001I'd like to call to order the Monday May 8th 2023 Board of Education Works session um roll call please Jonathan Bowers here liesler here here wind here Brown here can you join me please I would pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all would you like to read our visions fund I can make it's pretty small I know oh that's a little clearer thank you everything we do is designed to provide a future ready student-centered learning experience for every single child our strategic plan for 2021 through 2026 will help us accomplish this goal by considering every facet of a student's learning experience from curriculum to infrastructure to Wellness diversity and inclusion and everything
002in between um next on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda do I have any motion no I want you two to do that I'll take the second okay thank you any comments questions Liza right right Johnson Bowers aye Brown aye next is a presentation on our district literacy pyramid thank you Mrs Brown so I'd like to invite Mrs Collier and Mrs Van Horn up to come and talk to us about our literacy pyramid so as everyone knows there are some changes that we are implementing next year in order to be in line with new initiatives from ode so we have asked them to come and do that presentation so that we can get that information out to you guys and our families and we did provide a copy for everyone supervisor and so
003we're going to start off by talking through the Strategic plan right now we are in goal number one which is academics and continuous Improvement how we are a continuous Improvement has to do with us analyze the data using professional development practices and still have a high expectations respecting accountability for all of our students the objectives this evening we're going to Define define what battles literacy is and the science of reading we're going to identify the differences between both reading models we're going to highlight House Bill 436 requirements and what we have done is so Monroe Falls City School District to make sure we are in compliance we're going to be looking ahead and talking about next steps as well as house bill 33. so the first model that we're going to look over is balanced
004literacy which is what we are currently in um balanced literacy follows a workshop approach where you have your read aloud your shared readings your word study and guided reading which is small groups and then independent reading which is individualized it also has a writing workshop model as well in Balance literacy and that's what we're currently in now and making a shift into the science of reading so looking at the science of reading our teachers have received 18 hours of Ohio department of education training this year on that and kind of making that pedagogical switch science reading and conferences language comprehension and word recognition all of those things are interwoven for reading comprehensions purposes the science of read and research is based on and derived from psychological communication special education science Linguistics and Neuroscience research that's
005what we're going to we're going away from balance reading into the science of reading right okay thank you so this kind of shows the comparison of where we are and where we're heading or mostly where the pendulum's moving so when you could look at traditional guided reading it starts with students grouped with by reading level we use level books and a lot of those books contain words with a wide wide variety of spelling patterns and many times those um within guided reading there is phonics lessons that are taught but they kind of are like second to the reading lessons so some of those skills aren't as explicit in our guided reading level book so moving to the shift of Science of reading the students are grouped by skill and they will practice those skills through
006decodable books many of those books are controlled um by the the phonetic principles that are taught by the teacher so the spelling patterns they have a lot of practice with that it focuses on a prioritizes the decoding strategies and many of those phonics lessons practice that uh the skill that was taught and puts it into context So currently this is our data there should be a very familiar slide to our to our board because we just had this presentation in the fall so this was our Trend data in 1819 all the way through covet all the way back on the other side of covet so as you can see our data shows that our students have clothes achievement gaps they're where they need to be and we are well above the state average in most
007categories um in third and fourth grade as well as fifth and sixth grade in the areas of ela what is very important to note is we are meeting our Target with our current balanced literacy model however we are looking to switch over to a structured literacy model and have a blend of the two and I'll talk more about that once I get into house bill 33. it's important that we are seeing that we are not failing anybody in our district but that our data is still strong and we're looking to be able to support that other in some cases 22 27 30 of kids that are not where they need to be and and we have to do that with differentiated instruction so I'm clear on on the graphic what does the the yellow code
008color the orange indicates that we are superseded from our Baseline prior to coving so if you look in 1819 we were at 73 of our kids past the OST we had a dip during colit which is 67 we're on the other side of covet we're at 76 which means that we've closed achievement gaps and we are superseding our scores pre-covered thank you so before balanced literacy what did we call it so and you kind of alluded to it when you're talking to defend him so it was phonics that became the devil it turned into balance literacy which was magical is now the new Devil and then now we're calling it The Science reading and the reason I say that is is there are teachers now who are well I think you just alluded to that
009they're blending at me because there's magic and the phonics that they missed when we switched to balanced literacy and so they're taking the best of what they love about security and adding the phonics to it so what's the difference between phonics and the science of reading is the science of reading the new term for phonics so there I think there's three structures at play there's a science of reading which is the research and the pedagogicalness of everything that's occurring their structured literacy which is the instructional piece and how to implement in the classroom and teach and then there's findings if we go back to Scarborough's rope Scarborough's Rope shows that the science of reading is a holistic term to Encompass background knowledge vocabulary language structure verbal reasoning literacy knowledge phonological awareness decoding a spelling a
010sight word recognition a lot of our phonics lives in the word recognition area but then it dips back up when you get into um morphemes and word roots and curriculate Roots into the vocabulary piece and when you interweave all of those Concepts together it helps with students comprehension so what we're seeing in the balanced literacy model I could speak and then I'll give back the floor to be able to chime in there is some deficits in our students reading comprehension to be able to interact with the text for extended period of time breakdown recall the information write in response to reading and so I think that goes back to what are we using to support our kids we know that Lucy Calkins writing right that's been in the paper we acknowledge that that's not the
011the best for our students and stuff so we will be looking to make a shift out of that curriculum eventually but with House Bill 33 we're supposed to be giving dollars that's supposed to be allocated towards reading so in an effort to be responsible with the fact that we just passed two levees one was a levy one was a renewal we want to make sure that if the governor is saying money is going to be there that we in fact use that money that's going to be already allocated for this process and not general fund money to make decisions around the science of reading that kind of move forward but in the meantime in between times we want to make sure that we are in compliance we're doing what's best for our kids and we
012want to make sure that we are taking our balanced literacy model taking some of the things out of it like the MSD queuing which is in the weeds I don't want to get too much in the weeds or get too nerdy on it um so we want to take that off the table but we want to focus on the deep rich lessons of our language acquisition and reading comprehension which is what we're going to be doing with our Curriculum maps we're going to be taking some lessons off the table making sure we media are reading comprehension we did adopt foundations and open court that is aligned to the science of reading and so we're going to be doing a lot of things with those materials we already have been and we've seen the difference in
