001March 10th 202 2025 Wester City Schools Board of Education work session miss walty can you please call the role good right Starcher here Austin here kma here Klein H here all right so we are going to start off this evening um with with Mrs krooks giving a presentation on gifted and enrichment programming for wer City Schools so thank you for being here absolutely well good evening for of Education I'm excited to this evening um a kind of a high overview of what we're doing around the schools in our gifted enrichment programming so I have four goals that I want to hit this evening in this um review so first would be just an overview of the process we use for identifying students as gifted and then the service models that we use across the district
002again I'd like to do a high level summary of The Gifted component of the report card and then kind of take a walk around each of the schools with ways that we're providing enrichment opportunities for students and staff and then lastly review our newly created gifted curriculum adoption committee and the goals that that committee has set forth for this school year and next so if you're not familiar with gifted identification certainly in Worcester City Schools we think of all children as having special gifts and talents you know the leader and me process all students can be leaders this is a separate um State process in which we identify specifically a child as gifted in one of three ways so the first being that they have a specific academic ability in either math or in English
003language arts we use the NWA map growth test which we administer to all students in grades 2 through 7even to identify students using um in in that category that category is when a student takes this assessment they need to score at the 95th percentile or above so if a 100 kids take this test test we're talking about the top five performers and that test that NWA map growth test is a nationally normed assessment for academic ability another way we identify students as gifted is called Superior cognitive ability so this is an intelligence test we use the coat assessment we have traditionally given that in grades two and four but we'll be shifting that to grades two and five just as we think about what we're providing at Edgewood it gives us a chance to really
004think about students before they hit that six seven and eight grade um academic band this is an intelligent IQ test so it's going to assess students on things like um if I gave you a piece of paper and I folded it in half and put a bunch of holes in it and I were to open that piece of paper what would it look like except I don't have the piece of paper in front of you you have to think about that in your brain and then as students take that assessment based on their performance they are eligible to perhaps be identified as a creative thinker so Superior cognitive students typically you think of a bell curve of intelligence they're going to be performing in that highest component of the bell curve students that are close
005to that would be eligible for the creative thinking ability and this is more of a survey of Staff members and their uh specific behaviors so those are the three different ways that we identify students as gifted and that's all set forth by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce we just have some Choice over the assessments we use quick quick question on the first that nwaa map growth did you say is it is it based on a score or it's based on the top it's based on the top score so it's an achievement score so I think again if I take that test um and they compare a 100 students who take it I have to be in the 95th percentile or above of all students who have taken that there are some cut scores
006for that because it's nationally normed okay but typically you're looking at students who against all of their peers so in second grade versus all of their second grade peers across the country take that same test percentile not if you a certain score your correct except that score does have yeah it it does correlate perc exactly correct yeah yeah any other questions okay so those are the three ways that we identify students at here in Wester City Schools when we look at our service model we do have different service models in all of our building settings and so at the elementary this has been our traditional model has been a small group pullout service based upon on the identification so once students are identified as early as second grade we start serving those identified students in
007third and fourth grade in math and Ela so we have two gifted intervention Specialists that serve the four Elementary buildings and they work with those students mostly in a pullout service although they are sometimes pushing into the classroom and co- teing with that student's um te Home Room teacher if you will at Edgewood we have what's called a cluster group um model which means that we take students who've been identified and we also place them alongside other students who may not have been identified or likely to be identified but have not yet been identified just have a high ability and we're placing them in compacted math or Ela courses this means that these courses are moving faster and deeper through the grade level standards and in our sixth grade and seventh grade math courses we're
008actually taking the sixth seventh and eighth grade curriculum and squishing it into two years so traditionally students would go through grade six standards grade seven standards and then grade eight standards in those math classes we are squishing those all into two years so that students can accelerate and take Algebra 1 as an eighth grader that's a very typical model of serving students identified in mathematics across the state the ELA course at Edgewood however is staying within the grade band standards and just going deeper so you'll say sixth grade students would take sixth grade uh standards seventh grade students seventh grade standards and Mrs krooks this is where at Edgewood and in eth grade that's primarily where in the last few years we've seen some revisions correct yes absolutely yes so the we used to have
