001Hello. Good evening. Welcome to the February 2nd, 2026 meeting of the instructional policy and student achievement committee. My name is Dr. Renee Molar. I'm the chair of this committee. joining us this evening. We also have committee members uh Gregory Harrison and Nathan JRose and board member Carmea Kelly. We also have at our table our uh superintendent outly and assistant superintendent and committee member Dr. Lash. So, thank you uh for everyone joining us virtually and in person. We have a decent crowd today. So, thank you. Um the first item uh for business today is approval of the previous meeting minutes. So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All right. Thank you. The meeting minutes of the uh our January meeting have been approved. Uh next on the agenda is public comment. Is there anyone here for
002public comment this evening? And as it does not appear so, we are going to move right along because we only have an hour. So this is the first meeting that we are having with our new instructional policy agenda. We are trying to um for anyone who was not here for our last meeting, we are trying to identify items prepared for future board action to really utilize this committee in a way that informs board decision making um and uh includes the community in that also. So um the difference between theory and practice is practice and practice makes perfect. So we do have a lovely agenda here and I know Dr. Lash and I met a couple times and we tried to work out and there's a beautiful script. We're going to work through this maybe not
003in the exact order because now that I see the attachments and I see all the information. Um I I agree that what you said before presenting it in the other way might make a little bit more sense and might be uh productive to the decision making of the board. And so just keeping that in mind and everything that we're doing we only have an hour and the point is so we can make decisions. So I do think Dr. Lash, what you had here for uh section four, the midyear performance update, culture of safety, belonging, and academic achievement. The data here really grounds what um the content you brought for section 31 and 32. And so if we could hear that data and then how that relates to 31 and 32 because from what I saw
004in the presentation it looked like uh there was maybe some personnel decisions eventually being involved and so knowing uh why and the value that those personnel would bring I think would be very very helpful. So um we are going to skip ahead to section 41. Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair. All right. And so, uh, skipping ahead to 4.01, our data assessment and student achievement. Um, we do want to, uh, do a high-level overview of semester 1, uh, progress for both cornerstone one and cornerstone 2 of our blueprint for um, excellent strategic plan. So, we have a couple of um midyear data points uh relative to specific objectives within those two cornerstones. And so, I'm going to ask uh Keith Liy Clifford and uh Tuan Dengwin uh to just join us at the podium to
005um aid in the discussion. And so, these updates um really serve as a check for us um just really to look at our tactical moves. uh the commitments that we made and make some um determination of how we are moving in uh relation to the the goals that we set. All right. So, we're going to start uh with cornerstone one, which is our uh culture of safety and belonging. And we're just going to take a second here to uh get the slide. There we go. Okay. So um this cornerstone of our uh strategic plan is really about the the school community and um stakeholders in our school community and ensuring that uh they all feel uh respected and supported. And so in the next slide uh there are two objectives that we we pull out
006here. Um one of the objectives we we set was to increase the number of scholars uh with an attendance rate of 90% or greater. And so we've seen a strong uh trend here with 60 point uh 62% of our students maintaining an attendance rate of 90% or greater at the end of semester 1 compared to if you um see that on the screen 56.4% of um students last year. Now that was for the overall year that 56 uh.4% of our students had an attendance rate of 90% or greater. Um and so right now at this point midy year uh we are trending upward. The other um objective that we set out to to achieve was to decrease out of school suspensions. And so when we look at um the question of how many out of
007school suspensions occurred um again uh last year you see the overall total there were 9,794 occurrences of um out of school suspension. And so right now at uh the conclusion of semester 1, we've had 4,468 occurrences. So, it's trending um lower than than where we were uh overall um for last year. And so, to sustain this um I probably don't have to remind everyone that we've had some calamity days. Um and so, what a great opportunity not only to come back and and start second semester strong, but after uh some time away from school. So, one of the things that um our buildings will be doing is holding reset meetings um just to uh review PBIS expectations uh for for the building. Um we are also working on a parent communication. Our superintendent uh Outley
008uh who's right here with us tonight um sent communication home to our families. We set um through our MTSS multi-tered system of support um we set kind of a decision rule of three uh incidents um in a quarter. And so for any of our students that have um had three or more incidents for the second quarter, we are uh sending communication home to uh just inform our families and the the communication is pretty detailed. it it does identify what the infractions are and we are asking our families uh to help us um you know communicate expectations with with their their students. Um so at home uh we also are taking a deeper dive into the data. So PBIS teams at the building level um do take time to look at their suspension data to see
009uh what types of infractions are occurring um those kinds of things just to to better uh be able to support decision making um with students. And so um part of that uh next level work is also strengthening our tier one tier 2 support. And so as um buildings look at their data um identifying again where um where do we need to to support scholars. Okay. So that is cornerstone one. For cornerstone two I'm going to ask uh Keith and uh Dr. Wyn. >> Thank you. So cornerstone two is around our academics which are excited to be here to share a little bit more about that in another segment. Um but around academics really committed to making sure that we have a high quality tier one core instruction and that our support systems are in place
