001Good late afternoon, early evening. Um, and welcome to the Akran Public Schools Instructional Policy and Student Achievement Committee meeting uh for this Monday, May 5th, 2025. Thank you for joining us. Um, I'd like to acknowledge uh committee members uh Summer Hall, Mr. Alexander. Um, Madame President and Marcy Ebrite, Dr. Caver are here as well. Again, thanks for joining us. We will start off with item 1.01, our minutes from our most previous uh meeting. Are there any additions or corrections to those minutes? And seeing none, we will accept them as presented to us. Thank you very much for that. and we will move on to our discussion topics. Dr. Caver. Thank you, Miss Autry. Um, so first today before we begin, we will have two presentations. But before we begin, I just wanted to bring uh
002the board members attention. Good afternoon everyone for being here. President Jackson, Vice President Alexander, and member um Summerhal. Um just wanted to bring some items to your attention that you'll see on the next board agenda. uh we are gearing up for our summer programming. So you'll start to see some of those uh contracts for the extended learning opportunities that we provide for our scholars either after um 3G in the afternoons or through our um afterchool programming uh with Desiree Balden. So um you will see those coming up and we just wanted to make sure you knew those were on your radar. our presentation today. First, we're going to have Miss Beth Winter and um Clay Kundiff present for us on dream day. So, I'm going to bring up their presentation and then I'll have one
003of you come and get the clicker so that you can advance the slides. Let me get in slideshow mode. All right. All right. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for allowing us to come to talk about our Dream Day update. So, as we proceed through the deck or not. So anyway, as we proceed through the deck, you may remember me speaking last Monday with our young students, our fifth graders who participated, the final four in the amazing shake. And as I mentioned at that time, that was our summitive experience for our elementary, at least we piloted this um last month. The reason we're here today is to talk about our high school summitive experience, which is dream day. Of course, we know that these support our mission vision and of course support the cornerstones that
004we have. So today we're going to talk about the evolution of dream day. We're going to provide an update on our progress towards what we're calling the diff internally differentiated dream day and discuss the senior experience for each of our E. And if you recall e speaking to a student declaring they're going right after graduation they're going to be enrolled employed an entrepreneur or enlisted. Okay. So over time so pardon me Ivonne Culver Ivon Culver was the first person to bring Dream Day to our scholars. And this was a a one-day event that brought all of our seniors together. And it was a major day. It was held in October for most of the day. It included three parts. We had a keynote speaker on some topic or another. Uh typically an inspirational speaker. We
005had conference sessions which covered the gamut whether employed, enlisted and so on and so on. And then we also had a career college and military fair. It was a very nicely done event. all the students together, our academy coaches started wondering, could we take it to the next level? And so as we talked about it, they suggested that we do a dream day being a longer or excuse me, a longer experience really over the course of their senior year, a deeper dive with very targeted tasks and events based on what students are choosing. So, how we've we're starting it now is that we have our scholars at the end of their junior year, they declare their E. And based on that choice, they're given a series of checklists that will give them tasks to complete
006so they know exactly what they need to do to be prepared upon graduation to move forward. And then scholars are invited to participate in a series of events and particularly a culminating event during their senior year. Marcy's passing out some materials that will show you what we're talking about and then it's my pleasure to turn it over to my colleague Clayton Kundiff who will take you through this year's events. Perfect. Thanks Beth. So yeah, we've we've seen it grow. We we watched the old Dream Days and now Dream Day 2.0 and it's been a great process work as my peers, my academy coaches, principal council to see, hey, how can we actually make this more intentional, right? right? Instead of that big picture, how do we actually what the students telling us they're going to
007do, how do we focus on them? So, the visual you have in front of us is going to be our guiding principles. Uh, working with Marshall Pullman and our design team, they're able to put this visual in front of you and you kind of see that uh track through the senior year. That search and explore really is starting now. Uh, most of the high schools are hosting their junior retreats, which is really the the place set, right? Garfield has theirs next week. I know my several high schools are starting there where they're what are those E's start thinking about going into that summer and and and where do I see myself and they let them we let them make that decision and then we support them along their way of their senior year. So let's
008kind of dive and you can see you know create create your playbook which is that checklist each one has build that momentum and then cross the finish line. That's the that's that's the beautiful thing here in Akran public schools is crossing the finish line and we'll talk one of the finish line events that we just had last Friday. So the first one here that an uh entrepreneur and employee um e right so we developed it each one has a specific checklist right you have a paper copy but you can see it's also digital with a lot of live links especially for entrepreneurship since that's an independent self-motivating type situation right so we researched a lot of different aspects to make sure the kids knew what their options were um for employment a lot of this
