario, you're allowed to leave. So, >> my daughter's up. >> Okay. Good evening everybody. Um, thanks again for your commitment to the district and all that we've been doing. And I don't want to be redundant because as an elementary I think we're doing a lot of similar things but um for me in my time here um I saw a shift where decisions are being made with data rather than feel. And I think if you look
029at organizations, businesses, sporting uh teams, anything anymore, it's like you got to dig into the data. And um I'll be honest, you could go down a rabbit hole, but it's a required rabbit hole that needs to take place. Um so Newton ran some English language arts as you could see the data used um same with elementary our benchmarking data which is that acadians and to kind of maybe piggyback off what Mario said, that's foundational skills. So, think about like these foundational skills of what a kindergarten student should be doing, a first grade student, second, third, fourth, and it's really focused on reading, kindergarten, number recognition, letter recognition, and then goes all the way up into fourth grade, like if you said a portrait of a reader in fourth grade. It's really um getting down to
030that comprehending piece um analyzing text being able to identify main idea supporting details and into that piece of writing um taking what you're taking and then putting it into text. Um if you look at the data last year the PSSAs third and fourth grade um that's where we ended up. Uh Mr. Aker asked about surprises. Uh when I looked at that there were some surprises. Um CDTs midyear where we're at now. I should note that in CDTS think about foundational skills. Now you have to apply them. So taking them into higher um order thinking skills, taking your skills and strategies and putting them into use. And then to our Acadians um K through four where we are middle year. Um, so yes, some surprises, actions taken, very similar to what Mario said, um, I'll say
031this, um, that as we analyze the data and we meet monthly, um, we're changing some instruction and some support. So, what I mean by that is we're starting to see that even some students at the beginning of the year that might have been stronger in one of those skills, if we see a decrease or them diminish with that skill, then we have to come in and target and add additional support or instruction. Um, and we're doing that in a couple different ways with pushing in with our specialist, but also then going and working with our specialist in targeting. And when it comes to the acadians, the foundational skills, there is a lot of drill practice and approaches that sometimes need to change, especially with our students today. Um, they're coming in where they're getting a
032lot of instant gratification and just a change of delivery could have some impacts on that. um for that PSSA uh one number stuck out to me and when we dove deeper into the PSSAs if you look at a portion of that exam uh there's an explicit writing piece and when we looked at it our scores uh we weren't proud of of where we should be and this year we are doing explicit writing instruction that is connected with wit and wisdom but even going deeper um and they are we're giving students basically anytime they're presented with a task, they should be writing. And I think we are seeing results because we've done baselines on that in mid year. And our baseline showed um a lot of students, they could write, they could put things down on
033paper, but are they actually answering the prompt, um supporting with evidence, elaborating and concluding? we saw that that was an area that needed to be focused on and that is something that we're doing right now. Um so for ELA for mathematics um I kind of look at them both as a a grow and a glow. I think with reading and ELA it's the grow. I think mathematics there's a lot of glow there as you could see with our last year end of year state assessment PSSAs. Um there's some numbers I think that students teachers can be proud of. um our CDT data midyear as well. Uh and you could see it's very similar. Um there's some correlation there. Uh Aadian data, you could see that certain grades might need some more uh defined targeted areas
034of support and that's exactly what we're doing with some of those actions being taken. Meeting with teachers, having our specialists come in and model. I think one of the big indicators of success for mathematics is just how we're approaching it with formative assessment that the district has brought in uh with OAP. And you might ask what OGAP there's one of those uh alphabet soups acronyms. Um it's basically showcasing that what students put down as an answer. Um it could be right and they could get there many different ways. And if we identify how they get there, we could understand the strategy and skill that they're using and see where it falls on a progression line and see if that's the most effective strategy. And if it's not, how do we get them to that most
035effective strategy? So, uh, data for me has become, uh, really something I'm passionate about. And I think we're starting to spread that in our schools as well. Not just making decisions off of feelings and um you know things that we think. Not going up the inference ladder and just looking at the data in front of us. What questions do you have? >> Aadians and C. I feel like these are relatively new. Like we switched to them. I I'm blanking on So you you can speak a little bit to the the lineage of a a CA cadence. What I can tell you is CDT has been in in Pennsylvania for a long time. Uh however it it is uh uh um the the CDT uh diagnostic is created by the same company that develops the state
036assessments, the PSSA and the Keystone exams. It is also free to all uh Pennsylvania schools. the nomenclature that we use in Pennsylvania is different uh than other states. So it's it's very difficult to find diagnostics that use the same language. So when we speak with teachers, we use this terminology and if you go out and you try to find an assessment that for teachers to use, they use different words, phrases, things like so we don't you don't uh have that here. Uh we do have it because in part uh it's free and it is specifically aligned to the Pennsylvania standards and eligible content. Uh we have a lot of students in Pennsylvania using it. As a result of the usage, there's a lot of power in the data, which means, and this is what we're
037always looking for, there is a very strong and significant correlation between the CDT and the and the PSSA. So, that's always what we are looking for. And so when we got uh assessment results, the Department of Education also told us that students that took the CDT, schools that use the CDT, saw their scores uh go up or outperform schools that did not use it by six to 10% in in that in that area. So it fits a lot of categories which brings me to a cadence because this is something that we had been trying to find uh in early elementary um for some time >> was as you've probably seen this presented as Ames web >> yeah I have a point to make >> but I wanted you to No, I wanted you to talk
038about it because I know from the feedback as a parent um these these benchmark assessments are challenging for the students. They take them very seriously and um some of the um commentary and and I'm a mom who doesn't always ask them. So when they tell me about it, it's sort of like okay I have to pay attention. Um, some of the feedback was that it was challenging and and the description of the passage and the writing response that my son had to do, you know, it it surprised me because it was um I felt like at a level that I would hope that he'd be at, you know, at a level that is excelling, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. >> Yeah. in in this um in last year in in Pennsylvania, there
