December 13, 2022 Meeting of the Abington Board of School Directors

001good evening and welcome to the December 13 2022 meeting of the Abington Board of school directors I note the attendance of all board members with the exception of Mr Muhammad who is uh excused please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance upstairs foreign thank you the Abington Board of school directors has convened this evening's meeting at the administration building and the public is welcome in consideration of the health and safety of the school Community this meeting is also being broadcasted live on the Abington School District YouTube channel the meeting is being recorded and will be accessible on the district's website and cable channel no later than Friday December 16th 2022 to allow those members of the public who cannot participate to view the proceeding at a later time comments from citizens will be conducted in person

002and by phone information regarding participating remotely in public comment will be displayed on the screen at the time of public comment and the board thanks to public in advance for your cooperation this is a place where we hold dignity in high regard everyone's voices are respected and they are welcome in this place at this time do we have any additional announcements or agenda items I have a few announcements thank you first I am proud to share that Abington School District is recognized at the 2022 Pennsylvania positive behavior support implementers form for implementing our positive behavior interventions and supports with fidelity Dr Robert Rosenthal director of pupil Services Ms Simone doctor climate officer at Abington Middle School Ms anadia elvage school counselor at Overlook and rosin Elementary School's accepted award on the district's behalf feel really

003proud of that award and a lot of work has gone district-wide over many years for this to happen next in addition I'd like to recognize our students of the modern Music Makers at Abington Senior High School also known as M3 who had the special opportunity of performing in The Concourse of the Wells Fargo Center during the Flyers game against Colorado on December 5th they played the game before the game also during intermission which allowed them to perform for audiences outside of the Abington School District community I'd like to thank their director music teacher Mr Kevin longwill and our supervisor of Fine Arts Dr Matt Dr Matthew Harris for growing this program and harnessing the talents of our students I would like to congratulate these creative young adults on another fantastic performance as some of you

004may be aware I also had the opportunity to perform with some of these students musicians during their inaugural Winter Jam concert held at the senior high Auditorium on Saturday night I was truly impressed by their abilities and I thank them for letting me join them and I'm humbled by the experience thank you at this time any opening comments from my fellow board members Mr Allen nothing thank you Ms Frazier uh yes I'd just like to say that behind the scenes Abington Educational Foundation they're setting up they're planning for some really interesting events over the next couple of years so stay tuned Mr K yeah my uh my real life outside of here I work at a retirement community and I was lucky enough to have a have the Abington Senior High School Chorale holiday performance

005uh at our uh Community the other day Lori wolf brought them by and I I actually can't convey how wonderful they were they not only did they lift the spirits of the place but they kind of uh lift the the roof off the dump um they were phenomenal I mean they were just phenomenal not only with the way they were singing but going down into the audience and uh connecting with the residents as you may imagine kovitz been very difficult on our seniors in the community and to have events like this where they can connect with young people means a huge amount to them it was everything it was everyone was talking about it for days um highlight of the season so far and just it was really really appreciated uh matter of fact I

006got calls from residents who want to send thank you notes to the kids and the whole thing so I just want you to know that they are a wonderful group of kids they're led by a great staff and what they're doing means a lot to the community I hope they continue that's awesome Dr Mary that's a great way to start our final meeting of 2022. Welcome everybody thank you Miss Glasser Miss faisy laughing at this time Dr clyman no thanks all right uh at this time we'll move forward with uh student council Representatives Representatives thank you Mr Brown um I'd ask Emma Brown from Abington Senior High School to please come forward thank you foreign ER Mrs Brown and members of the board of school directors my name is Emma Brown and I'm the president

007of the student council executive board I hope everyone is having a great December so far the senior high definitely has we held our first Signing Day event at the senior high on November 10th there were 14 students who officially signed to continue their athletic careers at the Collegiate level many students and faculty were in attendance to support these students for this momentous occasion on November 16th the senior High's career pathway program hosted a career day with the 76ers students had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the Philadelphia 76ers and learn about business careers in the sports sector the winter sports season has officially kicked off on November 18th the swim basketball wrestling and bowling teams began their 2022-2023 season good luck to all of the athletes and coaches also a big congratulations to the

00846 ball sport athletes who earned the Suburban 1 all League recognition for the 2022 season November 20th was an exciting day for the Abington cheerleading team as they competed at the UCA Northeast Regional competition where they earned two bids to the 2023 National High School cheerleading Championship they also earned first place in the super varsity non-tumbling game day division with a score of 92.2 points on December 5th the Abington girls basketball team beat both Westchester Rustin and Souderton at the annual gym Church classic tip-off tournament the team won the tournament and a special congratulations to Jordan Reynolds Piper McGinley for all their tournament selections and to sire Worley for her MVP performance way to go girls on December 7th the foundations of innovation classes began their micro internship program some of our industry Partners like

009Colleen Noble from the breathing room foundation and Julius King from all Fitness were kind enough to help out best of luck to the students with their continuation of their internships finally I wish you all a restful break and a happy holiday season I can't wait to see what the new year brings for Abington School District see you all in 2023 respectfully submitted Emma Brown thank you thank you and we really appreciate a lot of things going on it's excitement and congratulations to all the students who have been recognized um Amelia Anderson from Abington middle school if you could please come forward with the report good good evening Mrs Brown Dr fetcher and members of the board of school directors I'm Amelia Anderson and I am on the Executive Board of the student council for Abington

010Middle School in student council we enjoyed our first meeting with the general body members of the club where we made cards for veterans and had conversations by grade level about what issues matter most to them this year we are full Step Ahead executing our winter holiday food drive and looking ahead to Springtime activities the builders Club held their second meeting in November where we decorated placemats that will be used at the Kiwanis supported Thanksgiving dinner for adult members of our community who have disabilities the students and Builder and Builders Club have the opportunity to use time over the next two weeks to make holiday cards that would be given to veterans in our area students in the knitting and crocheting Club are currently learning how to crochet some students are perfecting how to hold the

011hook to get the right tension While others are working on their first Square to donate to the project chemo crochet this is an organization that collects knit and crochet squares to make blankets for patients undergoing chemotherapy whether we are learning the basics or moving on to more Advanced Techniques we are all enjoying our community of Knitters and crocheters Tata had our first event open to members from all three grades at the middle school on Friday November 11th the Tata unique game show was attended by over 200 students who were divided in a blue green red and yellow teams and spent the evening competing in various physical challenges sing-alongs team spirit activities and answering pop culture trivia questions congratulations to the member of The Blue Team including their Captain Sheamus Morris Jackson small and miss Sarah

012bun for winning the game show in Vibe and imagine students from AMS and ashs went on a field trip to have a private viewing of the newly released movie wakanda forever some dressed in traditional African clothing as they watched a movie whose meaning is a promise that a civilization can go forward in the face of unspeakable hardship and an inescapable grief on November 18 2022 AMS held the first of four Builders of four buddies club events student athletes from field hockey volleyball and soccer came to teach our Buddy Club our buddies club members some of the sports skills the Buddies Club is a club created to promote inclusions of our special education students with a variety of school community activities including athletes the dance club grade level peers and staff over 35 students and staff

013participated in this fun event of inclusion and sportsmanship we are looking forward to our collaboration with the dance club for our next event in January on November 16th the National Junior Honor Society completed their kids fighting hunger campaign project the njhs members concluded their month-long food drive by gathering to organize donations collected from our very generous community and over 300 Full Belly bags which will be going directly to Children and Families in Montgomery County experiencing food insecurity through a partnership with The Giving Tree foundation and Giant Food Stores members took their new knowledge of the intricacies of local economies and food sources and turn that into a direct social action and JHS was honored to begin the year in such in the spirit of service learning the going green Club has held meetings outside where

014students enjoyed doing a botany scavenger hunt down by the creek and learning about seed dispersal in the Middle School Gardens thank you thank you very much also a lot going on in both of the buildings so we appreciate your time this evening coming out and sharing those wonderful things with us so thank you yes thank you Miss Brown and Miss Anderson excellent work I appreciate your voices Dr Fletcher please proceed with this evening's honors uh our for our honor this evening I'm going to ask Miss Ellie Artur our Communications coordinator to share video highlighting our recent media coverage of Abington School District good evening Dr fetcher Mrs Brown and members of the board of school directors um this morning six ABC Action News featured a new program at Abington Senior High School on their be

015kind series which they've been airing leading up to the holiday season it's called the don't waste don't waste donate program and it's a joint effort undertaken by the students in our strive transitional program we're here back in November and the Fruit Ninjas a group of students who meet during the new lunch and learn block to promote the program and analyze its success rate in the school the aim of the program is to raise awareness among students that their uneaten fruits or any non-refrigerated packaged items that they do not want to eat as part of their purchase lunch may be donated to a local food pantry to benefit members of our broader Community it's not just a service to our community but it's also a sustainable way to reduce the waste of food that normally a

016student might just toss in the trash if they didn't want to eat it since September the program has led to the donation of more than one thousand pounds of food from the senior high alone and it's the hope of our food pantry partners that this story helps to inspire other schools in our area to take on similar initiatives we applaud the teachers and the students for their efforts and are proud to share this new story with you this evening in this week's be kind unwanted food will no longer go to waste thanks to students in Montgomery County action news reporter Catherine Scott introduces us to the Fruit Ninjas it all started with an observation last spring Abington senior high school English teacher Miriam Freeman noticed many students throwing out the fruit required to come with

017their School meals a lot of the students just said they just didn't want them and didn't know where else to put them the idea for Fruit Ninjas was born a system for students to donate the fruit they choose not to eat to the Willow Grove Baptist food pantry there is a huge need for fresh produce and fresh fruit because everybody always donates canned items what we're doing really matters to our local community Freeman got the proper approvals and consulted with the health department before donations began in September it was okay because it was just unrefrigerated fruit items like you would get at a supermarket then she formed the club The Fruit Ninjas focus on marketing the program designing posters and advertisements even I donated stickers to ensure or visibility so students are aware of this