009a small group pullout service we also used to have um just kind of a a consultation model we also had individual courses at Edgewood and that has all shifted in the last few years to this cluster grouped um model and then at the high school this is the traditional model of serving students identified as gifted is just their self- selected Pathways with the advanced placement courses honors courses college credit plus courses and then some students course accelerating which means that you take that student and you move them faster and above and beyond you might even pick them up and skip a class um but that would be at the individual student level very rare and there's a a policy and a process that we would follow to make that decision so there's a lot of
010different ways that we serve students who've been identified as gifted here in Worcester City I think I know the answer to because I feel like I asked this question before but the small group pull out for thir fourth grade like how much on average time is that per week yep uh right now it's about 30 minutes in each of the goal areas so if you're identified in math you would have 30 minutes of math daily and if you're identified in English language arts 30 minutes so up to an hour for a student who may be identified in both okay very good thank you all right so these identifications definitely inform how our report card data reports and so I apologize it looks as though that might be difficult to see um however there are three
011different components of the gifted report card so the first component is the performance Index this is just like our regular report card this is how are our students performing on the Ohio State tests and what it's going to do is it's going to take the performance of all of our students on the Ohio state test and it's looking at comparing that to the average of our top two performance uh students on the Ohio in the achievement of the Ohio state test that number has to be acrossed 97 a half% in order to be considered meeting the performance index and every year for the last few years that performance index has been raised by a half a percent so last year we were at 97% um so very close but we did not meet that expectation
012from the state again they had just raised it so we had had it last year we would have made it but again our students are performing very very well on these assessments as we look at another component we're looking at is the progress I love this measure on the report card this is measuring students growth so year after year each of those tests the threshold for achievement could change so they're not comparing a seventh grader's achievement to an eighth graders achievement but the value added of that is how are they growing and continue to grow as they continue through their education and that's a data point that we have traditionally met is that our gifted Learners are continuously growing as they progress so it's taking their three years worth of data and it's projecting are
013they hitting a high Target that's hard to do it's hard to grow students who are kind of already at the top of the performance level and so that's something that we could be really proud of is that those students continue to demonstrate growth and then the last data point that is informing our report card is the identification compared to the service so what rate are we identifying students and that includes subgroup populations of students and then at what rate are we serving those students I'm really proud to report that at the elementaries and that 3 through six band in the Middle School we're serving them at a really high rate because of that placement model that we use we do identify in second grade we don't serve until third grade so unless we choose to
014serve in second grade that'll be a comp component that we just won't be able to meet um however as you look at the elementary and the Middle School those service percentages are high in the 90s then it naturally drops off as you get to the high school because a student may choose to not take a class we don't put them in the placement just because they're identified or new learning to me if they're taking a very rigorous set of courses but it doesn't align with their identification area so for example you may have a student who's identified gifted in reading and math but they're taking CCP social studies they're taking uh AP biology they're taking a foreign language and maybe they're taking a class at a college off- campus none of that would count as
015a service for that child because it doesn't align to their academic identified area I have a hard time believing that that child isn't being served um because they are taking quite a rigorous self- selected course uh work but according to this report card it is a difficult component to to meet any questions about the report card okay as we continue on the most exciting thing is what's actually happening in our schools with our students and so as we look forward here it's really exciting to share just some of the things that are happening in all of the different grade levels so these are some pictures from Mrs Parker's classrooms Mrs Parker serves at keen and at Melrose in third and fourth grade she wrote a grant for students to participate in this Rubik's Cube kind
016of art project if you will so every month they have these new art projects and the students have to solve several different Rubik's cubes in order to then create this piece of art um as a whole group and so it's a really neat collaborative you can see I mean hands are grabbing and they are ready to put those Rubik's Cubes into place um a very exciting piece of of her curriculum another thing that they're working on is creating their own own um ideal Blueprints and so they're looking if you look at the bottom right corner these are students looking at actual blueprints so Mrs Parker collaborating with Mr Davis our assistant facilities and getting actual blueprints of buildings here um around Worcester City school so it's really neat for students to be able to see
017that in addition to several other projects that uh she's been working on Mrs day Hillary day serves our students at Parkview in Cornerstone and so she's um sharing here some examples of student self-directed projects so students were reading the book Old Yeller so there's a word up there I had to look it up but thankfully it's on this presentation it's Hydrophobia which has to do with rabies not that exciting if you will but it is very important to the story of Old Yeller and so the students are breaking apart these really difficult words and their pieces and components we also had students reading about um the war in v Vietnam and then building models of just different pieces of that history that they've they've read about so all of these are just extensions to their
