001stand. >> I call to order the February 18th student achievement committee of the whole meeting. Uh can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? Alrighty. Hi, Superintendent. >> Uh, Treasure August, please call the attendance role. >> Certainly. Miss Armbster >> here. >> Miss Bolton, >> present. >> Mr. Crosset here. Mr. Lindy >> here. Miss M >> here. >> Vice President Moffett >> here. >> President Craig >> here. All righty. Superintendent Murphy, please present our first of three presentations today. >> Yes. Thank you, President Craig. So, today we have Director Turner coming to share with us. He is going to review guardrails 2, three, and six tonight. And we also uh director House was able to join us as well. Uh the last time uh there were some questions and the board uh requested if
002she could be present um in the future. So, she is able to be here tonight. So, for now, I'll turn it over to uh Director Turner. >> Thank you. And we're going to try out a clicker tonight. So, we'll see uh how that goes. Um so, uh hey every everyone. What we'd really like to do is have me cover three and six, answer any questions, and then turn it over to Dr. House for guardrail 2. Uh, three is kind of dependent on some of the things that happen with two because they're survey questions. So, here goes. The clicker does work. That's great. So, we are starting on guard rail 3A, which is slide number nine. Uh, guardrail 3A is a survey question. And I do want to preface guardrail 3 by saying this is the
003first time this has been reported on this year. So the questions uh in the survey uh were given back in the fall, but it's the first time that we've talked about this. And so guardrail 3A is the percent of parents and caregivers who have a favorable response for climate on the district survey. So back in uh when this was given back in September 86% uh is that number uh we do not have the historical reference of what happened earlier in the year to now because it's not given again until uh the spring but that is a a good number. Uh, guardrail 3B deals with staff and this is the percent of staff who have a favorable response for climate on the district survey. Again, that was 87% and this is the first time that we've
004reported on that and this will be given again uh in the spring and then later in the year we'll have uh comparison some of the action steps uh which again Dr. house her work like intersects with this in a in a great way. So um a lot of her action steps directly impact this. Uh but just two to call out is uh anytime we improve clarity and consistency around behavioral expectations that certainly makes a difference in the attitudes and how people feel about climate whether it's families or staff. And then all of the things that go along with positive school culture uh with the uh coaching that occurs for deescalation strategies uh and uh all of the things that are ongoing instead of just one and done PDS definitely impact u those responses. Guardrail 3C
005is a a kind of a different one but again this is how it was in the strategic plan. This actually deals with stakeholders and unlike the previous two guard rail items, this one is given in the fall, the winter and the spring. And so this one is the percent of partners and other stakeholders who have a favor favorable response for communication on the district survey. In the fall, that was 73%. Uh in the winter, uh it's 64%. Uh again, this is the first time that we've reported on this. I I do want to say about uh 3C. One of the things that that you're going to see when we look at guard rail six is there there seems to be an inconsistency between how partners feel. This one is specifically the question specifically talks about
006communication. It's pretty to the point. and you see that percentage you're going to see something much higher uh in in a little bit. So the action steps re really looking at this one is analyzing the partner facing survey questions to make sure that there are no inconsistencies um in those questions which could lead to inconsistencies in responses. Also the cadence for partnerfacing surveys doesn't match the cadence for the other surveys. So one of the things that we would point out about uh this one from fall to winter is its survey fatigue for those partners. Uh I don't know that the response rate is as high as we would like it to be um in the winter uh because they just took the survey a couple months earlier u in September and so then it's being
007given again in December and could that account for low responses and so one of the action steps in talking with assistant superintendent uh Badget about this one is really asking partners uh in nonservey um uh non-s survey settings. So when there's partner meetings, how do they feel about communication? What did they think that that question meant? And that will help us get to the bottom of why that number went down, but also why it's low in the first place. Uh so that leads us to guardrail 6A. And so I'll follow up on that survey response uh 3C in just a second. Uh guardrail 6A if you remember is the percent of schools with an active LSDMC. Active LSDMC based on the requests that were given earlier in the year is now very clearly defined. It's
008an updated roster district-wide meeting attendance and mid-year lead agency evaluation. Back in in October, we reported 86% of LSDMC's would be active according to that definition. uh in uh January that's 98%. The reason why that one is 98% is there was one school missing their midyear lead agency evaluation. They did not have it uh completed. So, assistant superintendent Badget is working with that school. Some of the action steps that need to keep going uh with the LSDMC's is making sure that there's annual training for new members, monitoring completion rates of those uh lead agency evaluations, and then also recruitment is always crucial because two-year terms sometimes are hard to fill if people go off. and then making sure that guidance uh around updated rosters, meeting attendance and lead agency evaluations is being given. So guardrail
0096B is where we feel there's a disconnect between the communication question for partners and other stakeholders and then this question. So this guardrail is the percent of partners and other stakeholders who have a favorable response to their partnership with the district. Same survey, different questions. In the fall that was 71%, but in the winter it was 84%. So, it would lead us to think that how would partners have a favorable response to their partnership with the district being so high, but then when there's a question about communication, that one was significantly lower. Uh, so we've had some conversations about that particular communication question. I will say consistently partners have a favorable response for their partnership with the district. So, there's something going on with the communication question and so we've had some conversations about that.
010So, what are they doing uh to help partners feel like they have a great partnership with our district? There's regular partner um meetings. There's lots of agency check-ins. Uh there's always uh ways to look at the partner communication systems. It feel it seems like partners feel like their communication around the partnership um is good, but when they see communication from the district, maybe they don't really know what that question uh means. And then as always, making sure that marketing and communications department is familiar with the partner database because that is certainly a way to reach out um to more uh people. So, if I could answer any questions or take notes about three and six and then I'll turn it over to Dr. House for the um discipline um category 2 piece. >> All righty.
