Special Meeting: Charter School Public Hearing / Equity in Student Achievement COW

001good evening everybody my name is Van white and on behalf of the Board of Education I'm here tonight to conduct this special hearing I'm joined by Commissioners Clark and Commissioners Adams welcome gentlemen we are glad that you uh we we are three of us and the rest of our colleagues who could not be president are glad that you are here tonight or at least watching via Zoom uh every once in a while we are required by law and by the commissioner's regulations to conduct what are called public hearings uh whenever we get or within 30 days of receiving an application from a charter school that wishes to revise his Charter or a applicant who wishes to create a charter school and so uh that's why we're here tonight there is um a charter school called

002the um uh I'm just going to make sure I got it right Genesee Community Charter School The Flower City Campus they have submitted such an application and again consistent with um I'm sorry I'm getting these text messages don't text me folks while I'm trying to read my script um consistent with that law those laws and the regulations we are conducting this a public hearing now the Genesee Charter School Flower City Campus intends or proposes to operate within the city of Roger limits uh this hearing as I indicated has been is is a time set aside so that we could gather information and provide that to the state of New York's education department now for those who don't know it um the board of education has no say in whether a charter school will exist or

003not this role that we are performing tonight is merely as they say perfunctory meaning basically it's just a process that we have to offer so that people who want to offer input on this new proposed charter school is available it's for people to offer up comments the Genesee uh Community Charter School Flower City Campus proposes to open in the fall of 2022 with 90 students K through two now by year five they proposed to increase their student population to 210 students K through six so at this particular time commissioner Adams and commissioner Clark and I will uh listen to any comments that anybody has regarding this flowers this um Genesee Community Charter School Flower City Campus if you have commentary we're open to hear it right now Madam clerk do you see anybody no uh

004President White there haven't been any speakers who signed up to um speak regarding the charter schools this evening so that means that uh unless there's some commentary from one of my colleagues that this hearing is going to come to a close um we thank you all if you are watching if anybody is watching we thank you all for attending and we'll see you at 5 30 is that right Madame Claire or six that is correct but it does look like commissioner Adams does have a comment oh commissioner Adams yep actually it's a question I was just wondering is there some kind of way we know who approved them was it Sunni or the regions that's a good question they haven't been approved yet but I don't if your questions who did they apply through that

005is a good question because yeah as you know but maybe other folks don't know there's two ways to become a charter school you can apply through State education department or through SUNY Central and uh I don't I don't know Kyle Madam clerk do you know I don't know who they applied through but I do know that um nicet is who would approve them um who approved them that the New York State's education department that's how we get notified oh okay I see um but and then some will correctly wrong but at this particular point it is just an application they have they've not been approved yet they've not been approved to this point no not I don't know what the process is but it's it's pretty lengthy it's the lengthy process yes they are actually

006a functioning charter school right now it's just um they are expanding their offerings to The Flower City that's right so thanks for reminding me about that so this is a a request to revise their their Charter is there Charter uh not in the city is that why they're calling it Flower City Campus or no um it's in the city it's within us within our district so that's why we have to we have to consider it okay um commissioner do you have any other questions that's it all right um I'm then therefore going to adjourn this public hearing thank you gentlemen for attending and I will see everybody else at 5 30. that's where it is prayer how about that good evening everybody today is March the 9th 2020 it is now 5 33 on behalf

007of the Board of Education good evening and I emphasize the word good um we're happy that you all could join us tonight uh this is a special meeting of the Board of Education it's not our typical business meeting where we cover a lot of resolutions and cover a lot of issues this particular meeting is pretty much dedicated to the Excellence and student achievement committee uh which is chaired by our vice president Cynthia Elliott but there's a couple things we have to take uh we have to take care of first which is calling me to order which I've done um also we also have a dedicated in all of our meetings time for citizens to speak the board of education is always interested in hearing your concerns your comments and we reserve time at the beginning

008of every meeting emphasizing the importance and the priority which we place those comments now I got to tell you you're not going to see us respond to these comments that's just not what we do we reserve this time for you to speak we don't want to engage in debate or argument with you you make your point you express your concern and that's where it will lie I should tell you that just because no one responds doesn't mean that we're not concerned the superintendent and her staff have people taking notes quite frequently and regularly we as Board of Education members are communicating via our cell phones asking the superintendent to make sure that particular issues that are brought up by citizens are taken care of but again I want to emphasize on behalf of Board of

009Education just because we don't respond to what you say doesn't mean we're not concerned or there won't be foul so without further Ado Madam clerk I believe we have one speaker is that right that is correct we have one speaker for uh for tonight Jaden Abrams is a Community member and is in the room with us now we'll be speaking about lgbtq practices welcome Jayden thank you good evening board members my name is Jaden Abrams and I'm a Rochester Community member I'm here to address a topic that came up in last Tuesday's board meeting regarding gender neutral bathrooms frankly I was shocked angry and upset at how this discussion was handled last week transphobic remarks are being made by one commissioner while the rest of the board remained silent and did nothing remaining silent is

010just as troubling as the person making these remarks under Title IX and the dignity for all students act all students are legally able to use any bathroom that matches their gender identity furthermore Governor Cuomo stand the assembly bill a5240a into law making all students making all single occupancy bathrooms located in public spaces including schools restaurants bars and other establishments gender neutral as such gender-neutral bathrooms should never have been brought up to a vote in the first place it is my opinion that all school buildings have gender neutral bathrooms regardless that's just being a good Ally having gender neutral or all gender bathrooms provide safety to everyone who uses them not just the transgender and gender non-conforming community the board should be and needs to be promoting a quality equity and inclusivity and this includes the

011lgbtq plus community being a member of the lgbtq plus Community myself it was clear to me that some of you were uncomfortable even broaching this discussion and that's a huge disservice to our students you the board need training on how to be a good Ally what that means and what the law states is the minimum requirement on how to do that we need to provide an environment where both students and staff can feel safe in schools and this is one important way that you can do that be a better Ally educate yourselves have professional development surrounding lgbtq plus identities and issues and then hold each other accountable yes I know the motion passed but it should have never been brought up to a debate or vote in the first place thank you thank you thank

012you Jaden Madam clerk I understand there was one written comment and that will be submitted to the entire Board of Education as well as the superintendent is that right that is correct we had one written comment from Azaria muzan a student regarding class schedules and that was submitted to record and is now available on the board website well the district's website on the board tab if anyone would like to also read that from the public thank you again we encourage all members of the community to speak to their mind that's what this time is set aside for and uh again I want to caution folks don't reach any conclusions by our failure to respond this evening next on our agenda is a special meeting discussion items we'll begin with uh our chair of our finance

013committee commissioner LeBron who will bring us up to date and remind us of our budget webinar webinar which is scheduled for March the 11th 2021 commissioner LeBron yep thank you um so yes as a reminder we have our budget webinar this week on Thursday and I believe we are starting at five o'clock um so we will be presenting just an overview of what to expect and what you as a community in the budget book and also some of the changes that are taking place um as we are legally obligated to incorporate Dr jallow this year which I welcome her but it will be some important updates around Dr jallow's role in our budget process um and so you'll learn more about that it will be live streamed and we will be taking questions from both

014YouTube and Facebook's live stream as well so if you have not had a chance to submit questions which you can submit up until I think 12 o'clock that day Kalia is that the cut off 12 o'clock Thursday yes so um if you would like to submit questions um to the Google Doc um that can that will be taken in uh those will be accepted until noon but you may also ask questions live on our Facebook stream and our YouTube Stream So for those who don't get those questions in by noon if you're listening and you something comes up you can you can also uh send those into the chat and they'll be taken in the order that they received to the extent that we're able to do so within the time allotted thank you and

015so you hear from myself our CFO um Dr Leslie Meyer Smalls as well as Dr um jallow thank you that's it thank you commissioner LeBron next we have um commissioner Powell who's going to give us an update unfortunate but in a way fortunate update regarding one of our parent uh reps in one of our committees Willa perhaps you can explain why I said fortunate and unfortunate if you know what I mean well uh fiorino [Music] we know he recently had an addition to his family so I'm guessing that he's found that that a newborn in the household is making attendance at our policy committee meetings bit onerous um and has notified us that he's withdrawing from his role as the parent rep to policy committee so we're opening up the uh we're opening up the

016committee to a new parent rep um uh Kalia will explain um how one goes about submitting their name but before she does that um I have [Music] um I'll share that we do we're we're very active committee now we uh the the parent rep would meet with staff twice a month every other every other Wednesday as we go through some the policy reviews and then there's the policy committee that meets monthly on uh one of the Tuesday meetings and so the parent rep would be perhaps a bit busier on in the policy committee than in some of the other committees on the board so um if Kalia could explain our um our application process and then I have one more thing to to bring up sure so for those parents or grandparents uh Guardians if

017you're interested in becoming a parent representative to the board coming to you on your screen I'm I've gone to the rcsdk12.org website if you click on the tab that says Board of Education you can scroll down and select the tab my parent representative to a board committee once you get there you'll be able to find out some more information about all of our committees who can serve how to apply and um the application that is currently on there will be updated it is still um because we just found that information out today we will be sure to uh let you all know but you can submit your application even as is with the dates that are on there right now we're just going to make sure that those are uh updated right now we will

018be adding policy because that committee is um also receiving applications just to let people know there is um the human resources committee is also accepting applications and the audit committee is also accepting applications but this is where you would go and you can download the form it's also available in Spanish um if you would like to access that okay and all of our commit to use are listed with descriptions on on those if you're interested um in finding more information about all of the board committees thank you Kalia uh now the other thing that came up over the weekend I was reviewing uh some of our policies and I discovered a an error in one of our policies and I and um it's um could be described as a typo um so I want to

019get clear guidance from the board how we want to manage um fixing those sorts of things um we could for when Once the board has passed a policy Amendment I go through and make sure that the formatting the notes the the resolution date and everything has been applied to the to the policy and I don't I don't think I've already kind of come to the conclusion that I don't need the board's permission to do that but in this particular case there's a effectual error in one of the policies that's easily corrected so the question I bring to you is um does the board want to see the whole policy and discuss it during the policy committee or um does the does the board want to treat this the same way as formatting issues and we

020can either discuss it now or I just put that question out there and we'll discuss it in depth at the next policy committee it it's a it's your your choice um President White since it wasn't on the agenda today well it depends on how much if there's any debate about it so let's see what folks have to say because rather than putting on an agenda and time tie up time maybe we can dispense with the issue today anybody uh well first of all commissioner Paul I want to be clear what's your what's your recommendation well I had already I had already thought to raise this question in the policy committee next month um in the let me let me be more specific in this case policy 2300 our bylaws at some point a new section

021had been inserted and in the subsequent section the last paragraph refers to um section um it says uh section 9 can be waived with a two-third vote of the of the board but it clearly intended to be referencing section 10 because section 9 simply points to the version of the Roberts Rules book that we use so it's a technical error that came about probably when a new section was inserted into the policy um so it kind of could qualify as a typo but I want to be clear because this kind of Correction is something that may come up again and I want to know how to handle them as a matter as a standard well you know I I don't I don't know if there's any implications for that um of this discussion for our

022general counsel you know what what are the rules regarding making changes or addressing you know errors um so I tell you what Steve rather than put you on the spot unless you don't mind commissioner Powell I think it probably is better to handle it because I can see that well I think it might be easy to resolve there might be some issues that people might want to think about including whether whether you can make such changes and how you should make them consistent with our bylaws and Robert's Rules of Order so while my initial in connection was let's see if we can get it resolved today maybe it's probably better to solicit the opinion of our um our general counsel have you talked to him and then put it on the agenda does anybody have

023any objection to that specifically you commissioner product you have any objection to just putting it on your agenda and giving Steve some time to operate input that was my initial approach but um having the floor I thought I would sort of prep the field and give people a chance to think about what the ask is going to be when the policy committee meets I see commissioner Clark and commissioner Adams have their hand raised commissioner Clark yes um I feel that the entire policy needs to be brought back before the committee because you can actually change the context of a policy or the meaning of policy but changing one word and uh you know not that it would happen now but in the future to make sure that our policies are sound moving into the future

024uh when especially when none of us are here I think having the entire Committee of the whole review that change would be the right thing to do thank you commissioner Clark commissioner Adams so so my comment is that um in this particular incident I don't see an issue but you asked about moving forward and moving forward I think you didn't take up but two minutes of our time today and I'd rather see you take up those two minutes of our time than to just pretty much have a green light on changing policy that's just where I'm at with that and anybody else want to be heard I'm looking at the screen participant screen I don't see oops uh oh commissioner Adams that's an old hand all right um well it sounds as if uh that

025we'll put this back in your hands commissioner Powell as you had originally intended and and it'll come before the policy committee the full board obviously and we'll revisit the issue then thank you yep thank you all right next item on the agenda is consideration of resolutions we only have one resolution up for today uh ladies and gentlemen and that is resolution 693 for those of you unlike my colleagues that do not have to pack it this resolution relates to the superintendent's recommendation to consolidate a number of Standalone programs and that's all the detail I'll provide because my colleagues have had the written material for a minute and so they understand the proposal so is there a motion yes ma'am uh I I believe that um Deputy superintendent Morris has a has a little bit of

026information provide before um Dr Morris do you need to share this screen I think you have co-hosting availabilities right now before before we do that let's get it on the floor first okay I gotta all right thank you um can I get a motion uh to advance for discussion resolution 693 I heard commissioner Clark is there a second second thank you commissioner Powell um Deputy superintendent uh our clerk says that you have something to offer on this particular resolution the floor is yours thank you good evening Commissioners and thank you for the opportunity to speak I just wanted to share with you um a couple of slides to just overview and outline what the resolution is requesting and then if you have any questions I will answer them so I'm just going to hit share

027all right so um I just wanted to provide that General overview very quickly briefly about what the proposal is that's being discussed in this resolution it's relating to um a proposal that we would like to put forward in front of the board and ask for a resolution to move forward to the State education department approving a consolidation of our programs all of our decisions that we have um collected and presented to you as the Board of Education are in alignment with our strategic plan and in this regard we are trying to ensure that we are in alignment with engagement of providing a high quality learning experience for our students so our proposal this evening in the resolution is to consolidate a few of our Standalone programs under one beds code and currently we have several

028stand-alone programs that are in various buildings and in various statuses across the district these programs are affiliated with the titles of all City Ria Home Hospital New Beginnings and North Star and currently they are located around the district the current span of grades that we have under these programs is currently nine through I mean seven through twelve and the current way that we enroll these students is to have a dual enrollment for these students in their home school but they participate in programs in in a different location so what we would like to do and we are proposing today for this resolution is asking the board to approve the approach of having all of these stand-alone programs Consolidated under one uh one beds code this would create an opportunity for our students that are in