009employment happens at the school level for their culminating event. Uh I'll speak a little bit to Garfield where we have almost a internal dream day series throughout the year where we start the beginning of the year focusing on resumeumés and we talk about how to win that interview. We do some workshops. We do a mock interview workshop at the end. And then we had this wonderful event and we didn't couldn't get our pictures in for the slide deck, but last Friday we hosted uh 200 plus seniors here at 10 North Main on the second floor with 30 of our business partners for our first ever senior career fair. And it was awesome. I'll show you maybe a couple pictures on my phones of kids sitting down doing applications, having uh uh interviews, but it was
010really great. Uh great feedback not only from just the students. I had a kid walk like I'm gonna be a brick layer Mr. Kundiff. Uh but our business partners are like man the kids were engaged. Uh they were ready to go with their resumes. But those are the kids that said hey we are ready for employment and we brought that opportunity to them right being in the academy model and a business partner. You know you put in the time and talent with us. We want to show you the time and talent coming out of Akran public schools. So we give them uh I guess you would call the first dip. So that went really really well. That was our pilot. The space was wonderful. The timing was wonderful. The participation and I think just from
011the school-based. We had, you know, we had counselors here. We had some campus principles here. So, we had the players at the schools to see what that event looks like. So, now they go back to their peer groups at the next campus principal meeting, at the next counselor meeting, like, hey, this is a great big deal for our kids. And I think we just build a momentum going that way. So, that was our first ever doing that. And then we'll just keep the experience going towards next year. Uh our next E here is enrollment. Now this is our largest group going from junior year into their senior year. So this is the largest group uh and we want to make sure that they understand the steps because this may be the hardest navigation to the
012next steps there is especially enrollment. uh even in my own family and my I have a senior graduate from Akan early college this Thursday right and it's been a wonderful journey but the next steps even for our family wasn't that easy right what do we do here and a lot of self-independency she had to take care of these things on her own so I think building these checklists and having that support at school really does help that kid navigate those next steps now the one thing you can see the colony experience right now we're piggybacking on some local college fairs but we have um plans internally to kind of host our own college fair for our own students. Uh we've looked at different spaces. We've got pricing. I'm very surprised at pricing out there sometimes.
013So, we we we're going to do it with a budget friendly in mind, but we want to make it an intentional activity for our students, seeing all the opportunities that are here in the state of Ohio, um the schools, but then really understanding the steps. Uh still at this day, Garfield, I'll have kids between now and the end of school year knocking on my uh door. Mr. Kundiff, can you help me finish this FAFSA? Mr. Kundiff, I don't. And you know, the real world, a lot of these students, they finish this stuff, you know, January or February with their families, and our students just need that extra little support. So, I think that's where the checklist and these fairs can really come into play. So, that's our our our goal down the road is to
014host our own APS senior kind of college fair and show them and help them navigate those steps. And then the last one is our enlistment. Um, so the enlistment, we have two events. Uh, I'm going to talk about the culminating event first because that's coming up to the schoolboard meeting next Monday. So currently we have 32 seniors in Akran public schools that have committed to military service. Right. So, we have invited them next Monday to do a meet and greet with the board and the superintendent with their families and the recruiters and then uh we're going to recognize them as a formal board at the board meeting uh Monday. And I think that's our first step in the right direction, right? They they sign on that dotted line. They're going to commit service uh uh
015to our community and our country. I think it's a really cool thing. And and honestly, we're borrowing ideas that I've seen in the state of Ohio before. I'm like, let's just do it for our own kids. So, we'll do a little meet and greet. Um, and I think we might on Monday just call them up uh by branch to recognize them and with the recruiters and I think it's a nice little calming event. But to start this the entry level event I started planning with Ohio National Guard last year and this event is to hopefully take place September or very beginning of October um at the Ohio National Guard uh out at the airport. And what we want to do is just not for National Guard, it's a fair. So, we're going to have all
016the military services there, uh, representing their branches, some competitions, and just them to be able to dive deeper. The one intentional thing we're going to also do, too, is we have ASVAB testing taking two weeks ahead of that fair so the kids will come in with those scores so they know what kind of jobs they qualify when they're actually talking with those people, which is important, right? Because if you know your ASVAB score, you can kind of know the different positions you can have within the military. And if it's not quite there, guess what? You have some time to get that score where you need to be. So, those are our uh e um plans for for uh Dream Day 2.0. Like I said, from the coaches and CCA, we're super excited. Uh the biggest