039was a a mandate that all assessments would be taken online, which was very different from all the way back to the '9s. And so when students take the CDT, they take that online. That's a real repetition. And that is and that is very meaningful. if you've ever had any like I had my kids take um some SAT prep classes and they learned a lot of the transactional nature of it and now I'm starting to see more and more of that in the workforce. In fact, some employers will have you take online assessments. So imagine our kids now that have gotten to the high school and they've had a lifetime of testing with paper and pencil and then you're putting them in front of the computer. It can be really off-putting. Uh so this also has
040the uh you know unintended impact of giving them some some real life experience with this uh that they'll have to do in the in the spring. >> And I think we've learned um I think we've learned some things too, right? that it's still important that kids have a piece of paper and a pencil. Um because sometimes their keyboarding gets in the way and it's not really a mistake in the math or the writing. It's a mistake in the oh I put three periods and I didn't know how to get rid of two of them. So um it's it's just good practice for all of that piece. Greg, >> only question sorry. So the only question I had was the PSSA data was from the end of last year, right? So is the fourth grade cohort
041representing the PSA data different than the fourth grade cohort represent? >> So if you look at um PSSA data, third grade up there and then below that's actually our fourth grade there. >> Um so but if you look at it in in in just grade level, they're pretty similar. Um, and the CDT kind of adjusts with the students skill level a little bit. Um, but you know, 78% right there. If I was to look at um the cohort prior to that, I' I'd like to see if there's a trend in that. Any other questions? >> Thank you. Hi, good evening. Thanks for having us tonight. Now, I'm the third elementary principal to present. So, I will not go into great detail. I will just give you the overview because we do a lot of very
042similar things in each of the four buildings. So essentially my goals are always to increase PSSA achievement for students in third and fourth grade and then to also have our students K through second to be core which means 80% of the students would be at or above benchmark when we're doing our Acadians testing. What I can tell you is our data this year is trending in a great direction. Um there is true alignment as Dr. Schaefer mentioned with PSSA performance and students performance on the CDTs and what we do at South Abington, we look at historical data, but then we also look at cohort data and track that as well. So when we get our raw PSSA data file, I then put in that data file next to their PSSA performance, how they performed on
043the CDT and then how they performed at the end of the year on their cadence benchmark to see if there's an alignment. We found an alignment and then what we decided we needed to do this year was be very creative with our approach to instruction particularly for students in first grade. I think it's because they're transitioning from halfday kindergarten that sometimes as a parent put it a couple of years ago they are immediately on the highway. There's no on-ramp. They're just flying. So we put a lot of supports in place this year with our first grade using our reading specialist and math interventionist in very creative ways. But then as you can see in second grade, the data really picks up. So we look at first grade kind of like a transition year because then
044the data does pick up come second grade. And then what we also saw was a need for writing support in third and fourth grade. So we are we designed a creative schedule where at the end of the day every day 2:30 to 2:45 either the reading specialist or the learning support teacher pushing into two of the six classrooms on a daily basis. So, in the six-day cycle, the reading specialist is in classroom A two days out of the six-day cycle, classroom B two days out of the six-day cycle, and the learning support teacher as well to help with specific writing intervention and enrichment to help us build their skills, which will then lead to an increase hopefully in their growth and achievement on PSSA testing. And so, in essence, we're trending in a really positive
045direction. Our work with OGAP, the ongoing assessment project with math, has really proven to do some exceptional things with our data. The way that we're seeing students approach their work, we're trying to take that mindset and push it into our other content areas as well. So to examine where their errors are and then how we can change our instruction to meet their needs and I think I set the record. >> Yep. >> Questions? >> No. Um I'm just going to follow up. You can sit down. I'll just I'm going to follow up on something that you said because it it's a it it's a pattern and I want to rein reinforce it. Um what you're hearing a lot of the elementary folks uh talk about and I would imagine uh the middle school would would
046would next would talk about it and then uh you know when we get to the high school um same there. um is the writing support. And as I spend more time in education uh and I and I get closer and closer to sunset, I I feel more emboldened to tell you how I feel. And uh this is one of those uh times where um we have a a a uh a myopic focus on writing uh because we are observing less and less of that happening as compared to say when everybody in this room was in school. And a a good indicator that is is really here in the community, and I've talked about this before, uh, and I and I talk to teachers and interventionists all the time. I could stop and I'll have a
047conversation with a really a young kid and I I hear some of the vocabulary. And the educator in me would call it academic vocabulary. And I bet if I went to their home, I would hear their parent or parents talking to them using what we call academic college vocabulary or post-secary vocabulary. And you're like, "Wow, and my kid was one of these." And then you ask them to respond to a prompt in writing and you look at it and you're like, "Wait a minute. These things aren't aligned." You know, why why why did you use this word versus what you just told me. Well, I don't know how to spell that. Right? And so, it's really important for us to work with our kids to be able to tell us what they heard in their
048own words and to write what they heard in their own words. And as we as uh these digital natives take over and everything the information the content that they receive is online I start to feel the less and less apt they are to be to be writing and then there's something lost in there and that's really important because if we're just taking a look at something like outcomes 25% of these assessments that we talk about have to do with writing. So, it's imperative that we we we do that. And in in a lot of cases, we're trying to uh backmap and and make up over years because that's something that's gone by the wayside. And it's really easy to I do it all the time. Forget about you talk to a kid. I know that