029programs they would be enrolled in the school that their program is affiliated with this does not mean we will eliminate completely any opportunity for dual enrollment where appropriate however the majority of the students that are in these programs will be enrolled at the beds code that is affiliated with the program for these these um for this school the other advantage of providing this consolidation under a standalone's beds code is to also have something called a transfer High School designation affiliated with the school and this allows us to be able the New York State education department directly to Ask for accountability determinations and decisions on um performance annually in alignment with the expectations of accountability and lastly um this plan for both the high school curriculum and for the elementary and the academic programs because these

030students will still be enrolled and affiliated with their current classes there will be no change in their teachers or the program itself and we do not anticipate any budgetary change as a result so um thank you very much and I will stop sharing and I will take any questions okay I'm looking at the participant screen I have to oversee um the um the there will be a reduction in um in finances can you explain it for me please doctor absolutely absolutely and that's a great question we made sure to confirm with the New York State education department that you can um ask for and designate multiple administrators for a building so you do not have to have for example just one principle so there are multiple um administrators that are currently affiliated with these Standalone

031programs and they can remain in those roles supporting those programs moving forward so there will be no change in the administrative teams that are at these uh programs additionally the classes and um the enrollment at the buildings will not change as a result of this move so there will be no change in the classes that are occur currently offered or the teaching staff that are affiliated with those classes so we don't anticipate any changes in that regard so the only thing is that there's just it will have its own those schools those programs will have their own beds code once bed's code that's the only change all right thank you you're welcome commissioner Powell yeah if you could throw that PowerPoint up on the last page you use the acronym I am in a couple

032of places on that page could you just um explain what that acronym is for so that I can put the verbiage in context absolutely that is referring to Independent monitor oh I see okay now it's something that we've got ingrained in our heads yet but okay thank you you're welcome I'll stop sharing again commissioner LeBron yeah I just have a few questions about impact around this um so one I wanted to understand if programs would still maintain their autonomy even though they're having one beds code um do you want me to give you all the questions and you answer you want me to give you one by one I don't want to make it easier if you give me each one and then I can answer them unless they're peripherally related and then you can

033Cascade them okay no we'll start there autonomy sorry about the autonomy for schools and well they have that in writing as well yes actually um that's a great set of questions um yes our intent is that they will maintain their autonomy as schools mes programs they will be able to continue to operate the way they always have which are autonomous programs and we are already in discussions with each one of the programs about codifying what it is that makes their program unique and this way we're making sure that we put in writing what are the things that are most important for us to make sure is sustained in this transition as we moved to have the Spence code affiliated with the program okay is there a way for us to once that is finalized as

034a board get a copy um like some of my schools are programs are listed in this so I want to make sure that they have that autonomy and that we're also supporting them in this um and then I just also had a question around like the impact um so I think this is one of the questions when we first started having discussions around this I know that it was mentioned that there's no fiscal impact to it but if you can just explain I guess to the public and Community why we would do something like this um and what impact that would have um for the district either positive or negative that'd be great absolutely so um thank you again for that question that's a very good question um so what we are um hoping that

035as this creation of this present um this feds code and affiliation of these programs are to alleviate a reporting um quandary that we have so right now we have students that are dually enrolled as as demonstrated in that diagram what this will alleviate is a student who is enrolled in all city and receiving programming in All City for example but they're actually their enrollment counts for another High School in the district so technically um the student is being counted in that example and the denominator of the school that they are not actually attending on a regular basis what we can do however is still make sure that we support support students who have dual enrollment needs but there may be students who have sustained periods of enrollment in a program and then they are still

036enrolled in the denominator of a school that they're no longer attending the the anticipation is that it will help the graduation rate for all of the schools and for the beds code that we are creating because the schools that no longer have these students who have sustained periods of enrollment in these programs they will not count in their denominator and therefore their graduation rate will be derived with the students that are actually actively enrolled for the sustained periods of time in their building and then in this case for this new beds code if there's any impact on the accountability performance of this school and their students they as they have the transfer High School action they can also petition New York State education directly and commissioner the commissioner can receive a petition from them directly

037where they can demonstrate their ability to make progress that might be outside of the accountability system right now so for example if they don't meet a particular indicator if they were a regular Comprehensive High School they may have a negative accountability that might happen this won't happen potentially because they have this protection of a transfer high school affiliated with that new beds code so it could be a positive for the schools that would no longer have students who are not sustained enrolled in their schools and then this new bets code those students they would also have the additional opportunity to have petitions filed to make sure that they have all of their accountability performance can considered for any accountability decisions made for the new school okay so I have two more questions um just based

038off what you just said as well wouldn't that also have potentially a negative impact so I'll I'll give an example of all city is one of my programs um and I know that you know the principal their Mando does incredible work trying to get our students to the finish line and giving them the support but they're not technically a full service on high school but then there's another program that's also one of my programs where I have not seen High graduation rates coming out of that program even though that school because of the dual enrollment I have understood that it impacts the school that the student was originally linked with positive or negative whether they graduated don't the impact happens at that school if they're all under the same beds code wouldn't that have an

039impact on a school like all City who has a higher graduation rate than potentially one of the other programs that doesn't have a higher graduation rate wouldn't there be an impact there in a negative way not necessarily so the graduation rate is determined by having a fraction expressed so there's the denominator and then there's the numerator what happens by us making this adjustment is their denominator at the outgoing School the school where they transfer from will go down and if the numerator stays um with the reflection of how many students graduated that year technically the rate would go up so it actually should have a positive impact so um Janelle can I just absolutely for clarity so yes I understand it's going to have a positive impact on the schools that we're removing the bed

040codes and the tie to but if we're putting all of them under this one bed codes and there are programs on this resolution that do have some struggle with graduation but all city is not one of those they're all going to be under the same umbrella or same beds codes I would imagine that because now we are you know all cities graduation rate in my opinion has always had a positive impact on all of the schools they're affiliated with even though all city did the work and graduated student so now we're putting them all into this one beds codes but there are programs that do struggle with graduation um and you know I guess for me I would like to see what are we going to do about those programs to make sure that they're

041also uplifting and graduating students but I do worry that this could potentially have a negative impact on the work that's happening at all city with their graduation rates because they're going to be all under this one vets codes correct so they will all be under the same beds code but the other program that I believe we're referring to is part of the reason why they would be eligible for the transfer High School status in the first place because of the unique um program and the unique offerings that that program has for their students and so because they're eligible for this transfer High School status we want to use that as a way to petition to show performance of those students which normally are not accounted for in the accountability system so right now they are

042not counted positively in some cases in the um Affiliated school that they are with in this scenario we hope that the print the transfer High School protection will allow for us to have that opportunity to demonstrate their program progress and also to Target that support it'll be a lot easier for us to target support and program Improvement when we can actually isolate and determine the performance of the school and the students so by having them all Affiliated under what boy and beds code we'll be able to pull out specific programs and we'll be able to Target and support that program right now the way it is dispersed it's very difficult to Target specifically how is one program performing in contrast to another so this way we'll have them there it'll be much easier for us

043to pull it out and it'll be much easier for us to say here's some programmatic adjustments or support that we can attribute to this particular program because the students are struggling or they need additional support here versus the current structure where the students are dispersed all across the district and that information is difficult to derive or take action on okay and then just finally I just want to understand that the program administrators have also been involved in this and have an understanding and are supportive of it because if they're not we'll hear about it especially board members who have programs with these um and relationships with the administrators so I just want to be I just want to act that on record of course yes um I I visited um the programs I met with

044the principals I took several emails and calls and so I said you know and I was visiting them as recently as yesterday just saying are you sure you have no more questions just make sure you let me know but I've also emphasized to them as well that this is something that we want to have ongoing feedback about so if it's not working um as as we have put in front of you a resolution to create this we need to use that feedback to ensure that it is working and it is successful for the district so that is the commitment that I have made to those programs and the administrators there I've asked for their feedback as we make this move and as I said we're going to codify a lot of the important pieces of

045the program so we'll make sure that's not lost moving forward as well all right thank you and Janelle I know like this is uh well thank you for leading tonight as well but just know I have a good memory and I always pull up receipts which is why I like things on record thank you absolutely commissioner job I mean um independent monitor jallo good evening um just a question and a comment um a question as to how long what's the timeline for you for use it for the district submitting their application to do this and getting approval and getting this started right um I think that's important for the board to know um because you still need SCD approval if in fact you're going to pursue this so that's the question and the statement as

046it relates to the plan um um I'm not for or against uh what you're suggesting but what the plan is really speaking to is improving instructional programming improving instructional programs so it improves academic outcomes for students so I want to be clear if this does that then you have the support but the way it was originally described it just it didn't speak to the instructional programming Parts I hope that at some point we can talk to that because I know that it is a part of it as well but for now just a question back to the question as to how long what's the timeline you think the board should expect for this to take place and be approved and then be implemented okay thank you for that question so the typical process is for

047districts to submit any changes in school registration to the New York State education department by March we plan to if the resolution is approved tonight uh the executive director of accountability is on the call she'll be given that resolution and her team is ready to send that forward to the New York State education department before the end of the week so that they will have that for Action typically this resolution in this process will go in front of the Board of Regents at the State education department in their June Board of Regents meeting and then hopefully it will be reviewed and it will be approved at that level if it's approved here so that we can then Implement that change in our student information systems and within the district for action for this upcoming School

048earlier let's see if there are any other questions or comments I don't see any um I would only remark that um I think this is a excellent effort to consolidate programs to bring an intense focus on providing support to those programs for children that do need uh an extra push uh an extra shove an extra hug that I know that the schools that many of these students had previously belonged to um tried to do that but doing it at a distance was was very difficult and I know there were principles that sometimes felt frustrated that they had to um take responsibility for students that they did not have the opportunity to provide the instructional guidance and and I can tell you on the reverse side many of the leaders of these buildings of these programs

049felt frustrated that they were able to successfully get across students across the stage but we're not given a appropriate credit if you will for the work that they had done so sometimes you would see multiple graduations and I've seen that over the years um so I I I I applaud the administration for bringing some consolidation I would call it Greater ownership of these programs Under One Roof beds code so to speak I think that's very positive I also would note that um and I think our Deputy superintendent has shared this with me and I think other people have as well other districts have been doing this and um I I just want my colleagues and the public to know that the increases that we have seen in our grad uating again one before covet became

050an issue and waving some Regency exams um and is when state senator noted it's the highest it's been and I think it's actually 20 years that we earned our increases in our graduation rate the hard way other districts have been very creative and very informed on what you can do to increase your graduation rate and and and the good news is this Administration will continue to earn the steady increase in our graduation rate and again I predict that this year we will ellipse 70 percent this year but in addition to doing it the hard way which is what we've been doing over the last 10 or so years we are also have a better understanding with this new Administration is how you can improve your results by utilizing the structures and opportunities that the state

051gives you I'll give you one other example this is one example of it but the Consortium School model it is unconscionable and in my mind unacceptable that New York City which of course not so coincidentally has some of the highest graduation rates in the state of New York has the most by far the most Consortium schools now contortion schools are no walk in the park you have to really work hard to get your diploma but you don't have to have all the Regents exam requirements in New York City I think there's probably two or three outside of New York City but all the Consortium schools which are licensed by State Education Department New York City has most of them and trust me that is a significant not the only part but that is a significant

052part of why their graduation rate has been historically so high so I I applaud the administration for understanding the importance of uh making sure that our what we teach our children is provided in a rigorous and a relevant way and that's how you earn the steady increases in the graduation rate but also taking full advantage of what the state has to offer in terms of creative ways to provide solid instruction to students and yet get them our children across to finish the rest of the state has been doing for years vice president Elliot did you have your hand raised no I want to start my meeting so I put my hand down oh okay all right well um I don't see any other hands being raised and so the time is I see you smile

053and vice president I like the time is now 6 15. Madam clerk where are we in terms of the agenda are we on schedule the esa meeting was was to start at 5 55. oh all right well the gavel is yours you got to take a vote oh yes that's right all right we have resolution 693 in front of uh our colleagues are there any other questions or comments better not be because vice president Elliott will not be happy um that we are foot putting her further behind uh there being no further questions or comments all those in favor resolution 693 indicate by saying I please make sure your video cameras are on aye any opposition seems that the eyes have it uh in resolution 693 has passed thank you uh please communicate our thanks

054to the entire team that put this initiative together and we look forward to additional details on it without further Ado vice president Elliot the gavel is yours thank you Mr President um thank you um Cali let me just ask if you are letting in our parent rep she's been there for a while and a little um impatient a little because we've been talking a while so uh if we can let her in I'd appreciate that she's all set all right welcome Miss Kling scale how are you this evening she didn't hear me hey yo a little perturbed I've been waiting for quite a while yeah so what was the meeting about um this was in regards to um the um uh search for parent reps budget rep budget webinar and a resolution consideration so there

055was discussion on the resolution consideration but our agenda um is with student attendance special education summer school Ela and reading curriculum and Mathematics um there'll be there'll be some presentations tonight and discussion around that um Madam vice president just a technical question uh people can't tune in no she was she was waiting Cal you can speak more to that visitors to or or attendees to our ESA meeting can can tune in and watch the meeting via or streams but we generally wait until it's time for that section of the meeting before we let let in so also we had another presenter as well that we let in um to allow for deliberation over special meeting items so I I know I'm here to speak for parents so as a parent I was a bit frustrated

056that you know I waited 30 minutes to actually enter into the meeting especially in light of you were talking about the parents liaison program which is which reached out directly to us as parents so I think that if we're gonna be a a conclusive community you need to have that parent input I mean I'm only one person but I know I speak for thousands um and when you're talking about things that's dealing with parents I to me I think it would have been imperative to have me definitely in that portion of it um because I deal with parents every day not only am I a pen rep I also have an agency that deal with kids that are in the covet uh uh uh situation we have a corporate learning lab this particular thing to

057me every day yeah this particular discussion had to do with placement of parents on committees so there were a couple of committees that were vacant and so they wanted to announce those vacancies and to see if people will be interested in I think the policy committee maybe there was one other committee that we are looking now trying to identify um parent representation so that was the discussion around there right and then the other thing um because I am also in contact with school you have a school right now who's have a parent liaison that's not even in place um I mean and I've been thinking about this because if we're going to connect our kids we need to connect to the parents and you know I've been working with the city school district for quite

058a while and my other agency which is in control and that has always been a weak point and I think in covert times apparent Liaisons are are like they call our nurses and our doctors they're our Frontline workers so for me I'm just kind of like because I deal with parents every day most of these fans have never heard from their schools and then when I think about because I have seventh graders in our program those six and seventh graders that transition from elementary to Middle School no contact so I think those are one of the things that you know in this pan liaison announcements that need to be addressed because so Dr Morris are you uh are you hearing what uh Miss clean scale is saying can you take that I don't know if