018opportunity mixed with students weight donate it more and say oh my God I'm making a big impact by donating this little fruit this is a constant service opportunity that you could just do whenever you want how much or little you want the Fruit Ninjas even analyze the collection box placement to try to figure out the best spot to maximize donations but Freeman needed help with collection enter the students from strive a transition program for young adults 18 to 21 with complex needs we actually do the legwork daily so my students go out to the three cafeterias after lunch every day we collect all of the donated produce providing vocational training and math skills they weigh and graph their results on target to surpass one thousand pounds of donated Fruit by winter break I think it

019really teaches all of our students in this building that they can have an impact regardless of how small it is in Abigail Catherine Scott Channel 6 Action News we want to hear your stories of kindness send your photos and videos to 6abc.com become thank you I you go for go no go ahead I tell you that just like we watched the news Clips every other week and they're phenomenal but this one really touched my heart the food insecurity in the community is real and the fact that you whoever you know the teacher that organizes found an opportunity and Innovation to to connect the kids to the community at large like that it's just remarkable um I feel it felt need to share that thank you for for listening but that that's phenomenal I I feel

020the same way my heart is so full for a number of reasons one you identified it a need in the community and you brought students along the journey students uh stride along in this journey and it's really an interdisciplinary unit so with my teacher had on my my hardest smile and my brain is smiling because you're meeting in the need and you're hitting those social justice standards that have to do with identifying uh who's being left out and taking action so this makes me very proud very proud great work uh just a if you are interested in donating um fruit we are doing a drive here that will be collecting this building working with the students um and we are going to donate that on the 22nd of uh December the students will be here

021so if you are interested or anyone's interested you can drop off um apples oranges and fruit that it has a harder shell obviously um for and we will donate that on the 22nd I used to hear you mean the administrative right in the administration building 970 Highland Avenue in case someone's watching from home thank you Dr fetcher if that concludes The Season's honors uh can you proceed with the bordering orientation absolutely thank you at this time we're going to present our student achievement data including the PA Future Ready index for 2021-2022. we'll also highlight some of the interventions that we have put into place for support first I'm going to ask Dr Tony butts director of teaching and learning to please begin the presentation good evening Mrs Brown Dr fetcher and the board of school

022directors annually the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a requirement for the federal legislation known as the every student succeeds act or Essa publishes the accountability and achievement report for each School in the Commonwealth this report is known as a future ready PA index tonight in order to understand this report we will review the current demographic information for the district the Future Ready PA index information for the 2122 school year specific School data from the Future Ready PA index and school action plans as a response to the achievement results in addition we will share where to locate the district's disaggregated information first let's review the district demographic information to be better able to understand the context of school performance during the 21-22 and the start of the 22-23 school year one metric used by both by

023both the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the federal government to determine the needs of a school district is the rate of participation for students on free and reduced lunches when reviewing the percentage of students participating in the free and reduced lunch program we note that the district average Grew From 26.24 percent to 31.87 which is an increase of 5.63 percent from October 2021 to October 2022. the highest increase of 6.91 was at Rydal Elementary a specific note Willow Hill Elementary is currently at 45.61 percent which is the highest percentage of students participating in the free and reduced lunch program at a school in the district the second highest is Overlook Elementary at 37.74 percent in reviewing the race and ethnicity changes from October 2021 to October 2022 the percentages show a slight decrease of the

024white population by minus 1.74 percent and slight increases in all other subgroup populations overall the data illustrates that the Abington School District remains a diverse community of learners between October 2021 and October 2022 the number of active English language Learners has increased by 115 students at the time this represented a 55 increase as of December 12th there are 348 English language Learners with an additional 28 students who tested into the English language development program but opted out of participating in the program as of October 2022 there were 36 languages spoken throughout the district by students who do not have English as their primary or first language spoken at home Spanish leads languages spoken in the district with Ukrainian and Russian being the second and the third largest numbers of languages spoken the wide range of

025languages shows the challenges in our district for our English language learners next Miss bombsy will speak to you about the future ready PA index these are the indicators included in the future ready PA index or frpi the indicators are in three categories State achievement measures on track measures and College and Career measures those asterisks are required for every student succeeds act accountability and will be the ones we focus on for this presentation let's begin with one of the state assessment measures which is the percent of students proficient or Advanced on the Pennsylvania system of school assessment or pssa the Pennsylvania alternate system of assessment or Passa or a keystone exam students take the pssa in grades three through eight and the Passa in grades 3 through 8 and 11. and for the Keystone they take

026the Keystone following a keystone related course algebra English or biology for the high school the frpi achievement indicator reflects the performance of students when they are in grade 11 regardless of when they took the Keystone their score is banked until they reach grade 11. for all schools and all assessments we are required to include 95 percent of the students in the calculation of proficiency regardless of whether or not they took the assessment for example if 100 students were required to take the test but 50 of those students opted out the calculation of proficiency must include all 100 students even though 50 did not take the test those 50 who opted out are considered not proficient continuing with this example if all 50 students who did take the test were proficient the calculation for frpi would

027be 50 over 100 or 50 percent proficient whereas the calculation of the students that took the test would be 50 over 50 or 100 percent proficient for this reason we are providing with you the following slides which show you the impact of less than 95 percent participation on our achievement scores this slide shows a performance in the pssa Pasa and English language arts and the Keystone Literature Exam the smaller chart on the right shows you the participation rate of each School in the assessment the line at the top is our required 95 percent the bars represent each school's participation all of the bars are below 95 percent with participation at the high school on the Literature exam at about 50 percent the larger chart shows the percent proficient or Advanced on the exam the blue

028bar is the percent of students who actually took the exam and were proficient the red bar is the frpi accountability indicator which includes the 95 percent participation the black line at 54 percent is the Statewide average on the assessment you can see that all test takers are above the state average the senior high was most impacted by the less than 95 percent participation but there was a negative impact on all of the schools here is the same information for the pssa Pasa and Keystone in the and the algebra Keystone once again all of our schools were impacted by the requirement of 95 percent participation as you can see on the smaller bar chart on the right please note that the participation rate and the frpi data for the algebra Keystone is still being processed by

029the Pennsylvania Department of Education and is not available at this time the Statewide average is indicated by the black line at 36 percent the junior high school scores are below the state and you will hear later in the presentation some of the actions being taken to improve performance finally this is science and biology at the high school there were only 38 students out of 619 who were required to take the biology Keystone this is because most of the students took the biology course when they were in grade nine during the coronavirus shutdown and this was a time when the test was waived for students the 38 students who were required to take the test had not taken Biology in grade nine only 15 of the 38 participated in the assessment so this is really not

030a very valuable representation of how our students would perform in the biology Keystone Dr butts will continue describing the frpi indicators the Future Ready PA index uses a key to represent the progress for each school on the state standardized assessments and other measures such as attendance graduation rate and career standards the symbols used on the dashboard represent report are basically representing two measures the first measure is one that compares last year's results to the current Year's results and notes whether the result has increased as shown with an error pointing upward a circle illustrates performance that has stayed the same and results in a decreased represented by an arrow pointing downward the second set of results is a color-coded system the three colors used are blue green and red blue represents performance that either meets or

031exceeds Statewide goals the green color represents results and performance that meets or exceeds interim Target goals the color red represents results of performance that does not meet Statewide or interim Target goals as part of the Future Ready PA index each school has interim Target goals to meet or to exceed in the areas of the percentage of students who were proficient or Advanced on the pssa or Keystone examinations Abington schools saw increases in performances for the percent proficient and advance from the 2021 to the 21-22 school years in one or more content areas there were four schools that met or exceeded interim Target goals green color there were five schools that met or exceeded Statewide goals which are indicated by the blue color in addition to the percent proficient in advance meeting annual growth expectations are

032another data set that is an import that is part of the Future Ready PA index eight Abington schools experienced growth that met or exceeded Statewide goals represented by the blue color and increased from the 2021 to the 2122 school years in one or more assessed content areas please note that if a school does not have enough student data points there is no reporting on this item for them the indicator for English language growth and attainment is measured through the access for L's assessment access for L's is a collective name for the weeda's suite of summative English language proficiency assessments access is taken annually by English Learners in Canada in kindergarten through grade 12 in in Rita Consortium member states of which Pennsylvania is a member um the term Wida stands for world-class instructional design and

033assessment and this assessment is given annually for our students as with other measures on the Future Ready PA index there must be an end count of 20 in order for information to be displayed for this indicator during the 21-22 school year only Rydal and the senior high met the minimum number of students in their programs for data to be displayed next Ms bombsy will review the attendance career standards and the graduation rate with you the regular attendance indicator reflects the percentage of students enrolled for 90 or more school days and present for 90 or more of these days keep in mind that this is attendance during the 2020-21 school year and this was when we were in hybrid instruction the career standards Benchmark indicator represents the percentage of students who have completed activities to satisfy

034Career Education and work standards six activities are required in the grade three to five band an additional six are required in grades six to eight and an additional eight activities in grades nine to eleven the state average is 89.7 and the career performance standard is 98 of students meeting the career expectations most of our schools exceeded the standard Willow Hill was read because their performance standard of 91.5 percent did not meet the standard this indicator is the percentage of students who graduate with a high school diploma in a four-year cohort group this measurement is like a lagging indicator and from the 2021 graduates the high school rate of 96 percent is an increase from the 95.3 percent the previous year well over the state average of 86.7 and above the Statewide goal of 92.4 and