049you've all done it and you're like, "Wow." like how articulate are you? But can they put that in writing? So that's that's really important. So um that's something that you're hearing from all of our elementary principles and I'm and I'm assume you're going to hear that next as uh for the middle school after you of course. >> Hi everybody. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to share all the the work that we're doing at Waverly Elementary School. Um you've you've heard most of it so please if you have questions jump in. I'll share our results. As you can see, we use most of the same data. Um, a lot of what I've been focusing on is working to build the capacity of our teachers as well as the capacity of our students. So,
050we've done a lot of work in well, this is my fourth year at Waverly to really focus on the data and really focus on each student and to to look at how to improve our instructional practices to support the students and their needs. Um, and I'm I'm very proud to say it really is starting to pay off. We're seeing a positive trend. Um, we in third grade last year, we increased our proficiency by 8.8% and in fourth grade and 2.4% in in our ELA program and we continue on that path this year. Our midterm diagnostics are showing positive trends as well as our benchmark testing in K through 4. Um, you know, we continue daily to to really focus on how to adjust our instruction and how to meet the needs of our students. Um,
051Mrs. Car, I'm very happy to hear you say, you hear about it. Um, because that is one of the things that we're trying to work on too is conferencing with our students because we would need to build that motivation in our students to do well and want to perform well. Um, I'm sure Mrs. Snyder will agree it's really hard to do that in middle school. Um, so we really want to focus on that intrinsic motivation with our kids to do well and to perform well and and how to do that. And there's a lot of talk about the CDTs and all of these and and one thing we realized through all of this is really like kids need to understand what the questions they're asking them are. And that practice that Dr. Schaefer spoke about
052with CDTs is really helping us with that. And as we look at our writing this year, we're really looking at the writing rubric and helping kids to understand what do those numbers mean and what do these statements mean so that they understand why they have a two, why they have a three. Uh and really focus on educating both ourselves uh and our students as to how we can perform better. And our math data, I'm proud to say we had very positive results. In third grade, we grew by 9.4% 4% and in fourth grade 17.5%. Um our current diagnostics we're on track to still perform. Um but we recognize we have work to continue to do. Um and we do that in our data meetings and and we really are focusing on building that culture of
053looking at data in communication with each other. We've tried to create a a safe space to have really honest conversations. Um, I sat in three hours of that today and and it it was really productive though. We walked away like, "Yeah, all right. This is going to go." We've completely flipped some things we're going to do, especially in kindergarten and recognizing that, you know, we need to that we have some students that have some challenges and we have some students that are really, really high and that's really hard for a teacher to do in the classroom. So, we're trying to build in some supports um and provide additional teacher support as well as um build the capacity for parents at home. So, we're trying to send more things home and trying to help them understand
054why we do these things in classroom and and ask them to help us at home with that. Any questions? Thank you for letting me go last. Good evening. We're going to totally switch gears to talk about the middle school now. So, now we're talking about grades 5 through 8. Um, first you see up here is our ELA goal for the year. So, our goal is focused on the PSSA, but it's drilled down a little bit more to specifically focus on the text dependent analysis piece of PSSA. That is the written portion of the PSSA. Um when we looked at the data, so just originally looking at PSSA data, this is a continuation from last year. We had a similar goal. We only had 28% of our students across the board that were getting a 12
055or higher. So they can score a 4, eight, a 12, or a 16. Um so we saw about 75% of our kids were getting half credit or less on this written portion of the PSSA. So last year we really focus in on this. We did move the needle a little bit last year. Our goal was to increase it by 3% and we did do that and so we're looking to continue to move the needle this year with the writing portion of it. Um so we've looked at PSSA data. We also are doing the CDT benchmark testing. Um and then the CDT does not include a written portion. So we have also put in a TDA benchmark that students have completed. So they did that in September. They just recently completed it. So there's not midyear
056data on this slide for the TDA piece. um and then they will do it again in the springtime when they take the third round of their CDT tests. We also of course look at classroom assessments. So the data that's up here is our PSSA data. So that's the percent of students by grade that scored a 12 or higher on last year's PSSA for TDA and then our September TDA benchmark data because our midyear is currently being scored. Okay. Um, one thing we noticed last year when we met with teachers to kind of look through this and Dr. Schaefer kind of mentioned it is that when kids go to complete this writing task, we really looked at what do they need to be able to do as readers, writers, and test takers. So, there's kind of
057three pillars that we looked at across the board because they have to do all three things effectively and successfully in order to take all that information and put it onto paper. Um, one change we made this year because we did do TDA benchmark last year, but one change we made was that we're having students do that on their Chromebooks because like we said, they will have to do that on their Chromebooks when they take the PSSA. And the skill of actually typing out their written responses as opposed to pen to paper is much different than than what they're used to when they're in their classrooms and they're and they're writing maybe an end of module task. Um, we've had so actions taken. We've had consistent grade level data meetings. We just had them today to
058review our mid-year data with our teachers. There is a focus explicitly on this writing instruction. TDA um arguably is its own genre of writing. So, it it does need some attention. Um our programs address pieces of writing, but there are pieces that we have had to address that um aren't necessarily in Whiten Wisdom because you wouldn't find them in any program. We have uh this year implemented a consistent use of writing strategies. So, what what I mean by that is a specifically a brainstorming um tool for students to use that's consistent in grades five through eight. So, when they're in fifth grade, they move to sixth grade. It's not a brand new like here's another graphic organizer to learn. Here's another way to learn how to plan your writing. Um we've made that consistent vertically