013a lot of our kids starting to close those phonics epidemic awareness gaps so it it the science of reading includes symphonics with it but it is a much more complex model is what I'm hearing is that fair it's really phonics based like compared to balanced literacy it's um like saturated in phonics and a lot of the um the comprehension the language comprehension piece comes with like the interactive read aloud and the exposure to books and the vocabulary and then building that up within as you're learning the phonics and um diving into key Concepts and things so you have trained all the teachers are getting trained with the science of reading because of you yes without release time thank you board so here's my funny question do they have to read level other books you know
014elementary teachers all have their books leveled and it's like not really funny but so we're gonna be moving away from like ABCD books and we're going to be looking more holistically at the readability levels of the books and bands like over the grade level so I'm not as specific as we were okay all right okay so we're going to kind of talk through House Bill 436 and that's the screening and intervention for children with dyslexia and where we are at as a district in comparison to the state mandates so for training um this is what ode tells us that we need to abide by so by the beginning of 2023 2024 all K1 teachers must be trained and that's through those Ohio dyslexia modules by the beginning of 2024 2025 school year the second and
015third grade teachers will be trained need to be trained in by the beginning of 25-26 school year all intervention Specialists would be trained um we are very blessed here at still mineral Falls thanks to you that we have our K3 teachers that have been trained this year and that is amazing for all of us as we're making the shift so I think it helps everyone make that journey together our intervention Specialists are scheduled to be trained 20 um 2023 20 24 school year and we've already established a structured literacy certification process which is also part of the ode's mandate so do they get support with and tell me if this is done okay but do they get support with the implementation you know I I understand that they get the training but do they get
016support now that they've had the training do they get support implementing it in the classroom I mean is there additional on the ground okay so as part of the release time the the base was 18 hours and we had already gave teachers two hours in December so really 20 hours and so what we did as a department is we sectioned off the modules and when they were done we had check-ins for like 40 45 minutes where we talked through things to bring Clarity on Concepts all of our teachers have passed the assessment you have to pass an assessment to be credentialed and properly trained next year it's not so much as the teaching of the materials which we did we had uh six coaching sessions through Foundation set up for kindergarten teachers first grade teachers
017and second grade teachers where they went through and called in in the morning and did Zoom calls and they received training and clarification for the company and each grade level got six sessions we also got Beth credentialed as a trainer so anybody that's coming in new we won't have to keep paying outside the district we have her she can't leave us races um and then next year teachers expressed like we understand the teaching behind it but we're more concerned about what are we doing with when a child is identified as having dyslexia and so we're offering a book study for them yeah and that was kind of what I was because you know when you're on the boots you know the underground doing it that's when the questions really come up you know so if
018you are there that's great that's wonderful so we do have that and then we have another instructional coach that supports the es can sign up for coaching and you know that and I'm going to brag on them a little bit um just at the department they've done a really nice job of supporting our staff um and it's a it's a very non-threatening coaching relationship they you know really do a nice job of establishing that they're there to help and I mean they jump in and they model lessons and those kinds of things so our teachers really um take advantage of that so that's a wonderful opportunity for our staff that you know that we have that available to them and they do take advantage of it nice and that's through acadians and stuff for Tuesday
019no the coaching notes for the teaching and learning Department okay with our instructional coaches yeah one of your many jobs this is the the days that we gave off yes yep and then the intervention Specialists are scheduled is that the before the school year training or is that during the school year um I believe this before this like at the start of the school year but then there's going to be a practice come a little bit throughout but if you know we're still ahead of the eight ball because they're not slated to be mandated for training to 2025. so we're still a year ahead of this day well and I have to say like to me it makes it makes sense as a district to train up everybody together and make this switch over together
020versus the stages I understand why you know some districts may take that time and may not have been able to arrange the release time or whatever but if we're going to implement a new system it makes sense to for people to be in that same boat together so yeah I I appreciate that yep we appreciate you thank you yes we do all right so just the dyslexia spring so the state has a approved vendor list for um the screeners so this is a very short list um so this year we piloted um some two screeners for the school year and we've decided that we're going to move forward with acadians as our Universal screener moving forward so we have that offer any questions all right so the most important piece is parent communication so after
021the universal dyslexia screener parents will receive a communication letter um the letter will outline the risk level for dyslexia the next steps if there's a round of progress monitoring what does that look like there will be a family reports at home and of course families can always request conferences at any time to discuss those results but we want to make sure that this is something new on the table and it's just not a regular you know test score like a map or osc this is something that says that your child may be at risk for we want to handle this situation very delicately with providing a lot of communication so what can we do to minimize the trauma to a student who has a letter sent home that says they are high risk and that
022may not mean anything to you but from that point on that student will be telling themselves a story and they will become a believer of that story and you will see the trajectory of that student change so very important to me when it comes to any of the testing and the communication because testing results has become like a real big type of thing when we were tested when we were little they would care right but now it's like a it's a conversation thing so so what can we do to minimize that so that it's not a conversation with the students or the parents don't overreact you know when they get it I mean it's just a huge thing that that we can help you know kind of minimize the damage we do have a communication
023process that we outlined um in our subcommittee for parent communication and we specifically had a subcommittee work on all the parent communication pieces um there's presentations there's a q a and then there's just something that walks you through because I could I could be a kid that have a bad day and based on how my task goes I could be at high risk right but that doesn't really mean I'm at high risk so it's important that we're progress monitoring that kid to see if they're still making growth and they don't necessarily have you know this yeah so and part of the the law and the one part that I like um is that if you if you do come up in the after a screened on that initial screener before we do anything else we
024Implement intervention so it's not like we're labeling kids we're implementing intervention and there's a requirement for a certain amount of time at that intervention before you even do anything else and if the kids making progress then you don't move to that level two screener so the level two screener is for students that aren't making progress after that level one and then at that point that screener has to be a little bit firmer and have some additional characteristics that can say yes you're likely to have dyslexia the first one um is not quite that specific so that's again what that committee is really working on but there's a lot of steps we have to go through an intervention before we get to that level two screener where we're saying yeah you know it really looks like