010for tier 2 and tier three. Um so generally you guys are familiar with the state report card like that's our overall measurement of success. Uh but in between we needed to identify some benchmarks. Uh and one way we do that is looking at our I Ready diagnostic assessment which we give in grades K through eight reading and math and then also we look at the quarterly assessments uh created by our learning specialists and teams of teachers uh in those upper level courses. So just um to go over the chart a little bit with you if you see uh one of our main goals is to increase the percentage of students who are reading on grade level. And so uh I would like to call out that when you look at the 2425 you're looking at
011endofthe-year progress. So uh right now we're midway through and so we don't expect to be exactly at those end of the year goals yet but we expect to be making progress towards it. So uh while you'll notice from 24 25 to 25 26 in uh reading and math those elementary grades they're making progress. they they've not quite met those end of the year uh goals yet. So, for example, third grade ended last year at 45% of our students proficient uh in ELA and you know, right now those third graders are about 40%. I feel like that's pretty good progress. You know, we've got another semester to meet or exceed that 45. I am proud to say that when we look at middle school, we're seeing, you know, we're outperforming right now where we ended the
012end of the year last year. So, that is a great sign. So, again, just kind of calling that out. You can see sixth grade last year, we ended with about 29% of our kids showing proficiency on that I Ready. Right now, mid year, we're already at 36. So, that's some really great hope. uh as we look forward to that end of the year OST assessments. Uh same thing in math uh trending that same way. Elementary uh they're kind of on track from where we were last year. And in uh 6th through 8th, we're exceeding those end of the year scores already. So again, showing us uh some signs that we're making some really good progress. Uh I do need to mention in our ELA 2 and algebra 1 those secondary assessments uh we are comparing
013the OST. So in 2425 that's the level of proficiency that we received uh on that endofear assessment. The best way to gauge where we are now is again using those quarterly assessments. They're OST like they're OST questions that we've created. Um the biggest difference in this benchmarking is that the OST is a uh analysis of the year-long set of standards where our quarterly assessments are chunked to give our teachers and administrators a good idea like did the kids master what we taught this nine weeks. Um, so again with the snow days, you can see we're 82% reported in ELA and about 69% reported in algebra 1, meaning the snow days prevented us to complete all those tests yet. But given that uh we are at 36% showing proficiency in 10th grade ELA 2 means 10th
014grade ELA. Uh, and algebra 1 right now we're 30% proficient. Now, I did do a look back uh and that is actually a percentage or two higher from where we were midyear last year, but again uh not quite hitting that mark in algebra one yet in terms of where we ended the year. So, uh we'll be looking and monitoring that data. >> So, our quarter assessments this year were pulled from the bank of questions from uh the CRS bank of questions from OST. So, we really align it for our teachers. So it's really nice. In past years, we had a different bank of questions, but they're all standards based. So this year, we decided to use questions right from the OST bank. >> Good. And so for us, it's really about data conversations. Now, we
015lost we lost that instructional improvement day to a snow day. Uh but we still have our professional learning communities and our buildings right now are engaged in their SIP teams looking at this data, diving into it uh and determining their next steps. Uh we're also monitoring, you're going to hear a little bit about our explicit instruction strategies. And so that's one of our key uh universal strategies this year in terms of delivery of instruction. Uh Dr. Win is going to talk to you a little bit about ECRI, which is another driving factor in our elementary classrooms that's going to help close those gaps. And of course, we're looking and monitoring at our tier 1 and two systems of intervention in both reading and math. Uh this is our midyear, you know, check-in as uh we
016work with buildings. Twan actually had some great professional development midyear with I Ready. Did you want to mention? Yes, we had wonderful data conversations with individual principles as we work through their data and talk about how can we, you know, improve the data by the end of the year. So, our our principles, we had great conversations. They had next step plans to continue to uh lead the building um in their buildings with the implementation of I Ready, the teaching, the differentiation of instruction at their buildings. And then uh Erin Marovic uh right before uh right before the break met with our instructional coaches uh and they dug apart the assessment data that we had um to put in their coaching cycles. So we do have coaches in almost every building uh who help the teachers
017in their professional learning communities unpack that data and help determine like what are the next steps for me as a classroom teacher. So that work continues. And then we are also gearing up. We're uh working with teaching and learning uh and uh Mrs. Carter on our 3G programming. So, we're targeting uh next level work with certain third graders uh who are kind of on the bubble and need to uh shore up some skills before our state testing. And so, we're ramping up and getting personnel in place uh for some of those targeted tutoring. >> So, our we had the training for our 3G tutors today. So, we had two training opportunities in the AM or in the PM. So, we had our uh training for 3G. >> Thank you. I'll turn it back over to
018you, Dr. Lash. >> Thank you, um, Mr. Licky Clifford and Dr. Wyn. And so, um, Madame Chair, that um is the report out on on those two items. Then again as you stated so uh the 3G those are some things that uh the board will see on future agendas uh requesting approval um once those uh staff members are identified uh the approval of their extended time uh to be able to support our scholars. Right. >> Thank you. Um I'm going to open up to questions from the committee. Uh before I do, when you said 3G, is that what you have in section 3.01 or is that separate from that? >> Separate connected. Yes. >> Um questions from the committee. >> So two questions with the first objective or cornerstone one. So when you mentioned with