059so it's easy for kids to move through the grades and it's also something that they can do on their own. It's not a handout that they need. They can create it on their own. um and they see that's part of what they do with their regular writing in their class as well, but we've just made it consistent vertically. We're having consistent professional learning communities with our ELA teachers. Um and then we did have a cohort of people that attended a professional development in November and it was led through Collins writing, which is a writing program. It's approach to writing, but it was focused again, like I said, on this TDA piece. And so the teachers that attended that with um Miss Burell who's one of our assistant principles and our reading specialist this the uh
060the resources that they received there and some of the tips and tricks they have brought back and that is then being implemented through our PLC's with our teachers. Okay. So then math. Um this is also a continuation our goal here from last the last couple years that I've been the principal at this building looking again like just to continue to increase the number of students who are proficient or advanced our PSSAs. Uh we did like a very Tom and I did a very deep data dive a couple years ago and noticed that as our kids move from third through 8th grade their proficiency on the math PSSA just continually drops. Um, so we just had decided to pretty very much focus on raising the bar with the number the percentage of students that are proficient
061or advanced on their math PSSAs. So we've looked at the PSSA data again. They do the CDT um testing and then of course we have our classroom assessments. The data that's presented up there is the percentage of students who are proficient or advanced um on our PSSA. The last bullet point just gives you that combined 5 through eight. So that's what I look at when I look at the goal. And then our midyear cdt cdt data is up there as well. So you can see that we're we're um further along than we were in the springtime of last year based on that cdt data. So some things with math that we've done, same thing. Consistent grade level um meetings, data meetings, targeted interventions. Our specialists, I didn't mention this for the writing piece, but our
062specialists are pushing into classrooms um in seventh and eighth grade to provide some supports. And then in fifth and sixth grade they are doing some pull out like specific interventions with small groups of students. It's a little different with five six than it is for seven and eight. Um we've had more consistent professional learning meetings with math teachers focused on formative assessment. So formative assessment is like taking the temperature of you just taught a content. You're assessing it in the moment. Did they get it? Did they master it? Looking at student work, analyzing it, and then making some decisions around what are your next instructional moves. that's been the focus through the OGAP professional development that we've had this year. And so we're continuing that outside of that professional development. Um, another and the the
063focus with the the professional development is to make the use of that formative assessment more systematic. So it's not like I'm just doing it because I'm getting professional development, but really building it into what the teachers are doing. So it is be it becomes part of their routine and it's systematic. That's all I have. Any questions? No, you can sit. But I will elaborate on a couple things that you said for the board. You Yeah, you can. Yeah, sit down. >> Okay. >> Go go go crazy. Um, uh, the Snyder talked about, uh, math professional learning and that focus. And I want to I want to hit on that uh, for a second here. We've spent a good deal of money on OGAP and it's the ongoing assessment project. They're a grassroots organization based in
064Vermont and they are very kind folks that just love math. But they but more importantly they get something that I think a lot of people in education miss including myself early on and that is um you know we I believe we learned through negative verification. If I'm ever successful at something, I never stop and think about that. I stop and think about times when I missed the mark and I screwed something up or what, you know, you learn through negative verification. And this is what OGAP's about. When Miss Snder talked about uh a formative assessment on time, our teachers are learning to look at the students work through the lens of an error analysis. So you look at the student's work and they've made a mistake and the question is what type of mistake did
065they make? Is this similar to other mistakes? Is there a pattern there? you know, might this have to do with, you know, some type of pattern recognition before or or something the base 10 system and and if they see that, then they can offer that lesson. So, it's it's it's a very different perspective on it and it and it it really does pay dividends and it really helps you as a teacher when you start to see the same like what what types of mistakes are they making like, oh, they're they're they're getting these two concepts confused. we need to go back at that. And that's been really informative for our teachers. And it also makes you much better at your craft because then you put that into your working memory. And then as you start
066to uh put your next lessons together, you're thinking about that like, hey, wait a minute. These kids were in second grade when COVID hit. I I bet they missed some of that. they're not so good with the fractions or they're they're they're missing this or that. So, um I I think that that's really positive. And and then the the other thing I wanted to mention that we're we're hearing and I can't hit this hard enough is that text dependent analysis because it's kind of what we all do. It's just a fancy way of saying the kids are going to read a passage and it may be something that's based in science. There may be tables and charts in there. They got to read that and then they're going to have to respond to that in
067writing and they won't get the highest score until they get to that point in critical thinking, reading and writing that they're actually analyzing it and evaluating it. This is something that everybody has to do in the workforce. And unfortunately, it's a skill that is diminishing in in part because, you know, we've got some great tools with AI and that's fantastic, but that doesn't mean that AI or Chad GPT should supplant some of these key skills that we are working to uh teach our kids, right? because eventually when they get up into that workforce, they're going to have to take a look at the results and decide, is that accurate? Is is is what Chad GPT or any other source showed is is is that is that accurate? Do I do I agree with that? And
068am I going to then put my name on this and send this out to my supervisor? Right? So, these are all really important things. So, I'm just trying to ground some of this in real life applications and and why we we have this focus and what what we were building on because while yes, we've just spoken with the elementary principles and the in and the middle school and and Leanne's going to come up next, you know, I'm I'm looking at a K16 model, right? Where are the kids after they leave us when they come back? What are they saying? Did we provide them during this whole continuum of learning with everything that they needed? So, I I wanted to make sure I reinforce that. >> Can I just to add something almost silly? Um, Mrs.