018General um education experience as we look around Edgewood some of the things that we've been launching this year on these Plus classes are some learning contracts so this is an example of a learning contract for a student who's in a six plus math class but the student had already mastered the sixth grade standards and so instead of moving into seventh grade math standards the student worked to create their own learning contract you can see that they took those standards of what is expected of a sixth grade math student and they actually put it into a student designed learning contract and with a rubric that the student designed themselves as to how they'd like to be evaluated it's kind of neat the had the opportunity to use some um AI features to build these rubrics but
019they were putting in the components of what they wanted to be evaluated on and then this project that was created is how does how does one measure the um absolute height of a bridge so from below the water to above the water and how do you compare that to other Bridges worldwide I'm not sure why the interest in bridges but that's what this student was interested in and then created the project and was able to self-evaluate which is a really high level ability um to do that and it's an extension of those standards again they had pre-assessed and mastered those Concepts and then we're able to work on an independent learning project another thing that we're excited about at Edgewood this year is this effort we call enrichment for all so we used some federal
020funds that are designed for Steam and for stem however you see it um to purchase what we would call these enrichment tubs so some of those enrichment tubs are as simple as um cat's cradle taking a string and following some directions to make something artistic and some of them are as complex as coding robots coding Mouse um different uh electronics you can see an example hyper let's see what happens okay this is hyperb and hyperb is not really really the student had to code this mouse to teach it to go through this path look at that going fast going right the way he's supposed to he did a great job this is him on hyper and he is barely cheese cheese was quite excited about that um what I love about this is this is
021accessible for all students so these coding opportunities are happening during their intervention and enrichment periods it's also something that teachers can check out of the library grab a tub have it in the classroom for a few weeks there's things as simple as popsicle sticks and um just little craft items to things as complex as coating mice and this laser maze um it's really worth uh visiting Edgewood to see what's happening with that EI time and then as we kind of mentioned before at the high school this is where students get to start self- selecting just different types of rigorous coursework for them um we do administer the Iowa algebra aptitude test to really make sure that students are prepared for Algebra 1 question at all ages before you would take it like at grade nine
022or correct prior exactly yep absolutely absolutely prior to a student entering Algebra 1 we want to have the data to know what their Readiness is for algebra and then we can use that for either acceleration or an enrichment course like our algebraic expressions course so we are making sure that we kind of have a standardized way of um seeing a child's Readiness for algebra because it really is a foundational course for those advanced mathematics at the high school so certainly familiar with things like the college boards um a advanced placement and the college credit plus and if you recall last year when the math department came and offered um their recommendations they also started to launch these preap courses so preap geometry with Statistics and preap Algebra 2 which are both courses that are kind
023of replaced in honors model they are a standardized curriculum and they provide students access to the College Board platform in the college classroom it's a way to practice the AP style in that curriculum yes I I'm remember during um Molly's presentation too and I think you referred to it when you said we were just off meeting a standard and it you know certain like if a student took a test got a certain score Etc so does the preap Provide support to reaching the standard where the honors did not I think what the preap does is it is a more standardized curriculum of that and so it definitely is providing students the AP style questions okay they also have the opportunity need to take assessments test at uh there is not a test at the end
024like we would correlate with the AP um that is required but it is in the curriculum and they can take uh class or rather some of the coursework is online in the College Board platform um and so it's really a way for students to practice what would an AP class look like before I enroll in AP so those AP style questions but within the geometry and the algebra too um most colle colleges aren't going to be giving credit for a geometry or Algebra 2 course and so that's why it's not associated with the AP program but very similar any other questions that okay so other celebrations around these are not things that are within the curriculum but more so beyond if you are familiar with our very successful academic challenge teams you can see our
025third and fourth grade teams um were quite successful at their last tournament and have another one at Mid Ohio ESC just this Wednesday are there are 67 students participating in academic challenge at Edgewood our fifth grade uh finished at the mid Ohio tournament in first place and our seventh and eighth grade teams have qualified for Nationals which means they have placed in the top 20% of a tournament so a lot of success for students again it's not limited just to the experience of a student identified as gifted but it's a way to provide that enrichment beyond the classroom and then also the Student Success you see at the Wayne County Spelling be so these are all students you've probably seen and celebrated here at a board meeting one of the excited exciting things that we