011U board members who have any questions about uh three and six? Uh board member Bolton. >> Thank you. Um I'm still confused as to why you think there might be a disconnect about communications versus how the stakeholders might feel about us or I mean we have I've been here a long time and communication is a systemic problem period in the district. Um we we don't do it as well as we should or need to. So, I could see where people feel strongly about their partnership and and maybe what they're doing and but I I don't think we are succeeding yet in the communication piece. I see that more as a a systemic uh issue rather than necessarily something specific to that particular item. >> Thank you. U that's great feedback and I think that the
012new strategic plan process will um probably impact some of our surveying techniques as well and when you look at the question perhaps the question could be asked in different ways to find out why and I don't know that um that's being done. >> Thank you for that. >> Other board members uh board member armbster. >> Yeah. Um I would love to understand a breakdown of the um for guardrail 3A the um demographic breakdown of the parents and caregivers who responded to this cuz I have to imagine they are already engaged families and caregivers. Um, and I would assume people that are already engaged in their school and or the district would hopefully already have a more favorable opinion of the district. So I would just like to understand like what percentage of the population is
013responding, what schools those um respondents are coming from just to get a better idea of like is it actually representative of the district as a whole or is it skewed a little bit just because of who that's coming from. I would love for that to be a representative and it might be um but I know with these surveys sometimes um the respondents are uh people that are are happy and engaged with the district overall um and so they wanted to express that. So um would just like to see a little bit more info. >> All righty. Um board member map and then board member cross. Uh yes, just a very general question. Um as it pertains to I think uh guardrail uh six around the um partnership piece. Um when the partners are responding to
014this survey, do you know who has access to this overall survey? Is this the um maybe the director or is it consisting of all individuals that are representative of that organization that have access to responding and giving feedback on the survey? >> Yeah. So I am 99% certain that the survey is sent out to the main contact person for that organization. I I don't know that the district has ever said to the organization, please distribute this to other people within the organization. So I think that's a very interesting concept to to look at, >> but I don't know that that has been the practice in the district. >> Yeah. Um and I don't know whether it's right or wrong. It's just a thought. You know what I mean? I think that like I could understand
015why it would be sent to the main contact. obviously they would be the uh the voice representing their um partnership, but I'm I'm wondering too what that then looks like for those that are directly interfacing with our students um that um may be separate from whoever that point of contact is and what feedback we could receive um that could be really helpful in us understanding how to strengthen our partners uh our partnerships in the work that we do. >> Yeah, great point. >> All righty, board member Crosset. Yes, thank you for the information and and uh I I appreciate my other board members questions. I agree with with them. I'm wondering on the partnerships if if there's a way to granulate that a little bit maybe by type of partnership. I mean, I think that
016we have some partners that are very interested in one school, some are districtwide, and maybe there there could be some granulation on that to especially like maybe it's somebody helping with English language versus, you know, athletics or something. So, be interesting to see if there's a any insights on that. Thank you. >> That's great. All right. and Vice President Moffett. >> So, Mr. Turner, thank you so much for this information. I I think my board colleagues have asked the question. I just want to be a little bit more succinct. When you gathered this data, what was the sample size that you used to come up with 84%. So for the uh partners, I I do know that what they ended up getting responses back for was somewhere less than a hundred. I do remember that
017number. For the parents, the staff, it was it was a lot for for that one. Part of the uh conversation that we've had with partners with with that survey is you send it out and you get back what you get back because it's a limit more of a limited amount. One of the things that uh Brian Cersin who's the data guru that tabulates all of this data one of the concerns which I don't think factors into this but could factor into but I think if we have a reset on the surveys with the new strategic plan when you broaden the scope of who it goes out to sometimes that can cause a dip in data because you're you're widening the outreach but I will say with the partners currently That number was less than 100
018respondents, but that is consistent from the fall uh to the winter. The winter number was a little bit lower. Uh but both numbers I know were under a hundred. >> So that's the response rate. I'm wondering what's the sample size. So if we have 500 partners, and I'm also curious as to how we're defining the word partner. So if we have 500 partners, I'm going to put that in air quotes, and 100 of them responded and we got a 84% that's a different number than we had 500 people that we as we sampled and only 100 of them responded. So 20% of your population responded and gave you that. So that's kind of to everyone that has asked that question. I'm very interested in the disagregated data because I was looking for the link and
019I didn't see it there because um if we can go to three slide nine Rob um the percentage of parents and caregivers I'm not sure 86% is represented. I don't know what 86% is representing because I'm nervous to think that 86% of our parents feel that that um have a favorable response. I would love to believe that's that is certain, but I am very curious as to who was sampled and then what was this 35,000 people sampled? Was this just elementary people sampled? Was this the people that just automatically respond as um board member Arm Rooster said? So that 86% needs a little bit more disagregation for me. Uh three seeds slide number 12. Rob is very similar as well. Um you we sampled them in the fall, we sampled them in the winter, we
020sampled them in the spring. What what what's the sample size? >> Cuz I I'm just curious as to response rate >> versus sample size. What is that telling us? So when you say that there's it it seems rather interesting that communication there was a comm there's a problem with the communications question and um it's about communicating. So that just is laughable but again I am just it's ironic to me. Um I'm just very curious as to what are we reporting out? What do those numbers mean? And it's for me it's like the discipline data. where can we improve when we set these up with goals and guard rules initially. I know we're not using that system, but the board felt I felt when I voted for it that communication was an area that to board
021member Bolton's point, we've had a historical problem and that was an area we wanted to see significant improvement. So, when we look at numbers, I I don't want us to just look at the number and say, "Oh, it's going up." What does it really mean? And I just again am going to invite you to come back or send via email um data that's just a little bit more representative of where is this coming from? Where are we having a communications problem? Who is responding to the surveys? Do we need to do more work at the high school level with parents? The data should tell us more than just an 83% response rate. what is that 83% and who is responding and how do we capture the other 17% or where is it coming from? Um
022and I just I just don't I don't have any interest to waste you all's time on um areas that we not clear areas that we can improve upon. So I would love to get a little bit more um succinct data and particularly because we've had a concern around LSDMC's. Can you define the LSDMC uh you said LS we're defining go back to the LSDMC slide Rob because that's a significant say again >> oh I'm sorry Mike go back to that >> yeah yeah so the way so previous to this year >> okay >> uh LSDMC it was a number that was given that said it was active and I can't speak to that was before me so I can't speak to like what that actually meant. But based on what the board um asked after
023the first presentation this year, what does active mean? So active now is updated roster, district-wide meeting attendance, so the quarterly meetings that are held um for LSDMC representation and then midyear lead agency evaluation. So in October, the 86% number uh represented schools that had all three of those things met. So there were some who did not have some of those met. But now the reason why it's 98% is there's one school which has probably been corrected since this was submitted. They did not have their midyear lead agency evaluation completed which again meant that they did not count in the number at all which would have put it at 100%. The goal is 100%. >> Right. So, let me let me ask you a question because I think assistant superintendent Badget's not here to answer it
024directly. So, an LSDMC that just has a president or a chairperson, a vice chair, and a secretary is considered active, yes or no. by that definition that you just gave. >> If they have submitted an updated roster >> regardless of the list, submission of a roster is the defining factor, right? >> That has what been has that is what has been conveyed to me. Um those three things updated roster, district-wide meeting attendance, and midyear lead agency. Now I updated roster. I can talk with super assistant superintendent Badget about that or maybe Superintendent Murphy um can give a little more detail on that but that is the definition that this data is based on. >> Okay. So Mr. Murphy, can you can you shed a little bit more light for me on that? >> I will