025this really could be dyslexia so um so that's one of the nice things about it is you know there's that interventions built in before we're really saying yeah we think it is so next steps what are our next steps right now we're redefining the district's literacy pyramid and we're going to roll it out for next school year we're reviewing our intervention alignment for students that need additional support and tier two Title One and special education so we want to make sure that after they receive core instruction in the classroom if they need additional intervention they are in alignment with each other so right now our teachers are doing unit assessments and if they have kids that are in title one they're providing those unit assessment results to the tutor and the tutor is intentionally teaching
026for those skill areas which that's the most alignment we've had in the last four years and it's it has some Kinks but it's getting there it's getting there uh we're purchasing the codable books that align to find foundations so those are the books that will be aligned to the phonics unit and the skills and the phonics rules in order to like reinforce what they're learning and we know that some kids agree well above grade level won't necessarily need access to those but we want to make sure that there's enough where um they can access the codable books we're going to be realigning The Curriculum maps to stretch out the comprehension skill based lessons and cognitive Dyslexia book study for interested teachers and then there's the double whammy house bill 33. so how's Bill 33 outlines
027uh the governor's biennium budget as part of that bill there's a lot of language around the science of reading some of those points are beginning out later in 24-25 each school districts they'll use Core Curriculum aligned to science reading we currently use sponsorship panel classroom that is not aligned to the science degree so um as I stated before once this goes into effect right now is through the house it's going to the Senate so we're following it and then once the budget is approved and it comes out with earmark dollars for this initiative we will then be using that we will be piloting curriculums within our school district and again um some districts have kind of jumped on it and ran and I'm more of the I want to sit back I want to look
028at the research I want to make sure we're good and then we have to think about all the different initiatives that we've pushed at our teachers and you know you don't want to push so much you kind of like lose everybody so we want to be very thoughtful in doing that and I think we have the opportunity to do that with Lakeview because we didn't just adopt fantasy panel so when I was hired in I sat with teachers I asked them for your part of this committee did you like this curriculum how did you feel about it what did your students we have feedback we have dialogue we brought in hmh we looked at hmh we've seen the benefits of hmh and we went with hmh um so hopefully if possible hmh may be on
029that curriculum list but again we have to wait to that curriculum list is revealed to us in order for us to make a decision individual waivers can be submitted for students that need a different curriculum all teachers and administrators will need to complete training course by June 2025 and pre-service teachers have to teach using science and reading strategies so that is what's coming out of the house and in the city right now lastly we're gonna wait on ode approved curriculum we're going to Pilot new reading curriculums from the list and then administrators will be trained on the dyslexia course by the Ohio Department of Education by June 2025. some of them have already just went along with their teachers and completed some of them were waiting so and that's it that's what we have right
030so when the budget bill when the governor came out there's already some changes that are in House Bill 33 and still has to go through the Senate so you know that's the other part you know we gotta we got a request for how are we going to comply with household 33 while we're with the it's coming like right so I mean anything that comes up as well we're going to comply with but if you can't tell people you're a comply with something that's still in in a in a bill format that hasn't been announced so it's just important for everybody to know I know it's gotten a lot of media coverage um and just that you know we have to wait and see what the final bill says before we start investing time resources and
031energy yeah I am a True Believer in if it's not in front of you on your desk don't worry about it um it's my strategic plan that's kind of man it always works out it always works out um thank you very much for the detail that was that was really really good I appreciate the uh the piloting approach um both from a budgetary standpoint right we don't want to spend and train and Implement something that two years down the line we realize is not at all working but I think also from the staff morale perspective there's a lot I think coming in our dinner and making sure that the changes that are getting made are friendly for them and useful for them I think is huge so it's totally worth it to give feedback and
032we typically during Pilots we go observe the teachers teach with the materials and so last year when we did our phonics Pilots we were able to see clearest statement not an engagement that they could care less okay work that one away so it's nice to be able to do um Pilots go into the field and see the kids interact with the curriculum sit down and meet with teachers and really kind of beat it up and have conversations around what's working what's not working but at the end of the day we're we're always financially responsible in our head like for me I've always negotiating just I don't pay the first price thank you [Music] everyone to number six superintendent's recommendation I will turn this over to Mrs Pro all right thank you we have one recommendation
033this evening um so this is um not a typical practice but we are asking for the rehire of a retired teacher so this is for Terry Whitmer who is our current CTE instructor um and Terry um would be a huge loss for our district in um and I'm looking at you because you know you have personal experience with yours with your son who is an amazing it's placing second in National thank you yes that was you know but um Terry and the things that she does with our students it's remarkable so we very much would like to have her continue with us we hired at what level um so that's the question I can't answer Patrick do you know being a teacher so va0 or what yeah yeah thank you I assumed but I didn't
034want to say that it's like 43. yeah yeah that's the typical right second any comments or questions roll call please hi wind aye Johnson Bauer hi Weisler all right Brown aye Welcome to our usual work session topic of looking through our priorities for this year as a board we had agreed our top priorities were getting our Treasurer in place we did that getting the superintendent's contract in place we did that facilities Master facilities plan that is in progress and renewal and that's done so we we're those are great so then we go on to sort of individual priorities and I'll start with Dr wind whose priority was getting a student representative on the board of having a student representative to the Board of Education so the progress on this is multiple um I've provided drafts
035of the roles and responsibilities that we discussed last time so hopefully those are correct to our discussion from last time and then a draft of the application and for any student who's interested I want them to have a copy of the roles and responsibilities in hand before they apply of course you know please know what you're getting yourself in for my main question with the application was the number of questions so I've included all the questions that were that were suggested I don't think six essays is friendly to our students so I wanted us to take a look at those and think about which ones we really want for that initial set of essays for that first screening and then which we might keep in reserve for any interviews or other discussions with those top
036applicants that we that we screen in um so I'm not sure kind of where everybody's at on those questions what what feels most important of them so the first one why are you interested in serving as a student representative is a very good question it's a really good place yeah yeah um I think the second question what skills or strengths would you would you bring to your service on the board I think can be blended into the other things this is just these are just my opinions the third question what are some leadership skills you have admired in others which you know what do you see you could kind of blend a bit of number two into that what are leadership skills of yours that you even said what skills would you like to to
037develop what leadership skills would you like to develop would you describe yourself as a problem identifier or Problem Solver and please explain um if you could change anything about our school system what would you change and how would you carry out that change that might be too big a question um that's because that even as a school board candidate that would be a hard question to answer I get a little outside of scope too yeah um yeah yeah we don't want to set the expectation that they can change the school district um but um and then describe your experiences with work volunteering service extracurricular anything else you feel the board should know about you isn't a bad question um I had when I went through this was trying to narrow it down to what I