017thing we wanted to do, and I think you can hear in the plan, is make it intentional. It's nice uh offering the old Dream Day to all the students, but we realized a lot of them weren't getting the information they needed because there's a lot of distractors when you get to the big groups and stuff like that, too. So, um, yeah, and our next one, uh, next Monday. So, we're looking forward to that. We emailed the students last week. Uh, we have a secretary and, uh, the CCA calling the families today. They started making the phone calls. We started booking a little catering. So, have a nice little event on Monday and looking forward to seeing everybody there. And I think if you guys have any questions about anything that we shared, uh, we're available
018to answer. But, um, yeah, thank you guys for your time today. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. and Miss Winders Winters. Uh we really appreciate this presentation. It's exciting to hear and to see that it's just getting again like you stated more intentional and specific for our scholars. So are there any questions at all? I did have one question. Yes, member Alex, Vice President Alexander, thank you madam. Uh Mr. Jackson will probably like this question, but do you guys have any how many kids are you have identified to go in entrepreneurship? Uh, currently in this year, it's about 15%. 15%. Okay. And these are the checklists that will start next year. So when we get through the junior retreats, uh, Mr. Alexander, then that'll be our number. So we plan our E events for the senior year.
019So once they go through the junior retreat where the junior retreat is showing them all about the different E and then we ask them to declare their E for their senior year and then that starts showing us oh we need 100 students that are going to the military one or we're prepping for 400 students to get to our employment one that kind of stuff. But the number one it goes uh enrollment employment entrepreneurship and then enlistment historically. Yeah. Thank you, Madame President. Um, I just want to say thank you and you all with this meeting have answered the questions that I asked from the time I started on the board. You literally and what a I mean, I'm just grateful because you literally answered if you play back from the time I came on this
020board, I talked about the four E. I talked about how we evalu how we know. You guys covered literally every question that I posited from this platform concerning that. And I really appreciate how you talked about homing in on the small group because the information is there because that's one of the things I said too. We have all these great programs. So how is it a miss? How are there certain students not getting this information? You address that because that was a community concern. That's why I brought it here. So, I'm just grateful because it appears to me the intentionality of what was being asked, the questions being asked, I'm only a voice for the great greater community, the constituency I served. And so, I brought it to this platform. And I'm just so grateful
021to see that this is fidelity. This is what you've shown me. And this checklist is going to give us that data to Mr. Alexander's point. And I'm going to stop talking and go on. I just want to say thank you and salute to you as educators in doing such a great job with fidelity because all this stuff is going to be measurable and we can make the connection about how we're touching our students what they're doing through the four E because we can't boast the four E and not be able to say tap tap tap tap how our students connected. So well done is all I wanted to say. Very well done. Yeah and like I said it's a group effort. That checklist was a big group effort but it's a road map. You know,
022you can talk about being an entrepreneur and going to school. It's an abstract idea in conversations, but now it's a roadmap that the student has and they're having conversations with counselors and teachers and academy coaches and business partners, so they have a reference. So, I think it should really help their decisions along the way, too. So, thank you, member Hall. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to say job well done. I wish there was a map like this or a checklist like this when I was in high school because what happens is you are a senior, right? You get that senior itis, you're like checked out, but then something comes up and you're like, "Oh, I didn't know." Mhm. You know, you might have heard it on the PA, you may not have,
023but now you have all these students freaking out because you're three weeks out into graduation and something wasn't done or the financial aid wasn't done, you know? So, I really appreciate this and thank you for that. As well as it's exciting to hear that 32 seniors committed to the armed forces. You know, with what's going on right now in our world, you know, some may say we're not doing it, but for these students to grow up here in the city of Akran and also want to fight and support their country is huge. We got Memorial Day coming up, you know, pretty soon. Then we have Veterans Day and things like that. So, um I'm excited that they're engaged and they have their minds made up to do this and and and really working with the
024military now and talking it's really advanced job training. Yeah. Just amazing opportunities for our young people, you know, to to grow maybe get out of that city of Akran for a little bit and then bring that leadership skills back to our community. So, we want them to come back. I agree. You know, I agree. I agree. And I and I and I think the other thing is too, you know, you see the the college and career academy is still an evolution, right? six, seven years in and we're still creating new ways to do business. You know, we we reflect, we get better, and keep pushing the needle. So, yeah, job well done. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to extend a deep thank you to these two behind me and all the academy coaches.