035now Dr Viola will introduce the elementary school's plans for school Improvement good evening annually each of our schools develops a getting results plan that identifies the areas of strength and challenge based on analysis of multiple data sets such as state and local assessment data discipline attendance data and more they work with school teams to develop school goals and those goals Drive the professional development Focus the instructional planning and the ways that supports and services are delivered in each building the department of teaching and learning works closely with each school to move forward district and school initiatives that support their school's goals for example this year the teaching and learning department has focused heavily on professional development in mathematics the elementary principals will share highlights of their school's progress as well as some of the action

036steps they are taking in their schools this year for continued School Improvement and student achievement we will begin with Miss Fatima Rogers the principal of copper reach foreign good evening Copper Beech progress and grow shoes all student groups exceeded the growth standard in ela math and science every disaggregated group in proficient and advanced has grown on the pssa in math Copper Beech performed above the state average on Ela Math and Science and pssa and students with disabilities grew in ela what are the action steps that we are taking at Copper Beach this year we are focused on using data to drive decisions that we make instructionally for example teachers work collaboratively to develop strategies that they would use to teach specific anchor standards that show the strengths and weaknesses from the pssa teachers are also

037using data to meet their students needs our second bullet this year we increased the frequency of wind time for both Ela and math support when is what I need during wind time students are grouped for guided instruction tailored to their specific needs and Learning Centers focus on reinforcing skills students need teachers including Math teachers and reading Specialists tailor lessons for individual student needs during this time we are using already a program that provides students with work on their skill levels we are making sure that students are working on these lessons with fidelity meaning they are on the program for a specified amount of time and we are monitoring their progress on the lessons and now I'll introduce to my colleague Dr etlin principal from Highland thank you and good evening I'd like to highlight some

038of the progress and growth from Highland Elementary School some of which is uh noted here on the slide are all student group exceeded the growth standard in English language arts math and in science are our black student group made substantial progress in in their achievement as defined by their performance on the math pssa from 2021 to 2022 and uh the performance of our students who performed at the advanced level on the science pssa is well above the state average some of the action steps that we are taking at Highland to improve student performance are enhancing teacher capacity to utilize and Implement guided math instruction which is a structured way to differentiate instruction to Target specific areas of student need as evidenced by their performance on their unit test and are ready there will be an

039increased focus on i-Ready usage during wind time to ensure that there is a maximization of student learning experiences and students taking uh taking ownership of their own progress so students will be tracking their progress on the number of lessons completed and the number of lessons passed there will also be an increased focus on building background knowledge and vocabulary exposure which are critical foundational skills with a specific focus on students in tier three using English language arts unit tests to monitor their performance I'd now like to introduce Mr Dan Oldham principal of McKinley all right thank you and and good evening um I'd like to begin by highlighting some areas of progress and growth um as you can see Ed McKinley our all student group exceeded uh the growth standard in math and the all student

040group also uh exceeded the growth standard in ela although you do see that down arrow for science I'd like to highlight that 43 of our fourth grade students scored Advanced on the Science pssa assessment and that well exceeds the state average and 77 percent of the students were Advanced or proficient when we look at our individual student groups and McKinley our black student group also returned to pre-pandemic score levels on both the ELA and math assessment um and when we take a look at some of the action steps that we're moving forward with we are incorporating Extended Learning opportunities at McKinley they include a variety of supports but I'm very proud to talk about the mentorship program that we'll be having this year at McKinley that Paris High School students with fourth and fifth graders

041really to build upon some of the successes that we've had and address some of our shortcomings I'm also excited to talk about our mcmen tour program we had a kick off breakfast two weeks ago that pairs 30 to 40 students with staff members at our building and um and really also proud to talk about our McKinley Scholars Program which identifies students who who are in need of additional support who are on the cusp of proficiency and we meet their needs in a before school format one of the highlights of the program is is conferencing with students to talk more about their progress and so that they self-reflect on uh on their progress and and and talk about what they can do to improve uh with our teachers our core team process this year also has

042been revised to include our teachers and welcoming them into the core team meetings which include myself our assistant principal School psychologists guidance counselor uh curriculum specialist and so we have seamless uh sharing of information between the teacher and our core team as well as an incentive program to promote um and encourage lesson completion for our i-Ready assignments and we've had our first incentive uh reward already and we're prepared to roll out our next school-wide incentive uh in the weeks ahead so I now introduce Miss Karima Boyd from overlook good evening I would like to share a few things from Overlook about our growth and our progress one thing I would like to share with you is that our all student group exceeded the standard demonstrating growth in ela math and science the economically disadvantaged disaggregator

043group increased their performance from 80 percent to 100 percent from 2021 to 2022 meeting the annual growth in ela in addition the number of events and proficient students in grades three to six increased in ela Math and Science on the 2022 pssa some of the action steps that we're taking at Overlook is the implementation of the guided math instruction focusing on mathematical discourse to promote differentiation and small group settings based on i-Ready and pssa data last year the district as a whole also focused on professional development that focused on mathematical discourse in addition to making sure that teachers are adequately equipped and receive professional development with guided math instruction in addition Ed overlook we are monitoring student progress on i-Ready in both Ela and in math to plan for individualized Teacher assigned instructional paths to

044increase student achievement we are aligning this not only with the data that we are receiving from i-Ready and the acadians but also with our unit tests data for Math and Ela therefore students are not only getting the path from their diagnostic path from iready but also individual individualized instruction from their teacher Based on data last but we are also providing uh explicit direct instruction with a reading specialist curriculum Specialist or math teacher to students who scored below Benchmark on acadians measures and I ready Diagnostic and addition Overlook will be offering a 12-week pssa prep Club focusing on test take tests taking strategies and grade level eligible content and strategies this club will not only be for students who are scoring basic and we're trying to push them proficient but this will also be a academic

045club or an enrichment club for students who are proficient and just need a little bit of push or guidance or help in order to make it to that advanced level thank you I will now introduce Dr Osborne the principal of Rosalind foreign thank you good evening like many of the schools Roslyn had some positive news with our growth in English language arts mathematics and science our Advanced group of students also exceeded the state average as well uh one of our first bullet there is our teachers continue to to set and monitor goals at the grade level and the classroom level to address the greatest areas of need among our groups of students and our goal is to continue to see growth among all of our students and that's an annual goal that we continually work

046towards last year we began using iready like many of the like many of the schools and for our diagnostic assessment and in sporting classroom instruction over the summer we analyzed the data and the analysis showed that some of our grade level strategies were very effective and the strategies were shared with both our primary and our intermediate grade levels to expand on the learning progress that we showed to be effective and in particular we found that celebrating individual Student Success and students personal tracking of their progress proved very effective as the students have ownership of their learning and I ready it learns the strengths and weaknesses of individual students and it adjusts its questions to suit the needs of those students and also we are working with our teachers to increase their competency with the guided

047math instructional format using small groups to increase children's math proficiency and to better meet the instruction on the individual needs of their students thank you at this time I'm going to ask Dr Morgan from Rydal to join us good evening Rydal recognized an annual growth score of 100 in math for the all group we realize the need to continue working with our students on open-ended responses so we have implemented a school-wide focus on strategies for open-ended response questions using a common graphic organizer and we're using this with students in grades K through five younger students get more assistance with the use of it all subgroups increase the percent Advanced and proficient in ela from 2021 to 2020 to 21 22. we will continue our focus on the instruction and usage of active reading to support

048comprehension which will be reinforced during wind time and i-Ready usage for small group instruction and individualized pathways with 36 languages spoken in the district Rydal has a significant number of English language Learners and our English language annual growth and measurement score of 69.7 exceeds the Statewide average of 22.2 percent with the 2030 goal of 70.3 so we are within a percentage point of a goal that is seven years out we will continue to provide push and support to English language Learners to provide assistance in the classroom setting to build language acquisition and academic vocabulary I now introduce Dr Jordan principal of Willow Hill oh good evening Willow Hill is really proud of our progress with regard to our 2022 results in comparison to our 2021 results as it relates to standardized tests however we are

049in the process of conducting the strategic planning and the hard and challenging work needed to get our achievement back to pre-pandemic levels and Beyond speaking of our 2022 data I would like to share a few highlights first and foremost the all student group increased in the percent of students proficient in ela and Mathematics also the all-student group exceeded the growth standard and Ela mathematics and science the grades three and four of black disaggregate group increased in the percent of students who scored Advanced and proficient in ela and Mathematics and the grade three black disaggregate group scored as well or better than all other disaggregate groups and Ela picture on this slide are the action steps that we are taking this year to assist in closing gaps in achievement and accelerating the rate of progress for

050all students you've heard many of my colleagues speak to the guided math framework which is a structure that differentiates Learning Centers based on i-Ready data unit test data quizzes and teacher observations this year we are really concerned with a core group of our grade three students I think we all can agree that our current grade 3 student represents the group most impacted by the pandemic we have a core group of third grade students who are really struggling with reading fluency it was really disappointing because we supported this group throughout the previous school year and noted a lot of progress however our September 2022 Benchmark data revealed that these students are still struggling with their fluency I think we all know that the research suggests that by grade three all students should be reading fluently therefore

051most grade three curriculum does not have a strong phonics and reading fluency component therefore to support these students we have given our teachers access to an intervention program called Words Their Way which is an intervention program for fluency and spelling so the idea is for teachers to use this program to support students during small group instruction once we conduct our benchmark assessments in January it's our hope that we will note progress and we will be able to begin to peel back the usage of this program at grade three finally we are really focused in Owen phonics and fluency and prevention instruction traditionally in September we administer acadians and I ready benchmark assessments this year we have added a third layer of diagnostic testing for students who score below Benchmark on these two assessments this third