059that falls under your leadership or doctor um Davis um I'm not sure but and I'm not sure if she's on I don't hear what she's just said yes I will make sure that we pass this along to the appropriate um staff so that they can follow up okay all right thank you very much so um we'll get to the agenda and I'd like to make a um ask that the admit the agenda is amended because what I'd like to have included on here um as a standard um item is the um the the state monitors um academic plan uh there are a couple of um item findings that that she has um provided us that I'd like to make sure that the board is um is is having some oversight on this so um I'm

060interested in us discussing and not in a lot of detail because I have not really talked with the district uh about um these um these findings but there should you you all should be able to just to give me you know a couple of seconds about where we are with these findings and so uh I'm gonna ask that we uh amend the agenda to include uh a um State monitor academic plan a section and that um the findings one through five that we have some just you know General conversation about where we are right now so can I um ask for a uh emotion a motion and can I get a second for that action all in favor I'm all right thank you so we will we will um put that um right before um

061the um a student attendance presentation and it won't I'm sure it won't take long at least that's what I believe it's not going to take long um so we will get started with a review and acceptance of the minutes from the February 9th um Esa meeting um and I I'm not supposed to take the minutes for the uh or ask for a motion for the cigr uh media am I of Kalia yes they're combined minutes because they're combined for the day so okay yeah all right so can I get a motion for um accepting the minutes second um thank you all in favor all right thank you thank you uh the next item on the agenda is student attendance and that will be uh Betsy Hopper Betsy good afternoon let me share my screen please

062oh I need to be able to share my screen then I go to the wrong thing excuse me Betsy let me um let me go back I'm sorry I just admitted the minutes and uh the first item is the um um the the uh academic plan so let me just ask a couple questions about uh where are we in terms of uh finding number one that talks about the outdated textbooks where are we with getting updated um textbooks I'll give that to you Dr Morris or is that uh Dr Davis's leadership so uh Dr Black can actually speak okay because that's something she's been working on actively I'm not sure how much of this information she would have immediately in front of you or in front of her but she can speak too no all

063I need are we ordering have the books been ordered or we ordered them you know just in the in the pipeline some other questions so we are making good evening everyone we're making progress on textbooks some science and social studies books have been both ordered and been received in addition to some science materials that'll be out for pilot from middle school we currently have our K5 Ela textbooks and we are under review for the remainder of our content areas I'm currently updating our textbook adoption calendar so what's the copyright date for these textbooks that we're that have been ordered um it's variable but everything is current which is why we're being very deliberate about what we're selecting so that we can ensure that our textbooks that we adopt and select in our curricular materials um

064are aligned to the Next Generation standards for auctions okay thank you and then the finding two collective bargaining agreements with regard to limited instructional observations um we may not be able to talk about that in um in in the public but is there something that you can share in terms of um are we moving towards um perhaps um eliminating or limiting this um uh instructional observations because the superintendent the the state monitor spine is is indicating that it creates challenges in conducting timely evaluations of the staff so I'm not sure if that can be discussed in Open Session um but I'm hoping that that is General enough that we can say yes and no or give me some give us some limited information on that Dr Miller yeah I can speak to that so we

065uh we have been able to restart the observation process um particularly once uh staff was in person and we are weekly providing reports and feedback to principals relative to the status of the completion of that process both for formal appr but we've also done some work to ensure that principals are engaging in walkthroughs as well so those limitations have been essentially lifted and we are putting a focus on the accountability to be not only compliant but to encourage walkthroughs so that that was a part of the and and stop me if I if you have to that was a part of the collective is that a part of the collective bargaining negotiations um it really didn't need to be uh given that we're in person now um the restrictions that were there prior to being

066in person um don't exist as they did previously okay thank you and number three in reference to chronically absence I'm going to wait until Betsy presents to talk about that and then um the collective bargain agreements we we talked about these mousse at moas at our last meeting so I don't we don't necessarily need to go over those other than the fact that I still couldn't I still have difficulty connecting the collective bargain agreements with the mous and moas but I'll leave that for um for the time being um commissioner LeBron do you have a question that you need to have asked uh yeah my question a little is a little bit of clarity um from you commissioner Elliott so I thought and this is just for clarity because I think I mentioned the fact

067that previously we had went through a process of having some oversight from The District's response to the um Dr Kino's report and how we would have these open dialogue so that we understood what the district was saying in the administration and then we also have parts to respond to and I think I agreed to take on the fiscal plan responses so when you're when you the questions you're bringing up now I was trying to look for it in the responses so are you going are you bringing up like asking where we're at based on the original report or the responses that Leslie and her team submitted to Dr jallow's original report like I was trying to follow where you was at I have pulled up on my phone but yes page 22 and I've just

068the original yeah I'm just interested in where we are for the public to know as well right but the administration gave written responses to those for the academic plan and for me it would make more sense if we saw what that we went over as a board on record what the administration is saying and then also with my understanding that nice that and the state level had to then we were still waiting for some response from them to either approve or reject some of the responses um so I just want for clarity to have some understanding of like one I would support this moving forward under Esa for academics and then mirror the same process for finance so that we're also looking at Dr jello's report for the finance our administration's responses and that we

069all are on the same page and our community but yeah that's a good point and I'll just I see Dr Gallo's hands up I'll let her um speak for me it was about making sure we got this on the agenda so that you know it doesn't get lost and that the district understands that the board is looking into the look into this so this is a regular standing agenda item we're we're uh on top of what is what the uh district is doing and so there may be some you know have been some responses to it but for me the first uh the the key thing was for us to get it on the agenda and we keep it in our in in the Forefront of the esa committee Dr jallow so yes thank you

070so the plans were created there are dates and timelines by which um the administration and the board must respond and so the board the administration responded by the date um I think it was February 15th and then um by the end of the month I had to respond to their response so the presentation was made by the administration about how they felt they adhered to the recommendation and then I responded to that right with my colleagues from the state I responded to what they submitted and um you know there were some discrepancies in some areas and there were agreements in some areas so you have an opportunity to respond to what I saw you have an opportunity if you want to to respond to what administration is saying um I think in the future when

071Administration um submits to me representing the state that that might be an opportune time for the board to participate and and review what that submission is prior to it leaving the district and coming to the state right um I think this first time it was kind of a quick turnaround it represented a month but I think in the future um you you could certainly check it as many times as you want you could check it when it's submitted you can check it after I it in my response um you certainly have that opportunity but I think this time it just didn't work out as cleanly as we would have all liked um but I just want to make sure you understand the steps they they do the work they record the work they submit the

072work I respond to their submission right thank you so commissioner abroad for me again it was a matter of getting it on our on the esa agenda and I um we can in the future um you know what you and and the state monitor are recommending we can certainly include that as a part of the agenda processing process vice president Elliot what I'm going to do is I'll probably schedule a meeting with maybe me you Shelly and Kalia that way we have the same format both in finance and Esa on how we're going through the recommendations and we've done it before as a board like I said with Dr Aquino so making sure we're also educating the public and the community about what we're saying what the state is saying and what is aligned and

073not aligned yeah that that's what was the the the the important thing to me that we got it we get it on the agenda and we make sure that the district knows that we're taking a a look at this a close look at this so absolutely thank you yeah yeah thank you so um and then um just the last one you know about the chief all of these departments um are they and I'm assuming I guess it's a under uh Dr black um where we are with the um all of these apartments being under the leadership of the chief academic officer is that Dr Black yes that is Dr Black however that change is in motion we are ready to fully Implement that next school year as required by the plan very good thank you

074appreciate it the next item on the agenda is the student attendance report Betsy hello let me share my screen please thank you okay um good evening Commissioners and Deputy superintendent Morris tonight's attendance presentation will focus on 9th grade chronic absenteeism and average daily attendance monitoring 9th grade attendance is crucial because years of educational research has confirmed that attendance is the number one predictor of Dropout and graduation rates the current ninth grade consists of new ninth graders from cohort 2020 and repeating 9th graders from earlier Coho courts this chart shows the average daily attendance of the number of students and the percentages of 9th graders per cohort at the end of the second marking period 2020-2021 according to school location the average daily attendance of repeating 9th graders is much lower than the average daily attendance

075of first-time 9th graders this chart shows the number of ninth graders who are chronically absent by cohort repeating ninth graders have higher chronic absenteeism rates than the first time ninth graders who are chronically absent the question then becomes how do we support the many cohorts of the ninth grade I'd like to give you an overview of the strategies used at both the district and the school level there are several ways that the attendance Department collaborates with district and Community Partners to address the attendance barriers for ninth graders we know for ninth graders first-time 9th graders with five credits will become 10th graders and are more likely to graduate on time than students who need to repeat 9th grade courses research-based strategies that are used to combat chronic absenteeism fall into the categories of mentoring Counseling

076in collaboration with Community Partners to lessen attendance challenges the rcsd attendance Department reports directly to Crystal Clark the director of the counseling department as such we work closely to align our efforts with the counselors to benefit students academically and socially every School attendance team has one or more counselors who participate in weekly attendance meetings so that students with attendance concerns are identified and connected to the school counselor for support and referrals to school and Community Resources immediately rack 3D is the rcsd early warning monitoring tool for counselors and administrators to monitor student grades and attendance at the secondary level counselors monitor student academic success through cohort tracking every five weeks in annual individual progress reviews as well as report card attendance and transcript reviews with all students counselors use strategies such as referrals to marking

077period recovery programs Saturday school and recess boot camps so that ninth graders can regain credits extra supports for 9th graders include School Town Halls cohort meetings as well as starting off each year with an in-depth school orientation for new 9th graders regarding schedules tours report cards and meets and breeds with staff all secondary schools held virtual orientations in the fall and in-person orientations during the reopening of school in February in order to help students build relationships and establish a positive connection to staff prior to the pandemic and even in some cases during the pandemic ninth grade students were visited during the month of August to extend a personal invitation to orientation to ensure the transportation was set up and to answer any questions that families and students might have so My Brother's Keeper initiative has

078several moas with Community Partners to provide mentoring services for ninth graders at the CSI designated School the hillside Workshop work scholarship partnership provides not only mentoring to 8th and ninth graders but also youth employment training other partners include Center for Youth on the leadership for young men Franklin and Douglas campuses in addition the community agency Roots is collaborating with upper Franklin and learning pods to provide SEL and life skills training my brother's Keepers also partnering with Rock Construction to provide training to under credited and over age ninth graders to help them gain workplace skills and needed credit all of these programs have improved attendance as a metrics for Success the attendance department is working closely with My Brother's Keeper to identify chronically absent grade males to provide attendance data and to monitor the attendance of

079these young 10 in the ninth grade to provide targeted support to alleviate attendance challenges the building strongs committee task force chaired by Dan Hurley Kelly Baughman and Kelly Briggs as a district and Community team that's focused on improving student achievement through strong Partnerships the current focus is asset massing in neighborhoods and zip codes with the largest number of chronically absent students these zip codes are one four six two one one nine 1105 and 13. our goal is multifaceted firstly by mapping each zip code's assets we connect with our Community Partners and discover strengths in neighborhoods by building relationships we hope to learn how we can serve our students and families more thoroughly the final outcome is to create focus groups to uncover the challenges that families and students face in the area of chronic absenteeism

080in addition Kelly breaks and I are collaborating with the national Center for Community Schools to discuss a possible chronic absenteeism root cause analysis and or bring family workshops to Rochester about the importance of attendance for our families another important partner is Rock the future in the high school on time graduation task force a recent Endeavor has been to create analysis on systems level indicators of inequities in our community do in order to discover disparities and achievements among subgroups of students a current focus is housing stability for rcsd this important work is just starting and I look forward to bringing you updates in the future both the building Strong's community and rack the future work can lead to systemic changes that have the potential to improve attendance rates and academic achievement not only for the 9th

081grade students but for the Continuum of students in our district and of course Monroe County fact team is an essential partner at all secondary schools the educational liaison Chuck Allen and the facilitators work to provide preventative Services for Families and to help us re-engage students this cap the county is a valuable partner to problem solve attendance concerns and a great resource for families I'd like to narrow down our Focus to look to see how one of our secondary schools is diligently working to reduce chronic absenteeism for their 9th grade students Northeast College Prep created the filing plan in January when the concern was brought by the board about ninth grade attendance for the 2020 cohort of ninth graders the focus is on building relationships through daily check-ins mentoring and engaging students to share their voices

082through surveys about attendance challenges for the older cohort of ninth graders the North East College Prep team has collected data about the barriers to attendance and created specific Improvement strategies these challenges include teen pregnancy mental health and social emotional issues substance abuse issues homelessness among other concerns again the Crux of this work relies on building relationships connections to Community Resources such as counseling and flexibility and scheduling to accommodate the needs of students and Families and supportive education I would ask you to continue to support our collaboration with Community Partners through various moas and mou's as a district or administrators teaching staff counselors social workers parent Liaisons and homeschool assistants as well as the student support center staff are building capacity and consistency by Leading weekly attendance team meetings designed in a three-tier system of supports

083for students and families as a district we continue to strengthen our team in best practices from across the country and there is growing consistency among schools and using data and resources efficiently one question that was recently posed was why are absenteeism rates so high given all the resources utilized in addressing it I believe that we are on the Crux of reducing chronic absenteeism rates before the pandemic however according to Mark lehrmann in education week in October 2020 Across the Nation student absences have doubled during the pandemic attendancework.org suggests that education Advocates invest in recovery such as expanded learning opportunities and tutor in tutoring as Commissioners your advocacy to waive high-stakes accountability metrics such as chronic absenteeism during the during the pandemic and to fight for Equitable Equitable funding are the most effective ways you can

084support our students and families restore lost instructional opportunities and provide continued social emotional support to shrink the inequity Gap our students face thank you can I answer any questions yes I I did have a question I had my hand up but uh I guess it's not being monitored when I looked at your first chart with the ninth grade attendance for the first marking period uh between cohort 19 and kohut 20. there seems to be just substantial increases did we change the way in which we account for attendance or is this just uh Apples to Apples increases well I think it's as close to Apples as apples as we can do during the pandemic of course we are collecting attendance remotely and in person and students do have an opportunity to turn in work but these

085cohorts are referring to where our ninth graders are right now so this isn't this is an even playing field right here if we looked at past years we might see a difference okay um pan wrap I am you mentioned boxes of construction and training uh Services I'm a part of that which in control has been a part of that since the Inception so are you only focusing on ninth graders well we're multi-pronged and um I think that Tony Jordan from My Brother's Keeper could answer this um completely but that is one of the ninth grade males are are one of the things he's focusing on okay so one of the issues that's happening with Dad is that the district is supposed to uh provide a list of chronic or faculty students they've been waiting for