019the what attributed to the four points of growth in student attendance that we're trying to get to 90%. Why is it different now than it was before? What was implemented? How do we get to that improvement? >> Great question. Um, member Jerose and and that's one um that is oftentimes hard to uh you know just pinpoint exactly what it is when we we do so so many things. And so we have um chronic absenteeism letters that we we send home to all students. And I say chronic absenteeism, but I'm looking at Dr. Monar. She probably received one, but not because of chronic absenteeism um for your scholars. Um, but it is a a letter that we send home to let families know where their students are with their attendance and if they are um under
020chronic absenteeism or not with some other language depending on, you know, if if they are staying on track, they're they're doing great. Keep up the good work. If not, let us uh help you. And so, um, we know that communication is one of those pieces like families need to know the the standing of of their scholars. We also have um some stay in the game initiatives that um come out of the office of student and family services with um different um like contests if you will. Like for instance, we do like an everyday in May where we're trying to you know drum up some excitement around uh some competition around um home room attendance those kinds of things. Um, of course at the building um level PBIS uh buildings will run contests, you know, tickets
021or what have you to visit the PBIS store and you know, get trinkets. And so we really try to um, you know, figure out what what's going to um not only communicate but also uh promote um positive school attendance. Uh followup question is so it looks like we're addressing it with like a letter that okay if you're absent for this many days these are the consequences so there's that concern that if you don't follow along this is the consequence also more extrinsic motivations like the PBIS points stay in the game initiatives have we led discussions with our students asking them what would make them be more likely to attend school what do they need to see from the school building to make them want to be here maybe more of an intrinsic motiv motation. Have
022we talked to them about what would make them more likely to attend class and have we gotten any sort of feedback from them? >> Yeah. Um, great another great question and I look to our um executive directors of of school leadership that are in the audience with with us and invite uh either one of them to come up and talk through some specific things. But um I know our transcend survey is uh one of the ways that we do pulse checks with students um to hear from them and get get feedback from them. So if it's okay I Oh. Oh, and our superintendent has um something as well. Okay. >> Good afternoon, uh Chair Molinar and uh board member Harrison and board member Jerose. Um so and board member Kelly. Good afternoon. Um, so in
023elementary and actually in all of our schools, we have what we call our one plan, which is our school improvement plan. And each building has specific initiatives and actions that they do around approving their attendance and addressing their attendance. And so we have a lot of buildings that um, again provide um, individual incentives, group incentives for attendance. Also, we utilize our family liaison and our secretary support attendance a lot with daily phone calls. And so, we do have um tiered systems of support as it relates to targeting families that struggle with um attendance and just addressing whatever those individual needs are that are causing students to miss school. And so, sometimes it is specialized based on whatever the specific situation is that's causing students to be absent. But it is um uh many of our
024bu all of our buildings have attendance. So PBIS teams some people have separated their attendance and discipline as relates to what they're addressing within PBIS so they can focus specifically on just attendance initiatives. >> Yes, we do ask we talk to students frequently and regularly. They have attendance plans that they go through individually. But there's I mean any anytime we want students to be in class, we spend time talking to students about being in class. >> Now I know this is for the entire district the 56% to 60%. Do we notice there a difference between elementary absenteeism, middle school absenteeism or high school? Are they all trending the same way or is are we getting more elementary absenteeism decline or >> So um interestingly enough we sometimes in a building we see um higher absences
025with our bookends. So at our younger grades where you know um we uh do our best job to help our families understand that kindergarten matters. Um and so missing school matters. Um and then our upper grades and same in middle uh you might see sixth grade and eighth grade in high school, our ninth grade and our 12th graders. And so typically the book ends in a building will will be where we see the greatest number of absences, but there may be a building here or there where it looks, you know, maybe seventh grade at at that particular middle school is the highest, but typically those bookends. And then just the last question for cornerstone one. We're seeing the decline in the out of school suspensions. What alternative discipline are we enacting that is used to
026to avoid these out of school time suspensions? Is it just the students are behaving better this year than they were last year or are we having a different discipline approach than previous years? >> God bless you. Oh, and Superintendent Outley, you had something to add too, so I don't want to skip that. Great um question. And so um we hope uh a little bit of both. You know, we we um of course we we hope that our students are um you know, learning more about the expectations and understanding, you know, this is what it means to um this is the conduct that we expect in school that is part of our PBIS with our expectations. Um and also that we respond a little differently because not everything warrants an out of school suspension. um and
027and not because a behavior might be repetitive doesn't mean that it warrants an out of school suspension. But yes, how do we look at um alternative ways to uh message with our students and families what's acceptable and what's not and um you know really the things that u are around safety, those kinds of things, you know, making sure that we have a message that communicates to that level. um but also recognizing some things that are developmentally appropriate and should be addressed as such versus out of school suspension. Those are my questions for cornerstone one. I have a couple for two, but I can yield if we're on this topic, but okay. >> Thank you, U member uh president or chair Molinar. Um I I wanted to I have a question and then a um comment.