025This is the type of passion that just saw something that was great and wanted to make it even better. Uh, and they inspire me constantly. I we love the idea of that game board poster because I know it's small there in front of you. We see that as a big thing that can be hanging up as a vision for all the underassmen are thinking about their senior year and the tasks that they're going to complete. Student voice was throughout all of this because the kids kept saying to us, "This is too much. I need something to help me get this organized." And so that was part of the inspiration. And then all of the business partners that came in and helped out with those checklists, I sat on the entrepreneurship one and I was puzzled
026about what that would look like in a senior year for tasks to complete. and the uh business and entrepreneurship university at the university came over, professors came over and sat with us says, "Oh no, there's things they can be doing to get ready and really helped us start to think about what those quarters would look like." So, thanks to all of them, the kids, these guys. Really fantastic stuff. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. So, I would just like I'm sorry. Uh we have one additional comment. This is just something uh to ponder and all this excellence that y'all operating in. No pun intended. I mean that with everything I'm saying it. Um I think it would be cool for like when they come in at 9th grade for them to declare uh like
027just to forecast and then do a comparison when they are juniors. So So uh Dr. Cber knows they so they do that. They do do that. So their first semester, freshman year when they do their audit, um the counselors are asking them their E. So it's going to be a tracked record in E school. We can pull the record and see how it changes. And hopefully every year Yep. And hopefully it always it does change, right? And just for clarification, I heard uh Miss Ebrite say every year they do a school year a freshman seminar and then the counselors uh actually log that uh in e school in our student information system around where their beginning ees are. And then every year they conference with them, they update it so that by the end of
028that junior retreat we were just speaking to, that's their final declaration because now they've had three years of prep to think about this and know that that's what we're going to support them throughout their senior year. Um, some kids might choose multiple things, but we ask them to laser focus on the one that they really want the most support with uh to get them prepared. Good question. Nice. Thank you. I was just going to um tell everyone that the reception is at 5:00 pm uh next Monday on the 12th and we know the board meeting starts at 5:30. So it it will be in the in the servery room right the servery. Okay. On the second floor first floor. First floor. Oh, you're really talking about the cafeteria. She kept pointing and saying cafeteria. I'm
029like what? Okay. Yes. On our calendar. We'll hopefully get as many here as we Yes. And just before we go on to our next topic, the other uh item is that if you do get an opportunity to see the pictures, we might even send a few from that um employment event that we had last week. The students you you had to see them in their jackets and their booked one best dress. Yes. My guard came with all their uh resumes ready to go. So awesome. It was a great event. So we will share pictures of that event. It was the first time and it was great. So, thank you again. Kudos to the team. Yeah. All right. Thank you. All right. So, we have one more agenda item for today. We're going to invite Miss
030Don Wilson up to the podium um so she could talk about our fine arts textbook um adoption. Well, good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you. All right. So um I have the wonderful opportunity to share with you some of the work that our textbook committee did um in preparation for adopting textbooks. So of course we have our mission and vision and our four cornerstones and of course we also consider our stakeholders um because as you know performing arts is what people see but there are many things that go into preparing so that the product that you see looks like we want it to look and like we expect it to look. So I'd like to provide a special thank you to all of our teacher teams who came to work together. Um, we had our
031vetting team as well as our steering team. There was a textbook rubric or a rubric that they used to evaluate all of the materials. Some of our materials are more traditional whereas others are platforms. So, this was our general process. We had a general overview with the steering committee and the vetting committee and talked about why it was important we do what we do. We compiled a list of vendors. um they we had curriculum presentations, discussion of the final choices and then the re recommendation um to the steering team to finalize things. So one thing I do want you to know about fine arts is that unlike math, science and social studies and language arts um that essentially have a topic and then they have a lot of ancillary materials that fall under that. So
032one person or one publisher you can get a variety of things. It's a little bit different in fine arts. So we have things that we selected specifically i.e for um elementary music but then we had to go to another publisher to find supports for those selections for those um recommendations. So you're going to see um probably more people. It has been about 16 years since we've had um a fine arts textbook adoption in any type of capacity. And of course you know that many of the ancillary supplies and materials are now obsolete. Um a lot of the manner in which you present the materials to the students obsolete. Since then, our standards have been rewritten and revised. And so, this information will allow us to align to our current standards as well as the curriculum