069Snder brought up typing and um I can't believe I'm the one saying this because I was taught typing by a 95-year-old nun on an old typewriter. Um, I know and I'm not that old. It was it was a thing. Uh but the the kids don't really know how to type the way that our peer group knows how to type. And that is a disadvantage when you're taking a time test where you have to write. Um and I think it goes back to I'm not sure what the immediate solution is or if we bring back the typewriters. I don't think that's a good idea. But there is that idea of this gap between where the technology is, what the students are using, and then what the school is using. And so I just wanted to acknowledge
070that when we're looking at these numbers, like I I've observed that um and it almost at a humorous level where I I will help my child very rarely um with something and I'm literally pushing I'm like I'll type it. Why is it taking you so long, you know, and and so they they really don't have that skill set yet? >> So they don't know what ASDF jkl semicolon means. You know, it it it it also you think of you think of the effort spent learning cursive, right? >> Oh, yeah. >> And and and where has that gone and and what is going to be the effect of AI on on writing skills in general and voice recognition? You know, what's what's going to happen when that precocious kindergartener is using all these words and they
071they can print it out because AI knows how to spell the word that they're talking about. Could I just ask a question? >> Sure. >> So, first I just want to thank everybody that came today. That was >> excellent to hear. I I'll be the first to admit a lot >> over my head, >> right? I'm not an educator by background. So, it's great to hear from you >> in terms of like what you're doing on an everyday basis to try and fix holes that you see, right? And I'm learning every time I listen to you present. So, I just wanted to thank everybody. So, the question that I would have is that this is all great, like we're clearly doing a fantastic job at intervening when we need to and trying to uh fix
072issues that we're seeing. How do we as a board get information on like how we're doing relative to like this is all like more in the weeds to me. Like if you look at the absolute performance, is there a way for us, and we talked about this a little bit last show, we never really followed up on it too much, but like is there a way for us to and I don't want to make it hard to do that because I don't want to dig too deeply into it, but like when we as a board look at how we're doing relative to other school districts, how do we do that? >> Right. So, uh I I'll say this and then I'll bring Lyanna up to do the the high school. Um, one of the things
073that I I take a look at relative to what you ask, and this is just one metric, but um, I I take a look at the PSSA and Keystone results and and and I file it in a place in my head, but what's more important uh, I mean, it's important and I like to see where we sit on a percentile basis, like how do we how do we sit amongst our peers because sometimes s the numbers fall, but yet we we gain on a percentile basis. And and and that's actually what happened this year. Uh our math went up by 5% outpacing the state. Our ELA dropped by 3% but that was a number consistent with the state. However, where we sit, so in English language arts, we're at the 82nd percentile. So there's only
07418% of the schools out there that were higher. And in mathematics is 86. Those are actually increases uh from the year before. But it's it's you you pose a really good question and I I don't have a great answer other than there there there is a metric that I take a look at that I feel is more holistic. um it it doesn't provide the perfect answer, but it provides a much more clear picture and it's a PA future ready index. All you need to do is Google PA future ready index and it takes a look at everything from the assessment results to growth. So for instance, we didn't talk about growth, but yet if you go on the PA future ready index, you'll see a lot more growth arrows for us. So they take a
075look at where the kids performed the year before as a group and how did they perform the next year as a group and did they demonstrate more than a year's worth of growth and there's statistical jiu-jitsu in there that I don't understand but we had that growth. They also take a look at career readiness. So there are things that we do in the career landscape in our schools that we take a look at. Uh, I I I think it has much better utility at a high school as compared to a middle school just because of developmentally where we're at. So, if I asked Leanne to go over the future ready index, she would be able to provide you scores for kids in our auto class in masonry, you know, you would you would see that
076and you're like, "Oh, okay." Because they take certain assessments. You would also see AP scores on there. You >> get We get the AP When we get the data file from College Board, they give us um our percent against PA and our percent against global. And of the 22 exams we gave last year, only one of our exams either met or was just below. Every other exam far exceeded the percentage that passed in Pennsylvania and the percentage that passed on on a global level because it's an international exam. So like there are other metrics but again to compile them all it's really clunky to look at it in comparison but it's out there. I mean you can >> it it's it's I I would uh if if uh you would grant me a department of
077quants uh direct them to put together some crazy metric. But what I'm trying to do is tell you everything that's swimming around in in this head. But to answer your question, you have to take a look at that that holistic piece to it. And then you know over top of that and you know I I don't have any uh quantifiable information other than anecdotal here is I take a look at all the things our kids are involved in. So in elementary when I see the little kids in Comet Express coming up here and you know and and and showing how they're like mechanically inclined and how they're taking a problem of practice and putting together some type of solution to the high school when I see the amount of kids in athletics and extracurricular activities
078and then I ask Leanne give me the GPA and the GPA of our athletes uh out is outperforms that of our non-athletes and that's because I think that uh look you have to be uh manage your time well you know if you're going to practice here then you got to study here and you got to perform there and uh so I know I didn't answer your question but I I I try to >> yeah yeah I >> it's better than like a fortune cookie >> you know I think I think the problem of who is our peer set is is a good one though because um we've all seen The newspaper used to have the school reports. >> We still get the US News and World Report. Yeah, we still >> and and of course