086that for two weeks let me just say I'm one of the persons that's going to actually be contacting these students to try to pull them into this new Brother's Keeper initiative so my concern as a parent is let me give you some background of how we got to the ninth grade attendance okay the data shows that uh in ninth grade uh there is an issue with attendance it's as the the attendance is up in eighth grade but somehow when they get to the ninth grade the attendance tends to go down and so we've asked that uh Betsy bring to us the ninth grade attendance so that we're able to look at the data and develop some strategies so that there they can begin to get on track for their 10th 11th and 12th year so

087that's basically what she's covering now we we have had in previous meetings um data on all the um the grades around attendance but because this seems to be um the the grade where the attendance seems to go down we wanted to take a look at at this data to see if we can uh as I said to put some strategies in place to talk about it for the district could put some strategies in place so that we can increase that that level of attendance it's what we try to do so I just wanted to give you that background so you can ask a few questions yeah so of course then I'm asking now if this is a program that's going to start in the ninth grade is it going to sustain them through the 12th

088I would defer to Tony um Jordan for that but just so you know I was able to share attendance data with him and he has it now so is he available I don't think he's on this call but I can connect you with him tomorrow if you'd like me to that would be fine Betsy okay commissioner LeBron yes thank you um so I have a lot of questions but I will try to just minimize them for now because Betsy I realize this is like you've been coming almost every Esa meeting and so I want to be mindful of the fact that you are here representing um although I just have a lot of questions but and some I will be willing to submit to Kalia officially for the board question log um just making sure

089I'm reading this correctly so if I went to slide number three and it said chronically absent by cohort um so the 2018 cohort this is for data for this school year there are 717 students that are considered chronically absent no um there's for 2020 there's 1780 9th graders all together 565 are chronically absent right now and it's 32 percent oh this is a different slide I'm looking at one that says hmm so the RC is the attendance report for March 9 2021 I I updated this in the middle of the day and sent it out so the one on the screen is the correct one you may not have received it or opened up the one from earlier today this says version two what's the top final let me see I just pulled it up

090from the email um so it's on my screen I didn't realize there was a second attachment I did see that um our staff sent out one later in the afternoon so that was the one that was updated yeah so why would there be a discrepancy between these numbers and these numbers well um the first one I'm sorry my dogs are barking the first one was pulled at the end of the second marking period and um when I received some suggestions today from executive Council they said we should put this column of numbers in here so you would have an idea of how many students it was so that was pulled today okay so let me look at 2017. so on this report it says 666 students for 2017. but on this report here for 2017.

091nope go back to the chart that you Yep this one right here because these two both have the same title slide names so I'm just trying to understand like the Gap and the big jump and the difference here so 2017 on this presentation say 666 students and on here it says that 57 students in the ninth grade are chronically absent was the original one 9-12 and I said just focus on Ninth Grade yeah I'm not sure what happened but I was lucky to work with accountability and they sent me straight and I was able to fix the slides and I was hoping you would see the updated version only but this is the correct version okay so I will submit some questions around why there would be a that large of a discrepancy because 666

092students is a very much bigger number larger number than a representation here saying 57. but then it says 70 percent are chronically absent based on this number I just need to know where these original numbers came from I think they weren't filtered out correctly okay I was able to review it and correct the slides okay and then my final question is on the fact team if we can go back to that slide um as as one of the current strategies how do we utilize the fact team so I have a completely different understanding of Monroe County's fact team and they have come up quite frequently in in our calls for reforming criminal justice and so forth how but and I didn't realize that we're using them as a collaborative strategy for attendance so can you

093just explain how the fact team like actually works with us yeah so in the past we did receive fact referrals and sometimes they uh led to pins petitions and truancy referrals to Family Court three years ago though we changed that we changed the direction we were going to so fact now works with prevent um offering preventative Services and trying to re-engage students and nobody from our school is referred to Family Court from our office um at all we're not doing pins referrals at all it is solely um re-engagement and preventative and because of the pandemic fact is actually widened their scope a little bit so as before we only could work with students from ages 11 to 16. they are working with us now in any of our students um and we're actually seeing connections

094between students and families and working on a bigger scale to try to help families but what is the results of their work what is the percentage of students that they've engaged back into school um that is something that we're looking at it's halfway through the year and fact is usually open and working with students for the whole school year so we'll get an idea of our success rate with them at the end of the school year so what is the reporting process the reporting yeah how do they how do you gather this information so we have a log of attendance referrals that we review with schools and we have fact facilitators who are assigned to them from the county the facilitators attend our weekly attendance meetings and Report out about how students are doing and

095we also share attendance data so we can see if there's been improvements or not so I'll often do you report to the board about the information see that information is something something I could do yeah at the end of the school year this year okay great thank you yeah I have a few more questions um let's see so in regards to fact I I'm glad to hear that because at one point we were the largest District putting kids on pins so I'm glad to hear that there's been a reversal of that um we have the 333 meeting and I actually would like to put this specific uh relationship that we have or a specific relationship on the with the agenda so this is more for Kalia to put on our 333 agenda for tomorrow I

096just want to understand exactly I hear what you're saying but it has not come up before in other conversations regarding fact and the work that they're doing around the city of Rochester I was kind of surprised to see that they're working with us in a different scope and this is the first time that I'm understanding of that relationship but I would like to see exactly how that's going sure is that something you'd like me to participate in um and 333 um I'll have Carly get back to you me and her will touch base tomorrow before 333 to discuss but see okay thank you thank you um I don't see any other hands raised are there any other questions yeah what is 333 who was that oh yeah that is the um the representatives from this

097from the school from the school board the legislative um members of the school board the city of Rochester the city council and the County Legislature oh okay I didn't know what it was yeah so I do have invested before you go and I'll just put this out um and uh because a lot of people are listening and I want we talked about this before I just think it's so important we've got all of these programs um and but I think it's important that we make sure that we are um including our parents and our teachers in terms of the data you know we we see that there's certain data points that if the students knew that information they could be a part of their own success um on strategy you know we were told that

098if they got if they passed one Regis exam if they um um I think the attendance was was something that if we get whatever the data is that shows what is a successful ninth grader we need to be communicating that to our families and to our parents we know that data but we haven't done a great job of communicating what it takes in the ninth grade for them to uh transition and move towards um graduation and I also think that it is important that you know there are home business and relationships that are established and just one other thing that I I saw that there was some data around homelessness and I saw the Center for Youth um who named there as one of the organizations that do homelessness I like to see some data

099around their success in ensuring that students are in attendance and their academic achievements so Kelly I'm going to put that want that on the the question long that we get data from the Center for Youth around their homelessness program and and is it having an impact um in the in the Rochester City School District okay so thank you Betsy I appreciate it you're welcome have a good night thank you uh the next item of agenda is special education uh that is Melissa Pittman Melissa thank you vice president Elliott and thank everyone for having me today um tonight I'm going to be presenting on the guide to navigating CSC you can go to the next slide there are a lot of common questions around the CSE and the CSE process that we hear um such as

100what's the goal of special education what actually is a CSE meeting what happens at the meeting who's going to be in attendance what do I need to do or what does a parent need to do in preparation for the meeting or what if a parent disagrees with something that's proposed at a CSE meeting and what happens if over time students needs change so this guide is going to help us answer some of these questions within the special education department there are a lot of acronyms but across CSE meetings these four acronyms come up repeatedly CSE or if which is the committee on special education or if it's a preschool student the committee on preschool education so cpsc that's our multiple multiple disciplinary team that is appointed by the board and we're responsible for developing the

101IEPs and presiding over the CSE meetings the individual education program that's the plan that's created at the CSE meeting um least restrictive environment is discussed at every single CSE meeting noting that our students have a better opportunity towards graduation when they are educated alongside their peers who are non-disabled as well as present levels of performance and yet speaking to a child is not only academic ability but also their social emotional needs and strengths their physical needs and strengths and any management needs that come up next slide so we start off with what actually is special education special education is specially designed instruction in the identified area of deficit and we provide this in that least restrictive setting as possible it can be given through a combination of programs or related services such as speech or

102occupational therapy or physical therapy the goal of special education is really to declassify the student our goal is to provide the specially designed instruction monitor the students on how they are progressing towards their IEP goals clothes that their area of deficit so they no longer need the service special education should not be a lifelong sentence that when a student is classified they continue in it all the way through graduation now with that there are a bucket of students that are very significantly disabled and they will require services not only in school but also then we'll have to transition them to adult agencies to support them as well but for the majority of our students students our goal really should be to progress them towards closing the area of deficit so they no longer need supports

103at the CSE meeting we convene to discuss the students educational needs with the parents and the teachers and any related service providers and at that meeting that's when we develop the IEP goals and what the specially designed instruction is next slide please so types of CSE meetings so whether it's a school age student which is the committee on special education or a preschool student which is the preschool committee on special education there's always that initial meeting where we evaluate the child and we determine if there is an educational disability if it is determined that they there is then we develop that first IEP once the individual education program or the IUD is to developed then we have an annual review meeting once every calendar year at that meeting we're reviewing their present levels of performance

104speaking again to those four components of the academic the social emotional the management and the health needs we develop new roles for the next calendar year to help continue to close the area of deficit we also have reevaluation meetings those meetings need to be held minimally every three school years and those monitor how we're doing in closing the area of deficit we review with the parents any updated assessments that may need to be conducted for those meetings conduct those evaluations and then hold the CSE meeting those meetings can be held in conjunction with other meetings such as you can have your comprehensive three-year re-evaluation meeting along with the annual review meeting at the same time there's also requested review meetings those are meetings when we really need to take a look at a child's program

105or IEP to see if anything needs to be altered those also can Encompass when our school our preschool students move to school age Services we call them in the district the 405 meetings those also Encompass those transition to school age meetings as well as the last meetings are our manifestation determination meetings those meetings happen after long-term suspensions or after a series of short terms of suspensions and at those meetings with the juxt of the conversation is was what happened that caused the suspension was the behavior a manifestation of the students disability next slide please so what do we talk to at the CSE meeting we're really talking about a student's progress we're making sure that we address any parent concerns we're making sure to focus on a student's strengths students preferences and the student and

106parent voice are embedded in the IEP we're also reviewing their goals that are on their current IEP how they progress towards them updating the present levels of performance as well as reviewing the program and the related services we're taking a look at any new assessments or reports that were conducted in preparation for those meetings as well as reviewing the program accommodations and test accommodations to make sure everything's cohesive and we're moving towards closing the area of deficit for that student transition is also a large part of CSE meetings talking about not only what the students wants are now but what their goals are like for themselves for after school we talk about their employment goals we talk about any going on to any schooling or trade schools and how they would like to live and

107to help them live independently in all of these conversations we make sure that we continue to keep least restrictive environment at the Forefront knowing that directly impacts graduation rate for our students we know our students and our consultant and icat models so those integrated co-teaching models have a higher percentage of graduation than our students in our self-contained classes next slide please what time is our CSC meetings we always invite the parents and Guardians and student as well as the Lea representative those are the chair people that the board of education has designated to hold the CSE meetings there's also the special education in the general education teacher those are the minimal requirements for a CSC meeting however if the students receiving enl Services then we have to also incorporate the enl teacher sometimes we have

108to include a school psychologist or any related service providers translators or other professionals a parent can request and invite staff people also to the CSE meeting to support them and their voice next slide please so as a parent or Guardian what is their role at the CSE meeting really they're the share out in the major stakeholder for their child's voice at that meeting for our children that are older they're included and they're a active participate in our meeting but for our younger students the parent is the primary share of for the child they're sharing information about their interpretation of how this the students doing in school how they're doing at home how they're functioning with homework at home any extracurricular activities or community uh participation that they have how they're doing in the workplace if

109they're working and what they see as the transitional needs for their child for their life after school we incorporate that that information right into the IEP a parent is also one of the committee members they hold the same value as everyone else on the committee and they are a Committee Member so their voice is just as powerful as everyone else's and we raise that up at the CSE meeting they're to ask questions if they're unclear as well as just keep the meeting focused on what they feel their students needs are if a parent has a concern for CSE they can request a CSE meeting at any time so if after a CSC meeting they have questions every school building has an associate director that's aligned to them to answer those questions as well as their

110a director of special education aligned with each of the Chiefs to help support all of the schools a parent at CSC should explain what they would like to talk about and if they have any concerns as well as prior to the CSE meeting and throughout the school year they should be in regular contact with their special education teachers or the related service providers that way we can address things throughout the school year versus waiting for that CSC meeting one time a year we also want to keep our conversation focused on students abilities versus their disabilities it's very very easy in the world of special education because we are especially designed instruction in the area of deficit for it to be focused on a deficit model conversation but it's very important that we stay focused on

111what a child can do and build on their strengths it not only impacts how we perform as teachers but it also impacts how they feel about themselves as well as their performance in the classroom next slide and the last slide are just some resources that we share with parents we do have our CPAC our parent advisor commit Council that we have we also share with parents the procedural safeguards we have to send them out every year to the families as well as New York state does have a parent guide that they have available for ages three two through 21. so that's my presentation I thank you so much does anyone have any questions yes I see commissioner Clark's hand is raised let me just first of all Melissa thank you for the presentation I so

112appreciate it this was a um this was a an area where I um had some some issues um being that I went and had was a advocate for one of the parents uh and so I'm um I'm glad to see this kind of a presentation I have some questions but I'll defer to commissioner Clark at this point absolutely thank you vice president Elliott I just had one really a couple of questions around the manifestation determination review you indicated that's performed after the child returns from suspension my question is if we feel that there that that it's part of the disability why wouldn't we do that before we um determine the length of suspension if we're going to suspend you know the student and then the other question what role does the parent play in that

113meeting the manifestation determination review those are excellent questions so there are conversations prior to the student being suspended the manifestation determination that happens in District here is after the long-term suspension hearing but prior today at the school is actively having their conversations with our alliance associate director around the incident and involving the parents regarding the suspension and is this related to their disability so the students should not be suspended if it is related I can add to that a little bit too so um when a student is suspended and it gets close to 10 days there are pattern meetings that we can do uh manifestation pattern meetings so try to avoid further suspension so there are some reviews that are done before and anything over 10 days even if it's not a long-term suspension we