026established this year it's brand new is this gifted curriculum adoption team and so the goal of this team is to really come together especially in that age band so you'll notice that many of the teachers span from grades three to grade eight um because that's the grade that that really the grades that we're serving those students mostly and again at the high school it really becomes down to student choice and schedule selection so this is the team that we have from across our district we have our intervention Specialists that serve at the elementaries we have um a smattering of teachers from different buildings all the way up through Wester high school and specific with that mathematics because a lot of our students will accelerate in mathematics they did create a mission and a vision statement
027for themselves want to highlight that this is specific to their role in serving students identified as gifted so it's not the um specific to all students it really is going to hone in on what do we want to see for our gifted Learners in order to achieve their full potential really thinking about how to make sure that these students are prepared for jobs and careers and next steps that are probably unknown to most of us in this room and so they really want to make sure that our students are having these rigorous deep experiences students who've been identified and so we want to help create that and make sure that our teachers are getting ongoing support as to what is it what are the needs of gifted Learners specific to gifted Learners and then beyond
028we also want to evaluate by our service model so if you remember from the beginning slide we have a pullout service in some schools we have a cluster grouped service and others and then we have some Choice selections at the high school that's not really a linear path for a student if you've been identified as gifted in grades two you'll have a very different experience in all three of those sometimes that is developmentally appropriate however we really want to be um analyzing why we do what we do and so this team has been charged with thinking through what is the cohesive gifted service model especially as we wait to see where our community lands with um the the schools and where how our schools will be shifting and moving and we know that um that'll
029be something we'll have to respond to in our service model as well and then the last thing is those continued instructional supports and resources so how are we continuing to support students in the classroom what are the actual materials that might help enhance a students learning what are the resources that can continue to take the student from their uh Mastery of their standards to Beyond and so those are the three goals of this curriculum team as they continue their work this year and next okay well that's all I have for you unless you have any questions for me so this I'm sorry I'm late I was held up but the um so what would we consider you probably went over this it's probably related doesn't have to do with gifted but what would we consider
030our ninth grade entry level math of course I don't know if you talked about that already did you briefly um Algebra 1 is considered the traditional model for mathematics so that would be where most students are taking algebra one in nth grade then geometry then alge then geometry Algebra 2 or an Algebra 2 equivalent and then um the final math credit of their choice okay so that hasn't changed much but um and then the last question I would have was is U you know for those um younger Elementary gifted kids I know you spent time there um do our teachers have access to extension curriculum that they use with some of those kids and what might that be yeah not formally yet and that's part of what our goal as a curriculum team would be
031is to really align that experience for students in grades three and four so that they would have more of a aligned experience to their General CL classroom and then that extension would be similar for those students as they move forward um but that hasn't that hasn't been in place yet which is why we have the team established so then extensions for those younger kids would be are is is the responsibility of the teacher we have public teachers who can do that absolutely we have two dedicated intervention specialists at those gifted intervention specialists at those grade levels for that purpose and that has historically been what they've been focused on is kind of working with the students that they have identifying um the needs and the interest of those students and working to to grow them
032Beyond but not in any formal curriculum way as we um have brought many curriculums to you here to be adopted we have great great teachers down there so abely about that I just wondered if there was something in place yeah no not not yet that's what we're hoping to get to yeah all right well thank you so much for your time I appreciate it appreciate it um yes you do yes okay just making sure so yeah I appreciate Mrs Crooks coming there you know we have made some changes over the past year to our gifted program that I think has really uh provided opportunities for a lot of students and continued to challenge and and then in the last couple years we've also made a transition that's been great uh uh we in the past
033had um contracted our ESC for our gifted uh coordinator um and Mrs krooks uh decided to take some extra classes and and do that and so now Mr Johnson who was doing it at thec did a great job but it's always nicer when you can not have to you know parcel out those services and so that's been a a big big big boost for us here so does that mean the weaps are all produced in house now yes which is the plan you get if you're identified as a gifted student I forgive me I didn't I hate J forgive me forg me all right thank you very much very good soab I don't think under section four we corre we just need to go right to suspending Robert correct okay uh looking for a motion
034to approve to suspend Robert's Rules of Order so moved second sorry goodright yes Starcher yes Austin yes Klein hens yes kma yes all right so in work session here um I don't I don't have a lot for you this evening I do need an executive session that I have on here uh after but I guess just couple quick things kind of report to you so first looking at our upcoming board meeting for next week um just you know we'll we'll have recognitions we have also swim and dive as well as we had several State uh placers there um we will have um employment um which is kind of getting um a little busier uh right now than just this time of year a little bit so we have um just a couple uh retirements of