052layer allows us to really peel back the layers and identify unique needs beginning at the very early primary level with upper and lowercase letter names vowel sounds and consonant sounds then we move on to more sophisticated skills such as CVC words with short vowels consonant blends with short vowels words with digraphs vowel teams and then on to whole words with multiple syllables so we're able to identify these really specific needs for students and group them accordingly so that we can provide rigorous intervention instruction during our Ela when pullout sessions and not pictured on this slide we are happy to announce that we are bringing back our in-person comprehensive extended day instruction program which is a healthy blend of enrichment and reading and Remediation programs for students in grades three through five so far we have

053a literature circles group which supports students in the areas of reading fluency and test taking strategies we have a mathematics enrichment Club which focuses on open-ended responses critical thinking and advanced problem solving a science enrichment club which is content driven also focuses on problem solving skills and then we have a math 1000 club which focuses on computation and math facts and I would like to introduce Miss Laura anama assistant director teaching and learning before we before we move into that I just want to take a moment while we have Elementary before we move into secondary I think it would be a good opportunity to pause in the presentation so that if there are individual questions for the principals or Elementary in general that we do that at this time and then we'll move into secondary

054thank you questions or comments from board members I have a question um so the I want to make sure I understand this correctly but the demographic data we saw at the beginning um was um basically about kids who would uh who belong to Title One families is that correct for free lunch for us that's what qualifies them for title one I think so in going back to the um I believe you're referring to the free and reduced lunch right the participation yeah the first slide yes the the that the use of the free reduced lunch data is how we determine which schools right are Title One schools okay so the numbers that you see here are just simply a total of the percent of those students who are participating in in free and reduced lunch

055um what we do is we look at the district average and any school that exceeds the district average for free and reduced lunch participation is eligible to be a title one school okay so my follow-up question then is this that it do I understand correctly that that program um requires sort of additional Outreach to families of students using that program and if that's the case how are we facilitating families access to this assessment information so if I understand you correctly you're asking about participation within the free and reduced lunch program or right because well those would be the families who or that cohort would then dictate which schools qualify as Title One schools right and that correct those schools bear an additional burden to reach out um to the families of students yes we're in

056there so um many of the principles that you see behind me um have worked either in a title one school or a principal of a title one school and what as well as Mr Daniel file who is currently a title one principal they all have requirements to not only develop school-wide gold plans but they also have a family engagement requirement and all of those title one schools not only inform via a letter to their parents annually but they also have family engagement activities and events in which they do some personal outreaches to those families in their schools who are the fail of who have are participating in the free and reduced lunch program so it's it's very much and you are correct baked into the whole Title One school-wide program okay so so with regard

057to this the data we're looking at tonight those those families um schools are facilitating access for families to to look at the data for their students so that they have a chance to advocate for them is that correct okay I see someone knocking there data is definitely part of the discussion okay but I will also say that I think every child has a review of data with parent-teacher conferences every kind of layering on an additional set of interactions engagements where data and discussions about student achievement take place okay and um is it possible for someone to give an example of one of your absolutely just to make it more concrete I think I speak on behalf of all my colleagues I think we do a lot in terms of Outreach to our families uh there

058is a specific push in terms of how we Monitor and how we track the number of families that we actually reach out to as part of our Title One program so uh I'm sure again I can speak for all my colleagues we have title we have sign-in sheets for all of our parent engagement or parent workshops as part of our Title One or as part of being a title one school it's a requirement that we keep track of that information we count the number of families that we're out actually reaching out to and we we make a conscious effort in terms of in increasing the number of families that we actually reach out to I don't know if that answers your question that absolutely answers my question and I apologize for asking it so in

059artfully but that's that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for so thank you very much can can someone talk a bit about if you're a family and you come to one of the activities as you mentioned what do you experience as a family yes if I can add at the very first title one parent Workshop of the school year for all Title One schools in advance of that meeting the parents of students who took the pssh the previous year they received a parent report and number one on the agenda for the First Title One Workshop of the school year is assisting parents and comprehending the scores outlined in those parent reports so it speaks directly to this data that you are seeing tonight that's great thank you so much to jump on top

060of Dr Mowry's question there like going forward with this now that families don't have to I don't know who I'm directing this to Dr Thatcher I don't have to complete the title The Frame reduce lunch application for lunch because it's free for everyone now only breakfast only breakfast lunch is not free okay I thought there was a free a meal waiver Mr lionetti do you want to accept did we not apply for like the fee and the waiver for this year um the push is to have applications again to identify students for the free and reduced lunch program the prior year that was not a requirement and we don't we don't have at least for this year except for seeing the Willow Hill data schools that are in the community eligibility some schools reach Community

061eligibility in some entire school districts do we don't however qualify for that we'll be looking at Willow Hill for next year given the numbers that we're seeing on the screen so it depends on the schools free reduced participation at a certain percentage for that waiver and community community eligibility determination I think that's what the the eligibility where it was a waiver for either the school-wide or for the district for some reason I was under the impression that that we applied and qualified for that that's my mistake but so uh going forward then if to make sure that families have access to knowledge to know that this exists actually I'm answering my questions it's a non-issue never mind no um just to I mean just to clarify I think it would be helpful Miss bombsy can

062you just go through some of the extra steps that we have taken don't worry about it no too non-issue because to communicate to to parents and families um as it was last year I came up at our meeting and the question was what are some additional steps because we went from a free program to to this how were we going to reach out to families and engage families in the community so can you just yeah sure briefly of some of the things that we did differently this year yes so for this year we started with communication before school was out in June letting parents know that they had to apply where to find the application then July 1 when the application became available we let them know where it was and then we repeated it

063again in September because after 30 days in September the um the status changes to previous eligibility standards so there were multiple outreaches including our social workers personally making phone calls with for people that didn't apply the previously had so you can see by the increase that we we did have a lot of applicants for this year any other questions I have a couple questions um thank you so much for this presentation and for sharing not only the data but what your plans are uh in response to it um I just have uh I know that we just learned about um Willow Hill having that third layer of data collection I'm just curious do all of the elementary schools like what are are there mid-year or periodic um data collection mechanisms Beyond just the pssa tests

064and then if you find that students have moved up or down what what what happens so yes we actually will begin our mid-year Assessments in January when students come back in the new year and we do multiple Benchmark and diagnostic assessments for all students K through five based on those results schools will have data meetings to review the data make some instructional decisions they'll have grade level meetings with teachers to review their class data and then they will decide what types of interventions and supports so this is actually a time of year where there's lots of movement within our schools in terms of which students might see a support person for reading support or a math teacher or how a teacher might design their small group instruction within the classroom any other questions I are

065you sure did you want to ask one I do but I like to wait go ahead all right so um I wanted to address specifically the the ELA data and I'm I'm glad to see schools kind of meeting those interim goals for growth but I think if I remember from the slides only two of the schools are exceeding the the assessment measure and proficient and advanced for ELA um so I guess part of my question um is kind of related to some of the stuff that some of the principals were describing but that is what opportunities are there outside of the classroom for students to reinforce their reading skills I mean I when my kids were in fifth grade last year um they're not they're in college um they were there were things like the

066reading Olympics there were other opportunities so in addition to the the teaching that was going on in the classroom reading was getting reinforced and sort of celebrated in a lot of different venues for them okay great fun to add on WE yes we have um we'll have reading Olympics this year our Title One schools have a summer reading program where all students get a book to read over the summer we have extended day programs summer before school some are after school these are federally funded programs that all schools have access to we have one book one school where schools will engage families in reading a common text and then children will do activities within school and home okay to make connections so there I don't know anything else foreign approximately six years ago one of

067my reading specialists came up with the idea of creating a parent-child book club the premise is to have students sign up in advance of book club night great spans receive a book for students to read with their families once again in advance of book club and then they come back to Willow Hill one night about four times per year we have light fare I'll still that term from Dr fetcher Light Fair on the front end of what we call literature discussions and we have Specialists and teachers work with students and families to facilitate literature discussions based on the books read in advance of book club so that's just another opportunity to promote reading outside and Beyond the school day I commend you for that program sounds really wonderful thank you I have a few questions

068but the one that pertains to Elementary has to do with the standard base grading and my question is how does the standard-based grading align with the results that we're seeing from the state assessments so with the addition of link it to our for our ability to to have a data warehouse that can analyze test scores curriculum-based assessment scores we find that they are well aligned and the scores do reflect the results with pssa for both math and Ela excellent that Lincoln information is that package yet for parents to be able to access um we have posted all of our assessment results at elementary on Skyward The Familiar platform to parents so they can see diagnostic Benchmark results through their family access portal okay I could may I speak to that for a moment um I

069know that that's a question often and at our parent council meeting this month one of the questions that came up from the representatives from the PTO PTA was how can parents maximize their use of finding out what this information is and what can parents do and what tools can they use with Skyward um Google Classroom whatever it may be and what we are um what we are doing right now is we're producing uh videos for parents that can highlight these ways to go on and and some of the shortcuts to make it more user friendly for our parents um I you know in anticipation of you know this obviously being a a question um I've asked for us if we could pull up a sample of what that information looks like and then we will

070as I said communicate we are working on these videos we're going to get make sure they get out as soon as possible and I you know I thank the parent Council for bringing the idea and in in that communication on how to access you know different materials so can you explain what from a parent and what so this is an example of our i-Ready diagnostic a report for families that uh a parent would be able to see on um on Skyward currently that shows their students results from the fall diagnostic assessment it breaks down the score it gives the parent the overall score and then breaks down the score based on different domains I already calls them which are similar to our standards shows what level the child is performing this is a grade two

071student so you can see where the child is at level this child happens to be at level there's also a link which we have shared with parents and we encourage them to use the i-Ready Family Resource Center which has a lot of valuable information to fill them in about what kinds of activities for example i-Ready has for their child and then at the bottom of the report there are some additional suggestions for parents as well as some definitions about what they're seeing thank you what I really appreciate about that is not just where the child is but it also answers the what next and that's usually what parents want to know not just where is my child but what how do I move them forward so thank you for that I just wanted to take