025share with you our goal is a completed updated roster with all the components evenly spread about. That is the goal. Um I can find out from uh assistant superintendent the last time it was updated to ensure that that's what's happening. >> Yeah, I would really be I'm very curious about that because I I'm afraid again we're trying to get to 100 instead of with fidelity and integrity worrying about what is on the roster. We've only got three people. I I just don't understand how that's hardly representative of an active LSDMC. But I'm I'm very curious and welcoming the um the updated information. Thank you, >> Bo Member Lindy. >> Thank you, President Craig. Um, I think my questions are in line with Dr. Moffetts. They were just about the parent responses instead of the partner
026organization responses. Could you uh speak a little bit about the numerator and the denominator? >> So, I will what I will follow up with is I will get Brian Cersion to give a file. It's it's it could be volumes, but I'll try to get him to pare it down. I know that there were a significant amount of parent responses, but I we have not reported I reported the way that it's been reported in the past and so there was not the granulation of how that number was calculated, but I will follow up with Brian and get him to put something together as to how many parents actually responded with that and then the demographic breakdown as well that was asked for. That's great. I think it's um just two numbers. The total number responded and
027the total number asked, >> right? >> So, it can be short. >> I ask demographic. >> Uh great. That sounds interesting, too. >> Um the two numbers I was asking for were the the two and I think demographics sound great, too. Um and then this is something I do know that that uh the administration has shared in the past. It's just been a minute since I've thought about this. when we say had a positive response, can you just walk through what that means? >> Yeah. So, and so let's look at comparisons. So in the past uh pre the previous administration was calculating by question if a question had 51% or high because I asked when I took on this role when I came to this I'm like explain this to me like how is this
028calculated so I'm just picking a number if there were 20 questions and if 10 of them had 51% or higher as a positive response. Then the calculation was we had 10 out of 20 that had a positive response. So there wasn't like a waiting of if 95% were positive on one response but only 50 51% were positive on another. They all counted the same. So, one of the things that we looked at in working with uh Brian Certion, plus you also have to remember that we went from um the one survey tool that was being used now to Qualrix, I forget what it was called. Yeah, Panorama. And so the questions then had to be realigned. So now the way that he is calculating it is more of an actual average of the responses, not
029looking at if one question said I'm happy with my child's principal. I don't know. I'm making that up. And if 51% said yes, then that was counted as a favorable response. And all of those then were put together with numerator denominator to get it's not done that way anymore. The way it's calculated now is looking at the aggregate of the questions to come up with percentages and some questions don't really have anything to do with perhaps how they feel about their school. So I'll get him to put all that together um with this. I will also say I think it's a great opportunity with the new strategic plan to kind of set how metrics are calculated as well. Um, so that if if there are changes in in leadership or changes in the staff that
030even put this together, it's very clear on how this is calculated. And I think our surveys are one of those things that it's not calculated the same now as it was because we changed the survey tool. but also some of the the ways just did not necessarily give an accurate depiction because everybody could have said 51% and we could have said 100% of parents had a favorable response uh if it's item by item. So, we'll get Brian I'll get him to put it together in a some sort of summarized way so that it's not like a huge file because it is a lot. I think it's a this is a good start. I think the um we have at least one new board member. I think maybe I think Mr. Crosset was here when this
031happened. But just for for some historical context for for a moment, we were using this tool called Panorama. Panorama had some real advantages and at least one challenge. The challenge was it was very expensive. Uh and so as we were losing federal co money, uh this was painful to me because I really like Panorama, but we we did have to make cuts. That's it's an area where we cut. But one of the nice things about Panorama is that it asks questions to hundreds of school districts around the country. And so when you get results on student satisfaction or around staff satisfaction around parent satisfaction, you can benchmark the results against places that aren't CBS. And so I think there's been some, you know, commitment from the administration to try to create something on our own
032that lets us do as much of that as possible. I think I'm um I think if I'd like to spend no more than one minute trying to do an example to see if I can understand this. And if not, then I think some follow-up would be great. Sure. >> Um and whatever that follow-up is, I don't think it needs to be a data file. I think it can just be a slide that explains what this 86% means and how it's calculated. And if that could live in future presentations so that uh if it'll help me remind myself too. Um, but if we were to just imagine there are 10 questions that we give a hundred parents, what would need to be true about their responses for the number here to be 86%. Is that a
033question that can get answered today? Well, not again not so I would I would not want to necessarily give my answer to that because Brian has his way of feeding all of because Qualrix calculates all of this. But I will say it is not calculated the way that it used to be calculated. Which meant that if all 10 of those questions had a 51% or higher positive answer, then in the old way it would have been 100% favorable, which really is not accurate because do we want 51% of our responses to be favorable and say that we're at 100% favorability? What Brian does now is he calculates the actual questions that deal with this to come up with that percentage. So it is a numerator denominator based on the the size who answered not question
034by question and just saying all 10 of them were positive because 51% or more said yes to this in a positive way then that's a misleading number. 100% would be the old way and that's not >> indicative. >> Yeah, I appreciate it. I think it from my perspective I'm glad that we are doing this. I think this is an important thing to look at. It is probably impossible for me to size whether this is good or bad or neutral if there isn't a really clear explanation for where it comes from. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> And I app I appreciate that. Um, I think the metrics need to be spelled out how they're calculated in the document and I don't know that that we've had that. >> So, I'm going to give
035a couple quick statements here and then we can do another round, but just really briefly because again, we have a very short agenda today. We want to keep it short. But, um, I think in in some ways what folks are telling telling uh you superintendent, but then also you uh Mr. Turner is that what we want to be able to decipher is the value that should be given to the information that is received as to what these numbers mean. Right? And so part of that is if it's a low turnout, which most of our surveys quite honestly have always been low turn low turnout surveys. We have not had historically large percentage of parents or students completing the survey. um everything from COVID all the way up till more recent, it's always been a fraction
036of the number of parents who respond to surveys. There's a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of lack of consistent information, a lot of other factors that are part of that. But I think if we know how much value to give to it by being able to see some of where this stuff comes from, where the information comes from, I know Mr. board member Cross had brought up a very good point about understanding whether or not some of the partner groups are partner groups that work with everybody versus partner groups who work with one school at a time. >> Y >> if the folks who are mostly responding are the folks who work with everybody, well then that gives us a little bit different picture as to why they might respond more often
037than someone who's only working with one school in a very limited way. Um so I think that's one aspect that we certainly can look at as we go in the future with this with survey information in general is just giving us a little bit more information about the context of the survey right so who answered like what you know number of people answered number of people who were who were uh uh sent the request to I think the other part that may be just a better question for us to think about with regards to active LSDMC and that just may be another conversation we have for a different A it is one thing to say a group meets. It is another thing if only two people show up at the meeting, right? Um and I
038don't know that any context of the world we would ever say you have an active board if only one if only four board members showed up on any given day. Um we would be, you know, questioning whether or not that board was actively engaged in their work, right? And so I think that's the same for LSDMC's is that that's the point that they're actively engaged in the commitment of being an LSDMC member. Um, so I think some things like maybe attendance or stuff like that might be other factors that we would potentially look at, but I don't because Mr. Bad is not here today, I won't pass it to you, but I will certainly say to superintendent that's something for us to think about as we look at what does it mean to be active.