035some people that will miss Mr costell and Mrs reek the counselor at Parkview a couple long-term leave and then Mrs brette who actually was not did not come to work this year to stay home with her kids and she's decided to make that permanent which it is a bummer to lose Amber she was a great teacher but um happy for her to be able to do that um and then we have a lot of job shares this is kind of the month where we approve job shares so we do have that ability in the contract it's not a requirement of us or the teachers it's it's whether it's mutually beneficial and we have a few job sharers that we do and and I'm thankful that we're able to do that as uh a lot of
036these people are maybe not ready for full-time work most of the time it's due to wanting to be with their kids at a young age um but they still want to work and so it really benefits us a lot of times we get too high quality people uh that are able to do that together um on the classified side a couple retirements of some uh people that have been here a long time as well Carol Mills uh Bonnie Majors two long-term secretaries for us um and also Rita fln is retiring as well as a couple other um just FMLA leaves and and resignations there um and then on the classified employment side we have um some some people moving into insurance benefits as we know that's that's when we signify that just uh even though
037that they're not new um Grace how is moving into a new position for us Grace was a the maintenance secretary um if you remember Taylor Griffith was in our accounting department uh Taylor um moved in um to a new opportunity and so Grace is her replacement well we did change the position a little bit it's a little bit more of a kind of a clerical role um and her job description is also attached on my consent agenda Grace is awesome I know Amy is and her team have been thankful to have her already um you know in the in the past couple of weeks um we do have a riff on here so uh looked at uh we typically do put this on here um star mesly is being ripped she is a sign language
038interpreter in our certified contract um it actually is due to the student moved to another school and uh she's likely serving that student at that school but because of that she would be a reduction in force for us this year um the um uh Department of Education work force made a slight modification to the model policy for sped if you remember we did that a couple months ago so this is the revision to that uh that we needed to put on uh Amy if you want we have the bus bid I don't want to speak for you but we have a couple okay right now I just have two things the bus bid we're still reviewing um Mr viso is taking a look at whether we we have budgeted for purchase of two buses but
039we think we might only need to do one this year um but he's looking at that and so obviously we'll have a decision way you know by the end of the week um and then I'm just bringing uh tax rates and amounts to be um uh approved um those are provided by the Wayne County budget commission um just to um show you know millage um and collection of those for this upcoming year and yeah it's interesting that's been a topic and in a lot of our um uh the info sessions that I've had uh recently with community members is is you know that taxation and property taxes you can kind of see here the difference between inside millage and outside millage so you know as a district because we're not at the 20 mil floor
040uh tax valuations from homes only impact our inside millage and you can see the difference in terms of how much Mills that is I we've been communicating that you know uh and there's have been some good questions but that is one of the questions that we've had and and kind of speaking of that kind of I was going to say we we've we've had a couple sessions now and we we have some some more scheduled had some really good questions from community members on those and um attendants you know I mean we're always happy to have more but we've had definitely some people show up to those and ask questions um regarding kind of our plan and and the reason for our plan and things like that so we appreciate that people have uh been
041engaging with us we've also had people fill out our frequently asked questions or kind of the the popup that has allowed us to do some frequently asked questions it's kind kind of interesting you know you start to see some themes of questions that people have and to try to address those so that's always always been helpful for us um last thing I have on a regular agenda as a new contract is uh parent Square so parent square is um like remind it's actually owned by remind or let me put it this way parent square B remind um and uh it's going to be similar in the fact it would allow us to do the multiple text you know blast outs and things like that but it has some additional capabilities that uh we think will
042be um beneficial for our families um it actually may we were likely thinking it will also be able to take over for my alert system so I call a snow day and things like that we Mr Gary's still working through a few of those things but uh at the very least it's uh pretty much a wash and we actually think it might save us money um but it's about time our remind contract is is almost up so we'll um our plan is to work through it over the summer and then we would roll it out in early fall and make sure it's pretty user friendly but it is different than remind so um and other than that I don't really uh there'll be you know my guess is from a a standpoint primarily what will
043be added to the agenda before next week's meeting um the bus bid um you know obviously Amy's you know kind of financial reports is you know we want those more accurate so we'll wait another week before we put those on there and um and and then also Personnel there'll be some additional Personnel items as we're kind of starting to be in the um hiring season um just getting started on that but we're um you know posted some positions and starting to work through some of those so other than that I do need an executive session for this evening um I put that on there um for it's a couple different things actually have three so Personnel issue um purchase or sale of public property um or disposition of property and um uh were uh with
044negotiations as well so preparing conducting reviewing negotiations and there'll be no action afterwards okay so um at this point looking for a motion to approve moving into the executive session for the purposes that Gabe uh shared so moved second um C H yes kusma yes Austin yes starer yes good right yes we will exit to Executive session so appreciate uh everybody being here and again no action will be taken so have a good night thank you