033work that we're doing in the fine arts department to ensure that our students are where they need to be. So, we had a PDF of the vendors, a technology questions that was approved first. So anyone who wanted to participate in our process, we sent their information um sent them to the vendors so that they could answer specific technology questions to ensure that they would align with our platform. So if they did, great, they moved on. If they didn't, then the process stopped right there for them. Then there was a vetting committee process and a rubric as well as information about what their jobs were, why it was important, and how they needed to look at the materials. Then we had general guiding ideas about what we expect as it relates to a portrait of a
034graduate, a portrait of an elementary student, what we want them to learn through the umbrella fine arts. So this is our resource vendor compilation. So, it's broken down into categories so it would be a little bit easier to follow. So, there's the K8 general music and um under the general music lists all of the different vendors that our group contacted. Then there's music theory and AP theory and which primarily falls in high school. We have advanced placement theory in um some of our high schools. One of our goals was to make sure that we had AP courses in arts in all of our high schools. So, we're working on that, but we do have some and these are the materials that we made available for them. There's 612 coral music. They uh learn of course
035at different paces, but some of the things for example like learning how to site readad music, meaning that you look at a note, you sing where it is or you can play where it is and you look at the next note and you can determine where it is. That's a basic skill that the earlier you start the better you'll get. Um, also 5'8 general 58 instrumental music is the same. Um, we looked at a variety of methods books um and supports platforms that would help our students to to develop those fundamental skills and to move forward with them. Same thing with 912 instrumental music. And then we also have an adoption for K12 visual arts that deals that is um for primarily for our teachers to use to um learn to develop things that maybe
036they may not know about. So for example, if you are a painter but you would like to do clay work and you didn't really study in depth into clay work, then this platform will allow you to watch a short video, do hands-on um activities, and then show you how to apply it in the classroom. So those are the vendors. First, there's the team that participated um with the K12 visual arts and essentially we focused on planning and recommending lessons in alignment with our curriculum. Um the program also contains some self-driven things that teachers can use to advance themselves so that they can do those things with our students. There's access to training and professional development virtually. Um, there's a 247 set as well as a digital or a virtual set in which we can schedule
037time with someone that can go through specifics with us. And the projects are up to date. Um, there's a great variety of them. There's also we also look for things that foster higher DK levels not just in visual arts but across the board. So these were the things that were met. There are multiple types of assessments. Again, in arts, there there are primarily two types. There's the performance-based and there's the actual literacy base. Like, do you know the terms? Um, can you can you read the notes? That's really basic. Or do you understand the basic functions of drawing? And then those things are also leveled. So depending on where the student is um they can be the work or the assignments can be differentiated so that you don't have to be absolutely great at it
038to get it you know it's a scaffolding process. So the next area is K8 general music our team. Yes. Right. Real quick. What does PD mean? I'm reading through these notes and it has PD professional development. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next is um K8 general music and here's our team and we look for the same thing uh at the top what I did not say these are the items that were recommended. So for K12 art, we recommended the art of education. And for this, for our K8 general music, we recommend Quaver music, which is an online platform, purposeful pathways, and MIMA music for little kids. Um the purposeful pathways is it helps you to scaffold the learning so that wherever the child is, the teacher can have suggestions as to how to move
039forward. The MIRMA for little kids is primarily because we received the Save the Music grant and we got 22 to $27,000 worth of instruments for for all of our elementary classrooms. And so they got these different types of instruments. And we want to make sure that they can build their capacity and to learn to play them specifically so that when they move to the secondary level, they have a broader foundation. skill-based projects. They're focused on decision making as well as literacy. Um it's a great variety and then again it focuses on foundational instructional opportunities for students to present their competencies in a variety of ways. Assessments can be done again um by performance or through written. Um and it can be something as simple as a formative iness assessment where the teacher says okay if
040you know this please raise your hand or it could be everyone um get their Chromebooks and we want you to check the following. So this this platform is they are available in person as well as digitally. The next area is music theory and AP music theory. We have music theory in one of our middle schools. We have it in several of our high schools. Currently, we have music theory AP, which is AP music theory is in at least two of our schools. And again, we're working to advance that so that every high school has an AP course in visual arts and in music theory. So the team, the the review team members are essentially people that instruct those courses. The recommended text for those is Alfred's essentials of music. That's Alfred's essentials of music theory