028Well, I should say the comment first. It would be helpful to have um we have the end of year data and then we have semester 1 data. So it would be h helpful to have apples and apples. Okay. Semester one. Okay. So we can compare those and then have the end ofear data to see where um it would be helpful just to be able to know if we need to take a turn or we need to continue to do the same thing. So with the graphs to have semester one of this year and semester one of last year and then the end of year data um where we finish >> the um incidents three incidents per quarter um generates a communication to the parent. Um so does it take three incidents or are we communicating
029you know incident one may be to a point where I need to talk to someone or we need some immediate correction. So so how is that how does that work? >> Yes, great question. Let me clarify that. And so obviously any incident in a building um that needs to be addressed by an administrator um is going to be addressed in that communication home. So this piece that parent communication is something that um we've started to do at the district level. Um it's a letter from Superintendent Outly to our families that says, you know, hey, we're we're partners in this um together. So we just use that three um just figuring out what net to capture, you know, that we just like the the app the attendance letter, you know, we send home to to every
030family. This one we felt um should be a little more targeted. >> Member Kelly, >> in addition to the blueprint that you've created or laid out for our students, our schools, and our our educators, what were there additional recommendations that the classroom teachers or pair professionals wanted to add to this? And if so, I am curious what ideas did they have? What concerns or feedback did you receive from them? Because the the our students are spending most of their time in the in these classrooms with their teachers whether they're substitutes or pair professionals. I'm pausing one. I might ask you to clarify a little bit more. I'll say first, I remember when we were com when we were working on the blueprint, we invited community stakeholders to give us feedback on our action steps and
031strategies and we did see a lot of teachers come and give us feedback. That was uh about two years ago. Um so if I missed the mark, can you give me a little bit more context? >> You didn't. Okay. >> Thank you for answering it. But if this was drafted out 2 years ago and the information you have in front of us is from this school last school year and this school year. Are there opportunities for the teachers to make additional recommendations on how this system works? >> Yes, I believe so. So, it's very individualized. We heard Mrs. Carter talk about those school improvement plans. So, every building has taken our district focus and our uh blueprint and they've aligned it to their building work. And so, they identify um the action steps and strategies
032most meaningful to their building and to their data and they identify what adult actions they're going to take. And so when we meet monthly in our school improvement teams, which is uh teacher voices and admin voices at the table, they're guiding and massaging those action steps and strategies as the data comes in. And so what we've really offered you today is just some really big picture, highlevel as we've mapped out our goals over the next five years. Um this is just a tiny snapshot showing you um how we're progressing towards those end of the year goals. Everything is very customizable at the building level with teacher voice. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you everyone. And now joining us is member Montgomery. Um I do want to keep this meeting moving along. We have
033a lot more to talk about and there are two meetings after this and if we run over it's like dominoes. We just make everyone else late. So um let me go through a few things and then um first uh when we're talking about the attendance here and the attendance letters I think there's um I from my experience an opportunity to of education for the parents on attendance you know when I uh have my child who has to have a dentist appointment in the middle of the day because that's the only time we could have the dentist appointment was the middle of the day but we don't need to miss the whole day and when I'm there um to get the letter from the dentist and give that back to the secretary because the type of
034absence for the amount of time we're gone also matters and so that education as a parent I don't know if everyone um has that same understanding but I think there's an opportunity there um a second thing as we were talking about letters and the three letters um I'm not quite sure what an occurrence is on the on the table here it listed what an occurrence is um but the implementation of this and how that's done I think is something this committee would really appreciate hearing more about and I know that a couple weeks ago uh Dr. Gogggins came and uh spoke about some other things. And so I think that in our March meeting in section 301, there might be an opportunity to talk about policy, you know, 5600, 5610 and just generally the implementation
035of our um and as member Dro uh pointed out also, you know, the behavior plans and how we are keeping students in the buildings. um and not just after three letters. So um I have those. The last thing on my list as we keep moving um I would like Dr. Lash please um I do want to hear the uh presentations on explicit instruction and enhanced core reading as it pertains to cornerstone 2. So if we could then hold the rest of our cornerstone 2 conversation after we get both of those. Um, but before that, if I could get an understanding or maybe during that, the difference between 3G and explicit instruction and the types of asks that might come to the board and the timeline of those asks. So, if we need five people for
036here and five people for here, are those the same five pe five people at the same time or not? That's what uh would be very helpful for to know. And it's 502. I saw that the explicit instruction slide deck is like 24 slides long. I think slide 20 is the one where it talked about the uh coaches if we could five minutes. Can can we can we condense those 25 slides into five minutes? >> Thank you. >> That all right because I do love to talk about some explicit instruction. Um but you know we can go out afterwards. So it is aligned to cornerstone too. I won't get into that. We just talked about uh academics. Uh so explicit instruction, I just want you to think about teaching very systematically and this is not rocket
037science. So when we think about teaching explicitly, we're breaking tasks down from simple to complex. We're making sure that students actively participate. And that's what you're going to hear more about today. Immediate feedback. We want to make sure teachers are correcting um uh errors in thinking right away so we don't lean in and repeat those same mistakes and then just making sure that we're chunking what we're teaching into bite-size concepts. So it's really just a very simple framework about solid teaching and learning that we're um that we're training on. And so this is uh there are actually 16 pieces to explicit instruction and we are not eating the whole elephant. We're focused in on number four which is designed and organized focused lessons. For us that's around vocabulary acquisition which is a standard um that