079Abington's always been an outlier in that we've always done well. We have we have a great combination of parents and students and wonderful teachers and so on. >> But I think the problem there is you can become complacent so quickly saying, "Well, our numbers are good." And to your point, Rod, I think the question is what is the proper peer group >> that we should shoot at? And I I am I I'm amazed at all of you coming up here and talking about here are the results and some good some bad but I think every one of them too has has basically said this isn't good enough we have we have to move on and I think that's what you have to do >> and I think like a lot of us are competitive by
080nature so when US News and World Report like puts that out I look of course the first is where are we but then I look at how what did everybody else score and what do they have that we And it I think that is just the nature of like comparison, right? And sometimes comparison is it kills your joy. But I think it's important for you to always know where you're at relative to your peer group and what you're up against and what are the small changes you can make to have a bigger impact on them, too. So, >> can I go? >> Yep. >> All right. So I I I want to apologize because I typically don't come up and read anything, but when he told us we were presenting in December, he said we
081had 90 seconds. >> Today he said we have two minutes. >> Am I a pronoun? >> No. I mean there's people here >> there's people here that said they had 90 we were only going to have 90 seconds. They heard you say it so it's true. So >> 90 seconds. So I I did prepare some statements because obviously back to the competitive nature of who I am >> but that was hyperbole. But then when he said I had two to three minutes, I did add some stuff. So, all right. So, I just I want to connect our our three priorities. Ours at the high school will look different than elementary and even the middle. Um it it's it's a little bit more pointed like we're not only looking at, you know, um the Keystone test
082like ELA or math. Um we the I'll go through the goals. So, um, our Keystone data this year showed a significant decline from 24 to 25 with proficiency and advanced scores dropping by roughly 10 percentage points. Um, our CDT results currently are mirroring the concern, but the issue with the CDT is it changes, right? So, like they take it in, um, the fall and it keeps giving them harder questions as they learn the skill. And then the same thing in um, you know, the the middle. So, we're still seeing we're kind of holding steady. Um, but we are very hopeful. Um, when I move through the data, you'll see some other data points that are pointing that we're moving in the right direction. Um, historically also we have algebra failure rates were um, kind of
083a major risk that is related to this goal. Um, you could see if you look at the middle column, bullet point 4. Last year at the end of first quarter we had 11 students that were failing that failed algebra 1. This year we only have one student. So I think that speaks even though it's you know it's it's live data right it's not it's not really telling a full story yet. Um but I think it's important to look um at the the small growth that we are getting. Um so our CDT did drop in percentage um for proficiency and adv for proficient advance but if you look in the third column at the second bullet you see that our student average on the CDT grew. So even though your percentage of proficient and advanced declined
084students are scoring higher now on the test. So um it is I think going to trend in the right direction. Another great bullet point that I think is so important, we've had 74 school days. Um, one of the things that we've added to the high school to kind of target interventions. Um, our class periods are only 43 minutes. So, it's difficult um for us to have, you know, small groupoup pull out instruction when you only have class for 43 minutes. So, we kind of worked around that and added a learning lab at the high school and that's staffed by um an an ELA, I'll use the words, and then a math teacher every period. So, there's two faculty members available in the library every period for when a student has their study hall, they can
085go um have another touch point. If they feel they need it, they could self-report themselves there during their study hall or their lunch. Also, they can be referred. So if you're not meeting with success in your classroom, the teachers are now making referrals. Like instead of sitting in your study hall, um you know, we give kids Chromebooks. So when they go to study hall, they could be playing games on their Chromebook that whole entire time. So instead of when we see kids not meeting with success, um we're asking we're asking the students to kind of look at how the student is performing in the classroom, what the data is showing. um you know just inferentially like what are we looking at and then if they think they need more intervention than what the teacher is
086able to provide in that 43 minutes we're assigning them to the library for their study hall. Um so that is one way that we're attacking um that first goal. Michelle you could go to the second slide. The second goal was really focusing on the interventions that were able to provide through the learning lab. Um Dr. Schaefer asked for failure data. So I threw it in there and it it it made the font really small. So I hope he shares these slides with you so that you could read it um and understand it a little bit better. Um but we really are trying to strengthen our intervention system and we we find that students are reporting to the learning lab um you know for social studies for science um just getting that extra help like hey
087can you read this assignment for me or this essay I have to submit this. So they're getting and we also have our peer tutors assigned there. So they're also getting volunteer hours on their study hall. Um so we created uh entry and exit criteria for our teachers to refer and then how a student works their way back up. Um we're sharing u bi-weekly data um we're sharing it actually weekly. Um but the the meetings that we're having with guidance is happening um bi-weekly. So, we meet with guidance every week, but every other week, uh, we're really looking at the data and, um, finding out what they're doing with the student and the family. And, um, we've had 90 students hard referred, like the teacher's like, "No, no, you need extra help in there." So, 90