038think are the four characteristics that and I kind of had made list and then broke them down into four problem solving being a doer you know making commitments to doing something and taking action and building a plan having a goal setting up steps action steps and getting it done trustworthiness that this is somebody that uh students feel they can talk to that students will trust the information that's coming back from them um and also some trustworthiness on the part of the board that we not that we're going to be sharing deep dark secrets but that we're going to be talking to them about things and do we trust them to carry that message back accurately and to ask questions where they don't feel that they understand it um leadership and understanding what leadership is and
039understanding their own leadership style or having a desire to learn what that is you know at 16 17 years old that I realize that's a work in progress and still is it at 39 um and then just good communication skills being able to verbalize and articulate what they think and being able to listen and accurately report communicate back to to us what their seeing so those were just before I identified and find a way of building that into the essay things I think the communication skills will come about in there we asked are you a problem solver a problem identifier problem solver you know we could even ask share examples of that um would get at that trustworthiness I don't know how we ask that um and Leadership obviously we've already worked that in so
040those are just my thoughts from here okay other thoughts on these questions and what to include what to leave off I agree with Nancy I definitely think though I know we've discussed a little bit about you know wanting to find somebody that isn't necessarily on every other community but I still think that no matter you know this is a big this is a big job responsibility or a big responsibility I want to know that we're going to get people that are just not you know the doers already so yeah I'll be in the position more about communication and engagement but approve Nancy here and the only other thing I had concerned with is asking their GPA and that was I forgot to put in the specific number there but just is your GPA about two
041point that's the required for extracurriculars and I wanted to do that as just a yes or no yeah and like please don't give us numbers that yeah that part doesn't matter and they turn someone off if they're like a 2.8 they can all they have again is is your GPA about 2.0 that that lets us know that they're at that level that they would qualify for your typical extracurriculars at the high school um I made a note that I'd love to see this be completely student driven that a student takes upon themselves to do this this is not a teacher nomination or other student nomination that it's partly so that you can have the quiet student that feels like nobody ever notices meeting this is something I really have a passion for or that I'd
042really be interested in put on their own step forward I don't know if there's a way that the nominate the applications can be anonymous at first we can potentially we can ask them to answer the essay questions um like print out your answers to the essay questions and we could take that apart from this cover page that provides their information similar to how we end up doing like scholarship type stuff and you know that could potentially be a good idea we have several folks on the board with connections with students at the high school and I certainly wouldn't want that decision to look like um us making the decision based on a relationship that we have with the family student number is a good idea I'd like to the the whole list you gave I
043thought was was wonderful for us on our side so I think it has to be worded in a much more simpler way even though that's the answer we're looking for because I think that it can be so complex that it just that it ends up being that same kid um and that for me is where that last question comes in is just fill us in on anything else that that you want us to know right so that would put us at four for the outside questions potentially um why are you interested in surveying what are some leadership skills that you you admire and want to develop the problem identifier versus Problem Solver and then the anything else yeah that's true the reason I broke it down into four is also to give us a rubric
044you know I'm open to changing that to whatever but I was thinking if I was looking at it how would I want to break this down so so I'm trying to make it as objective as possible in our own subjectivity but you know figuring we can all come up with our top one or two and then narrow it down from there have you talked to the other administrators in the district that have experienced this from other schools I know Dr Hartman has if you talked to Dr Hartman and not directly you know I've chatted with Christy briefly about it because it might it might be nice to see the good and the bad so that we can yeah yeah I mean we've had we've had conversations about it multiply for a while and I think
045my my next question um and I'm I'm assuming that um some of this that we've put together in terms of the roles and responsibilities as well as the application process I'm assuming that we will learn from experience doing it our first year um and potentially change that up as we go and certainly as we you know see how it works for us potentially get get further feedback you know none of none of this piece is set in stone when it comes to the policy which of course I brought this draft up in conjunction with our legal counsel made sure that we've put this together in the way that we want to in terms of our policy the policy just says that the board will select it doesn't specify the process that we're using to select
046so that we have some flexibility with that it includes the expectation that we had talked about last time to attend work session meetings and then other meetings you know kind of as as they can and asks that you know any absences from those meetings be excused similar to our attendance and meetings if we can't make it then we let folks know um and I did clarify with our legal counsel that we're we're well on our way if we want to go ahead and finalize the application process get that out there set a set a due date we can do that while our policy goes through its free readings she said she didn't see any reason why we can't go ahead and work through this process with applicants while we do our three readings with the
047policy in order to formalize it we say we thought it should have been your senior it doesn't matter to me yeah any any student advisable at any level yeah I think we had initially said maybe an upperclassmen but as we look at it again why not cast a wide net and see see what happens what sort of deadline do we need to put on this for the applications coming back to us I'd say June 30th I was thinking maybe more like June 15th just to give us time yeah I say the kids are out of school yeah so he put I'm worried if you pushed a deadline out to lift her hair that people are going to forget about it okay should we make it like last day of school then for that or should
048we just pick this up in August at the beginning of the school and say there's a new opportunity and then we just 8th graders yeah I mean and then you know get our get our bearings on this get it up and running and then we're we're set for next year and yes we could include the complete hires next year I will admit I was hoping that we could get somebody in and starting at the beginning of next code we could still get something in definitely buy October the only reason I'm putting the delay is just that it's already mid-may right you know we're 10 days from graduation so and then once we get the skull we'll have a better timeline for end of next year we'll be more excited about stuff in August than they
049are right now yeah because I really think this should be like an April plane before you start to get into State Testing and finals yeah too many kids that are overwhelmed to like with college you know college Plus classes and exams that to be like yeah I don't want to end School in the right essays to be yeah yeah having you know two high school kids in my household like I can say there's no chance that any of them are gonna do that or doing anything and I don't think I have much interest in it either you know yeah with all the things going on yeah so kind of putting ideally putting the applications out in in March with the due date in April something along those lines for next year for this year potentially