038needs a lot of work uh across our schools. And then we're also focused on number 11 require frequent responses. So that's actively engaged in the learning. Why does this matter? So if you're familiar with educational research, Dr. Molinar, I think you are. Uh, so John Hattie is an expert. He's done a lot of metaanalysis and so he's identified a hinge point of 04. So anything that has an effect size above 04 um shows statistically that kids are getting more bang out of their buck in that strategy. They're learning more than a year in a year's time. So explicit instruction is a 0.57. direct instruction which is uh you know like stand and deliver again a high effect size if done explicitly and then of course mastery learning which we're all about teaching those standards. Um,
039so that's why we chose this as a universal core and that's going to come up later like explicit instruction is core all classrooms all kids where 3G we're going to talk about later is like a focused intervention for a smaller group of kids. This is everyone. So uh we actually trained 34 teachers with the guru Anita Archer also principles and teachers um pulling principles and teachers from some of our most atrisisk buildings who had designated uh with improvement status. Those teams identified those two strategies for our district to focus on. Uh we came back and worked with Marcy and other district leaders to train uh every department here at 10 North Main. Every building has identified those two strategies as part of their one plans in adopting solid core instructional strategies. We continue uh to
040do that roll out and the professional development on our IED days. Our coaches are trained to do it. We're monitoring these strategies through PACE uh and walkthroughs and uh I'm happy to say we presented to AEA and our PAR teachers uh and so they even created the palm cards for every teachers. We love our archerisms, right? Uh I do it, you do it, we do it. I'm not going to make you do the strategy today, but beware my next time. Uh so next steps, we want to continue and and the one of the actions you might see is the request to send more people to the training. Now unfortunately it is uh out of state which adds some cost but she is the guru and she trains 150 people per year. Uh uh we want
041to continue to strengthen our systems of implementation. Uh we want to determine the next steps. I noted 16 uh explicit instructions and we're only focused on two right now. So there's more work to be done and then continue to talk about how we onboard new staff. This is funded all by federal dollars. So, title one, two, three, and four have been funding this initiatives. I know that's important. Uh, and then I just wanted to share a little bit of data. So, in the past two months, we've been in over 600 classrooms as central office employees focused mo mostly in reading and math, but you can see we've been a little bit everywhere. We've been looking for that opportunities to respond strategy. So on those lower level tasks, we want kids to be uh actively engaged
042and responding five to six times per minute or four to five times per minute. For those higher level problems, maybe one to two times per minute. So it's a fast pace and it requires that uh everybody does the work, everybody does the learning. And so when we see that oops, sorry, when we see that you can see our baseline uh for the beginning of the year, we're we're seeing one to two and above in the majority of our classes. So, we got a good foothold. The other strategy is a four-part vocabulary acquisition strategy. And that one's harder to catch because that vocab happens in like a smaller section of the lesson. That's where you'll see zero. It just wasn't there when we walked in. But, uh, you can see pretty much 70% of the time
043we're seeing the strategy being implemented at full fidelity in our classrooms. I'm going to skip through some of those data slides. Uh it's a four-part strategy so I had four slides for you. Uh but we're going to jump in. So ECRI is another model that we're using uh and it is also explicit instruction and Dr. Wyn's going to talk about that. >> We're using ECRI in many of our K uh uh many of our elementary buildings for grades K2. This model was designed by the center of teaching and learning at the University of Oregon. And so um this approach to instruction is rooted in the science of reading and it's designed for schools with a strong multi-ter system of supports in reading. It really enhances the core curriculum because we believe a strong core will
044eliminate the other tier 2 and tier three and it also addresses the uh the foundational standards for reading uh the phmic awareness phonics fluency and with the ECRY it's ongoing there's screening progress monitoring and ongoing coaching to support our instructional coaches as well as our teachers implementing ECRI. The whole purpose of equity was designed with the intention of improving literacy in K2. So how does it enhance core instruction? As you know, we adopted Wonders three years ago. Our board adopted it. Wonders was highly reviewed in the ED report. That's how it was selected. But you know, there's no perfect curriculum out there. So with ECRI, um, we were able to build another layer on wonders. you know, a lot of districts had to um incorporate the foundational standards, but with ECRI, it's just another layer
045that aligns to our scope and sequence for wonders, which makes it really nice. So, our teachers are not seeing another thing out there, but something that's aligned to what they are doing. So, as you can see in our framework, every day we have 150 minutes of reading instruction for K2 students for reading and writing. So equity is threaded throughout for whole group instruction emphasizing the systematic explicit teaching for phmic awareness phonics for the pillars of reading and then also building in vocabulary and comprehension but then also ECRI has foundational lessons so that when we do small group for our struggling readers we can focus and target to help them in their areas of deficit. So it's really nice that we can thread it throughout our uh core instruction. So how was how did we participate
046in this study? It was funded by the IEES, the Institute of Education Sciences. So we had a phase one and phase two. So in phase one, we had six treatment schools and six control schools. So the treatment schools implemented ECRI in first grade and then we also added training for our K and two teachers in the treatment schools. For the control schools, first grade had no uh they business as usual. They're only implementing the core curriculum. We did allow training for the other two grade level levels, but first grade for treatment and control schools. uh we compared the data was collected by Rand and they only focused to see the impact of buildings that implemented equity versus the buildings the treatments uh the control schools that didn't. So to implement equity the training was rigorous.