039I think what we were trying to get to is a point where we had an LSDMC set up at every school. We are now at that point. So now the goal pulse may need to be moved to what does LSDMC do? Um the third point and I think it's been raised uh enough times here to to kind of think about and address communication and performance and partnership are vastly different things. And I think board member Bolton talked about this. We've always had this issue with communication. I think we do need to maybe think about what does that communication with a community partner mean? Because sometimes what we're really talking about is that they're not informed of what opportunities they can connect with. They're not informed of what's going on in the district, but they're able
040to do their work, >> right? And that that may mean their partnership work is done. It's good. We we're we're good. We're getting this stuff done. There's no problem here. I might be able to do more, but you guys don't come and ask me. You guys don't come and talk to me about it. You guys don't tell me anything about it. And I think that may be a lesson for us to learn. It may not be. I have no idea. Um but I think that's something that folks have been folks were raising today. And then the last point I will make, I think we also need to make some strategic decisions with regards to surveying over the next few months because we are about to to embark on the strategic plan conversations. And if we
041truly want a robust number of folks who respond and and are actively engaged in the strategic plan process, I think we have to be a little bit more strategic about what questions from a survey standpoint and when makes sense to ask them. Because if we're constantly asking people to fill out a survey on this and fill out a survey on that, it kind of gets back to that old world of why everybody doesn't answer the calls for every time something happens at a school is because they're like, I'll check my voicemail later, right? like um so I don't want us to get overwhelmed with uh trying to communicate out and do some of the surveying unless we can connect it in with the work that we're going to do with the strategic plan. So I
042do think there may need to be a a and that's something maybe superintendent you and I can talk about later with regards to how do we connect that up with marketing communications and so that we're doing it in a more strategic way so we're not ask maybe we're asking them the same questions but we're doing them all as one big bucket as opposed to four different surveys right um I know board member crosset and then board member >> yes um to follow up with board member Lindy Brian the data guy I do know that even though we switched from Panorama to Qualrix, he was able to use the exact same questions. >> Y >> and so that was one uh piece of value that we didn't lose. Uh but I do think it would be
043interesting to have a comparison, a year-to-year comparison, and have him go back and recalculate previous years with the new way that he's calculating so that there's a a um a valid comparison. Thank you. Yep. That's a that's a great point because if you look at what was previously presented when the strategic plan started, the way that it's presented is different. And so I think that would be interested. I I have a note about that for him as well. >> All right. And board member. >> Um yes, thank you. So I um was lucky enough to spend some time adjacent to the amazing data folks over at 8451. And so I'm not going to harp on you. I just want to say as the district as a whole, one of the things I learned is that
044um numbers can say whatever you want them to. Um and so one of the most important things we need to think about as a district is how to um be as informative with those numbers as possible to back them up. Right? So when you are surveying or when you are asking and collecting data that demographic information is incredibly important. So we need to make sure that we are gathering that. So we can say um exactly who's responding to these. We can say what percentage of response did we get? Um we need to have the raw data available. I don't need it up here. That's not what I'm saying. But it needs to be accessible to everyone so that we can dig in if we need to be digging in and saying so we know was
045the answer to the question on a scale of 1 to 10. Was it a six? Was it a nine? How are we rating this? Right? These are very very important metrics. If we want to use them for good, we have to have this information. if not it's just a number and it tells us literally nothing. So moving forward as we look at the strategic plan as we are engaging um whatever platform or whatever we're doing I want us to be very very intentional with what we're asking how we're asking it and what we're presenting because without that background we can take very little action from it um because we just don't know enough. >> All righty. Uh so we will now allow Mr. Turner to uh take a little moment of rest and allow Miss
046House to come on up here and cover guard rail two >> and the clicker goes. >> It does work. Awesome. >> So, >> thank you. >> Sure. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. >> All right. All right, we're going to try this again. I think you can hear me now. Good afternoon, uh, board members and staff and superintendent. And thank you, Mr. Turner. So, here to talk about guard rails, uh, guardrail 2A, really getting into looking at our percentage of black, Hispanic, and multi-racial students with a category 2 infraction compared to white students. And just as a reminder, category 2 infractions, um, what I like to share with staff and with parents, just to kind of give them a scope of what that means, those are those infractions that can lead up to suspension or um,
047visits to Promise Center. There are those exclusionary consequences that we see with that level. So looking at our first semester numbers, we see that with our um white students at 4% with our black students 18% and Hispanic five multi-racial 12 and then combined with those students of color 15% and then the gap that we see um 11% for first semester. Um, just to share with you on the anecdotal data point, what we do is we look at the infractions that students have and we make sure that we're only tallying one student and not a student with multiple infractions so that the data is skewed. And so it takes us a little bit to go through that to do that um because we didn't do that one time and we're like, "Oh, we need to go
048back and do that." So on this past presentation, we did make sure that we did that. um we are um hitting our target of where we are but it's not good enough. So, um, with this data, I know that I'll present the other, but I do want to get into some of the strategies and things that we're doing to really talk about the disproportionality in having schools understand what that means. that because of your school population. And we really were able to narrow it down to um six schools that had a population of at least um that was statistically significant of 10 at least white students and students of color that had a category 2 infraction. we were able to really look at the data analysis to see is there disproportionality and we were able
049to identify six schools that fell into that category that we've started to work with. Um we've had some very intimate and transparent conversations. What's going on? What do you think is going on? Where do you think some misconceptions are? and not necessarily pointing uh the finger at people or individuals, but looking at why is our system producing this data and what do we need to do to change the system to change the student outcomes. So, that's our goal. That's kind of what we're doing just to give you some feedback on that. Um, guardrail 2B, the percentage of black male students with a category 2 infraction com just compared to white male students. So really just looking at those two and we do see that we have 6% I mean it is decreasing um with the
050white males I know that when we presented over time we're like okay is it because we're writing up white males less like what's what's going on here? Um but we still know that there is an area of improvement with the gap between our um black males specifically and our white males. I believe our target for this year was 16.5 and so we are at 16 with the gap but we're still working to decrease that because ultimately what we're really trying to communicate is what is our student experience for all of our students regardless of race, ethnicity, even their exceptionality. How are we able to ensure that how we respond is in an equitable sense? So, just uh couple things that we're working on. Uh reinforcing staff use of restorative practice. Um not just as a
051big formalized thing, but a part of everyday practice. If there is a student that is removed and they are sent to the ALC or the promise center, how are we really having restorative conversations with that child to figure out what happened? What do we need to do differently? How do we help support the child so they really feel like they are a part of the community? Um continuous embedded delivery of PD of the code of conduct. We still have some ways to go. We do see that in our discipline data still have high rates and um we do see some inequities of using some of the category uh descriptors whether it's disruptive behavior, disobedience or um the categories that they're able to choose. Looking at those, which one did we choose? Why did we choose