041and then total harmony for AP. There is rigorous levels designed in both areas. The AP um total harmony is what's recommended by the college prep board. And so um it provides access to training. It also allows our students to prepare for the AP exam that's taken at the end of the course. They have high level of projects and of course they encourage transference of of skills and then of course that that high higher level thinking. The assessments are embedded. So there are daily instructional components as well as things that you can actually give to students to say here let's see we've reviewed this. Let's see what you remember. So, it allows the steady progression of skills by students based on the information. Hey choir friends, my name is Ericson and I want to give you
042an inside look at our new choir book in the habit series published by GIA. Here it is. Habits of a successful coral musician. This is the student book and then there's a matching conductor's edition. This is a great teaching resource for you to have in your choir classrooms. There are over 250 sequential site reading exercises as well as vocal pitch exercises, folk songs, rounds, corral, also chapters to build ensemble work and reading key signatures. It's all right here under one cover. You don't have to go to five different resources or go make more copies from this or that to get what you need to build a better choir this year. It's all in one edition. Let's take a look inside. All right. So, here's the book. It's 8 1/2 by 11 in. So, each student
043can have a copy. It fits easily into a three- ring binder or choir folder. Yeah. Thank you. So, that brings us to our next topic, 612 coral music. Here's the teacher team. The resources are what you just saw. the little clip of habits of a successful coral musician as well as Make music and site readading factory are digital components that a student can take their Chromebook they can record or input information that can be provided for the teacher that can help them to grow. So we look to there is PD professional development that is available and for um the programs such as make music and site reading factory that's pretty continual so that if a teacher gets stuck there is an issue we can access someone right away. So the projects again they're skill-based they
044focus on a student making a decision meaning do you want to do this piece here or do you want to do this section here? Um, it provides a great variety and again the students aren't targeted because they may not be where they would like to be, but it's usually a group activity or a teacher can set it up as an individualized activity so that the student can do it independently and the teacher can grade. The assessments again are formative as well as as well as sumitative. And there's a variety of selection that's available for the advanced as well as the more novice learners. 58 instrumental music teacher advisory team is listed. So 58 instrumental music primarily covers students that may participate in grade 5 as well as our 68 students. These are our recommendations. So
045for our string students there's new directions of strings and then habits of a successful beginning strings person. So uh new directions would be at the onset then we would have habits then we have habits for a successful beginner band and then habits for a successful middle school musician as well as make music and the elements of jazz. So at the middle school level, students begin to work on improvisation, which is creating something in your mind as you're playing it. And it's based on the structure of the chords, meaning that there only certain notes that you can add to that. Otherwise, it sounds a little unique. So that's where it's a skill set and students learn begin to learn that at the middle school level. So there of course is teacher planning and guidance and at
046our middle schools we have beginning strings, we have beginning band, we have intermediate strings and band as well as jazz band. Um and then there can be some other things as well like choir but as it relates to the instrumental piece, this is what they have. And so these items are designed to help to again build our students capacity so that when they move to high school, there is not so much time spent on fundamental things but advancing the skills so that our groups can play in those higher level performances. They have the opportunities to um participate in our solo and ensemble contests with that more rigorous music. Skill-based focused on literacy. There's a great variety and there's again that emphasis on creating the foundational instructional opportunities. Assessments are pretty much the same as it
047relates to either performance and or application through literacy. There's differentiation um for anyone who's participated in any arts subject no matter what it is. Students don't come in at the same level and they don't stay at the same level. And regardless as to what that is, the teacher will have to do individualized things in order to move people forward. 912 instrumental music. The team is below. The teacher planning materials are basically the same. We look to ensure that they can implement the curriculum effectively and there's act and there's access to professional development on a continual basis. skill-based product projects. It's a focus on students decision making. They have a greater variety of pro projects and products and they have again they're focusing on building those foundational skills to increase their capacity. Assessments are the same
048formative and sumitive and they're based we also focus to allow our students to self assess so that they can determine where they need to grow as well. Differentiation is absolutely a necessity as though again you may have students that might choose to begin at the high school level versus a student who's been playing since grade five. So there is room in these programs to help to develop someone and to help them to move forward. So this is our curriculum at a at a glance. Um, they're just quick clips and you don't have to to watch a lot, but it's So, this is like an example of our quaver music for our elementary kids. So, maybe about 30 seconds or so. It's one thing to explain what's happening with my kids, but if you're in my