050putting it out in August as here's a new opportunity please apply and they start a little bit late the cool thing is this will give them good experience for when they apply for scholarships right it's all the same thing it's all the same stuff keep it and cut and paste is that in uh somewhere in there oh no it says second Monday monthly yeah uh thank you all for the feedback on that this is okay um first I wanted a state I did attend I have the opportunity to attend the Ford Leadership Institute um the end of April and there were three sessions that were kind of pertinent to my personal goals that I personally attended one of them was a effective family and Community engagement and I definitely found that one to be um
051an interesting session and the next one was policy specifically regarding all vulnerable youth with that emphasis on hazing and bullying and then the third was navigating board conflict so I thought the three of those were definitely pertinent too and it was only an hour yeah I was going to say that topic got worked into at least two of my sessions as well okay so uh first up I do still want to talk about the policy review portion okay yeah so I did meet with uh I was gaming uh when it was last name gami narves of osba I met him he's a policy consultant and we discussed the potential for uh full policy review I don't think it's something that we should get into right now I do think the last time I had spoken
052to uh Dr Lacon had mentioned the last time that he believed or he thought that there was a full policy review start to finish then in 2016 which means that we would be due for one um but that being said I think that they say it can take uh six weeks after three months so I was thinking maybe in October we could start we could revisit this in a few months and see if everyone's interested in doing it there is a cost associated with pool board and agree upon upon but I just don't think it's something that that uh we need to dive into right this minute but do you have any idea what's something like that across the the reason they basically say it is they may see they can't give you an estimate
053until they dive in and see exactly so who doesn't OSB and osba could do it but I mean ours is through Neola that's the thing right okay so we would have to be thinking do we want to shift and go with ospa policy which would be alarmed across to us I don't know that something I'm interested in right um they are interested if they they are able to review email policies policy that would just be a matter of them seeing what we have sometimes they say they've dug into people's policy and find stuff that's been sitting on the books that hasn't been dusted off in 19 20 years and it's completely irrelevant it should be taken off the books because it's actually actually negative um it all depends on you know where the board wants
054to go but I think where I'm at right now is um well at some point we should get cost estimates and just cost and time estimates so we know what we're thinking yeah they would add it so it's on a very specific District but you know just with things I know that personally it's come up you know I chat GPT things like that there's definitely things that could warrant you know a review of multiple policy um just to do a deep dive because it's best practice to do it every five years I understand so I want to be behind the game either next up we have um bullying so uh the first part of that is the anti-racism policy I don't think that I've ever officially specifically stated it but that's not something that I
055wrote personally it's uh it was written by our Dei policy subcommittee who is Steve Dietrich from Kipton and Cottrell from high school and a Community member by the name of Thomas Jefferson so the three of them are the ones that wrote that policy I've also done some conducted some community outreach in the last couple of weeks just to see um you know just for some conversation on it and I've been communicating with board Council as a matter of fact I just got a Redline copy of the policy this is great before I got here today so I have not reviewed it myself there will be an administrative review on the 15th that's when I looked at have a bigger conversation about it is that a policy committee thing uh no this is something that I'm
056indicated that I would like to do on my own similar to what families it's a new policy and then come back to us with recommendations sure all right okay we'll review it as a board uh once we've gone through that process but it's not something that has to go through the superintendent committee now it's a board driven policy mm-hmm um I wanted to actually take a few minutes to talk about bullying statistics uh so more than one in five students overall report being bullied bullying students are more likely to be in a fight more likely to live in fear they score lower in reading math and science they're more likely to drop out of school and they're more likely to bring the weapon to school only about 20 to 30 percent of students who are
057bullied notify adults which is why actually labeling incidents of properly labeling incidents as bullying is important because it can influence whether or not the students actually reach out or not and it can influence how the adults respond whether or not we're talking about assembly peer-to-peer conflict versus actual bullying and what those the differences between those two issues um one of the biggest things that I noticed today and some research and I shared it with Dr wind is that a victim of bullying is twice as likely to die by Suicide um and I know that a lot of her work on the mental health committee I know that a lot of the work that uh that the district has done with mental health and identifying you know at-risk students um it already exists for for the
058suicide prevention side but I think it's probably time to take a deep dive into how those two connect further you know furthermore and I just wanted to make a very very clear statement that I don't believe that this issue is unique to Stone Monroe Falls I don't think that we're behind the eight ball in anywhere I don't think that we have an issue that's worse than others I do think we can be unique in how we are identifying issues and improving our student outcomes and I think that we can we have the resources and the ability to be a leader in this area so um I met with Mrs Pro and we have some ideas on how to move forward um on a improving some culture identifying any areas of systemic bullying she's had some
059fantastic ideas as far as how to bring parent Advocates into our PBIS which I had to be I had to learn what that is so that is positive behavior intervention support yes so uh you know it's we're doing a lot of work already yeah I want to make sure that you know that that it's very clearly stated this is I don't think that that our district is not doing a good job I just think that we can do better um I think that we can um one of the ideas that we talked about was an umbrella creating an umbrella committee to identify talk with mental health um the PBIS the Dei committee and as I did and then kind of framing it all as Wellness um because these are all areas that are so tightly
060interwoven and we're not really at the point where we need to just discuss bullying we need to discuss to discuss overall culture and climate and and improve student outcomes so I wanted to just bring this to the table and talk about see what you guys think and and I think I think you're you're absolutely On Target that it is all very interrelated and inner and interwoven as I said last time when we were talking about it you know there's there's aspects of the mental health committee that exists that are working to you know assess how are students feeling about the school climate are they feeling safe in the in the buildings and things like that so I think there is a lot of overlap there um and the other the other piece that that I
061kind of mentioned that I'm going that I'm going to go back to is um working a little bit more on that Suicide Prevention piece um that's in its very beginning stages right now really focusing on that piece of it um but I'd like to see us do do more there too and and put the right heads together to generate some good ideas and again I don't think that similar to to what you had said I don't think were behind on these things and I feel like we could we could potentially generate some good ideas for doing more um and and it all is extremely interconnected from kindergarten through our post-grads through our alums there is that whole system is very interconnected so yeah so I think it's fascinating the whole conversation because that is something
062that's very close to my heart as I brought it up last week and I said Mrs Pro and apology after the meeting because um this is really an important subject to me and I reviewed the tapes of the board meetings and never once in the last five minutes five months have you mentioned the bully which is why I texted Mr Bratton and did whatever that's actually not accurate that's been my board goals well I mean I mean it's been here but you've never liked what you said today was was wonderful but there was never any steps and so and let me tell you why this is important to me it's a much bigger thing it is a much bigger thing the people in snow who right now feel that their kids have been bullied do