072a moment to say thank you for the transparency that's here thank you for for example Dr Jordan you spoke about grade three and the fluency not just that we took a hit but what's being done the words their way for fluency and spelling those things help to affirm what I already know about the work that's being done so I thank you for those specific examples and I also applaud that we are showing growth we're not where we want to be but I look at each slide and there's growth for each and every school for ELA and Mathematics I think there was only one downward arrow for science in one of the schools but we are showing growth so we're on the right path I applaud you for your efforts where again not where we want

073to be but the work is being done and we're seeing the fruit of the labor so thank you so much um the attendance there some arrows are up some arrows are down could someone speak to the significance of the attendance so that was during the 2020-21 school year when it was the hybrid year and we were really closely adhering to the Montgomery County Office of Public Health exclusion chart where students were quarantining for the full period whether they had covet or whether they were exposed so those um those results are lower than what they typically are and we expect that that will go up in 2023. thank you um also Wida what does that stand for again Dr butts world class I'm sorry my notes aren't with me right now I I place it over

074by my desk above my seat but it's the um world class inch instructional design instructional design thank you it's not an easy one to remember and it comes out of Wisconsin yeah lastly um do you guys still Implement reading logs in elementary school where kids are required to read and record their readings time I think I can speak for most of my colleagues when I say that we all have a reading incentive program where we track either the number of pages or number of books that students read on a nightly basis and to show evidence of reading those pages or books students do fill out reading logs on a nightly basis as a part of their nightly homework assignments one other thing that is done in terms of reading is there's a 40 book challenge

075that was one of the things that are sixth grade teachers uh did while they were at Highland one of our sixth grade teachers who remained in the building has since taken that 40 book Challenge and is now implementing that in fourth grade so any additional questions or comments that's right dude so just a compliment to all of you for putting the slideshow together you've taken the PA Future Ready index website which you almost need a PhD in or something to understand um and you made it explanatory and understandable and your your explanations to it were remarkable and appreciated also a point to point out is I really notice and appreciate that you each are taking individual steps to obviously meet the needs of the students in your buildings it's not just a blanket approach and

076that's noted in each of yours when each of you uh stood and presented for the different schools the one thing I noticed that's threaded within is this i-Ready and I hope that iready is fruitful for us and that it does you know I did some homework on it because I wasn't familiar with it but it seems to be research based and whatnot so hopefully it does have some results and it also utilizes the technology that we're spending tons of money on for some personalized learning I also want to Echo Miss Brown's comments that you know in the there's two buckets here there's the achievement bucket and the growth bucket and in almost every school the growth bucket was full which means it's students are progressing we just need to continue to fill the gaps that

077we've all lost from the pandemic in terms of achievement so that that just some general feedback but I I really this presentation is excellent for the Layman who's not familiar with the PA Future Ready index website any additional questions or comments thank you to our elementary principals good evening so now we're going to transition to our secondary schools Mr file Mr Barrios will share in a moment their 2021-2022 data and then their 2223 building initiatives um when you see the next slide you're going to see Abington Junior High School and we did not make a mistake so the data is based on last year's configuration of schools so Mr file will be speaking about 7th and 8th grade at the former junior high school and Mr barriers will be speaking about the current seniors best

078Keystone scores so as Miss bombsy mentioned earlier it is a rather complex set of data for our current seniors some of them started their Keystone exams before the pandemic in 2018-19 when they were in honors algebra's 8th graders many of them were exempt from the keystones completely because they were ninth graders sitting in biology or Algebra 1 in 1920 and testing did not occur and then some of them may have been excused or opted out depending on what their situation is during the year that we were virtual and hybrid if you remember particularly the secondary level only about 50 percent of our students came back hybrid we actually did see the majority of students stay virtual for the year um so it's a complex data set because of all the disruptions and testing for our

079current seniors so with that said as Dr Royal has said with the elementary level at the secondary level each year we develop getting results plans we identify strengths and challenges and we look at multiple data sets so particularly when we look at the high school we do look at keystones that's just one measure we look at we look at pssa PSAT scores SAT scores AP scores we look at how our students are doing at Eastern so there's lots of data sets that we're looking at in addition to the Keystone exams and then this year in particular in addition to all the goals that we're working on for getting results we're also implementing the recommendations from the superintendents committee for the reconfigured grade spans so in many cases we see new instructional materials so we had

080lots of adoptions last year we have new courses that we're offering for the first time and we also brought in new Service delivery models so particularly the middle school we brought in win that we borrowed from elementary because they saw such success with it last year and have expanded our mtss model or our multi tiered system of support so I'm going to pass it on to Mr file Mr Barris now um to talk more about their schools individually good evening so we were able to see that science is headed in in a solid trajectory our career standards were the best ever in the building at 98.6 however it is obvious that we faced definite challenges the challenges come at a time that that I like to say is an opportunity with the reconfigured grade spans

081and the changes that we were planning to implement in some cases anyway but those that we were able to adjust to to respond to the needs of the kids and I'll point out some of the things that we've done this year to address that first for our grade seven and eight we have adopted a new curriculum and that is the same for grade seven in math related to that new curriculum and those new materials comes what I believe is to be a higher level of consistency for the kids across the grade levels and the delivery um the second bullet point focuses on instructional time I know you're aware that for 7th and eighth grade ELA in math we have doubled the instructional time this year for those students we see that as as a great

082opportunity kids have more time to engage in the material teachers have different ways to present that and have the kids interact with it as well I'd like to note even though it is not a junior high bit of information that the sixth graders are following that new curriculum and they are also engaged in the same amount of time for ELA and math with that being said I'd like to remind everybody for sixth graders that they are as well as 7th and 8th graders taking blocks of science and social studies probably are aware there are standards in reading and writing and social studies so the students are offered in grades six seven and eight additional opportunity and time in those subject areas sixth grade in particular has a new Pathways course that allows them to learn

083some critical thinking skills good student skills spending time in the library reading which is also true for our seventh and 8th graders which is new for us this year so in addition to that information while we love our teachers and think they are great we do have software IXL that targets individual student needs and this can address a student exactly where they are and help to grow them additionally teachers may choose to use this as a tool to address a specific skill across the board for a classroom so there are a couple of ways to use IXL finally Miss Adama did point out that our MTS s model is a little bit different this year we are using link it that is helping us with tracking interventions um to see student progress based on what

084may or may not be working in a class like Ela or math we're also able to use the data in there to look at the whole child we're looking at attendance data we're looking at Behavior data we also have the benefit of looking at benchmarking data we use that to help inform our win groups I know you've you've heard about that um from the other schools but we too are trying to find ways to Target exactly what kids need on the individual classroom basis with the teacher but also when we have push and support that comes into the classroom and sometimes we have small groups working with other students on areas of need so that is something new to us this year that we were able to incorporate with our increased instructional time in addition

085to that it's important to note that we're focused also on our higher achieving students in the past growth has been an area of concern for our higher achieving students this year we've used staff a little bit differently we've had staff creating some new projects we've had some staff pushing in to teach lessons we've had some staff pushing in to work with small groups so while we are very much focused on supporting the kids and getting them back up to where they need to be we're also mindful of students who continue to flourish and finding ways to to keep pushing them like to pass it over now to Mr Barrios good evening so we've explained tonight the current scores before you are for the seniors how it works is in the 11th grade year we use

086the highest Keystone exam score so our seniors have had a very very fragmented testing cycle to say the least some of our students took the Keystone algebra exam in eighth grade if they had honors algebra following year we went out on a we had a school closure due to the pandemic so the ninth grade biology exam was not administered the students were exempt the students who take ninth grade College Prep algebra they were also exempt the following year we were out on the first half of the year was remote instruction and we had hybrid instruction so the 10th graders would take normally take the Keystone Literature Exam English too so if you look at the data set before you we have 638 students 12 were exempt exempt students can be Exempted from the exam for

087religious or medical reasons so now we're down to 626 students of the 626 students 329 opted out which left us with 297 students of the 297 students 62 percent were proficient moving to biology 638 students in a class 584 were exempt because of the covet year so we had 54 students they could have been transfer students Etc of the 54 students in the senior class 36 opted out of the 18 who took the exam 33 percent were proficient you don't see the Keystone algebra results on the on the screen before you because the students were in eighth grade when they took the exam again they were the students who were in honors algebra one we do however believe that 200 of those students were proficient but their scores are not reflected here and that is

088currently under review with the Pennsylvania Department of Education the current snapshot is we just had a benchmark exam through link it for literature 64 of the students were proficient or advanced this is an increase from last year's score which the first time we used the Lincoln Benchmark 56 percent of the students were proficient or advanced moving on to algebra 68 of our students were proficient or Advanced on the first Lincoln Benchmark exam that they took we can just we continue to see strides with our IXL exam platform as well in English language arts and algebra respectively the percentage of students scoring a three or higher on an AP exam increased from 67 percent in 2021 to 76 percent in 2022. we've also seen increases in students pursuing college-level work for the 2023 AP exam testing

089cycle over 790 students have registered for over 1 700 advanced placement exams if a student scores a three or higher on an advanced placement exam they increase their risk for earning college credit at the when they go on to University not all colleges and universities accept a advanced placement credit but a majority of them do we've also seen an increase in a number of students taking dual enrollment courses we have dual enrollment agreements with Stockton University Gwynedd Mercy University and the Montgomery County Community College so these are college level courses taught by Abington school district teachers and students have an opportunity to sign up for dual enrollment so we've seen an increase from last year 22 students enrolled to 36 students enrolled so some action steps we're taking to increase student achievement and advocacy or