049classroom and you see the kids, there's no explanation needed. Quaver is more than just a curriculum. What I love most about it is how adaptable it is. There are kids that learn best through singing. Some of them are more comfortable playing. Some of them are more comfortable moving. The thing about quavers is it really can adapt to all those modes of learning. Scoping sequence is important. The next one is site site reading factory and that is so that students can learn a note figure out where it is see the next note and determine the pitch without the teacher or someone playing it or that's seeing it and sight reading. Meet John. Jon's a music teacher who wants to practice site readading with his students, but doesn't have time to go digging through his files, searching
050for music. Meet Sarah. Sarah's a student who has an audition coming up and wants to prepare for the site reading portion, but doesn't have any new music to read. Meet Ken. Ken plays guitar very well, but he struggles to read music and wants to learn to read better. They all want a way to practice site reading regularly. But in order to do so, they would need a huge supply of new music. There is a solution. Site reading factory, our cloud. And the last one is from the art of education. Hi art teachers. This is Joe Boatfield. I'm Harris Walto. We're going to be talking about architecture and ways to bring Lake Abuseier into your art [Music] room. Lake Busousier was born in Switzerland. He was famous for pioneering modernism with open spaces, large windows, and
051used new technologies like steel and concrete. So that just gives you a snapshot of the types of um materials and information that's available in those programs. So, here are our this is our review committee for visual arts again and then our steering committee to the right. Here's the music review committee and the steering committee. And that concludes the presentation. Do you have questions? Thank you, Mrs. Wilson. Any questions? Member Hall. Thank you, Miss Wilson. as always do a wonderful job. I just had a few questions. Um, what schools are the APS courses in? The AP courses. AP courses. Yes. Right. Right now we have an AP course in Firestone. We're planning an AP course in North. That's for music theory. Um, for AP Art, we have AP Art in Firestone, AP Art in Elllet, AP
052Art at Garfield, and I think off the top of my head with no notes, I think that's it. Okay. And then just a second question. Um, I noticed like majority of all the high schools were involved in this except for Ellen Bookto. Is that because they don't have the music? Well, you said Elliot has the um the AP one of the APS courses, but were they left out because are you talking about the committee? Yeah, all the committees here there was booked on Elllet wasn't I'll be happy to explain. So, the committees are on a volunteer basis. Mhm. Every teacher at every level in every one of the things that we are evaluating received um an invitation to participate and there was you know we had a time frame. So we we invited people to
053the committee and they had a time frame in which they needed to say yes or no and once we got those answers then we moved forward with the committee. So, everyone had an opportunity, but you know, people have different things going on and may not be able to commit the time. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, sir. Vice President, man, my head's I didn't know music and arts was this this deep. Um, how often do the kids uh have their assessments, tests or exams? uh oral or I shouldn't say oral but the classroom portion and the performance as far as the the either the art or the music playing. Um that's my question. Okay. So in fine arts the the the evaluative piece is really cyclical. And I say that because
054if a student produces something and it's not what it should be then the teacher works to make that correction right away so they can move forward whether it's visual arts, dance or theater or music. Because if that didn't happen then when you listen to that final performance you wouldn't be very happy you know. So you have to you hear it, you fix it, you move forward. So there's like a continual formative evaluation piece. One of our tasks is to make sure that our students are aware of that evaluation piece because it doesn't always have to be the teacher evaluating the student. The student should be able to self-evaluate and they play a passage or or shade something and say, "No, that's not correct. um let me go back and try to figure out or let
055me get the teacher or they play a note and they say no that's not I don't have the right fingering for that note and so they need to to learn how to self-correct and the teachers can help them to do that so it's an ongoing process thank you question thank you uh Mrs. Wilson. So, I know we always hear about Firestone and Miller South, but can you just share with anyone who might be listening and me as well, where do our students get their fine arts? I mean, what's the graduation requirement? And I believe all of our elementaryaries get touched by fine arts, but if you could maybe share a little bit around that. Sure. So, in K5, all of our students have music and art. So, we're 100% there. In grades 6 through 12,
056um it depends on what what is scheduled uh for the students, but we do have general music in grades se six, 7, and 8. And that's primarily for students who are not in band, choir, orchestra, or some some other um depending on the way the schedule is set up. Sometimes if they're in visual art, it may um impact whether or not they can be um in in one of those courses because those courses at the secondary level are year courses uh versus some of our arts courses are semester. So if you look at our visual arts, our um drawing and design or painting courses, they're a semester unless it is um an advanced course. So, it depends a on the scheduling piece as it relates to them getting in. As it relates to opportunities for