114do need to do a manifestation determination meeting as Melissa shared so um those are um you know obviously we need to take a look at you know the root cause for any kind of suspension um and certainly can do a manifestation um pattern meeting prior to reaching those 10 days or when we get close to that but that was a great question thank you commissioner Clark I have a couple of questions why is the um the IEP only reviewed annually that comes right from the part 200 regulations that's what we're we are told that we have to do we have to review it once every calendar year yeah can we do it more yes a CSE meeting can convene at any time that a student needs a rise or if the parent requests to CSE

115meeting so that is minimally what we have let me ask Dr Morris a question the CSE committee is reviewing it annually what about uh with regard to principles and how often is that IEP um reviewed outside the CSE committee I'm sure Desiree and Melissa can chime in but um so there is another regulation that the IEP needs to be shared with anyone that has involvement with that student and the IEP and we certainly make sure that the principals have access to those general education teachers Support Services Tas are you know to sit down and paraprofessionals they should be aware of the IEP and what the goals are because it's a team approach um I didn't know if you wanted to add anything more to that Melissa but I think that's in this District we typically

116typically call the IEP dissemination IEPs are accommodated at the beginning of the school year to all staff who touch the student letter it's a general education teacher whether it's a specialist teacher um as well as then anytime the IEP is updated it is redisseminated because now it's a new IEP so let's say it's September and I have my child's interview yesterday we redisseminate it because now this is a new IEP and you have to be aware of the new language and the new goals on the IEP so we do have that dissemination that happens throughout the school year and every time the IEP is updated to anybody who physically touches the child as well as the principles of administration in the building have access to those IEPs can I ask a question so the IEP

117I'm a parent rep so because I had two kids that went through the Rochester City School District through special education so the IEP kind of like identifies the student and the way the student Works correct yes it identifies their their area of disability like there's 13 different classifications in New York state from like a learning disability to a speech and language impairment to another Health impairment so it identifies what the disability is and then we set goals to try and close that area of deficit so yeah I understand I went through it to two kids so this is my question okay because the IEP is really identifying who this student is and that was my problem when my kids were going through that if you already know how the child works and how the child

118functions I find that a lot of kids who had IEP got suspended tremendously but we already had information on the child so as the caregiver or the nurturer it seems like we should have plans in place and because these IEPs are always forthcoming to just get them psychologists get them whoever they're in touch with they have the IEP but I find that with kids who are in special education their suspension rate is almost doubled regular students so that that bothers me as a parent knowing that you already know who my kid is so are we comprehensively making a plan that's going to make that child successful or are we just ignoring what we're actually giving you the information about the kids that's a that's a really great question and we we know you know one

119of the things that we have been cited for as a district is over suspension over classification of our students with disabilities so it is something that we're actively addressing across our buildings it's part of that manifestation when the students or the suspension comes up now mind you we've been in this world of covid since last March and so like right now when you look at our suspensions the rates they look phenomenal nobody nobody's getting suspended the bodies are just getting back to school so really it's through active collaboration and reviewing of those IU teams not only with the administrator for the school teachers as well as we have ongoing to use to kind of address the strategies that we need so it's not just you know the the students in the hallway they're not going

120to class like they should so so we're going to suspend them we really have to be proactive just like we would if they were a general education student and work with them to re-engage them in those classes I know we talk about that but we're not about out there so what are the steps to make make sure that this happened so I I guess I'd like to address that it's a great question remember um Melissa um talked about this the social emotional section of the IEP when there are behaviors that are impeding the progress of a student we are required to address it by doing a functional Behavior assessment and creating a behavior plan to and the whole idea of a behavior plan is to to prevent the student from displaying behaviors that might lead

121to a suspension that that's the whole idea so what what's the root cause what what's causing this student to maybe um have some disciplinary issues and how can we break those down and say what's the trigger what happened before the behavior occurred what happened how did we react to it and what can we do differently so it's a very good question and it's something that we definitely need to address but I think there's also some pre-referral types of strategies that schools can do right and positive behavior intervention supports and all of those structures that help with all of all of what you're saying there's a very good question and because I do work in the schools I find that those resources are not available a lot of times so I do know that as the

122the individual students needs do come up we do address them through the fdas we also regularly pull the suspension data to kind of monitor the suspensions because we have to and that goes back to that manifestation meeting where once the students has reached that 10 days CSE has to convene to have those discussions what do we need to adjust or what do we need to do on the IEP in the students program or with the accommodations to help them so that they can learn so they won't be suspended again and sometimes it is going back and having those different conversations you know with the staff in the school building as well but that's the whole purpose of that manifestation piece so when we reach 10 days we've got to stop and say is there something

123that's lacking in the IEP that we need to do to address why this is happening so it doesn't work on happening but see I think that sometimes we're always proactive instead of being reactive if if you see a kid that's getting close to 10 days and that's means you need to probably react to day three yeah instead of waiting to day 10 now the kid is suspended which looks bad on us as a district that we can't keep our kids in school so I think that we need to think about being reactive versus being always proactive I think Yvonne that's why we're doing the uh we have the attendance um agenda item uh almost monthly now so we're we're addressing oh shoot can you all hear me because I sort of yeah we hear you

124okay um so so we've got the attendance uh uh item on the agenda almost monthly and so we're going to address those kinds of issues uh with the attendance agenda item um all right okay yeah okay thank you thank you Melissa it was oh one other question I have I'm sorry um that whole uh meeting when we're having a parent there with all of those professionals that is quite intimidating is there an alternative to that kind of format that we've got all of these professionals around the table but and we have um the just the parent or the parent and The Advocate it comes across quite intimidating um how can we um reduce that mitigate that um can there be one person from that uh group that speaks to the parents so how would you

125respond to that Melissa or Desiree that is a that is a really great did you all hear me yep we can hear you that is a really great point and one of the things we've learned okay the whole pandemic is that our parent participation in CSE has increased exponentially because now we have leveled the playing field when we've moved CSE to this format to this video format just like the board meeting our parent participation has increased because now they don't have to worry about taking off work necessarily and getting to a school building and walking into a room where everybody else clearly knows each other and I don't and I don't really know everybody around this table and it's leveled the playing field in some ways and parents have a voice of empowerment in this

126platform that we didn't even see it coming so it's one of the positive this really has come out of this pandemic is that we have greater prior participation number one number two when a parent does enter a room into a meeting they should be the one to sit at the head of the table we should always start our with what are your concerns please tell me what you want to dress with meetings make note of them begin with addressing them so they know that we're here for them we're not here to talk at them but we're here to include them so it takes coaching from us as CSE chairs to make sure parents feel empowered and included in their CSE meetings so it's it's it's it I remember the days back years ago when I

127was on Central CSE and it was down at central office and we had all these little CSE meetings in the front we would sit at the head of the table and the parent would walk in and it was so incredibly intimidated they would come in Sam got so we're really trying to level the playing field saying really this is about you this is about your child we're here for you we're the reason our jobs are here to support you and your children so that kind of lets them know that we're really here from this customer service mentality versus we're here just to talk to you for an hour about your child we're here to here to hear from you as well as develop their IEP so your child can be successful so it's really changing

128the vision of what CSE is good job Melissa I like that uh commissioner LeBron yeah I just want to back go back to what Melissa is saying about the increase in parent participation because of Zoom so I've heard I have heard that from parents but I've also heard that it's incredibly inconvenient that we expect parents to attend CSE meetings during the daytime and I want to uplift that it is incredibly difficult for parents to maintain employment and other responsibilities and then not all parents have the ability or a job that gives them time off that's paid or even unpaid sometimes taking some time off could mean that you're going to lose your job and then we don't have a parent then having we're we're we are putting parents in a position where they have to

129figure out how they're going to advocate for their child or support their family and um as we are talking about these changes in special education I want to uplift that although I appreciate that there is more participation because of it is something I want to see that we continue to do um past covid times that we continue to offer that as an alternative but that we really not just us I know that this happens across other districts and I will be speaking with both the Regents the commissioner and the chancellor we can't talk about parent engagement and wanting parents to create a voice and an advocate and CSE meetings only happen from like nine to three like that is incredibly unrealistic um and so I would like us to also figure out how to offer

130evening and even weekends if necessary and I know that some of the folks that participate in CSE meetings or salaried and some are you know not and figuring that out and who needs to be there but like it's 2021 and we know that parents are incredibly stretch as it is and we should be able to figure out a way to incorporate that schedule to accommodate as many families as necessary great idea thank you for that feedback thank you everybody I appreciate your time thank you Melissa thank you Desiree I was muted when I was uh talking um but um thank you Desiree thank you Melissa the next item of the agenda is uh summer school presentation of Dr Black good evening I'm going to defer to Dan Hurley so Dan you're on good evening Commissioners

131vice president Elliott President White I appreciate you inviting me into this space tonight to talk about um summer learning um go ahead rahima if you could go to the next side summer learning is um aligned with all parts of the Strategic plan but particularly in providing high quality learning experiences and providing supports to areas that our students need and um I really want to focus today on talking about using data purposefully and collaboratively to drive decisions because that's the direction we really want to go with Summer learning side so in the instructional transformation domain recommendation number five from Dr jallow is revamp the rcsd summer school program um so we have data and years past that have provided us some opportunity to make some adjustments and um so I just listed some of the adjustments

132here but we really want to Target a student that we're looking forward to and looking to enroll in summer in summer learning and by having some eligibility requirements around um attendance during the school year were you severely chronic chronically absent if so can you make a commitment to Summer um you know with your parents if you're on board with a commitment to the summer program so that so that we aren't um providing classes and having students not attend so attendance has been a problem in the summer in the past we also want to Target to student needs so looking at we now have common form of assessment data and we can use that data to really Target in on what the student needs what they were what they struggled with during the school year um

133you know it doesn't make sense to have students sitting through course with and learning something that they've already mastered so we now have common form of Assessments in Elam math that can really provide us that data to Target what what kids need in the summer um focusing solely on credit recovery so as we go through and look at graduation requirements um really focusing so that during the school year students are taking the classes that they need concepts are ensuring that they are signed up for the classes that they need and then summer would be there to support areas of struggle um and we're trying to build the instructions that allow for increased levels of support So as things are changing very quickly currently we're looking at a commencement program that is virtual and that's kind

134of how we started things are changing with the CDC with the board agents those decisions that need to be made so um looking as this is kind of our base and we're looking to update our models as regulations maybe changing this obviously things are changing rapidly um and So currently we have a virtual model with some in-person learning pod support at different locations throughout the city um in receivership schools we have programs this summer for receivership School specifically so each receivership school would be able to support a program a summer learning program that is really focused on their demonstrable Improvement indicators which um I talked about a few weeks ago or last month with you and um we really want to be able to support those schools those students to focus on the area of

135need based on what the data that they have um currently there is no cost to General funds um in the past uh and that that's subject to change based on the Board of Regents um decisions if there's Regents testing in August we do have to General funds needs to cover Proctors and scoring for those and then also just looking at our student transcript reviews of our seniors who might need an initial credit to graduate we might have some impact to General funds there would be minimal um and then one other pieced in is in the past principles of just um kind of picked through the applications that for summer school but now we're going to have a face-to-face interview process uh next slide please I just wanted to share some of the data with you

136that that's compelling um so last year we had 2 282 students enrolled and that resulted in 868 students earning at least one credit so that's um a rate of about 38 so our summer school was was really 38 percent um effective or kind of that's that's the amount of credit students earned so that's something we want to change and so that's the reason for that attendance eligibility requirement um and really that focus on what students need so they are discouraged to come by having to sit through um content they already know um just a note that last year we had 38 August graduates um 32 of those required some initial credits um and it is a link to the classes that they needed but most of those classes were art Health PE um those were

137some of the classes that students needed for that initial credit so this summer we have 750 seats available in targeted courses so we're constantly monitoring the achievement data the common form of assessment data the marking period data around failures and looking at which classes students are are failing in Market period one marking period two that were that we see that students will need to make up in the summer and how we can um provide them opportunities to make up those classes in a different way than they necessarily did during the school year um so that those classes that we're offering um we haven't we have them outlined right now and we're continuously looking at that market period data to decide how many seats we need to offer in those classes and if we need to

138make any adjustments uh next slide so this is just a kind of a trend of where the cost is for for a funds for summer school so in the past you can see it in 2017 where just over 7 million and now we're in 2021 we're down to about zero so we're trending in the in the right direction as far as the the hit to a funds and currently our summer budgets um are spread throughout the title grants and so we have commencement receivership and then we have an ell bilingual middle years program that is also supported in title next slide so moving forward uh we have just a kind of a timeline for posting posting and preparing for summer school and that starts um the end of next week as far as looking for

139the principal and registrars and then we move into April and hiring the teachers and um getting through all those approvals that you'll be seeing when it's time to hire those teachers next slide so um commencement Academy right now and this is again all based on marketing period and common form of assessment data what students need and identified by counselors so we have these courses that will be offered this summer virtually in commencement and you can you can see the number of seats there next slide please so receivership programming this would be three weeks allocated allocations should support twenty percent of each school's enrollment though that those allocations are based on the enrollment of the class with waiting for all students and special education students um and they should like I said support about 20 of

140each school's enrollment and this would be an in-person model and this budget number doesn't include transportation next slide so the we talked about a middle school bilingual program so a lot of the data around our L students and bilingual students suggest High areas of struggle in the middle years so this is uh class six classrooms right now we're currently holding about 12 students in each classroom and about 25 students per bus um so if those regulations change we might be able to serve more students um and we're focusing on High level ones and twos students who need that support um and those will be identified and come from all the different bilingual middle-year programs across the district next slide we do have the opportunity there's a a grant that was just awarded to the district

141called the advanced courses Access program and part of that Grant is an AP boot camp and this is 10 days of workshop for 100 students who are registered for advanced placement classes in the 2122 school year and this will be for teachers who are who will provide them some experiences around the the type of work that's going to be required of them in AP classes and also provide them a little opportunity to get an early start on their AP coursework next slide extended school year so the the mature Desiree and Melissa could talk a little more about this but this is a an in-person um with a remote option available so it's five days and you can see the dates there July 6th through the 13th and it's from 93 and we're still um the

142pending it as far as the location next slide so here are just some steps that we need to take um moving forward to playing for summer and like I said this is this is a continually evolving process um as we start to hear from the Board of Regents and we start to hear from I said about testing and we hear from the CDC on regulations those are all things that will impact the summer the summer opportunities that we're able to provide um and last slide I cannot um cannot explain how much uh Apartments have been coming together to really really ensure that all of our decisions around summer are grounded in evidence data so teaching and learning is identifying course offerings by looking at data of students in the classes in the market period failures

143office accountability is giving us all of the data that we need and the common form of assessment data the department of equity inclusion and student Support Services providing cohort data working with counselors to review individual students ensuring that students are enrolled in the classes they need from now to June and to to graduate and then also you know spending some time meeting with parent Advocates to listen to their past experiences with Summer learning and what ideas they have for the future as we look to grow um so this is kind of where we are I I look forward to providing more updates as as we refine look at data and and build the plan um so that's kind of where we are right now um last slide is just what questions do you have sorry