047Our teachers had two days full days of training along with our instructional coaches. Our principles were trained a half day. We wanted to make sure that all the stakeholders that are impacting this in the building are are trained so they can support the fidelity of implementation. And you know the one and done PD never works. So equity is ongoing throughout the school year. In January we added vocabulary and comprehension. So we're continuing to support our teachers. Uh the best thing we are provided with an ECRI coach who comes on site to model for our teachers the delivery of the explicit um phmic awareness instruction with our students. She also provides that ongoing professional development and then there's virtual assistance for our principles as well as our coaches and our teachers. So we wanted to make
048sure that it's going to be a strong support in our core and also in intervention. So there are celebrations there are many. I'm just going to mention a few. Our teachers have have already shared the growth that they've seen in their students. There's instruction consistency across the K2 uh grade levels and classrooms. the teachers are utilizing the strategies and they're really it really helps them with that in explicit instructional delivery in our data. You know that the RAN only looks at first grade but we also in Akran public schools we monitor K through 2 grade we administer the dibbles throughout uh three times a year. So when we look at the treatment schools using ECRI and the control schools, we see that the treatment schools outperform the control schools, the grade level that has the
049highest growth was kindergarten with over four points in growth. So that's exciting because our kindergarteners are the youngest grade level. So if we can a be able to close that gap early on, we continue to build it for them as they progress through um the grades. So our next steps is we hope that we can include the remaining buildings with ECRI to build another layer to support core instruction. >> There any questions? >> Thank you. So to to frame my understanding of the last few minutes, our academic achievement, you showed us this wonderful slide and I I had to remind myself from this slide that this year's fifth graders were last year's fourth graders. So last year's fourth graders were 40%, this year's fifth graders 47. That's a growth, right? Last year's seventh graders were
05034. This year's eighth graders are 35. Uh last year's sixth graders are 29. This year's seventh graders are 41%. So from what I'm hearing is this growth we are attributing some of this growth to ECRE and explicit instruction and administration wants to because of this success expand this initiative. Is that what I am hearing? >> I mean I want to say yes. Um but explicit instruction uh is a brand new strategy for us and ECRE we're in year two and it's a K2 strategy but uh what we weren't able in our small time period is to present you all the grade level and building data and yes we are seeing tremendous I'm going to say tremendous results uh with these strategies and we would like to continue them. Yes. Um, yes, I will do questions
051from the board, but we will do two minutes, please, of quick questions because we have four more things. Member Harrison, >> uh, thank you for this presentation. The, um, does this apply to our readers who may be behind considerably? and and that that's the question, but um what is a time frame that it would take to recover a grade if I'm two grades behind? Um what what is an expected or uh how do I recover a grade? >> Well, I think that we continue to uh to push the the intervention and support. know if you're two grade levels below, we hope that we can um close that gap for at least the one grade level below because we know that it it reading is a progress you know each year in the progression but we
052really provide that intervention for our students and you know we have had students who were able to close the gap when they were two grade levels below and then we've had students with one grade level below so it depends on the student but I think the strategies that we are doing to really support core instruction. And then in our multi-tered system of support, we have our core teachers focusing on tier one with the universal all students and tier two for our bubble students and then our tier three even more intensively. We have tutors that support them 30 minutes a day. So the work So we're really trying to intervene. If I could just add, I think the biggest takeaway is both of these are tier one core strategies. So, uh, this year we're focused on
053making sure every student in every class gets a stronger foundation. And then to put a time on it, I think with, you know, >> uh, students aren't widgets and so it's kind of hard. Uh, we don't expect to close the gap in in one year. I'll I'll say that, you know, it's going to be slow and slow and steady. I don't have a question, but wonderful presentation. Thank you for sharing all this information with us and the work being done. It sounds like the administration likes it, the teachers like it from some of the comments here, the students like it. So, I guess the only thing from moving forward is let us know what you need and any support you need. Thanks. >> Thank you. On the slide right before this, it does say provide
054ongoing on-site virtual assistance um and following professional development. Do we have a timeline if board action might be needed for this? >> Uh for now, no. So, we do have on we didn't invite her here today. Her name is Karen. She's actually here this week providing that on-site assistant. Um I think if anything, uh we have 10 buildings who are not equity trained. first grade. The study's over at the end of this year and we would like to provide them an opportunity to be trained. Uh right now it's been an optin. So two things. Either one, we would be asking the board um to approve professional development dollars, federal funds to continue that training or even to go as far as to say we're wholly adopting it. If the data shows this is the right