088students have been referred. We've adjusted 70 schedules which means like beyond the intervention that they were getting, we've had to make some schedule adjustments and they are there and about two dozen have successfully been able to return to their um independent study hall because they've been sustaining passing grades and we've been tracking their success um independently. Um so right now the system, you know, we're only about halfway through the year so the system is functioning as we've designed it. um we're positioned, I think, for strong um success and hopefully, you know, by the end of the year, we'll be able to update you on if this pivot, it's brand new this year, um if this safety net that we created is um you know, working for our students and meeting the needs of our teachers,
089too. And then our last goal, um, a lot of you have teenagers. You know that they can be surirly and you know they don't want to admit that they enjoy coming to school, but maybe that is their reality. So we really tried to make sure that um, they are feeling supported in our school um, and build off the end of the year data that was shared through the climate survey. Um, I have to give credit to our PBS team and our PBS ambassadors. Um they're really doing such a remarkable job. The students are really driving that bus. Um we are uh we also added advisory and activity periods. Um we find that not only are students very busy after school for club meetings, parents are very busy um after school to get kids at off
090times and so students weren't staying after school um to attend any club meetings. So, we found a way to just borrow a little bit of time once a month and I'd say there's been about 30 plus club meetings monthly. We did have to cancel December. Um, but the initiatives that are coming out of there and putting students together um with like-minded peers that have common interests, we've had a couple new clubs pop up. Um, we're really excited about that and we hope that that generates um a sense of belonging. Um, kids can't learn in an environment where they don't feel safe. So while it feels like a small goal and it's just a climate goal, it really adds tremendous value um inside the classroom when they have peers maybe you know when the teacher puts
091them in cooperative learning groups like oh I'm in that club with that person you're just meeting different people. So, in in summary, you know, the data that we looked at, I you know, obviously there's challenges everywhere. Um, but we're hoping that, you know, our interventions and the and the small pivots that we've made, um, you know, they're intentional, they're deliberate, we're being responsive, we're keep I've heard check the temperature like 100 times now. So, we're checking the temperature, too. Um, but then I hope that it could stabilize and we just keep building capacity in all of our people and our students. And it's just a great place to be. Yes, ma'am. >> I'll compliment you on the um that last slide. Um because I have a kid who we all know it's kind of like
092going to the gym in January, right? Like there's obstacles that we all have like gym intimidation or you know whatever hurdles we have and so removing the hurdle of staying after finding people um you know that extra effort of reaching out and discovering the clubs you want to join. um it made a huge difference and and it did correlate with better performance in school um grade-wise. So it it's actually great and I I was unaware. Um so they were listing the things my kid is involved in and I thought he was lying. I was like I've never picked you up from school for these clubs and he's like no I'm part of all of them. And then I was dropping off to volunteer at at the fire hall for Santa breakfast. I was like oh
093this is fantastic. So kudos to you. Thank you for that aneotal. I appreciate it. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I don't think >> you want to use mine. >> That's so >> Yes. We Yes. And yes. Um, so we found that students and parents maybe were finding every reason to like dismiss their child from 9th mod study hall. So I don't know if you've ever come to our campus in previous years around 2:30. It was it was a scene. It was cars everywhere. Everybody was getting out and you know schools can't hold kids hostage. So when the parent says I'm here to pick my kid up, you're dismissing the kid and it's just you know what it was. And so then you're missing out on time to take a test if you missed one, time to
094work with your teacher, time to be with peers, all of those things. Um, and so to make it more functional and not just a digital playground, which is what the ones that were staying for 9th mod, by the end of the day, your battery is spent. So you some of them were just checking out and playing or just watching whatever they can get on their on their Chromebook at the end of the day. So when we shifted away from having a universal ninth mod study hall, I felt and the admin team at the high school felt it was very important to make it valuable and worthwhile for the student so that they could actually learn how to lock in as they say like you have this time, use it. Here's what it's for. And you
095know, some of them are using it to manage their time better. Like oh, I have my study hall third period. I can not stay up until 1 am doing that homework because I could just get it done before I go to my seventh period class. You know what it? So, they're figuring out ways or I have this thing tonight. I'm going to do my morning homework in my study hall before my afternoon homework gets piled on to me. So, but yes, that's why Learning Lab was created so that they still felt that they had access to people to support their learning. >> You're welcome. I think just not not specific to high schools. I don't want to hold her hostage. But to echo what Rod had said before, I think it would be useful to
096us to see the trends over time, whether that's percentile or whatever it is. I would also like to see um if there's a way we can like consolidated the the four elementary schools next to each other. Like I know that we presented them back to back, but if we could kind of see because one of the things that stood out to me is there was different performance. We seem to have the same curriculum, same concept, same investment, right? The trends that I noticed just high level didn't seem to match any socioeconomic trend I would expect or anything within our community. So, I'm curious to see what can we be more prescriptive in intervening in um at that level as well. >> You're not comparing So I als third graders year after year and I think
097I think kids how they're performing compared to >> and and I do think that the large things so we we put co as the big thing that we often reference but it's going to be you know AI it's going to be whatever else in the future those things impact society as a whole so if we could reference them against larger populations we would know if if we're performing and and catching these things as well as other schools at least >> yeah those are uh all valid points uh and you know I'll take a look. I know we do have some reporting on that uh from uh really not even 30,000 ft above. One thing that uh wasn't necessarily framed this way, but I'm going to frame it this way that we're always working on is