144about that I believe I see commissioner Adam's hand is raised commissioner Adams yeah there's a slide back there um where they talk about 868 students um is attendance slide um and it has the data it's yellow it has a yellow background um yeah so I'm looking at these statistics here just on Virtual learning what about the year before is it better or worse I believe year before was better I think that that in-person peace was has provides better outcomes um so last year we had I believe there was over 4 000 so those 2 282 students had were enrolled at over 4 000 courses um virtually and um but I'd be happy to get that data for you and send it along all right thank you commissioner Malloy yeah thank you um thank you for

145your presentation Dan first of all um I I don't remember which slide it was but I heard mentioned that 20 of students in all schools need to attend summer school it um obviously that's not typical I'm assuming or can you give me an idea what is a typical percentage for rcsd for summer school um so I think that the the percentage uh as far as number of students has obviously you can see that our programs that hit a funds in the past were around seven million dollars were were more robust um I I was I have a lot of experience as um part of the elementary summer programs that we used to have and um those spots were kind of provided we did third fourth and fifth grade one year and and they were pretty

146much open to any any student any third fourth and fifth grade student in the district so so I don't know how the um percentages have played out over the years with depending on the size of the whole overall summer program um but this number here 20 so as the allocations were determined for funding the receivership schools this summer um those allocations should be able to and these are some decisions that principals need to be needed to make based on their data um but they should be able to support 20 percent of that student of that school's enrollment so if um for example School 10 has an enrollment of 390 students they should with the allocation that they they have they should be able to serve 78 students um so so that's where that 20 came

147from that clarifies it yes yeah cool like grades nine through twelve um what our typical percentages are district-wide and that can go on the question okay that's great yeah we'll get that I have a question I'm looking at that thing I think I'm being mute automatically muted um so um Miss Kring scale yeah I'm looking at the same yellow slide uh in 2020 is that saying that we had 2800 students enrolled for summer school yes 2200 students 282 and out of that we had less than a third they're under credit what about the other two-thirds they did not earn credits um so we had some like I said there were um 2282 students I believe over 4 000 courses online courses that were the students were enrolled in and many of those went um either

148not started or incomplete um in the summer time so that's I think that's what Dr Joe when she was looking at her report and Dr Dell you might speak to this but that's one of the glaring um data points that that stuck out and something that we want to um make some shifts and adjustments to our practice to ensure that that doesn't happen again and we're using our resources um wisely and then I'm even more concerned that if we were able to provide 2200 seats in a regular school season unlike this season that we're experienced now we only have 750 seats available to about let me figure it out 26 000 students because you had about five to six thousand that actually returning back to school but you still got 26 000 or so that

149was still in covert learning online and we only offering 750 seats for the summer program yeah yeah so so currently we're using the marking period data um for those courses those those High kind of impact courses that that affect graduation and most of them and in a Regents uh exam we're looking at the marking period data around which students how many students are enrolled how many students are failing that class and then how many students are failing and also attending so we we take that severely chronically absent which is uh 80 percent um not missing more than 20 percent of the days and we're looking at that along with the marking period failures and identifying so how many students are are enrolled in and committed and going to class and also struggling and so those

150are the those are the students that we want to Target to provide them support in the summertime so that they can they can um get that credit but we have to have far more than 750 students that are struggling with 26 000 being out of the system so for clarity if I could jump in we're offering 700 feet for commencement and then in the other aspects of Summer programming we'd have additional seats for esy which supports our special educational students additional seats for our bilingual L program and additional receivership program so what is the total number um so that would be variable based on the amount of students we pull out for data and the amount of resources we have available to program so one where we as parents know when that data is available

151for summer school so I'll probably well then you want to speak or you want me to take it sure I mean I I think we're we're kind of waiting for some some decisions from the CDC and the state that that could that could change things and we're ready to make those shifts um as soon as they they happen we have scenarios um four different like for example if if the if we were able to do that distancing to three feet rather than six that opens up space in classrooms and and we have um we have those kind of scenarios ready to go if those if those decisions are made so when we when you know as we move towards words are kind of deadline we are constantly moderate monitoring our data and the information that

152we have to to support the most students possible well I I sound dumb but we have thousands of schools with plenty empty space in the summer so why would space in be an issue when kids can go to different schools that could definitely accommodate the space there's no school in the summer so why is our Target number so low we have so many kids that are actually suffering and not not participating and not passing our number is probably less than a thousand that's not even one percent of our students so I guess as a parent I'm kind of confused because all these schools are open so it's not really not about space it's really about how do we use what we already got there's no school in the summer every school is empty so I

153think the the question also because looking at the 2000 and I'm thinking the 2000 the summer 2019 data the total number of uh students that were enrolled in 2019 because Tuesday 2020 is the the year that we were in covet and also um the number of students that actually attended summer school so we probably need to get that data um Dan and and Dr Black to show our parent uh people you know the number of students who attend or who enroll versus the number of students who um actually um attend and I'm going to if I could um uh call on Dr jallo yes thank you I was going to say I think you need to see the analysis of the number of seats you made available in the past years versus the number of

154children that actually attended and the number of people you paid to teach while T while students were not attending and I think that you will see that it was a lot of money spent with little return in terms of academic achievement the other thing if a child is failing because they're not coming to school a three-week summer program is not going to um suddenly cause a child who has not come to school for 10 months to suddenly come for three weeks and then pass a course all right good uh finally uh what I wanted to ask and this is not necessarily this to Dan if you've looked at Market period one and two data as I have and you see the numbers as I've seen my question is what are you doing now with those

155students that have demonstrated to you they are failing right now um and I know that's not what this whole presentation is about but in terms of what um the Supreme scale is talking about you have them now in your buildings in your classrooms online and your things you can do now between now and June to hopefully turn around their failing grades into passing grade so that summer doesn't become as much of a dependent uh model for those children so um I would ask that at some point you know there's some kind of understanding as to what's being done with those children now so that they can still practice if that's possible yeah and I can speak uh briefly to that around so one thing that um I know with the receivership schools we've been doing

156cohort reviews looking at the all of the seniors are all the 2017 cohort and identifying you know what do they what does this student need and and they're they're great in all schools I think are great and know their students I met with uh principal today and you know she was able to run down her whole list of of seniors and where they were um what they needed um and and so I think we're getting there counselors are are working with students to provide those um OCR opportunities schools are working to do Market period recovery I think now that we have um students coming back to buildings we are using um some of our targeted funding uh to provide Saturday break break week support during spring break Saturday schools um and opportunities for kids to

157really get that that um you know make up that that time and that work that they need to so I hope that we're you know I see individual schools doing a lot of work towards towards that support now is that a benefit that's going to be issued to all of the schools I think it's it's the um correct yes the high school you'll see a resolution upcoming that will um outline the schools that are participating in this boot camp but the um senior reviews that Dan just described that is happening across the district in all of our high schools to support all of our cohort students and so there are active um efforts that are being done by all of our schools you will see as I said resolutions coming forth in our next business

158meeting that is supporting this work but some of the approaches include boot camps Saturday academies for our students utilizing the learning pod model making sure that we have our reviews of credits with our admin teams and our teachers and our counselors there's been a lot of PD that's been railed out to our administrators and um that is something that we're actively doing because like Dr jallow has described our goal is to get our students prepared with their academics before the summer comes along so that they don't have to go to summer except for enrichment and advancement and experiences so we want to try and make sure that they don't leave our school year having to compress a coursework of experiences in a three-week period and that was part of the operational approach of our design

159now I have something that's kind of off topic uh can we sort of hold that Yvonne let me get to the questions um for um this particular topic would that be okay with you yes it is yeah so commissioner LeBron you got your hand up I did and I got booted out so I'm back um so if we could just go back to the budget slide real quick um I just have some questions around that and then also for the esy program there was a statement written that's that remote teacher on site can I just get some clarity about what that means because when I hear remote teacher and then on site for me those are two different things happening sure so I think that's an easier one to start with what does that mean

160so I can start there and that means that the students who are learning remotely the teacher will be on-site on the on in a school site teaching them so not teaching from home okay I would just be interested in learning more about this perhaps even another time just understanding how esy has worked in the past and how it's going to work in a virtual model and so I also want to recognize that we still have the six feet rule that will also still apply even for summer because we have not gotten any different guidance from the state around that um and so I just have some questions around this but can we just go back to the budget piece because there was that slide with the graph with the 8 million because I remember I

161feel like I remember that 2018 year right there we in 2018 actually went over that amount because that was that was an issue that I brought up with the previous superintendent who brought us some resolutions and then couldn't give us an exact number of students that we were serving at that amount but then like two months later it turned out to be a much larger number we overspend and then the data with dismal around that so I would just double check this chart in terms of the numbers because I remember that year and then I don't know in 2019 why I went down by so much in the budget I feel like I have to go back and look at this but then in 2020 I didn't even realize we did summer school during covid

162um I I guess I missed that that was happening I don't even know how I know we shut down March 15th and we're coming up on a year but did we do online recovery only during summer 2020 okay yeah and then how do we get to zero is it because you're funding it through these titles and different grants but then how is that sustainable long term in the budget if if this is the path we're taking like are these guaranteed um funding sources for next year and the year after that so so the title allotments so uh I think that the commencement title allotment that's there that's been there every year and and I just want to actually get back go to that graph exactly this is just the general fund cost so yes the

163cost of summer school was significantly more than what's on this graph those were a lot of that was title and Grant funds we had that Wallace um grant that was that paid for a lot of uh somewhere in the past um as far as sustainability I can tell you right now the receivership um programs you know this is a big year for receivership schools upcoming um as they as they look to um get out of receivership they really need to be focused and targeted and we need to support them and there is some opportunities across the title grants this year that for those receivership schools that I don't know that they will always be there but there is always money in the title one um for the commencement program and for other summer opportunities the

164um build program Dan you're muted I don't know how you got muted there you go I'm sorry okay where did I look where did it you were saying for the bilingual ell program and then you got cut off yeah so the bilingual program that's that's through title as well and that's kind of a yearly allocation and title and and that's how the the department decides to you know spend that funding but but it is there and it has been um pretty consistently used for summer um over the past few years um so as far as the sustainability you're saying is potentially fine with commencement for Title One EOL funding is potentially sustainable Source it's the receivership which is the largest portion of this budget that you're showing or this overview um that potentially can waver

165and have some impact so just good for us to all know this as we move forward in the conversations around the general funds and what we're paying for and what will be sustainable or not like I would be okay with it this year and what Dan is I just want to jump in and mention this Dan because this is an important piece what is the wild card here is this is the program that we can deliver this summer because we are anticipating no August Regents examinations if we are told after um the Board of Regents convenes that there will need to be a Regents examination program there may be um a cost that we would have to attribute to the a fund but as of right now this is the type of program we could

166design outside of the general fund that would allow us to provide targeted programming to some students for three weeks in this summer okay well thank you for that um Dr Morris because the other thing then I guess for me as we go into the budget season I would like to understand what that total dollar amount is going to be because I would rather that we plan for that and then not need it than plan this way and then end up needing it because yeah the regions could come back and say um or the chancellor and the Commissioners can come back and say yes we you have to do it by August I know it's waived right now but maybe they won't waive it in August because maybe we'll have more access to vaccinations and other

167factors change so I would rather um that we all have a conversation with Dr Myers and our CFO about putting what the cost would be if Regents exams were taking place in the budget and then if we don't need it then that's funding that we can allocate elsewhere but I would not I would not be comfortable planning that we need zero dollars and then come July 1st or you know we have to make an amendment on a budget that just passed so just want to put that out there sure yeah and I have um we have estimated costs for that so so we can we can share those for sure and I just want to point out that the the difference in the receivership and the commencement is really that Transportation piece um so Transportation

168those are those receivership programs are in person and currently the commencement program is virtual and that's that's the big difference anything else no that was all thank you looks like uh vice president Elliott is having some technical problems and has asked me to step back in this chair um so I I'm looking at my participant list and I don't the last time I looked I didn't see any other hands but yep commissioner Adams one question it can go to the um law question log um that's like a breakdown of the the process for summer school commitment um and they can give me um they can get me back to me on um question log okay no problem all right let me just double check um don't see any other questions on the question lock so

169uh I'm going to turn to our Clerk and make sure that I understand what we've covered so far I know uh under the standing items vice president Elliot has covered uh student attendance special education summer school um have we covered mathematics no we have not no we're we're at Ela so we haven't covered Ela or mathematics I see that uh Karen Fey he is responsible for presenting Ela so the foragers very grateful for the opportunity to be with you I'm proud to share the work that we've been doing in the ELA Department over the past two years and thanks to rahima for driving my slide deck the department currently has two teachers on assignment Amy Joseph who's a long time kindergarten teacher reading teacher and intervention teacher in rscsd and Mariana Berry who's a 17-year

170veteran High School teacher leader from school Without Walls I'm fortunate to have these two talented hard-working teachers with me this year we've done a lot of work the ELA Department work is aligned to our our next slide working with the ELA Department work is aligned to our rcsd strategic planning Priority One which is to provide high quality learning experiences and also to Dr jello's academic plan recommendations for the instructional transformation domain the recommendation is to implement research and evidence-based achievement acceleration strategies and to collect evidence by increasing frequency and quality of the cycle of observations and actionable feedback in all classrooms our Ela team is working hard to provide guidance and resources to implement student-centered learning to improve Ela academic success close achievement gaps and we've been leading teacher teams as they create Next Generation

171Ela standards based K-12 curriculum including embedded formative assessments that Dan Dan mentioned earlier to measure student proficiency and grade level outcomes and finally we're beginning to collect district-wide instructional walk-through data assessment data and K5 literacy program data to Center our instructional conversation with school leaders and teachers to help us make instructional decisions and literacy next slide this graph is from the rcsd Strategic plan and shows the New York State assessment Trend data in ela38 from 2015 to the last time the state assessments were administered in 2019. remember that a student demonstrates proficiency by scoring a level three or four out of four on our three eight in Regents examinations we've all made small gains each year but when we look at the disaggregated data we see some grade levels have much higher proficiency rates than

172others and our black and Latino students achieve that rates under all students and our L's and students with disabilities are well below achieving proficiency at only two and three percent the blue dot on the upper right of this graph represents our 2023 Ela proficiency Target of 25 proficiency for all students and that would represent an over 10 percent increase for all rcsd students in two years but remember that it still falls short of the state average Ela proficiency rate of 45.4 in 2019. so this graph really illustrates the urgency in the areas of focus for our work next slide the ELA Department's literacy action plan to address achievement gaps aligns with Dr Shelley Jones findings and recommendations for instructional transformation in table 8 which is to lift the quality of curriculum instruction and assessment for