052it? Why did we choose the category 2 when it really falls into the category one framework? We are blessed that we were able to print off the code of conducts and have those out so we can continue to use that as a resource so that teachers and teams and administrators can even look to see how we can get better on making sure that we're identifying the right category. That way we have a better alignment with how we respond and we're equitable in our responses as well as opposed to one teacher writes a student up for one thing, they might have a talk in a restorative conversation whereas the other might be suspended out of school. So we want to for the same infraction. We want to make sure that we're working on that. One of
053the things that we are going through um with several buildings is really looking at how we can help support them with professional development around traumainformed care. So, we're providing trauma-informed care, PD um to many different schools and there are a couple schools we're actually doing systems work with the Mayerson Center at Children's Hospital to really look at beyond the PD, what are things in our system that we need to look at so that it's more traumainformed in our response um and how we're supporting our staff. as well. We want to continue to strengthen the use of our ALC's and our deescalation um strategies so that we're not responding um to students. If we see students not meeting our expectation, we want to make sure as adults our response does not escalate, but that we're able
054to deescalate. But then we also want to make sure that our response is in a trauma-informed manner. Sometimes behavior that we see is not necessarily the student doesn't like the adult. It could be a trauma response. And so how do we make sure that staff are aware of those things and those triggers so that we can help um support continued action steps. Um seal we are seeing improvement in those schools with uh reduction particular areas of behavior as we continue to go through um the curriculum and opportunities and the resources that are provided. Um the main point of feedback that I've received from teachers that have really like okay and our focus this year have been middle schools and their implementation we've had a wonderful collaboration with advisory so that is where that is taking
055place. Um in advisory the teacher goes as a result my relationships have been better with the kids because of these lessons. And so that's great anecdotal like feedback and we're hoping that we see it on the spring survey to be able to kind of tie some hey these strategies that we're doing they're hitting multiple areas and so we're hoping to see that um with the we want to explicitly teach behavior. We have expectations but we want to make sure that our students understand what those are and explicitly teach them and not just consequence behavior. um and also to teach that self-regulation skills for our students. Um things that we're working on and we're having this constant conversations with ITM um is working on focus and focus reports so that schools can have access in real
056time to understand what the reports are and how to interpret the data correctly. Um because depending on how you pull the data, it can give you different results. And so sometimes they might say, well, it has to be wrong. Well, no. It depends on the input that we give. It might give us a different answer based on what we're looking for. What is the question we're trying to answer? So, we want to continue to do that to inform schools so they can make real decisions in their um PBIS plans and with their staff. And one thing that we are continuing to do this year is just provide monthly updates to the leadership team so that they're aware when they're in the buildings how they can support where are our hot spots, how are we improving,
057how are we decreasing. Um that way um because it is hard information for sometimes schools to hear that your school is struggling on paper that you have a lot of referrals and so some of the things that we've been doing meeting with schools talking about their successes and saying yeah you might have had the most but did anybody come back we need to tell you that you also had the greatest reduction from the months of November to December. So the things that you put in place, let's keep going. Don't give up because it's going to take some time when you talk about improving culture. And then um the biggest thing, consistency is going to be our tool um for sustained improvement. Strategically, we have the most incidences from grades six through nine. So that is
058going to continue to be our focus. Um this year we had targeted focuses folky around kindergarten, sixth grade, 8th grade and ninth grade. We want to continue to focus in really that 6 through9 that is our powerhouse. Not only is that the area where we see the most discipline incidences, but we see the highest rates of chronic absenteeism as well. They go hand in hand. And so we're going to continue to have better alignment and strategies and intentionality around supporting those levels. Um and we want to just continue to reduce the inconsistencies um within building levels and school level expectations and prioritize embedded PDs. So giving them little bit at a time working on what are we going to test? What are we going to change as opposed to the one day here we're going
059to give you everything that you need to do throughout the course of the year because it's just not sustainable and we want to see continuous movement and progress. And I think that is to A and B. >> All righty. Uh so I I'm hoping director that you are uh comfortable standing there because I imagine folks are going to have some questions for you. >> So I will open it up to uh board members here. I see board member Armbster. >> Yeah. First of all, thank you. >> This work is so impactful and one of my favorite things that CPS is doing. Um I got involved through my LSDMC. um um tracking this for my own school and um incredibly impactful. So, thank you. Um I love that you came to me with this data not
060repeating students to skew the data. Thank you for doing that. That was going to be one of my first questions. So, I appreciate that. Um and that you have pulled out six schools that have the highest discrepancy so you can focus in on them. I think those are really really key points that you're doing. Um, the only question I really have as a both a volunteer and a youth coach within CPS, um, I know we don't have the ability to run these programs for those people, but is there a way for us to, um, make some of the skilluing resources available at the building level, so that the school could make them available to those groups because they're in there dealing with those students um, after hours, during the school day, and I would love
061for those people to also have access to some of this training as well. >> Absolutely. And there's training that our um department even provides at the school level and we will provide if anybody's willing, we will provide it and make it fit whatever the context that we have. We have gone to schools and provided mental health first aid to LSMC and parent organizations. Uh we can do a restorative practice light um to so that parents and caregivers are able to understand. I can imagine a coach having two players kind of get into it and for them to be able to replicate the same strategies and the same questions could definitely be amazing. So that is >> great feedback for us as as next steps. Um, and to be clear, I think in thinking about communication,
062how are we clear in what the strategies are? And to make sure that we're giving those same tools so that we're speaking the same language so that the kids don't hear a different thing at this school versus a different thing for coaching and a different thing for tutoring that we're all kind of speaking the same language and support. Okay. >> All righty. Uh, board member map. >> Uh, thank you, um, Miss House for this presentation. Um, I absolutely support all of the um the interventions that you're um and action steps that you and your team are working on um specifically because it aligns to a lot of the work uh really all of the work that we've talked about um and worked through with the uh mental health and wellness um policy. So to see
063it actually being implemented is um uh is really great and I'm I'm happy to see that. Um I have several questions. Um one of the questions um first as we talk about the preK through 12 SEAL curriculum which was a part of the policy. Can you speak a little bit more to how we are working on um streamlining that throughout the entire district? So I heard you say that we're targeting certain areas um but to again make sure that it is comprehensive in scope and also do we I think that's something that we still need to work on adopting. Correct. >> So if you could speak to that piece first. >> Yes. So right now we're in the phase everyone preschool through 12th grade has access. Um we've been able to provide support around the