055move for our kids, uh it could be an ask to make it part of our core instructional program. All of our grade one treatment school um I'm sorry control schools 10 of the first grade buildings did not get upgrade because they were the control so they were not to use it. >> Thank you. Great question. >> Thank you. Any other questions on this? Okay. Um I do see that the next on our agenda we are we are back almost in order. uh section 303 Gemini and notebook LM. Um this appears to have been uh January 16th training. Is there upcoming action uh for the board for this topic? >> No upcoming action right now. It will um kind of dovetail in our AI policy that uh eventually the board will adopt and have on the
056books by July 1, 2026. Are you looking to make up time, Dr. Monar? >> Um yes, but if this is something for us to prepare for July 126, if you can just give us a quick overview so we can refer back when we I mean July one will be here before we know it. >> Yes. Thank you, Chair Monar. Uh Karen Steepic. Um I will invite uh her to do that quick overview. >> Yes, thank you. I am Karen Steepic. I am your instructional technology and library and media content specialist. And um I did want to just highlight uh some of the things. Gemini and notebook LM are AI tools that are built into our Google for education workspace. They are available to us at no further charges. So these are powerful tools that are
057already available to us in Google. Um, Gemini is um, a chatbot similar to maybe chat GBT is something that some people are more familiar with. Um, and then notebook LM is a specialized AI assistant that allows you to either do research or add your own documents and it co-creates with you using your documents only. So, if you and can I go to the next slide? Yep. These are some of the benefits. I know you all can read. Um I will point out that one of the wonderful things about Gemini and notebook inside our Google education workspace is that data security. So this what you chat and the information you share stays within our APS learns education space. It is not trained. It is not shared back to Google. You will receive no marketing there. It
058is it is a safe space. So if for some reason you needed analysis of an IEP or things like that, you are not violating FURPA in any way. So um this is one of the reasons I recommend this tool because some of the other tools you have to spend a lot of time redacting information. And then the last slide is just a picture. We did have a training on January 16th. I had 70 teachers show up. We had to drag in extra tables and chairs to fit everyone in. Um and we really had um so I had a wide range of beginners and experts and everybody got something out of the training and yes we are going to have to provide the state with an updated AI policy. So you are going to be hearing
059about AI from us again in the future. Is there any questions? >> No. Thank you for this and especially as students are using these items. think this would be a really good opportunity if there's something really cool that they're doing to bring to the student success committee. So, I encourage you to think of something that's really amazing that they've done um I know that there's the podcast and all those kinds of things. Um, and I think it would be really great for the community to see um, what our students are creating and that might help us as board members also when you come up with the policy to understand this is why we need them to be able to do this or need to limit this other thing also. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you.
060We are moving right along here. Um, the next item on here we're down to 4.02 policy 5120 assignment within district. Dr. Lash. >> Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to invite uh Executive Director of School Leadership Larry Johnson uh to give this update. Good evening. Uh as part of our annual responsibility under policy 5120, the superintendent's team is conducting a review of our enrollment patterns and attendance boundaries across the district. We are paying close attention to student feeder uh patterns to determine if adjustments are warranted. Currently, the focus is on analysis, planning, and thoughtful sequencing, including how our district will support students and families and staff should any changes eventually be considered. We want to be intentional about ensuring that the information that is shared directly with with care. If the superintendent ultimately brings
061forward a recommendation, the district will follow the process outlined in policy 5120, including advanced notice to the board, opportunities for the board to review the and public comment and direct communication with our families prior to any board action. Today, today's update is intended to keep the board informed that the policy guided work is underway and to reaffirm our commitment to a transparent process. Thank you. Are there any details that the administration would like to share with the board? >> Uh, Madame Chair, I'm going to uh just look down the table at Superintendent Outley um to see if if there are any details to be added. Um just for clarification, the concern that was brought to us by the principal was that they need uh support with relief uh due to their growing student population was
062verified by a um map that we used with our cropper uh firm that looks at our student populations and where where they are tending. And so we are in agreement that that relief needs to be supported and we would like to move on to the next phase which is going out to the community and meeting with the the teachers and the families and explaining and answering any questions they may have. And at that time we can certainly go into a deeper dive and field any questions that they bring to the table. But we think um the proposal is a solid one that we would like support for. >> Is is the proposal coming to the March meeting then? >> So the proposal we could share with you right now. So, um, right now we're looking
063at, uh, sending the current fifth graders who would be rising to sixth grade instead of them going to Jennings. There's less than 60 of them. We would re uh, assign them to Inennis. So, they would then become part of the Garfield cluster, feed into Inis, and then they would go on to uh, Garfield. But is there a are there any questions from other committee members? Thank you. >> One of the things um and and I we we had heard that that may um be necessary. One of the things that I would really like to do is to get that out to the parents as soon as possible and give them an opportunity to weigh in on that. There's not a lot that we can do when we have a building that has no more room