173all content areas and all student populations and also in Table 9 recommendation two of the December report which is the utilization of research and evidence-based achievement and acceleration strategies such as curriculum compacting which I'm going to talk a little bit about reading and writing across the curriculum and standards Mastery testing with our students and families at the center of everything we do the ELA Department Focus areas for improving student outcomes fall in four key areas the first is the creation and implementation of New York State Ela Next Generation priority standards based curriculum and obtaining standards aligned high quality curriculum resources standards-based and curriculum will ensure students are exposed to grade level content that's aligned to the outcomes outlined by New York State the next Focus area is the implementation of a standards aligned common informative

174assessment formative and summative New York State Standards aligned assessments it's important to measure skills growth but it's also important to measure our students proficiency of grade level learning outcomes so we know where they are and can work to close the gaps the third component is focus on tier one grade level culturally relevant instruction through the use of grade level complex anchor texts and close reading the data on the previous slide shows that high failure rates point to a problem with the core Ela instruction in improving core instruction will ensure that all students are exposed to grade level content in high impact strategies like close reading the fourth Focus area is designing implementing and measuring the impact of professional learning for teachers administrators and families that's aligned to the apartment Focus areas New York State Standards

175align curriculum and assessments helping students persevere through grade level complex text and close reading instruction building teacher capacity to provide high quality instruction that will improve student achievement next slide we know through research that our black and brown students are less likely to be in a classroom where they're exposed to grade level content daily and we strive to provide and Implement a common standards-based curriculum to eliminate educational disparities in students from different schools by implementing a single set of standards in a scope and sequence across the district the goal is that certain educational standards will be met regardless of where a student attends school equity and access to the same content next slide in response to the nicet distinguished Educators recommendations in 2019 the ELA department embarked on writing a next-gen Ela standards-based K-12 curriculum

176framework with embedded Assessments in units this quote from Larry Ainsworth articulates the importance of a prioritized curriculum the framework Works in tandem with the newly adopted K5 literacy program my view Migos Young to provide students with high quality instruction focused on priority learning outcomes outlined in the priority standards we've worked hard to align the lessons and resources in the myview museum program with a prioritized curriculum since the adoption of the program this year next slide prioritized learning is the learning that's been identified as the most essential to a particular grade level or course and for which significant time and resources are devoted to ensure mastery in the process of developing our next-gen standards line curriculum we use the criteria identified by Larry Ainsworth in this process rigorous curriculum design in fact the teacher teams went

177through 24 professional learning sessions with our Consultants to learn how to write this curriculum the chart on the bottom of the left screen shows those four criteria considered when prioritizing standards so there's Readiness does The Standard address content and related skills essential for the next level of learning endurance is this is content instills that are relevant over time and in multiple grade levels Leverage is this the content and skills applicable across content areas and finally external exams how often is the standard assessed on our summative assessments for example State tests National exams like SAT and ACT our current Department work on prioritizing content involves reviewing the content of a particular grade level for example essential questions units topics to be covered in class during the span of a certain period of time or a marking

178period secondly by applying the explicit criteria like the alignment with learning standards prerequisite for later conceptual learning to rate of rank the content of importance and less and then to identify assignments related to the now prioritized content the last piece is determining the grading criteria for the prioritize assignments and assessments next slide last spring we had covet closure and student achievement Partners which is also known as achievement core published the 2020-2021 priority instructional content in ela and Mathematics the ELA Department used guidance from this document as well as reopening guidance from other large urban districts and the capital region BOCES to prioritize our new curriculum further to accelerate learning into close achievement gaps on the left there are links to our grade level bands and prioritized curriculum that can also be accessed through Rock connect

179and on our Ela prioritize content curriculum and common formative assessments website again this visual like this this visual excuse me emphasizes the grade level complex anchor text is essential at the center of instruction with building content knowledge and close reading instruction and strategies to help students persevere through complex texts K2 foundational reading skills are at the base and developing social emotional and academic development of all students throughout these three essential questions guided the work in our prioritized curriculum and reopening guidance what must students learn how will we know if they've learned it either in person or remotely and how prepared is a student to learn the content and this speaks to schema theory that we know takes what readers know that influences the reading process building knowledge in the content area is essential in the

180reading in building reading ability looks like it is essential that rcsd students engage with Next Generation Ela curriculum that's relevant and approachable to all Learners and to that end the ELA Department worked closely with the Department of multilingual education and special education departments Dr Nani lasso who's a consultant for nyset created the four Hallmarks of advanced literacies a common set of instructional practices and guidelines for the implementation of the Next Generation learning standards and this focused our work work with engaging complex text talk and engaging in discussions to build language and ideas writing to build language and knowledge and Assa and to study a set of high utility vocabulary words to build academic language and the depth of knowledge our recently adopted my view mivision literacy program has a completely complementary Spanish program to develop

181Spanish literacy in our 6A curriculum is fully aligned with Spanish language arts in English as a new language scaffolds for our English language Learners and students with disabilities are Incorporated throughout our K-12 curriculum then I said curriculum responsive culturally responsive sustaining education framework has four guiding principles that frame our curriculum work making sure there's a welcoming and affirming environment high expectations and rigorous instruction inclusive curriculum and assessment in ongoing professional learning on the left there are links to our grade level bands and prioritized curriculum that can also be accessed through reconnect on our Ela prioritized curriculum and common formative assessment website that's fine slides 9 and 10 illustrate some of the examples of the work that the teachers have as resources for teaching Ela this slide represents a visual of the reading rcsd K curriculum

182and Savas my view crosswalk so that crosswalk is available in grades K5 in a folder linked to the ELA curriculum site starting at the left side of the screenshot of the document teachers can see the units and assessments linked the next column illustrates the kindergarten anchor standards kindergarten priority standards supporting standards my view Mi Vision unit links in the myviewme museum standards alignment to the rcsd curriculum standards in each unit next slide this is an example of unit 3 which we're just opening now on literary analysis from a grade 12 Ela outlined are the suggested culturing role in texts priority standards in each unit the 10-week overview in the assessment Blueprints and descriptions on the right side of the screen is a screenshot of our Ela prioritized curriculum and common formative assessment Google site which

183is accessible through reconnect and also linked to our Ela Department home page next slide the second lever for improving student literacy outcomes is tiered instruction you heard a little bit about that through special ed Department tonight um with um Quality tier one grade level instruction with scaffolds for support on the left there are links to all of our grade level updated instructional pacing guidance including in our academic reopening plan and on our website on the right is the ELA sample simultaneous instruction workshop model schedule that was included in our reopening guidance this winter the first rotation review preview and connect is 25 lesson second rotation which is work time which is really when students are engaged in their work is 50 percent of the lesson time in the third rotation closure or evidence of learning

184is the final 25 detailed in this pacing guidance is what the teachers will facilitate and how in-class students and at home students will participate in lesson components next slide the third lever for improving student achievement is on utilizing formative and summative assessments aligned to New York state standards and to collect evidence of learning to make instructional decisions so formative assessments provide both students and teachers with the information they need to improve the learning process while it's happening the goal of formative assessment is to monitor progress told toward the goal or objective providing information quickly or just in time which allows both students and teachers to hurt both students and teachers to respond to the academic needs of the student summative assessments are generally given at the end of a unit or course and the goal

185of this type of evaluation is really to measure the Mastery of the learning standards so unlike formative assessments which emphasize feedback some type summative assessments always yield a specific grade so teachers and administrators have access to our Ela SLA assessment landing page that shares descriptions purposes and recommendations for different types of literacy assessments and we've begun to collect data from the following sources to be able to triangulate our students standards proficiency K-12 prioritize curriculum and we have K-12 prioritized curriculum common formative assessments which are administered quarterly a newly developed Kaela standards protocol for analyzing nwea data which links the skills to the standards K5 my view and me Vizio informative assessments that are included in the literacy program we're proud to have K-8 success made for reading reports and the K5 and 612 Ela curriculum

186and program implementation walkthrough tools which we're really trying to measure the implementation of our curriculum and our reading program in which data is collected and used to develop professional learning in more targeted ways next slide the last component of our literacy Improvement framework is targeted on press professional development aligned and linked to the Strategic District literacy needs the ELA Focus areas for professional learning include curriculum assessment and instructional practice grounded in standards-based curriculum complex anchor text and close reading instruction those are really our buckets for this year these are some of the ELA PD offerings during March to develop English language arts Spanish language arts and English as a new language capacity at the building level and across the district Dome and Ela departments develop two teacher leader cohorts which we're really happy about and

187has has been great for us with teacher sharing and being able to lift some of this work in the buildings K5 and 612 these literacy cohorts consist of two or more teachers from each building and meet once a month with targeted agendas these teams give valuable feedback on our curriculum our assessments and resources and participate in PV workshops before they're rolled out to the rest of the teachers in the district and share breast practices and resources to make them available on our literacy cohort Google sites and in our newsletters we also have two parent curriculum nights K5 and 612 coming up on March 27th in April 21st organized in collaboration with the office of parent engagement and each meeting will focus on an Ela curriculum and resources updates and I know they're also having curriculum

188nights for math as well so the last slide is just to thank you for your attention and to see if you have any questions that was a lot thank you are there any questions I don't see any hands raised thank you Karen for your presentation you're welcome uh the next um and the last is the mathematics Department by um in Kila Paco if I'm pronouncing that correctly um it's close enough it's in Kayla but it's close enough in Kayla yes nice to meet you nice to meet you pretty name nice to meet you too good evening Uma can you share so rahima is going to share the slide deck thank you rahima for doing that thank you good evening President White vice president Ali Commissioners family community members and staff I want to thank you

189for this opportunity um to give an overview on Mathematics Curriculum assessment instruction and professional development next foreign with the district's strategic plan just like Karen spoke a little bit about the English we are focusing on providing high quality learning experiences to improve academic success for all our students and also is in alignment with Dr JLo's academic plan and recommendations for instructional transformation next slide just like you saw in English in terms of the proficiency data for mathematics I would like to start this presentation drawing your attention to the math proficiency rates in grades three through eight this graph is taken from the rcsd Strategic plan and shows students performance Trends from 2017 to 2019 that is the last administration of New York State assessments as you can see all the numbers and the data it's

190very closely resembled the English proficiency rates we still got those subgroups of students at three percent four percent for students with disabilities L students and then and then so on into the um the Blue Line 13 represents all our students that performed or scored at a level three and above on the state assessment for grades three through eight and again just like you saw in the previous presentation during the English prison our Target for 2023 is set at 25 for all our students and this represents an increase of 12 for all our students including our subgroups of students students with disabilities the owl population and even so that particular goal still falls short um to the New York state state average proficiency rate which for mathematics is set at 46.7 percent as measured in the

1912019 State assessment next slide so the word the the work of the mathematical Department um leads between a constant cycle of inquiring reflecting and improving as we're trying to align curriculum standards in standard and um in assessments so this diagram um encompasses four key areas of this presentation so the first one that I will speak about and give you an overview will be the Mathematics Curriculum so I'll speak a little bit about the standards adjustments and accelerations that we had to to make as we moved into this um this very challenging school year instructional mathematics in remote and hybrid settings I will speak a little bit to the assessments of and for learning if we still make a distinction there and then the ongoing professional development opportunities that the mathematic department has provided to all

192stakeholders in the rcsd school district next slide foreign so in terms of the curriculum and the curricula for mathematics for grade K through 12. our Focus um was always to provide teachers guidance and support addressing gaps and needs as the result of covet 19. so this work plans to lift the recommendations of Dr jalos on table eight to lift the quality of the curriculum instruction and assessments for all content areas and all student population and also table nine that I spoke a little bit on the beginning of the presentation our work is the math department includes addressing unfinished learning while staying focused on essential grade level content we believe that students are best served when learning is accelerated therefore our curriculum guidance documents for the 2021 school year such as acceleration of learning plans for

193all grade levels K-12 incorporate previous grade learning standards and foundational skills at the same time we understand that teaching remotely a curriculum that was designed for face-to-face instruction presents its own challenges and we can speak all day to those challenges at night but our guidance documents focus on speaks to those particular needs and provide considerations and resources to support teachers plan instruction for mathematics on all grade levels next so as I move forward for slides six seven and eight I brought some examples of the curricular um Guardians documents and curricular resources that are available for teachers and leaders in the building this table is taken from grade four guidance documents and you can see on the pink it shows the grade three standards as unfinished teaching or unfinished learning all those standards are included within

194the pacing of grade four curriculum for mathematics and it also if it in the side of it it also provides specific sequences for the lesson and notes to help teachers consolidate or in some cases even amid some of the learning experiences because we realize that teaching remote or hybrid requires us to prioritize essential standards and key understandings for our students next slide so this is an example of the weekly plans document taken from the fifth grade curriculum they are already posted on our newly created website so the math website is on the upper right hand corner um it is a little bit busy in terms of tax but it does break down the content of the skills that teachers need to focus in the daily instruction and also identified resources for intervention accelerations and all

195those resources resources that are sheltered on the last column are always connected to the priority or essential standards for that week at the same time it does identify the objectives formative assessments such as exit tickets checks for understanding multiple ways of assessing learning in day-to-day basis and then in a deeper dive those two rows that you see that mentioned concept development slides they include slides for teachers to use in their daily instruction and they are we are working closely with the Dome Department to actually translate all those materials in Spanish so most of the materials now are available in English any Spanish to support all our students next slide as we moved into this year we realized that we realized that we needed digital companions that's what we call it for our Mathematics Curriculum so

196for grades k6 we have CERN to support the curriculum that is happening in the classroom either in remote setting or in simultaneous instruction and then for bilingual students we have DreamBox which provides instruction in Spanish and then this year we have for our middle school students map accelerator it's another digital companion to our curriculum next slide so the second area I'll Focus for our department is um is focused on the instruction and our priority is to provide support to teachers with designing mathematics instruction in remote and hybrid learning spaces this work included recommendations in terms of time and task for each grade level from grade K to 12. we provide a consideration for the structure of content delivery using the rcsd instructional framework in the workshop model but the other part of our work was

197focused on strategies for facilitating student students social emotional and academic needs in mathematics so we paid close attention to that and we provided multiple strategies within the weekly plans for teachers to use and Implement in their day-to-day instruction at the same time recommendations and resources that stress the importance of discourse a sense of belonging agency and identity are also embedded it within the weekly plans and the unit plans for teachers to use next slide I would like to bring this example this is from our Black History Month in mathematics we have embedded it check-ins for all grade levels from gay from grade K up to 12 and there's two examples are resources made available to teachers taken from the algebra 1 curriculum it's embedded within the concept development slides that are available in our website