063not believe anything they just heard it's a huge thing and I realized it was a huge thing when a friend of mine sent me a screenshot of a Facebook post where I was being bullied again and then I had a conversation with a friend of mine who discussed a conversation that board members have had where they were trashing me in public saying I shouldn't be on the board and then they sat right next to me and so I'm not saying that to complain I'm saying that this is a cultural issue this is a culture issue this doesn't just happen with children it happens with adults and I can't say specifics because you I don't know I'm not on Facebook you know but so then I thought to myself okay so if this is happening to
064me if somebody sends me a screenshot of adults who are trashing me those adults would call it bullying if it were their kids right then how do our children feel when this happens to them in school and that's why I was emphatic last board meeting and said look this we have to do something this is a very complicated conversation it involves the community it involves what's our definition of bullying like like you just mentioned it involves a conversation of who is to blame and these are all rhetorical questions you know are the teachers and the Personnel of the snow District responsible for the behavior of the children in the community that's a rhetorical question um do we teach bullying in the snow City Schools that's rhetorical right you know what what is it that we
065do to support a parent whose kid is doing ability like there's so many pieces to this that as a district we're just teaching or serving food or whatever and sometimes they get the blame for the behavior of these kids but it doesn't matter because it's all happening so this kind of like bridge is what I my next topic is but would I be allowed to finish my discussion or do you want to take over I did want to continue to discuss some of the things that we're planning to move forward on um one of the things that we discussed was bringing stuff to or bringing information to open houses and to um one of the things that I will mention was a little bit more difficult just because you know people will be in and
066out but if there was some kind of uh inform information I think yeah that's kind of like a passport yeah so one of my child's parent-teacher conversate it's kind of set up like like a like a passport system and you rotate kind of through and then you get stamps and you get a little tchots so you know something like that so especially as we look to you know we've talked about rebooting our PBIS system I brought my book this is our new book study that we're going to do for administrators looking at more restorative justice practices and that's a whole culture shift um you know um but you know in its culture ship for us and for our families you know but how do we really get that information out and what does zero tolerance
067really mean and what really what is bullying and what's unkind behavior and how do we really educate our families and get get some of that information out so we talked about you know use a standalone parent that would be great but people don't come to those and I understand why like I don't as a parent always go to those either um so um you know but how when do we already have families in you know can we involved with PTA we didn't talk about that but that's another idea but we really need to get our families more involved in in some of the initiatives and on board and oh get the word out so I guess I want to make sure too I I would want to know from the other board members if you're
068in favor of creating the umbrella committee that uh covers all of the what we I guess one of the things that we discussed is that because everything's if you look at the Venn diagram everything is so centered on wellness and I think that if we maybe revamp I know we have some several superintendent committees I don't know that we have any board I went to the process learning from osba on the difference between a board committee and a superintendent committee and I think that it's definitely appropriate for our staff forward committees as well when you said umbrella who were the groups you want to have under the uh the groups that we would be uh possibly interested in putting together was the Dei committee the PBIS committees and mental health committee okay um into something
069Loosely titled as Wellness I'm not sure what some of this around the bullying under in there yes and there's there's some issues of Safety and Security well the new you know as we tried to gain some additional support for the dog pound no longer half a pound right now so the field house you know for looking at you know medical help for for families mental health help for families Dental Health you know can we have a back-to-school Fair where kids didn't get haircuts get clothes and get backpacks get supplies you know One-Stop shop um kinds of things so do you know the committee can also kind of bring some of that in so I think you know you know and I usually I kind of talked about and you guys have heard me you talk
070about it too you know and we have we have all these great things happening but we need one kind of overseeing because Aisha and I have duplicated efforts um and that's not a good place we don't have time to duplicate up our message so we need to be working together yeah yeah well the one thing that you had mentioned to me that stuck out was that all six elementary schools have pause programs that are wonderful but are not the same and all of those kids are filtering up to Lakeview and maybe expectations are kind of not uniform so I just think that and again I can't say it enough I don't think we're doing a bad job I just think that maybe there's ways to find um a little bit room for improvement there and
071I I very much would like to see us kind of wrap that together and at least be touching base with with one another and making sure that we're all working toward the same ends and not duplicating efforts or going off in separate directions um so I I feel like that makes a lot of sense and and I feel like inside ways the the PBIS stuff is I mean it makes sense we've spent how long on aligning academic curricula across our school buildings and aligning some of the behavioral stuff across our school buildings makes a huge amount of sense to me as well and it feels like sort of a natural step for this to go what do you think John you know I think a piece is part of that a lot of these groups
072are working in silos but they're all covered basically similar similar things so maybe some of them should be working together versus in their silos because in the silos my opinion but we haven't seen much come out of some of these committees not actionable at least just a lot of talk but yeah nothing I mean yeah I don't think we've really seen anything come from and committee that's actionable that made it culture change or anything of the source just more report of it right well I don't know um if we should make a motion to create a wellness committee no you can't just make a motion we have to amendment can I move to amend the agenda to create to make a motion to create a wellness board Wellness committee I I think that we should
073create a little bit more structure first okay I would say for the next work session let's have something where it's really drafted up and kind of thought through and explained does that make sense yes sure exactly because it's not like a superintendent Community yeah that would be great yeah I mean this is all really good stuff so we'll add that to my policy being the next meeting and all kinds of stuff yeah I know that's good anything else thank you so my agenda has always been for Unity and I happen to wonder this morning matter of fact while I was taking notes on my my paper towel if you guys actually wondered why I wanted toward Unity like what is this what is the purpose of this having more Unity you've said it very clearly
074that you want the board to speak with one voice and I also don't want the board to be the city council without Unity we are nothing more than city council and that doesn't mean it's good or bad because I don't attended meetings but they're divided their different you know people and when you originally asked for board goals I thought it was okay we're all going to get together and we're going to help doctor when achieve her goal and we're going to help you know Carrie Chief Ripple and because we are one board and I was really excited about that and then the first time it was asked for a report I was like hey what do you mean I thought we were all doing this together together we have the opportunity to do amazing things
075and have a tremendous impact on the district tremendous separately we have the ability to do tiny things but maybe it has your name to it but behind events and it's really important and once I can't unsee those bullying quotes once we know this occurs in the district if we do not gather together as a board and fix it it's wrong once we know there's a mental health issue and we don't gather together as a board and fix it is wrong we can't just sit back and let Dr wind you know shoulder all of that work we can't sit back and let Harry show her all that it is our job as a board to gather together and make these things happen and that's why we have the board is is a different entity than the