090High School are we're going to continue to use our benchmarking tools and monitor that data and become more familiar with these platforms like IXL and linkage we're also going to increase English and Algebra 1 achievement and growth by consistently again using these platforms will continue to design our rigorous unit exams and spiral these topics in particular in algebra and continue to analyze the results in order to provide remediation we've designed and implemented a keystone Scholars Program and we use our reading teacher to pull students out during uh are Bubble students to those students who are on a cusp to provide instruction and Remediation we're also implementing our lunch and learn program so we have three learns during the week so this reading teacher is meeting with students to provide enrichment and Remediation as well in

091addition we have an after-school program for students to receive additional help in these areas I'd like to ask Dr Butch to please join us thank you Mr Barrios our last topic tonight is a reminder that disaggregated information is an important part of the school improvement process here at Abington and I wanted to share with you that in addition to the Future Ready PA index website which was shared earlier with you this evening by Miss bombsy we also have disaggregated information available on our Abington School District website while when while we are not going to be spending a lot of time on the specific information here because a future presentation is being planned to go over disaggregated information and our Equity work I did want to show you where this is located and some of the

092findings that we have so if you go onto our Abington School District website and you go into the about ASD under Equitable practices you can also select educational Equity update and on that you will be able to see the following enrollment in demographics academic achievement and school climate information as well as discipline opportunity and access as well so in looking at this I'm going to focus on the pssa I just need to click that particular information the data will the data reports will show on the screen you'll be able to scroll through the different types of reports I'm just going to point out for example in the proficiency by race one of the things that you may want to notice here is grade 3 Ela um some of the subgroup population results when you compare

093them for the last two years the 2021 to the 2122 they're noted by different colors here we see an uptick in the Asian and black grade three as well as the all student population in cases where there may have been lower numbers represented they may not appear here and then to find other results I'm just going to jump over to grade six Ela [Music] you'll be able to notice how the different subgroup populations did over time again in this particular one for grade six notice the Hispanic has almost reached pre-pandemic levels of their achievement levels if I wanted to check out something for mathematics I'll go again to grade three for mathematics and again notice the different areas where we see achievement here and as well as grade six and again some of our subgroup

094populations doing very well as far as compared to last years and making movement in the right direction to get us to pre-pandemic levels but you'll notice that we have this information available for all of the subgroup populations when it comes to all of the pssa information we also have information that is disaggregated by gender and lastly we have information disaggregated by program program is a descriptor that will cover not only free and reduced lunch which is noted here as low income but also students who participate in the gifted 504 LEP special ed programs one of the things that I wanted to show of note is within the low income grade 3 Ela we see improvements there I'm just going to jump again to grade six a slight Improvement as well for low income and we

095will also notice I'm just going to choose grade six mathematics again we see an uptick of scores for the low income but again this information as we get new information is updated and you'll be able to see all the different data points on this particular website as well as a future ready PA index lastly I just wanted to point out that all of our disaggregated information is something that all of our principals and our building leadership and teachers use when they develop when they develop their getting results plans um the getting results plans is what we call our school Improvement plans that are done on an annual basis A needs assessment and data analysis takes place in the development of those plans and our principals work alongside with their administrative teams as well as with

096our teachers in developing goals based upon this disaggregated information so at this point in time I thank you and we will take any additional questions or comments from the board a general comment um thank you to the secondary like a you know fond over the elementary you guys were amazing too um the you know I I think back like we say like get back to pre-pandemic but pre-pandemic we still had a problem we had huge gaps in our populations of students so I I'm happy to hear like we want to get back to pre-pandemic but something I and I heard you say Dr butts that you know that there's going to be another update in terms of equity and and educational equity in the district but I'm also curious why while we're building back to

097the pandemic how are we going to get better and close those gaps and what are the actual practices happening in the district around data and instruction to make instruction culturally relevant and engaging for students um because once we get back to pre-pandemic we're going to be faced with that problem still and why not attack that now and I'm sure that you are but I'm I'm very excited to hear what this uh this presentation is going to be about equity in education yes I we wholeheartedly agree with you in that while there is this drive and desire to it to get back to where we were prior to the pandemic we do recognize that there is a long journey ahead of us and that there are still goals to make sure that all of our students

098achieve at the same or better levels so that we close those achievement gaps so in reference to and I won't go into too much detail now but we are still maintaining things that you've heard throughout this presentation you may the the word win is what I need so it's a specific time during the day where we target our students who are in need and all of the data drives this so students who are not growing and learning at the pace that we would like them to to learn at they specifically are um are are worked with in this particular time period of wind so that's where we have the remediation and the intervention taking place uh in addition to that you heard a lot about mtss multiple tier system of supports and that is a

099process that we continue to refine so that we look at different indicators in addition to grades we look at Behavior we look at attendance we look at all of these different measures and these this process is meant to really make sure that our students are succeeding um I am going to see if Dr Brown would like to answer or share anything at this point in time I know that he's been working very hard but I also know that it's it's not only Dr Brown's goals it is all of our goals and it is all of our jobs to get our kids to where they need to be thank you Dr butts I think you you summarized that pretty adequately what I would add you know similar to you that the eye and wind you know

100it's very individualized meeting students where they're at so hopefully you know all students demonstrate growth in students with more room to grow would make more growth um also you know like another example I can tell you that one of the goals at the middle school was working on you know implementing restorative practices and alternative measures for resolving disciplinary consequences like peer mediation to the hope is you know more students with more time in the classroom rather than time out of the classroom should also give them more access to the instructional program which in turn should help their performance in terms of academic growth so little examples like that in terms of those are are layered all throughout the getting results plans that each school has in terms of finding ways to better equip the Educators

101to meet the need to of all the students in the schools any other questions or comments one of the principles mentioned a mick Mentor program in his elementary school and I'm wondering if perhaps such thing could be made available for the middle and the high school particularly to Target some of the low performing students and perhaps some of the students who might tend to act out in other ways so we have a couple of programs uh that that we are using this year and we are looking to grow them so uh they they are not widespread as of yet um one is being led by one of our school counselors the other by our climate officer where they are targeting exactly this the types of students you mentioned uh struggling with schoolwork potential behavior issues

102and um you know I'd also say for our building related to what Mr Allen was just asking a big Focus for us coming together as a middle school where we are welcoming two new grades of students a about a third new population of teachers we focused on kind of rebranding rebooting our school-wide Positive Behavior Support plan so we were very focused on trying to make connections with kids engage kids and focus on that positivity um last year that that was difficult for us at times but you know we we did a lot of planning a lot of work to be sure that we got this year going in a very different direction especially given the the dramatic shift that we had sure at the senior high school the National Honor Society provides tutoring to students

103of student tutoring during the school day in the morning before school first period or second period now we have a new schedule also we have an after-school program that is up and running and there's a couple of interventions we have there to help support students in addition during lunch and learn so we have three learns during the week teachers are available so students need extra help any additional questions I I have a couple if you don't mind um so with regard to the sixth graders I know the grade school principals mentioned that K-5 will have a January assessment are we doing anything similar with the sixth graders yes okay um what what you heard mirrors what we're doing in terms of the benchmarking that's true also for our uh seventh and 8th graders as well

104okay um part of the reason I'm asking um relates back to a concern I had when we did the presentation about block scheduling and the fact that sixth graders are getting reduced instructional time in ela um and that's that kind of it's not only a general concern but it's now um for me anyways a more urgent concern giving the the data we're seeing right now so um what do you I guess what I'm asking I don't know if you can answer this right now um is what's the game plan going forward if those sixth graders are showing insufficient growth in ela in terms of the instructional time they've been given well the first thing I'll say this is our first time through so um you know we we have not had this schedule we have

105a lot of reflecting to do I think in many facets of this schedule in terms of um is this effective I think fortunately we do have the data sets available short term and also to give us an opportunity long term to plan um but I think I think some of those answers are really big questions because it it may turn out that that this schedule is wonderful effective it's showing gains in in grades it's showing great gains and benchmarking it's showing gains in test scores but it may show us a need to to rethink things um you know it is December it is it is new um we've seen some promise in in some of the data but I don't think at this point I'd be able to say we know that this is absolutely

106100 perfect um is that can is that specifically data related to ELA or just broadly speaking with Ela and math I think that's that's accurate yeah so we pull the IXL scores once a month and look and right now actually the sixth grade ELA scores they're growing it three times what I excel would expect um by month so their monthly average growth is three times that expected of an average sixth grader so that's a really good sign so far we'll have our January Benchmark and that will tell us that'll be our other you know major thing that we can use um we also for sixth grade have been we gave a common assessment and we have sat with all the English teachers to talk about that assessment um and plan for unit two together uh

107the students did well on the I mean the the class that the grade average was fine um and we did an item analysis and then again with win time our reading specialist constructed specialized lessons for students who struggled with certain areas so we are targeting skills in sixth grade just like we are in seven and eight um so at this point there's no data to indicate the schedule is not working um but I would agree with Mr file that it is earlier in the year to know you know to be able to say 100 definitive that everything is working perfectly but we are talking to students talking to teachers regularly um again we're really collecting a lot of data this year and really trying to closely progress monitor so that we can be aware of

108how things are going and how they're progressing um and this this cohort does take a pssa the in sixth grade in ela correct yes okay and at the End Key Stones as well so and he will give the key Stones okay all right okay thank you any additional questions I have I'm sorry I'm still a little pensive about the um attendance I understand of course because of covet attendance went down um so what McKinley and Bridal there's an arrow up for attendance so how do I how do I interpret that so it's a comparison to the year before so in those schools the attendance was higher than the year before oh that's yeah so if it went up it means it was higher than the year before two questions one in regard to the ell