064tier one which is what the teachers have access to um where they can provide lessons and there's even um resources regarding activities. So if I don't have time to do a full lesson but I need to do an activity on collaboration or how do I speak to my friend? They're able to um able to do that in a time span that doesn't take away from additional instructional learning but that can be embedded in what they're doing in the classroom. And so everyone um they have access to the tool. Our focus just because our team is small and we wanted to be intentional. We just didn't want to say we're just everybody do it and here we go. Best of luck. Um this year we have targeted with our middle schools to be able to go
065into advisory. So Ann Allen has been a part of the team really going in helping to support monitoring like looking at lessons and for those schools that maybe implementation has been a barrier because of master scheduling or maybe different staffing and we just need to go in and have a hands-on approach with supporting teachers. We've been able to do that because we targeted that support. Meanwhile, we do have early adopters in elementary level that were like, "Hey, we can't wait." And so they have already started and they've started with some of their lead teachers that were able to just say, "Hey, let's just explore how much time did it really take. We know it's recommended. What were those things that really helped you set this up? What were the successes and what were barriers that
066um that we need to address um prior? How do we take this learning?" So next year um right now in our springtime, we're focusing on with our elementary schools to help them with their planning for the implementation so they're ready to go in August. And then year three um which will be the year after um is when we fully deploy with high schools. So we wanted to do this in a three-year systemic way. Um but Ann is already doing some pilot in high schools right now so that we can do learning. Um some of the things that we are also doing with this curriculum is we're meeting some state requirements with House Bill 123 with Aeron's law. And so we're looking at what are the requirements at the high school level. what are things that
067we need to do and work with um the curriculum developer to make sure that we have that so that we can meet additional requirements as opposed to just providing curriculum. So that's kind of our three-year scope and plan of being intentional not just say here do it but to be able to go into the schools provide support so that we can help them. >> Absolutely. Thank you for um elevating this work. I know it's a huge lift and um as it pertains to the SEAL curriculum um from a clinical lens um I truly appreciate that work because it is um encompassing a holistic approach. is not only just focusing on the cognitive, what are our thoughts, what are our feelings, but it's also encompassing um that interception piece whereas students are able to connect with
068okay, what am I experiencing in my body? How am I making all of this work together? Um as well as it being aligned to MTSS. So I I love the fact that Character Strong is um really making sure that it's providing a framework that touches on all of those components. Um, just transitioning a bit as it pertains to the restorative practice work. Um, I like that you're highlighting um, making sure that students are aware of the code of conduct, teachers are aware of the code of conduct as well as parents. Um, and also kind of what that menu because I know it's online in the code of conduct, what those different um, responses could be for a certain infraction, right? Um I am curious to know how are we integrating parents in that restorative conversation
069piece. Um I brought up before that uh just at a previous district that was critical, right? So if there was a particular infraction that a student experienced that was per se, you know, category 2, parents will be able to be a part of those restorative conversations as well to make sure that um one their child was able to um you know take ownership of the the incident, right? But also be in a position of um being responsive, right? and being able to be integrated back into um the general classes um and parents were knowledgeable about that as well and have a voice. I know that some in some ways that is a challenge currently. So, how are we working to integrate parent voice in those conversations who want to be collaborative partners, right? Um with
070what is happening as it pertains to school culture, climate as well as discipline. So our first thing is we want to make sure that the administration and leadership teams are trained so that they're aware and that they have the support. So we've been trying to be very intentional on uh when we had our growth plan changed, what was the impact of staffing if staff moved, how can we make sure that they are trained that that staff at this middle school, even though it's different people from different schools, do they have representatives that are trained that can help support with those restorative conversations and helping? So that was one thing that we wanted to make sure that we um monitored. But at the school level, we are really been working with administrators and assistant principles on
071especially in those cases where students are removed from school when we have a um sometimes they might call it a re-entry conference when they have a re-entry conference that the parent is involved in the conference or at least aware. Um and we definitely should be having that with the student. we need to um not just reintegrate the student to school, but we need to make sure that we have a plan and a pathway moving forward. Um it would be better for us to have restorative conversations before then. And so that is something that we're just working on. um how can we incorporate these um especially if we are using ALC as a strategy and even as a deescalation um opportunity for our students to be able to just reflect on their behavior before it escalates.
072How can we train our ALC monitors on some of the behavior practices and questions that they can be asking? So at the beginning of the year, we had ALC monitor share and post in their spaces some of these same questions, restorative questions to make sure that there was an opportunity there so that it could um be implemented before we even get to the exclusionary. To answer your question, to include parents, it is a growth opportunity. I think um we can do a definitely better job of informing parents of what restorative practice is >> and what that means in CPS because you can Google restorative practice >> um from anywhere and um might give a negative connotation depending on what you're reading. And so I think being able to uh define that clearly for parents to
073be able to describe what our goal is um and how we are using this embedded in our culture um not just with students but also with adults have uh this year been able to do a restorative finance uh kind of meeting with the finance team so we could talk about how restorative practice what does that look like in our central office. And so we were able to um share with them some of the skills and strategies um that it's not just at the school level, but it's just what we do as a district. And so I think continuing to spread that throughout is going to be helpful in our messaging because it's not just one team. It should be all of us sharing the same message. >> Absolutely. Okay. Two more questions if possible. Okay.
074I don't want to take because I could go all day. >> I'll abbreviate. I just get excited talking about this stuff. >> Um I have eight. as you you spoke about um providing more awareness and that um you have been working with the uh administrative teams within the schools uh teachers um and I know that there's a focus on uh trauma-informed care as well as uh educating on restorative practices. Is there training um that relates to in addition to those things to implicit bias training? And it's not anything that's negative, but is as you talked about having those hard conversations, right? So that we are making sure that we're culturally responsive to our students um and families. Um and also again because we all have blind spots, right? Every last one of us. Um, so
075how do we are we providing room and space for those type of trainings to occur in tandem with the other ones that's being provided? >> It just seems like you were on a call we were talking about today. Um, we have not had um, my department has not had a specific implicit bias professional development, but what we have tried to do is throughout our trainings, whether it's restorative practice, trauma-informed care, mental health, first aid, um, we've tried to embed that >> in our PD so that they understand this is what we're talking about and understand how that comes across in our data. And even when we're giving like real life scenarios and examples of really talking about that, that's where that it has come up. But we can definitely be even more direct with understanding