098internal consistency. because I'm not going to tell you that every student in every grade, every, you know, teacher that they have receives the the same thing, for lack of a better term. And I don't mean that in a in a in a bad way. But if I just frame it like how do we respond to kids when they're meeting the expectation? In other words, how do we work with them now? And then how do we work with kids that are not meeting that expectation? And and we really have to think long and hard about that. Like how do we respond to kids uh when they aren't doing well? which is why Leanne said that I asked for the failure data every day and twice on Sunday >> because if you know anything about risk factors
099and protective factors you know once you get so many risk factors it really it doesn't it doesn't matter. So, we need to be taking a look at what are some of these metrics that are indicative of when we start to fall back. And then how do we intervene? What does that look like? What does that sound sound like? You know, do we we have, you know, math interventionist, ELA interventionist, counselors, you name it, speech. So th those are all important things. So when we talk about professional learning and we talk about uh OGAP, that's absolutely imperative that we keep on sharpening the knife because regardless of where you live or what school you go to or what grade you're there, you should know that when you're meeting it, this is what's going to happen. We're
100going to enhance your experience. When you're not meeting it, this is what we're going to do to get you back on track. Because if it keeps on going, then it becomes really difficult to catch up, right? And as Gretchen said, it was not an excuse but an explanation. We we're already a little bit behind because this is something that takes 13 years to get through the system. So, >> thank you all. Very, very good reports. We appreciate your your cander and and ideas for the future. Okay, Dr. Schaefer. >> All right. >> Something else for superintendent report. >> Zero. >> Okay. Let's move to the action discussion item. >> I'd ask that the board uh approve the personnel report. >> So moved. >> Second. >> A motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Abdullah? >>
101Yes. >> Mr. Hazar? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Henderson? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Hillibbrand? Yes, >> Mrs. Karum. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Kho. Welcome. >> Yes, >> Mr. Moran. >> Yes, >> Mr. Robson. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Aker? >> Yes. >> 9 nothing. >> Mr. Aar ask the board consider a motion to approve the request to establish a student activity account, the unified club at the high school. >> So moved. >> Second. >> On the motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Abdullah? >> Yes. >> Mr. Azar? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Henderson? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Hillbrand. Yes, >> Mrs. Carol. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Kho. >> Yes, >> Mr. Moran. >> Yes, >> Mr. Robson. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Aker? >> Yes. >> Nine. Nothing. >> Before I uh do this na this
102this this uh next action item, I want to make sure that um >> I uh explain this. Um this next action item is about the act one index. The board is not voting on like a tax increase or t it's not voting on that today. All we are voting on is to say that the school board will not exceed the act one index which is the maximum that we could uh raise taxes and that is 4.1%. We are mandated by uh the department of education to do this. Uh so and the fact of the matter is we had to do this in January every year because every school district for the most part would have the opportunity to uh take some exceptions if they qualified to raise their act one index number. >> Excuse me.
103Are you on mute? I can't hear. Oh, sorry about that, Phil. Yeah, sorry. I was getting some feedback. I hit mute. Um, now that the state provides adequacy funding for schools, they have removed the our ability to take exceptions. So, that's just off the table. So, we'll continue to do this even though we, you know, there's there's no real purpose in that or utility in that anymore. Uh, unless you went to a referendum. So, at this time, I'd ask uh the board to consider a motion to approve the Abington Heights Act One Resolution Index. >> So, moved. Second. >> On the motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Abdullah. >> Yes. >> Mr. Azar. Yes, >> Mrs. Henderson. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Hillbrand. Yes, >> Mrs. Karum. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Kho. >> Yes, >>
104Mr. Moran. >> Yes, >> Mr. Robson. >> Yes, >> and Mr. Aker. >> Yes. >> Nine. Nothing. >> The record ask the board consider a motion to approve the affiliation agreement between Marywood University and the Abington Heights School District to provide school-based practicum education experiences for students in the school psychology program. >> So moved. >> Second. on the motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Abdullah, >> yes. >> Mr. Azar, >> yes. >> Mrs. Henderson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Hillbrand, >> Mrs. Garham, >> yes. >> Mrs. Kho, >> yes. >> Mr. Moran, >> yes. >> Mr. Robson. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Aer. >> Yes. >> Nine. Nothing. Uh before I read this next one, just for uh anybody out there, this is a a motion to approve a school business consultants agreement. This uh
105is not uh supplemental. Uh we had a retirement and we're not replacing that position. we are going to have uh the school business consultants provide uh someone to uh do that work. So uh at a cost savings for the district. So uh at this time I'd ask the board to consider a motion to approve the school business consultants LLC management service agreement to perform day-to-day operations for the district office. >> So moved. >> Second. >> On the motion. >> Roll call, please. >> Mr. Abdalah. >> Yes. >> Mr. Razar. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Henderson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Hillbrand. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Carum. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Kio. >> Yes. >> Mr. Moran. >> Yes. >> Mr. Robson. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Aker. >> Yes. >> Nine. Nothing. >> Okay. Thank you very
106much, Dr. Schaefer. Uh, the next part of our agenda is the listing of the use of facilities which is uh listed online and uh as usual, it's extensive. Uh, do we have any other unfinished business for the board tonight? Is there any new business? Can I ask for a motion to adjourn? >> Thank you all. Thank you all. >> Hey, thanks, Phil.