076city council we are not representing specific Facebook groups or specific areas of the town we are representing the entire Community that's our board policy like that's written in our board policy so that's why I want the unity I want us to be one board because I want us to move forward and I want us to make an impact on the lives of our students I'm not really big in you know learning all these things you know I'm not bringing to Facebook or whatever but when it really been friend of mine calls and says hey you know at least if I had a girl in this District it would be horrible because they get bullied I can't un hear that conversation and sit here without doing something and moving forward so that's what I say I
077want more Unity that's what I want because it's irresponsible for us to sit here without really making a concerted effort to get that done so that's really all those you know because it's and I think for my part I I have felt I I don't feel like I've been doing this student rep stuff alone I felt like we've had some really good discussions about it during our work sessions as we've moved along I've gotten input from various folks including from um from Dr Brett and Mr Bratton um and you know to me while I may be spearheading it and kind of pulling that draft together it's all been ideas that that we've all discussed and shared together um so I haven't I out on my own um and we've had we've had these discussions during
078during work sessions that was that was the point of this was that we all had different areas that are of interest and we take the lead on this to bring to the board for the board to put this together today and ask you for input on yeah but that's what I'm saying I'm not arguing about it I'm saying today was the first day I saw progress in the bullying and it was wonderful I'm not arguing about it I'm I'm saying that's amazing and so we should move forward I I think we should move forward yeah and I would I would like for me it's not about the why you know I think it's it's very clear when when you become a board member if you learn about the role and do the trainings it is
079very clear um that the Board needs to come together and there may be some disagreement and some some you know some yeah notes and some votes and some no votes and in the end what the board decides the board decides and we all get behind and and I feel like that that is the goal here um when I suggested the mental health committee I did that during a meeting and talked with everyone about it and got feedback and talked with the board as a whole about you know is there a second person who's interested in in going to those meetings with me and I very much did that as a ward looking at that Unity um I'll be honest I I don't really understand how you can sit here and talk about porn unity and
080throw out vague accusations about Facebook posts and last meaning come to the meeting and say you're developing a task force and you already know who is going to sit on it without the five of us having a discussion as a board as a unified Force to make that happen and that's a really valid point and and I did that because I hadn't heard anything about bullying I had texted the superintendent we had talked he said okay do it I mentioned it to him right before the board meeting I mean right before the board meeting and at that point in time to ensure that I wasn't stepping on any toes and then I heard the same thing so anyways I was very much part of bullying that's definitely that there's a double umbrella that I've been
081working on the entire time which I I've mentioned multiple times the culture um segment of it in addition to the anti-racism and I don't see that those two are even enter you know they're not two separate silos those are interwoven and you know and so I that's why I was just making the point that's why it's important to me because I think we need to work together I think we have the ability to make a huge impact on the district and if we don't shame on us I will just my only comment about the task force is I thought it was a great idea but the the comment you made was I am forming a task force not the board is forming a task force and and it's a it's a it's a subtle difference
082but it's a difference it's getting it what you're saying is that we should be speaking as a board and you announced that you were starting a task force it wasn't a chance for saying that the board has decided to form a task force you know leaving out that she had been working on that that's that's a separate subject but there was you know just in your own language was kind of so yeah you're right and that's got intended because I could care less if my name's associated with any of this but here's what I really would want to do like in the big big picture of what I think we would make an impact is create a a system like we do with the master facilities remember the original meetings where we had a ton
083of people so in my mind we have a committee like that whatever you want to call it with community members we have all kinds of community environments we have teachers all these people together and then we say okay one by one we're going to pick this apart so what is it that we Define as bullying because I talked to some parents and there's you know somebody's texting mean things to their kids well is that what we're going to call bullying we need to find that but as you guys just said and then the next meeting is okay so let's talk to the teachers and say how is it that the teachers are dealing with this where does it happen because kids don't bully in front of an adult you know they're they're not going to
084do that you know in rare occasions Okay now what's happened what what do we do when the kid goes home and they kind of exaggerate the story and the parent gets on Facebook and they totally destroy the district and then we find out that wasn't true but what do we do with that you know and then I'm talking about that just us as a community as a big committee that it most parents or whatever discuss what do you want to do with them because that happens a lot and then you've got so many different facets of bullying that we could discuss as a gigantic committee breaking into subgroups coming together that we could really come to a home and we could talk about the adults because you know the adults who complain about bullying are
085the bullies you know we can talk about that culture and okay so what do you think about this and because their point of view might be different than our interview to bring it back to what you said about one board member working alone if you had asked me for a second about well I was working out with anti-bullying you would have found out that I had been doing these things and that I had conversations with Administration and that theater there and process it just I didn't even have my chance to speak it at the board meeting oh I'm sorry you just you didn't share it on any of the thing there's no no you know you've just never shared anytime somebody would ask you that so I just assume that if you had been doing
086something you would have shared and you know no worries there's there's plenty of work for all of us to do absolutely and I think we'll look forward to defining what and I'm the umbrella committee that you're going to look into proposing because I think it gets into that a lot of how the Dei committee was set up is very similar to that structure in many ways looks a lot like the master facilities plan that it had Community leaders of many different walks um including pastors Business Leaders teachers parents and obviously a lot of business and leaders and pastors are also parents but their people were brought in as a parent versus as a pastor it had a lot of that and I had a conversation with a parent through email this weekend and she wants
087us to be sure that we're looking at bullying for other reasons and she's absolutely right that clearly some bullying is because of racism but not all bullying is because of racism I mean I mean clearly any time anybody is defined in some way as other as is made less than and other and getting bullied that is wrong so and that Dei isn't about race exclusively it's about how is everybody included in having access to everyone as the decorations it is I mean it's it's diversity is the first word of that and it can be neurodiversity it can be gender diversity all of those things any way in which people are somehow categorized and made less than and then and not being included and not being it's one thing to be invited to the party but
088then are you then included in the festivities do you then are you then included onto the Dance Floor you know we can invite you but then make you sit in the back and that's not being inclusive so do we invite you and truly include you in everything that's what that's how the Dei committee was originally set up I believe I mean I look back to I mean it was Jason Whitaker that and Kyle Feldman had kind of started that that first started with that listening lunch of what's going on and yes racial tensions is what made that happen but there was a recognition from the very start this this was much bigger than just race that's big enough but it still much bigger than just that so a lot of a lot of the infrastructure