076and making those connections for people. But we've tried to embed it in our current PDS as opposed to someone feeling like it's another thing that we're doing or one more thing to check off. Um because it's a part of our conversation that's going to consistently come up as long as we deal with people. >> Yeah, absolutely. And again, it strengthens us, you know, as a district for sure. Um and then lastly, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole because I can. Um but as I was looking at the data um and as you you stated that yes we are progressing towards our goal but as we look at the the comparison between our black students discipline uh data in comparison to white discipline data it is still very alarming and I am concerned
077um or curious to know if we have uh taken the opportunity to granulate that data or disagregate that data a little bit further because I'm curious to know what does that look like as it pertains to uh students that have been identified with a disability or an IEP, right? And then also um what that even means um for uh how it's impacting our data. Um, and so I I'm really curious to know about that information, especially because we do know that there's typically a misrepresentation or over diagnosis, right, of uh students, especially, and I'll call it out, black and brown students that are being um identified with uh disabilities and how that is impacting them either academically or with discipline. And so I I'm just curious to know if those conversations are being had. I
078know that you do work closely with Miss Reeves. Um but what we can do systemically to begin to also change that narrative. Um and so I'll I'll just leave it there. >> Yes, we monitor that and we talk about it weekly at our quality improvement huddles uh with Children's Hospital. It was one of the things that um we identified in our data when I started looking and looking at the the common factors in the subgroups was a high representation of students with disabilities that were having category 2 infractions or even I look at the daily roster of students that have been referred to the promise center and it is a very high number of students with disabilities. So, we monitor that. Um, we look at that number and then we also call out um our
079students of color that are students that are identified with students with disabilities. So, we call out just students with disabilities at a as a whole and then we call that out. Um, they are not at the same rate as their uh non-disabled peers. It is still high, but we have decreased each and every month. So, the interventions that we've been putting in place have been helping, but I can definitely share with the superintendent um to be able to to share out with the board what those percentages and what those numbers have been just so that you can see that um where we are as a district. >> Okay, that definitely would be helpful. Um, and I'll I know for myself I'll continue to follow that information because again, uh, we want to make sure that
080we're providing, um, accurate support, um, and systems for our students to be successful. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Uh, board member Bolton and then board member Lindy. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate Appreciate the work. And y'all have to, uh, run the schools and teach the kids. I mean, I I can't do that uh anymore sitting here. But I I do want to say that I I I'm reaching a point of not wanting to fund the promise center in its current makeup. I I don't think we have found a way. It It was very It was breakthrough when we put it together. I just don't see the results uh helpful. Um, and I'm I'm going to say again too that I I still believe and I know nobody on staff, especially in the
081buildings, want it, but I still see some major value in in in school suspension within the home school instead of sending them someplace else. But I I really liked what you said about the the the the uh interfacing or the overlapping regarding absenteeism and behavior. uh and I think of being able to focus in every school um on that that particular cohort. Where is that overlap? I am interested in in funding uh at that grade level the middle school concept at our middle schools because that is the flash point. That is ground zero. >> The little people are the little people when the high school kids have figured out most of what they need to figure out. But we still have this issue and that's one of the reasons we created it. So I still
082don't think we're funding and staffing the middle schools to the level that you need to have the concept of middle school. And I think the concept of middle school should help this in some way. Although I'm hearing from neighbors and what have you that things are improving. You know, we're building the the the ship as we're going. Um I'm interested. Uh just I think two more things. I am very concerned about overage kids having a negative impact in the classroom. Uh and we've talked about that for a number of of years. It does seem to have and even several a decade ago people even talked about it as a movement as to what do you do with the overage kid? uh because they can have a negative impact instead of a mentoring impact if you
083will. Um the other uh point for me is to what degree are we able to ask families I know they have to sign things you know consent forms for medical care but what what do we have as a as a tool when we really think that our kids need to have some uh mental health help and does the family have the capacity to say no or how Is that handled? Because I I'm very worried about the fact that some of this is is not just a matter of bad behavior. It's something far more serious for a kid for good reason and and justifiable things have happened to them that make them behave in a particular way. I'm I'm also very interested in tracking a little bit more um violence. I I'm I'm very very concerned
084about actual physical violence. I the verbal violence is obvious and terrible, but I'm very worried about physical violence. I see it in the sidewalks and whatever dismissal and and what have you. I'm worried about violence regarding our staff. Uh and but most importantly, violence of the kids. Last thing for me on on on attendance, I'd really like to know where the problems occur. Are the problems in the classroom? Are they in the hall? What time of day? And I know you all have a a kind of a a SWAT team approach, a fullcourt press or something. You know, when the time is is happening. And I think it'd be kind of interesting for us to see what are there things that we could do about the facilities? are there things that we could do uh
085uh about the timing of the day or the length of the day or the what have you. So those are some of the things that you know looking at what you all do uh to be thinking about at least from my perspective but again I I'm not really interested in funding promise center any longer definitely um understand the concerns and I believe there was a question about what is the correlation between uh when students are like assigned to the promise center and uh how does that pour or how does discipline pour into chronic absenteeism. So what I will say um in my response is that when a student is assigned to promise center and they attend, >> they are present in school because we are providing instruction. When they do not attend, that is when
086it counts as chronic absenteeism. >> It adds up very fast because the students are not just assigned for one or two days. So if they're assigned for 10 days or more and they do not attend, that's when that does hurt in that regard. Um thinking about um the category uh in violence, I can definitely depending on how it was categorized um might show some different things so we can kind of parse that out. Um, if we think about our code of conduct and thinking about category 3 infractions as like the most severe severe of those bad situations, historically over our six-year average, we have decreased, I believe, almost every month. Um, so even though the numbers are decreasing, it's still hard and every incident is not good. You know, we don't ever want students or
087staff or community members in that situation. So that's something constantly that we look at. Um, we can I know each building is a little different. What I can say as far as from this year, the superintendent and the leadership team and facilities and security have been great as we've been meeting with teams regarding areas and opportunities that we see improvement to help support with like the middle school and the middle school model and resources that they need. That might be as simple as can we put an alarm on this door? We might not have ever needed an alarm, but we need one now. Or to maybe cameras for more visibility in certain areas. and they've been really really great and so responsive in meeting that. And so, um, we'll we can we'll continue to meet
088and we'll continue to support. Um, we definitely know that is our hot spot 6 through 9. So, um, just know we'll always have some data regarding that area. Yeah. >> All righty. Board member Lindy, >> thank you. Um, and I apologize I have to step out here in just a second, but I really want to say thank you. That's all. I think that it is easy to talk a lot about issues of uh racial equity and outcomes in school districts and it's a different thing to have a a strategy and a measurement plan to check to see whether or not we're making progress on this. I do think this is an area where I've seen some movement um in my time on the board. I just wanted to express some gratitude and say thank you.