109data and you you tapped on some of it with um the IXL data but the PD and resources that are being offered to teachers we see an increase in our ell population so my question is what resources are we giving for the Genet teacher as far as instructional practices services and even adoption of curriculum in light of our you know our top four languages being Spanish Ukrainian Russian and Mandarin so let me um address the um types of uh resources first with translations so we make an attempt to find not only people that are internal to The District employees that may be speaking the language and we try to deploy their use in the sense of being kind of ambassadors of the language and supports of that language so we have found our network of

110Russian speakers we have found our Spanish speakers and we try to utilize those internal resources in addition we have a translation service that we use not only for interpretations which is oral Communications but also translations which are written Communications so we have both a phone service for that and that is an on-demand service whenever we need it when we're talking with parents whenever we need that service where we can use that and we also will make sure that all all of our major Publications to parents or Communications are translated and sent out to the parents as far as the services for our English language Learners we have this year in our Flex program dedicated time within that Flex program for English language learning professional development so in addition to that our supervisor of world languages

111and ELD also goes out during faculty meetings when she can schedule that with the principal to also provide professional professional development there recently our ELD teachers all of them and our supervisor as well as myself went to training for multilingual my multilingual Learners who are refugees and how to support them because of the impact of trauma and how this impacts the way that they access language and learning and how to recognize the trauma specifically of the refugee student so we are really focused on trying to make sure we have those professional development opportunities that put in place and so in addition to that we also have new materials at the secondary level for English language development those new materials are aligned to the updated weda standards and we also are planning to look at new

112materials for the elementary level as well so we were just staggering them in first secondary and then hopefully if approved by this board an elementary program uh and another question about a grade 7 math specifically uh looking at the demographics I see that there has been a steady decline with black students performance in seventh grade math from [Music] 2016 to the current so my my question is um I believe that's where students have the option of splitting of going into pre-algebra or going into honors Algebra I also understand that that middle school you're moving from you know the concrete to the abstract so I understand that but with the steady decline can we speak to how we are looking specifically at this demographic and um and looking to close that Gap through resources PD for

113teachers culturally proficient teaching and all that jazz sure actually predated when I started at the district but when um I did come one of the main conversations we were having about the reconfiguration and the grades of the grade spans and what math looked like was to really kind of hit the reset button for this year so as Mr filer already mentioned we've increased math minutes actually across the board it increased in grade six as well not by that much but by a little bit so we've increased the amount of time in mathematics and we also brought in a new program um and for our sixth and seventh graders they're doing enVision Math and another differences in the past are honor students and our College Prep students use two different materials and they were leveled differently

114they're actually using the same materials there's just some differences in instruction in some of the enrichment that occurs at the honors level in seventh grade so we're really and we've gone to actually a more accelerated math program for seventh grade so we're trying to level up all of our students um we've been working very closely with Dr Brown to look at how students are being recommended for honors versus College Prep to try to take out some of the bias that might have been occurring in the past to make it more data based to make sure that we are recommending students for honors truly based on their ability to handle the honors level so really trying to kind of reshuffle a little bit of what's happening in terms of where students are ending up in seventh

115grade and then also making sure that all students have access to rigorous curriculum so not that they didn't before but really just making sure that all students are really being provided with significant rigor as part of the reconfiguration effort you may remember last year we brought forth a recommendation to transition to all students having access to algebra in eighth grade um and so you know we're in the process of moving that along and so by doing that it's going to provide multiple opportunities for students to access honors so that students aren't being tracked and are not unable to access you know higher level coursework as they go through so I mean these really are strategies to Target all students but very much design knowing that we have gaps in place that we're trying to you

116know narrow and so by you know taking on some of these different strategies in terms of how we're looking at the curriculum as a whole and where students are at we're hopefully going to raise the bar for our black students and and and some of our students who have historically not been as successful we've seen this with other popular other subpopulations as well besides our black students does that answer your question thank you okay can I just add to that um are there opportunities or what opportunities or opportunities now for remediation um by remediation like remediation like if they fail a grade are you talking about or just within the class that's the Gap because there is that gap before you could Master higher order or a more rigorous topic or of math you'd have

117to be proficient in the basic math right what opportunities are available to practice and enhance their math skills okay so um So within the course we are using IXL so when the students do I excel it is adaptive and so um similar but not exactly the same as what Dr Vilas showed for iready every student gets a a printout of where they are at for each area of mathematics and then it has for each area of mathematics what skills they need to be working on in order to fill in those gaps and so when we look at and this is even at the high school level we're looking at using IXL in two ways one as uh to fill in gaps for students who have something missing and then also we use it to assign

118specific skills that are related to the content we're teaching in the moment so we use it in both cases as an Adaptive tool to fill in gaps and also to reinforce content in the moment so that's just one of the strategies we're using with IXL during the win period or wind time during the math block we have we actually have current currently three Math teachers who all they do is push in so we have one per grade level and so they push into approximately 12 different classrooms over the course of a day for half an hour periods where they work with specific targeted group of kids and so and that is all based on how the students did on their Benchmark or how they're doing on the unit exams so each unit exam and math

119also this year we have started spiraling the content so that particularly when you look at let's say the unit one exam for sixth grade math it might have been specifically on numbers and operations but then we also added some questions from fifth grade some things that should have been secure and so we're using that and we're grouping students by standard to see where they need to kind of fill in those gaps so that's happening through small group instruction as well so there's kind of a couple different ways that we're going at it and then we still do have uh which you may be familiar with from before that workshop model at the middle school so they have Workshop a few days a week and so during Workshop time they can also go back go and

120visit their math teacher if they need additional support during that time as well and then I had a question about ell speaking of push out are there pull out and push-out opportunities for the eso students yes and so depending upon the um level of the student so each ell student is tested annually to determine if they're for a lack of a better term a beginner intermediate or Advanced and depending on that level is the intensity of their program with direct instruction as well as the ability to support them with push and support and so for example at the middle school level each of the levels or each of the grades configurations depending on what we're able to do at the school and the number of students there and and what level those students are at

121they'll receive direct explicit instruction with the teacher but they'll also be supported with push and support by either the teacher or an ESL aide so it's it's both both pull out and um both pull out where this direct instruction is received and push in to support a core content area class any additional questions or comments from the board thank you so much to our secondary uh teachers Dr fetcher I know we still have a budget uh process orientation and we have just two minutes yes thank you absolutely foreign thank you everyone for your patience Dr fetcher can we please proceed with uh this evening's orientation okay are we rolling we're good okay um for our second orientation slightly shorter this evening um at this time I'm going to ask Mr Polo Vittoria our assistant business

122administrator to present the budget process and timeline from the proposed preliminary budget through the final adoption on June 27th thank you so tonight I'll be reviewing the timeline and steps in approving the 2023-2024 final general fund budget act one of of 2006 dictates steps in which the board must take in approving the final general fund budget tonight through a board resolution the board will certify the Sterling Act tax credit on January 10th we will uh at the January 10th meeting enrollment and Staffing will be reviewed at the January 24th meeting estimated revenue and expenditures will be reviewed along with board resolutions to adopt the 2023-2024 proposed preliminary general fund budget and authorized the advertisement of the board's intent to adopt the 2023-2024 preliminary general fund budget at the February 14th meeting please note that the

123figures that will be used in the proposed preliminary general fund budget and the preliminary General from budget are statistical in nature at the February 14th meeting the board through resolutions will adopt the 2023-2024 preliminary general fund budget and authorized the advertisement of the board's intent to submit a referendum exception to pde by March by March 2nd 2023 or submit a referendum question to the County Board of Elections by March 17th at the April 11th meeting the board will be given a budget update on the referendum exception at the May 9th meeting there will be three board resolutions the first resolution the board will adopt the 2023-2024 proposed general fund budget the second resolution will be the board's intent on adopting the 2023-2024 final general fund Budget on June 27th the third resolution will authorize the

124advertisement of notice that the board intends to adopt the 2023-2024 final general fund Budget on June 27th also on May at the May 9th meeting there will be a review of the impact on the Sterling act and gaming property relief Distribution on the 2023-2024 proposed final budget and then on June 27th meeting the board will adopt the 2023-2024 general fund budget the board will also adopt a resolution to implement Homestead exclusions upon notification from pde that that there are sufficient funds in the property tax relief fund additional budget updates for orientation interactions can be scheduled at any board meeting through June 27 2023 thank you any questions or comments from the fellow board members thank you so much for that update uh we will now Dr frederoney just completes our orientations thank you agenda item

125number five comments from citizens comments from citizens are being conducted both in person and by phone the phone number to participate in public comment is 267-715-3717 and is featured on the screen at this time if there's anyone present who would like to make a comment there are mics to the left and to the right of you please be sure to state your name and address will give potential callers a moment Mr let's can you confirm if there are no callers on the line that is confirmed thank you agenda item number seven Dr Kleinman can you please read the recommendation to approve the November meeting minutes I would be happy to it is recommended that the board of school directors approves the minutes of the board meeting on November 7th 2022 and the board meeting on

126November 22nd 2022. do we have a second thank you this is a voice vote all in favor aye aye any opposed eyes have it and so ordered uh Dr klyman can you please read the recommendation for approval of the Personnel addenda yep it is recommended that the board of school directors approves the changes in personnel as reflected in Personnel addendum number 8.1 and confidential Personnel addendum number 8.1 a second we have a second Dr fetcher hey Mr Brown tonight I'm proud to speak about the Personnel addendum as it begins with item number one and a temporary change of status for two of our professional employees um Miss Elizabeth Miller if you could please stand special education teacher at Rydal Elementary School is recommended to become the temporary supervisor of special ed at Copper Beach and