198and it is our hope that we can create opportunities for students to build a sense of belonging and see relevance in the work that they do and as we continue forward to develop curriculum and develop curricular resources we hope to help students feel and be successful with mathematics so I just wanted to bring you some examples of that work that has been done and that support that we're we're providing to teachers in terms of creating places and spaces for our students to make their thinking visible next slide so in terms of the assessment often for learning our goal and our the role of our work is to guide and support teachers with using Assessments in service of Equitable grade level instruction but also to monitor student learning so we just think we make the distinction

199between the auth and for because we still consider that the off is is a sum of skills and knowledge which teachers continue to assess at the end of the unit at the end of the topic but assessments for learning are those partnership assessments that teachers collect daily and we also made available in our weekly plans to continue to assess student understanding as they move forward we do have a district-wide common formative assessment system we just closed out the second window of administration I believe it was last week and that was administered completely remotely for grade three through eight and the regions courses in this same time in alignment with the English Department we do have an instructional tool that leaders in the building are using to collect data on the implementation of the math curriculum

200and also we are collecting data to support us with development of professional developments next slide um this is very tax dense but again just like you saw um with the English Department we work in collaboration um with our tnl partners and directors to create professional developments in our buckets of um or Focus areas so for mathematics again we are focusing on curriculum and adaptations that need to be made to curriculum so that it's adjusted and fit it fitted to be taught in remote and hybrid settings we paid close attention to instruction and and more specifically identifying the digital tools and resources to support teachers design math instruction for remote settings or those learning spaces and then assessments is another part that we continue to provide professional development not only to teachers but also to leaders

201in the building so that they can understand how to monitor and how to provide feedback in terms of the mathematical instruction something that I want to draw your attention to this professional development like in red you can see the timeline we continue to provide them and we continue to support teachers and leaders and parents with this type of professional development we started our work back in summer and then we continue to do so during the school year so the professional development are offered to teachers leaders we had parent meetings and another paranoid is coming up on May 16th we included supporting staff we provided professional development even to substitute teachers we're very thankful to have all of them in so then we could introduce the curricula curricular resources and the instructional tools that we had

202available at the same time with continuing collaborate we continue to collaborate with other departments such as Dome department and special ed Department to make sure that we are addressing the needs of all our students and at the same time we are support hurting all Educators to enrich their teaching practices so next slide and this is the last slide um I want to acknowledge the work of my time my tiny tiny Department my two teachers on assignment Candace colon and Elizabeth Helbig they are doing a fantastic job organizing the work of writing curriculum creating professional development but at the same time this work would have never been possible without the effort of all the other Educators that prioritize writing curriculum over the weekend versus spending time with their families so to all those Educators that supported

203this work as we build the the plane and flying the plane at the same time I'm very thankful of all that work and very appreciative to bring all this resources to teachers in such a short amount of time and that concludes my presentation thank you and Kayla I don't see any hands raised in the uh in the chat room any questions thank you very much oh I see commissioner LeBron has a question I'm sorry I just have a quick question on one of the slides and I pulled it up on my computer also um I think it's slide number 10. I'm just trying to understand like the black history month and Mathematics slide and the check-in piece and like how that applies to mathematics yep um so we that's a great question thank you for

204asking so from the beginning our Focus was to create places and spaces for students to interact with each other but also with adults so it's part of social emotional um development for all our students so the check-ins were built within the curriculum from September so for the Black History Month the check-ins that we included are connected to a person that has been has has been successful in mathematics so it is our hope to kind of change the narrative for our students and make them feel successful in the field of mathematics and in the kind of build that sense of belonging a little bit so that's why we try to connect the actual checking the social emotional piece that we have built in the curriculum to Black History Month and identifying specific um identified specific people

205that have been instrumental in moving forward the field of mathematics and science and NASA so we're we're bringing all this all these pieces to our students so they can understand that the mathematics live outside of the books outside of the classroom and is all out there all around them so it's part of US changing the narrative and building um self-esteem and and seeing you know what can potentially happen if they pursue this route uh Miss Kling scale you have a question yeah because I just have a comment um I really want to thank you Miss Parker for finding ways to excite our kids about math because typically maybe working with kids I find out that African-American young men are very good at math uh and that was uh amazing for me um but my my

206question is uh you mentioned parent involvement what have what is going on to involve parents into having those prerequisites to those kids learning the math uh how are we reaching out to the parents uh is that a priority in the plan um that's a great question thank you for asking that um it's definitely a priority in our plan as we're building the the plane and flying the plane um we connected with parents back in September and we introduced all the curricular resources but part of and then we have another parent night coming up on May 16 we definitely need to get connect with parents so then they can understand curriculum curricular resources and what we are producing to make sure that students are moving forward gaining the credits that they need at the end of

207the school year um but we still see our work more like a mediator providing all the resources as well to teachers and leaders so then those resources are brought brought to parents so we see our work in two two ends the first one we had those meetings like Prime like contact with parents back in September we're connecting back with them prior to the school year ends we're kind of waiting in line until there is an opening for us to join and present but the same time we continue to provide resources and support to teachers because those are the ones that work directly with parents right so those are the ones that have close connection with parents so definitely it's in both ends for us so typically if you had a really strong parent liaison program

208that could help you correct that'll be fantastic definitely ask him as a parent all right thank you honey you did a great job thank you thank you Cynthia I just wanted to kind of go back to that slide again because I grew up some issues with some of the questions about what's being presented and I just I'm trying to understand the correlation for math I get the social emotional check-in but I feel like there has to be some screening um of the type of questions we're asking students particularly students of color um whether black or brown and and so I'll point this out like it says you think he went to college I I the way that that lands on me is may be different for our students but I'm also consciously aware of how

209things are presented to kids and how they absorb it and take these then so I I just want us to be conscious of this and um and uh you know I know Dr Black is also reassessing things um and I do trust her lens and judgment and I'll put that out there but I just want to highlight these questions as check-ins for our students especially when we're talking about successful people who look like them which obviously the path could be very different um and even for like someone even for like myself right I have a very different path of how I got here but also love mathematics and I'm a strong supporter of students learning math and and taking up opportunities for esteem at all levels but I just want to be conscious about how

210these things are presented and I just had to say that on record and ask Dr Black to also take a look at these things thank you thank you commissioner LeBron President White yes thank you vice president Elliot very quickly and and someone can provide the answer offline or on the question log but to what extent did the presentations that we observed today reflect uh input from the Apparently successful curriculum developed at East I would remind people we have a proprietary a financial significant financial investment in that it does not belong to the U of R it belongs to the district and I'm wondering uh to what extent we have capitalized on that success on that investment because as you all know East as we know it now won't exist after the contract is over and

211the point was never to just have five years worth of success at East or a continued success at East with the model being placed there the whole idea was you all recall the Joel Seligman and myself and others saying supposed to be an incubator of success so my question is and it can be answered later to what extent did the presentations that we saw today reflect the input and contribution of the significant financial investment we're reminded of that frequently that was made over at East and as I understand it the success they've had with their curriculum including curriculum relating to Multicultural curriculum so I really I really want to know because again it wasn't my goal it wasn't the goal of anybody who was involved in any of my colleagues at the time to just

212have that investment benefit the students of East it was supposed to benefit everybody else so again the question is to what extent is the work that is being performed on developing an effective curriculum for our students in the rest of the district to what extent was that informed by the success or the practices of those at East which again we invest in a considerable sum of money and I want to make sure I want to make sure that that investment is benef benefits everybody so you can put that in the question mark I'll tell you I love that thing thank you president what can I can I answer just a little bit can I attempt to answer the question um thank you for asking that question um I've worked very close with the staff at

213East um and um I met with um Dr Nelms back in um back during summer to kind of try to build that bridge and try to kind of bring some of the curriculum that East has in terms of mathematics actually some of those questions um that you just saw on that black history month are taken from some of the resources that these teachers are providing to their students so we are definitely building that connection now and a lot of resources that we have provided to our teachers and our students for for algebra one geometry regions and Algebra 2 are actually taken from some of their resources and brought back to the district so it's definitely there and we are making every attempt to benefit from those resources that we've seen have been successful with with

214our students in that particular setting so all those are brought back to us um and are made available right now to the teachers in the district it's still in a pilot because as we are providing professional development and building layers to sustain that work still they are available to all our teachers all our students that are learning Algebra 1 geometric regions and algebra 2. all that part of the curriculum is shifted and brought back and integrated within our district curricular resources if you want to provide your answer in the question log that would be great on the GLA side okay thank you uh Ms Kingsdale yeah is this training that so I I guess my question as a parent this is what we're going to consider one of our most successful schools Mr President you

215want to respond to that I'm sorry what was the question again is going to be considered one of our most model successful schools well I you know I guess different people might answer in different ways but I would say certainly in terms of graduation rate it has I think if you dig deep into the ELA and math scores I think they've had consistent gains I can't quote you exactly the percentage of those gains and how they compare to district-wide gains that certainly would be a question that could legitimately be put in the question log but I think um other districts have looked at that curriculum it has been roundly uh praised and and again and again if you look at the numbers and that's how you judge whether something is a particular school is successful

216now we don't we don't have much say in and what determines what is successful this state does and they say graduation rates Ela scores math scores are basically the key uh performance indicators and certainly on on the graduation scale and there are other schools that do well too by the way Monroe's had some gains but east has to be ranked because they went from I think 30 uh one or 39 or something like that too to 80 80 in four years so so my next question we pay for most of that right within that we did we did so why aren't we monopolizing on what we pay for eign school that needs to be duplicated without within our district without question uh program and Missy Bond believes in Pilot programs you get a program you

217see how it works if it works we replicate why aren't we replicating this program and why are we holding those people that created this program accountable because me as a taxpayer my money is paying for this so this should be disseminated throughout the district from a parent perspective that's that's a this board member's perspective as well I mean people often say we spend all that money to hold up on that well I I I don't know and and you could you could look over the success of superintendents and I think you might make the same observation the numbers suggest I think it was 29 to 78. and I'm not saying East is only school that we should be replicating what you and I would call Best Friends great too because I was in on that

218President yeah yeah that's right that's right that's right and I'm saying we just it went from I think they went from 29 to 79 in four years the ELA scores and math scores consistently gone up now again how they compared to District scores I can't report to you right now but I'm with you and I've been saying it for years this district has a terrible track record of best practicing things that work and here the sad thing is and I don't I don't know someone will answer the question but assuming that you know our Ela presentation was not predicated on or let's say it's Reinventing the proverbial wheel let me just be honest that would be a shameful waste of resources everything they have right but my my computer is probably gonna die it says

219my battery is running low so I'm probably gonna have to uh to try to do is also submit questions to the um to the to the log uh Miss clean scale if you have some other questions in case your computer dies out okay but I think I just think as a parent if I'm a parent and I'm which I am and I'm looking in on this meeting I'm thinking that if we have successful models guys is there any way because I've always said van you know that when you have to play yeah everything at the wall let's see what sticks we threw two things at the wall we threw Monroe at the wall we threw East at the wall wow 80 79 we need to get those people that ran that program to teach everybody

220but that's just me as a parent I'm not a professional you know I don't have the degrees for most of these people that are sitting at this board but I'm in the community every day not only am I a parent a grandparent but I'm a community agency too so if we got something that's work y'all we need to use it because we've been at the bottom for so long that when we see a little bit of success Reach For It replicate it thank you commissioner LeBron yeah I just want to actually formalize that question into the board question log and Yvonne I think if you were to see the cost of it plus the results of ela and math um and not just the comparison of graduation rates because that's that can be a an

221interesting conversation that we don't have a lot of time tonight to discuss but I would like to formally ask for the ELA math results for East and across the district and certainly also we can look at the cost of those things I believe in models too but I think that there are models that cannot be replicated because of the financial cost and also the outcomes are not always quite there so I just wanted to state that and that's come up multiple times before but I'll leave it at that all right well thank you everybody do I need to do a motion to adjourn the meeting or just turn the gather back over to you Mr President um you have to adjourn because it's your meeting you have to do and then you turn the gamble

222back over to me all right can I get a motion I know this has been a long meeting as it seems the esa meetings are being long but they have such Rich information and their quality presentations and comprehensive presentations so I want to thank all of the presenters uh tonight uh that was a lot of great work uh thank you again and so if I can get a motion to adjourn the Esna committee meeting motion second second all in favor all right all right all right thank you and The Gather goes back to the president thank you madam vice president and let me thank you for you you complimented everybody else for that uh very thorough agenda um but uh you uh as of all of our chairs you are charged over the agenda so

223thank you for presenting us with a very comprehensive um assessment through uh District staff of where we're at on very critical uh pieces of our plan of improvement so so thank you for that thank you in the past uh prior chairs myself included sometimes focused on the the key performance areas we just looked at graduation rates Ela scores math scores we wanted regular reports about where we were at but what you've done today and what the the team has done today has presented the the road map for getting there right the detailed roadmap about how we are going to improve so so thank you for providing that agenda I think if anybody who had some patience and some time to listen to this important detail got school today so thank you very much for that

224thank you um our next item on the agenda is to go into executive session we have two matters uh that have to be discussed they both relate to the uh Steve help me out here because I think you're you're as a general counsel information or is it um relating to a Personnel manner you you there one of the two matters uh commissioner LeBron had a matter but she has indicated that she does not um need to discuss it tonight so I I just need a brief moment with you all to discuss um a legal matter all right so we're going to go uh into a confidential sessions not call the executive session because like most folks if you have to speak to your attorney you can you can and should do it privately so work

225before joining our meeting we gotta go speak to our attorney and then we'll come back and and take care of some stuff including our survey if you don't uh if you decide not to stick around on behalf of the Board of Education have a safe and uh uh enjoyable night God bless everybody it is the end of the evening it's a now 9 13 p.m uh the only business that we we've taught we've had some opportunity to speak to our lawyer and um nothing no action needs to be taken no statements need to be taken about that we are now going to engage in the process of doing our survey and um as soon as our court clerk puts a survey up and as soon as everybody finishes it we'll adjourn there's a survey okay

226uh Taya Madam clerk tell me when we are done no coming in um as we're waiting I want to thank everybody for their prayers my mom is uh on the circumstances doing as best she can and and she's awake and alert and we're very blessed about that so thank you for your prayers yep God is good I uh yeah we're good we actually are we actually are completed right now because uh superintendent is not here and um commissioner brown lost internet access again sorry okay um I just need that motion that magic motion motion thank you vice president second uh here commissioner Clark all those papers indicate so by saying good night good night good night