089>> Thank you. Thank you. And I do uh wanted to make one last one last statement for uh >> Oh, you got more statements you're gonna make here. So there's more questions. Well, it was about the um we do have a great partnership with mind peace on continuing to provide access around um mental health supports. We have we are blessed with our social workers which are able uh they're able to provide another layer of that and to fill in the gaps and so we're definitely working on that on how to increase that. >> All righty. Uh Vice President Buffett. >> Well, thank you for this data. Clearly, we had a lot of questions and so you've been able to answer them um succinctly and I appreciate that. >> Do you have a question? Do more
090than one. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm looking forward to the data of the six schools that you'll provide to the superintendent and hopefully we'll get that um rather timely. Um, I am anticipating by some of our conversation today that middle schools are where some of those increases are in in the middle school age. And um, in conversations with the community, I also would agree that that is a consistent concern. Um, part of part of what I am concerned about is my support of middle schools was because that demographic had significant challenges academically with regard to mental health with needed extra support with regard to discipline. I don't know. I I don't I love what you are doing, but I am afraid that it's it sounds like we're doing the same thing for everybody and not
091providing intentionality towards a demographic that we know needs extra support. That was what they were designed for. Um, historically speaking, ever since I've been on this board, there's been a question around um, the disparity in discipline for this demographic. While I see changes, I do not understand how we are still with numbers this high. I I I absolutely I've been with you and your team uh, at graduation for 2020. Like I I have watched you all. So I think the resources are there. I think the um the intention is there like we have the secret ingredients. I am questioning how that is being used consistently and I I doubted that until I heard what you said around students that are assigned to the promise center >> and attend. That part right there is the introduction
092of um ambiguity for students. And that's where part of the lack of consistency is >> right there because they can be assigned to it. I'm assuming our staff is using the same criteria and that's probably pretty consistent, but parents do have choices around attendance and there's inconsistency there. So I'm going to ask a different question in that what is the attendance rate for students that are assigned and attend and that are assigned and don't. I would also like those schools that those students attend and the grade levels because I have a very sneaky suspicion again not supported by data just my thoughts that it's in the areas that we already know are problematic. So I don't understand as a board member and as a as a researcher why if we have this data and to
093board member Armbers's point I am a researcher. I know data can can say what we wanted to say. So having said that, why we're not addressing the concerns more succinctly because the data is there and um I don't want fluff. I I think this is great data, but I don't I'm not interested in that. what I am interested in and which is why I asked for you to come because I would like to know very where where there are gaps because what we are always presenting is what's right and it looks great and it says oh this is wonderful wonderful data and you know it's 80 something% that's closer to that makes people feel good but we have to re-imagine discipline for our students and that's a tougher conversation that I don't know if we're
094having that conversation because we're stuck on trying to improve a number. So I am going to invite you to supply to the superintendent who will share with us and I'm going to ask again if I don't get it soon for the data around what needs to happen as we are designing budgets or we are as we are creating a strategic plan as we are talking about engaging the community what needs to happen because I was going to ask a question to board member Map's point around engagement we have parents that want to engage That's the whole that was one of the whole policies that we talked about. But where is it that we can interject that part of that is the attendance part of and and I I just I'm afraid that we're not reimagining
095this. We're trying to patch it up. We're trying to make it sound great and put a nice little bow on it and the data is still crappy. I do not understand. If you could go back to the um data around white males and black males, I I just don't understand that. And historically, you know, we're looking at, well, it's trending down, but it's still significantly high and everybody in the community is talking about it. Like, that's not a good number. I also am looking at students with disabilities. I would love that information because I know that is a precious demographic and it's it's known. Is does this number include students with disabil? This is just everybody. >> Yes. So, I'm curious as to what is it going to look like when we take them out
096and and we are intentional around particularly if they're in middle school or we are intentional around um addressing some of their issues around and then increasing engagement in those issues, increasing parent understanding of what category 2 infractions are. How is that a manifestation of their disab like like people need to understand that and I only know because I used to teach. So I people I think we need this is all hands on deck because that is 6 to9 that is the air the the the age range the grade range that we lose them and then they become high school dropouts and if we know this why are we not why are we okay with a a 22%. So, um I have another question for you around I'm calling it seasonal a effect, but I'm going
097to just what I mean by that is we know soon as it starts warming up students of all across our district, 91 square miles, they get a little antsy and then we see discipline referrals go up. Are we putting anything in place? Because we we know this happens. I had students, I had my own children and I used to tell them, can you get me to May? Just go to school. Can you give me to May? So, I know it happens. It happens every single year. What are we doing around keeping that number low? >> Yeah. So, uh beyond prayer, we are we are uh this year we have given um each month a theme. And so we did a strong reset at the beginning of this year getting everybody back into school, back into
098healthy habits. Uh this month in February is connected hearts. Really trying to connect as a community, connect with students. Our theme for next month is choices with impact. >> And so we're giving um schools a toolbox of resources to be able to help. But we're meeting with all schools and their teams next week actually that are coming to our spring PBIS sessions to specifically talk about these areas. Some are two-tier and two three supports. There's a middle school component where we're going to focus on middle school. We're focusing on preschool and early childhood to set up appropriate behavior. So those are the things um yes to be able to address a lot of these things and to preempt to go from here until the end of the year. how not only do we implement great
099strategies, but planning better for next year um as well. So, kind of duality doing those things from what we know now that worked or didn't work. How are we getting better with putting better plans in place for next year? >> Are we looking at involving any incentives, any community partners around like, hey, you know, buskins will give a free cookie. I don't know. >> We are always open to incentives. The school teams um they have invited us. They do a a lot of great work around engaging their community partners on incentives that we do that we do see. Um really if we can improve our day-to-day interactions with kids and how kids interact with each other, that's where the big token is. And the majority of the time the kids tell us they really appreciate
100this time. That stuff is okay, but it's really the time with the adults that they value. >> Gotcha. Well, I really appreciate the work that you were doing you and your team. Um, I really do and I appreciate you coming. I know it's not t it's not easy to be in front of us, but I still have a lot of questions for you. Um, and so I, um, looking forward to the data and from that data, I'll have more questions, but thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> All righty. Um, so one, I just wanted to let folks know, uh, board member crosset actually has a board obligation to go ahead too. So he's our, uh, liaison uh, and so he's heading over for meetings over there. Um I will say two quick statements and then
101I will uh go for anyone who wants to make a really quick statement because we are going to get out of here in the next five minutes. So I will just say one is that discipline is a very hard thing for us to deal with and it's never easy and no matter what condition a student walks in whether they have a disability or not discipline is just a real thing and the fact that it destroys order in a classroom affects the learning process. So, I think a lot of the stuff we're talking about is about going to make sure that we're spending the most amount of our time educating our students. So, I appreciate the focus on that. I do think again, as we've talked about with other presentations today, it will be helpful for
102us to also just see the story that goes with this information. And so I think that's my two little points there is that again I think this is all about focusing on how it improves the quality education we see in the classroom and how do we make sure our our information shared goes towards that uh that story that we need to be addressing need to be fixing to get to that next point. Uh, I see board member Matt. >> Uh, I'll just close out um by saying um in response to some of the things that um uh board member Maf uh asked about, I just want to affirm the work that is being done. When you look at the um the action steps, it is very much comprehensive. And I think that the difference um
103as we think about the data in comparison to before and to where we are now, there were a lot of things or interventions that may have been implemented but we're not speaking together and working in tandem and I think that is the difference that is uh being made now. Of course it will take time um but I do think that uh Mrs. House and her team are trying to work on making sure that it is speaking from a s uh systemic and comprehensive lens. And so uh recognizing the data with 6 through9 trying to target that area but also we do have to make this work comprehensive. If we start with our little ones those behaviors that information will um metriculate upward right where it becomes a part of the culture. So just and I'm
104just looking at it from a clinical perspective. All of these things will be action steps that I would definitely recommend and I know that it's tried and proven. So I just wanted to assure you on that. >> All right. Um so I will just do two other things real quick. One just reminding everybody and Dr. House thank you for coming. >> Um one is remind everybody we have a board meeting on Monday. So if you um were not aware you have to be back here again on Monday. Um um the other thing is I just before we adjourn, I wanted to honor a legend that the nation lost a few days ago. Uh born on October 8th, 1941, Jesse Lewis Jackson was one of the most prominent civil rights leaders in American history. And so
105before we leave, I just wanted to give a quote from him has always been one of my favorites. It happens to be a quote that he reiterated on one of my favorite TV shows growing up, A Different World. Uh but the quote is, "It is not our aptitude, but it is not my aptitude, but my altitude. It's not my aptitude, but my aptitude that will determine my altitude or how high I will go. My mind is a pearl. I can learn anything in the world. Uh we lost a a civil rights legend as a person who's worked at civil rights for more than a decade now myself. Uh the Reverend Jesse Jackson is certainly one of the titans of our our history in America. And so did not want to uh not say something about
106that since it just happened a few days ago. Um, having said that, the chair will now entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Second. >> All right, everybody. Have a good evening.