089for this is there and and there's already a lot of work that's been done with that whether it's been actionable you know the community subgroup was kind of left the school district and kind of is working on its own doing some other things because it just was more Community Based yeah but there's a lot of that is there and we can pick that back up and come up with good actionable stuff and I agree that it's I I don't know if it's a result of the pandemic that people are just angrier but I mean even just a lack of micro kindnesses stopping for a red light Nobody Does that they think I'm going to go through the heck of the people that you know I just look at it as you know take that three
090seconds and stop short of that driveway and let that person out of the parking lot in front of you just that one little bit of emergency yes that one little micro kindness can just but no I'm going to pull up and I'm going to just sit there and I don't care that I blocked your way and um you know it just we're just compounding bad feeling a lot of them right behind you I know not that that happened to me today or anything actually one point that did that was in my uh uh family and Community Education engagement session they did talk about after covid that families and the community in general as their expectation on communication has changed significantly and that the schools and districts need to be prepared to meet Community the families
091where they are more so than asking everyone to come to us which is part of the reason why I think I thought Mrs provide a great idea in thinking and trying to to align things with where where the people already are because we do I do love the idea of big community events but sometimes you have a hard time getting people to show up or as such as facilities you see the same people in the room all the time it's the same it's the same people that show up but we need to be able to access and this to the same to the point about the students for uh you know the possible you know application filling out that application we need to access all the families and not just the families that Lisa coming
092back to board Unity um anything further on the idea of a unified email address I think that was clear that you guys do know what they must have really that was yeah that was the discussion last time I had a unified email and then it I mean not to give up email address but and even if I email that was yeah procedure because we talked about that five bucks I think we had said yeah didn't know if you've talked to anybody in I.T about the possibility of how that would be set up but I think the people that is yeah they said that was workable for the first time you were in favor of of a board especially when you have something like Sue adolnik and Brown there's no chance of misspelling and if you
093do I mean liesler I'm sure I'm certainly spelled all the time it's got an iei that's that's serious for my spelling skills Siri even calls you lease um but I I think it's a great idea because it makes it simpler it does make it it makes it more uniform but but then again we would still have the conversation of some sort of a protocol with our responses yeah you know because you know you get an email somebody says I want everything I want to be to respond and I think okay what's the protocol but I still think the members of our community still have the right to ask each one of us as an individually elected person what our thoughts are if that's what the Community member wants it's not about you deciding so I
094guess that that would be part of what we're talking about right that you know because then I don't want to say something that counters what you say because then it looks like we are completely fractured and and that's and that's what they're looking for something but I mean maybe that's but that's that's my impression from the conversation last time was we had said it was about damn but I think it's a great tool for the community instead of having to dig up all five of these addresses if they could just say board at smfs it is so much easier that would be wonderful for them and yet we could probably still maintain individual email addresses if they wanted to have that conversation yeah we would have to maintain the individual yeah community members wanted to
095have an individual conversation they could do that but that's going to be their discretion and then as far as I recall that discussion we had talked about having having the president be the main person to respond and then comes to that board email right yeah okay and cool so I'm good with that to be movement and then I just want to reiterate uh our July 17th regular meeting will be held in the Stow city council chambers thought that we are city council but we're doing that there with the goal of that being more of a town hall form we'll do a regular meeting and then open it up to comments which will actually be more of a discussion which I have a moderator lined up it'll be Gina d'antonio who is a she I think
096she was a teacher at some point but she is a retired city council person she will be a wonderful moderator because she's very good at just sifting through a lot but the goal will be to try to combine like questions into sort of one topic so we're not answering the same questions all right so we will do anything I think great discussion even when it's difficult those can be the best discussions right um legislate or no no committee updates um and it's okay because we just did this two weeks ago so there may not really be much going on um mental social emotional health committee and the updates nothing new since our last meeting I don't think yeah our next meetings right before the mayboard meetings are cool okay policy committee thing no no I'm
097not so Safety Committee we haven't met and Technology committee as you stole appropriately pointed out did great work which made stuff with the on top of it yes perfect fantastic uh moving on a legislative update we just did this two weeks ago I just have two weeks two seconds of update which I actually Mrs prowl and Mrs Collier kind of been on it a little bit is that 1833 although it was passed in the house it has not yet come to the senate for a vote there's they're having hearings uh tomorrow I think tomorrow and Wednesday in the Senate education committee to discuss their passage of HP 33 but what will happen is they will pass it or they won't pass it or they'll make you know suggestions they'll change eventually it'll have to come
098to the Joint Committee um and then you know look to be passed by the end of June 30th I think so we're still in transition or in a holding pattern waiting to see what happens simple the general assembly besides that I did get three more sessions at the board uh conference on an update from the Ohio Auditor on Levy compliance which was interesting uh Fair school funding and then osba governance so I feel very well educated on legislative at the board Leadership Institute the closing session was all a legislative overview and oh my gosh there was so much information but I downloaded the handouts from every session and making sure that I've done this with you if there's anything you really would want to see but especially the legislative stuff when she even knew she
099was going through it really fast because there was a lot to cover and she said you guys won't even take notes just get the hand of course I want it but if I was taking notes then it was it was like I get my way to White Flag but it was it was a lot um there's a lot going on and osba is doing a wonderful job staying on top of it really really truly staying on top of that so anything further just on that subject of the board leadership conference a couple of the sessions that that I went to with job coaching and transitioning for some of our special needs kids and as well as looking at I attended a fascinating I told you I was going to come back with ideas to drive
100you insane um but it there was a school district that presented about using success coaches to address those problem behaviors and take some of the load off of the school counselors so we we will have follow-up conversations definitely because there's there's definitely some good ideas out there yeah other than agenda for a mental health committee yeah for you to talk about yeah we should have a little bit of time between the square presentations okay yeah great at this point we will move into executive session for the purpose of discussing or evaluating public employees and for the purpose of discussing uh contract negotiations there will be no action following the executive session yes do I have any motion second we'll give it to her roll call please when I Johnson Bowers aye Weisler aye Dominic aye
101Brown all right we are in executive session at 7 20.