057access, we have um in all of our all of our middle schools and all of our high schools have choir, band, orchestra. All of our middle schools have jazz band. All of our high schools, well, we have one that we're onboarding. Um, but they all have those courses. They all have access to those courses. So, one of the things that we're working to do in fine arts is to ensure that we that people are aware that those opportunities are all across the city. You know, it's not just in in schools that may have a focus on performing arts. um they do have programs that are advanced because they're performing arts program, but we do have schools across the district that are advanced that aren't performing arts program. So, I don't know if you've been to
058any of our our football games or any any of the parades, but one of the things that Akran did is they made a commitment to our high school bands, our high school choirs to ensure that they had uniforms that looked like something that we would be proud to wear. So, all of our high schools received marching band uniforms and the accessories. Our our high schools receive choir robes and those accessories. Our middle school students receive um polo shirts that align with their school colors and that's their performance piece. So, we've worked really hard to make sure that no matter where you go in Akran, you have those fine opportunities to do your very best. And and so it's not like, oh, we don't we don't give band at school X. Yes, we do. So, what
059I'm asking, what our task is for our our community and for our students is let's get signed up cuz there's no reason that that you can't. And if there is something that you want to do um that we that you don't feel we offer, then you can call and we can see what we can do in order to make sure that we have everything that we need to have to ensure that our students are well-rounded and competent when they leave the fine arts program because that trickles down to almost everything. You know, you you learn how to read, you got to know how to read. You have to know how to count. You have to be you have to learn to work with people. You know, anything that you can think of as it relates
060to other courses are is pretty much covered through our fine arts. Thank you, member Hall. Thank you. Just one quick question. Um, and thank you for all the information. I know that we had a student board member come maybe December, Januaryish, and they were talking about the equipment and that they need new equipment. Um, what does that look like in the near future? Are we able to replace stuff? cuz although they look good, you know, if they don't have the the sound equipment or good equipment. I am so glad you asked that question because when I heard that, I located that wonderful student board student board member and said, I'm not understanding where you're getting your information from. And through discussion, it was determined that that wasn't quite accurate. So, as it relates to equipment,
061we worked to purchase what our kids need. Um, one of the things that we worked on when we got our uniforms was also to make sure that we had instruments for them to play. You know, we had those other things that they need. And we do have instruments now. Our teachers have have been very good about taking care of those instruments. um keeping inventory and we continue to work to add to that. Our students are very good about taking care of them. You know, so there should not be anyone in Akran schools that has any issues as it relates to instruments. [Laughter] No, no, no. And I appreciate you asking that question because I couldn't go back, you know, and say, "Okay, wait, that that's not right." Because it was already done. But I did
062investigate that. You're welcome. Thank you. Uh, Mrs. Wilson, one last thing. When is May Festival? I am so glad you asked about May Festival. May Festival is Tuesday, May 13th. It's at the Civic Theater. We have our um visual gallery that begins at 6. And while that's going on, we'll have our wonderful honors jazz ensemble from the high school playing music. And then at 7:00, we will begin the performance in the theater. That will involve our of course our elementary honors choir. We have a faculty combo. We will also have a middle school honors choir, a middle school honors honors honors band, and a high school honors orchestra. And yes, we will be trying to fit all of that into about 1 hour and 30 minutes, give or take. Yes. Okay. Thank you. May festival
063has been going on forever. I participated years. 98 years. Thank you. And just before I go, since you asked, after that we have art of art in business, which is when um our students work is sponsored by someone in the community and they purchase it and then we do a a short gallery for them. That's going to be on the 20th of May. It's going to be on the second floor. Um and uh then we of course we will be supporting the employee of the year program, the scholar of the year program with our our student performers. And I think that covers it for the for the year. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Miss Wilson. She's been very busy and Dr.
064Cber still said we need a fine arts adoption. Well, we appreciate you the importance of making sure our scholars are well-rounded. So, as you can see, the teaching and learning team has been busy this last couple of years with all of these adoptions. But, we are getting on a cycle now so that we can make sure that our children always have and our teachers always have what they need um in terms of resources. So, that concludes our presentation for today. there is a teaching and learning IP update um for you to look at um to hear what's going on in science to read what's going on with science and also some SCOP training for ESL from um Dr. Dang Wen. So thank you. Thank you. Are there any closing questions, comments, concerns from the committee?
065Seeing none, we will adjourn at this time at 5:24 p.m. And thank you everyone. [Music]