127McKinley Elementary Schools um Mr Pat Watkins if you could please stand second grade teacher at Overlook Elementary School is recommended to become temporary Elementary curriculum specialist at Copper Beach and Rydal Elementary Schools item number two is a request for leaves of absence for five professional employees the personal addendum continues with the hiring of substitutes compensation for professional development parent meetings and open house interpreter and translation services IEP meetings and support Personnel items thank you any questions or comments comment word congratulations please continue to do well and shine in the positions that you hold we appreciate you Dr Kleinman yes we do need to vote this is a roll call vote Miss Flanagan Mr Allen aye Ms Frazier aye Mr K aye Dr Mowry aye Glasser aye Ms faisy aye Dr Kleinman aye Mrs Brown aye

128eyes have an emotion passes Dr kleiman can you please read the recommendation for permits for the use of buildings and grounds sure is recommended the board of school directors approves the applications for permits and use of buildings and grounds as reflected in addendum number 9.1 all permits are subject to change per the provisions of the health and safety plan pertaining to the covid-19 pandemic we have a second Dr fetcher thank you Mr Brown the permanent continues to reflect requests for buildings and grounds for meetings Sports and activities please note the several permits submitted for upcoming winter concerts at Abington Senior High School I bring your attention to permit number 205 which is for the annual Dr Martin Luther King Jr celebration on January 16 2023 at Abington Senior High School also field permit number 66a

129has been submitted for the Montgomery County Recycling household hazardous waste collection on June 24 2023 at Abington Middle School's upper parking lot thank you questions or comments from the board both that event and the approval of the budget are the week of my birthday so they both promised to be very exciting and thrilling events duly noted Miss Flanagan Mr Allen aye Ms Frazier aye Mr K hi hi Dr Mowry aye Mrs Glasser aye it's fazy aye Dr kleiman aye Mrs Brown aye ice have an emotion passes Dr clyman can you please read the recommendation for awards of contracts it is recommended that the board of school directors approves the awards of contracts as reflected in addendum number 10.1 second we have a second doctor fetcher thank you Miss Brown tonight for your consideration we have

130four Awards of contract the first is for our air purify air purifier filters um with our Esther Grant funds um the next is for black box theater projector for Abington Senior High School and this is from a capital projects fund uh Chromebooks from our gen 2023-2024 general fund and website redesign automated communication system and mobile application for a time period of January 1st 2023 through December 31st 2023. thank you questions or comments from the board I said a quick thing about the black box theater I noticed the installation for 8 387 dollars is that uh cost that would have been applied to the other three had we gone with them Mr bergy yep no actually um the cost of the other three is just for the projector itself so ABT was the the cheapest projector

131plus installation was still you know only a little bit more um than the that's why it's showing that the uh more because it's just for the projector for the other three ones yeah but I was wondering thank you any other questions Mrs Flanagan Mr Allen aye Ms frager aye Mr K aye Dr Mowry aye Mrs dashler aye Ms Facey aye Dr clyman aye Mrs Brown I I have an Emulsion passes Dr Clemen can you please read the recommendation for Budget transfers it's recommended that the board of school directors approves the transfers within the district's 2021-2022 budget as reflected in addendum number 11.1 and authorizes the administration to present transfers in the future when required second we have a second Dr fetcher Mr lionetti would you please do the same item budget transfers are required by

132the school code and by the Attorney General's office senior auditor General's office and um this reflects the year-end 21-22 adjustments to your budget to meet the needs of the various budget items that were overspent based on the planning and this is where we transfer funds from where we underspend so that we can cover those costs and have a budget where in the end no budget expenditure exceeds the authorized budget the resolution also authorize us to bring budget transfers for this budget year in the future which may be necessary once our audit team finishes its annual audit which is still in the completion phase hopefully by the end of December this represents a very small portion of your budget at 0.25 percent of budget so it's a very small budget transfer and reflects well on the

133budget as it stands prior to this action if there are any questions I'd be happy to answer them thank you questions or comments from the board Mrs Flanagan Mr Allen hi Ms Frazier aye Mr K aye Dr Mowry aye Mrs Glasser aye Ms baisy aye Dr clyman aye Mrs Brown I I have an emotion passes Dr klyman can you please read the recommendation for designation of depositories it's recommended that the board of school directors authorizes the following depositories for school district funds contingent on the maintenance of adequate collateral Securities as required by law TD Bank n a Pennsylvania local government Investment Trust plgit Pennsylvania treasuries invest program for local governments truest Financial Corporation formerly BB T U.S bank Wells Fargo n a Wilmington Savings fund Society WSFS formerly Bryn Mawr Trust second we have a

134second Dr fetcher Mr lionhead we please review the depositories each year we're required to designate the deposit towards the school district all the major funds that the board controls are at TD Bank and a which includes our general fund our capital projects funds our bond funds our payroll fund our food service fund and several of the school's activity funds such as Highland Overlook ride or Willow Hill or middle school and Senior High Schools you will recall that on this list the second item Pennsylvania local government Investment Trust that is where we invested the bond proceeds from the 2017 a where I believe we still have about four million dollars which are dedicated to that Pro paying the paying out the end of that project some of these depositories there are no monies in them at

135this time they're there for potential investing if the need were to arise or the desire to go with them so not every bank has a deposit or funds with them at this time and you can see it reflects name changes in particular with truest which used to be bb and t thank you questions or comments from the board I just have a quick question for those accounts currently without funds in them does the district pay the bank to keep those con okay we do not have an active account okay therefore I have no deposits if we find that there's a need we have your authorization to open the account okay all right great thank you thank you any other questions Mrs Flanagan Mr Allen aye Ms Frazier aye Mr K aye Dr Mowry aye Mrs

136Glasser hi this is busy hi Dr kleiman aye Mrs Brown I as have an emotion passes Dr kleiman can you please read the recommendation for certification of Sterling Act tax credits yes uh there's a lot of numbers here so bear with me uh I am not you know as good at math as you are President Brown uh it's recommended that the board of school directors authorizes the administration to submit the certification of Sterling Act tax credit for calendar year 2021 at a wage amount of 459 million 987 675.79 and a sterling act credit of 2 299 938 and 38 cents to the Pennsylvania Department of Education we have a second Dr Fletcher impressive um I'm going to ask that Mr Victoria if you could please review the this item so act one of 2006 the

137taxpayer Relief act dictates actions that both the budget process and the collection of real estate tax this resolution authorizes the administration to submit the amount of the Sterling Act tax credit to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for your certification the document certifies that to pde that the tax credit for the calendar year 2021 was 459 million 987 675.79 for Sterling Act tax credit of 2 million 938.38 last year the wage amount was four hundred and seventy one thousand six hundred and ninety seven dollars excuse me 471 million 697 184.49 and the credit was two million three hundred and fifty thousand four hundred and eighty five dollars and ninety two cents this year's figures reflect a decrease when compared to last year this tax relief is provided to the taxpayers of Abington and Rockledge in Return

138of earned income taxes that did not get collected from Abington School District residents who worked in Philadelphia thank you questions or comments from the board Mrs Flanagan hi hi Dr Mowry aye Mrs Lazar aye aye Dr clyman aye Mrs Brown I I have an emotion passes Dr kleiman can you please read the recommendation for the confidential student matter it's recommended that the board of school directors approves the confidential student matters as reflected in addendum number 14.1 second we have a second Dr fetcher thank you Mr Brown uh keeping in mind confidentiality of student manners I think I can answer any questions that you may have thank you questions from the board is playing again Mr Alan aye aye Mr K aye Dr Mowry aye Mrs Lasser aye Ms faisy aye Dr kleiman aye Mr Brown

139I I have an emotion passes Dr climbing can you please read the recommendation for instructional materials adoption it's recommended that the board of school directors in accordance with sections 508 and 803 of the Pennsylvania school code adopt new textbooks and or instructional programs for the subjects courses and levels reflected in addendum number 15.1 second we have a second Dr Fletcher thank you Mr Brown the department of special education is recommending the adoption of the book taking care of myself for teachers to use to address self-care skills for our students with complex needs questions or comments from the board can you just speak to the process who was included in this does it go through our regular checks and balances of making sure that it has what we need for all students to access and benefit

140from it yes it's considered a very small scale adoption so it doesn't go through a large-scale adoption um a year in advance like we usually do for large-scale adoptions and we have otpt special education supervisors and our speech and language teachers reviewed this content and we're collecting data from our classrooms on the need of students so it is successful to all students and it's a very direct book for teachers to utilize to give social stories to students who are pretty much non-verbal in dealing with puberty and Adolescence and the things that come with that thank you very much any questions or comments from the board Mrs Flanagan aye Ms Frazier aye Mr K I Dr Mary aye Mrs Glasser aye aye Dr Kleinman aye Mrs Brown I I have an emotion passes Dr fetcher any

141additional reports for this evening oh yes I provide for you the conference attendance of professional leaves report in a Capital Improvements project report thank you anything to be brought about from my fellow board members okay comments from citizens is agenda item number 18 comments from citizens are being conducted both in person and by phone the phone number for public comment is 267-715-3717 you may call in from your landline phone or your mobile phone there are mics to the left and to the right for anyone who's in the building you would like to make a comment we'll give our viewers at home a moment to call in if they so please thank you foreign no callers on the line that is confirmed thank you we will conclude with closing comments from my fellow school board members

142Mr Allen nothing thank you Miss Frazier nothing thank you Mr K Dr Mowry um I just want to wish everyone a restful and restorative break and we'll look forward to seeing everyone in January thank you Happy New Year yes Miss Glasser Miss faisy nothing at this time Dr clyman thank you Dr fetcher nothing at this time okay happy Hanukkah happy Kwanzaa merry Christmas happy New Year if I've forgotten everything anything else charge it to my head heart head and not my heart good night this meeting is adjourned