064um for the students other than um find um a a building that can house them. Um, but I certainly would like to hear um some of the challenges and see that if we can as a district alleviate some of those challenges as we um really want to get into the um consequences and unintended consequences and try to address those as soon as possible. >> We know that probably one of the number one qu questions would be around transportation and how would they get there and so we would be prepared to address that as well. Uh just following back to Dr. Molinar's initial question, do we know when we will likely be making a decision? Was that March? Are we is that too late, too soon? When do we expect a decision that you need to
065come to us for some sort of action? >> Uh we would definitely like to come to you um by March. Uh we would like to spend February going out again having an opportunity to talk to the staff and students fielding any questions that the parents may have and making sure that even they have an opportunity to go and see in we've done that before with our community when we have to do a boundaries change and then be able to come back and move forward. >> Thank you. Um, so thank you for starting this conversation and um I want to remind the community that this is just the start of a conversation. There's no need to panic. There is no need to um think that decisions have already been made. The conversation is just beginning. And
066so I appreciate administration for doing this. I appreciate that we are going to go out and gather input and feedback and then hopefully come back to our March meeting. When we say proposal, you know, it sounds like we already have and we don't. We're still working on it. I appreciate um being part of this process and I uh suggest that maybe our March meeting section 401 we can discuss uh the progress that has been made um as you go out into the community and um hear from our families and our teachers. So, thank you so much for this. Any other questions on um this item? Member Kelly. Thank you. >> Thank you, Vice President Dr. Mullenar. Um, I want to make sure that I understand this correctly. We've not had a conversation with the parents
067of these students. I just want to say at this moment that um or reassure our guardians and our parents of our students that when we speak of transparency that we want to reassure them that a conversation will be had because if they are tuning in now, this is their first time hearing about that. Our policy states that we're to bring it first to the board and so we thought the first step would be to bring it to committee to begin discussions. >> Thank you, Superintendent Ali. >> All right. Thank you. And with that, we are at exactly 5:30. Um but I do have a couple things I want to say very quickly. So I'm apologizing to the next committee and everyone else now. Um first um the yearly cycle of work that uh we discussed
068in the meeting previous to this um I know administration is still working on that. I'm excited to hear that. I'm excited to hear that you've made progress on that. And so in our March meeting we can discuss that because I really do see that as the core of what this committee can accomplish when you bring us things like you know this explicit instruction and the types of things that we're considering making part of um a district-wide initiative. the these are the types of things that this board needs to hear. So, thank you uh for your progress on that. We did not forget about it. Um also um what I have in my notes so far for March, it's grown during this whole meeting. So, we have 301 um policy 56005610. Um, and then I didn't
069know, uh, member Harrison if we wanted to add 301, um, policy 5421 about instructional time and hours. >> Yeah. >> Yes. So, so two items for 301 for March. Um, and then, um, it's 5:31, but if we could in section 303 for our March meeting um, have a brief discussion. Um, it has come to my attention that House Bill 42 is making its way through um the Ohio uh House of Representatives, the state house. And um there are some elements of House Bill 42 that I think will affect districts like ours. And so I think especially from an instructional um technology standpoint, I would like to hear the burden it might place on our district and um ways that we can maybe lead a conversation on why I I personally do not think that it
070would benefit our district. I think it would cost us time and resources at the expense of our students. Um, but I would like um for you to tell us in in more detail uh what that would actually entail if we had to do something like this so we can provide that information um to our um hire other representatives. Um so uh 303 for that and then we have now for the building relief and 601 the nola policy that we have discussed now in three meetings. Is this I know you gave it to us here. Is this the final Neiola policy or is this the start of a conversation? >> That is the start of a conversation. That is the policy as it currently um stands. And so by March though to your point, Dr. Monar,
071we will have the Niola uh update and ready to bring that uh to the instructional policy committee. >> Okay. So, so thank you. We will keep this here in instructional policy 601 when Neiola is ready. And then finally, I think the only thing we don't have for March is 302. And so, as it was mentioned in our last board meeting, the dear colleague letter has been struck down. And so, in section 302, if we could bring back a conversation about our policy 2260407, um, all of those that were rescended last year, if we could bring that conversation back for 302. And I think we have a March meeting so we can all come uh prepared. Are there any other questions or comments before I steal any more time from other committees? >> Can you put
072that uh cosmetology on? >> Yes, that's 301. >> Okay. >> Is this going immediately into the next meeting? >> Maybe a two-minut break. I just wanted to ask a couple people. >> Okay. Yeah. Let me Yeah. So with this it's 5:34 and this meeting will be adjourned and we will shuffle seats and start the next meeting.